Cross about crosses

Interesting that the BBC chose to run this story on the news yesterday, it's about a recent ruling by European Court of Human Rights Judges that Crucifixes should be removed from school classrooms in Italy.

Crucifixes were required to be placed in classrooms back in the 1920s  when Catholicism was the state religion of Italy, the status of the church was diminished in 1984 but I guess the crosses remained. This is a really good decision in my view, the focus of the verdict was on the rights of the children rather than the rights of the parents (somewhat of a breakthrough in these kinds of cases!) however in predictably ironic responses the Christian apologists are claiming that the symbol is one of "love" (er, it's a man being tortured to death?) not divisive and not exclusive, how can they possibly claim this, are they living in an intellectual vacuum, so hypnotised by their beliefs that they cannot possibly step into the shoes of others, even for a moment?

When you put a poster showing the water cycle on the wall of a classroom you are saying to the children that this is a tested view of reality, even so this is something that is discussed and justified with evidence. Similarly for paintings or designs, it is clear that the content has a different meaning and purpose however the merits are similarly discussed; but what would it mean if you hung a flag in a classroom? For me this would mean we ARE Italian or American or whatever, no debate no question, similarly for a crucifix, to me it implies we ARE Christians full stop (this is entirely the intention of putting them there of course). The assumption that any particular religion can make this claim of young children is both laughable and contradictory to the whole purpose of education. Religions would clearly love to have the same status as nationalities (in some places they still do) but it cannot ever completely hold this position (you can't fool all the people all the time) because in reality it's just a set of ideas, ideas that can be chosen but not implied purely by birth.

Of course in the particular classroom that teaches religious education then all these symbols should be displayed and discussion encouraged about all of them, i.e. comparative religious studies should be central to any balanced education, a subtle but important distinction in my view. Schools should be places of learning, not places where vested interests of any kind are able to exercise a monopoly of thought over malleable minds, religion is a private matter for parents and children to address at home, anything else is indoctrination.