@Ruairi Gagarin: A prominant bishop suggested that children shouldn’t get confirmation until they are 16 because they have no real understanding of what they are signing up for at 11 or 12 years old.

@Sorcha Ní Shúilleabháin: I’d agree with the Bishop on that point!

@Toomasu Sumitsu: Imagine if religion class was swapped for PE? Two problems solved in one go.

@Change Everything: great idea!

@Change Everything: Imagine if started baptising correctly, Damien from the omen would have zero problems with the subverted vatican’s broken baptism rite in Baphomet. How much does the country spend on ‘mental health’ industry? solved http://ourladyisgod.com/i-Catholic-Baptism-JohnTheHereticalMasonicBaptist.php

@Ruairi Gagarin: Some extremist faiths use Sunday schools.

@Patrick Gormley: so what? Some extremists use education for religious instruction, what is your point?

@Paul Fahey: @Patrick Gormley: Don’t know lads. It’s all a bit black and white to me..

@Peadar117: come again?

@Harry Bookless: the ‘holy’ spirit is baphomet, another name for the devil.represented as the gatorade drink in idiocrasy movie from 2006. The Holy Ghost is God the fathers correct name! !

@Gkell1: I’m honoured to be in the presence of your staggering intellect #conspiracy

@Colm Connolly: about bloody time too, good to see the RC church’s grip being torn away from children’s education

@David Edwards: I wouldn’t engage David – Gkells views are not particularly well thought out or based on anything of merit.

@David Edwards: It is not so much that nobody acts surprised that astrophysics can’t associate one 24 hour day with one rotation and a thousand rotations in a thousand days, it is how people have lost their intuitive intelligence which normally enjoys the appearance of the Sun each day and stars at night as the effect of one rotation.

Newton’s entire approach to astronomical observations is based on celestial sphere rotation (RA/Dec) which in turn is based on a wrong conclusion by Flamsteed -

“… our clocks kept so good a correspondence with the Heavens that I
doubt it not but they would prove the revolutions of the Earth to be
isochronical… ” Flamsteed to Moore , 17th century

It is not about staggering intellects but how low are you prepared to go in order to ignore the common sense of the effects of one rotation including the cycle of your own body which responds to a rotating planet -

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/c7/73/27/c773275b03bb71c77a3c6ae024e5ec0c.png

I’ve muted him, he’s lost the run of himself lately.

@Gkell1: Took a look at that, and I have to say without doubt – it’s the greatest load of bovine effulent. You’re a flat earther, admit it. I agree with you when you said “make things up as you go along”, you sure as hell do that.

@A Piece of Chalk: same reaction to the collective works of Shakespeare, Roman, Greek Mythology and lets not even mention works such as Ulysses. All fiction at the end of the day.

@Sean @114: There’s a big difference between literature and indoctrination.

@Fiona Fitzgerald: Is it G Kelleher?? Muted him months ago.. spends all his money on Tin foil you know..

@Rob Cahill: It’s him. He cunningly changed his name from gerald kelleher to gkell1 so the lizard people won’t be able to kidnap him and bring him to their base on the moon……which is made of cheese.

@Gkell1: duh.

Maybe some day I will encounter an adult who wants to navigate through astronomical observations and the roots of timekeeping so students grow out of astrophysical junk not fit for the human mind. Instead the people on this planet are tethered to a worthless fiction that grew out of misusing a clock to model the Earth’s daily and orbital motions.

The problem isn’t religion, it is what the academics propose are ‘facts’ when they are a dishonour to the human race and especially the attempt to bypass the 24 hour system and Lat/long system which maintains the facts of a round and rotating planet -

http://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/history/history-science-technology-and-medicine/history-science/latitude-and-longitude

The Brits having being living with a lie for the past few centuries as they simply can’t mesh the flawed RA/Dec system with the proper Lat/Long system. Much like their politicians want out of the customs union but also don’t want a border, they can believe this so likewise their academics who can conjure up and believe anything to get themselves out of the hole they created.

Religion isn’t a problem although the Catholic Church may be but so also are the doctrines passed down through generations as ‘facts’ but are nonsensical junk. No wonder you guys can balance what is right from what is not in other affairs.

@A Piece of Chalk: you clearly don’t have kids attending RC primary schools. “Indoctrination” went out years ago. I don’t think a priest has ever set foot in my kids’ school and I don’t think they could recite half of the 10 commandments. If this is your notion of indoctrination….

@Sean @114: Teaching kids a set of spiritual principles without proof, or question, requiring them to participate in religious ceremonies and “rights of passage”, recite and learn prayers, study a religious text, all sanctioned and financially supported by the state – what would you call it?

@Elvis Polkasalad: you’d have to assume setting up a sectarian system on this island would be a bit risky

@Elvis Polkasalad: Only Non-Christian institutions can be bigoted. This is the modern era after all.

@Georgio Zizek: the church of Ireland is allowed to continue its discriminatory enrollment practices. Are they not Christian?

@Elvis Polkasalad: No they are exempt

@Paul Fahey: minority religious schools can keep their admission policies as there are usually no other choices available for miles for those students, there might only be a handful of kids looking for a place in these schools, but they should have the option. If these kids have to go to a Catholic school they have to waste two years while the rest of the class prepare for holy communion and confirmation. Most Protestant schools have high numbers of Catholic, other and no religion pupils, usually outnumbering the Protestant kids. General Christianity is taught in these schools but communion and confirmation classes are done outside school, for all denominations.

@The Risen: Your atheist-in-chief Hawkings ended up having a Christian service and a Christian burial in Westminster Abbey no less but that is no surprise.

You are not going to wait around and discuss what exactly is being taught in schools under the umbrella of science so while the Catholic Church and the clerics make an easy target, the academic priests get a free run teaching students even though astrophysics is a joke and always has been.

In your favour, the Catholic Church today doesn’t even recognise the damage it did by jettisoning its astronomical heritage after the Galileo affair even though the Pope at that time had valid objections that can only really be resolved in the 21st century.

@The Risen: mute him, seriously it really aids debate. To be honest, once you have read one of his posts you have read them all, conspiracy theorist of the highest order. Hopefully one day he will fall off the edge of his flat earth.

@Gkell1: I’m sorry Gerald, we don’t have your marbles. Did you try the lost and found?

@Change Everything: LOL!

@Paul Fahey: good advice, will do that now

@Gkell1: Ger with the best intentions I have to say you’re not well, forum like this are not a healthy place to be for you. Please keep engaging with your care providers and it’s best not to invite this kind of stress into your life

@Change Everything: I’d almost unblock to see what he’s saying but I assume it’s the same tin foil shit he always spews.

@Gkell1: Seriously…?? You alone think (and I use the term loosely) that that teaching children science is a disadvantage to them, but you believe inspirational language (whatever the hell that is?) is learned with experience.
Errr… maths is basically logic, I’m sensing and mathematicians don’t have to convince anyone of what is self evident. I have to be honest I’m sensing someone who failed his inter cert maths and has had issues ever since. Do you actually have any qualifications in anything, apart from BS?

@Gkell1: “…mathematicians have convinced the world they have some insight via equation script denied the wider population…”

Uh, because mathematicans do. Who is denying the wider population this information?

@The Risen: Agreed, heard a woman tellin her friend off because her 11 year old son believed in Santa, she said “believing in imaginary man at his age” while she went to church no doubt every Sunday bending on her knees preying to a fairy in the Sky!!! Who sits and watches while thousands f children are raped by his church and workers on earth and hundreds of thousands of children are gassed to death in death camps, while he folds his arms and says “fuk all I can do” some god??

@Philip Mckenna: God = Santa for grown ups.

@Paul Fahey: You kids are easily led, after all, what is the easiest topic to discuss than all the effects of a rotating Earth , the development of clocks for determining longitude, how your body responds to a day/night cycle and all the thousands of other topics. Then we have the 17th century Brit academics who jumped the tracks with an utterly stupid conclusion and set in motion the astrophysical junk along with its ‘scientific method’.

When you can’t associate one 24 hour weekday with one rotation then your mind isn’t working properly but you can thank Newton and his colleagues for that as they built their concepts on really dumb foundations and specifically the equatorial coordinate system which wraps the universe in a rotating ball of stars.

@Gkell1: Paul, challenge his qualifications and he avoids answering you, the reasons are obvious. He believes he alone among 7.6 billion people is right and everyone else is wrong, can offer no qualified proof, we’re just expected to take his word for it. Or he’ll copy and paste… stuff.

@Jed I. Knight: You kids are caught in a Brexit type charade where they arrived at a silly conclusion and can’t back it up thereby condemning you and others dumb enough to follow them into a hopeless mess.

https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/ireland/dublin

Between sunrise and sunset the Sun is in view while between sunset and sunrise the stars are in view so one day/night cycle corresponds to one rotation of the planet otherwise known as Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and so on.

It is because our society is so buried in these empirical nightmares like the ‘solar vs sidereal’ fiction and the exotic relativity notion that sprang from the late 17th century dumb conclusion that the real fiction is taught through the classrooms of schools and colleges. It shows a society unable to reason properly even when the history of astronomy and timekeeping is presented to undo the event which caused the damage.

Adults would know why these things are important so draw your own conclusions from that.

@The Risen: Rule does not apply to any minority religion.

@The Risen: The biggest disadvantage in Ireland’s schools is not your faith or no faith but your address and how well off your family is that’s the real issue in Irish classrooms- if your from disadvantage your left to struggle by most

@Sean @114: No – because minority religions have only a small number of schools available to them. The vast majority of Irish public schools are however catholic schools meaning many non religious children can be locked out of the public school system.

It makes perfect sense.

@AlanH -AFC: Before you get your religious panties in a twist, the article says “In a statement this morning, Bruton said that oversubscribed primary schools will not be allowed discriminate on the basis of religion.” The law will not discriminate against any particular religion. It will dis-empower all schools to discriminate on the basis of religion.

@AlanH -AFC: Because they are not over-subscribed and passing local children over in favour of children of a given faith.

@Stephen Adam: why should my taxes fund these other schools if they are going to discriminate against my kids. Did you say that this makes perfect sense? I’m sorry but it makes no sense.

@Sorcha Ní Shúilleabháin: actually some do and they get a higher level of finance per child than catholic schools. They should be included in this too and it is inviting litigation for them not to be.

@Sean @114: If the school you’re applying to isn’t oversubscribed your kids will get in regardless
If the school you’re applying to IS oversubscribed than you can’t use your religion as an additional criteria in your favour.

Which religious ethos of the school isn’t what matters.

But that doesn’t suit your narrative, does it!?

@Sean @114: Your taxes should go to fund schools for everyone.

It’s not practical to build schools for each and every faith in each and every borough. That’s why faith should have no part in public schools.

There are very few schools specialising in minority faiths atm – their purpose is solely to cater to those children. It’s perfectly logical that they would prioritise children of those faiths.

The vast majority of public schools however need to cater for EVERYONE. Hence the removal of baptism barrier.

Now when we finally get to a point where the state actually provides education with no faith formation whatsoever and the only religious schools are privately funded – then we’ll be cooking with charcoal.

@Sean @114: currently 90% of tax funded primary schools discriminate against my child so get to the back of the line with your outrage please

@Sean @114: “why should my taxes fund these other schools if they are going to discriminate against my kids.”

Because other peoples taxes including those of us without kids go to fund your kids school. It’s how society works.

@Tricia G: eh no Tricia my “narrative” is simple it’s one fair and equitable rule for all. If the angry atheists want to impose a rule on RC schools only then it is clear who is being discriminated against. The rule must apply to all tax payer funded schools regardless of religious ethos. Surely that is only fair, no?

@Rob Cahill: but that’s the status quo then Rob isn’t it? 78% of our population designate themselves as RC so let’s assume that 78% of tax payers are RC. See where this is going? It needs to be one fair equitable rule for all. Remove religious discrimination from all tax payer funded schools. Simples.

@Ian McNally: yes but 78% of taxpayers are RC. One equitable rule for all, no?

Does that mean I can go to a prvate school or is it ok to descrimate because these schools are for the wealthy even though my taxes pay the teachers

@AlanH -AFC: can’t upset Muslims

@Tom Molloy: actually catholic children will still be in a privileged position as this only applies to oversubscribed schools and still two years will largely be given over for catholic sacraments.

@Aine O Connor: Defending a dying status quo, enjoy it while you can!

@Aine O Connor: you didn’t answer the question Aine – how is the “business of religion” relevant to the baptism barrier?

And how do you know “most parents”
Are happy to have religion taught? Have you asked them?

And I think you misunderstand the word “tolerance” if you think it means accepting that tax payers money is being used by a private institution to indoctrinate children.

@Aine O Connor: what has that got to do with anything?

@Aine O Connor: did you not read the but where only 51% of marriages are now in a Catholic Church. Other studies will tell you there is a massive growth in secular weddings in Ireland and it will continue to grow.

@Aine O Connor: its a waste of teaching time. Religious education should be available outside school time if its required by parents..

@Aine O Connor: Has anyone suggested communion and confirmation should be done away with? What people are saying is that religion is a private matter and indoctrination is something that should not be part of a State funded education system.

@Aine O Connor: ‘Most parents are happy to have religion taught in schools’

Conduct a survey, did you?

@A Piece of Chalk:
I would be far more worried about the use of smartphones and what they are doing to children than the short time that is spent on religion in schools.

@Aine O Connor: Which religion Aine? All religions. If most of our schools spent several hours a week on Buddhism or Islam would you be quite so happy with it?

@The Risen:
Have you heard of a mass protests then by parents and children been taken out of schools because religion is taught in them. My Grandchildren attend a brilliant Catholic Primary School with great teachers , they love school and preparation for Communion and Confirmation is welcomed by parents . It’s a huge event for families and on these occasions the churches are overflowing . Catholics are taxpayers too.

@Aine O Connor: Short time? 2.5 hrs a week is devoted to religious education but classes preparing for communion and confirmation spend an inordinate amount of time practicing at the expense of the other subjects on the curriculum. This puts huge pressure on teachers to catch up on missed lessons and is very difficult for children, particularly those with special needs, who may be struggling with core subjects or find it difficult to cope with the disruption during sacramental preparation.

@Stephen Adam:
If this was a Muslim Country that’s what people would want but it isn’t.

@Aine O Connor: Most parents are happy to have religion taught in schools because they can’t be bothered doing it themselves. The state should not finance and facilitate the indoctrination of children into religion, and teachers should not have to accept it as part of their employment terms.

@Sorcha Ní Shúilleabháin:
Catholics are taxpayers too and in the past it was the church who established the education system in this country because the state could not. Generations of people owe their education to religious orders who did most of the work for free. Eaten bread is soon forgotten .

@Paul Fahey: Over 67% of couples have religious marriage ceremonies.

http://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/er/mcp/marriagesandcivilpartnerships2016/

@Aine O Connor: “Most parents are happy to have religion taught in schools”

Please show us the nationwide survey you did to come to this conclusion.

@Aine O Connor: Times have changed massively Aine, but the school system hasn’t. And it wasn’t all a one way street you know, the church got hold of young impressionable minds which guaranteed a dedicated following, influence at high levels of the state and a huge income stream for years.

@Aine O Connor: bad news. it’s a secular country Aine.

@Paul
I have been to secular weddings and they were lovely. After all it is the couple who are marrying each other and they can choose a Church, a Hotel, the top of a mountain, the important thing is their love for each other and the vows that they take.

@Stephen Adam:
Not according to the last census.

@Aine O Connor: I would some of the census figures with a pinch of salt Aine. For example a lot of people still tick the catholic box due to their upbringing, they are culturally catholic. Many really should be ticking the no religion box if they are being honest with themselves, I did for the first time at the last census. A survey of young people a few years ago who said they believed in god was just 37% – http://www.thejournal.ie/students-religion-ireland-1035328-Aug2013/

@Aine O Connor: we’ll share the same outlook for children in education then, because it should not matter what religion their parents believe in.

@Jonathan: the article states that marriage statistics for 2017 show 51% of marriages were a catholic ceremony.

@Aine O Connor: Pffft – you’re not living in the real world Aine.

@Aine O Connor: Aside from the few big days out religion plays little or no role in the daily lives of most people and the number of people marrying into the Church is rapidly declining. People tick the Catholic box on the census for cultural and historical reasons rather than as a reflection if any strong faith. The Church is haemorrhaging followers and our education system should reflect this secularisation of Irish society. You’d quickly see how strong parents faith is if they had to prepare children for sacraments themselves or forgo the Sunday lie in to take their kids to faith formation classes. You seem to be holding on to an Ireland that is dead and gone and you’re prepared to ignore the facts to do so.

@Aine O Connor: but still evidence of the mass delusion of faith. All religious expression is part of human development but it, like all stages of development will cease to be needed as we move on the the next stage. We are living in that transitional stage.

@Aine O Connor: the teachers might in some cases have worked for very little, but the orders who employed them were paid in full by the state. The notion that religious orders provided education at no cost to the state is a myth. In fact, they spotted an opportunity to fill a gap in an emerging state and to control the minds of an entire population by ‘faith formation’, or what is more correctly termed ‘indoctrination’. Just to .make sure that this system was never challenged, they also provided education in elite schools for the children of the rich, in order to control the people who would be in charge.
It was a stroke of genius by McQuaid and his cohorts, but it’s time is coming to an end.

@The Risen: she asked the other Marys at the rosary meeting.

@Aine O Connor: Parents don’t know what they are doing half time. I had to listen in religion class to how we should look at the sun at miracle sites, go to Hell if we sin sexually, and even the very idea of Hell is dangerous for a child. The child is encouraged to Bible read but the Book spends ages on commanding abuse and violence and hate and very little on love. The Church uses crafty selective readings in chapel to hide the truth about this evil book.

@Stephen Adam: Our money goes to indoctrinate children full stop. All education is indoctrination.

@Ron O’Keefe: An interesting view of it. Am I to take it then that you’re against all education?

My particular problem is with religious indoctrination paid for by the tax payer, and with the State acquiescing.

@Stephen Adam: I am not against all education. I was responding to your comment about our tax money going to state sanctioned religious indoctrination of children in our schools. I am not thrilled about my taxes supporting any kind of religious indoctrination. But let’s face it, all education is indoctrination. It is just another one of those necessary evils.

@Ron O’Keefe: All education is indoctrination? I don’t subscribe to that.

Mathematical principles, sciences – these are provable facts. No based on blind faith.

Poetry, music, literature – these things help us analyse and understand which develops the ability to assess and question what we’re presented with rather than accepting on blind faith.

Languages help us converse with other nations and cultures so that we might be exposed to new ideas.

Indoctrination is requiring people to accept beliefs without question. Proper education enhances the very notion of questioning everything.

So no – can’t say all education is indoctrination.

@Stephen Adam: I can say it, and I just did. There are absolutes, but education is molded by the ones doing the educating. Indoctrination in the education system occurs covertly by virtue of it being done by human beings who bring their own baggage into the classroom. It can’t be helped.
It occurs overtly because governments have agendas for each generation being educated. This isn’t that hard of a concept to grasp.

@Ron O’Keefe: uhuh. I’d invite you to read the definition of “indoctrination”. Then ask yourself how much you are required to “accept on faith” in modern education.

@Stephen Adam: Yeah, whatever you say. Feel better now?

@Stephen Adam: the point being it states you have the right to travel to a faith school if you want, the same way you have the right to travel to a non faith school. It’s your choice, don’t enforce your beliefs or lack of them just because the school on your doorstep doesn’t suit your beliefs or views.

@Jonathan: and you think that’s acceptable? That the state refuses to educate its own citizens and relies on a private institution? Personally I find that totally abhorrent and a gross dereliction of duty.

As for providing alternatives many children just sit at the back of their class while religion is going on or simply put in another room due to a lack of resources. For the most part they don’t receive any actual beneficial education during these times.

That’s before we even consider the effect on children of being singled out from their class mates during religion class and ceremonies like confirmation.

It’s totally indefensible that the state sponsors this sort of indoctrination and segregation in its classrooms.

@Brian Smith: ridiculous Brian. What happens to the poor child if there is no local educate together or secular school? What’s your answer then? The child does without education??

For all the catholics banging on about “tolerance” and “acceptance” they’re remarkably unwilling to accept that children of other faiths need equal access to education.

I guess it really demonstrates how deep their principles of love and acceptance actually go.