Taking Secularism a bit too far.

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  • Enoch wrote: »
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    The minute before class is stupid anyway. If one feels the need to have a moment of prayer, they can do it before leaving their homes. Prayer in schools is completely, and purely, a power play.
    My apologies for saying this @lilbuddha but adding "is completely, and purely," turns what might be an interesting comment into no more than factious rhetoric.

    It may be that in your own culture this has become solely a matter of power politics, though if things have reached that state, then it will follow that not having prayer in schools is also "completely, and purely, a power play". I suspect that in France, which as @Gramps49 is the culture this thread started as being about, this may be so. If so, in any culture, that is sad. But there have been and are plenty of other places and other cultures where this is not so, and other where there may be elements of this, but there are other elements and other issues involved as well.

    Enoch:

    What, in your view, would be an example of a place where prayer-in-school would not be a power-play?

    The only example I can think of that MIGHT qualify would be Korea, where children, regardless of their religious background, can be sent by government order to Catholic Salesian or protestant mission schools, in which, up until a court ruling a few years ago, they could be compelled to attend mandatory religious services. I suppose, given that Christians are not a historically dominant group in Korea, forcing Buddhist kids to attend prayers over here wouldn't be the same as, say, forcing Jewish kids to recite Christian prayers in American schools. Though I think it's still an attempt by the churches to compel other people to worship as the churches prefer, and as I say, the courts did deem it a violation of peoples' rights.

    Also, in jurisdictions(eg. certain Canadian provinces) where parents choose to send their kids to religious schools, there's not the same degree of coercion in those schools as you have with prayer in public schools(because the parents, at least, want their kids to pray).

    But in a Christian-dominant nation, it's hard for me to see how having mandatory prayer in public schools could be anything but a power-play. Again, I'm open to competing examples.
  • lilbuddha wrote: »
    The minute before class is stupid anyway. If one feels the need to have a moment of prayer, they can do it before leaving their homes.

    I disagree about the 'do it before they leave their homes' part. Part of prayer for many is communal, and doing it at home is not the same as doing it in the presence of others. It should NEVER take place during classtime however. Some kids in some places have started a "pray around the flagpole" tradition, where they meet and pray before school starts. I can see no reason to tell them to stop (and indeed the ACLU defended them when administrations told them to stop). As it is student led and no staff were involved, I cannot see it as a power play.
  • Enoch wrote: »
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    The minute before class is stupid anyway. If one feels the need to have a moment of prayer, they can do it before leaving their homes. Prayer in schools is completely, and purely, a power play.
    My apologies for saying this @lilbuddha but adding "is completely, and purely," turns what might be an interesting comment into no more than factious rhetoric.
    "You said what you said to mean, therefore any logic or relevance is gone"
    Enoch wrote: »
    It may be that in your own culture this has become solely a matter of power politics,
    Gramps mentioned the US and that is the culture I was referencing.


  • mousethief wrote: »
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    The minute before class is stupid anyway. If one feels the need to have a moment of prayer, they can do it before leaving their homes.

    I disagree about the 'do it before they leave their homes' part. Part of prayer for many is communal, and doing it at home is not the same as doing it in the presence of others. It should NEVER take place during classtime however. Some kids in some places have started a "pray around the flagpole" tradition, where they meet and pray before school starts. I can see no reason to tell them to stop (and indeed the ACLU defended them when administrations told them to stop). As it is student led and no staff were involved, I cannot see it as a power play.
    It is difficult to separate out the politics of prayer in schools from the sincere devotion.
    I was reading an article by an Asian American woman about how she didn't think she could be racist as a POC. But she came to realise that she had absorbed it from it being baked into American culture.
    Christianity is not different. It is baked into American culture to a degree that it is easy to miss.
    I'm not saying the kids should not be allowed to pray on school grounds before the day officially starts, what I am saying is that it cannot be cleanly separated from cultural issues.
  • So, they should be allowed, but they shouldn't because it's culturally ... what?
  • I said they shouldn't? I must be typing in a disappearing font, because I don't see where I said that.

    I'm saying that praying at school in a visible way, especially by Christians, is not a neutral act regardless of the intentions of those praying.
  • lilbuddha wrote: »
    I'm saying that praying at school in a visible way, especially by Christians, is not a neutral act regardless of the intentions of those praying.

    So what? What follows from that? What are the consequences of a bunch of 13 year olds voluntarily praying in the morning on school grounds?
  • As a counterpoint to the marking of territory that seems to categorise religion in education in both France and the US, it may be worth comparing with the UK, where many schools, particularly at primary level, are a joint effort between religious groups and the state, with parents able to feel that their beliefs are respected and the state able to regulate the education received by children in faith schools. It's by no means a perfect system but it doesn't seem to result in the same battles as in the avowedly secular nations. The flaws come in the imbalance of provision (there are a lot of CofE and RC schools and very few Muslim, Jewish, or other Christian schools) and the problems that can occur when the only nearby school is a faith school.
  • Arethosemyfeet--

    If the gov't here got involved with private religious schools to the extent you seem to indicate, there'd be hell to pay. The schools and their supporters would see it as gov't interference in religion.

    Question: In the UK, how much do people trust the gov't to get things right, do what's in the best interest of its citizens, to be wise about it, and to Do The Right Thing? (Not including the queen in that.)
  • DafydDafyd Shipmate
    edited November 2020
    I think we're more likely to distinguish between the government (Johnson and his gang, whom nobody sensible would have trusted as far as they could throw them even before Johnson lost weight) and public bodies such as the NHS and state schools, which are generally well regarded.

    That is, government in the UK tends to refer to the ministers of the particular party in power plus advisers, rather than the permanent civil service, staff of public bodies, and so on.
  • RussRuss Shipmate
    If the options are that the government decides (whether there shall be prayer) or that the schools (which means the boards of governors, who would typically comprise representatives of teachers, management and parents) decide, then I'd guess that most in the UK would be for schools deciding.

    Anyone for subsidiarity ?
  • EnochEnoch Shipmate
    stetson wrote: »
    Enoch:

    What, in your view, would be an example of a place where prayer-in-school would not be a power-play?

    The only example I can think of that MIGHT qualify would be Korea, where children, regardless of their religious background, can be sent by government order to Catholic Salesian or protestant mission schools, in which, up until a court ruling a few years ago, they could be compelled to attend mandatory religious services. I suppose, given that Christians are not a historically dominant group in Korea, forcing Buddhist kids to attend prayers over here wouldn't be the same as, say, forcing Jewish kids to recite Christian prayers in American schools. Though I think it's still an attempt by the churches to compel other people to worship as the churches prefer, and as I say, the courts did deem it a violation of peoples' rights.

    Also, in jurisdictions(eg. certain Canadian provinces) where parents choose to send their kids to religious schools, there's not the same degree of coercion in those schools as you have with prayer in public schools(because the parents, at least, want their kids to pray).

    But in a Christian-dominant nation, it's hard for me to see how having mandatory prayer in public schools could be anything but a power-play. Again, I'm open to competing examples.
    @stetson since you've asked me a question I'd better try to answer it.

    I wasn't really taking issue with the possibility that there might be issues of power, dominance, argument about who gets to influence the public sphere. What I was really taking issue with, as I hope was clear from what I originally said, was the dogmatism and absolutism in @lilbuddha's ""completely, and purely,". It was that which I said turned the post into "factious rhetoric".

    I don't really accept the response that this was referencing US culture. In a multinational debate on a multinational board, which had originally started with French culture, if one makes as bald an assertion as @lilbuddha's, and only mean it to apply to one's own culture, then one should make it clear. Otherwise, it reads as either a universal assertion or the assumption of an implicit cultural imperialism to anyone from somewhere else.

    I'll say no more as I think @Arethosemyfeet has answered the rest of your question. One of the things I value and find interesting on these boards is how it reveals how dramatically different the assumptions people in different countries make, and how they see what might look like the same argument in completely different terms.

    I would, though, repeat my view that if one regards having prayer in school as a matter of power-play then forbidding it is also power-play. I can't really see any way of arguing otherwise.

  • Golden Key wrote: »
    Arethosemyfeet--

    If the gov't here got involved with private religious schools to the extent you seem to indicate, there'd be hell to pay. The schools and their supporters would see it as gov't interference in religion.

    Yeah... the "government interference in religion" ship sailed just under 5 centuries ago. Faith (or rather church schools) were more-or-less nationalised when the state belatedly decided to start providing free education around the turn of the last century. Everything since then has been a tug of war over who has the greater say in how they're run (and the role of faith in non-denominational schools).
  • Plus having an established church.
  • mousethief wrote: »
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    I'm saying that praying at school in a visible way, especially by Christians, is not a neutral act regardless of the intentions of those praying.

    So what? What follows from that? What are the consequences of a bunch of 13 year olds voluntarily praying in the morning on school grounds?
    I was mainly pointing out that the idea is not solving the problem. The consequences are the continued entrenchment of Christianity in the US culture and all that implies, cf the most recent SCOTUS decision.
  • Enoch wrote: »
    I don't really accept the response that this was referencing US culture. In a multinational debate on a multinational board, which had originally started with French culture, if one makes as bald an assertion as @lilbuddha's, and only mean it to apply to one's own culture, then one should make it clear. Otherwise, it reads as either a universal assertion or the assumption of an implicit cultural imperialism to anyone from somewhere else.
    So, my supposedly "absolutist" statement is out of bounds, but this absolutist condition from you is not? Interesting. As are your assumptions about whose culture is what.
    Enoch wrote: »
    I would, though, repeat my view that if one regards having prayer in school as a matter of power-play then forbidding it is also power-play. I can't really see any way of arguing otherwise.
    The US is supposed to be officially disestablished. Removing prayer from school is not therefore a power play, it is maintaining the supposed system. It has no direct effect on religion. The indirect effect is that the state doesn't participate in indoctrination.

  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    edited November 2020
    The US is supposed to be officially disestablished. Removing prayer from school is not therefore a power play, it is maintaining the supposed system. It has no direct effect on religion. The indirect effect is that the state doesn't participate in indoctrination.

    I agree with this statement. When I was in grade school, I lived in a community that was heavily Mormon. I think there were only 10 out of 65 at my grade level that were not Mormon. All of our teachers were Mormon. Before the Supreme Court ruling barring prayers in school, the class prayers and Bible readings heavily reflected Mormonism.

    I was 14 when SCOTUS handed down its opinion that such rites were not permitted in the Constitution. It had quite an impact on our school.
  • RussRuss Shipmate
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    The US is supposed to be officially disestablished.

    I thought this thread was at least partly about the difference between a state that is deliberately neutral on matters of religion (neither for nor against) and a state that is hostile to religion.

    A state that is truly neutral can seek to protect its citizens from being coerced or pressured into participating in religion. As long as it equally protects its citizens from being coerced or pressured into not participating in religion.

    Forbiddng prayer in schools is not neutral. Forbidding compulsory prayer is not necessary for neutrality but is compatible with it.
  • Deleted
  • stetsonstetson Shipmate
    edited November 2020
    @Russ
    Forbidding compulsory prayer is not necessary for neutrality but is compatible with it.

    If the state allows COMPULSORY prayers in schools, how can that be anything but non-neutral? The schools are agents of the state, and if they say to the students "You have to stand up every day and say the prayers of a particular faith", it seems pretty clear to me that they are choosing sides among the various faiths and belief(or non-belief) systems.



  • la vie en rougela vie en rouge Circus Host, 8th Day Host
    edited November 2020
    Also assuming that by "forbidding compulsory prayer in schools" means France, it's not accurate. Prayer is allowed in private schools, not to say warmly encouraged in many of them. I think even in private schools it's not compulsory as such (the private Catholic school we are hoping to send Captain Pyjamas to allows you to opt out of catechism) but it seems like a rather odd choice to send your child to a Catholic school and then opt out of all the Catholic bits - why wouldn't you just choose another school?

    At any rate, prayer is only banned in state schools. It's worth noting that schools under contract with the State, which most Catholic schools are, generally aren't very expensive (the one we are looking at is €1200 a year for infants, going up to €1800 in High school). Obviously that's out of reach for some families, but plenty of fairly modest families can afford it if they choose to.
  • I'm not sure of what is meant by 'private prayer in public schools' In public schools in Scotland, the schools, although sponsored by the state, that is mainly the local authority plus the state, are the agents of the parents, rather than agents of the state.
    Most schools in Scotland are 'non-denominational' which means that the schools will understand how important religion is to some parents and also how irrelevant it is to other parents. Certainly in most schools in the past there would be some time set aside for the major Christian festivals of Christmas and Easter, where pupils would be invited to attend a local church, where a local clergyperson would lead prayers. That seems to have disappeared in the central industrialised part of Scotland but I think that ministers are still invited into schools. I have rarely heard, however, of public 'private prayer' in non-denominational schools.
    About 20% of Scotland's publicly sponsored schools are Catholic, where parents will freely choose, for various reasons ,to send their children. Obviously there are public prayers said in these schools and children would learn the forms of the most commonly known 'Catholic' prayers, but they cannot be forced to say them. Similarly, even in Catholic schools it is now rare for pupils at the secondary level to be invited to attend a local church for a school Mass. On special feast days Mass will be said in the school and pupils may attend if they wish.
  • When I was in public school (provincially funded) we sang O Canada, said the Lords prayer, had announcements and then sang God Save the Queen. I was a rare person to go to boarding school which was religiously affiliated. None of that happened there. When my children were in school, the prayer and God Save the Queen was dropped.

    Re religious liberty, several additional religious groups have had arrests and fines. There's no right to religious gatherings in violation of public health orders such as they are. - but isn't the point whether people think of themselves as part of communities and societies or as special and apart?
  • RussRuss Shipmate
    stetson wrote: »
    @Russ
    Forbidding compulsory prayer is not necessary for neutrality but is compatible with it.

    If the state allows COMPULSORY prayers in schools, how can that be anything but non-neutral? The schools are agents of the state, and if they say to the students "You have to stand up every day and say the prayers of a particular faith", it seems pretty clear to me that they are choosing sides among the various faiths and belief(or non-belief) systems.

    Not at all. A neutral state can allow schools to choose. Or can rule that individuals have a right to choose (in effect outlawing compulsion by the school in either direction). What a neutral state cannot do is choose for people.

    But if you see the state as providing (rather than supporting) education, then clearly the state has to choose what to provide.

    Here teachers are paid by the state but employed by the governing body of the school. I gather in France it's rather more centralised...
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