[Solved] We have to avoid, we must avoid, we need to avoid

...why is it,religion,is on a national curriculum...how can it be right to impose a parents beliefs on a child?..why does the mothers religion take presidence over the father?...aaaargh dont get me started...!

People should be allowed to choose their religion when they are old & wise enough to make an informed decision. Otherwise they are forced into believing without understanding.
That was what my ex & I agreed to do with our son (before he was born).
Unfortunately, she re-found her faith, with a bit of brainwashing/help from her family when she was at her most vulnerable - she was pregnant when I had a serious stroke.
Now she only allows supervised access at her mum's house (160 miles away from me), usually for around an hour once a month.

There's no allowance for my beliefs as they conflict with hers.

I'm not anti-religion, I just would like our son to have a choice.

why is it,religion,is on a national curriculum

From what I saw of my daughters RE lessons and homework, the kids were taught about all religions - understanding the various belief systems and values etc. To be honest I think this is valuable insight to different groups within our society - if it promotes a little understanding and acceptance surely that's a good thing?

(gooner, you posted before i got back.. I started to post from my Android and decided it would be easier on the laptop...I think this might be a long post)

Part of my thinking is that as humans we are surrounded with 'difference' and a great life skill is when we realise that we each can have an opinion and affect the world around us. It really helps our children when we give them the skills to think themselves through all the differences and challenges that life throws up. This includes people having different ideas, values and beliefs.

Ignoring religion for a minute. We all wear different uniforms (jeans/tshirt, suit/tie, shell suit, trousers dangling below our hips), we are used to different favourite family meals (chips, lazagne, Spanakopita, sour kraut, etc), we go for different cars, different mobile phones, and so on... I wonder what things make each of us feel normal? Does it matter that they are different?

One big shock in life can be when we regularly meet the in laws - our partner eats their food and relaxes because it's familiar (while we might think 'someone forgot to put chilli in the curry, and what were the sultanas in there for?'. At work we might start a new job and use the suit we got for the interview - and find everyone is in jeans and tshirt. Or be brought up with our parent's family cars always being Fords leaving us feeling like we broke all the rules when we buy a Rover. So yes, we approach life from what is familiar from our upbrining, and we can then adjust and change things as we become adults and we choose to change stuff. What changes did we each choose as we became adult?

So when a child experiences what their parent's religion is they are being equipped to have skills in life to be able to actively join in with discussion and thinking of stuff like philisophy, identity, purpose, and spiritual beliefs. How useful is it that they are more able to measure and experiment with what works for them in adulthood?

Other than religion, aren't there are loads of things in society which can be seen as having the potential to hijack our lives, and our children's lives? Are home & school are a couple of places we can give our children input which is a foundation to their lives?

Agreed, we're all different and our values, beliefs & traditions are different. As you said MrOrange:
" It really helps our children when we give them the skills to think themselves through all the differences and challenges that life throws up. This includes people having different ideas, values and beliefs."

My objection, is that some religions/values/beliefs being forced upon our children at any age, and not allowing other opinions to share the same importance will inevitably cause a child to grow up in a certain way.

In my case, my ex & I agreed that we would teach our son about Islam (her & her family) as well as Christianity (my family) and Atheism (my view). By her taking him away from me and telling me "he's a Muslim and there's nothing you can do about that" and "you can't teach him about other faiths, that goes against Islam", means that he won't have the balanced upbringing we'd agreed on.
The fact that she doesn't allow me or my family unsupervised contact is offensive to me. It's not as if I'll give him pork or alcohol as she claimed we would when he was 7 months old when she left. (I wouldn't have by the way)
Even though she ate non-Halal meats & drank alcohol for at least 8 years before we met & the 4 that we were married.

Now she wants to restrict his learning and upbringing to the ways that her family want, which as the mother she seems to have the right to.

The woman I married was accepting of other religions and views. Unfortunately, she changed.

Hi there

It is a shame but unfortunately your opinions and views do get overlooked when there is a split.

Hopefully you will get a chance in the future to put your side across but you need to remember not to force them as you will be going against what you said.

As for education - we have progressed enormously in the past 30 years (when I was at school) - I had an absolute nutter for an RE teacher who taught us about the Venerable Bede and other well known religious figures!! He wouldn't entertain any conversation about other religions and if you said you didn't believe in god then you were chucked out. A great advert for religious tolerance!!

I also remember Sunday School and again it was only one point of view.

My kids are aware and tolerant of other religions, they understand all faiths and the effect of religion on history.

In fact my eldest is going to Auschwitz this week on an RE trip - to be taught about the clearest ever example of religious intolerance!

So let the kids be taught it - it has a bigger impact on our lives than many of us think and I wish I learnt as much as they now do