Synogenes.com

In the UK there are 7000 faith schools, which means that in 7000 schools children are being indoctrinated every day into irrational beliefs. They will carry those beliefs until either the rational nature of the real world impinges on them, until they have a crisis in faith, or suffer contradictions in their beliefs that lead them to become rational.

In some cases, this is a major emotional and philosophical step. Those who have a world-view centred around belief in supernatural beings with the attendant sense of duty and guilt which emanates from the worship of those entities, will have substantial emotional effects when those beliefs are shaken.

In other cases, the indoctrination will be slight and the transition will be relatively easy.

For some, the pattern is set for the rest of their lives. They will resist all attempts to get them to think rationally about these beliefs, they will fend off any question about the likelihood of there being a god, they will not doubt miracles, they will believe that the Qur’an or Bible is the word of their god, some will believe they are eating the body of Christ when they eat a wafer on a Sunday.

These schools get state subsidy to indoctrinate children into irrational beliefs. The absurdity of this is shown if we decide the assume there is a different religion, let’s say based on some improbable supernatural being (call him the Lord of the Fairies) who sends emissaries to earth to influence the affairs of man (call them Leprechauns). Now providing we can demonstrate a reasonable number of adherents with unshakable faith, how could we deny them the opportunity to get state funding to teach in the context of their faith? Of course, such a suggestion would be rejected out of hand and rightly so.

And yet… it doesn't happen to accepted religions.

Now let’s be fair about this. Of the 7000 faith schools, in 2005, 6955 were christian, 36 were jewish, five were muslim and two were sikh. All of them propagating irrationalism in the context of education, a context both students and parents trust and expect to be educationally sound. Irrationalism is no basis for ethical teaching and ethics can and should be taught without religion in any shape or form. But the schools get their funding (capital and day-to-day running costs) because of their adherence to irrational faiths.

It’s the kids who are having their heads played with, it's their reasoning which is being systematically impaired. Day by day they are being encouraged to believe that the world is not subject to the scientific principles that they are taught in science. They are taught to believe in prayer, miracles, all-powerful beings that can rewrite the physical laws of the universe.

Those selected and approved irrationalisms get state funding, those more socially obviously irrational (such as the King of the Fairies and Leprechauns) would be laughed out of court. We should insist that they are judged on the same basis.

Isn’t it time we gave the kids, and reason, a chance?