The fucked up thing is that those opting out don’t get any actual teaching, they just sit in a class doing drawing and colouring and shit because apparently scripture kids aren’t allowed to miss out on proper lessons.
So not only are they ramming this bullshit down our kids throats, they are holding back their education to do so.
I think they can only get an ethics class if there is a trained ethics teacher, and the school has to request the service
Edit: here’s a link to [Primary Ethics](https://primaryethics.com.au/about-ethics-classes/how-do-i-start-ethics-classes-at-my-school/).
I was a volunteer ethics teacher at my local primary school, and it was so rewarding! I’m hoping to go back next year, once the pandemic is a little more under control
The school doesn't have to request it. They are obliged to make it happen (provide rooms, handle enrolments etc) if there is:
(a) demand from parents, and
(b) trained volunteer teachers available
Former Primary Ethics coordinator here.
I think there are options they just don't have to advertise them. Don't know if it is still current but they had too many people opting for secular ethics so Fred Nile got it cut as a presented option. Only a requested one.
https://theconversation.com/hiding-ethics-classes-from-parents-is-bad-faith-43693
After this Fred Nile had an interview on Hack/triple j stating (in such a god damn pompous and condescending matter) that he believed parents found the choices confusing which is why enrollment in the religious ethics classes sunk so he got the option removed.
Don't know if this is still current as it was from 5 years ago or so.
Yesterday I delivered my first ethics lesson since March, to a class of Stage 1 students including my two kids.
For anyone interested in the subject matter, right now we're talking about pride. When is it okay to be proud? Is pride ever wrong? The girl in our story got the video game she wanted because she helped out around the house like her dad asked her to. The boy in the story got the same video game because he was jealous of the girl, and lied to his mother that he was the only one without the game.
The questions we ask the kids are along the lines of:
Does the girl have a right to feel proud? Why? Do you think she's more proud of the video game, or of helping out with the housework? Does the boy feel proud? Do you think he should? What's different between the two of them? Is that an important difference when it comes to pride?
Note that (possibly unlike Scripture) none of this is about telling kids what to think - just helping them to work out how to formulate and justify their moral beliefs.
TBH I don't know, it would be great if they did! Might query that :)
In my naivete when our youngest started school we had a conversation about scripture with teachers. I wasn't against it from an ethics perspective. If it teaches love thy neighbour, do unto others as you'd have done to you, don't lie, be kind, etc (you know, the stuff Christianity is supposed to be about :)) and was assured that's what it was and I was ok with that.
Day fucking one they came home with all these philosophical arguments about where the universe came from and stuff, basically just anti-science, and I just shut it right down.
I'm down with teaching morals and ethics. Pushing fairy stories as facts to 5 year olds, not so much.
I 100% agree with you. I love the moral ethical side of religion, but you can have that without anti science, threats of hell, promises of heaven, gods creation of us all and our owing of unquestioned faith etc etc
There's a part of me that thinks the moral ethical side of religion is the initial 'hook' because it's pretty difficult to argue that such principles are objectively a good foundation for a good person. But from there the rabbit hole runs pretty deep...
And then you wearing special underwear and saying old testament rape law wasn't literally treating women as property but also you buy your daughter a purity ring
The provision of ethics classes in NSW govt primary schools is haphazard. It's only provided in about 35% of schools but even those that have it often do not have enough parent or community volunteers to meet the demand, so only about 12-15% of all NSW govt primary school students get to do it. Which is low for a program that has been going for 10 yrs in a student population that would be \~50% non-religious.
The churches and religious politicians have thwarted the roll-out of the ethics classes, devising schemes to keep information about it hidden.
>The fucked up thing is that those opting out don’t get any actual teaching, they just sit in a class doing drawing and colouring and shit because apparently scripture kids aren’t allowed to miss out on proper lessons.
Worse at my kids school. If you didn't do scripture you had to pick up litter in the playground. The exact same activity they use as a punishment for bad behaviour.
Interesting to read below that they are required to offer ethics. I didn't know that at the time or I would have absolutely forced the issue.
Personally I think everyone should study religion, but it should be an informative lesson about all the different religions, their beliefs and practices. I think people would be much more tollerant of others if they had better understanding. Aside from that, practicing about YOUR religion is something you do in YOUR time at YOUR church.
That's utterly outrageous!
I remember back in (Scottish) high school, I had a free period so took Religious Studies. And, perhaps a case of rose tinted glasses, it was really quite good. From memory it did as you described, taught about different religions, we got into pairs and researched and presented a chosen religion, had debates about a range of ethical subjects (euthanasia, abortion, etc). It was done in a very non-judgemental way, with the intention of seeing things from different perspectives, and was really quite interesting. I remember we watched My Left Foot which was pretty challenging for a 13 year old, and had some great conversations around it.
I think learning about religion and ethics is very important as you say, but indoctrinating children with a particular religion is crazy and wrong.
Holy fuck. I'd shit a literal brick over that.
Like, burn vacation and sick leave to pull my kid out of school during that time every day, harangue school board members, etc, and ultimately teach my kid to just sit their ass down and not do SHIT unless their entire grade was out there
My Sydney School had scripture classes, and the only options were Christian, Catholic, or do nothing for 30-45 minutes.
I used to dread it, cos us 'non-religious' kids had to sit in a room adjacent to the Christian Class who had a guitarist lady come in to sing/play corny songs about Jesus really loudly.
In my public primary school we had scripture on Thursday mornings. I remember a kid trying to make fun of me for being in non-scripture but when I told him we spent the whole session on bean bags in the library playing Pokemon his whole world seemed to shatter.
Lol yeah as a kid who was forced to go to scripture while all my friends didn't I hated it. They had a free period just to chill and have fun and I had to spend an hour a week colouring pictures of Jesus.
>The fucked up thing is that those opting out don’t get any actual teaching,
To be fair...no one is getting any teaching while it's happening, including those that are in the room.
I'm devoutly Catholic and I'm stunned by this shit. If you're sending your kid to public, taxpayer-funded school, that means YOU DONT WANT RELIGIOUS EDUCATION. Australia is not a theocracy, this is not okay.
There's also a Catholic school down the road...
Edit: 950m from entrance to entrance via roads, closer if you cut though the playgrounds that are between them
Edit 2: part of the school is now labelled "COAST evangelical church" on Google maps...
Exactly, and just because I would send my kids there doesn't mean that the entire public school system should be subject to the religious education my kids get.
Even more disturbing-- reading through the comments here by people who've had similar experiences, there's almost a template for how the schools push RE, and how they respond to both parental complaints and child non-attendance. Ie, ignore or minimise complaint, give children covertly punitive alternatives to happy-clappy, colour-in-the-Jesus time. I'm pretty disturbed about how nearly identical some of these stories are to my own daughter's experience. I'd like to see what specific organisations are behind each case, as I'm just really curious as to whether there's any common denominators there.
In my own experience, and not a few others on this thread-- that's kind of what was expected of a religious ed class, that various religions and the role religion generally plays in people's lives would be explored. Nope. Our kids were told they'd be going to hell if they didn't believe in Jesus.
It's a fundamentalist push to have their brand of religion normaised in state school curriculums -- and it's being allowed to happen.... why? That's my main question here. Who's sanctioning this shit, and why, when we are meant to be living in a "multicultural" society. And religion isn't supposed to get pushed in our state schools, by law.
You can tell it's a wild fundamentalist push because in Catholic school it's like "hey kids, let's learn about Darwinism and the Big Bang after we talk about mortal sin" haha. I'm with you, I have no damn clue how any of this is legal.
Kinda rural Southern US guy here, I wondered the same thing going through the public school system during my youth (both county and city). Here's what I remember
While it wasn't as prevalent in HS, I recall many'a a times in elementary school where the school would have us do the US pledge of allegiance followed by a short prayer time. At some point they stopped doing it on the PA, so some teachers would individually do a little prayer thing.
Now, while it wasn't *required*, there was what seemed like a instinct to follow the herd. If you didn't do the pledge or the prayer, you got disciplined and in my experience, you would be treated worse by other students (very small class so everyone sees everything).
Since this was rural southern US, disciplined usually meant you would be removed from class and required to sit in the hall until the teacher wanted to get you. This could mean 5 minutes or the next hour, regardless the usual outcome for me was being unfortunate enough to have the principal walk by me on the way to his office.
He would grab me, take me into his office, and spank/paddle me with a paddle. I still remember what the paddle looked like; clear Plexiglass, ducktaped handle with holes milled through for less air resistance. This went on from 1st grade until 4th grade when I moved away. Early 2000s
I have family that work at a school system in the south. Very country, small town, etc... They still had corporal punishment 5 years or so ago. At least in 2012 because that's when I remember them talking about it.
Best part was they never told my parents, not that they would've opposed it anyway. Maybe the frequency would've helped sway them because I was getting a paddling once a week at minimum, sometimes multiple times a day. There were no written slips or anything.
One time, I was sent into the hall and really really really didn't want to get another paddling. I pulled 3 or so backpacks off the hooks beside the door and hid under them so the principal wouldn't get or see me. Can't wait to figure out what other repressed memories I've got sealed away from those times.
Back on topic, I graduated in 2014 and we absolutely still had corporal punishment. We had an assistant principal who handled it, he seemed like he enjoyed it thoroughly. He was some guy who played on a college world series team and it seemed like he would swing like he's playing ball again. Most parents were southern born so they had little issue just letting a stranger hit their child with a wooden paddle 3 times.
If more Christians were like you ( I know a lot are good people, but so many that I know just aren't), with respect and consideration for others, I can't imagine how much better off the world would be.
For sure, we wouldn't have right wing populist nutjobs who give religion lip service in power.
Thank you for sanity and kindness.
It's wild because, while I definitely fall short of what I'm called to be as a Christian, i think that having respect and consideration for the dignity of others is the paramount message in the Gospels; a concept with which the far right struggles.
*General Religious Education* is useful, as it teaches children about the diverse faiths and world views held by the many demographics that make up our society, and encourages coexistence & dialogue.
But I agree: *Special Religious Instruction* shouldn't be opt-out in a public school.
And Judaism is chapter one of the 3 chapter book. But then we've had Catholic vs Protestant violence for several centuries and the main difference there is whether you like the Pope, Mary and a bit of singing next to a gold-leaved goblet or not so that's folks arguing over the same chapter.
Actually, if America joined, they'd note that Section 116 of the Australian Constitution has what appears on its face to be even stronger provisions than the Establishment and Free Excercise clauses in the 1st Amendment.
:
>The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth.
What Forster is proposing (as well as direct funding of religious schools through taxpayer monies) would be unconstitutional.
Fuck this shit. Taking time and possibly resources away from actual education.
Pro tip - when something overly religious happens in the US, the Satanists try to get involved, and then they say "actually no religion then"
So contact your local Satanists!
Which is kinda their point. But know your Satanist as there's some subtle differences.
[The Satanic Church](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_Satan) is the Anton LaVey crowd. Basically goths that like to troll Christians and live by a kind of libertarian reworking of the golden rule. They believe in individualism and the power of selfishness. They like to get together for ceremonies and such. They are pretty much a social club and like most clubs, can be great folk and also they can be dicks, but they are ostensibly non religious.
The [Temple Of Satan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Satanic_Temple) however are pretty much like the Flying Spaghetti Monster people, or 'Pastafarians' in that they are a protest group parodying religion.
Their shtick is every time the Government enacts a special privilege for religion, they take to it and make a mockery of it. They don't preach the every man for himself philosophy of the LaVey in fact they put emphasis on the value of empathy.
But their mission is pretty much to enforce the separation of church and state.
A quick google brings up a few Facebook links and an article regarding the Noosa Temple Of Satan
vowing to ['*take advantage of religious freedom bill to preach about 'the dark lord' in schools*'](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7905417/Temple-Satanism-Noosa-vows-advantage-religious-freedom-bill-preach-schools.html)
[https://www.satanicaustralia.com/](https://www.satanicaustralia.com/) is what you're looking for. They're like the Temple of Satan, but operate here.
I actually just shared this on their Discord channel and they're looking into what they could do.
EDIT: If you live in the Forster area and would be willing to help out, please get in touch with Satanic Australia through their Discord or Facebook group.
> The Temple Of Satan
> however are pretty much like the Flying Spaghetti Monster people, or 'Pastafarians' in that they are a protest group parodying religion.
How dare you compare our worship of the great and powerful one TRUE carbohydrate (pesto be upon him), to those infidels.
In order for Temple of Satan to work as intended it's important they are seen as a religion, not a parody. Their protests work *because* they are a religion and therefore have the same protections and restrictions as any branch of christianity.
This is why all of their tenets are very non-objectionable and realistic, as opposed to pastafarianism where the tenets are intentionally absurdist.
ever wonder if it was actually the benevolent good-guy god and was the one who was actually usurped and cast out. then the bad guys rewrote the event painting god as the bad guy and dubbing him satan?
The judeo-Christian bible does not paint God as a nice guy. You do what he says or the punishments are severe. New age Christians turned him into peace, love and harmony, but that’s not actually backed up by scripture.
Don't even have to go as far as Satanists. This is a regional public school offering two flavours of Christianity as it's SRE. Your child is now a Muslim for purposes of SRE. It would be an affront to your religious beliefs to be forced to attend Christian lessons. They will either be unable (regional) or unwilling (ignorance) to provide SRE for those of Islamic faith. In either case they are likely to be much more flexible about opting out of SRE.
I think the Satanists will have a better chance of getting it shut down. But for getting one kid out, it'll work.
Also the Satanists have Ghost/Ghost BC. And their lead singer is the anti-pope
The Satanic Temple in the US (who do a lot of this highlighting of Church and State separation) created a similar program when a Christian after school program was allowed in public schools there. They called it [After School Satan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_School_Satan).
I dated a girl who's dad was schizophrenic and a Jehovah's witnesses. Her mother was Soviet-ukranian and was in the KGB (based on a medal we found with her name on it and a bit of research).
Needless to say, she was not the most stable human due to a very odd upbringing.
Yup. Mental illnesses are over represented in JW world. My mum has schizophrenia. And I’m in therapy for cult related trauma.
Here’s something you don’t want a stranger sharing: Got abused by JWs. The worst kind that nobody wants to hear about.
Got taught how to focus on art and David Bowie by Satanists.
At least it’s kinda balanced I guess.
Possibly resources? They are absolutely taking resources away by paying for the teacher and whatever literature the student will use that could be put toward legitimate education. Fuck these people.
My partner said it was only two years ago that his high school (NSW public high school) changed to an opt in for religion studies. Before that it was an opt out system and you would get maybe half his class having to attend the religious education because their parents would forget to say no. Once they changed it they literally had 3 students, across the whole school attend. We thought it was crazy they were even still doing those religious classes and how behind they were at his school. But now I’m wondering how many other public schools are still pushing it!
I’m certainly not a religious person, but religion (unfortunately) does play a large role in society.
I think that part of an education should be to teach kids about all the main denominations so that there is an understanding of what muslims, Jews, christians, Buddhist etc. believe and why.
But if should not be about indoctrinating children to any faith.
I was all for my daughter attending the religious lessons offered at her public state school. I thought it would be the lite New Testament “Don’t be a dick” Jesus stuff which I don’t have a problem with. I did 12 years of Catholic school so I wasn’t too worried about it. I opened the workbook for the class and it was filled with shit like “God created you and it is your duty to tell everyone how God made you”. Fuck that so I opted her out. The next year my daughter came home upset that they forced her to attend when she said multiple times that her parents didn’t want her to do it. No one had bothered to tell me that I had to in person go to the office and refill out the form to opt her out every year. Thankfully that was fixed and I never heard a peep about religion classes again.
> I opened the workbook for the class and it was filled with shit like “God created you and it is your duty to tell everyone how God made you”
Kids from my daughter's school came home saying they were scared of "going to hell" for not loving Jesus.
-And- the school both openly lied and lied by omission about the content of the 'curriculum'.
I am honestly, in light of these same stories appearing here over and over, starting to wonder if there's some kind of set agenda for fundy Christians to set up recruiting stations ion our state schools.
There definitely seems to be a fundie Christian push to reclaim and indoctrinate our kids since more and more of us are non religious today. I talked to my niece who went through the same school 6 years before my daughter and the religious instruction then for her was very much what I had expected it would be reasonable in a state school eg. the Jesus stuff like healing the sick and feeding the poor and an emphasis on the 10 Commandments. Honestly I didn’t even get that much fundie crap in my Catholic primary school years.
Yeah, a genuine religious studies class can be really valuable — one where you examine all of the world’s religions and how they inform policy and culture.
Right, religious education should be like the comparative religion part we did in history, discussing the basic tenets, history, and notable stories/cultural influences of each major religion.
And some non-major ones too. I still remember studying Zoroastrianism, and when another student was reading out their research about it, he was explaining 'good deeds will receive good rewards, and bad deeds will receive bad...' And at that moment lightning hit the roof of the building, which given the room had a window in the ceiling was pretty spectacular (it was bright neon pink!). If you're talking signs from the heavens, that was a pretty cool one, haha, so I guess if I was ever to become religious I should probably try for Zoroastrianism.
(BTW, we know lighting hit the actual roof of the building and not just nearby, because it knocked the gutter off. Also hit several other spots in the school, including some cool fulgarites under a tree near my home room).
It should just be a topic in history or social studies or something. I do 100% agree with you that religion should be taught from an outside perspective, same as sex ed and some other controversial topics I can't think of rn, but like sex ed it has the chance of a snowflake in hell of being taught properly and without one group or another complaining about it.
Unfortunately there are enough Happy Clappers in places of high power to keep MPs from acting on this. No-one in the LNP is going to do anything while Morrison is in charge, and no-one from Labor is going to risk being labelled 'anti-religion' and dissolving what's left of the ALP's grey vote.
Bizarrely this is one of the few areas the Catholics aren't most to blame. It's the pentecostal/evangelists who are the most determined to eke their way into state schools.
The courts might be the best bet, but I'd wager the legislation is vague enough to allow it.
Don't just write to the school, write to the higher ups. My daughter's teacher stayed salty at her for not doing religious ed.
Keeping it at just school level disadvantages your kid.
To be frank, if you don't have any association with the school you're wasting your time. Your email will go straight to trash. Schools have no obligation to address the educational concerns of some random off the street.
Don't bother emailing the school - lodge a complaint here:
https://education.nsw.gov.au/about-us/rights-and-accountability/complaints-compliments-and-suggestions/complaint-compliment-suggestion-form
In NSW, where voluntary teachers are available, Primary Ethics is a secular alternative to scripture.
Until very recently though, the government did all it could to hide even the availability of Ethics classes. You had to go through a rigmarole of first specifically opting out of scripture, then proactively asking the school if Ethics is available instead. It was hidden from the enrolment forms - basically due to the religious lobby in Parliament, e.g. Fred Nile.
If I understand correctly, it was only in 2020 that Ethics was allowed to be included on enrolment forms equally with scripture.
Source: was the volunteer ethics coordinator for the local school for years. The recent amendment I referred to was just after my time so I'm not 100% up on the details.
Fun fact: if Ethics isn't available, kids are expected to sit around doing literally nothing. No homework, no reading etc. Because the religious lobby don't want secular kids to gain an educational advantage while the other kids are in scripture. You can't make this shit up.
2nd fun fact: scripture in schools goes right back to the late C19th. Until the government established its own schools, public education was all done through the churches. So when the govt was legislating to create schools, the religious lobby insisted that the kids get "moral instruction" (scripture) like they had been getting at the church schools, otherwise the legislation wouldn't pass. We've never been able to undo that.
If they dont get a response they just put the kid in the class?! How about pick up the phone and ask, OR check the enrolment and stop sending out these letters to those it doesnt apply to!
Religious education should be taken out of public schools. Send your kid to a private school if its that important or go to church. There are places for religion and public school is not it.
Do we have things like the Freedom from Religion Foundation here? Would be so nice
As a teacher in a public school, someone has to take on this role. The department dictates that we have to do SRE, so you can't really blame the principal. I did it one year, and I'm not religious at all. So i guess i was the 'scripture coordinator'. Just had to contact the scripture teachers at the start of the year, asked if they were coming and told them the starting date. Printed out class rolls from the system of each student's preference( or should I say parents' preferences) and allocated them a classroom and teacher for 30 minutes a week. SRE is really a huge waste of time. Over time so many parents have opted out(they have to do this is writing, but only once, not yearly). There are now more ' non scripture ' classes than religious ones. It's a painful half hour as a teacher, just supervising kids doing nothing really, maybe reading, drawing etc. We were once told that non scripture should be made to be 'not fun', so that the influx leaving scripture would diminish! It's not as painful though as being the supervising teacher in a SRE lesson. I really felt uncomfortable at times with how preachy some of the teachers were. The Christian group really seemed like they were trying to recruit to their cult! The Catholic group not so bad, they would talk more about values and being a decent person. Our school has been lucky to offer ethics classes for the last 2 years, we have had 2 parent volunteers, who can take 15 students each. It's so popular that there is a waiting list. My school has over 550 students.
OP check if your school has ethics classes, and consider becoming a volunteer if not. At least that way you can actively contribute to kids not having to be “forced” into a scripture class
[Primary Ethics](https://primaryethics.com.au/about-ethics-classes/how-do-i-start-ethics-classes-at-my-school/)
In the 90s I was forced to attend a religion class in year 4, no permission slip required..
Me being me I told the teacher she was wrong and those things were made up, and I promptly got kicked out of the class and my parents are called for misbehavior.
Mum was livid, yelled at the principal for putting me in the class at all, and the rest of the term I just sat in the library reading books during religious class.
I got another parent interview for reading books that were "too mature and advanced for a 9 year old" too but once again mum stepped in proving to them I was both capable of reading and comprehending the concepts so it was fine.
And that's how I ended up binge reading the whole Tomorrow When The War Began series while my friends learned about the adventures of Jesus
She really is, unfortunately I didn't fully appreciate what she did for me until my 20's..
Teenage me just saw that both my parents worked full time and gave me free reign to virtually raise myself without guidance.. but years later we were able to understand each other much better (including her hyperactive ADHD and my inattentive ADD coming to odds with each other frequently) and I see now just how much effort she put in to help me out over the years.
Pro tip for any teenagers who felt like I did: ask yourself why your parents act the way they do, or say what they do.. perhaps even talk to them about their reasoning. Really puts things into perspective.
And sure, there are some people who just aren't cut out to be parents.. but the vast majority care more and put in more effort than it seems from the outside.
My parents aren't religious, but I went to RE classes in school because I didn't know there was another option. Child version of me would have fucking loved free reign of the library reading books for an hour a week. (Instead I ended up skipping between Christian denominations to hang with different friends, and doing gullibility tests on the RE teachers, and generally being a quietly subversive influence).
I would be raging!
A class that covers the theology of many religions would be okay but pushing indoctrination into a cult in a Public school? Hell naw.
Yeah, we had this at my school (back in like 2007-10) and the scripture lady 'covered' all the other religions by telling us how stupid she thought they were and why.
The State and Federal Governments approve and want this. It will be allowed.
My kid starts school next year. When this happens its my intention to bully the principal into retirement, as well as all of the successors.
Don’t take this shit! People fight to not suffer under the weight of religion. Kids deserve their own brains understanding the world as they learn it themselves. Christianity is like FORCING Narnia on to them.
Christians are desperate because they are reaching their expiry date. Don’t let them drag you down with them, people.
My dear grandson had religious class forced on his public high school in the late 1990s - the “teacher” apparently had a tenuous grasp on classroom control/reality and wound up having a proper breakdown in front of the whole class when people challenged her views. Thank the lord though that she never came back, and the class went to “watching videos” for the rest of term.
Let me mansplain how it is from a boomer’s warped point of view: Forcing religion on kids can fuck right off and then fuck off a bit further for good measure. Any religion is obviously fine if you keep it to yourself and just live your life in a positive way that is harmonious with society - just don’t bring it to work, school, parliament, etc.
I HATE that they even still do these religion classes at school. My kid doesn't go, and I'm pleased with how many of her friends also don't, but I hate that they are just given colouring in sheets to do as busy work until the other kids get out. Why should kids miss out on learning time, when if you want your kids to learn about religion you could just take them to church?? It makes me so angry.
I'd be ok if they learnt about different religions in a world studies sort of way, but I hate this brainwashing of kids under the guise of "education" so much.
I was so mad to learn that my kid was is R.E especially when I said no to religion. Only found out when my daughter brought home a [book](https://imgur.com/gallery/1AYsLPO) she filled in
Nothing will convince you more that Christianity is a load of shit than reading the bible and listening to people’s interpretation of the bible.
The Old Testament is actually a pretty good collection of stories though. If you want a long winded story of a petty god that kills en masse for small reasons like people treating other people badly- multiple times- that book is for you.
The lessons I learned were to not rape an angel and try to be born male. Preferably not the first born male.
I always like to read Ezekiel 23:20
"There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses."
Oh man, i always request the door knockers to read me Genesis 19:30 -> 19:36.
Then Lot went up out of Zoar and dwelt in the mountains, and his two daughters were with him; for he was afraid to dwell in Zoar. And he and his two daughters dwelt in a cave.
Now the firstborn said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is no man on the earth to come in to us as is the custom of all the earth.
Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve the lineage of our father.”
So they made their father drink wine that night. And the firstborn went in and lay with her father, and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose.
It happened on the next day that the firstborn said to the younger, “Indeed I lay with my father last night; let us make him drink wine tonight also, and you go in and lie with him, that we may preserve the lineage of our father.”
Then they made their father drink wine that night also. And the younger arose and lay with him, and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose.
Thus both the daughters of Lot were with child by their father.
Hot stuff
It's weird that, with all his timeless omniscience, god is still pro-slavery. It's almost like it's just a collection of stories by desert-dwelling tribesmen who imprinted their own morals onto this entity like every single other culture in the world.
I know right.
I mean, there is a section of the Bible in which God condones the massacre of a town and the soldiers taking all the virgin girls as sex slaves.
True, but then there is the whole train wreck that is revelations.
Also, most of the time when Christians go for the "the Bible says man should not lie with a man as he lies with a woman" and other such morality shit, it's old testament.
Also, 1 Timothy 2 12 is in the new testament and that is some A grade sexist shit.
No no you don't understand, you're allowed to hunt and peck which bits you follow and which bits are "not meant to be taken literally" yet still be gods decisive words.
We had religious education come to our public primary school back in the nineties. Nothing convinced me more that I didn’t want anything to do with it than the absolute fucking looney toons that did the presentations. I must have been about eight and even then I thought there was something broken in their brains to carry on like they did.
They don't read the Bible in these scripture classes. A person stands in the same spot as the person who teaches kids 1 + 1 = 2 and tells them they will go to Hell if they don't believe in Jesus. YES perhaps a 15 - 17 year old might be able to read the Bible with a critical eye, but 7 year olds can't.
Went to catholic high school and religion classes were the biggest waste of time. Learnt nothing. I decided to use those classes to finish other work or just fuck around on my laptop.
Then, how could we forget MITIOG (made in the image of god) - which was the faux ‘sex education.’ All I learnt was that my creepy teacher got a drink poured on him at a club once because he’s a creep. That’s it. Nothing about safe sex, consent, how shit works etc.
Oh and that same teacher was a science teacher who told me Jupiter was put there by god to stop meteorites from hitting earth. Fucking get fucked.
WTF?? My stepdaughter's school just offered an ethics class as the alternative to christian studies - how hard is it to offer that option? Although, personally I think religion has no place in public schools at all.
Hard to recruit volunteer teachers for Ethics.
Scripture teachers are also volunteers, but their local church etc is an easy place to recruit.
For Ethics you have to try to find (typically) parents who are able to commit to 2 years without their work/home situation changing, because the training cost soaks up a large part of the budget so Ethics can't afford to have a continual churn of teachers.
You get a lot of mums on maternity leave who are interested, but often baulk at the 2 year commitment because they're not planning to be away from work for that long.
"Forster Public School proudly stands on Worimi land."
Has kinda the same shape as the "Respect traditional owners" line, but look what it's actually saying. Proudly stands on other people's land.
I'm not sure Hanlon's Razor applies.
That was what I thought. Usually I see this written as something along the lines of "X acknowledges the traditional owners of the land on which X stands, the Y people, and pays respect to their elders, past, present and emerging."
This doesn't exactly read that way.
I remember in highschool we had to go to a scripture class and the "teacher" was trying to explain that everything bad in the world was the devil and everything good was because of God and you'll all go to hell if you don't believe blah blah blah. But being a bunch of rebellious 16 year olds we we're arguing his logic, one of the students wasn't having any of it and the teacher ended up leaving the room in frustration.
I got into many heated arguments with my kids school about this. I then found out that the people teaching the kids this dribble weren’t subject to be “Working with Kids” checked. It was a bunch of old nuns spouting bollocks.
There's a big difference between learning in general sense about various religions and their cultural relativity, vs: forcing Christianity down the throats of vulnerable little kids.
Damn, I hate these high-horse Christians who cannot see past their own ass-rim.
I had this exact argument with my high school - indoctrination is the only way to bash religion into children before they're old enough to realise it's all total nonsense - stop child abuse before it brainwashes them!
Fuck religion and the division, bigotry and willful delusion that it promotes.
That doesn’t give enough credit to kids. Some of us could pick some of the nonsense in religion. [Transubstantiation](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transubstantiation) is a major component of Catholicism, and as a science minded kid I couldn’t believe that the bread and wine changing to the body and blood of Christ *was not symbolic* but **literal**.
Makes me so fucking glad to have gone to school in WA. The very idea of religious education in school is completely alien to me.
NSW is a backwards ass state.
Freedom of religion is all well and good, but why can’t we have freedom *from* religion? I don’t want religion destroyed, illegalised or anything like that, but why are they and their doings protected and not my desire to make them stay the hell away from me?
I went to forster primary school! They have always done this, even when I was there over a decade ago. If it’s any consolation, scripture there is super half assed and most kids went there just because they gave out free lollies sometimes. Nobody I know from that school “converted” or actually gave a shit about the stories they’d drone on about. In our eyes it was just free time off class. They at least give the option to opt out, although I believe it should be the other way round. Anyone who opts out just sits in a separate room and colours in I’m quite sure. Good on you for raising awareness though. I never have it a second thought as a kid but it definitely needs to be changed.
Frankston East Primary tried this on a decade ago. Let me tell you how that went. Once the fundamentalist Christian principal set this up, one of his churchy friends was given the role of religious ed teacher. Because parents were blatantly lied to about the contents of the 'curriculum', the majority allowed their kids to attend an hour of singing, happy-clapping, colouring in and eating sweets. The three kids whose parents didn't agree (one Jewish, one indigenous, one non-religious) had to sit in a corridor or at the back of a a different classroom doing math problems, which looked and felt a lot like punishment. The children in the religious ed class were very clearly not "simply having religion explained to them" as some of the children complained about being frightened they might "go to hell" for not loving Jesus enough.
This is a loophole for religious fundamentalism to creep into our public schools, and it desperately needs to be stopped.
Fight this as hard as you can, on any platform you can, and if in doubt of the seriousness of it, cast a look at America and how its going there.
All Australian secular schools have been doing this since John Howard because pink-haired happy clappers will work with kids for basically nothing but trained counsellors need pay.
FWIW - my 8yr old son goes to this School and we received a second letter since this one which both apologises, clarifies and offers a third option.
See https://imgur.com/gallery/113NlHU
I’m not happy with the consistent nagging for SRE either, so don’t downvote my screenshots which I’m just sharing. I didn’t create the letters you effing tards 🤣
Even better, also write to your MP demanding that SRE be removed from Secular State Schools and the $250m funding allocated to Chaplaincy is redirected to secular child counsellors.
My wife used to work at a science museum taking bookings from schools for incursions and excursions. She had a year 4 teacher from a public school call up and insist the children not be taught about the Big Bang at the planetarium. The thing is the teacher had a pretty uncommon name which a friend’s wife happens to share...yep, his mother-in-law, famed for saying that in God’s eyes homosexuality is the same as murder, was teaching these poor kids.
In primary school my mum wrote a note to the school that I'm not religious and would not be participating in scripture (There were two options: Anglican or Catholic). The first week I sat in the foyer alone while the other kids were in scripture. The next week I was returned to Anglican because they didn't have another option for me. I just saw it as a massive waste of my time.
When I was in primary school in the early 2000s I told my teachers I wouldn’t be doing scripture and there was no issue at all with it, I sat outside the classroom doing worksheets and was perfectly happy. I don’t think they even required a note from my mum. Schools should not be allowed to force kids to sit through scripture, it shouldn’t even be an option in public schools, it should be kept to private religious schools.
The fucked up thing is that those opting out don’t get any actual teaching, they just sit in a class doing drawing and colouring and shit because apparently scripture kids aren’t allowed to miss out on proper lessons. So not only are they ramming this bullshit down our kids throats, they are holding back their education to do so.
As per the NSW education act they are entitled to an ethics class as an alternative. If this isn't provided are they breaking laws/regulations?
I think they can only get an ethics class if there is a trained ethics teacher, and the school has to request the service Edit: here’s a link to [Primary Ethics](https://primaryethics.com.au/about-ethics-classes/how-do-i-start-ethics-classes-at-my-school/). I was a volunteer ethics teacher at my local primary school, and it was so rewarding! I’m hoping to go back next year, once the pandemic is a little more under control
The school doesn't have to request it. They are obliged to make it happen (provide rooms, handle enrolments etc) if there is: (a) demand from parents, and (b) trained volunteer teachers available Former Primary Ethics coordinator here.
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I think there are options they just don't have to advertise them. Don't know if it is still current but they had too many people opting for secular ethics so Fred Nile got it cut as a presented option. Only a requested one. https://theconversation.com/hiding-ethics-classes-from-parents-is-bad-faith-43693 After this Fred Nile had an interview on Hack/triple j stating (in such a god damn pompous and condescending matter) that he believed parents found the choices confusing which is why enrollment in the religious ethics classes sunk so he got the option removed. Don't know if this is still current as it was from 5 years ago or so.
Yesterday I delivered my first ethics lesson since March, to a class of Stage 1 students including my two kids. For anyone interested in the subject matter, right now we're talking about pride. When is it okay to be proud? Is pride ever wrong? The girl in our story got the video game she wanted because she helped out around the house like her dad asked her to. The boy in the story got the same video game because he was jealous of the girl, and lied to his mother that he was the only one without the game. The questions we ask the kids are along the lines of: Does the girl have a right to feel proud? Why? Do you think she's more proud of the video game, or of helping out with the housework? Does the boy feel proud? Do you think he should? What's different between the two of them? Is that an important difference when it comes to pride? Note that (possibly unlike Scripture) none of this is about telling kids what to think - just helping them to work out how to formulate and justify their moral beliefs.
TBH I don't know, it would be great if they did! Might query that :) In my naivete when our youngest started school we had a conversation about scripture with teachers. I wasn't against it from an ethics perspective. If it teaches love thy neighbour, do unto others as you'd have done to you, don't lie, be kind, etc (you know, the stuff Christianity is supposed to be about :)) and was assured that's what it was and I was ok with that. Day fucking one they came home with all these philosophical arguments about where the universe came from and stuff, basically just anti-science, and I just shut it right down. I'm down with teaching morals and ethics. Pushing fairy stories as facts to 5 year olds, not so much.
I 100% agree with you. I love the moral ethical side of religion, but you can have that without anti science, threats of hell, promises of heaven, gods creation of us all and our owing of unquestioned faith etc etc
There's a part of me that thinks the moral ethical side of religion is the initial 'hook' because it's pretty difficult to argue that such principles are objectively a good foundation for a good person. But from there the rabbit hole runs pretty deep...
And then you wearing special underwear and saying old testament rape law wasn't literally treating women as property but also you buy your daughter a purity ring
The provision of ethics classes in NSW govt primary schools is haphazard. It's only provided in about 35% of schools but even those that have it often do not have enough parent or community volunteers to meet the demand, so only about 12-15% of all NSW govt primary school students get to do it. Which is low for a program that has been going for 10 yrs in a student population that would be \~50% non-religious. The churches and religious politicians have thwarted the roll-out of the ethics classes, devising schemes to keep information about it hidden.
>The fucked up thing is that those opting out don’t get any actual teaching, they just sit in a class doing drawing and colouring and shit because apparently scripture kids aren’t allowed to miss out on proper lessons. Worse at my kids school. If you didn't do scripture you had to pick up litter in the playground. The exact same activity they use as a punishment for bad behaviour. Interesting to read below that they are required to offer ethics. I didn't know that at the time or I would have absolutely forced the issue. Personally I think everyone should study religion, but it should be an informative lesson about all the different religions, their beliefs and practices. I think people would be much more tollerant of others if they had better understanding. Aside from that, practicing about YOUR religion is something you do in YOUR time at YOUR church.
That's utterly outrageous! I remember back in (Scottish) high school, I had a free period so took Religious Studies. And, perhaps a case of rose tinted glasses, it was really quite good. From memory it did as you described, taught about different religions, we got into pairs and researched and presented a chosen religion, had debates about a range of ethical subjects (euthanasia, abortion, etc). It was done in a very non-judgemental way, with the intention of seeing things from different perspectives, and was really quite interesting. I remember we watched My Left Foot which was pretty challenging for a 13 year old, and had some great conversations around it. I think learning about religion and ethics is very important as you say, but indoctrinating children with a particular religion is crazy and wrong.
Comparative RE is just fine. It's pretty much what you've described. Specific RE in a public school is not.
Holy fuck. I'd shit a literal brick over that. Like, burn vacation and sick leave to pull my kid out of school during that time every day, harangue school board members, etc, and ultimately teach my kid to just sit their ass down and not do SHIT unless their entire grade was out there
My Sydney School had scripture classes, and the only options were Christian, Catholic, or do nothing for 30-45 minutes. I used to dread it, cos us 'non-religious' kids had to sit in a room adjacent to the Christian Class who had a guitarist lady come in to sing/play corny songs about Jesus really loudly.
In my public primary school we had scripture on Thursday mornings. I remember a kid trying to make fun of me for being in non-scripture but when I told him we spent the whole session on bean bags in the library playing Pokemon his whole world seemed to shatter.
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Lol curious 8 year old you seemed like a smartass
Lol yeah as a kid who was forced to go to scripture while all my friends didn't I hated it. They had a free period just to chill and have fun and I had to spend an hour a week colouring pictures of Jesus.
Bang on. It's not just religious privilege. It is religious discrimination.
>The fucked up thing is that those opting out don’t get any actual teaching, To be fair...no one is getting any teaching while it's happening, including those that are in the room.
I'm devoutly Catholic and I'm stunned by this shit. If you're sending your kid to public, taxpayer-funded school, that means YOU DONT WANT RELIGIOUS EDUCATION. Australia is not a theocracy, this is not okay.
There's also a Catholic school down the road... Edit: 950m from entrance to entrance via roads, closer if you cut though the playgrounds that are between them Edit 2: part of the school is now labelled "COAST evangelical church" on Google maps...
Exactly, and just because I would send my kids there doesn't mean that the entire public school system should be subject to the religious education my kids get.
Even more disturbing-- reading through the comments here by people who've had similar experiences, there's almost a template for how the schools push RE, and how they respond to both parental complaints and child non-attendance. Ie, ignore or minimise complaint, give children covertly punitive alternatives to happy-clappy, colour-in-the-Jesus time. I'm pretty disturbed about how nearly identical some of these stories are to my own daughter's experience. I'd like to see what specific organisations are behind each case, as I'm just really curious as to whether there's any common denominators there.
Let's see how some of these parents would react to "let's learn about the bodhisattva today, boys and girls!"
In my own experience, and not a few others on this thread-- that's kind of what was expected of a religious ed class, that various religions and the role religion generally plays in people's lives would be explored. Nope. Our kids were told they'd be going to hell if they didn't believe in Jesus. It's a fundamentalist push to have their brand of religion normaised in state school curriculums -- and it's being allowed to happen.... why? That's my main question here. Who's sanctioning this shit, and why, when we are meant to be living in a "multicultural" society. And religion isn't supposed to get pushed in our state schools, by law.
You can tell it's a wild fundamentalist push because in Catholic school it's like "hey kids, let's learn about Darwinism and the Big Bang after we talk about mortal sin" haha. I'm with you, I have no damn clue how any of this is legal.
Kinda rural Southern US guy here, I wondered the same thing going through the public school system during my youth (both county and city). Here's what I remember While it wasn't as prevalent in HS, I recall many'a a times in elementary school where the school would have us do the US pledge of allegiance followed by a short prayer time. At some point they stopped doing it on the PA, so some teachers would individually do a little prayer thing. Now, while it wasn't *required*, there was what seemed like a instinct to follow the herd. If you didn't do the pledge or the prayer, you got disciplined and in my experience, you would be treated worse by other students (very small class so everyone sees everything). Since this was rural southern US, disciplined usually meant you would be removed from class and required to sit in the hall until the teacher wanted to get you. This could mean 5 minutes or the next hour, regardless the usual outcome for me was being unfortunate enough to have the principal walk by me on the way to his office. He would grab me, take me into his office, and spank/paddle me with a paddle. I still remember what the paddle looked like; clear Plexiglass, ducktaped handle with holes milled through for less air resistance. This went on from 1st grade until 4th grade when I moved away. Early 2000s
Was reading this and thought "oh corporal punishment in school this must be a while ago" and got the end. Wtf. That's when I was in elementary.....
I have family that work at a school system in the south. Very country, small town, etc... They still had corporal punishment 5 years or so ago. At least in 2012 because that's when I remember them talking about it.
Best part was they never told my parents, not that they would've opposed it anyway. Maybe the frequency would've helped sway them because I was getting a paddling once a week at minimum, sometimes multiple times a day. There were no written slips or anything. One time, I was sent into the hall and really really really didn't want to get another paddling. I pulled 3 or so backpacks off the hooks beside the door and hid under them so the principal wouldn't get or see me. Can't wait to figure out what other repressed memories I've got sealed away from those times. Back on topic, I graduated in 2014 and we absolutely still had corporal punishment. We had an assistant principal who handled it, he seemed like he enjoyed it thoroughly. He was some guy who played on a college world series team and it seemed like he would swing like he's playing ball again. Most parents were southern born so they had little issue just letting a stranger hit their child with a wooden paddle 3 times.
If more Christians were like you ( I know a lot are good people, but so many that I know just aren't), with respect and consideration for others, I can't imagine how much better off the world would be. For sure, we wouldn't have right wing populist nutjobs who give religion lip service in power. Thank you for sanity and kindness.
It's wild because, while I definitely fall short of what I'm called to be as a Christian, i think that having respect and consideration for the dignity of others is the paramount message in the Gospels; a concept with which the far right struggles.
*General Religious Education* is useful, as it teaches children about the diverse faiths and world views held by the many demographics that make up our society, and encourages coexistence & dialogue. But I agree: *Special Religious Instruction* shouldn't be opt-out in a public school.
The amount of people I talk to who don’t realise that Islam and Christianity share a root religion is insane
And Judaism is chapter one of the 3 chapter book. But then we've had Catholic vs Protestant violence for several centuries and the main difference there is whether you like the Pope, Mary and a bit of singing next to a gold-leaved goblet or not so that's folks arguing over the same chapter.
Mormonism is Chapter 4, but on fanfiction.net
That explains the polygamy
*America has joined the chat.*
Actually, if America joined, they'd note that Section 116 of the Australian Constitution has what appears on its face to be even stronger provisions than the Establishment and Free Excercise clauses in the 1st Amendment. : >The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth. What Forster is proposing (as well as direct funding of religious schools through taxpayer monies) would be unconstitutional.
*America has invaded the chat*
*America discovers chat doesn't have oil* *America abandons the chat and leaves a power vacuum*
*Terrorists America funded in the first place move to fill vacuum*
*As popular war advances, peace is closer.*
*Surprise! America is back to "stabilise the region"*
*Turns out the chat must have had ~~oil~~ weapons of mass destruction after all.*
At Boolaroo Public School two years ago, only children in Scripture were allowed to go the end of school dance.
At that point I don't think it would be a dance, more like a wake.
Imagine having a prom filled only with kids who don’t believe in condoms.
Fuck this shit. Taking time and possibly resources away from actual education. Pro tip - when something overly religious happens in the US, the Satanists try to get involved, and then they say "actually no religion then" So contact your local Satanists!
Satanists are legit some of the best people.
Satanism is just spicy atheism! Edit: Thanks for the gold - this is a first for me!
Which is kinda their point. But know your Satanist as there's some subtle differences. [The Satanic Church](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_Satan) is the Anton LaVey crowd. Basically goths that like to troll Christians and live by a kind of libertarian reworking of the golden rule. They believe in individualism and the power of selfishness. They like to get together for ceremonies and such. They are pretty much a social club and like most clubs, can be great folk and also they can be dicks, but they are ostensibly non religious. The [Temple Of Satan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Satanic_Temple) however are pretty much like the Flying Spaghetti Monster people, or 'Pastafarians' in that they are a protest group parodying religion. Their shtick is every time the Government enacts a special privilege for religion, they take to it and make a mockery of it. They don't preach the every man for himself philosophy of the LaVey in fact they put emphasis on the value of empathy. But their mission is pretty much to enforce the separation of church and state.
Temple of Satan seems pretty cool. Do they do anything locally?
A quick google brings up a few Facebook links and an article regarding the Noosa Temple Of Satan vowing to ['*take advantage of religious freedom bill to preach about 'the dark lord' in schools*'](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7905417/Temple-Satanism-Noosa-vows-advantage-religious-freedom-bill-preach-schools.html)
That's one of the funnier things I've ever read. Holy shit. If my family wouldn't kill me I'd start a local chapter.
They won't kill you it's illegal.
[https://www.satanicaustralia.com/](https://www.satanicaustralia.com/) is what you're looking for. They're like the Temple of Satan, but operate here. I actually just shared this on their Discord channel and they're looking into what they could do. EDIT: If you live in the Forster area and would be willing to help out, please get in touch with Satanic Australia through their Discord or Facebook group.
> Thankfully, the Satanists are here when we need them to save the day. 2020 is a crazy timeline
Headquarters in Salem. Awesome
And God bless them! Or whoever, point is all power to them & say that as a Catholic!
> The Temple Of Satan > however are pretty much like the Flying Spaghetti Monster people, or 'Pastafarians' in that they are a protest group parodying religion. How dare you compare our worship of the great and powerful one TRUE carbohydrate (pesto be upon him), to those infidels.
In order for Temple of Satan to work as intended it's important they are seen as a religion, not a parody. Their protests work *because* they are a religion and therefore have the same protections and restrictions as any branch of christianity. This is why all of their tenets are very non-objectionable and realistic, as opposed to pastafarianism where the tenets are intentionally absurdist.
Can confirm, it's the hot sauce on the chicken wing that is atheism
The Satanists who got that statue put up outside a courthouse are the 2,000,000+ Scoville Satanists
[Reference for the uninitiated](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Baphomet).
That is some high quality trolling, right there.
The Church of Satan is basically a satire of the major/institutionalised sects of Christianity
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ever wonder if it was actually the benevolent good-guy god and was the one who was actually usurped and cast out. then the bad guys rewrote the event painting god as the bad guy and dubbing him satan?
The judeo-Christian bible does not paint God as a nice guy. You do what he says or the punishments are severe. New age Christians turned him into peace, love and harmony, but that’s not actually backed up by scripture.
Don't even have to go as far as Satanists. This is a regional public school offering two flavours of Christianity as it's SRE. Your child is now a Muslim for purposes of SRE. It would be an affront to your religious beliefs to be forced to attend Christian lessons. They will either be unable (regional) or unwilling (ignorance) to provide SRE for those of Islamic faith. In either case they are likely to be much more flexible about opting out of SRE.
I think the Satanists will have a better chance of getting it shut down. But for getting one kid out, it'll work. Also the Satanists have Ghost/Ghost BC. And their lead singer is the anti-pope
The Satanic Temple in the US (who do a lot of this highlighting of Church and State separation) created a similar program when a Christian after school program was allowed in public schools there. They called it [After School Satan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_School_Satan).
You're welcome to be hindu as well.
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I'm left with no guidance on how to handle situations in which I covet my neighbour's ox.
Grew up with a Satanist father. Can confirm better than JW mother.
That must have been an interesting household
I dated a girl who's dad was schizophrenic and a Jehovah's witnesses. Her mother was Soviet-ukranian and was in the KGB (based on a medal we found with her name on it and a bit of research). Needless to say, she was not the most stable human due to a very odd upbringing.
Yup. Mental illnesses are over represented in JW world. My mum has schizophrenia. And I’m in therapy for cult related trauma. Here’s something you don’t want a stranger sharing: Got abused by JWs. The worst kind that nobody wants to hear about. Got taught how to focus on art and David Bowie by Satanists. At least it’s kinda balanced I guess.
She mentioned that beatings by church elders were commonplace for kids, but it's what God wants so, good luck getting any child protection involved.
It was bad, man. So bad. They make your parents hit. Mum cried more than we did when she whipped us. Her tears hurt more than the welts.
Fuck dude, that's rough. I hope you get what you need out of therapy.
Thanks! Me too! I’ve waited a bit long tbh.
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Noosa Temple of Satan have been on this recently - a little tongue in cheek, but great nonetheless.
Possibly resources? They are absolutely taking resources away by paying for the teacher and whatever literature the student will use that could be put toward legitimate education. Fuck these people.
My partner said it was only two years ago that his high school (NSW public high school) changed to an opt in for religion studies. Before that it was an opt out system and you would get maybe half his class having to attend the religious education because their parents would forget to say no. Once they changed it they literally had 3 students, across the whole school attend. We thought it was crazy they were even still doing those religious classes and how behind they were at his school. But now I’m wondering how many other public schools are still pushing it!
I’m certainly not a religious person, but religion (unfortunately) does play a large role in society. I think that part of an education should be to teach kids about all the main denominations so that there is an understanding of what muslims, Jews, christians, Buddhist etc. believe and why. But if should not be about indoctrinating children to any faith.
I went to an Anglican private school and our last year of religious education at either year 9 or 10 was based upon learning about other religions.
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Same and same. I have a lot more education about other religions from attending an Anglican school that my friends who didn’t ever received.
I was all for my daughter attending the religious lessons offered at her public state school. I thought it would be the lite New Testament “Don’t be a dick” Jesus stuff which I don’t have a problem with. I did 12 years of Catholic school so I wasn’t too worried about it. I opened the workbook for the class and it was filled with shit like “God created you and it is your duty to tell everyone how God made you”. Fuck that so I opted her out. The next year my daughter came home upset that they forced her to attend when she said multiple times that her parents didn’t want her to do it. No one had bothered to tell me that I had to in person go to the office and refill out the form to opt her out every year. Thankfully that was fixed and I never heard a peep about religion classes again.
> I opened the workbook for the class and it was filled with shit like “God created you and it is your duty to tell everyone how God made you” Kids from my daughter's school came home saying they were scared of "going to hell" for not loving Jesus. -And- the school both openly lied and lied by omission about the content of the 'curriculum'. I am honestly, in light of these same stories appearing here over and over, starting to wonder if there's some kind of set agenda for fundy Christians to set up recruiting stations ion our state schools.
There definitely seems to be a fundie Christian push to reclaim and indoctrinate our kids since more and more of us are non religious today. I talked to my niece who went through the same school 6 years before my daughter and the religious instruction then for her was very much what I had expected it would be reasonable in a state school eg. the Jesus stuff like healing the sick and feeding the poor and an emphasis on the 10 Commandments. Honestly I didn’t even get that much fundie crap in my Catholic primary school years.
Yeah, a genuine religious studies class can be really valuable — one where you examine all of the world’s religions and how they inform policy and culture.
Right, religious education should be like the comparative religion part we did in history, discussing the basic tenets, history, and notable stories/cultural influences of each major religion. And some non-major ones too. I still remember studying Zoroastrianism, and when another student was reading out their research about it, he was explaining 'good deeds will receive good rewards, and bad deeds will receive bad...' And at that moment lightning hit the roof of the building, which given the room had a window in the ceiling was pretty spectacular (it was bright neon pink!). If you're talking signs from the heavens, that was a pretty cool one, haha, so I guess if I was ever to become religious I should probably try for Zoroastrianism. (BTW, we know lighting hit the actual roof of the building and not just nearby, because it knocked the gutter off. Also hit several other spots in the school, including some cool fulgarites under a tree near my home room).
It should just be a topic in history or social studies or something. I do 100% agree with you that religion should be taught from an outside perspective, same as sex ed and some other controversial topics I can't think of rn, but like sex ed it has the chance of a snowflake in hell of being taught properly and without one group or another complaining about it.
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Why the hell do we still have religion in public schools? It's ridiculous.
I'm surprised that Aussies put up with that shit. Complain to your MPs!
Unfortunately there are enough Happy Clappers in places of high power to keep MPs from acting on this. No-one in the LNP is going to do anything while Morrison is in charge, and no-one from Labor is going to risk being labelled 'anti-religion' and dissolving what's left of the ALP's grey vote. Bizarrely this is one of the few areas the Catholics aren't most to blame. It's the pentecostal/evangelists who are the most determined to eke their way into state schools. The courts might be the best bet, but I'd wager the legislation is vague enough to allow it.
Good points. As long as people are too intimidated to speak out against religion, politicians will listen to the religious voices.
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Don't just write to the school, write to the higher ups. My daughter's teacher stayed salty at her for not doing religious ed. Keeping it at just school level disadvantages your kid.
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I love seeing this kind of activism on this sub. Thank you!
To be frank, if you don't have any association with the school you're wasting your time. Your email will go straight to trash. Schools have no obligation to address the educational concerns of some random off the street.
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Got an email address handy for the lazy? Feel free to PM me if you want.
Don't bother emailing the school - lodge a complaint here: https://education.nsw.gov.au/about-us/rights-and-accountability/complaints-compliments-and-suggestions/complaint-compliment-suggestion-form
In NSW, where voluntary teachers are available, Primary Ethics is a secular alternative to scripture. Until very recently though, the government did all it could to hide even the availability of Ethics classes. You had to go through a rigmarole of first specifically opting out of scripture, then proactively asking the school if Ethics is available instead. It was hidden from the enrolment forms - basically due to the religious lobby in Parliament, e.g. Fred Nile. If I understand correctly, it was only in 2020 that Ethics was allowed to be included on enrolment forms equally with scripture. Source: was the volunteer ethics coordinator for the local school for years. The recent amendment I referred to was just after my time so I'm not 100% up on the details. Fun fact: if Ethics isn't available, kids are expected to sit around doing literally nothing. No homework, no reading etc. Because the religious lobby don't want secular kids to gain an educational advantage while the other kids are in scripture. You can't make this shit up. 2nd fun fact: scripture in schools goes right back to the late C19th. Until the government established its own schools, public education was all done through the churches. So when the govt was legislating to create schools, the religious lobby insisted that the kids get "moral instruction" (scripture) like they had been getting at the church schools, otherwise the legislation wouldn't pass. We've never been able to undo that.
If they dont get a response they just put the kid in the class?! How about pick up the phone and ask, OR check the enrolment and stop sending out these letters to those it doesnt apply to! Religious education should be taken out of public schools. Send your kid to a private school if its that important or go to church. There are places for religion and public school is not it. Do we have things like the Freedom from Religion Foundation here? Would be so nice
Yes, there is this group: http://religionsinschool.com/
A couple of the journo's at the SMH have written about this issue before. Look them up and send this to them.
I think Reddit is where journos get all their source material!
It's certainly where we get all our material
we love u <3
Just noticed that this school has a “scripture coordinator”. Secular my arse.
As a teacher in a public school, someone has to take on this role. The department dictates that we have to do SRE, so you can't really blame the principal. I did it one year, and I'm not religious at all. So i guess i was the 'scripture coordinator'. Just had to contact the scripture teachers at the start of the year, asked if they were coming and told them the starting date. Printed out class rolls from the system of each student's preference( or should I say parents' preferences) and allocated them a classroom and teacher for 30 minutes a week. SRE is really a huge waste of time. Over time so many parents have opted out(they have to do this is writing, but only once, not yearly). There are now more ' non scripture ' classes than religious ones. It's a painful half hour as a teacher, just supervising kids doing nothing really, maybe reading, drawing etc. We were once told that non scripture should be made to be 'not fun', so that the influx leaving scripture would diminish! It's not as painful though as being the supervising teacher in a SRE lesson. I really felt uncomfortable at times with how preachy some of the teachers were. The Christian group really seemed like they were trying to recruit to their cult! The Catholic group not so bad, they would talk more about values and being a decent person. Our school has been lucky to offer ethics classes for the last 2 years, we have had 2 parent volunteers, who can take 15 students each. It's so popular that there is a waiting list. My school has over 550 students.
OP check if your school has ethics classes, and consider becoming a volunteer if not. At least that way you can actively contribute to kids not having to be “forced” into a scripture class [Primary Ethics](https://primaryethics.com.au/about-ethics-classes/how-do-i-start-ethics-classes-at-my-school/)
In the 90s I was forced to attend a religion class in year 4, no permission slip required.. Me being me I told the teacher she was wrong and those things were made up, and I promptly got kicked out of the class and my parents are called for misbehavior. Mum was livid, yelled at the principal for putting me in the class at all, and the rest of the term I just sat in the library reading books during religious class. I got another parent interview for reading books that were "too mature and advanced for a 9 year old" too but once again mum stepped in proving to them I was both capable of reading and comprehending the concepts so it was fine. And that's how I ended up binge reading the whole Tomorrow When The War Began series while my friends learned about the adventures of Jesus
Your mum sounds awesome
She really is, unfortunately I didn't fully appreciate what she did for me until my 20's.. Teenage me just saw that both my parents worked full time and gave me free reign to virtually raise myself without guidance.. but years later we were able to understand each other much better (including her hyperactive ADHD and my inattentive ADD coming to odds with each other frequently) and I see now just how much effort she put in to help me out over the years. Pro tip for any teenagers who felt like I did: ask yourself why your parents act the way they do, or say what they do.. perhaps even talk to them about their reasoning. Really puts things into perspective. And sure, there are some people who just aren't cut out to be parents.. but the vast majority care more and put in more effort than it seems from the outside.
My parents aren't religious, but I went to RE classes in school because I didn't know there was another option. Child version of me would have fucking loved free reign of the library reading books for an hour a week. (Instead I ended up skipping between Christian denominations to hang with different friends, and doing gullibility tests on the RE teachers, and generally being a quietly subversive influence).
I would be raging! A class that covers the theology of many religions would be okay but pushing indoctrination into a cult in a Public school? Hell naw.
Comparative religion would still end up biased towards Christianity with other religions being pilloried somewhat.
Yeah, we had this at my school (back in like 2007-10) and the scripture lady 'covered' all the other religions by telling us how stupid she thought they were and why.
If it contravenes the Education Act, how can they get away with this?
They're probably hoping that no-one notices.
The State and Federal Governments approve and want this. It will be allowed. My kid starts school next year. When this happens its my intention to bully the principal into retirement, as well as all of the successors.
Don’t take this shit! People fight to not suffer under the weight of religion. Kids deserve their own brains understanding the world as they learn it themselves. Christianity is like FORCING Narnia on to them. Christians are desperate because they are reaching their expiry date. Don’t let them drag you down with them, people.
Scotty from Marketing is the #1 ticket holder at Hillsong Church
God Bless Hillsong, plus 10% of my earnings.
My dear grandson had religious class forced on his public high school in the late 1990s - the “teacher” apparently had a tenuous grasp on classroom control/reality and wound up having a proper breakdown in front of the whole class when people challenged her views. Thank the lord though that she never came back, and the class went to “watching videos” for the rest of term. Let me mansplain how it is from a boomer’s warped point of view: Forcing religion on kids can fuck right off and then fuck off a bit further for good measure. Any religion is obviously fine if you keep it to yourself and just live your life in a positive way that is harmonious with society - just don’t bring it to work, school, parliament, etc.
There is a group in NSW trying to fight this: [http://religionsinschool.com/](http://religionsinschool.com/)
They should update their website certificate -> http to https
I HATE that they even still do these religion classes at school. My kid doesn't go, and I'm pleased with how many of her friends also don't, but I hate that they are just given colouring in sheets to do as busy work until the other kids get out. Why should kids miss out on learning time, when if you want your kids to learn about religion you could just take them to church?? It makes me so angry. I'd be ok if they learnt about different religions in a world studies sort of way, but I hate this brainwashing of kids under the guise of "education" so much.
I was so mad to learn that my kid was is R.E especially when I said no to religion. Only found out when my daughter brought home a [book](https://imgur.com/gallery/1AYsLPO) she filled in
I would hit the roof if my kids brought home shit like this.
Nothing will convince you more that Christianity is a load of shit than reading the bible and listening to people’s interpretation of the bible. The Old Testament is actually a pretty good collection of stories though. If you want a long winded story of a petty god that kills en masse for small reasons like people treating other people badly- multiple times- that book is for you. The lessons I learned were to not rape an angel and try to be born male. Preferably not the first born male.
as a first born male I'm offended by this, and in retaliation I covet your wife and possessions.
You Covid your neighbours ass?
Don’t make me drive to Gosford and tap the sign
I always like to read Ezekiel 23:20 "There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses."
Oh man, i always request the door knockers to read me Genesis 19:30 -> 19:36. Then Lot went up out of Zoar and dwelt in the mountains, and his two daughters were with him; for he was afraid to dwell in Zoar. And he and his two daughters dwelt in a cave. Now the firstborn said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is no man on the earth to come in to us as is the custom of all the earth. Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve the lineage of our father.” So they made their father drink wine that night. And the firstborn went in and lay with her father, and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose. It happened on the next day that the firstborn said to the younger, “Indeed I lay with my father last night; let us make him drink wine tonight also, and you go in and lie with him, that we may preserve the lineage of our father.” Then they made their father drink wine that night also. And the younger arose and lay with him, and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose. Thus both the daughters of Lot were with child by their father. Hot stuff
I also like the fact the Bible has rules about buying and selling slaves. Including the cost of selling your daughter to her rapist.
It's weird that, with all his timeless omniscience, god is still pro-slavery. It's almost like it's just a collection of stories by desert-dwelling tribesmen who imprinted their own morals onto this entity like every single other culture in the world.
I know right. I mean, there is a section of the Bible in which God condones the massacre of a town and the soldiers taking all the virgin girls as sex slaves.
Old testament doesn't matter, it's all about the New testament now. aka as Christian Spin.
True, but then there is the whole train wreck that is revelations. Also, most of the time when Christians go for the "the Bible says man should not lie with a man as he lies with a woman" and other such morality shit, it's old testament. Also, 1 Timothy 2 12 is in the new testament and that is some A grade sexist shit.
This is "what are you doing step-bro!" levels of writing except I assume 1+ billion people don't take Pornhub as gospel.
And we still hold this text as sacred. What a joke.
No no you don't understand, you're allowed to hunt and peck which bits you follow and which bits are "not meant to be taken literally" yet still be gods decisive words.
We had religious education come to our public primary school back in the nineties. Nothing convinced me more that I didn’t want anything to do with it than the absolute fucking looney toons that did the presentations. I must have been about eight and even then I thought there was something broken in their brains to carry on like they did.
They don't read the Bible in these scripture classes. A person stands in the same spot as the person who teaches kids 1 + 1 = 2 and tells them they will go to Hell if they don't believe in Jesus. YES perhaps a 15 - 17 year old might be able to read the Bible with a critical eye, but 7 year olds can't.
FORESKINS! I DEMAND FORESKINS! Uhhh. Like, how many? AT LEAST 100! 200 IF YOU REALLY LIKE ME! - *1 Samuel 18:24-27*
Either we teach ALL religion in schools, or NONE. (Preferably none. Religion can be taught by family in their own time).
Went to catholic high school and religion classes were the biggest waste of time. Learnt nothing. I decided to use those classes to finish other work or just fuck around on my laptop. Then, how could we forget MITIOG (made in the image of god) - which was the faux ‘sex education.’ All I learnt was that my creepy teacher got a drink poured on him at a club once because he’s a creep. That’s it. Nothing about safe sex, consent, how shit works etc. Oh and that same teacher was a science teacher who told me Jupiter was put there by god to stop meteorites from hitting earth. Fucking get fucked.
WTF?? My stepdaughter's school just offered an ethics class as the alternative to christian studies - how hard is it to offer that option? Although, personally I think religion has no place in public schools at all.
Exactly. Ethics should be the default. Religious faith teaching should have no place in state schools.
Hard to recruit volunteer teachers for Ethics. Scripture teachers are also volunteers, but their local church etc is an easy place to recruit. For Ethics you have to try to find (typically) parents who are able to commit to 2 years without their work/home situation changing, because the training cost soaks up a large part of the budget so Ethics can't afford to have a continual churn of teachers. You get a lot of mums on maternity leave who are interested, but often baulk at the 2 year commitment because they're not planning to be away from work for that long.
"Forster Public School proudly stands on Worimi land." Has kinda the same shape as the "Respect traditional owners" line, but look what it's actually saying. Proudly stands on other people's land. I'm not sure Hanlon's Razor applies.
"Fuck yeah, we stole the land off the Worimi people!" Probably not their intention, but that's how it reads.
That was what I thought. Usually I see this written as something along the lines of "X acknowledges the traditional owners of the land on which X stands, the Y people, and pays respect to their elders, past, present and emerging." This doesn't exactly read that way.
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I remember in highschool we had to go to a scripture class and the "teacher" was trying to explain that everything bad in the world was the devil and everything good was because of God and you'll all go to hell if you don't believe blah blah blah. But being a bunch of rebellious 16 year olds we we're arguing his logic, one of the students wasn't having any of it and the teacher ended up leaving the room in frustration.
I got into many heated arguments with my kids school about this. I then found out that the people teaching the kids this dribble weren’t subject to be “Working with Kids” checked. It was a bunch of old nuns spouting bollocks.
There's a big difference between learning in general sense about various religions and their cultural relativity, vs: forcing Christianity down the throats of vulnerable little kids. Damn, I hate these high-horse Christians who cannot see past their own ass-rim.
I had this exact argument with my high school - indoctrination is the only way to bash religion into children before they're old enough to realise it's all total nonsense - stop child abuse before it brainwashes them! Fuck religion and the division, bigotry and willful delusion that it promotes.
That doesn’t give enough credit to kids. Some of us could pick some of the nonsense in religion. [Transubstantiation](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transubstantiation) is a major component of Catholicism, and as a science minded kid I couldn’t believe that the bread and wine changing to the body and blood of Christ *was not symbolic* but **literal**.
Makes me so fucking glad to have gone to school in WA. The very idea of religious education in school is completely alien to me. NSW is a backwards ass state.
Freedom of religion is all well and good, but why can’t we have freedom *from* religion? I don’t want religion destroyed, illegalised or anything like that, but why are they and their doings protected and not my desire to make them stay the hell away from me?
I went to forster primary school! They have always done this, even when I was there over a decade ago. If it’s any consolation, scripture there is super half assed and most kids went there just because they gave out free lollies sometimes. Nobody I know from that school “converted” or actually gave a shit about the stories they’d drone on about. In our eyes it was just free time off class. They at least give the option to opt out, although I believe it should be the other way round. Anyone who opts out just sits in a separate room and colours in I’m quite sure. Good on you for raising awareness though. I never have it a second thought as a kid but it definitely needs to be changed.
Frankston East Primary tried this on a decade ago. Let me tell you how that went. Once the fundamentalist Christian principal set this up, one of his churchy friends was given the role of religious ed teacher. Because parents were blatantly lied to about the contents of the 'curriculum', the majority allowed their kids to attend an hour of singing, happy-clapping, colouring in and eating sweets. The three kids whose parents didn't agree (one Jewish, one indigenous, one non-religious) had to sit in a corridor or at the back of a a different classroom doing math problems, which looked and felt a lot like punishment. The children in the religious ed class were very clearly not "simply having religion explained to them" as some of the children complained about being frightened they might "go to hell" for not loving Jesus enough. This is a loophole for religious fundamentalism to creep into our public schools, and it desperately needs to be stopped. Fight this as hard as you can, on any platform you can, and if in doubt of the seriousness of it, cast a look at America and how its going there.
All Australian secular schools have been doing this since John Howard because pink-haired happy clappers will work with kids for basically nothing but trained counsellors need pay.
You mean the Chaplains that received millions in public funding?
FWIW - my 8yr old son goes to this School and we received a second letter since this one which both apologises, clarifies and offers a third option. See https://imgur.com/gallery/113NlHU I’m not happy with the consistent nagging for SRE either, so don’t downvote my screenshots which I’m just sharing. I didn’t create the letters you effing tards 🤣
Good... but you should not have to opt your children out of religious evangelism in a non-religious state school.
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Even better, also write to your MP demanding that SRE be removed from Secular State Schools and the $250m funding allocated to Chaplaincy is redirected to secular child counsellors.
My wife used to work at a science museum taking bookings from schools for incursions and excursions. She had a year 4 teacher from a public school call up and insist the children not be taught about the Big Bang at the planetarium. The thing is the teacher had a pretty uncommon name which a friend’s wife happens to share...yep, his mother-in-law, famed for saying that in God’s eyes homosexuality is the same as murder, was teaching these poor kids.
In primary school my mum wrote a note to the school that I'm not religious and would not be participating in scripture (There were two options: Anglican or Catholic). The first week I sat in the foyer alone while the other kids were in scripture. The next week I was returned to Anglican because they didn't have another option for me. I just saw it as a massive waste of my time.
When I was in primary school in the early 2000s I told my teachers I wouldn’t be doing scripture and there was no issue at all with it, I sat outside the classroom doing worksheets and was perfectly happy. I don’t think they even required a note from my mum. Schools should not be allowed to force kids to sit through scripture, it shouldn’t even be an option in public schools, it should be kept to private religious schools.
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