baptising an atheist's child?

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Since this was arranged behind your friends back, I would suggest canceling it behind the families back. Call the church and explain that this was arranged without his knowledge or consent, and he does not approve of it. I believe a catholic baptism also involves the appointment of god parents, which it seems the family decided upon among themselves, which the father should be able to veto.

Dealing with the church directly would give the family the choice of either accepting his decision or starting the fight themselves.

i would say a great many people are opposed to sending christian children to an "Atheist school."

would you consider a school that refused to address religious differences atheist?

i am opposed to your (keet) children being forced to go to a school where they are told "your parents are wrong, there is no god." if that's what you mean. there's no reason for anyone to tell your children "there is no god." but, for some reason, i don't think that's exactly what you have in mind.
would you consider a geography teacher teaching tectonic plate theory "atheist schooling?" a biology teacher teaching the theory of evolution?

your opinions are welcome, keet. rational discussion requires a shared understanding of terms, however, and i don't know that your idea of an "Atheist school" (with the hilariously capitalized A) is coming across as accurate as you might intend.

i agree. i have encouraged him to discuss this with the clergy at the church.

I object if it is against the will of the parents or the child to go to such a school.

ruveyn

Forcibly doing it without letting the parents know until less than a week before? Yes, I'd be opposed to that.

And what is an atheist school?

That set of educational facilities which are ran by the government, due to the necessity of political correctness, must be "secular" and "non-sectarian".

1)Separation of church and state predates political correctness by quite a wide margin.

2)Secular and non-sectarian is not the same thing as athiest.

Not that merely refuses to address, but those which only address Christianity negatively while holding anything else in higher regard and holding atheism in the highest regard.



Thank you.



Actually, it fairly much is what I had in mind.



No, and neither would many Young Earth Creationists mind hearing about plate tectonics. You probably don't know about the work of such people as Dr John Baumgardner in this field in relation to catastrophic plate tectonics. But anyway, the aspect that I would disagree with would be uniformitarian, or gradualistic, philosophy being taught covertly alongside such geological topics as if they were the only philosophies of interpretation of geological data. Teach both, not a singular one in isolation with the implied claim that there is only one.



Teaching evolution is fine, but it ought to be taught warts and all. Also equivocation between natural selection and evolution ought to be avoided, since evolution is more than merely natural selection but also requires functional and useful novel mutations to act upon.



Government, or public, school, is by necessity of political correctness required to be atheistic in nature. That is what I mean.

In practice they act as nearly equivalent whether they are exactly the same in policy terminology or not.

Atheistic is not quite the right term. I think non-sectarian would be a better term.

ruveyn

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No. Being non-sectarian has nothing to do with political correctness. It is mandated by separation of church and state. That separation is a crucial part of what America is.

keet, i think we could alleviate your concerns by making a rule (a regulation, if you will) that says public schools should be free from anyone making religious claims.

in a publicly funded school, no one should say "your religion is wrong." such a school should approach religion with an air of respect for all religions by not approaching religion. what would you call a school that lacked theism? ...what's the word for that?..... maybe if we could just attach a prefix that means "without..."


i don't know of any public schools that teach atheism. my experiences in the california public school system were slightly less ridiculous than my much smaller experience in the north carolina public school system. a geography teacher had me paddled and suspended for "lying" because i said i was born in hollywood. i was born in the kaiser hospital on sunset. this [b]geography[/i] teacher said i was lying because there isn't a hospital on that island and even if there was i wouldn't have been born there unless my parents were movie stars. this is so ridiculous i stopped telling the story in high school (back in california) because no one would believe me unless they talked to my family who would confirm it. the only teacher at that school that didn't go to the "non-denominational" (read as: pentecostal) church my family attended, at the time, was a catholic and none of my teachers had a problem making fun of her "sinful ways."

"crazy liberal california" wasn't much more secular. the closest i had to an atheist teacher was a geometry teacher who admitted to being an atheist but refused to discuss atheism or religion beyond stating pascal's wager and imploring me to make up my own mind. i've been kicked out of every history class i've taken since 7th grade when i stopped being a christian. so when the staff of my school in north carolina was not only enitrely made up of religious adherents, but all christian, i'm not surprised because of my preconceived notions of the american southeast. when the california schools i went to seemed pretty much the same.......... my preconceived notions came up short.

is it anti-christian and pro-islam to teach that the crusades were invasions? is it anti-islam and pro-christian to discuss the moorish invasions? what school did you go to in america that was pro-islam?


maybe i'm too old to know how things are in school now? it hasn't even been 7 years! where are these anti-christian schools? where are these atheist teachers? i'd really like to know, so i can send my kids there.

Government operated educational facilities were not part of the constitution, which the separation of church and state (freedom from the Church of England) was. So, neither does taxpayer financed substandard education have to be a part of what America is.

Government operated educational facilities were not part of the constitution, which the separation of church and state (freedom from the Church of England) was. So, neither does taxpayer financed substandard education have to be a part of what America is.[/quote]



my 5 year old is going to be selling candybars in a few weeks to help pay for some new classrooms at her public elementary school.


taxpayer financed education would be pretty nice. maybe we should come up with a decent idea for how to do it better than we do it now and amend the constitution to fix this integral government responsibility.

No. Being non-sectarian has nothing to do with political correctness. It is mandated by separation of church and state. That separation is a crucial part of what America is.[/quote]

A generally non-sectarian stance is the direct result of First Amendment restrictions on establishing a religion or preventing the free exercise thereof.

ruveyn

The idea of baptizing a child behind a nonreligious parent's back is disgusting. The father should stand his ground and say no or at least have a very thorough conversation with his wife, in my opinion. Her family will keep intruding and deciding they know best otherwise.