Atheism Targets UK Schools: Telegraph

British Atheists are organizing to battle for the minds of school children. With the support of professors A.C.Grayling and Richard Dawkins, the "National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secular Student Societies (AHS) plans to launch a recruitment drive this summer", according to the Telegraph.

The AHS website counters by listing its objectives and disputes the Telegraph's claims that,

"The federation aims to encourage students to lobby their schools and local authorities over what is taught in RE lessons and to call for daily acts of collective worship to be scrapped. It wants the societies to hold talks and educational events to persuade students not to believe in God."

In its rebuttal the AHS site makes the following claims for its own intents, and charges the Telegraph with Lying for Jesus:

"* To teach students how to debate and create dialogue between school faith groups.

* Provide the school with fun and educational events and activities, including two student-led courses: ‘Perspectives’ in which a speaker from a faith group gives a talk followed by Q&A, and our ‘One Life’ course, which considers moral and ethical issues without god. Many events will also support the scientific curriculum.

* Encourage charity volunteering.

* Give students the experience of running a group and managing events.

* Show students that it’s ok not to believe in god and encourage critical thinking.

* Bring out issues concerning religious privilege in schools such as collective worship and incomplete or biased religious education"

Now it appears to me that the AHS has just confirmed the charges made by the Telegraph. The code words are obvious: religious privilege; incomplete or biased. And there can be little doubt as to the actual Dawkins-inspired content and methodology in such "fun" activities as "consider[ing]moral and ethical issues without god", and "show[ing] students that it’s ok not to believe in god and encourage critical thinking".

"Critical thinking" is code for Philosphical Materialist dogma, as is "promoting science". Dawkins is especially fond of the term, critical thinking, while not showing any propensity for demonstrating its use. Dawkins is an evangelist for Materialism and Humanism; critical thought is not his agenda at all, or he would teach it - but he hardly seems to comprehend it, much less use it.

I once scanned Dawkins site for "critical thinking" and for "first principles". There were dozens of hits, all of which proclaimed the need for critical thinking, none of which displayed any knowledge of what it is beyond spouting Materialism. And there were no hits on "first principles" save one that claimed to have created one.

There seems to be nothing that is too absurd to be believed by those who worship thought and the supremency of their own minds, at the expense of the humble use of the principles behind thought and rationality. For them, truth is decreed not discovered.

I'm not certain as to what kind or how much religious education actually occurs in British schools; that is not the point here. The point is the deception being practiced by the National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secular Student Societies.