When I was a child, I had a note from my parents that
excused me from religious instruction. This was mainly due to my mother's
wishes. She was as staunch an atheist as anyone I have ever met. I believe the
class was somewhere from half an hour to an hour a week, during which time
myself, a Japanese kid and another boy who I now assume was Jewish, would sit
and draw or read.
It wasn't exactly wasted time, as I have fond memories of how
quiet and relaxing it was. A much more effective alternative however would have been to
have the whole class sit through a session on ethics, rationality and morality as
applied to society as a whole, taken by a real teacher.
Christian values don’t
have a foundation that can be reasoned out. The Bible is convoluted and is subject
to many interpretations, but the majority of kids in Victoria who attend our religious
instruction in state schools not only get just one religion, but one narrow
evangelical interpretation of that religion.
At present, accredited volunteers from Access Ministries,
the evangelical Christian group, provide over 90 per cent of religious
instruction in Victorian public schools. Like all evangelical ministries,
Access are on a mission to convert people to Jesus and the education department
has allowed them access to the most vulnerable and trusting element in society:
our kids.
The classroom is where you sit still, listen to the teacher
and believe what you are told. Kids aren't told that the person taking the
class is expressing an opinion and is a volunteer, and is not a teacher. When
religion is presented in this forum, even inquisitive intelligent kids may
start to believe it.
Faith is an opinion, a way of looking at the world, and is not
based on immutable facts: otherwise it wouldn’t be called faith, would it?
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