Posted by Jason on: 12.01.2008 /
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/200 … ying-faith
According to the above report the religious beliefs of children (why they are labelled as religious when they haven’t reached an age to make an informed decision on faith, I still don’t know) are a cause for bullying behaviour. The trend is for people of the same religion to stick together and to avoid contact with children of other faiths. Many children are not so defined by faith and so mix with who they choose.
Should we be encouraging children to be more accepting of other children’s religious views or to resist this sort of faith based thinking? I mean we can accept someone’s right to believe whatever nonsense they like but do we have to support it? Clearly we shouldn’t persecute people for being atheist, Muslim, Buddhist, Catholic, Christian or Pastafarian but nor do we need to accept or even tolerate their beliefs.
We should draw the line at bullying but shouldn’t we draw the line before bullying has the chance to begin. By emphasising differences without embracing them we foster separation from the mainstream which leads to bullying. If we accept ALL cultures as alternative but valid we could head this off before it becomes an issue. Is that just pie in the sky thinking? We aren’t going to get a situation where everyone holds the same religious views, not even if everyone were Christian.
Does anyone have any ideas on how to foster acceptance of varied beliefs while retaining individuality?
Comment by: joe
1Personally, I think the problem is with how we teach religion (and belief in general) in schools.
The religious education curriculum equates ‘teaching’ about what different religions believe with ‘activity’. My child was asked to produce a piece of work describing why she was being baptised. If I had been an atheist, I would have been livid. As a Christian I was just very cross and arranged a meeting with the headteacher. In doing so I discovered the lesson plans contained factual errors about certain forms of Christian belief (which I know a bit about) and therefore a good chance of errors in the beliefs I know little about.
To put words into the mouths of children which they do not actually believe - or that their religious community finds offensive - is just stupid in my opinion and does not help them learn about other belief systems.
Comment by: Children bullied because of their faith | All Reason
2 12/1/08 5:04 PM | Comment Link |[...] ..Real Full Article [...]
Comment by: Seren
3Jason:
To be honest, i find accepting some varieties of belief really, really hard, and I can’t even imagine a society that did it better than the one i live in (Melbourne, Australia). I don’t mean because we do it so well, i mean even trying to envision the ideal i just come up with a blank.
For example, i can’t stand the fact that some people believe that homosexuality is sinful (which makes as much sense to me as saying that having blue eyes is sinful), and that i was brought up to believe this. Some days i feel like we should be segregated so i can live in a society with people who only think things that i like!
I’m being completely honest here, and i realise the holes in my idea of the society i would love best.
So I can’t help you.
Comment by: Mike O
4Young children assume the beliefs of their parents until they are old enough to figure it out for themselves. Bullies aren’t rational - they’re just mean. If Tommy has two mommies, he’s going to get bullied for that, not for anything he’s personally done.
I sort of agree with Seren on this one — I don’t know that we should have to accept all beliefs. But a general atmosphere of acceptance would be a good goal. And by acceptance, I mean that as a two-way street. It is as much the responsibility of the individual to accept “the norm” (whatever that may be) as it is for “the norm” to accept the individual with their differences. What I believe happens in society is that so much focus is put on the majority accepting the minority with all their differences, that we forget that the minority also has a responsibility to try to fit into society as it exists.
For example, I live in the US in Minnesota. We happen to have a large Hmong population here. While we do need to be charitable and do all we can to help them survive here, they also bear some responsibility to function within an English-speaking, American environment.
I said all of that to say this - acceptance is a two-way street.
Comment by: Martin Gugino
5A few quibbles
We can’t stop what people believe. We shouldn’t stop people from expressing what they believe.
We can stop people from acting on their beliefs, if that is what you meant.
as others have noted - not gonna happen, nor should it. Heroin is just bad for ya.
Parents need to tell their kids that there are people in the world who believe different things, so that those beliefs do not come as a surprise, and those people do not seem so strange or threatening.
Mike O - regarding the Hmong: You must know of the book “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down”, about some hmong in Merced. I take it you don’t like chicken-vodoo performed in the living room.
Comment by: Mike O
6I don’t care what people do, as long as it’s not illegal or harmful to others. Just don’t expect “the norm” of our culture to redefine itself to incorporate all of diversity. We should be able to accept/allow you to be who you are without making it a part of who we are.
As a culture, Americans don’t perform chicken voo-doo in the living room, and we don’t have mechanisms in place to accomodate it. And that’s as it should be.
Comment by: Jason
7Actually Mike, I disagree. America does have mechanisms in place to accommodate chicken voodoo or any other religious practice that does no breech secular law. It is written there in the First Amendment. The practice of chicken voodoo, no matter how distasteful you might consider it personally, is protected by law.
This is part of the same standard of acceptance that allows you to practice Christianity with all of it’s attendant rituals. Or Muslims, or Satanists, or Native American faiths, or Spiritualists, or Hindus, or anyone you can thinks of. Personally I think this is great and is a bigger tool for inclusion than any other that I can think of.
Comment by: Martin Gugino
8:-) hehehe
Comment by: Mike O
9Yes, but that wasn’t what I meant. I was trying to say that just because they want to practice chicken voo doo in their house, I shouldn’t have to accomodate it in mine. If they come to my house and want to do it here, I’m sorry - you can’t. Not in my house.
Comment by: Martin Gugino
10Mike O -
That is true about everything, not just the Hmong cultural practices. (So are you thinking that maybe the Hmong want to do it in your living room? What am I missing? Are you thinking of Hmong creches at the mall possibly?)
Comment by: Mike O
11This has gotten blown way out of proportion. I don’t have an issue with any minorities or anything they do to define themselves. All I was trying to say was that when people immigrate to another ocuntry or culture, while they should be free to hold to their traditions, they do have to make some effort to fit into the culture as a general rule.
Comment by: Seren
12I’d agree, Mike, but modify that slightly - it’s not about what the migrant/refugee has to do, rather that his or her quality of life will be improved if s/he seeks some understanding and engagement with the dominant culture around her.
That said, weren’t the o.t. Israelites who found themselves in a different culture encouraged to stick out like sore thumbs?
Comment by: Mike O
13I’m not sure what you mean. If they were conquering a people, they were to make it their own so that wouldn’t apply. And if they were slaves, then that still wouldn’t apply.
Comment by: Seren
14“Israelites” was the wrong term - i was just meaning characters. I was thinking of Abraham, Joseph, Naomi. Not the conquering. I hope that stops happening for everyone! A pipe dream, i’m sure, but it’s nice to hope.