Fall of the Catholic Church

But your directly comparing Ireland to those Islamic countries - which I think is an indefensible position.

I have visited many Islamic countries and yes I consider European values far superior and more advanced. Most Islamic countries are theocracies and just in case you hadn't guessed it yet - I think religion has no place in the governance of a country.

Andrew with about as much respect as I’d care to muster at this stage - you’re in no position to criticise anyone for avoiding questions. I pointed out earlier you hadn’t answered a single question I had asked you, and you think you’re somehow in a position where I have to answer your questions?

Respectfully, jog on, good man.

I'll try again:

The teacher is teaching religion during school time, yes or no?

If yes, who is paying for it - the church, the state or someone else?

So all education is dogma by your broad definition. 

I was referring specifically to the views expressed by @Crooked Jack. I’m not sure where you got the impression I was referring to all education, but in any case the definition I provided wasn’t mine, it was clear I was using definitions provided by the Merriam-Webster dictionary.

But here's the problem with that position - to make a statement of fact is not an insistance that those hearing it believe it to be true. There is no pass or fail if you choose not to accept the reality of homosexuality. Otherwise the simple statement of the christian faith would require the pupils to be compelled to accept it as fact. 

I’m aware of that much. The point of insistence and dogmatism was in claiming that all children must be instilled with the beliefs being expressed. Whether or not the children believe the claims in the views being expressed which they are being exposed to is a different matter entirely.

(and that’s notwithstanding the fact that parental consent will always, always be required for relationships and sexuality education, and notwithstanding the fact that the school decides how relationships and sexuality education is delivered)

Can you not see the contradiction in your position here ?

No, but I do see where you ascribed a position to me that I don’t hold, and then built your point on a faulty assumption about a position you ascribed to me which I don’t hold - that being what you claimed was by my broad definition, all education is dogma.

Still not actually making it clear how teaching about homosexuality is indoctrination. You've avoided addressing that to many time at this stage. Its you opinion that expressing a fact is indoctrination by your definition. Your tap dancing around not defining how teaching about homosexuality is indoctrination is not impressive.

I haven’t avoided anything I wasn’t referring to in the first place. By way of trying to be helpful though, this was the part @Crooked Jack asks to explain how it is dogmatic -

Teaching kids only about heterosexuality is incorrect as it implies that homosexuality does not exist. Which it does. It is damaging because, since homosexuality exists and we are neglecting to educate children about it then some homosexual children will not understand themselves and be unequipped for later life. It is damaging to heterosexual children as they will not understand homosexuals, who might be their siblings, or parents, or future children. And so they will be unequipped for later life. Please explain how this is dogmatic.

None of the above is actually fact, it is an opinion, an argument, a point of view, dogma. Teaching children dogma as though it is fact, constitutes indoctrination. Again, just by way of reminding you what is meant by indoctrination -

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/indoctrinate

Homosexuality is a fact of nature - not an opinion. it occurs in many species of animals as well as humans. To deny this objectively observed fact is a denial of reality as observed - it is you who have the unsupported opinion not Crooked Jack.

"Various non-human animal species exhibit behavior that can be interpreted as homosexual or bisexual. This may include same-sex sexual activity, courtship, affection, pair bonding, and parenting among same-sex animal pairs.[1][2][3] Various forms of this are found in every major geographic region and every major animal group. The sexual behavior of non-human animals takes many different forms, even within the same species, though homosexual behavior is best known from social species."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexual_behavior_in_animals

Stating an observed fact is not indoctrination, trying to tell children that homosexuality doesn't exist most definitely is and the reason that religion should have no role in educating small children.

I really think you’re misunderstanding the point in a bad way from the get-go. It’s really very simple - nobody was arguing that homosexuality does not exist. @Crooked Jack was arguing this -

Teaching kids only about heterosexuality is incorrect as it implies that homosexuality does not exist.

That is an opinion, it is not a fact. Same for the rest of it.

That's being obtruse and you know it.

Teachers paid State funds to teach catholic dogma You can write ti any way you want, but that's whats happening.

Respectfully, your post is every reason why I am an advocate of many different forms of education in the Irish education system. I do not share your opinions or world view, but I do not advocate that they should be suppressed either. I’m not interested in getting into the rights and wrongs of your opinions.

I support the fact that it is every parents or guardians right and responsibility to educate their children in accordance with their values, beliefs, world views, and it is an obligation of the State to support parents or guardians in the education of their own children.

The state has no obligation to teach religion - that is the parents obligation. The state cannot restrict access to that education - but it has no obligation to provide it on the taxpayers Euro or as a substantial proportion of a childs educational time. There is also the obvious fact that what the Church would choose to teach children is incompatible with teaching them an objective fact based education - an education which would equip them to face objective reality.

You want the state to provide a service that parents and their chosen religion should be responsible for.

I didn’t argue that the State has an obligation to teach religion, I’m aware that it doesn’t. I’m also aware that the State has no obligation to provide religious education. The State DOES however, have an obligation to provide for education, and to support parents in the education of their children, and to provide for education that meets children’s needs.

You’re in a very poor position to argue that the type of education anyone is provided with leaves them ill-equipped to face objective reality, when you appear to be struggling with the objective reality that people exist who do not share your opinions.

I don’t appreciate being told what I want by anyone. I’ve already said that what I want is for the State to uphold the rights of every child to an education which is suitable for their needs. You appear to be welded to the idea that you know better for my child than I do, and then you appear to struggle with the fact that it’s not your decision to make, because -

1 The State acknowledges that the primary and natural educator of the child is the Family and guarantees to respect the inalienable right and duty of parents to provide, according to their means, for the religious and moral, intellectual, physical and social education of their children.

2 Parents shall be free to provide this education in their homes or in private schools or in schools recognised or established by the State.

3     1° The State shall not oblige parents in violation of their conscience and lawful preference to send their children to schools established by the State, or to any particular type of school designated by the State.

2° The State shall, however, as guardian of the common good, require in view of actual conditions that the children receive a certain minimum education, moral, intellectual and social.

4 The State shall provide for free primary education and shall endeavour to supplement and give reasonable aid to private and corporate educational initiative, and, when the public good requires it, provide other educational facilities or institutions with due regard, however, for the rights of parents, especially in the matter of religious and moral formation.

https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/cons/en/html#article42

(Bold emphasis my own)

Get over. They're not teaching for free. I think the infinitesimal hair you're splitting here, is that "they're teaching the national curriculum" which, for the periods in question, is religious instruction.

Even worse, they're prepping kids for confirmation, which is just a big party for them as was posted here earlier and how the thread arced into discussion of the role of the State in funding religious education. I wonder if the State funds bar mitzvah training in religious Hebrew schools too. I somehow doubt it...

There’s no hair splitting going on - they’re two separate curricula. There’s the national curriculum which is taught in all schools recognised by the State for which the school receives public funding, and there is the religious curriculum in religious ethos schools, which is the responsibility of the patron body, for which the school does not receive public funding -

https://www.curriculumonline.ie/Primary/Curriculum-Areas/Religious-Education/

For the period in question, during which children receive religious instruction, this is part of their duties as an employee of the school. The State, which is paying their salary, does not pay teachers for this activity. I’m not sure what the difficulty is here other than the assumption that somehow the teachers must be paid for work they are doing. You may want to hold onto your seat for this one - the members of the Board of Management of the school, are not paid for the work they do either. It is entirely voluntary.

This is one of the reasons Government are, shall we say, “reluctant” to establish more State schools (schools in which the Minister for Education is the patron) - because the management and staff in those schools are employees of the State, and are not working on a voluntary basis, and their salary is paid out of public funds.

There’s no need to doubt whether the State funds religious education, I’m telling you straight out it doesn’t, not in Catholic schools, not in Jewish school (there is only one in Ireland), not in Islamic schools (there are only two in Ireland).

Now if you really want to see some spectacular hair splitting, and, I’ll be honest, you’d need to be pretty spiteful to make the argument, one could argue that public funding was, up to 2013 at least, used to provide parents with funding for religious occasions. The State does not do this any more, thank goodness for Joan Burden… Burton, excuse me -

https://www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/commentanalysis/arid-20190210.html

https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/thousands-of-families-hit-as-first-communion-grant-axed-29188705.html

Enda too, was always a miserable shìt, but it was something of a knee-jerk reaction to people’s condemnation of some parents behaviour who were not in need of the exceptional needs payment -

https://m.independent.ie/regionals/droghedaindependent/news/parents-defy-church-ban-on-limousines-27146164.html

For the Government to do what it did to struggling families, it was a popular decision that was as easy as taking candy from a baby, and it was done not out of any concern for the misuse of public funds, but simply because some people will go out of their way to be spiteful towards other people who they see as getting something they’re not.

It's almost as if you're not keen to be connected with some of the more bizarre policies of the church you are fervently defending - that masturbation is sinful, that gay sex is sinful, that use of contraception is sinful - how many of those devoted church parents that you're defending actually agree with and comply with those rules, do you reckon? Why would you think it makes any sense for the State to pay to indoctrinate other people's children on this nonsense?

Eh, what's your actual source for your confused claim that teachers stop being paid the moment they take out the religion book?