Unfortunately you're right. While the rest of us are prepared to accept that people can do whatever they want in private, when it comes to religion, it seems that has to be preached. Disappointing when you meet someone you think is fairly intelligent only to find their mind is completely closed when it comes to religion. This happened to me yesterday. I was introduced to a young woman who a friend has known since forever. She is visiting the country from Europe, so I "had" to meet her. The conversation which was going really well, came to religion, and then it came: you should read this book, I do think it's good for kids to think of their grandparents as being somewhere they'll see them again when they die, blah blah blah, and immediately my desire to continue talking to her disappeared, and I "had" to go to attend to the real world. Really annoying. They just can't keep the preaching out of their social discourse.

Agrippina wrote:Last week, there was a dedication of some memorial in London, by the queen, with all of her family there to support her. I watched it, with the clerics intoning all the religious platitudes and choirs singing, bands playing, and thought "do these people actually believe all this, or is it merely for the pomp and ceremony."?

For the professional clerics, maybe it's the pension, or the difficulty of admitting (publicly, or to oneself) that what you've been selling for decades doesn't necessarily make much sense.

tolman wrote:

Agrippina wrote:Last week, there was a dedication of some memorial in London, by the queen, with all of her family there to support her. I watched it, with the clerics intoning all the religious platitudes and choirs singing, bands playing, and thought "do these people actually believe all this, or is it merely for the pomp and ceremony."?

For the professional clerics, maybe it's the pension, or the difficulty of admitting (publicly, or to oneself) that what you've been selling for decades doesn't necessarily make much sense.

Yes, I think even the pope realises that he's really just holding an empire in place. He's slowly joining the scientific world on ideas that the religious world still holds dear. It would be interesting to see the RCC crumble and their buildings becoming museums to the defunct religion.

I'm with you there, Aggie, but I'm not sanguine it will happen in our lifetimes. Nor in my children's. The R.C.C. has a habit of surviving pretty much whatever gets thrown at it. It's like the Terminator of religions.

Yep. Although it's nice to see governments coming out and attacking them on their attitude towards their criminal priests. That really pleases me.

A nice bit of news from South Africa yesterday. Our Court ruled that it's against the Constitution for schools to concentrate on only one religion. So the indoctrination of kids that's been slipping under the radar has to stop now. If they're going to teach religion, it has to be unbiased and objective, no brainwashing of kids to pray and sing Christian hymns at public schools anymore.

zulumoose wrote:

The court found that it was against the Education Act to "promote one faith or one religion primarily at the expense of others or allow school staff to do it", Netwerk24 reported.

"In the circumstances, we issue the following order:
(a). It is declared that it offends Section 7 of the Schools Act, 84 of 1996 for a public school –
(i). To promote or allow its staff to promote that it as a public school adheres to only one, or predominantly only one, religion to the exclusion of others; and
(ii). To hold out that it promotes the interests of any one religion in favour of others."

"Religious observances may be conducted at state or state-aided institutions, provided that:
(a) Those observances follow rules made by the appropriate public authorities;
(b) They are conducted on an equitable basis; and
(c) Attendance at them is free and voluntary,"

Nice - now what to do with schools that have Christian or other religious references in their name? I am sure most if not all of them receive at least some government assistance.

It depends on various factors, how much subsidy they get from the government.

https://www.isasa.org/state-subsidies-for-independent-schools/

The thing is that they register as religious schools and their funding is mostly from fees paid by the parents, and of course money raised through fund-raising. The new ruling applies to public schools, those owned and run by the government, and not to schools like King David, convents (catholic schools) and the Yeshivas, and Islamic schools. If you want your kids taught a specific religion at school, you pay through the nose for their education.