Schools asking for religion

[DarthPhilius]

Why do schools ask for your religion? I could understand if you cant do prayers in assemblies but why do they have to know otherwise? I thought it was a bit stupid and so i put down on a data sheet my religion as Jedi...

[noxlumos]

My daughter put "Hitler sent out forms like this" so you're not alone.
They will tell you that it's to gather statistics etc, which I'm sure it is, however I have no wish to divulge my ethnicity, religion or social status to some faceless Govt Dept so I too generally leave it blank or put some irksome remark on such forms.

[Theland]

There's never enough space on these forms for me to write, "I worship the God of the Hebrews."
Maybe just as well, they'd think I was being awkward!

[DarthPhilius]

Glad to see im not the only one annoyed with it all!

[saxy_jag]

Love it, Noxlumos! I'll remember that one.

I was once listening to Canon(?) Roger Royle talking about the time he was duty chaplain at a hospital. He sometimes wished people who weren't religious wouldn't put their family religion down (in the case of Christian religions). Said no matter what their beliefs were, if they weren't Catholic or Jewish, they'd put C of E and he'd end up with a huge caseload of people who really didn't need or want his services at all.

I noticed last time I was in hospital there was a box for 'prefer not to say'.

For ethnicity, I usually tick 'other' and then put something like 'anglo-scottish with a bit of saxon and viking for good measure.'