Catholic Church Demand Input in Schools.

The catholic Church in this country is a dying dinosaur, it just doesn't know it yet. Personally I am against religion being taught in schools, but understand that if a person sends their child to a religious school then that person must allow for the dogma to be imparted on their child.
However if a person's child attends a nondenominational school, well then, shoo religious folk, shoo.
Right?
Wrong, for this is Ireland and the dinosaur while waddling into the tar pit, still has fangs.
The church has made a list of demands
however the INTO are up in arm about it and quite right.
The church do not pay the wages of the teachers, the state does. So who are they to make demands in such a fashion? They want half an hours religious education taught a day, emphasising the moral upbringing of children, and this bothers me to. Surely the moral upbringing of children should rest with their parents and should not go hand in hand with filling children' heads with rubbish.
I might be the wrong person to ask as I would be resolutely anti poppycock, so the notion of telling children about sin and angels and god and other religious mumbo jumbo in a nondenominational school chafes me something rotten.
These schools will have children of every faith and creed. Why should the catholic church have sway over it? Why not half and hour teaching how to be open and loving and understanding of different faiths? Why does the CC get top tier? How can they demand 'non-negotiable" anything?
meh, like I said I might be the wrong person, but I think they have a bit of a cheek making demands. Lets break the stranglehold. Let's start here.

Death warmed up.

That is the most apt description of me today, and I still have a mountain to climb in terms of work, but at least I'm at base camp one.
What do you suppose happens to you when you die? I don't think anything does, well apart from being turned to ash in my case. Then loaded into a blunderbuss and shot through the doors of the nearest Reiki centre ( a gal can dream can't she).
I only ask because I was among actual breathing people the other day and during the lunch the converstaion bounced unaided into familiar territory when the subject of the teen suicides arose.
There was some, 'oh it's terrible' and some talk of epidemics and some more talk of how difficult life is and...
I said I thought if people stopped glorifying death and talking up something as nonsensical as a angel filled afterlife, perhaps teens might place a big more value on the life they already owned and might yet still have.
I said this in a rather mild manner-I was eating polenta at the time- but I did notice some taken aback faces.
'What?' I said.
'Do you really believe that?' One woman said.
'That people ought to stop glorifying death?'
'No, that there's nothing after death? That death is the end.'
'Honestly, apart from the physical changes, yes, of course.'
There was some head shaking and a few mutters and I decided that-for once- because I wasn't on my turf and therefore not at liberty to take bloody over and be all bossy and condescending, to keep my big yap shut.
But it's true. I don't believe in anything after death, I don't believe in souls and sprits and rebirth or heaven and hell, the whole thing seems ludicrous to me.
Why the need for it? Why the fretful hope that this world, this existence can't be all there is to life? What's wrong with this life?
A belief in a retribution filled after life is one of the things that bugs me most about dogmatic religious people. It's always the same line of patter, 'you live your life in a manner I don't approve of, ergo you'll burn in hell if you don't repent/change/do as I do.'
Which is patently unprovable is it not? So why worry about it?
A belief that because you were pretty in the mortal world- or famous or a good singer or stupid enough to murder yourself- automatically gives you free passage into a heaven filled with angels- of which you are now one- is also too ridiculous for words.
Despite all the hucksters in the world there has never been tangible proof of an afterlife. Nor tangible proof of a god or gods. Sure people like to believe in a god, but I like to believe that Haribo Tangfastic Jelly Sours aren't fattening.
Belief just don't make it so.
I often wonder what it would be like if people stopped believing in gods and mumbo-jumbo. Would we disintegrate into a heartless secular society, morally bankrupt and free from other worldly fears?
Historic evidence from Stalin to Pol Pot would suggest that atheist rulers are even more blood thirsty than the religious when they secure power. Perhaps it's the human condition that is really at fault, perhaps despite what we strive to be-be it pious or secular-power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.
I don't know, I don't have any answers. I just know it's Wednesday, it's sunny, and I'd rather live and enjoy the here and now than pin my hopes on any form of post death hoolie.
In the mean time I ought to work on my social skills, such as they are.
Or stop going places.

Upset pagans.

My favourite line was how they were going to 'pray/dance' for rain to wash the offence away. Pray for rain? Are they fucking blind?