Synogenes.com

It is welcome news that the European Court of Human Rights has ruled against the display of crucifixes in classrooms in Italian schools, on the grounds that it violates the rights of parents to educate their children as they see fit, but more importantly, that it violates the child's right to freedom of religion.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8340411.stm

If schools decided to inculcate in children political beliefs in the same way as church schools indoctrinate children into irrational religious beliefs, there would be a massive public outcry. The schools would be charged with manipulating children, even abusing them. Somehow, our societies grant a free pass to churches to do the same thing with religious ideas.

In Italy now, catholicism is no longer the official state religion but the crucifixes remain. In countries such as Spain, there is an ongoing conflict between the secular state and the catholic church. There, the catholic church has benefited massively from a default tick box on tax forms which channels funds destined either for charity or the church itself. Even priests were paid for by the state. And despite formally being a secular state, the church still has a very strong involvement in education.

In the UK, the growth of faith schools increases the likelihood of religious indoctrination of children. Almost every new school now has a religious involvement despite education being officially secular.

It will be interesting to see how other countries react to the ruling. Although some have been only too willing to campaign against the wearing of islamic dress in schools, they've often shied away from including crucifixes, yarmulkas, fish badges and the like. But surely there's a difference between the individual expression of a religious belief, and the public display of an institutions support for it when that institution is entrusted with the education of children?

We should be teaching children to be critical when presented with irrational religious ideas. They should be able to think critically about them, understand their social and political significance, understand their consequences. They need to know about religions but that emphatically means not educating them into religions.