2nd class & Communion - still a given?

[truthseeker]

Some of the world's top scientists probably consider themselves spirtitual. Why are they mutually exclusive?

Im all for spirituality! But not religious dogma.

I personally dont know how someone can marry those two aspects within themselves - some kind of compartmentalisation I suppose, the mind is a fascinating thing.

There is a great story (Im sure Ive posted it here before) from when Carl Sagan met the Dalai Lama:

…in theological discussions with religious leaders, I often ask what their response would be if a central tenet of their faith were disproved by science. When I put this question to the Dalai Lama, he unhesitatingly replied as no conservative or fundamentalist religious leaders do: In such a case, he said, Tibetan Buddhism would have to change. Even, I asked, if it’s a really central tenet, like reincarnation? Even then, he answered. However, he added with a twinkle – it’s going to be hard to disprove reincarnation.

 

[truthseeker]

That has nothing to do with school and making FHC or not, nor are they subjects covered in primary school so no indoctrination of kids into views on those topics.

Blueband said the government should provide non catholic schools.
I said there was a vicious circle problem.
You asked me directly was that so wrong.
I said why I thought it was.

Where did I say that any of the above has anything to do with what subjects are covered in school? We were on a side issue that we were brought to from the main thread - but we were not specifically discussing subjects covered in primary school, first communion or indoctrination or did I misunderstand your direct question a couple of posts back?

 

[MrMan]

1Where is the blind faith? Science will provide answers as more and more becomes known about the world. Will everything ever be known? Probably not, more answers will bring more questions. Will some questions turn out to be the wrong questions? Definitely. Science goes through major paradigm shifts where the entire way of looking at things changes. Its not blind faith to say that science hasnt found all of the answers yet. Its a statement of fact. It probably never will, but there may be a time where all of todays questions are answered, but by then there will be a whole new set of questions built on newer knowledge. There is simply no comparison between scientific advancement and religious dogma and to assume so is naive.

2Thats quite a paranoid way of viewing scientific advancement. It really depends where you read things. If you are reading the National Enquirer then you could be reading rubbish, but if you are reading National Geographic then its probably true.

3.You said originally that if people questioned scientific breakthrough they were labelled as conspiracy theorists. I didnt realise you were referring to uninformed paranoid people spouting ignorant rubbish.

Im not sure what point you are trying to make, but there is a difference between questioning scientific breakthrough in an informed and educated manner and the above.

Your blind faith is when you say that Science hasn't found all of the answers yet, you saying with certainty that science will prevail in all its quests, without facts to back up such bold certainty. why is that so hard to understand?

1. My point that you keep trying to undermine by calling me naive was that people don't always question scientific announcements and it was in response to Purples statement about religion stunting the ability to think.

2. It's a paranoid view! Are you trying to prove my point!

3. See above. I mean seriously, paranoid, uninformed, ignorant rubbish. And you think that the Church is dogmatic.

 

[Teatime]

Have to say I do agree with the idea of Sunday school and taking it out of primary schools from the point of view of easier choice for all, accomodating kids whose school mighnt be in the parish of their 'home' church, and probably making kids think a bit more about it, together of course with freeing up class time for more worldly matters.

My understanding is that the Educate Together schools have an 'Ethics and Religion' subject where they teach kids about the beliefs and background of every major religion. Very healthy idea too rather than being brought up to fear other religions like say Islam.
Anyway, if kids in ET schools want to do communion (or whatever religious ritual), they need to do all the preparation work outside school hours and their parents have to help out or be more involved. Makes a lot of sense.

My guess is that if Catholic parents were given tasks to do outside school hours to help their child through the communion sacrament, the majority would soon drop the idea like a stone! Much easier to buy a dress and rent the bouncy castle or horse drawn carriage.

 

[truthseeker]

Your blind faith is when you say that Science hasn't found all of the answers yet, you saying with certainty that science will prevail in all its quests, without facts to back up such bold certainty. why is that so hard to understand?

I didnt say science will prevail in all its quests?

1. My point that you keep trying to undermine by calling me naive was that people don't always question scientific announcements and it was in response to Purples statement about religion stunting the ability to think.

Im not calling you naive. I stated it was a naive view that there were more questions than answers in science. There are as many answers. We may not know the answers but they are there. I am sorry you feel undermined.

2. It's a paranoid view! Are you trying to prove my point!

You said said that people accept press releases etc but who is to say we are receiving all of the information. That is a paranoid view to take. There is absolutely nothing stopping you or anyone else verifying scientific advancements/breakthroughs. You can go to a library or university and request the relevant academic papers to read for yourself. If you really wanted to, you could attend the public talks that go on all the time in various subjects (I myself attended a public talk on the Higgs Boson particle given by the director of Cern recently).

Would you not agree that claiming you are not being given all the information is a paranoid view when the information is there for anyone who wishes to pursue it? Seriously?

3. See above. I mean seriously, paranoid, uninformed, ignorant rubbish. And you think that the Church is dogmatic.

I wasnt saying you were uniformed or ignorant - I was saying that people who dismiss science with the conspiracy theories you presented are. Every one of those conspiracy theories can be disproven with fact, research and information. To say (for example) that Aids was created as population control is simply uninformed rubbish.

Im really not clear where you are going with any of this so I will leave it here as its not relevant to the main thread, we seem to have gone off down some weird road where I am defending the worldwide accepted scientific method of inquiry and you are determined to take offence for some reason. I dont see how it relates to anything relevant to the thread.

 

[Shawady]

I haven't read all the posts here, but just wanted to add my experiance. My child goes to an Educate Together school, and I was quite surprised last year to find that 66% of her class made their FHC. I would have expected the percantage to be a lot lower.
QUOTE]

Do you know how often they had to attend religion classes to make their first communion? Was it once a week?
Do they have to do religion outside of school for the full 8 years or just the year they make communion/confirmation?

 

[terrysgirl33]

My understanding is that the Educate Together schools have an 'Ethics and Religion' subject where they teach kids about the beliefs and background of every major religion. Very healthy idea too rather than being brought up to fear other religions like say Islam.
Anyway, if kids in ET schools want to do communion (or whatever religious ritual), they need to do all the preparation work outside school hours and their parents have to help out or be more involved. Makes a lot of sense.

My guess is that if Catholic parents were given tasks to do outside school hours to help their child through the communion sacrament, the majority would soon drop the idea like a stone! Much easier to buy a dress and rent the bouncy castle or horse drawn carriage.

This is the situation in our school, and 66% of the children made their FHC. The classes are once a week for most of the school year, and the kids are expected to attend from half way through Senior Infants to 6th class. The priest expects them to attend religion classes every year they are available in order to be eligible for the sacraments.

In the FHC and confirmation year the children are expected to attand mass once a month (this is the same in all parishes) as well.

 

[Betsy Og]

Truthseeker - basically you described 'cultural catholicism' and then made out that it was part of a vicious circle that "dictated" policy on a number of controversial areas and led to children being "taught dogma".

My point was that dictation is a thing of the distant distant past, and that 'dogma' such as it is as presented to primary school kids wouldnt cover any of the aforementioned topics. So maybe letting your kids slide into cultural catholicism might not be the moral abyss, and that a general slide into cultural catholicism will not lead to the ruination of the country as a 'priest ridden' state.

My parting words, as like Yeats I feel all I can do is emunerate old themes, is that ye must either have gone to very hard line catholic schools or didnt go to such schools but imagine that such schools are the norm. From my 1980's education I can honesty say that what we were taught were 'normal' christian ideas that did some good to those of us who paid heed, nothing sinister, nothing indoctrinating, nothing that stunted our thinking, nothing that left us unable to discern what was right or wrong, & credible or incredible.

 

[truthseeker]

My parting words, as like Yeats I feel all I can do is remunerate old themes, is that ye must either have gone to very hard line catholic schools or didnt go to such schools but imagine that such schools are the norm.

I did actually. Beatings were normal. I was once beaten til I lost control of my bladder, then beaten further for being a 'dirty little girl'. I was under 7 at the time. The original beating was because when asked if Id gone to mass the previous Sunday I replied 'no, we were in the pub'. It was the truth but the nun thought I was making fun of mass.

My brother had it even worse in the christian brothers where beatings with a hurl were the norm. He had a stress related medical condition that magically disappeared when we were both changed into non religious orders schools after moving house.

 

[Shawady]

Anyone know why the sacrements are taken in 2nd and 6th class?
Many adults convert to catholisicm so it mustn't be an absolute requirment to do them so young.
I think it would make more sense for children to do them at an older age when they can understand better.

 

[MrMan]

I didnt say science will prevail in all its quests?

You're right, you said that science didn't have all the answers, yet - which infered that science will produce all the answers. We will agree to disagree as mind mind cant keep up with all the twists in that particular argument.

Im not calling you naive. I stated it was a naive view that there were more questions than answers in science. There are as many answers. We may not know the answers but they are there. I am sorry you feel undermined.

Ok, I sjhouldn't have risen to the bait and I won't again this time. This notion that there are as many answers as there are questions again points to your belief that science will always provide facts; when you cannot say that with any authority.

You said said that people accept press releases etc but who is to say we are receiving all of the information. That is a paranoid view to take. There is absolutely nothing stopping you or anyone else verifying scientific advancements/breakthroughs. You can go to a library or university and request the relevant academic papers to read for yourself. If you really wanted to, you could attend the public talks that go on all the time in various subjects (I myself attended a public talk on the Higgs Boson particle given by the director of Cern recently).

Would you not agree that claiming you are not being given all the information is a paranoid view when the information is there for anyone who wishes to pursue it? Seriously?

I initially said that those who disagreed with scientific findings were considered crackpots etc, and now your retort is that you must be paranoid if you don't accept that the information given to the public is all there is to a story!
I couldn't care less about higgs boson etc, but if I did why should I have to accept the writte word of the science brethern? Can you not see the parralells with having to just accept the word as written or be chastised for questioning it?

 

[truthseeker]

@MrMan - if you do not wish to accept the word of experts in a subject you are more than entitled to go and educate yourself in the subject and do your own investigations and come to your own conclusions, publish your results and await the peer reviewing.

I feel ridiculous defending a widely accepted view of scientific inquiry and explaining why it differs from religious dogma. Its self evident to me.

 

[MrMan]

@MrMan - if you do not wish to accept the word of experts in a subject you are more than entitled to go and educate yourself in the subject and do your own investigations and come to your own conclusions, publish your results and await the peer reviewing.

I feel ridiculous defending a widely accepted view of scientific inquiry and explaining why it differs from religious dogma. Its self evident to me.

It might take awhile to educate myself on everything, sure only God knows everything. I'm not comparing scientific evidence with religious dogma, I'm merely saying that the assertion that one must accept scientific evidence is akin to ........ I'm weary, I either can't articulate my point, or you can't comprehend it, either way there is never going to be a conclusion to this.

I'm actually not a bible basher, I just feel that the arguments against faith are often patronising and snide, and I feel the need the counter the often dismissive nature of the comments. This has lead to a debate that I can't even remember the start of, and like a lot of debates on AAM, the gist of each comment is often missed or ignored.

 

[Teatime]

My parting words, as like Yeats I feel all I can do is emunerate old themes, is that ye must either have gone to very hard line catholic schools or didnt go to such schools but imagine that such schools are the norm. From my 1980's education I can honesty say that what we were taught were 'normal' christian ideas that did some good to those of us who paid heed, nothing sinister, nothing indoctrinating, nothing that stunted our thinking, nothing that left us unable to discern what was right or wrong, & credible or incredible.

I went to a CBS in 1970s and 1980s and I do feel that I was made to feel guilty and bad. Especially around confession time. We were certainly afraid to question or even discuss any aspect of religion for fear of the 'leather'. It wasn't healthy. There were 2 brothers abusing children too, I think people knew at the time (we knew) but nothing was done until long after I left.

Things are different now but I still don't think kids need to be taught rubbish like original sin, hell, purgatory, eternal damnation, mortal sins etc.

 

[Sunny]

I went to a CBS in 1970s and 1980s and I do feel that I was made to feel guilty and bad. Especially around confession time. We were certainly afraid to question or even discuss any aspect of religion for fear of the 'leather'. It wasn't healthy. There were 2 brothers abusing children too, I think people knew at the time (we knew) but nothing was done until long after I left.

Things are different now but I still don't think kids need to be taught rubbish like original sin, hell, purgatory, eternal damnation, mortal sins etc.

I think you will find that they don't teach any of those things. Here is the leaving cert syllabus. Hardly brainwashing.

[broken link removed]

And as can be seen they deal with the Religions V Science debate in a very sensible manner. They don't call scientists evil and indeed a large part of the syllabus is teaching Children to question and critically analyse.

 

[Teatime]

I think you will find that they don't teach any of those things. Here is the leaving cert syllabus. Hardly brainwashing.

[broken link removed]

And as can be seen they deal with the Religions V Science debate in a very sensible manner. They don't call scientists evil and indeed a large part of the syllabus is teaching Children to question and critically analyse.

Are you saying that children will finish 13 years of religion (primary + secondary) classes and never have heard of any of these concepts: original sin, hell, purgatory, eternal damnation, mortal sins??

 

[Betsy Og]

Are you saying that children will finish 13 years of religion (primary + secondary) classes and never have heard of any of these concepts: original sin [FIANNA FAIL], hell [BANK SHAREHOLDERS], purgatory [THE COPING CLASSES], eternal damnation[NEGATIVE EQUITY], mortal sins[SEANIE FITZ]??

Sure look, arent the papers full of them every day (see above), do we really need to prove the derivation of the theory!!!

 

[Sunny]

Are you saying that children will finish 13 years of religion (primary + secondary) classes and never have heard of any of these concepts: original sin, hell, purgatory, eternal damnation, mortal sins??

They might hear of them but they are not taught to live in fear of them. Do you think lay teachers spend their time scaring 7 year old kids with stories about eternal damnation in hell? And teenagers would simply laugh if they were told about it.

 

[Teatime]

I think you will find that they don't teach any of those things.

So this statement was a mistake then?

In my opinion discussing/teaching any of the concepts I mentioned ("original sin, hell, purgatory, eternal damnation, mortal sins") isn't healthy no matter how you spin it or at what age but as you say they can just laugh them off...so thats alright then...

 

[Sunny]

So this statement was a mistake then?

In my opinion discussing/teaching any of the concepts I mentioned ("original sin, hell, purgatory, eternal damnation, mortal sins") isn't healthy no matter how you spin it or at what age but as you say they can just laugh them off...so thats alright then...

I don't even know if they do teach or discuss them. Do you? I said they would probably hear the terms just like they hear terms like rape, murder or Islamic terrorist. Or are you saying that kids should grow up with a limited vocabulary to protect them from the scary stuff?