Religios life

Agreed!

The concept of coercing another to convert to a particular religion disgusts me.

I�m an advocate of religious toleration and the appropriate teaching of religious education in state schools, in that beliefs should be taught not as fact but as theory; and all state schools should treat every major religion with equal value (I don�t mean to intentionally disregard those faiths with a smaller following). Nonetheless if a child is entered into a faith school, then perhaps it is the parent�s decision, and almost their right, to bring that child up how they see fit (Ugh, I�ve been reading too much Mill).

Sorry to diverge from the subject.

As a Quaker, the values that I follow are extremely important to me, however, I wouldn�t dream of forcing my beliefs onto another.

I can understand how the law and religion can conflict though. It reminds of a recent case in the UK where Roman Catholic adoption agencies lost their battle to opt out of new laws banning discrimination against homosexual couples. Personally I�m for gay couples adopting children; nevertheless I think that it is rather ignorant of the government to expect Catholics to separate their beliefs from their practices, and in effect such disregard for sect�s beliefs could be considered as religious discrimination.