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[Owlbread]

In March 2011, YouGov had the SNP% of the vote for the Scottish Parliament Election in May at 29% and Labour at 45% in the Constituency Vote. By May, YouGov were polling 42% SNP and 35% Labour. In the actual vote the SNP won with 45% of the Constituency vote and Labour at 31%. Strange things happen in Scottish politics.

Take a look at this:

Opinion Polling in the Scottish parliament Election, 2011

[TD1]

inb4 angry Irish Republicans yelling about Eire not being any part of the British Isles.

It clearly is in the archipelago known as the British Isles.

Oh yeah? Why is it the British Isles and not the Irish Isles? Eire is one-half of the large landmasses there too! Or fuck, why not the Independent And Rational Republican Isles Of Whole Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, Jersey, Guernsey, And Man, huh?! Well?!
devilsadvocatedevilsadvocatedevilsadvocatedevilsadvocatedevilsadvocatedevilsadvocatedevilsadvocatedevilsadvocate

And if it had been called the Irish Isles (Despite Ireland not having comparitavely much influence there) you would ask why weren't they called the British Isles.

As Ahlawahlia said "perhaps it is that the dice had to fall one way or another, and fell as they did by chance." Add to that a bit of Tennant "It was a throw of the dice, and common sense isn't foolish in suspecting the dice were loaded." Granted, these are about religion. Still applicable, however.

*Sigh.* I'd just written that out before I noticed the transparent bit. Well, I'm posting it anyway, see if I don't!

[Sheb]

Still, things aren't looking good for Scottish independence. I guess it'll end up being decided by who actually goes to the poll. Those polls that include "wouldn't vote" only show a few percents of people not voting, which is utter bullshit. Even for such an historic vote, you won't get 97% participation rate. This ain't Crimea.

[Descan]

Personally I would prefer all publicly funded schools are secular, with religion being relegated to a classroom teaching what the various religions believe, with no moral judgement or "this is Truth" attached.  Hence why I'll probably be voting Green come the 12th, while I'm not a fan of their anti-nuclear or pro-organics stance, most of their other platform I'm a fan of, including abolishing the seperate Catholic school-board. It's redundant to have two of everything, and offensive to elevate the Catholics above everyone else in the country.

At least these British schools aren't all one denomination.  Still not a fan of publicly funding religion but at least it's not horribly offensively one-religion-only, and non-believers have the secular schools for them like we do here.

[TD1]

My R.E. class was just that. Religious education.

[Owlbread]

In my R.E. classes I learned about Christianity 99% of the time, mostly just bible stories and stories of Jesus. The 1% of the time was spent on Buddhism and Sikhism. We never looked at Islam at all.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

In practice, I've never heard of a religious education program that didn't seek to indoctrinate those in it. Religion's only place in schools is as part of history courses.

[Sergarr]

I don't think we have religion education programs here at all. At least not that I know of.

[Dutchling]

Religious education during the last three years in my Christian public school was like that, although we were "finished" with Christianity by then.

First three years was learning bible stuff like it's a history lesson. I'm still not entirely sure why I would need to know how long king David's reign was, or what agricultural tools the Israelites used...

[Descan]

In practice, I've never heard of a religious education program that didn't seek to indoctrinate those in it. Religion's only place in schools is as part of history courses.

Its an optional course at my old high school. Seems to work fine that way. "World Religions" with each religion taught getting a seperate unit. I think one a month? I remember it included Sikh, Jain,  Hindu, Buddhism,  and the Abrahamic religions at least. And from a secular viewpoint.

[scriver]

In practice, I've never heard of a religious education program that didn't seek to indoctrinate those in it. Religion's only place in schools is as part of history courses.

Swedish Religion class teaches about world religions, and is basically considered a sister-class of history.

So now you have heard of it.

[palsch]

It's usually interesting to have religious education assessed by the groups who are supposedly being taught about and how recognisable the material is to them.

Basically, religion is complicated and teaching about it in a non-insulting, accurate and comprehensive manner is hard, even assuming good faith on the part of all involved. Bring in hostile parents, teachers, governors, etc, and it becomes impossible.

[Sheb]

In Belgium, religion classes in primary school used to be propaganda (I've heard it changed), but in high school it was a mix of history of the world's religions, philosophy and whatever the teacher wanted us to learn. In my last three years, I learned the theory of changing a head gasket, some points of finer christian theology and the history of atheism.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

In practice, I've never heard of a religious education program that didn't seek to indoctrinate those in it. Religion's only place in schools is as part of history courses.

Swedish Religion class teaches about world religions, and is basically considered a sister-class of history.

So now you have heard of it.

Surely you must have somebody trying to unravel secularism and make young people religious zealots, even in Sweden.

(Anyway, I maintain my view on them being unnecessary. Sweden is so far the exception rather than the rule when it comes to religion.)

It's usually interesting to have religious education assessed by the groups who are supposedly being taught about and how recognisable the material is to them.

Basically, religion is complicated and teaching about it in a non-insulting, accurate and comprehensive manner is hard, even assuming good faith on the part of all involved. Bring in hostile parents, teachers, governors, etc, and it becomes impossible.

"Insulting" is somewhat the matter of issue. Religious groups tend to respond pretty typically when their faith is non-sugarcoated by somebody else. It's a lot like people who believe their political opponents should be banned and imprisoned for "spreading lies" about them. All in all, this is why religious education tends to end up as a pulpit for the majority group of whatever society it is being taught in, as actual neutral presentation just doesn't give the "correct" choice enough bias.

[Ukrainian Ranger]

Still, things aren't looking good for Scottish independence. I guess it'll end up being decided by who actually goes to the poll. Those polls that include "wouldn't vote" only show a few percents of people not voting, which is utter bullshit. Even for such an historic vote, you won't get 97% participation rate. This ain't Crimea.

You made me lol here