http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/andrew...nest_truth.html
What do you think? A step in the right direction? I know many of you are from the U.K., would you guys support this? What about if it were done here? I don't see anything wrong with barring it from secular schools, they have a mission and teaching religion would probably only get in the way. But for Private Religious schools? I don't know about Swedish parents, but this seems a bit much to me. Also it makes me wonder what the governments intentions are on dealing with religion in general. I'll post more later.

That wouldn't fly here, it's one thing for the government to control a public school and the curriculum there, but they have no business getting involved of the affairs of private schools. I don't like it one bit and think that it should be done away with. Even though I do not agree with religion, I believe that parents have a right to choose what they want their kids to learn.

The thing that seems pretty extreme to me here is making it illegal, and because of that even private schools fall under this law. Just applying it to the school curriculum would have been more appropriate. This seems to me not much different from Jack Thompsons ideals on restricting violent videogames, because he thinks it makes people violent. And this is obviously designed to target fundamentalists, afraid that people will sympathise with terrosists for some reason. But that's pretty idiotic. When you talk to any normal person, they say that the fundamentalists ideas are not supported by their religion. Religion has always been used as an excuse for war. And people like that won't be stopped from believing things that they never learned in school to begin with. Those ideas come from outside of the general teachings.

Anyway, I doubt this will stop schools from working arround this. They could teach the same things without clasiming it's true. So this is a pretty unneccesary move to me, and just another stupid way our government think it's going to protect our country.

I belive the thing most people miss when reading this, it's desn't forbid private religius schools (and other schools with any kind of religius focus) to teach or/and maintain a religius behavior. I guess!

What it is supposed to change, is schools who teach students to belive, "this is fact!"

I suppose it all becouse of a murder-case we had in sweden a couple of years ago in an quite isolated village, where religion was the main thing to socialize, the priest there manipulatet a girl to murder his wife and so on!

No, it does. It's right there in the first paragraph.


I mean, they're free to teach it, as long as it's not taught to be absolute truth.

They should have made it illegal for Jehova's Whitness to knock on peoples doors instead. That would have been a great law.

And why should Jehovah's Witnesses suddenly lose that right?

becouse they have knocked my door twice in a year already, once I didn't get it was them until he left and I read the paper I got from him and second he wouldn't stop rambling!

Ok not unlegal but irritating!

Twice a year? Dear god no! The inconvenience! You have lost 5 to 10 minutes of your life you will never get back. Damn those dastardly Jehovah's Witnesses. I'm sure you must prefer it when Mormons, assorted evangelists and charity workers, kids selling cookies and call centres disturb you.

Give them a break.

I want my 5 - 10 minutes back, but it's lost forever.

There's an easy way to deal with them, answer the door naked.

Hehe, no Jehovah's witnesses around here. They wouldn't like me very much. Asuran, be an optimist, it could've been 5-10 minutes of getting stabbity-stabbed instead of listening to stuff you probably weren't listening to anyway.

more like 10-20 minutes each time, but it isnt the time that concerns me, and besides they are the only ones, I never had any knocking my door.

and as I said I didn't get to know they where Jehovah's Witnesses until afterwards, becouse if I known they were, I wouldn'd even consider opening the door!

Well instead of bitching pointlessly online, why not tell them you do not wish to be contacted. Jehovah's Witnesses have a "Do Not Call" list. Just firmly and politely explain you don't wish to be disturbed and they'll leave you be. It's amazing how far communication will get you.

Really, laws like this shouldn't exist. I keep typing this post over and over but the only thing I see is this law screwing over the teachers and more importantly the kids. I can understand it a teacher was one of those annoying super religious jackasses, sure, but if I was a teacher, I wouldn't want to worry about getting fired just by saying I believe in one over the other. This law screams overcompensation for lazyness everyway I look at it.

How? It looks to me like this just prevents those so called "annoying super religious jackasses" from bugging students. School is not the place for religion, it should not be forced on anyone, especially a child.

Well duh. Could have sworn I said that. Must been in one of the last times I rewrit that. Anywho, while keeping those idiots out of school is good, a law like this isn't worth it. It'll screw over the teachers who'll actually know it shouldn't be forced on the kids but want to be able to answer questions about their own beliefs.

Another thing is, removing it from schools period is taking choices away from the kids. I can't really put it into words, but they're doing the same thing with religion that America did with sex. America stopped talking about it, treated it like some shameful thing, and now in the present America has kids at 12 having babies, sluts like Hilton making women look bad and whole other problems. Aryans did the same thing with people with different color skin, and Hitler did the same thing with the Jews. Well those two forced it upon their kids but the way of thinking was the same. The law itself isn't that bad but it's the thinking that's behind it that lazy. They're not taking the time to think of how those kids's thinking will be effected and by being shortsighted they're hurting the kids.

My reaction to this is excellent. Some people feel this is totally out of order, but its not a law saying religion is banned, or that kids can't be taught about religion. Its just means kids will be taught that religion is belief and not fact. Why worry, if the kids are going to believe in religion, whatever it may be, they'll do it of their own free will.

As for the private school aspect, i don't think it makes a difference if the school is public or private: arguing that because its private this shouldn't fly, is crazy. Thats like saying "well those parents wanted to pay for their kids to learn nazi-ism, its their money and free will". Extreme example, but religion can be very extreme as well. My own father was told repeatedly as a child he would go to hell because he didn't believe in religion as a fact, and I definetely have experienced religious bias to an uncomfortable degree when I was at school, because I didn't simply accept certain things as fact, and tis sad this kind of thing still happens in the world. Teachers should lose their jobs for it. Teachers won't live in fear for their job, if their not doing anything to cause that fear. A teacher's job as an RE teache ris to teach kids about religion, not to teach them to follow a religion.

A bold step by Sweden, and for that, I applaud them.

Sex is everywhere in America; TV, music, movies, billboards, hell even bumper stickers. Comparing this to what Hitler did though.. these are kids I'm talking about, ya know, people who think that some fat bastard goes around the world in one day delivering ##### to kids.

I find it pretty good. It doesn't restrict religious study to those who believe it, it simply outlaws brainwashing kids into believing that it's true. Nobody's forcing them not to talk about the bible in a figurative sense, just to stop trying to preach that it's the one true answer.

I don’t really agree with this law. I know there are some people who have no understanding whatsoever for people who don’t believe the certain faith (whichever it happens to be), but they should still have a right to teach it in schools. That’s why they have two different schools, right? Public or private. If the parent wants their child to get a religious education they send them to a private school unless they feel the public school, which does not have religion as the main foundation if at all, is more worthwhile, in which case the child would learn the Faith at home (via home education or a religious youth group or something).

I dunno. I guess I don’t really think this is a good route to go. People can believe whatever religion they want, and I don’t think the government should actually stop those people from publicly teaching it to children.

Maybe I missed something/flawed thinking, but otherwise I don’t really think that’s a good law. That’s just my opinion though >.>