Faith School Menace? Page #5

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One might say that humans are innately driven to

be divisive and to form tribes and to separate out,

and there are plenty of ways

in which that can happen -

skin colour, language - but religion

is a pretty good one to do it with,

and isn't it a gratuitous one

that we could do without?

Oh, certainly not. Religion has

been here for thousands of years

and will continue to be

until the Lord comes back again.

But does it have to be so divisive?

I personally don't

see it as divisive.

You don't? You live in Ulster

and you don't see it as divisive?

No, I don't see it as...

I see it as us having differences

and hopefully we can work

through those differences.

The differences relate to our

theology, the way we worship.

I believe all our churches are in need of a Reformation

and I'd love to see another Reformation come.

Perhaps at the deepest level of

my concern about faith schools

is the assumption I'm encountering

that children are somehow

the property of their parents,

and their parents' religion.

It's all about parents' choice,

and I found that strongly echoed

on the Catholic side.

MAN:
Our Catholic schools,

our Catholic ethos adds value,

gives a sense of belonging,

a sense of community.

That's what parents

want for their children.

A child, to a parent,

is a very blessed thing,

and the vast majority, almost all

parents, will do what they think

is right for their child.

Is that not a legitimate human right?

Oh, it's certainly legitimate.

Oh, it's certainly legitimate.

But you don't agree with that?

Well, I have all sorts of issues

with faith schools...

But you clearly don't agree

with that. Let you state that.

OK, I worry about segregation

of children in any way,

not just in Northern Ireland, on the

basis of their parents' religious opinions,

because it seems to me

that religious opinion is

a pretty odd way in which

to separate children out.

Richard, I think we need to nail this

one - do you believe that parents

have the human right to choose the

education for their children or not?

Well, I think they do...

That's the core of

what you're asking me.

Do you afford parents the human

right, and it is a human right...

I also...

.. to choose the system of education

that they wish for their children that's most

consistent with their beliefs and understanding of life?

Now, you're seeking to impose your view

on other people, and I think that's wrong.

I think you should respect everybody

from... Are you a parent yourself?

Yes.

Well, what do you have

for your children?

What do I..?

What do you have for your children,

what do you want them to do?

I want them to be open-minded.

I want them to be sceptical.

I want them to ask

critical questions.

I want them to seek knowledge

for its own sake.

I do not want to impose

my own views on them.

Good. I respect that.

What you said is a perfectly

legitimate view,

but you should afford other people

the same respect.

Once you begin to engineer

or begin to thwart parents

in terms of parental choice,

you really enter dictatorship,

Richard,

maybe that's where you want to be.

No, I don't want to get into that...

No, I don't want to get into that... But

that's what you're essentially saying.

You come at this from a premise that

here's what you think is right.

I'm coming from the premise

that parents should be

allowed to make choices.

I do believe in taking the faith

out of faith schools and, yes,

that would impinge on both Reverend

Gibson and Mr Flanagan's rights as parents

to choose

their children's education.

But look at the result

of parents' rights

as exercised in Northern Ireland.

Are parents' rights so important

that we allow them to risk

dividing the two communities

forever?

The trouble with rights is there are

conflicts between opposing rights.

What about the right of

free expression

versus the right not to be offended?

In the case of education, children

have rights as well as parents.

Children have the right

not to be indoctrinated,

not to have their parents' beliefs

forced down their throat,

but to make up their own mind

after a proper, balanced education.

FAITH SCHOOL MENACE?

There goes a right-wing Tory child.

I see there's a socialist child

over there,

a group of Lib Dem children

over there.

What we have got here? A group

of logical positivist children.

An existentialist child there.

It's absurd, isn't it?

We wouldn't dream of

labelling children like that.

And yet, when it comes to religion,

our whole society is happy

to talk about a Catholic child,

a Protestant child, a Muslim child.

Why the double standard?

I've already set out why I think

presumptions like this, rooted in

the very idea of faith schools,

are a growing menace.

But I don't want to just attack.

I passionately believe

there is an alternative,

and I want to persuade you that

education is better without faith.

I feel strongly about this because,

when I was a boy, I thought very

traditionally and believed in God.

But it was education

that allowed me to change my mind

and unleashed my curiosity.

Any teacher or parent may

influence children in many ways.

We all have baggage.

So how do we best respect a child's

right to learn with a truly open mind?

Young children are uniquely

vulnerable to simply believing

what adults tell them,

so my starting point

would be to give them tools

to sort fact from fiction.

When my daughter was ten, I decided

to write a letter to her asking her

to think for herself about how

we know the things that we know.

"How do we know, for instance,

that the stars,

"which look like tiny pinpricks

in the sky,

"are really huge balls of fire like

the sun and are very far away?"

I mentioned one good reason to believe

anything's true, which is evidence,

and I mentioned three bad reasons.

There's tradition,

"Believe it because our people

"have always believed it, it's

been handed down over generations".

"The trouble with tradition

is that no matter how long ago

"a story was made up,

"it is still exactly as true or

untrue as the original story was. "

There's authority,

"Believe it because your parents do,

believe it because a priest does,

"believe it because a teacher does

or because a holy book does".

That's another bad reason

to believe anything.

And finally "revelation",

believe something because it just

feels right. "And next time somebody

"tells you that something is true,

why not say to them,

"'What kind of evidence

is there for that?'

And if they can't give you

a good answer,

"I hope you'll think very carefully

before you believe a word they say.

"Your loving Daddy. "

I'm fascinated by the way

children start piecing

together how the world works.

I've come back to Windmill Primary

School to look at

a new scientific study of how

children are naturally biased

to believe certain kinds of

ultimately religious explanations.

We've used a variety of different

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