Prayer out of schools?

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No catch-22. If it's disruptive to the general population of the school, or even to an individual, it's not acceptable. Go build your own school if you want to do that.

If it is not disruptive to anyone else, it is private freedom of religion and cannot be interfered with by law.

I'm not giving you hypotheticals here. They're facts.

The people of this disruptive religion could claim freedom of religion and then claim that they were being oppressed because people were actually discriminating against their religion.

I agree with what you say, by the way. I think freedom from religion is probably more important these days than freedom of religion. What about those of us that don't want to have any religious bibble at all in our daily lives, and are about as religious as the average pebble?

You shouldn't have to. Freedom of religion doesn't extend so far as to allow intrusion into other people's lives. I could claim my religion requires me to sacrifice your life otherwise. The laws are not unreasonable. Student have the right to pray before a meal if that prayer does not disrupt others.

Now if another student doesn't like the fact that a fellow student is silently folding his hands, bowing his head and praying silently, too bad. That's his right.

If he's dancing around the table banging a tambourine, he still has the right to do that too, but not in public school.

If you really feel that somebody sitting within eyeshot of you saying a prayer quietly without forcing it on you is offensive, don't you think that's being a little oversensitive?

To insist they stop though, is worse than oversensitivity. It's invasive. If you could stop me from praying quietly in school, what's to stop you from claiming that my doing so at home offends you?

The laws (here) are not unreasonable, and do not force anyone to put up with anything they can't easily tolerate.

IOW, they can claim freedom of religion all they want, but if their practices violate other people's rights, too bad for them too. Claim it all you want, somewhere else.

Mandatory prayer still goes on in many Primary Schools here in the UK. I am strongly opposed to it, as, people should be given a choice in what religionn they believe in.

In America, prayer in public schools is not forbidden unless it would otherwise be mandated by by the school system of one of its employees.

In other words, if a student or school employee feels the need to pray alone and quietly (such as before an exam or a meal), then he or she may do so without fear of arrest, but for a school employee to mandate prayer is to risk arrest and/or dismissal.

Yeah, that too. ^^^ These days, they would most likely be suspended pending termination immediately in public or publicly funded schools.

They ARE publically funded schools in the UK.

Last I knew you could also offer prayer to students; my second American History teacher would intone a blessing in Latin over anyone who asked for it before a test (I always said yes, not out of any particular faith but because the blessing sounded eight kinds of bad ass).

And if you see what Dawkins (and most other secularist humanists) wants, he wants this to end. The problem is, this would cause massive, united outrage across the UK, from the national Protestant churches, to the Roman Catholics, to Jewish schools, to Muslims, to parents, politicians, the Daily Mail-type media that can't see why this is being done and the benefits that it would bring. Also, there are parts of the UK where religion still has an almost overwhelming grip on shaping and segregating people - most starkly in Northern Ireland.

Ahhh, Xtian love......it's just wonderful isn't it!

Was he making a show of it, or just sitting quietly with his hands clasped? I wasn't kidding about the ACLU - they can, and have, gone to bat for kids who were prevented from praying for themselves.

Just like your freedom to swing your arms ends at another person's face, so your freedom of religion ends when it begins to impact mine. It doesn't matter if your religion requires proselytization; if you interrupt me in my required silent-communion-with-god (or whatever), you've strayed past your allowed freedom. Likewise, you don't get to torture and mutilate animals for your religion even if painful animal sacrifice is 'required.'

What do you consider "freedom from religion"? Nobody being forced to pray? No public indication that anyone is religious at all?

I am aware of that. I'm speaking only of the U.S. I have no idea what the laws or situations are elsewhere.

No-one being forced to pray, people keeping their public religion and their private selves separate - so, for example, I might agree with people wearing crosses, or crescents, or Stars of David. If people actually ask about your religion, then by all means, give them a potted history. Otherwise, though, in general, religion should be kept out of public life as much as possible (exceptions should be made for people privately praying unobtrusively, though, I'd suggest). I think with religion (and more widely) we need to bring in a set of standards that people can stick to. I don't want to be bothered by Christians foisting their crap on me, proselytising and getting in my face or, for example, refusing to serve me contraceptives, or them hassling gay people (these two are almost unheard of in most of mainland Britain, although Christianity-influenced homophobia remains a problem elsewhere).