After visiting a local secondary school here in Dundee, yesterday and experiencing first hand the devastation that secular humanistic atheist doctrines are wrecking on our childrens minds, lifes and souls, I have come to the conclusion that education is the number one issue facing us today. Thats why this ongoing debate in the press is important. Here is my latest reply to the Secularists campaign – you can see the previous exchange here
(I note in passing that whilst I am happy to post the secularist letters to enable you to see them for yourselves, Secular Scotland do not do the same. They post Robert Cannings letters usually with some exultant comment about how he has ‘destroyed me’ but never post any of the responses. It is a reminder of how our militant atheistic secularists work – they have a doctrine and they cannot abide even considering that that doctrine might be wrong).
Letter: State should not support religion
The Courier & Advertiser 21 Jan 2016
Sir, – David Robertson (January 19) continues to misrepresent my arguments and the aims of The Scottish Secular Society. His claim that: “Mr Canning says he wants Christianity excluded from education”, is false, as I’ve said no such thing.
If Christianity is rightly included in state education as a study topic, it is not excluded.
If parents wish to go further and have their children taught that Christian beliefs are true, they have that right, but no international human rights’ charter obliges Scotland’s state schools to supply such teaching.
His claim that I want “atheism to be the default position and ethos of every school in Scotland” is false, as I’ve called only for state schools not to promote supernatural belief, which doesn’t amount to promoting non-belief. A university or technical college is not atheist just because it doesn’t teach that God exists and it does not undermine Christianity merely by not doing the job of a church. Hindu children are not doomed to lose their beliefs by attending schools which do not promote them.
I do not ask that Mr Robertson’s faith be private: merely that what is taught as fact with state money be supported by evidence.
Robert Canning. Vice-chair of The Scottish Secular Society, 58a Broughton Street, Edinburgh.
Letter: Christianity is evidence based
Dear Editor,
Robert Canning of the Scottish Secular Society states that no international human rights charter obliges Scotland’s state schools to teach on the basis of Christian beliefs (letters 21st Jan). He is wrong. The European Convention on Human Rights Protocol 1 Article 2, states “in the exercise of any functions which it assumes in relation to education and teaching, the state shall respect the rights of parents to ensure such education and teaching in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions”. This is part of the Human Rights act which the secularists claim they support.
He also claims that he does not want atheism to be the default position and ethos of every school in Scotland and yet says that state schools should be banned from promoting supernatural belief. Given that atheism is just the lack of belief in the supernatural he is in effect asking for all schools to be based on atheism. And he is de facto excluding Christianity, except as it can be taught by atheists as myth!
Finally he demonstrates the irrationality and intolerance of the atheistic secularist position when he declares that what is taught as fact with state money should be supported by evidence. A statement I totally agree with. Which is why I as a Christian am more than happy to go into state schools and provide the evidence for Jesus Christ and the Christian way of life. The trouble is that Mr Cannings faith insists that I should not be allowed to do so and that all children in Scotland should be educated in a state education system based on his belief that there is no evidence for God – a belief which itself lacks evidence and which he cannot prove!
Yours etc
The Courier missed out my last paragraph which is below….
The question which Mr Canning and the atheistic secularists still refuse to answer is, why in a diverse and pluralistic society based on equality, do they want to exclude Christian parents from exercising their human right to have our children educated in conformity with our own religious and philosophical convictions’? Why do they insist that every child in Scotland be educated only according to their religious and philosophical convictions? This is the Orwellian view of ‘equality’ where some are more equal than others.