Why should religion have any influence on our lives?

[Fidel_Castronaut]

I disagree with everything you just said Michael.

Central and local governments should be in control of education policy and curriculums because how else do you possibly hope to achieve at least a uniformity of education standards? That's not the same as saying that education output should be uniform; it should be diversified.

Faith schools should be abolished and put entirely under the church's (or whatever) control, including funding, because not a single penny of public funds Should go towards them. It's an affront to secularism and hence an affront to equality and fairness. I've said it once so I'll say it again, educational standards overall trend downwards where you have a system where a school can legally discriminate based on arbitrary measures such as ' belief' because a select few then get the better resources whilst the rest are forced into inadequate and less well funded schools. Overall educational attainment in the UK has been falling year on year (classed as kids who get A-C grades in their GCSEs and compared to equivalents in other developed nations).

And no,I'm not under a gross misunderstanding of how they're funded. I know full well how they're funded and how they garner their capital. better schools attract more students which attract more money. But in fact that's no longer even the case with free schools and academies which are set up almost anywhere and by anyone and given the cash by government. Anyone can run them, including religious extremists; there's no oversight, no control. It's an utter shambles. Schools fail primarily because of money and lack of popularity induced by a system that massively skewes money away from those schools that actually need it.

It's actually utterly reprehensible that in the 21st century we have a school system that actually encourages segregation and the separating out of people based on their beliefs (or the beliefs of their parents). It's an affront to everything a secular nation should be about and I'm massive ashamed of it.

You ask why you about fund non-faith schools? It's because unlike faith schools secular schools teach everything on religion as being equal with no truth value claims. It's a truly egalitarian system and lets the children make up their own minds on what they (don't want to) believe.

And let's face it, the only reason faith schools and religious organisations don't want that is because otherwise they'd see their numbers nose dive even further. When people can think for themselves on subjects religious adherence tends to go down, doubly so when religious authorities arent allowed to interfere in structures of state.

Oh and just in case anyone was under any illusions that faith schools are growing because people want their children to be in that religion, see this poll conducted by Westminster's faith debates in 2012 over Yougov. Faith schools already have the upper hand when it comes to educational achievement so the system is naturally and continually skewed in their favour.

http://www.secularism.org.uk/news/2013/0...th-schools

http://faithdebates.org.uk/research/