BTW, there has never been a world-wide flood, so in that respect and many others, the Bible is inaccurate historically. You don’t even have to go to science to find this, theologians will tell you that too, unless you have one who insists that the Bible is inerrant- Sorry, it’s not inerrant.

They say truth is stranger than fiction, this Truth is rather too uncomfortable for most. The truth is that as mankind we must recognise we’ve blown it and we have no other hope than a God whom we cannot see, whom has given us all the information we need about him in the form of the Bible.

Don’t knock it ’till you’ve read it

I suspect that it’s mostly only those that have grown up in strictly religious households that continue in any kind of faith tradition with any fervour.

The UK is technically a (albeit mild) theocracy although in practice we’re a secular democracy. Personally, I’d rather we were both technically and practically a secular democracy, with appropriate religious freedoms, but I’ll have no truck with religious persecution nor privilege.

There were also discussions of the usual suspects: islam, judaism, buddhism, hinduism, shinto although none of these were treated with any more than a cursory overview.

The origins of religions were completely brushed over, as if they were lost in the mists of time, never to be discovered.

Britain is not by any means a secular country, and won’t be until the monarchy is removed and the church and state are separated. Hell, even our second parliamentary house, The House of Lords, has a fair number of bishops (appointed by other bishops) setting the rules.

I’m not against the teaching about religion, I’m just against the teaching of religion (i.e. as if it’s a fact of reality/history).

I’m all for education, esp of religion, but will they teach it as a means of OK here are the different religions and their problems, now you choose what you want or will it show the violent history of each one- esp the main three. Will it show that Christianity started with a mix of Judaism and Paganism or will it ignore that? Will it tell the kids that Islam came a from a dream/vision, just as Paul had a dream and started Christianity to spread more? Will it show that the Christian texts was borrowed and/or stolen from other myths and rewritten to make it Christianity?

IMHO the only way to educate one out of religion is show the real origins, not what a small group want people to know. The warts are fine, but show the myths they developed from too and the battle to force Pagan to turn Mithra (or whatever man/god) to Jesus and alike. Make them question if any of these people were ever real, so that they go one to find the answer for themselves and not what some church tells them to believe.