The Tharp Family, they spend a few months a year touring schools in Northern Ireland, and 8 months a year evangelising across the US. I have nothing against them personally, they seem like nice people, but I just don't want them preaching the word of their god to my young children.

Bernard, thank you for your comments.
The vast majority of christian children have been indoctrinated into christianity by their parents, I call it indoctrination, you can call it something else, but it is what it is.
For the sake of argument, let's agree with you that you can actually be indoctrinated into atheism. I'm not entirely sure how this works though, indoctrinating into a belief which has no doctrine. But again this is a point that christians and people of other religions will argue. So, to reply to your suggestion that I have possibly indoctrinated my children into atheism, if you mean do i promote atheism to them, the answer is no, if they have a question about a particular religion I will try to answer it, if they want my opinion on a particular religion I will give it, if they do not want my opinion I will not give it. I know this is the opposite to the way christianity is promoted by most christian parents, and that applys to other religions too. I know this because it has taken me until my mid thirties to realise there is no deity, that christianity and other religions are man made. Indoctrination is a powerful thing.
Truth is, I want my children to grow up to be free thinkers, this is why I feel strongly about religion being 'practiced' to this level in state funded schools. To me, religion is a form of social control, to you it is a belief.
I have no problem with religions being taught in schools in a "this is what some people think" kind of a way, and as long as no one religion is given a lot more promotion over another.
Of course, the reason religion is practiced a lot more strongly in schools, and not in colleges, universities and work places where it is barely practiced at all, is because young minds are impressionable (catch them young before thay can think for themselves), young children believe what is told to them, things like "you will burn in hell for eternity unless you believe in this particular god that we have no evidence for". It's just wrong in my opinion, and something I feel strongly about.
Thank you for your comments anyway, some helpful, ultimately we could debate this all day, but it is actions like that taken by the scouts association, rather than words which will eventually win out.

So you think it is right the state should attempt to indoctrinate my children against my will? By subjected to dogma, i'll give you an example: The school recently had some christian happy clappy outfit visiting the school, doing their brand of indoctrination. All the children were brought down to the hall for a couple of hours where they were told all about how wonderful god and jesus were etc... They were given dvds home with them (with more of the same on them). While all this was going on, should my very young child have been left in the classroom, or maybe sent home? And I love your suggestion for them to move school if we don't like it, how christian of you. I love the school in every other way, I pay taxes too, why should children who have already been indoctrinated by their parents be given preference when it comes to choosing state funded schools?

Thankfully times are changing and as a society we are becoming more atheist and less religious. Common sense is beginning to prevail, for example, the scouts recently removed their vow to god, so as not to exclude atheists, this is a step in the right direction, this is the future.

I fully disagree.
Spiritual development (as you put it) should be left in church. Imagine the outcry if a state funded organisation went around churches on a sunday morning 'preaching' atheism. That definitely would be wrong too, but it wouldn't happen in the first place.

My children attend an integrated school, and are still subjected to this dogma, even though they are atheist. Why should they have to listen to this nonsense?

I'm not sure why the parents have contacted the South Eastern Education & Library Board as this school is in the Southern Education & Library Board.

IF I was a cynical person I would say we've all been DUP'ed by SF & DUP, the 2 parties who like to divide & conquer. And judging by peoples comments over the last 5 days we have been well and truly divided and conquered, the likes of which we have not seen since the last time these 2 parties divided and conquered us over the flag issue.

And all this cynically 2 weeks before an election where DUP were already running scared. Word on the street was that many people were sick of tribal politics, and cross community parties, new parties and more liberal parties were gaining ground. Now, everyone is running back to their tried and tested corners of DUP and SF.

Just watch how they share the spoils once again in the upcoming elections. Watch as SF and DUP both use GA's arrest at the forefront of their election campaigns, but as soon as the elections are over you won't hear a peep out of them about Jean McConville's murder.

But I'm not a cynical person so I don't believe any of this.

"what higher authority are you speaking of?"
the cabinet of the government

"What will it take for you to admit Adams' innocence?"
I don't know what you mean here. In case you haven't read all my comments, I am definitely not a fan of GA, like I said, if he is convicted and it doesn't affect the peace (process), then I won't be losing any sleep over it.

:-) On the down side, SF will use this to their advantage.

Simon, it has made headlines because of who he is, whether you're a fan or not. I can see we have one thing in common, neither of us are fans of GA or SF. All I am saying is that people are getting carried away here, letting their emotions of what they would like to see happen get in the way of what is actually happening. Someone is taking us all for a ride here, just a couple of weeks before elections.

I'm not sure if your last sentence was aimed at me. You say "There is a big globe outside of Northern Ireland. Explore." Can you explain what you mean by this because it is lost on me.

So you don't think PSNI are taking any directions from above on this?

He has been released without charge. So I am thinking either they had enough to convict him or they didn't, but they still released him.

If they had nothing to convict him in the first place, in which case the arrest and court order to grant an additional 48 hours questioning was ordered from above, to appease the unionists perhaps for the on-the-runs, HET arrests imbalances, who knows.

Or they had enough to convict him which is why they applied to court for the extra 48 hours to question him. But the PSNI were told from a higher authority to drop it, because of the possible consequences.

In a semi ideal world people who commit these atrocities would be sentenced accordingly and serve the appropriate time, but we don't live in that world. this is Northern Ireland, where we let all these people back on to the streets, supposedly for the greater good.

People are getting confused here about the difference between what they would like to see happen, and what really happens behind closed doors.