Our Minds Are Our Own – Except in Wales
What was that we were saying about theocracy?
More than half the secondary schools in Wales inspected in the past four years break the law by failing to pray every day, a BBC survey has revealed. All state schools should hold an act of worship each day, either for all pupils in assembly or as a class-based prayer…The 1944 Education Act promised lessons for children up to the age of 15, created grammar, technical and secondary modern schools – and also placed worship at the heart of school life. The 1988 Education Reform Act strengthened the legislation, further defining worship in schools as wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character.
Well there’s liberty of thought for you. There’s being treated like potential future rational autonomous beings. There’s education. There’s respect for reason and science and probabilities.
There’s an odd illustration on the page – of a looming crucifix with light from church windows flooding in on it. It’s no doubt meant to look inspiring, or something, but in the context it looks far more threatening than inspiring. It looks like a bloody great bludgeon, is what it looks like.
But Archbishop of Wales Barry Morgan said instead of changing the law, schools should have more support to enable them to provide worship.
Provide. Provide. Do you mark that. Man I get tired of religious tyrants resorting to pious sanctimonious self-flattering euphemisms for what they’re doing. They’re not providing worship, they’re forcing it on people. Say what you mean, you archepiscopal bastard. Since it’s not optional, ‘provide’ is the wrong word. Tying someone down and stuffing cheeseburgers down her throat is not ‘providing’ lunch, is it.
It’s not just the hard religious sell in acts of worship, it’s asking questions about the meaning of life. It’s asking questions about what it means to live in a society where you respect others. Now all those, it seems to me, are religious virtues – tolerance, forgiveness, compassion.
Oh really – those are religious virtues, are they. Living in a society where you respect others, tolerance, forgiveness, compassion. Why? Why does it ‘seem to you’ that those are ‘religious virtues’? What reason can you possibly offer for such a stupid idea? Do you seriously think that atheists universally have no truck with such virtues? Or that all religious people are saturated with them? (Talk to the ‘Rapture’ crowd and then explain to us how full of forgiveness, compassion, tolerance and respect for others they are. I can’t wait.)
It would be idiotic to leave out faith in God in a school when that’s part of our society and when it’s part of the Christian foundation of this country
No it wouldn’t. For one thing, lots of things are part of your society that are left out in school. Same for things that are ‘part of the Christian foundation of this country’. And for another thing, ‘faith in God’ can be part of your society and part of the Christian foundation of your country and still be entirely mistaken. School is primarily for education, and it’s not educational to force people to ‘worship’ an entity that there is no evidence for. It’s no more educational to force people to ‘worship’ a deity than it would be to force them to ‘worship’ Cinderella or Elmer Fudd or Zeus.
In a statement on Friday, Welsh Education Minister, Jane Davidson, said she expected “all schools to meet their obligations under the law”. She added: “All registered pupils attending a maintained school should take part in collective worship and it is the head teacher’s duty to secure this. The systems are in place to identify any shortcomings and to ensure that the appropriate action is taken.”
And that’s that.
How ’bout two minutes silent meditation? Would that suffice? (Mind you, that’s getting very close to Sam Harris’s “spirituality”.)
How ’bout two minutes silent meditation? Would that suffice? (Mind you, that’s getting very close to Sam Harris’s “spirituality”.)
It isn’t just Wales, certainly it applies to the entirety of England and Wales. But many schools ignore it for obvious reasons.
I had my stomach so turned by reading the report that I could not, at first, focus on any one part of it to single out.
The first part of the “religious virtues” quote talks about asking questions and presents the asking of deep questions as something very positive. Are the questions allowed to be as deep as “why aren’t we free not to pray?” or they only allowed to begin after the dictate that prayer is not optional?
Monstrous that something like that could be passed into law in the middle of the twentieth century. Doubly monstrous that it could be strengthened as late as 1988.
Living “in a society where you respect others.” Except their right not to pray to your god. That that phrase is a quote from a justification of coercion probably pushes doublespeak as far as it can go. Why in hell didn’t the reporter grill him about the contradiction, ask him whether a person’s freedom not to pray is worthy of that respect?
Yes, Stewart, it is very strange that such a law exists. But the charming thing is that it is usually ignored. Common sense wins again. If you look at the inspection reports for UK schools – they are online somewhere – you will see an almost standard comment that the school was failing to comply with this requirement.
Ain’t pragmatism wondeful?
Wow, that makes two things that are online: the inspection reports and the news item drawing attention to the non-compliance, the one with the quotes from the awoken sleeping dogs about how it really must be enforced.
Maybe that’s why there’s a third thing online: B&W.
Pragmatism could lead to people realising there’s an unenforced law permitting them to make other people do things they don’t necessarily want to. Amazing how many loaded guns can lie around without ever going off. I wonder if that’s a good argument for having more of them or not picking them up and emptying their magazines?
“But the charming thing is that it is usually ignored.”
Except apparently now officials in Wales are going to see that it no longer is.
A dangerous law that is usually ignored is still a dangerous law. Like the blasphemy law, like sodomy laws, like the religious hatred law that officials keep saying will hardly ever be applied. Well that depends on who is in office, doesn’t it! It’s a tad imbecilic to propose a dangerous law and then attempt to mollify people worried about the danger by saying it will hardly ever be applied. “We’re going to pass a new law forbidding people to read ‘Hamlet’ – but don’t worry – it will be used only against very nasty people that a prosecutor really wants to punish.” Oh well that’s all right then.
“Except apparently now officials in Wales are going to see that it no longer is.”
Betcha it won’t be, even in Wales.
“A dangerous law that is usually ignored is still a dangerous law. “
Sure. But in the UK, and Australia, there is another safety net against stupid laws: people’s willingness to ignore them. In the US someone would have sought an injunction to make schools obey the law. That is theoretically possible in the UK but most unlikely anyone would bother.
I would certainly fight any new law along these lines but am not sure whether I would spend energy fighting to repeal the current one. It is a sleeping dog and there are other active and more dangerous dogs needing attention.
At least it is mere statute law in the UK. Parliament is supreme; don’t like the law, get it changed.
Not like the US, where the legislature cannot make a law regarding the establishment of a religion…
“But in the UK, and Australia, there is another safety net against stupid laws: people’s willingness to ignore them.”
But that’s not a safety net. A safety net is just what it isn’t. Because what happens when there is an opinion shift and people stop being willing to ignore the stupid coercive laws? Relying on people’s willingness to ignore terrible laws seems like a very shaky way to operate, to me.
To be sure, all ways to operate are shaky. If there are enough determined bullies around, they will eventually get their way. But the ‘ignore-the-bad-law’ approach seems to me shakier than not having bad laws on the books.