Divide Or Unite

[modeller]

On the news they are showing how Northern Ireland is uniting by having mixed primary schools with Catholics and Protestants. They showed such a school enjoying a visit from Obama .

Why is it that the way ahead is to be achieved in NI by educating the children together whilst at the same we are doing the opposite and splitting our society apart by building hundreds of faith schools. ? In my local area alone we have eight faith schools and more are planned , two opening in the Autumn. What could be more divisive ?

[vetuste_ennemi]

em10 - "i remember watching a programme with Richard Dawkins, taking a bunch of school children to the seaside, and explaining to them the basis of evolution".
I saw that program too, Em10. Didn't he interview their teachers? And weren't the teachers scared stiff of contradicting the ignorant prejudices of their fundamentalist pupils?
Dawkins, of course, made the famous analogy comparing religious instruction to child abuse. The more temperate Daniel Dennett made this suggestion: let parents teach their children to follow their own faith if they want, but schools should teach children about all religions. If comparative religion were a core subject it would become apparent to any thinking child that particular religious beliefs are mere geographical accidents, that the case for revelation is non-existent and that religion is clearly man-made.