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Thread: Faith Schools [Desperado † vs. absolute loser]

  1. #1

    Default Faith Schools [Desperado † vs. absolute loser]

    I will be defending the statement that 'Faith schools should not be encouraged by the government', absolute loser will be opposing it. I'll leave absolute loser open.

  2. #2

    Default Re: Faith Schools [Desperado † vs. absolute loser]

    Hey people this is my 2nd debate (well not really since my other one is not complete).
    Personally i hate faith schools but for the sake of this argument i will be supporting them!

    Faith schools are like normal schools except they teach religion/s. Most people would see this as a bonus.
    Also the school is not forcing the student to accept the religion but merely to acknowledge it.

    This also helps parents who are religious as they have some support in teaching their child their religion.

    As the school is not shoving their religion down the students throat i do not see a problem with the government funding and encouraging faith school.

    In an out
    Absolute loser



  3. #3

    Default Re: Faith Schools [Desperado † vs. absolute loser]

    Quote Originally Posted by absolute loser View Post
    Faith schools are like normal schools except they teach religion/s. Most people would see this as a bonus.
    Not necessarily. A school that has no faith can still teach religious education from an unbiased perspective, in the same way a not-Nazi school could teach about Nazi's from an unbiased perspective. Learning about religions is most definitely important, I am an avid supporter of religious education. But this is not the same as a faith school.

    Also the school is not forcing the student to accept the religion but merely to acknowledge it.
    ac⋅knowl⋅edge
    –verb (used with object), -edged, -edg⋅ing.
    1.to admit to be real or true; recognize the existence, truth, or fact of: to acknowledge one's mistakes.

    Acknowledge and accept is the same in this case. If you admit that a religion is true then you accept it. Whether or not it literally forces it on the student varies from school to school, some schools are stricter than others. This doesn't mean that it doesn't influence students subconsciously, or that teachers should show their religion. Again, I'll compare to politics. Just because a school is a Nazi school, but doesn't enforce it upon its students doesn't mean that the Nazi ideology should in any way be connected to the education of children.

    This also helps parents who are religious as they have some support in teaching their child their religion.
    And? Neither have we determined that religion is a good thing, imposing a religion onto a child is morally right, or that religion should be associated with every part of education.

    As the school is not shoving their religion down the students throat i do not see a problem with the government funding and encouraging faith school.
    Again, we have neither determined whether religion is a good thing, imposing a religion upon a child is morally right or whether it should be associated with every part of education. Not only this, but most importantly for a government, is that faith schools encourages segregation, which a government should not fund or encourage.

    Up until the 1960's Australian society was segregated into Protestant and Catholic, similarly to Northern Ireland. The Australian Catholic Church was against Catholic children going to the state schools which were mostly attended by Protestants. When an influx of migrants from Catholic countries put strain on the Catholic education system the Church was forced to relax it's rules. Catholic children began to attend state school, and some Protestant parents even began sending their children to the Catholic schools which were regarded as having a better standard of education. Within a few years the tension and hatred between the two sides evaporated, the myths were destroyed.

    It's fairly simple to understand. A school is a child's main link to other children. If all, the say, Muslims attend a faith school which only Muslims attend, and no Muslims attend the state school, and there's stuff about terrorists on the news, people start to wonder what goes on inside these closed off schools. Rumours turn to fear, fear turns to prejudice. Humans fear what they don't understand, what they don't know. If non-Muslims don't know what goes on in these schools, or even what Muslims are like, then they will start to fear. It naturally leads to segregation. If everybody attended state school, or non-religious schools, there would be little segregation or rumours or myths or fears or prejudice. Children would become friends with children of other religions, Islam would be seen as more normal. It is for similar reasons that I believe strongly in religious education in all schools. But never should a school be associated with one faith which makes it awkward, difficult or even impossible for people of other faiths to attend and imposes an evidence lacking doctrine upon the feeble minds of children.

  4. #4

    Default Re: Faith Schools [Desperado † vs. absolute loser]

    Quote Originally Posted by Desperado † View Post



    ac⋅knowl⋅edge
    –verb (used with object), -edged, -edg⋅ing.
    1.to admit to be real or true; recognize the existence, truth, or fact of: to acknowledge one's mistakes.

    Acknowledge and accept is the same in this case. If you admit that a religion is true then you accept it. Whether or not it literally forces it on the student varies from school to school, some schools are stricter than others. This doesn't mean that it doesn't influence students subconsciously, or that teachers should show their religion. Again, I'll compare to politics. Just because a school is a Nazi school, but doesn't enforce it upon its students doesn't mean that the Nazi ideology should in any way be connected to the education of children.
    By acknowledge i am referring to the ' recognize the existence', and by 'accept' i mean make it their own.

    You said that it varies from school to school whether they force the religion upon the student, we can't really argue whether the government should encourage these schools as they are different from each other, it's like getting someone to decide whether they should discard i pile of apples because one is rotten.

    If you don't want segregation then go to a different school. If all muslims went to one school it would be better as they would be with people of their own faith, those people who get afraid of muslim children going to a school are clearly paranoid, Its like how many people fear black people although they are no worse then other races, caucasion people (e.g hitler) are really the ones that people should be fearing if they choose to fear anything at all.

    You said that we could just have normal schools that have religious education in an unbiased way. Well at these 'unbiased' schools children often have to participate against their will in activities such as booklets about the religion, i know this as 2 schools i went to as a primary school student, made me learn many religious things that i did not want to know. They even gave us a copy of the bible, as if i wanted it(no offence to people that are religious) . Also i do not recall my teacher ever saying ''This is my religion, i would really like it if you joined me but don't feel like you have to, its your choice'', but instead they say '' now children open you bible to page XXX ''. They never suggest an alternative religion for their students, sounds pretty biased doesn't it.

    Some 7,000 primaries and secondaries in England - around one-in-three - are faith schools, with many performing above the national average. Two-thirds of the top-rated primaries in recent league tables were Anglican, Roman Catholic and Jewish schools.
    I found this in a news article. It sounds like many faith schools are providing a better education to children and I'm sure faith schools are gaining better results in other countries too. A personal question to you 'If you have a kid would you want he/she to gain a better education, or would you deny them that simply because you don't want them to go to a faith school'.


    That is all i have to say for now cuz i have to do my Sose assignment for high school.
    Absolute loser
    Last edited by Von Kickyourass; May 20, 2009 at 01:47 AM.

  5. #5

    Default Re: Faith Schools [Desperado † vs. absolute loser]

    Quote Originally Posted by absolute loser View Post
    By acknowledge i am referring to the ' recognize the existence', and by 'accept' i mean make it their own.
    I'm pretty sure that most children, religious or not, attending faith schools or not, recognise the existence of other religions. Some uphold certain religions to be true, as does a faith school. Associating an evidence lacking doctrine with completely unrelated education is absurd.

    You said that it varies from school to school whether they force the religion upon the student, we can't really argue whether the government should encourage these schools as they are different from each other, it's like getting someone to decide whether they should discard i pile of apples because one is rotten.
    I said that this point varies, but save physically forcing a religion upon a child a faith school is only one reason why faith schools should not be funded by the government. You made a statement claiming that faith schools do not force the faith onto a child. You provided no evidence. I knocked it down, saying it varies. Neither of us have evidence as to what degree it varies, so we move on from that point until evidence is provided.

    If you don't want segregation then go to a different school.
    Yes, because me sending my child to another school will stop a nationwide problem.

    We are talking about government funding here. Governments should not want segregation in their country due to all the problems it causes, and should thus not fund faith schools.

    If all muslims went to one school it would be better as they would be with people of their own faith,
    How?

    Schools should be areas where children are introduced to children outside their usual community.

    those people who get afraid of muslim children going to a school are clearly paranoid,
    Yes, but this paranoia is a result of the segregation. Granted, faith schools are not the sole factor in creating this segregation, but they are definitely a large factor, this being why governments should not fund faith schools.

    Its like how many people fear black people although they are no worse then other races,
    And? You've linked one racial/religious paranoia (which was a result of segregation) to another racial/religious paranoia, this is no valid reason as to why governments should fund faith schools. The fact is that they do cause segregation, and 'paranoia', and so the government should not fund them.

    caucasion people (e.g hitler) are really the ones that people should be fearing if they choose to fear anything at all.
    You think that there is more grounds to fear a certain skin colour than another because a mass murderer also had that skin colour?

    You said that we could just have normal schools that have religious education in an unbiased way. Well at these 'unbiased' schools children often have to participate against their will in activities such as booklets about the religion, i know this as 2 schools i went to as a primary school student, made me learn many religious things that i did not want to know. They even gave us a copy of the bible, as if i wanted it(no offence to people that are religious) . Also i do not recall my teacher ever saying ''This is my religion, i would really like it if you joined me but don't feel like you have to, its your choice'', but instead they say '' now children open you bible to page XXX ''. They never suggest an alternative religion for their students, sounds pretty biased doesn't it.
    To use your own phrase, why should we discard a pile of apples because one is rotten? Simply because your select, personally experiences of religious education was taught unbiased does not mean it is taught unbiased nationwide and that it should be discarded. Plenty of people have been taught history biasedly and maths incorrectly and English wrongly, this does not mean we should stop teaching these subjects.

    I found this in a news article. It sounds like many faith schools are providing a better education to children and I'm sure faith schools are gaining better results in other countries too.
    This is because the majority of faith schools are also private (and these are probably not schools that receive funding from the state, and so are irrelevant to this argument). I would not draw a correlation between the fact that a single religion is associated with the school and their good marks.

    A personal question to you 'If you have a kid would you want he/she to gain a better education, or would you deny them that simply because you don't want them to go to a faith school'.
    If my child wishes to attend a faith school, I would try to convince them otherwise as I personally see them as bad, but I would let him/her attend if they still wanted to.

    If my child wished to commit suicide, I would try to convince him/her otherwise as I personally see it as bad, but I would let him/her do it they still wanted to.

    Naturally, I would personally weigh up the factors. If the non-religious schools offered an extremely low education, and the religious school offered extremely high education I might not try to convince them not to go to the faith school, perhaps even convince them to.

    But this is no reasoning as to why the government should fund a type of school which associates an evidence lacking doctrine with its education. Your question was a situation in which the school also had better education, this is not always the case and when it is has little to do with the fact the school is a religious one.

  6. #6

    Default Re: Faith Schools [Desperado † vs. absolute loser]

    Quote Originally Posted by Desperado † View Post
    You think that there is more grounds to fear a certain skin colour than another because a mass murderer also had that skin colour?
    No i was simply saying that just because they are not the same as us that black people shouldn't be vilified more than other races, such as how you are saying that faith schools are worse then normal schools. Anyway i was only using it as a comparison, not to benefit me in this debate.

    So you think that even though they usually provide a better education as shown in my quote in the previous post, that the government should stop funding them. Potentially closing down schools would not be good for the students attending and if their school closes down they might have to go to a normal school and their chances of receiving an excellent education rather then a decent one could swing towards the latter.

    Maybe you were unaware but the Muslims' religion is the second largest in the world so I'm pretty sure they would have plenty of other children to hang out with, thus they would not be to worried about not having the chance to meet other children.

    Schools should be areas where children are introduced to children outside their usual community.
    Actually schools are for educational purposes and have nothing to do with socializing, and also i don't think people of their religion are the sole inhabitants of their community, i am introduced to many people from different schools (including a guy from a faith school) just from maybe going to the mall or things like that. So i don't know about you but i go to school for education not a chance to chat with people and getting to know them like i could do at other places.

    Good debate so far
    Absolute loser
    Last edited by Von Kickyourass; May 21, 2009 at 02:39 AM.

  7. #7

    Default Re: Faith Schools [Desperado † vs. absolute loser]

    Quote Originally Posted by absolute loser View Post
    So you think that even though they usually provide a better education as shown in my quote in the previous post, that the government should stop funding them. Potentially closing down schools would not be good for the students attending and if their school closes down they might have to go to a normal school and their chances of receiving an excellent education rather then a decent one could swing towards the latter.
    No, as you have no evidence as that all, or even the majority of the schools in that survey are receiving government funding. Until you provide any evidence those statistics are irrelevant to this debate.

    Maybe you were unaware but the Muslims' religion is the second largest in the world so I'm pretty sure they would have plenty of other children to hang out with, thus they would not be to worried about not having the chance to meet other children.
    Meeting other children is important, as is education of other religions and the traditions of others in your country. The best way to do this is to have the opportunity to socialise with children of other religions and traditions. This barely happens if everybody attends a faith school relating to their faith.

    Actually schools are for educational purposes and have nothing to do with socializing, and also i don't think people of their religion are the sole inhabitants of their community, i am introduced to many people from different schools (including a guy from a faith school) just from maybe going to the mall or things like that. So i don't know about you but i go to school for education not a chance to chat with people and getting to know them like i could do at other places.
    Firstly, I did not say socialising was the sole purpose of a school.
    Secondly, a school is for preparing children for their future lives, and understanding those of different faiths and traditions is a big part of this. School is where the majority of children learn their social skills with non family members, and these social skills are a very important part of employment and future life.
    Thirdly, it is also possible to learn a good deal of education without going to a school. This doesn't nullify the need for a school. The same goes for socialising with people of other faiths and traditions. The fact that you can socialise with these people outside of school doesn't mean there isn't a need for children to attend school to socialise with these people. The majority of peoples friends at childhood age attend the same school as they do.

  8. #8

    Default Re: Faith Schools [Desperado † vs. absolute loser]

    I don't think anyone is gaining ground over the opponent so I would like to call it a draw! PM me and tell me if you want to call it a draw or continue, i will do either but i don't think their is much of a point continuing the way we are going.

  9. #9

    Default Re: Faith Schools [Desperado † vs. absolute loser]

    Sure. It was a good run, but we are repeating ourselves now.

    Somebody can stick this in the archives.

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