I agree with the nuance of your argument, though I’d object to this bit.
It’s simply not true that religious leaders are required to enable reflection. It’s one assertion I have heard a few times over the years and I do find it a tad upsetting.
Non-religious people reflect, feel, and are moved just the same as our religious counterparts.
Do you feel excluded from your day job or other public events if they lack a religious leader?
To clarify, I’ve provided a “vanilla” option.
It wasn’t religious, but it also wasn’t humanist or any other belief system.
It was human, and that’s the one thing we all share.
This is another very interesting point you raise (while probably trolling, I confess I can’t tell).
The Cenotaph in London is deliberately devoid of religious iconography (unpopular in some circles at the time) specifically so that it would be inclusive for all.
The trickiest part about diversifying the offering is that entrenched privilege means almost every meaningful location / memorial is spoken for.
The fact our forebears made this community memorial a cross shouldn’t detract from our inclusive event, though it does again highlight the depth of the alienation and feeling of exclusion felt by many British citizens, and should make it pretty obvious why it so often feels as though we’re guests at someone else’s party.
But again, Remembrance belongs to all of us, regardless of philosophical outlook.
Reading the history of the design, it seems that it was chosen as a Celtic cross to make it more universal & accepting.
Appreciate history gets lost & assumptions made but reading between the lines the sentiment in the design seems to be more a similar to a Christian cross but not the same & deliberately different.
Might make a good talking point for next years ceremony as it seems the intent is not to exclude.
I applaud the progressive nature of what you are trying to do. I guess it depends on the area and background of what it is. Our RBL parade started in the 1920’s and always included a church service followed by laying of wreaths. If a cadet said they are unwilling to take part in the church service due to religious or non-religious reasons. I would happily advise them to join the parade from the church to the wreath laying. Although the church service does have hymns, readings and prayers/reflections, the church is full beyond capacity, I am always stood throughout the service and there are a mixture of age ranges in the congregation including former serving to current serving and just people wanting to be part of the service. I appreciate the view of the mixed faiths and cultures involved in fighting for our country throughout all conflicts including WW1 and they are recognised with other faith leaders, saying a sermon or prayer in their honour which is a nice touch.
I suppose my biggest issue with what I’ve come to understand as the default approach within the organisation is that we place the emphasis upon young adults (children) to stand up against the crowd and be “that guy” if they feel uncomfortable (or, to be fair, would simply like to be valued in the same way as other members of our organisation).
We have fully grown men and women in the services who succumb to peer pressure all the time, and so creating a neutral and safe environment for all our people to thrive as equals is not only essential, but our duty.
I think you can create a safe environment but not a neutral one. Personal I think The peer pressure at the moment is to be secular & don’t talk about as that’s the way to conform so being “that guy” is to be open about your faith.
Transparency & tolerance is the key as human bias is never true neutral.
As a youth organisation this is exactly what we should be doing & at all levels as it acts as that safe guarding & welfare safety net to combat bullying, predation & exploitation. in order to get the best out people we need to encourage them to stand up against the crowd albeit in a positive & constructive way.
Back in my militant atheist days, I just refused to sing the hymns (except God Save The Queen, of course) or close my eyes or bow my head for prayers, or say amen at the end.
This approach actually led to my eventual salvation, when a particularly good sermon by an Army Padre got me thinking and led to me wanting to know more. Had I been excluded, or the church service not been part of Remembrance Sunday proceedings, this might never have happened.
I absolutely agree that this is what we should be developing, but to act as though that doesn’t exist as a factor in compelling people to roll with the status quo is simply not accurate.
I’d also counter your point about who really faces pressure. There is a culture of respecting deeply held beliefs and referring to those who aren’t religious as “none”, as though they don’t hold comparable beliefs of a positive nature.
We also live in a country deeply stacked in favour of maintaining religious privilege (10 points to anyone who can name the only other country with religious leaders in its legislature), and so it’s not fair to claim victimhood.
There’s a huge difference between standing to lose privileges in society and being oppressed or otherwise discriminated against.
The clearest case of this is that, in achieving what I’ve achieved, a number of people were quick to accuse me of discriminating against Christians by seeking a level playing field while not giving a moment’s thought to engrained discrimination which must therefore follow under the status quo.
Hmm. I suspect this is a topic where it is almost impossible for people to understand fully each other’s perspectives.
@JustCallMeFlight, for example, writes from the perspective of a Christian convert who sees attendance at a compulsorily Christian event as part of his route to salvation. So, of course, it’s obviously a good thing. (My school works on the same basis.) From that perspective, of course, Christian leaders in the legislature is obviously a good thing, too. After all, Christianity is true…
On the other hand, @OC.1324 sees it as obviously a bad thing to privilege the leaders of one of the faiths represented in this country, even if it’s still nominally the largest, over the leaders of the others, given that in their view, none of them are actually true, so they may be valued as offering ‘spirituality’ or moral guidance, or whatever, but nothing more than that. They might be ‘useful’ (in the same way that DofE thinks cadet activities are ‘useful’ after the Northampton report, whereas MOD thinks cadet activities are useful as potentially leading to military service).
This makes me wonder if we should close this thread.
To those people who want the status quo because they would feel discriminated against otherwise, I’d ask two questions:
Do you feel discriminated against / unable to partake in any of our other activities that don’t involve your religion?
On the basis of your logic, does that then mean you prefer discriminating against the much larger cohort of non-Christians than discriminating (your framing) against the smaller cohort of Christians?
But I don’t think you are understanding the situation.
You think it’s obvious that no one religion/belief system should be privileged above another; you have your own (humanism). To you, that’s objectively obvious because you don’t accept the value of any proof of that statement other than a rational, scientific one.
Adherents of a religion by definition think that their belief system is the only true one. They accept other systems of ‘proof’ or faith, which you by definition do not.
It’s not possible for those two sides to agree, therefore, on the ground rules for a discussion. We would need a set of agreed axioms even to start the discussion.
