UK Secularists at Secularism.org

Campaigning to end religious privilege
Welcome to secularism

This site is designed for those who wish to be active in the secular cause - to get religion out of public life.

* We are not opposed to people having a religion. Some people need one, others don't.
* We are opposed to their attempts to impose their religious beliefs, ideas, superstitions, prejudices and laws on others.

Our primary questions to those of religion

Are you for or against the following in education:

* children being encouraged to adopt a spirit of open-minded enquiry into all aspects of life, including religion,
* children being taught fairly about all belief systems, religious and non-religious so that they can make an informed choice,
* children being taught a strong set of personal values and social responsibilities,
* children being instructed in a single religion ignoring all other belief systems?

Why are religious people afraid of teaching about all belief systems in an open-minded and unbiased way?
The danger of linking moral values and social responsibilities with religion

Religious people must always be challenged when they claim that religion is the source of moral values and social responsibilities. Not only is this wrong (such ideas are older than any religion) but it is also deeply insulting to those of us who lead responsible lives without religion.

As well as being wrong and insulting, this idea is also highly dangerous.

If children are taught that religion is the sole source of values and responsibilities, and they later reject religion - as most of them do in Western Europe - there is the danger that they will reject not only the fairy stories of religion but also everything that goes with it - including the values and responsibilities.

It is therefore absolutely essential that children are taught that moral values and responsibilities are products of what we share - our humanity and the society in which we live. They are not the product of what divides so many people - religion.

Basing values and responsibilities on the things that unite us, rather than on the things that divide us, is the best hope for social harmony.

Our current campaign - religion in schools

Summary

We are campaigning for:

• all schools to teach about all belief systems, religious and non-religious, to enable pupils to make an informed choice,
• all belief systems to be given equal status and time - with none assumed to be better than the others,
• a clear statement about religion to be included in the Parents' Prospectus and web site of all schools,
• parents and pupils to be aware of their legal rights to opt out of worship and RE,
• parents to make a positive choice about worship and RE - to opt in or to opt out,
• moral education (values and responsibilities) to be separated from religious education - neither depends on being religious,
• proper lessons to be made available to pupils who are opted out of worship and RE,
• school staff (teachers and others) not to be discriminated against because of their beliefs (see note 1).

Notes

1. By this we mean that it shall not be a condition of employment that a member of staff be a member of any particular religion.

   For some strange reason, religious groups and schools are permitted to discriminate. We do not know if this was an oversight in the current employment legislation or a result of pressure from religious groups to enable them to continue to discriminate as they see fit - against women, against homosexuals, against the non-religious or against those of other religions. No other employer is given the same right to discriminate.

2. We are opposed to the wearing of any religious symbols in institutions funded by taxpayers.

reposted from: secularuk.org
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