One School of Thought Campaign launch open letter calling for Integrated Education
The One School of Thought Campaign has sent an open letter to our MLAs calling on them to reform education here. The group is pro integration: they call on the Education Minister to:
To establish a Commission in this Assembly term. This Commission should be charged with:
• Bringing forward recommendations to resolve all the outstanding issues in education;
• Ensuring that these recommendations shape a system fit for the 21st Century in which all children learn and are taught together in their local area.
In addition they call for the minister:
• To establish an area based planning framework that includes local people as well as other educational stakeholders to plan education on the basis of demand and demonstrable need;
• To ensure that all schools and communities are actively supported in developing local solutions which encourage meaningful sharing between and within schools;
• To remove any impediments, legislative or procedural, that would hinder greater sharing in education.
The letter is signed by a wide variety of people including actress Joanna Lumley, ex political candidate Trevor Ringland, businessman Diljit Rana and comedian Tim McGarry. An Anthony McIntyre is also included though it not clear if it is the well known blogger and IRA murderer of that name as it is spelt differently. In addition assorted organisations such as the Northern Ireland Council for Ethnic Minorities, the Institute of Directors and Cooperation Ireland amongst others have signed the letter.
It is unclear to what extent the campaign associates itself with Peter Robinson’s calls for integrated education though there seem to be significant areas of agreement. Nor does the campaign comment directly on the issue of selective education where its views may be different.
Whether John O’Dowd will support the campaign’s aims is far from clear. O’Dowd has previously attacked Peter Robinson’s call for integrated education though he has stated: “The principle of children going to school together, no-one can argue against.”
Topic: Politics, Society and Culture
Region: Northern Ireland
From personal experience, I have to state that whilst I have found that people who have attended integrated schools to be quite open, I have found that Catholics who have attended State Schools to be quite sectarian.
They seem to replace culture with sectarianism, are embarrased that they cant play Gaelic games and know nothing of Irish history, no to mention not a syllabal of the Irish language.
Not very rounded individuals and not what I would want for mine kin.
abucs:
When we talk about the Reformation i see that basically as the state take over of Christianity.
Secularism rejects both state power over religion and religious power over the state.
Your idea of secularism is based on the presumption that religon does not matter.
Absolutely not. It is based on the presumption that not all that matters is automatically the business of the government.
Eddie:
You’re right, the devil is in the detail. But we’re never going to get around to discussing the details unless we first agree that it’s a project worth pursuing at all.
“I have found that Catholics who have attended State Schools to be quite sectarian.”
Eddie, as a ‘Techie’ do you find the same experience from those who attend FE colleges? I found no examples of this at BIFHE (now Belfast Met). I found a lot of pupils who couldn’t give a stuff about religion.
In fact I find quite a lot of people under 30 .don’t give a stuff about religion. It seems to be literally dying off.
abucs, I was not attempting to defend all Christianity, just making the point that it is a complex picture – I am not a Marxist (too lazy to do the reading) but take a longer view,being an archaeologist, not an historian, You can call me a ‘bigot’ for saying this but please, can someone tell me anything that was good about the Spanish Inquisition, because I am still definitely getting the idea that it did nothing positive for Catholicism in the long run & was not a lot of fun for those on the receiving end of a visit from the Inquisitors.
The Church did a fair amount of suppression of scientific advances (Copernicus, Galileo) – perhaps this was part of a wide resistance to change (lots of cruelties by lots of religions in the name of defending the faith). Don’t see ‘re-conquering’ the Iberian peninsula as a particularly brilliant event either, Muslim occupation of Spain was not barbaric – there is a lot of archaeological evidence for intricate & v productive irrigation systems & many beautiful buildings remain . For the period, there was comparative tolerance -the expulsion/massacre of the Jewish community did not occur until re-occupation by Christians. I don’t feel the need to defend Christianity in the past (or the Mayans, or the Spartans, or whatever they were doing at Newgrange)- it’s the present & the future we need to look to, & however interesting it was, the only useful thing about the past is to learn some lessons from it.
Andrew Gallagher
“Christian ecumenism? What about Muslims Sikhs Buddhists etc?”
Ecumenists are willing to enter into dialogue with all religions. But there are few Muslims Sikhs or Buddhists in Ireland. Ireland has a tradition of Christianity and the majority of its people are Christian of various denominations and with varying degrees of commitment. Christian Ecumenism promotes dialogue among disparate Christian Churches with the purpose of establishing co- operation understanding among the churches. So Christian Ecumenism is right for Ireland. The theory behind integrated education is the building of unity between the two communities. In integrated schools why not make the spirit and core value of the school Christian ecumenism and promote in the school ethos a spirit and core value of dialogue co-operation and understanding among the divided churches in Christian Studies?
“You’re pontificating here.”
I try not to but to advance coherent rational dialogue based on fact. I encourage you to do the same.
“It was you who brought up the 10% schooling statistic. Do you disown it now?”
Not at all but you misinterpret the statistic. What I wrote was that in the formation of attitude the home has a weighting of 60 the community has a weighting of30 and the school has a weighting of 10. This means that in the formation of attitude the school is only of minimal significance. This should be taken into account by enthusiasts of integration who go overboard about the panacea of integrated education to effect social change.
“We already have anti- discrimination legislation.”
This supports my position in effecting change in sectarian attitude. Legislation by central government can change discriminatory attitude. Schools won’t do that.
“ You can’t abolish sectarianism by fiat.”
No you can’t but you can change a constitution which is the root cause of sectarian division and create a better constitution for all Ireland in which sectarianism will wither away.
“I know many members of the orange Order including several family members. Of course there is sectarianism within the OO but it is neither universal within it nor limited to it.”
I admire your attempt to white wash the Order but myself and others see it as sectarian and racist. My reasons for writing this are: -
(1) In its behaviour the Order flaunts in public a union flag that Is sectarian and racist ( the union flag isn’t sectarian and racist in GB) but it is in N Ireland. This is observable as the flag is only seen in British Protestant ghettoes. The Irish Tricolour is equally sectarian and racist as it is only seen in Catholic Irish ghettoes What is needed is a flag that can be flown by all irrespective of creed or ethnicity. The creation of such a flag is a complex constitutional matter but the creation of such a flag can be found at http://www.authorhouse.co.uk
(2) Membership of the Order is wholly Protestant and British. I will accept that the Order is non-sectarian democratic and non-racist when its membership includes Catholics. I made this suggestion to a friend and she said that would be the same as blacks in the Klu Klux Klan. Be that as it may eventually the Order will have to change its sectarian and racist charter and admit Catholics if it is to cease being a sectarian and racist bone of contention in Ireland.
(3) IT may be that there is an element in the Order who see in an imposed universal integrated system of education the means whereby the Catholic community can be engineered into an acceptance of the UK constitutional status quo and can be bamboozled into voting for the DUP. This skulduggery may have been at the back of Peter Robinson’s mind when he called for the introduction of integration here. This is just a passing thought but who knows .
Partition Declaration of a Republic Direct Rule Devolution.
All of these are partial and ineffective changes. Partition divided the country into two sectarian statelets protestant 6 counties with the Act of Union 1801 as its constitution and Catholic 26 counties as a Free State with a nondescript constitution. The 26 county statelet was constituted as Eire in 1937 but was revamped as a Republic in 1948 This 26 county constitution was partial and ineffective and the constitutional arrangement for the island was resented by many and this arrangement for the island perpetuated sectarian division.
Direct Rule abolished the Stormont government but left the 1801 Act of Union intact in the 6 counties. This had no Impact on sectarianism.
Devolution The setting up of governments for Scotland and Wales was a major constitutional change for GB. Devolution in N. Ireland left the1801Act of Union in place and with the GFA put a sectarian assembly into an already existing Stormont. Nothing changed.
“We already have a changed constitution.”
In what way? As noted there is no significant change in N. Ireland but the existing constitution remains a bone of contention in the Statelet.
“WE found a solution that was acceptable to the vast majority in Ireland.”
Does Sinn Fein agree that we have found a solution to the constitutional issue. Those in the establishment who say that need their heads examined. For thirty years Sinn Fein supported a campaign of violence by the Provisionals to bomb and murder the constitution out of existence. The current political set up in N. Ireland Is just a staging post to their ideal of an all Ireland Socialist Republic. What It sought by the bomb and bullet –the overthrow of UK constitution – it now seeks by democratic stealth. Each election here is a sectarian head count of those who vote for parties supporting the constitution and for parties rejecting the constitution so in what sense is the constitutional problem solved. To say so is establishment conservative hype.
“You are suggesting tearing the whole thing up and imposing a solution from Westminster.”
You are putting words in my mouth. What I’ve published is a suggested National Government of Ireland Act which would give a written constitution for all Ireland within a Federal Kingdom making the Crown Head of State in Ireland and making Ireland a sovereign united nation like Australia and Canada. This written constitution would be arrived at democratically in Ireland and wouldn’t’ be imposed by Westminster just as the Australian and Canadian written constitutions were arrived a t democratically. The full account of this can be found at http://www.authorhouse.co.uk
“OF course I don’t know how to respond your proposals are insane.”
You’ve abandoned reason and are now dealing in insult so you’ve lost the plot. I can assure you I’m of sound mind. I reckon those politicians and members of the establishment who support and justify an insane sectarian constitutional cock-up on this island need their heads examined. Your problem is that you’re a conservative whose mind is closed to new ideas
Michael Gillespie
t
You can call me a ‘bigot’ for saying this but please, can someone tell me anything that was good about the Spanish Inquisition
It did give us a classic Monty Python sketch,
Scáth Shéamais – forgot about that! Not sure if it totally compensates for the auto- da -fé though.
Paragraphs Michael, Paragraphs, and less of them.
With regard to Galileo and Copernicus. The first thing to say is that the idea of the Earth going around the Sun in the modern West was, like many other of our basic scientific principles a concept that came from the Church. Copernicus was a Polish monk who was asked to look into astronomy in order to calculate an accurate Church calendar. Mathematically he thought it was more credible that the Earth went around the Sun rather than the other way around. He wrote his findings and presented it, dedicating his book to the Pope. The Church used a calendar based on Copernicus for the best part of a century before the final trial of Galileo. Many in the Catholic hierarchy accepted that Heliocentrism was a fact but there was no proof. Ricci who was a Jesuit priest and a teacher of Galileo accepted Heliocentrism and taught the Chinese as much. The Pope at the time of Galileo’s trial was also a one time supporter of Galileo. Keppler, an astronomer and a convert to Catholicism and someone Galileo derided also accepted Heliocentrism. The scientific communities that Galileo belonged to were dominated by Jesuits and Dominicans. There had days of honour praising Galileo from these Catholic orders. Galileo of course was a Catholic. Two of his three daughters were nuns. His uncle was an Italian Bishop. He was a personal friend of two Popes. You can’t get any more connected in the Catholic Church than Galileo.
Now Galileo got in trouble for teacher Heliocentrism without proof. His initial trial gave a finding that he could continue to teach Heliocentrism as a theory but not a fact until he had proof. After Galileo’s personal friend became Pope he went back to teaching Heliocentrism as a fact. Now the parallel today would be if someone was teaching in our schools that String Theory is a fact. It may turn out to be true (I don’t think so) but we would not allow someone to teach it as fact unless they had proof. We would, as the Church decided (and remember they were the ones who largely developed and ran the scientific enterprise) tell the String Theorist to only teach it as theory. If later, as with Galileo, he ignored that directive and taught it as fact, our educational bodies today would ban that teacher without a second thought. Now at the time of Galileo we could not prove Heliocentrism. One problem was that the Earth needed to be spinning for there to be Heliocentrism. Galileo mainly argued the tides were a demonstration of the Earth spinning. The scientists who were against him at the trial correctly showed that the position of the moon caused the tides that were observed twice a day. One of the main problems with the Heliocentric view was the lack of stellar parallax at the time of Galileo. This was the main scientific argument which was presented against him at the trial and which there was not to be an answer for the next 200 years.
Now Galileo was 70 years old at the time of his trial and had been respected and valued and praised as a member of the Catholic Intelligentsia. The Pope for example gave him a Papal pension, presumably for his contribution to science. He continued to receive this pension after his trial and the Pope wrote to ask if there was anything he could personally do to make Galileo more comfortable after his sentence. Now the Church sentence was to basically tell him to stop practicing science and to be confined to his rural villa. We know from letters written after the trial that Galileo did in fact practice science and published his science. He also was not confined to house because we know he attended parties and an Archbishop offered that he stay with him for 6 months. Now as mentioned, Galileo could not prove Heliocentrism, he was over 70 years old, he was going blind and largely his sentence was a farce.
Galileo’s nemesis Keppler with his idea of elliptical orbits (which Galileo derided) was the main impetus for the proof of the Heliocentric theory. This was after Galileo’s natural death and the Catholic Church did what any scientific foundation today should do. They accepted the findings and converted Churches across Europe to be astronomical observatories bolstering the gathering of scientific knowledge. For example, many of the craters of the moon are named after Jesuits. As mentioned it was 200 years before the problem of stellar parallax was solved. Also, the Catholic priest Boscovich was the first to be able to give the orbit of any planet given any three points of observation.
Our education system needs to be comprehensive not a cut down version that leaves our students impoverished when they depart and being prey to any bad philosophy which uses as its rallying call a campaign against the Church.
Now Atheism is basically a subset of Christian thinking. It takes the science of the physical world and leaves out everything else. If as was suggested above we teach what is common to us then we are in danger of teaching an Atheist view. If Christianity is decided to not be taught because it is ‘not common to all’ then what we are asking for is an impoverishment of education. Many Atheists will not have the foggiest idea of where ‘their’ science came from. They will continue to say and believe silly things like :
1) The Bible says the Universe was made in 6 days by God but science has shown us the Big Bang Theory.
They will say this and not know that the Big Bang comes from the mind of Belgian Cathoic priest Georges Lemaitre.
2) The Bible says the Earth is 6000 years old but science has shown us it is billions of years old.
They will say this and not know that the scientific field of paleontology with the different layers of Earth containing us different historical strata and fossils came from the mind of the Catholic Bishop Nicholas Steno.
3) The Bible tells us the world runs on fairy tales but science has shown us it runs on natural mathematical scientific law.
They will say this and not know that the idea of mathematical law as the base of physical reality came from the mind of the Anglican Theologiam Isaac Newton who wrote in his preface Principia Mathematica that he hoped the idea of the physical world run by scientific law would help thinking people to see there was a God.
4) Christianity gives us useless prayer and close minded thought whilst science gives us the scientific method and proof and experimentation.
Christianity believes in useless prayers to cure sickness whereas science has given us antibiotics to kill microbiotic germs.
They will say this and not know that the scientific method was first codified by an English monk and was used by Priests and Bishops from the 12 century onwards including Father Roger Bacon and Bishop Grosseteste.
5) Christianity tells us we are all created by the individual choice of God but science tells us that we are the product of our genes.
They will say this and not know that the Father of Genetics is the Austrian monk Gregor Mendal and the first three laws of genetics are named after him.
6) Christianity does not investigate nature because it takes things on blind faith whereas science has taught us the secrets of the atom.
They will say this and not know that the father of physical theory and the first mathematical description of the atom was from the Catholic priest Roger Boscovich who theorized in the 1740’s that matter was made up of dimensionless points in fields of attraction and at very close distances repulsion. He theorized about the different arrangement of these points causing different properties of matter.
7) Christianity says that God created man but science has told us that we come from primates and share a common ancestor with other life.
They will say this and not know that Charles Darwin was a Theologian and a regular Christian when pursuing his science before becoming an agnostic in later life.
They will say this and not know that the founder of microbiology was the Christian apologist Louis Pasteur from whose Christian thinking theorized and then proved micro organisms.
I could go on and talk about Boyle, Albert the Great and more but I think I’ve made the point. If Christianity is seen as something that needs to be removed from schooling then we are receiving an impoverished education. An impoverished education that today has created a plethora of people who have absolutely no idea of the Christian underpinnings of not just culture, health and education but science as well. To be ignorant of Christianity is to be ignorant of our history and what works. We’ve made the silly mistake of being influenced in the past from Marxist leaning universities. Let’s recover from the ignorance that has caused. Let’s not make it worse by falling again for silly arguments on why Christianity needs to be marginalised.
Michael:
But there are few Muslims Sikhs or Buddhists in Ireland. Ireland has a tradition of Christianity and the majority of its people are Christian of various denominations and with varying degrees of commitment
Just because Ireland has been traditionally so, does not mean that it is the state’s business to either maintain or suppress that tradition. And just because there are fewer non-Christians does not mean they have fewer rights.
the formation of attitude the school is only of minimal significance.
10% is far from minimal. Considering that 60% is “in the home” and therefore untouchable, schooling is 25% of what is left. I call that significant. Also, leading by example can have a powerful, cumulative effect on that untouchable 60%. This is not an instant fix, this is a generational project.
No you can’t but you can change a constitution which is the root cause of sectarian division and create a better constitution for all Ireland in which sectarianism will wither away.
The constitutional argument is not the cause of sectarianism. There has been sectarianism in Ireland for four centuries, and every one of those centuries has seen at least one grand constitutional scheme founder on the rock of that sectarianism, whether it be legislative independence, union, home rule, partition or direct rule. The answer is not to introduce yet another grand constitutional scheme. It is to fix the underlying problem, which is the sectarian quicksand that we keep trying to build these constitutional structures on top of.
What I’ve published is a suggested National Government of Ireland Act which would give a written constitution for all Ireland within a Federal Kingdom making the Crown Head of State in Ireland and making Ireland a sovereign united nation like Australia and Canada. This written constitution would be arrived at democratically in Ireland and wouldn’t’ be imposed by Westminster
This is self-contradictory. Would Ireland be a sovereign nation like Australia, or a member of a Federal Kingdom?
Do you honestly believe southerners are going to vote to reintroduce the monarchy and go back to Home Rule? Your accusation that I am closed to new ideas would carry more weight if your own ideas were new.
abucs:
Thanks for the information dump, but you’re still confusing atheism and secularism. There is nothing in secularism that is a danger to any religion – secularism merely stipulates a level playing field.
Yes, many scientific advances were made by committed Christians. You have conveniently forgotten to list any of the countless Muslim scholars who contributed to scientific knowledge in the years when scientific learning almost disappeared from Christendom, or those of any other faith, or those of no faith. Scientific progress is judged on its own merit.
What i am saying is that the Western Scientific enterprise came from the Christian Churches. No other group be they Muslims or atheists gave birth to the scientific revolution in such depth and support and yes i am aware of the Muslim scientists.
One of the observed problems of secularism is that it tries to be equal to all religions. If Christianity is better in some way (such as with the birth of Western science) it is deemed to be tolerant and plural to represent other religions as just as well. This is the fabrication and impoverishment of Education that i referred to earlier.
Also there is a ecumenical bent which tries to combine religions which is your ‘common beliefs’ and there is a bent to remove obstacles for common belief. So with Christians and Muslims, the idea that Jesus is God is downplayed. With Christians and Atheists the idea there is a God is downplayed. In the end we get Atheism taught as the default. Barnes talks about the way this develops in the following links.
Links showing the problems other secular juristictions have had in going down similar roads and how education ends up in parallysis because people fight over the curriculum.
In Britain.
http://www.rpi.se/pdfer/Educators/009.Barnes.web.pdf
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13617670801954601#preview
http://www.mendeley.com/research/the-misrepresentation-of-religion-in-modern-british-religious-education/
In Australia
http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/eserv.php?pid=UQ:23624&dsID=Loria_UQeSpace_InformationPoverty.pdf
In the U.S.A.
http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/education/ed0188.html
Secularism is supposed to mean that there is not a state religion. It ends up asking for all religions to be treated the same and as this is unworkable it heavily pushes for religion to be left out altogether as a practical solution.
This is largely what committed Atheists want, so in practice in Western countries a secular approach lays the rules for dismissing religion. Hence in America there is no money given to Religious Schools and there is no prayer allowed in state schools. It is easier for the state simply to remove any vestige of religion from its fundng and operations which is not what secularism was supposed to be about.
There is the question of whether it is healthy for a state to run education at all. It should make rules to regulate education but i don’t believe it should run it. The practice in many Western countries is to use the state to run education and then to have the ridiculous idea that to be neutral the state should not allow any religion in schools.
Christianity in law has no more right that Stonehenge Warlocks and so both are given the same treatment under Secularism. Courts will not rule any other way given the Atheist definitions of secularism that have been supported in Western courtrooms. It does practically throw Christianity out of the education system.because Christianity can have no special place, otherwise the twisted definition of secularism is deemed to be breached.
BluesJazz, you make an interesting point about young people & religion- doubt very much even among older people if the actual practice of religion has as much effect as the perception of a ‘Protestant’ or ‘Catholic’ identity- take a look at the chapter by Katy Radford on the absence of religious knowledge & practice among a group of enthusiastic Protestant Drumcree protesters .
http://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=1yXtNkRrAwUC&oi=fnd&pg=PA136&dq=Hen+roost+choir&ots=MrHz81rCES&sig=5dchviY3gpKRMbVuo3fBwXELQzk#v=onepage&q&f=false
Not sure how likely that total blank on practice is among Catholics as part of going to a Catholic school is the ‘opportunity’ to attend religious services on a regular basis but someone may well have some info, never ceases to amaze what people can find on any subject.
You can’t get away from it even on equality monitoring forms by patiently writing ‘I belong to no religious faith’, you must tick a box indicating ‘what’ you are & if you tick ‘neither’ they demand to know what schools you went & assign an identity based on that. Another argument for non-sectarian education!
Abucs,
So long as education remains a right and not a privilege, the state must fund it. So long as the state funds education, it must be impartial. Whether the state should actually run the education system is a separate discussion.
Your arguments amount to nothing more than special pleading. You say secularism must be resisted because it allows Christianity to be attacked. Well, tough. If your faith is worth anything then it is worth fighting for in the battle of ideas, just like every other idea. You want it to hide behind the might of state coercion, employing the tyranny of the majority. How fragile your faith must be.
Sounds a little like the minority pontificating and not understanding why the majority won’t do exactly what they’re told.
To support a situation where the Catholic Church in Ireland is treated exactly the same way as Stonehenge Warlocks is ridiculous.
I’ve shown quite clearly practical examples and the legal process that the secular mindset enforces which banishes all Religion from education.
I’ve shown the impoverishment in Education it brings and the skewed playing field where having all religions treated the same means that even if one is more verifiable, more scientific, more popular, more accepted, more successsul in creating social harmony and progress, more international and more historially credible than the secular mindset means that this religion is attacked unfairly to create the illusion that all religion is the same. Hence the myths of the 20th century in our universities.
To the secularist all religions are human constructs that can be tinkered with. No religion can be afforded a degree of credidibility over any other religion at any stage. Hence we have secularly skewed education systems that treat Christian thought as exclusive, narrow minded and intolerant. It must be brought down and other religions promoted to acheive an artificail equality.
Only the secularist that treats all religions the same is seen to be modern, pluralistic and tolerant. Of course because all religions cannot be true the secularist sees all truth claims in religion as ultimately false and only human cultural creations.
A legal system based on the secularist mindset likewise has no choice but to see all truth claims as intolerant and wrong – hence the minority secularist mindset in law does not create a level playing field.
It creates a playing field where ‘non religion’ must legally dominate.
People have the right to live in safe houses and fly in safe airplanes. The Government neither has a monolpoly on building houses nor a monopoly on running airlines. Neither should they have a monopoly on schools.
And having a minority secular view dominate a compulsory state education system is an insult to Irish culture and intellect.
If you want non religion in schools then guess what? You get off tour backside, gain support and build your own schools just like the Christians have.
I also meant to include this interesting link in yesterday’s post regarding the topic of Religious education in secular British schools and the idea of a ‘Level Playing Field’.
Developing a new post-liberal paradigm
for British religious education – http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13617670701251389#preview
For those that do not have university access here is an excerpt.
“Criticism, crisis and revolution
As multi-faith, phenomenological religious education rose to prominence in the 1970s, certain weaknesses about its capacity to further the social aims of multicultural education soon became apparent to teachers. The notion that acquaintance with the beliefs and values of minority groups by itself will considerably reduce religious prejudice enjoyed little support from experience. More specifically, questions
began to be raised about the capacity of pupils to enter into the experience of others and develop a positive attitude to difference by the phenomenological technique of ‘bracketing out’ their own convictions and commitments. A psychological perspective on children’s cognitive development shows that most pupils in primary schools are
incapable (conceptually) of adopting a viewpoint contrary to their own (the evidence is summarised and discussed in Kay, 1997). At this stage in their cognitive development
they are not able to adopt a third-person perspective on situations and experiences.
The method of bracketing one’s own beliefs and entering into the mind-state and experience of others in order to gain an appreciation of their beliefs is compromised by the psychological and imaginative limitations of many pupils; in some cases limitations that endure until well into secondary-level education. These considerations should have caused proponents of phenomenological religious
education to question some of the theological assumptions and commitments that underwrote their position, but it did not; in a sense their prior theological commitments acted as obstacles to a proper assessment of both the nature of religious intolerance and the means by which it can best be overcome.
Instead the liberal paradigm was revised (it is ‘liberal’ in the specific sense that it expresses Liberal Protestant
commitments and assumptions). While admitting that the phenomenological technique for acquiring a positive attitude to religious diversity was limited, ongoing research that identified a link between notions of superiority and prejudice was received (uncritically) by some prominent religious educators as confirming their assault on religious claims to finality, in the conviction that in so doing they were
simultaneously undermining racism and religious intolerance. In acknowledgement both of weaknesses in the phenomenological approach and of revisions to the liberal
paradigm, the term phenomenological religious education gradually fell into disuse to be replaced by multi-faith religious education. The theological commitments,
however, remained the same. The link between liberal religion and tolerance was also maintained, though the meaning of tolerance was subtly reinterpreted to refer to the
value of seeing religious truth in the beliefs and values of others.
cont …
The unity of religions and tolerance in British religious education
The conviction that the different religions are each spiritually valid is constitutive of the liberal paradigm of British religious education. This is the one single proposition
that runs like a thread through much of the post-confessional history of British religious education, often implicit as in phenomenological religious education (see
Marvell, 1976; Hay, 1977), but increasingly explicit (see Johnston, 1996; Radford, 1999). Dennis Bates is particularly forthright in his identification of the theological
roots of the liberal paradigm in British religious education and of its religious commitments (and indeed of his support for it, see Bates, 1996, pp. 97–98):
A clear expression of the link between a liberal commitment to the truth of each and every major religion and the development of tolerance is found in the work and
writings of John Hull. (I have explored and criticised Hull’s position in a number of writings and the barest summary only is required in this context, see Barnes, 1997,
2002b.) In an editorial in the British Journal of Religious Education in 1992, Hull introduced the word ‘religionism’ to refer both to the view that one religion is true to a
degree denied to other religions and to the attitude of superiority that expresses itself as intolerance towards adherents of other religions (Hull, 1992, p. 70; cf. Hull, 2000,
p. 76). It is the denial of the truth of other religious traditions than one’s own that in his opinion is the cause of religious bigotry and intolerance. In his view one of the central aims of religious education in schools is to deconstruct notions of religious uniqueness. This interpretation of religious education’s contribution to social and moral education, predicated on the same liberal theological commitments, is widely affirmed by British religious educators. Geoff Teece, for example, has recently proposed that (the influential British philosopher and theologian) John Hick’s theological
advocacy of religious pluralism, according to which there are many equally valid and authentic ways of salvation, provides a ‘foundation’ for religious education.
Teece entreats religious believers to be ‘epistemologically humble’, by which he means that they should conclude that their own religious convictions are no better warranted than the religious convictions of others. The assumption that the different religions represent different but complementary revelations of the divine, he believes, supports learning and teaching in religious education and its inculcation in the young will contribute to a ‘fruitful’ and ‘appropriate critical education for the twentieth-first century’ (Teece, 2005, p. 39).
There are two critical issues that arise. First, there is the issue of why the theological and religious commitments of one particular form of (what was originally) Liberal
Protestantism thought are privileged in this way. In a pluralist society where the truth of religion is disputed and where no single form of religion commands widespread allegiance, it is inappropriate to use publicly funded schools that are intended to be accessible to the whole community to further one particular religious creed, in this case the
Liberal Protestant creed of the unity of religions (see Barnes & Wright, 2006, for development of this point). The second critical issue is the way in which commitment
to the thesis of religious unity has led to the misrepresentation of religion in education, and ironically contributed to the failure of religious education to realise the very aims that it misrepresented the nature of religion in order to achieve (see Barnes, 2006)!
The nature of religion and respect for difference
To inculcate in pupils the idea that the religions are complementary and not in competition
with each other clearly contradicts both the contemporary self-understanding of most religious adherents and the doctrinal logic of the different religions. Traditionally
and historically, adherents of the major religions have regarded themselves as advancing alternative claims to truth and as sustaining rival identities: this is the clear implication of their respective sets of beliefs and doctrines.
One normally contrasts Christian religious identity with Muslim religious identity; one does not typically think of an individual as both a Muslim and a Christian. Religious identities can be exclusive in a way cultural and ethnic identities are not (this of course does not entail that religious identifies are fixed and unchanging); this explains why individuals ‘convert’ from one to the other; often such conversions are on the basis that the new religion is believed to be true to a degree denied to the old religion. To present the different religions in the classroom
as acknowledging the truth of each other is to falsify the self-understanding of most religious adherents and misrepresent the teaching of their respective religions.
There is a further level at which misrepresentation of the nature of religion occurs when religious education is entrusted with the mission of teaching (or implying) that
the religions are all equally true; and again it involves minimising the importance and the plain sense of religious doctrines. In order to effect reconciliation between the
different religions it is necessary to revise their beliefs. The Qur’an cannot literally contain the very words of God because other religions are condemned as less true.
Christians cannot believe that Jesus was God incarnate, for this in turn entails that Christianity has a uniqueness denied to other religions. Christian theologians such as
John Hick (1973, pp. 120–147) and Maurice Wiles (1992, p. 77), for example, who press for a more inclusive attitude to other religions, acknowledge that some of the cardinal doctrines of the different religions have to be revised and reinterpreted. But this is a revisionary perspective pursued by Western academics who aim to change the
way religions and religious adherents interpret and conceive themselves. Recognition and acknowledgement of this is absent from modern British educational discourse.
What is offered to pupils in schools is a particular vision of what religion should be (as reconstructed by liberal theological interpreters), not what it is; this move towards
the idealisation of representations of religion is further encouraged by the refusal, inherited from phenomenology, to subject the truth of religion to close analysis and
criticism.
The educational strategy of convincing pupils that the religions are in essential agreement (or its use as an implicit assumption that directs the nature and course of
religious education) actually undermines respect for difference in a further more serious sense. Consider the logic of the strategy. One is encouraged to accept adherents of other religions and to relinquish intolerance of them on the ground that their ultimate convictions are in agreement with your own. You adopt a positive attitude to
‘the Other’ (Levinas, 1969) because the other shares a similar and complementary commitment to the divine. Acceptance of the religious Other is predicated on religious
agreement (in essential experience). But this carries the implication that no such respect for difference may be forthcoming in those cases where there is genuine
disagreement—no respect for those who resist the liberal temptation to view all religions as true. If there were true respect for religious difference there would be no need
to attempt to convince pupils of the essential agreement between the religions (either by explicit or implicit teaching and methodologies). In a sense the liberal strategy has
the capacity to ‘demonise’ the Other just as effectively as those who believe in the exclusive nature of the truth of their particular religious commitment and community.
The line between insiders and outsiders is drawn in a different place, this time between inclusivists and exclusivists rather than say between Muslims and others, or
Christians and others, but the same binary distinction is employed. Respect for religious difference is compromised when those who are to be accepted and affirmed must first relinquish any claim to uniqueness or religious distinctiveness.
Our narrow reflections in this section have pursued one central point only: to justify the claim that there are criticisms of beliefs and commitments that are essential to the liberal paradigm of British religious education that cannot be deflected or satisfactorily answered. Given this situation what is needed is a new post-liberal paradigm for
religious education that simultaneously overcomes the inherent weaknesses in the old liberal paradigm while subsuming all that is best in it.”
Hello minervabradley,
you asked previously about the Spanish Inquisition and about Galileo. I’ll just add an interesting link to my previous reply. It is to do with Stellar Parallax and the possiblilty that even Galileo suppressed scientific information that was against the Heliocentric model. As mentioned previously, the science at the time of Galileo was not favouring heliocentrism. The Church went with the best conclusions of cience that was available at the time. As we do today.
http://legacy.jefferson.kctcs.edu/faculty/graney/CMGRESEARCH/PhysicsAstro/PIPGalileoforWeb.pdf
The Universities have tried to pull down Christianity in many ways be they the Spanish Inquisition Myth dealt with earlier or the Hitler’s Pope Myth or the Flat Earth Myth or the Dark Ages Myth that was alluded to above or a dozen other Myths besides.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Ages_(historiography)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_Flat_Earth
In an age of internet research these Universities now are backtracking on these claims but unfortunately many peoples minds were turned against Christianity because of this secular Marxist campaign of last century and the twisted education given to many Western people.
Two free online books that deal with many Catholic Clergyman i have not yet mentioned who helped to create the reason, logic, knowledge and scientific way of thinking we have inherited from them today are as follows :
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/34019/34019-h/34019-h.htm
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/34067/34067-h/34067-h.htm
and the same books again if the above doesn’t work …….
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/34019
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/34067
http://www.manybooks.net/titles/walshjj3401934019-8.html#
abucs,
Minorities have the same rights as you do. Get used to it.
To support a situation where the Catholic Church in Ireland is treated exactly the same way as Stonehenge Warlocks is ridiculous.
Catholics are treated the same way as Warlocks on buses. Catholics are treated the same way as Warlocks in Dunnes. Catholics are treated the same way as Warlocks in the dock. That is not ridiculous, it is fundamental to a fair society.
even if one is more verifiable, more scientific,
No religion is any more verifiable than the others. If that were so, then faith would have nothing to do with it. Luke 4:12 has something to say about that.
more popular, more accepted,
… within a small country of 5 million people …
more successsul in creating social harmony and progress, more international and more historially credible than the secular mindset
That is an arguable point. It is certainly not widely accepted.
Of course because all religions cannot be true the secularist sees all truth claims in religion as ultimately false and only human cultural creations.
Yet again you are confusing secularism with atheism.
It creates a playing field where ‘non religion’ must legally dominate.
It creates a playing field where all religious views have equal status. That does not mean that all religions are the same, or that all religions are false. It simply means that schools cannot show favouritism to any religious viewpoint (not even atheism).
The Government neither has a monolpoly on building houses nor a monopoly on running airlines. Neither should they have a monopoly on schools.
Again you are confusing two different arguments. Whether the government should have a monopoly on schools is a separate issue.
If you want non religion in schools then guess what? You get off tour backside, gain support and build your own schools just like the Christians have.
This is a specious argument. Most church schools are funded from taxpayers’ money.
You seem to be afraid that if Christianity loses its privileged position in the schools system then it will be damaged. One look at the USA should disabuse you of that.
Catholics and the Catholic Church are two different things. So are Stonehenge Warlocks and the fanciful Stonehenge Warlock coven.
I belong to a society where Catholics and Stonehenge Warlocks are treated the same on buses etc. I don’t need to get used to anything. That is one of the benefits of the society that i belong to and i am proud of it.
You betray a demonising of the other when i don’t accept the ridiculousness of your attempts to force every government agency and process to have equal representation of the Catholic Church and Stonehenge Warlocks.
The parallel would be like claiming all sports need to be treated the same. So Gaelic Football has to be treated the same as Australian football. No matter that vastly more people in Ireland play and want to watch Gaelic. Too bad! The state should (according to your mentality) represent each equally in schools and on Government TV. Public decisions for funding is forced to ‘treat’ Gaelic football and Australian Rules the same. This is ridiculous.
Of course it’s not just Australian rules. Fox hunting and sumo wrestling and downhill skiing must also be represented and funded equally. We can’t forget the minority amongst us that play ice hockey. They have rights too! If we are going to use public money to fund a Hurling stadium, well it just won’t be fair unless we build a publicly funded ice hockey stadium as well. We have to build a cock fighting stadium as well, i nearly forget them. How intolerant of me!
Don’t forget cock fighting! You might not like it but a minority do. They have rights too. Get used to it. If you want to fund soccer in our schools you have to also fund cock fighting.
How ridiculous that mentality is?
Fairness? Rights? Equality? What a load of crap. It’s nothing of the sort. Only secular Marxism can dress up dictated injustice as fairness and equality.
If ever such a stupid idea was ever brought in it would be the quickest way to kill off sport there is. Being fair to all sport in this silly way would mean that the Government would abandon sport altogether.
At the 911 memorial in New York there was no Church officials or priests present. This is the forced outcome of treating all religions the same. Because you can’t have the 483 different religious representatives on stage and you can’t discriminate between religions, you have to treat them equally. Government has to banish all religion from all public occasions. This is quite obviously an anti-religious push to force religion out of the public square. It’s ridiculous and an insult to the intelligence.
I have detailed the same push in education where all religions have to be treated equally. If the curriculum says something nice about Christianity and Science (the topic that i’ve highlighted) it also has to look around and find something nice to say about the Hindus, Shiite and Sunni Muslims and yes the Stonehenge Warlocks. If one particular religion seems to be getting too much curriculum coverage – maybe because of the inconvenient truth that a large section of the students are of that religion; or that it actually has contributed largely to a particular field then the secular mindset will either attack that religion to portray a more “balanced (but inaccurate) view” or it will look to take that learning out of the curriculum (again inaccurate) to obey a warped sense of equality. Either way this ‘being fair to religion’ rubbish means misrepresenting and attacking religion and eventually looking to remove it from public consideration by using public money.
This is the secular Marxist process wrapped up in pseudo fairness and equality. It is a minority dictating to the majority, wrapping it up in pseudo equality and believing anyone who disagrees is intolerant and wants to push Stonehenge Warlocks off buses. This warped sense of right and wrong in the pursuit of one’s own interest and exclusive sense of morality against the majority view marks the characteristics of the worst of secular Marxist regimes of last century.
This silly mindset you are demonstrating came straight out of the secular paradises of last century of the USSR and China.
This was their contribution to the cold war. Now both of those countries whose ideology you have fallen for are today looking to include religion in their education, culture and social services and pay for it out of the public purse.
How crazy is this? Spending public money on something that a great deal of the public are interested in and which produces great results for society. Who would have thought that this is what government is supposed to do? Obviously that is not one of the main concerns of the secular mindset. Perhaps that explains a great deal why they all fell over last century.
In their countries the silly mindset you advance was used for 3 or 4 generations. It was a big mistake and now you are left following it when they have moved on. The Communist Party in China now donates land to the Catholic Church and spends public money to build Catholic Seminaries and creates thousands of Catholic priests to go out all over Commuist China and better Chinese society.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11020947
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/aug/28/china-future-christianity
http://business.highbeam.com/62876/article-1P2-16087342/3rd-ldchina-exclusive-china-opens-largest-seminary
I can’t believe there is anybody left so stupid enough to continue on with the forced removal of religion from society of last century while the practisers of this ideology, found this idea so disastrous for their societies that they drastically changed direction and have gone in the other direction.
We can’t be so stupid to repeat their mistakes and they were huge mistakes.
abucs,
Your sporting analogy does not work. Sports are not mutually exclusive. Rugby-playing parents do not generally get offended if their children are taught hockey or table-tennis in school.
At the 911 memorial in New York there was no Church officials or priests present.
I don’t know. It may just have been politically easier to avoid having to decide whether to invite an imam.
This silly mindset you are demonstrating came straight out of the secular paradises of last century of the USSR and China.
No, it came from France and the United States. The USSR and China were not secular, they were atheist. They actively shut down churches and suppressed religion. The United States and France are secular states where religious belief has historically been protected, although there has been a worrying anti-Muslim sentiment in both countries of late. Once again, you demonstrate that you do not understand the difference between secularism and atheism.
(BTW I find it ironic that you extol the virtues of the ersatz Chinese state “Catholic” church, given your earlier complaint about the Reformation being the state takeover of Christianity.)
You do have a point about false notions of objectivity. This is a problem generally, and not just in the religious sphere. We must however be careful to separate the objective study of religion from religious instruction. It would of course be ridiculous if the topic of religion were not even to be mentioned in history class.
But the issue is whether there should be religious instruction in schools, and that includes the implicit religious instruction that hides behind the word “ethos”.
I am not praising the Chinese system of Government i am merely stating that their secular approach has now been abandoned because it did not work. They now actively fund religion. I am not saying i agree with their particular system just that their previous policy was not viable.
The sporting analogy is quite valid but your comment about being offended does carry weight. We can decide to be offended by whatever we wish. If we enshrine being offended as a way of taking out that in law that which we object to then we start to build up a cultural mindset of demonstrating we are offended at anything we don’t like. That is not how a social democracy works.
Those that could then convince government that they are offended the most can get their way. That seems like a very corosive attitude to promote in inter community communication.
In a social democracy if people want to play tiddly-winks then that is their right. But they don’t have the right to be funded by the state to the same degree that football is publicly funded. They have the right to be offended by football but they can’t use their being offended as a way to get rid of public funding for football.
The only thing more silly than this demand is the person who is against all sport but who wants to take up the case for the tiddly-winkers and declare how much better society would be if we treated tiddly-winks and football the same. Then they wouldn’t be so personally offended!
That’s not how a social democracy works. If people want to play tiddly-winks and there are enough of them in a geographic location; if it is good for society and there is enough ongoing community support for tiddly-wink funding then they can petition the government to spend their own tax money on tiddly-winks.
This is social democracy working from the bottom-up, not a dictatorship from the top-down. The tiddly winkers cannot stop the public funding for the much larger football population who do have an ongoing support base and who do a lot of good for society and who pay a substantially larger portion of taxes.
If people want non-religion as a school ethos they can either mount a secularist coup as they did last century and dictate from the top-down (which ultimately failed) or you can work within a social democracy from the bottom-up and get together to form an ongoing viable non-religious community who can demonstrate doing a lot of good for society and who would like their own schools in the geographic locations where those non-religious communities have numbers to justify it.
To dictate all schools must mandatorily follow your program without even trying to demonstrate viable ongoing communities is the equivalent of a legal secular coup, an attack on social democracy and an insult to your much larger group of fellow citizens who have continually demonstrated ongoing viable communities across the whole country.
We have to be careful we don’t argue for a mandated ideology to be able to dictate social engineering from the top-down without regard for community wishes and without regard to the proven failure that this social engineering has produced in the past . It failed big time everywhere it was tried and caused a lot of economic hardships, social injustice and human rights violations while at the same time claiming itself to be universally enlightened, just and fair to the same society it was in the process of repressing.
No, the sporting analogy does not work. Religious belief is not comparable to sport; it is much more important. That is why religious belief is specifically mentioned in human rights law and sporting participation is not.
Perhaps my use of “offended” was unhelpful. Let me try again. It is not a violation of your rights as a parent for me to teach your children tiddlywinks. It is a violation of your rights as a parent for me to teach them Islam.
There are two ways to avoid violating the rights of parents not to have their children instructed inappropriately in religion. The first is to make sure that every religious denomination has its own schools. The other is to take religious instruction out of school and find another way to do it (e.g. Sunday school).
The first method works so long as there are a small number of denominations, each with enough adherents to support their own school. It is rigid and has undesirable side-effects such as communal segregation.
The second method always works. Nothing is lost that cannot be replaced by out-of-hours teaching, and parental choice is increased. Complaining that your children don’t get religious instruction in school is like complaining that you can’t buy pre-buttered toast.
“Your sporting analogy does not work. Sports are not mutually exclusive. Rugby-playing parents do not generally get offended if their children are taught hockey or table-tennis in school.”
No but if they were taught Hurling and handball there could be a problem, therein lies the difficulty.
Thank you, Eddie. Yes, many who object to integrated schooling do so from a religious point of view, like our abucs. And then there are those for whom the religious argument is a convenient cover for communalism.
The goal of integrated education is not simply anti-sectarianism. It is also about building a single society. One of the main reasons that division is so entrenched in NI is that all aspects of society have parallel divisions. Sport, religion, politics, music, language – all are segregated along roughly the same lines. Most people feel uncomfortable mixing and matching across these dividing lines and so problems in one arena spill into others. Every disagreement quickly becomes political. CSI is about decoupling these divisions from each other.
Yes, there will always be Catholics and Protestants, Unionists and Nationalists, hurling and cricket. But they don’t have to be monolithic blocks where you choose between set menu A and set menu B. We need an a la carte approach to our society, where individuals can take part in whichever cultural mix suits them personally, and not just the rigid ones that are handed to them by their upbringing. This requires exposing children to the alternatives and giving them the confidence to make their own choices.
Andrew, a few things from what you have said. If religion is so much more important as you say, then the state should not remove itself from religion. The state is an elected group of people for the purpose of overseeing important things.
Next, it is not against any charter of human right to teach my kids Islam. It may be against certain charters to make them a Muslim or to make them take part in Islamic ritual against their wishes but it is not a illegal to teach them Islam or to be immersed in an Islamic culture.
Next you say that there are two ways for their human rights not to be violated. Not withstanding i’ve just demonstrated that there are no rights that are being violated, it is also true as you have said that one of the ways for doing this is to remove all religion from schools. This is the legal outcome that i have spoken about and which you have just acknowledged.
This is obviously coming from non religious people who want religion out of the public sphere for their own reasons – such as socially engineering a different community as i have previously specified and as you also have now acknowledged as your particular wish.
There have been lots of people who have wanted to do away with existing religion and build a new united society – Mohammed was one. Stalin was another, so was Hitler and so was Mao.
Now again as i have said, there have been thousands of University professors who taking their inspiration from Marx have made it their life’s mission to do this in
Western Europe. As i have claimed in the pursuit of this idea, a fall in the quality of education by teaching mistruths was deemed an acceptable price if it got people rejecting Christianity and supporting a non Christian outlook. It has worked in some respect in miving peoples allegiance to Christianity but it has not been helpful to society. It has caused more fragmentation. It failed utterly in the East where it was the base ideology of society and needs to be drastically revisited here as being a viable concept for any future society.
If you want a compulsory integrated education you are overiding ths wishes of a large section of the electorate for your own idelogical reasons. This alone is not good in a social democracy but when the product of this exact type of project has been tried in the past it was very bad for society as well as ignoring community wishes.
My posts regarding the Belfast religious educator Philip Barnes was to demonstrate just this exact thing. When integrated education happens people start fighting over what should be in the curriculum. People with ideas such as yourself start to misrepresent religion (something you have said is important) in the name of getting people to believe the same things and creating this united society.
So the importance of religion is easily suppressed to serve the need of social engineering, religious truth is derided, so is religious success in creating civilisation and the failure of religion is highlighted and exaggerated as is the criticism of any Church heirachy. All of this stands in the way of social reformers building their own idea of what society should be about. To have the tools to try this they must sweep away ideas of existing structures which have successfully built society.
– just like Mohammed did with the Christian, Jewish and pagan tribes of the Arabian Peninsula or Hitler did with his new state based Aryan Reich, or Stalin did with his workers paradise etc etc.
As Karl Marx has said, “men make their future, but they do not make it as they would wish.”
As i have recently posted on another thread, political parties have shown in the West that they are incapable of mobilising any community culture except in the case of perceived injustice or perceived threat. A society needs a mobilised community that are inspired to do good things in society such as building schools, universities, aged care centres, hosptitals etc. Much of Western education with an emphasis on denigrating religion (Christianity) has not served society or politics well. A social democracy needs strong Churches in order to function. The experiments of the East have proved that beyond doubt. The likewise attacks in the West have not been a good (or truthful) pursuit.
We live in a much more mobile world today. People are not locked into ghettoes as you suggest be that physical or mental ghettoes. People can be members of Orange Halls and play Hurling. People can speak Irish and play rugby. People can meet people that have philisophical, political and metaphysical thoughts that both agree and disagree with themselves in different ways.
In fact it is hard not to meet different people and be enriched and challenged by any differences as well as being supported by our similarities.
Of course a non religious culture is not a neutral position between Catholic and Protestant. In fact, as you would expect, many people see non religion as an extreme to be avoided and a culture they do not want to be part of. The state enforcing this exact culture on them has never been a good thing.
http://library2.usask.ca/theses/available/etd-07152008-111457/
abucs,
Religious belief is sacrosanct, therefore the state should keep its hands off. State interference in matters of faith has always been disastrous.
It may be against certain charters to make them a Muslim
Teaching them that Islam is true and Christianity is false falls under that heading.
socially engineering a different community as i have previously specified and as you also have now acknowledged as your particular wish.
The important distinction is whether the social engineering in question is a broadening or a restrictive process. One of the primary responsibilities of a public education system is to broaden knowledge and horizons, to expose children to ideas that they may not otherwise encounter. The goal of integrated education should not be to force people into some artificial new society, but to remove existing barriers that prevent a better society from coming about. There is a historical tendency for cultures to naturally assimilate if given favourable conditions. The state should neither hinder nor force this process.
If you want a compulsory integrated education you are overiding ths wishes of a large section of the electorate for your own idelogical reasons.
So long as nobody’s rights are being violated (and state-funded religious instruction is NOT a human right) then this is democracy at work.
People are not locked into ghettoes as you suggest be that physical or mental ghettoes.
“Mental ghettoes” is a perfect description of Northern Ireland. I might borrow that.
Most of the rest of your post is again confusing atheism and secularism, which is becoming tiresome.
Integrated Education—a cautionary tale.
The claim that segregated schooling is inefficient and costly carries weight but there is more to schooling than efficiency and cost. Central to a schooling system is an agreed curriculum in which it is agreed what to teach and how to teach. In 1832 the British government introduced a system of integrated schooling into Ireland in which—“Catholic and Protestant children would be educated together so they would form friendships that would last through life.” This lofty altruism of Lord Stanley was scuppered by the Churches in a bitter sectarian feud over what should be taught in the religious curriculum and how it should be taught. The religious curriculum for integrated schools here is further complicated by the existence of secular humanism which preaches the dogma that they have the answer to the problem of religion in the curriculum because they preach that the state and school should be neutral in regards to religion and all world religions should be placed on the curriculum because no specific religion is of value to the state. This is the position of The One School of Thought Campaign which has the backing of secular humanism. If secular humanism is to be part of the school curriculum then secular humanist dogma should be put to the vote in N.Ireland. If history is not to repeat itself in integrated schools in our time an agreed religious curriculum by the churches would need to be in place before children are herded together into integrated schools.
IT is also pointed out that established Anglicanism is the official state religion of England and that Church of England schools which are funded by the state maintain Anglicanism in England and world wide. There are secular humanists at Westminster who would preach that The Church of England be disestablished and state funds be with drawn from Anglican Schools. This dogma would need to be voted on at Westminster or better still by the English.
IN the 19th century the secular curriculum fared no better. Ireland or the Irish language weren’t’ recognised in the curriculum of National Schools. In integrated schools what curricular recognition will be given to Ireland and the Irish language? It may be said that that can be dealt with in Irish History but which version of Irish history to teach – the British version or the Irish version or both and if both how is that to be taught? Teachers of history from controlled and maintained schools and from the universities would need to thrash out an agreed curriculum for Ireland and its history before children are herded into schools where the teachers aren’t agreed what to teach or how to teach.
IN post famine Ireland Catholicism and nationalism became assertive and there was strong opposition to the curricular set-up in National Schools. Cardinal Cullen issued the edict that Catholic children be taught in Catholic schools by Catholic teachers. I’m not sure but this edict may now be canon law but irrespective of that Cardinal Cullen’s edict remains the official position of the Irish bishops on the education of Catholic children. If there is to be integration this edict would need to be relaxed by the Catholic Church.
Schools in N Ireland were messed up in an ill thought-out plan to abolish selection. Schools could be further mess up in an ill thought-out curriculum for integrated schools and the people could find they have been sold a curricular pig in a poke.
Integrationists maintain that the purpose of integrated schools Is to unite society in N Ireland IN a liberal democracy the purpose of schools to give pupils a liberal education and maintain a liberal society. It is not the purpose of schools in a liberal democracy to bring about social change by engineering children. Those who wish to bring about social change should engineer the adult population first.
(1) The Orange Order which is sectarian and racist should engineer its charter which has sanctioned two of its members for attending a requiem Mass for Ronan Kerr and admit Catholics into its ranks. That would be a step to creating a united liberal society in N. Ireland.
(2) Teachers should be engineered and the sectarian colleges of Stranmillis and St Mary’s should be amalgamated. This should be done by a democratic vote of the students.
(3) The teachers in the sectarian unions of The Irish National Organisation and The Ulster Teachers Union should merge and become one as the members were prior to 1921. This would require the democratic vote of the members
These engineerings would be a giant step towards a liberal society in Ireland. The desire to bring about social change by engineering children as Lord Stanley wanted in 1832 is nothing new. IN the seventies the lunatic left of Labour wanted to eliminate class division by putting working class and middle class children together in integrated schools. This policy would be carried out by bussing children from schools in working class districts to schools in middle class districts and vice versa. Left wing democrats in the USA called for the elimination of racial prejudice in the Deep South by bussing children between white and black districts. IF integrated schools are to be used here to eliminate sectarian division there will have to be bussing between Catholic and Protestant districts. But bussing policy is now a political dead duck and is no longer heard.
Integration policy is now being postulated by right wing unionists who probably see in it a means whereby the Catholic community can be engineered into an acceptance of the UK constitutional status quo of N Ireland and can be bamboozled into voting unionist so that N.Ireland society will be united as unionist. Whether Sinn Fein and the SDLP see integration in that way is doubtful. The elimination of class division by integrated schools was postulated by the lunatic left. The elimination of sectarian division with integrated schools is now the policy of the lunatic right here.
I can add a personal codicil to this. As a youngster I was educated at primary level in a National School building in a rural parish in Tyrone. There were five National School buildings in the parish two Protestant and three Catholic. Parents sent their children to the school that was most convenient. The primary I went to was Catholic with a strong Protestant contingent of pupils. The curriculum comprised Religious Instruction and secular instruction. The Catholic pupils were given Religious Instruction from 9:00 to 9:30. At 9:30th the protestant pupils arrived for secular instruction and the official teaching day began. The protestant pupils got Religious Instruction at Sunday School. Relations between the Protestants and Catholic pupils were good.
Despite this integration the pupils grew up to be staunch Protestant Unionists who supported Unionism and the UK constitution and staunch Catholic nationalists who rejected UK constitution and voted nationalist. So integrated schooling didn’t heal the sectarian division in the parish. This supports my contention that the school has little impact on sectarian attitude but the home and community are all important.
From my experience and knowledge of schools I end with my usual thesis which is that the sectarian problem in Ireland is constitutional. Segregated schools are a symptom of the sectarian sickness not the cause of it. To eradicate sectarianism in Ireland and bring about a unified liberal non-sectarian society for all Ireland not just for N. Ireland the conflicting UK and Republican constitutions will have to be scrapped and replaced with a unifying Federal Kingdom written constitution expressed in The National Government of Ireland Act. That is just plain simple common sense.
Michael Gillespie Federal Unionist-Early Sinn Fein
While i think Catholic Education is a positive for society and its dicated removal would be an injustice, i do agree with you Michael on just about everything else you have written there.
The problem in Northern Ireland was a constitutional one.
The bit i cannot stomach is the people who argue they are neutral and want to use the state to create this self defined neutrality that just happens to support their own personal political position. That is dishonest and disastrous.
The proposed secularist use of education has been addressed adequately above.
The use of education by some right wing Unionists as you say for political reasons would be just as bad, In the name of tolerance and respect it would be much better for those right wing Unionists to work with the Education systems to put their case respectfully and fairly to students. This would be a great exercise is social harmony. Herding students into integrated education where there would then be the inevitable never ending battle on what should be taught is both intolerant and shows a lack of respect for existing communities.
From an education perspective one legally enforced school system with no competition would be a narrow minded system that would not be as heathy as a 3 or 4 school systems where we can look to implement the best practise.
Globally, Catholic Schools are less of a drain on the public purse that Government schools. As usual, Governments are very inefficient, slow moving and unimaginative (largely because of the calibre of politicians and the constant infighting in education by dozens of special interest groups).
In America where it is illegal to fund education by religious groups (talk about human rights violations) various states have looked to introduce voucher systems where low ability students can opt out of the state system (which isn’t working for them) and choose an independent private (usually religious) school. The hardline secularists are even in the courts trying to stop this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_voucher
http://www.angelfire.com/hi2/hawaiiansovereignty/publicprivatespecialbasic.html
In Australia the government funds both state run schools and private schools (mostly Catholic). The private system actually saves the government a lot of money and in economic tough times like this saving billions of pounds a year would obviously be a good thing.
Even though in Australia parents attending private schools contribute tuition fees (hence the saving) about 1 in 3 people still choose to send their children to these non government schools rather than the ‘free’ state school.
But even in this case where parents exercise their own right of choice and actually save the tax payer money the secularists are unhappy and want it stopped for their own narrow sectarian political idelogical reasons.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/education/private-schools-saving-taxpayers-money-nab-20110626-1glt2.html
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/bias-rules-in-attack-on-schools-20110228-1bbn8.html
http://blogs.news.com.au/moneystuff/index.php/news/comments/public_versus_private_schools
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/class-warriors-prepare-to-ambush-private-schools/story-e6frg6zo-1225994520017
http://www.baysidechurch.com.au/content/view/509/243/
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/45888.html
Now that the bad results of a mandated ‘no religious need apply’ state system are apparent and being addressed, i think it is largely fear from secularists on difference and diversity that is driving their politics. They genuinely seemed upset and scared that there are happy communities out there who are different to them and get on with life not interested in the slightest with the secularists 20th century forced and failed socialist vision of society.
Why has my reply been deleted?
While i think Catholic Education is a positive for society and its dicated removal would be an injustice, i do agree with you Michael on just about everything else you have written there.
The problem in Northern Ireland was a constitutional one.
The bit i cannot stomach is the people who argue they are neutral and want to use the state to create this self defined neutrality that just happens to support their own personal political position. That is dishonest and disastrous.
The proposed secularist use of education has been addressed adequately above.
The use of education by some right wing Unionists as you say for political reasons would be just as bad, In the name of tolerance and respect it would be much better for those right wing Unionists to work with the Education systems to put their case respectfully and fairly to students. This would be a great exercise is social harmony. Herding students into integrated education where there would then be the inevitable never ending battle on what should be taught is both intolerant and shows a lack of respect for existing communities.
From an education perspective one legally enforced school system with no competition would be a narrow minded system that would not be as heathy as a 3 or 4 school systems where we can look to implement the best practise.
Globally, Catholic Schools are less of a drain on the public purse that Government schools. As usual, Governments are very inefficient, slow moving and unimaginative (largely because of the calibre of politicians and the constant infighting in education by dozens of special interest groups).
In America where it is illegal to publicly fund education run by religious groups (talk about human rights violations) various states have looked to introduce voucher systems where low ability students can opt out of the state system (which isn’t working for them) and choose an independent private (usually religious) school. The hardline secularists are even in the courts trying to stop this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_voucher
http://www.angelfire.com/hi2/hawaiiansovereignty/publicprivatespecialbasic.html
In Australia the government funds both state run schools and private schools (mostly Catholic). The private system actually saves the government a lot of money and in economic tough times like this saving billions of pounds a year would obviously be a good thing.
Even though in Australia parents attending private schools contribute tuition fees (hence the saving) about 1 in 3 people still choose to send their children to these non government schools rather than the ‘free’ state school.
But even in this case where parents exercise their own right of choice and actually save the tax payer money the secularists are unhappy and want it stopped for their own narrow sectarian political idelogical reasons.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/education/private-schools-saving-taxpayers-money-nab-20110626-1glt2.html
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/bias-rules-in-attack-on-schools-20110228-1bbn8.html
http://blogs.news.com.au/moneystuff/index.php/news/comments/public_versus_private_schools
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/class-warriors-prepare-to-ambush-private-schools/story-e6frg6zo-1225994520017
http://www.baysidechurch.com.au/content/view/509/243/
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/45888.html
Now that the bad results of a mandated ‘no religious need apply’ state system are apparent and being addressed, i think it is largely fear from secularists on difference and diversity that is driving their politics. They genuinely seemed upset and scared that there are happy communities out there who are different to them and get on with life not interested in the slightest with the secularists 20th century forced and failed socialist vision of society.
Abucs,
I didn’t get any reply in my email. Perhaps it didn’t go in properly?
It’s there again now but waiting to be moderated.
Hi Abucs
THanks for your supportive reply. Glad to note you recognise that historic Btitish/Irish identily problem as constitutional.
Michael Gillespie
…the Western Scientific enterprise came from the Christian Churches..
Abucs, I hope it is not “man playing” to say that your assertion is nonsense. All of science is based on understanding of the underlying
mathematics which greatly precedes Christianity in many cases. And check the origins of the words “algebra and algorithm” (Muslim).
You mention Newton; although he was an ordained minister, there is a lot of doubt that he believed in a Christ god.
I love it that Michael Gillespie accuses integrationists of being rabid right-wingers and Abucs accuses them of being rabid left-wingers.
We must not confuse the issues of diversity of education provision (which I would wholeheartedly support) and secularism. Diversity of provision is meaningless if one’s religious belief limits your choice of schools. The argument that Catholic schools are in some ways superior to state schools is bogus. If I used that argument to defend Protestant-only workplaces I would rightly be pilloried as a bigot.
Michael, your education is an exceptional case, and it seems like some sensible decisions were made locally. I have never argued that integrated schooling is a magic bullet, and I have certainly never argued that it will make unionism and nationalism disappear. You make some good points about teacher training colleges, unions and the like, although I would say that a student ballot would not be the proper avenue to take. The question of a common history narrative is of course going to be extremely contentious, but this is something that will have to be tackled sooner or later, and if integrated schooling forces the issue, so much the better.
As for your grand constitutional scheme, if it had been implemented a hundred years ago then maybe our history might have been different. It would make an interesting alternative history novel. But you can’t unscramble an egg.
Andrew Gallagher
I( haven’t said that integrationists are rabid right wingers but it is clear that the call for integration is coming from the British Protestant sectarian unionist right wing of the assembly no doubt with a hidden political agenda. So far the Irish catholic sectarian Nationalist/Republican left wing of the assembly has been non-committal. If schools are to become secular that would need to be put to the electorate and voted on and if secularists are to be consistent they should call for the secularisation of Church of England schools as well.
You dodge the key issue that the notion of integrated schools is nothing new. Integration is an emotional issue in the sense — Protestant and Catholic children in the same school! What a wonderful idea! That is a Joanna Lumley type feeling about integration. I admit integration has emotional appeal but that is all it has. Lord Stanley’s appeal for integration in 1832 was emotional and a heavy history of sectarian division in schooling followed. Many years ago the lunatic fringe of Labour put forward an emotional plea for the integration of working and middle class children in the same school to eliminate the social division o f class proposing the bussing of children to achieve this. If integrationist were to drop the emotion and concentrate on the nuts and bolts of the matter they would find that if integration is to be implemented on the ground it will require the bussing of children to and from schools in Catholic and Protestant districts. This is an educational luxury that a cash strapped Department of Education can’t afford and would cost more than segregated schooling. Like the abolition of selection Integration hasn’t been thought through by its proponents. The curriculum for integrated schools presents profound difficulties in the teaching of Ireland . At present the GCSE curriculum classifies hurling as foreign. But in integrated schools what will be the common narrative of the O Neillite Wars the Flight of The Earls the Plantation of Ulster the Battle of the Boyne and the Penal Laws?
If integration doesn’t change British Protestant sectarian unionism and Irish Catholic sectarian Nationalist/Republicanism what will it change? That is the core issue of sectarianism and you are saying that can’t be changed. So is integration a wonderful idea that will change nothing? The past can’t be changed but the future can be made different and better. You say if my constitutional scheme had been implemented 100 years ago (say at the time of Home Rule) history would have been different But that is an—If Only—o f history the sectarian squabble o f Home Rule is still with us. If my constitutional scheme were to be adopted now the future of Ireland could be better united and non-sectarian. Your position of no possible change to sectarianism but that the sectarian squabble has to be lived with because you can’t unscramble an egg is fatalistic in the extreme.
Michael Gillespie Federal Unionist-Early Sinn Fein
if secularists are to be consistent they should call for the secularisation of Church of England schools as well.
I once had a letter published in the Times objecting strongly to Tony Blair’s promotion of faith schools, so yes I am consistent. But England is not the subject of this thread.
if integration is to be implemented on the ground it will require the bussing of children to and from schools in Catholic and Protestant districts
That is a separate issue. Enforced quotas are not a necessary component of integrated education.
The curriculum for integrated schools presents profound difficulties in the teaching of Ireland . At present the GCSE curriculum classifies hurling as foreign. But in integrated schools what will be the common narrative of the O Neillite Wars the Flight of The Earls the Plantation of Ulster the Battle of the Boyne and the Penal Laws?
Exactly! Separating children according to religion and teaching them different versions of history is one of the fundamental problems.
If integration doesn’t change British Protestant sectarian unionism and Irish Catholic sectarian Nationalist/Republicanism what will it change?
Unionism and nationalism are not inherently sectarian. Why does unionism have to be Protestant? Why does nationalism have to be Catholic? It is the mutual entanglement of nationality, politics and religion that is the problem. Unionism and nationalism will not go away any more than Protestantism and Catholicism. But we should be able to debate them on their own merits rather than knee-jerk tribalism.
If my constitutional scheme were to be adopted now the future of Ireland could be better united and non-sectarian.
That’s putting the cart before the horse. For it even to pass a vote in NI (never mind the Republic, more on that below) there would have to be a miraculous resolution of communal tensions first.
Your position of no possible change to sectarianism but that the sectarian squabble has to be lived with because you can’t unscramble an egg is fatalistic in the extreme.
That is a misrepresentation. It is the independence of the Republic that cannot be unscrambled. Your proposal is that southerners should give up their republic and their independence so that northern sectarianism can be magically cured.
I’ll state it again. It is tribalism that is the cause of NI’s problems, ultimately deriving from the unresolved legacy of plantation and non-integration of communities. The constitutional argument is a symptom.
Andrew Gallagher
“I once had a letter published in The Times objecting strongly to Tony Blair’s promotion of faith schools —- England is not the subject of this thread.”
The rationale that keeps faith schools in place in England (the UK) is the same as the rationale that keeps faith schools in N. Ireland (the UK). As long as there are faith schools in one part of the UK there should be faith schools in every part of the UK. That can only be changed by a democratic vote not by letters to the papers. I suggest you write another letter to the Times objecting to established Anglicanism as the state religion of England and urge the disestablishment of the Church of England to make England secular.
“That is a separate issue (bussing)”
Who says so? If facts are faced bussing is a sine qua non of integrated schools.
“Enforced quotas are not a necessary component of integrated education.”
Of course they are. The demography of N. Ireland dictates that there will be bussing if there is to be a mixed pupil population in the schools. Without this integration is meaningless. There will be Catholic schools in Catholic districts and Protestant schools in Protestant districts.
“Separating children according to religion and teaching them different versions of history is one of the fundamental problems.”
And you don’t answer the fundamental problem. How can there be the same version of Irish history in integrated schools when an agreed history of Ireland doesn’t exist among scholars? You haven’t thought integration through. There are serious problems with the curriculum in integration.
“Unionism and nationalism aren’t intrinsically sectarian.”
But de facto they are.
Why does Unionism have to be Protestant? Why does nationalism have to be Catholic?
You can’t be serious! It would a tome on Irish history to answer that.
“ But we should be able to debate them on their own terms rather than knee-jerk tribalism.”
This use of tribalism is akin to what one reads about the British/Irish problem in an unthinking snooty English press. The tribalism you refer to has been defined centuries ago in the Dungannon Resolution of 1796 as a religio-ethnic- constitutional conflict between Loyalists and Republicans. IN our own time the tribalism was defined in the same way in Long Kesh where prisoners were housed in Loyalist and Republican blocks. A loyalist/Republican conflict is a constitutional conflict just as the conflict in 1798 was. Since the tribal conflict is constitutional it can only be settled constitutionally.
“There would have to be a miraculous resolution of communal tension.”
The communal tensions are those of Loyalism and Republicanism and are religio-ethnic -constitutional as is borne out in communal voting patterns in elections. This tension won’t be resolved in school but by constitutional legislation. I don’t believe that the social division of sectarianism can be resolved in integrated schools and a unified society created any more than I believe that the social division of Class can be resolved in integrated schools and a unified society created.
“Your proposal is that southerners give up their Republic and independence so the northern sectarian can be miraculously cured.”
This Is a farcical misrepresentation of my proposal. I have already explained in Slugger what the requirement of a nation is for sovereignty and independence. You conveniently ignore that. It is the constitution of a nation that determines its independence and sovereignty. Ireland was partitioned into two sectarian statelets not two independent nations and remain so. If Ireland is to become a sovereign independent nation it will require an all Ireland written constitution acceptable to all. I have suggested such a constitution at http://www.authorhouse.co.uk If an acceptable all Ireland constitution was voted on the result could be positive.
“Its tribalism that is the cause of N.I. problem ultimately deriving from the unresolved legacy of the plantation and the non-integration of communities.”
Again you leave tribalism undefined but it is defined in the Dungannon Resolution and in Long Kesh as loyalism v Republicanism . As noted this is a religio-ethnic- constitutional conflict that can only be resolved constitutionally. The planters were Protestant loyalist and their descendants remain so today. The native Irish weren’t loyalist but had been involved in a war against the Crown. For this reason the Protestant planters saw the native Catholic Irish as untrustworthy and to be kept down. This attitude persisted into the Stormont Unionist government and resulted in the Civil Rights Movement. This in turn gave rise to the insane Republican campaign to overthrow the constitution by brute force that lasted for 30 years.
As for the integration of communities I would point out that Ireland had been planted by the Normans who became more Irish than the Irish by intermarrying with the native Irish and an identity problem didn’t arise. Loyalists identify themselves as British Protestant and apart. Republicans identify them selves as Irish Catholic and apart, hence the sectarian ghettoes in the cities so the problem is of a religio-ethnic-constitutional nature.
This religio-ethnic-constitutional problem Is not unique to Ireland. It is found in Cyprus with a Turkish Muslim minority and a Greek Christian majority who want enosis union with Greece and the Turks want nothing to do with Greece. This sounds familiar and is a religio-ethnic-constitutional conflict which flared into violence in 1931 and 1955. Cyprus is now partitioned. The integrity of the island can only be restored in an agreed constitution between the Turks and Greeks. While this is unlikely that doesn’t mean the attempt shouldn’t be made.
A similar religio-ethnic –constitutional conflict exists in Sri Lanka between the native Singhalese who are Buddhist and the Hindu Tamils who are of Indian stock. The Tamils the minority want union with India the Singhalese want nothing to do with India. Again this sounds familiar and violence ensued. Either the Singhalese will defeat the Tamils or the island will be partitioned. But an attempt to find peace and maintain the integrity of the island in an agreed constitution should be tried. This may not work but the attempt should be made.
There are similar religio-ethnic-constitutional conflicts to be found among the Kurds and Turks and between the Serbs and the Bosnians. In all of these conflicts which are the same as the conflict in Ireland no one in their right minds is suggesting that the religio-ethnic-constitutional conflicts in the countries mentioned can be sorted out in integrated schools.
I maintain that the religio-ethnic-constitutional problem here can be sorted out in an agreed constitution of the Sovereign Nation of Ireland within Federal Kingdom expressed in a democratically agreed National Government of Ireland Act c f http://www.authorhouse.co.uk I can’t say that often enough even if it falls on deaf ears and thick skulls.
Michael Gillespie Federal Unionist-Early Sinn Fein
Michael,
As long as there are faith schools in one part of the UK there should be faith schools in every part of the UK
Education is a devolved matter. There is no requirement that we do the same thing England does.
there will be bussing if there is to be a mixed pupil population in the schools. Without this integration is meaningless
It depends whether your aim is equality of outcome or equality of opportunity. I’m more interested in the equality of opportunity that comes from every child being treated equally. The integrated sector currently requires a balance so that it cannot become de facto part of one community. This motivation is less important if all schools are integrated.
There are serious problems with the curriculum in integration.
There are difficulties with the secondary school curriculum, and I haven’t denied that. I don’t see that they are insurmountable.
It is the constitution of a nation that determines its independence and sovereignty. Ireland was partitioned into two sectarian statelets not two independent nations and remain so.
Ireland remains partitioned because its own people cannot decide amongst themselves whether they are one nation or two. You cannot impose an external definition of nationhood on the unwilling.
The planters were Protestant loyalist and their descendants remain so today.
You conveniently leave out the bit where the Presbyterians changed sides.
The Tamils the minority want union with India
The LTTE have never advocated union with India.
I’m exhausted reading the cut and paste boilerplate contents of your posts, Michael. Argumentum ad nauseam. I’ll leave you the last word. I doubt anyone else is still reading.
Andrew Gallagher
Glad to know you’ve given up on this interminable exchange on Slugger. I have more important things to do than perpetuate such an exchange. I’m now working on a fourth book on British/Irish identity because that is the right thing to do and Slugger is a distraction. You should write a book on secularism and integration if you are convinced of that. I sign off with this thought: -
“A man convinced against his will is of his own opinion still.”
Michael Gillespie
One of the many problems with secularism is that it believes it is neutral. It is not. In believing it is neutral it then opens the way morally for the forced systematic subjection of the majority to the will of the minority without seeing itself as an aggressor.
the Western Scientific enterprise came from the Christian Churches…..
Yes it did Joe. They built the Universities, they funded them, they staffed them, they preserved and taught the ancient knowledge, theorised and tested new knowledge, they attended them, they set the curricula, they promoted the transfer and development of knowledge around Europe and not surprisingly they were the ones to found scientific fields and set scientific principles.
Clergy and theologians, founded the scientific fields of physics, chemistry, Big Bang cosmology, geography, palientology, microbiology, seismology, genetics and even evolution and more as well as creating the first mathematical models for heliocentrism and the atom and of course they actually were first at defining and then using the scientific method and then there was the important building of schools and Universities all over Europe. They also built hospitals for towns of more than 5000 people (by Papal decree) and for centuries medicine was the driver of Western science. And of course the doctors came out of medical faculties at Christian run Universities after 7 years of scientific training by professors (very often clergy) appointed by Bishops and Popes. Many of these scientific professors themselves became bishops and at least one became Pope.
You can’t do any more than that to create the Western scientific enterprise.
To address the minor points you raised :
Yes science uses mathematics, yes there was mathematics before the Christians. The Christian Churches promoted the development of modern mathematics and made the connection that “God’s Creation” should work on mathematical law.
No need to check the origins of algebra or algorithm as I already have taught in majority Muslim settings that very history in detail and you can throw in others such as Zenith and the re-introduction of the armillary spheres (through the Pope) back into Europe.
No one is saying Muslims can’t do mathematics. No one is saying that the earlier majority Christian populations they conquered in Palestine, Syria, Turkey, Assyria, Armenia, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia or Spain couldn’t do mathematics either.
I am aware of Newton also Joe. He as you say had a lot of doubt on the traditional concept of the Trinity. He left us with 2 million words on Theology for us to see that. No big surprise – all Christians struggle to understand that. Christianity is about expanding the mind and taking in new concepts. The Christian history (untold in “neutral” secular dominated countries today) has proved that.
As Newton mentions in his groundbreaking Latin work Principia Matematica his stated hope is that – the thinking man may see the connection between the natural law and mathematics and therefore be brought to an understanding of God as the architect of the natural law.
Today a “not so neutral” secular culture tries very hard to leave that last part out and pretend it was never at the base of the Western scientific enterprise.
Such an education is an inferior and politically contrived one.
But then i maintain that secularism can only flourish in tandem with an inferior education system and a wilful forgetting of history in obeyance of a politically correct “neutrality”. Such a way of thinking is an unreality and ultimately bad for society.
Two free online books for consideration in the historical quest for the Western scientific enterprise which highlights the modern “secular” forgetfulness in our education system:
http://www.archive.org/details/popessciencehist00walsrich
http://www.manybooks.net/titles/walshjj3406734067-8.html