January 15 Letters: It is a leap of faith to attack role of religion in schools

AS part of his attack on faith in schools (The Yorkshire Post, January 7), GP Taylor argues that, in education, a secular world view should become a necessity.

He considers that, in order to create an “intellectually safe” environment in schools, religious belief should be stripped of its spirituality and be challenged and critiqued.

However, as he provides no evidential support for these proposals, they are just as much dogmatism from a secular perspective as some of the worst excesses he claims to see in religion. I can’t speak from the standpoint of other faiths but, in comparison to Christianity, the secular approach he champions is not intellectually or rationally superior.

Nor does its ethical outworking over the last century give us any basis for suggesting that secularism merits a privileged place in social education.

Further, the removal of spirituality from Christianity simply strips away the basis of the faith and in the resulting gap atheism flourishes, even if no one promotes it.

I’m surprised that as a retired priest he doesn’t know that.

From: Tim Mickleburgh, Boulevard Avenue, Grimsby.

YET again (The Yorkshire Post, January 10) people have been found out lying to get their children in to the school they want.

Wouldn’t it be a lot more straightforward if they went back to the old way of pupils simply going to the school that was nearest to where they lived?

From: Dick Appleyard, Saxilby, Near Lincoln.

WITH reference to the recent letter from Dr RF Heys about young people leaving school with inadequate qualifications, there are children who have English as their native language, with England being their native country, and they live in England and go to school in England, 
but their school makes it compulsory for them to learn a second language.

In my opinion, this is wrong.

When children go to school they should be taught arithmetic, maths, English (including reading, writing, spelling, punctuation and how to pronounce words and names) and they ought to be taught geography and other useful subjects.

I thought the real purpose of having schools which are compulsory for children aged five-to 16 is that they deliver a good education.