We don’t need faith education
A lot has been said, in various places, about the conflict between religion and science. Something that is much less discussed is the conflict between religion and art.
Thankfully, Muriel Gray has picked up the baton:
Can we really therefore condone the fact that to be truly Islamic these children will be banned from drawing and painting, (no sweet little self-portraits pinned on the classroom wall), that there will be no appreciation of Rayburn, Wilkie, Walton, Howson or Hornel? No readings of Burns’s love poems, Lewis Grassic Gibbon or Sorley McLean? No Scottish country dancing, where little boys twirl their reluctant girl partners round by their hand? No music lessons, or visits to orchestral concerts? No acting for young talents or ballet for children longing to jump and twirl?
Surely denying this essential part of their heritage to these young Scots would be an unforgivable form of state condoned abuse? And if a proposed Islamic school promised to relax its religious doctrine and allow participation in those haram activities that The Prophet was so clear in forbidding, then what is the point of it being a religious school at all? Why not just send these children to a non-denominational school and keep such cherry-picked faith for home and hearth?
Read the whole thing, as they say.
Monday 30 Jan 2006 | Paul | The Pit
