Why should religion have any influence on our lives?

[FatAndFaithless]

I'm not sure I'm quite clear on that. So everyone pays taxes into the gov't, and then the gov't can use that tax money to pay for faith-based schools depending on popular...vote? So if I paid tax in England as an atheist, the government could use it for a religious school because enough Christians/Muslims/Jews voted for it?

Yes, sort of.

There is no popular vote on schooling - Education policy is held by central government but the 'green light' to new schools is given by local authorities (In the US I guess this would be federal education policy but applied independently of federal approval by local states - with those states having to [though not always] adhere to some core aspects of the federal policy)

But as I've said, England & Wales are two nations where mainstream Abrahamic religions are falling in attendance year on year. Yet faith schools are going up and up. Why? Parents 'chose' their schools by putting their children in them, not by voting. Faith schools get better grades (on average) than standard state schools, so more parents attempt to get their children into them. the faith element is irrelevant, except a faith school has the legal right here to dictate who comes to their school and who doesn't based solely on their religious adherence (so the religious adherence of the child's parents).

Fair, right?

Hrm. That does seem a bit weird to me just because that's not what I've grown up with. The rather cut-and-dry nature of the serparation between public money and faith schools in the US at least makes that aspect much more simple.