Religion and school

[LillyImp]

Is there bullying, do to religion, at your school?
Have you been a victim? A participant? Or observer?

I live in a town of Christian majority. I'm open about having no religion. This has never been a problem, I don't flaunt it.
Last week a girl started bashing me to her friends, hearing that I don't believe in 'god'. I, being pathetic and passive, started crying.

[Ivanna_B_Me]

nope i can honeslty say no... but race yes... but not religion...

[xoJust_Juliaxo]

There is not bullying at my school about religion but i have had it happened to me before. It amazes me what some people will bash me about... see i like to explore religions which in the past has gotten me in trouble. An personally i am christian, but i don't totally believe in the church and i also practice wicca although safely because some take it a little to far. Anyways you shouldn't let someone else bashing what you believe in make you upset they are just scared in what they don't know, an plus their parents probably beat it into them that people who don't believe in "god" are bad people. Which is so totally not true, yeah some are but even people who believe in god are sometimes really bad people.

[*Faith*]

No, my town or county even is very Christian and there's a hell of a lot of churches. We don't have many people with different religions round here so there's not room for any conflict.

[Lizzie]

A similar thing happened to me once. I think… I was at… cheer tryouts, maybe my sophomore year. And I was sitting down in line waiting for my turn, and we had gotten into discussion about religion, at the time I was atheist. On of the girls was just shocked, and appalled I had no religion, she said she would kill herself if she didn’t believe in God. Which was terrible for me because I was already having issues with that stuff. Every time I saw her from then on it was terrible. So I think I understand how you feel.

[Prozac]

Nope. We are a Christian school but there are also a few people of other religions who attend. There hasn't been one case of religion or race related bullying at my school.

[R.K.]

Here's a very interesting, but at the same time disturbing bullying story
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTRDRP2n4Sk&feature=channel_page

Anyway, I don't remember any bullying due to religion at our school, then again I never really faced any bullying so who knows.

In our uni the student population is so diverse in beliefs/culture that bullying due to faith/or lack of it, would be weird; & I've never seen any so far. Maybe I just don't notice.

[Oiseau the Little Bird!]

Eh, being the kid who had to be the non-conformist in the 8th grade, I did get a lot of shit then, but mostly because I was a hardcore punk-rawk wannabe.

However, in my senior year of high school (looong after my stint in the 8th grade), one of the underclassmen in my Russian class, who was exceptionally irritating, found my Facebook, and saw that on top of being Wiccan, I was also interested in women as well as men. Now, I was already the butt of jokes to begin with because I was an exceptional student in that class, and didn't make it a point to engage in stupid conversations. But then after that, they started calling me Baby Jesus. ALL THE TIME. Then once they saw the band of my underwear and would make comments about the color purple whenever I was around. Then it got so bad that I publicly humiliated them by tagging them in a note on Facebook for all the world to see, their peers, my friends, calling them out on being cruel and terrible. I really hated my Russian class that year.

But that's as far as it ever went for religious "bashing."

[Bethie]

I go to a Catholic school here. It's more when you are outside school in your school uniform and people recognise the school your from that you come up against grief. Like a few months ago when our netball team was competing at the other side of town, the teacher told them to go on outside and wait for the bus while she talked to another teacher there. While outside the other school who were protestant, began to shout absolutely disgraceful insults at them, which turned violent and resulted in one of the girls on the team being punched in the face by one of the boys who'd started the fight. Absolutely disgraceful and an occurance that can happen whenever people can recognise your uniform here =/

[udontno]

I go to a school that is mainly Christian. I'm Christian myself, but I've been having problems with it lately. I'm trying to find my way back to God though. People are very intolerant of people from other religions. I personally accept anyone. I have dabbled into Wicca in the past and if I mention that, I think people will turn green and pass out.

I've got three major strikes against me: I've cut, I'm bisexual, and I've dabbled in Wicca. Needless to say, if everyone was to know that school life would be torture. Kids just aren't tolerant.

I've never come across particularly Christian areas in the UK o.o

When I was still in secondary school, I got a lot of crap for being Christian. Mostly related to my dad being a pastor, and me going to church. But also I had people make direct comments about me believing in God. So this is the reversal of most your experiences I think the issue is whatever the majority are in that area, if you are in a minority, you are far more likely to get shit, because you are 'different'

At college, it never really came up. I did get harrassed by one of the lab techs, who was a Christian, and felt the need to talk to me all the time outside of class, apparently because of this. Though I got the impression he was just a perv. But yeah, the students seemed quite tolerant.

At uni, I've got nothing from my classmates, but I dont really talk to them, and as I'm out as queer, they probably assume I'm an atheist. My hallmates from last year gave me crap about it a few times. Jokes like I'm a schziophrenic, etc. Really looking down on me. My friendship group have also occassionally taken the piss out of me about it, but to be fair, as they are all queer of sorts, many of them have had bad experiences with religion, and feel rejected by it, so they reject it back.

[sushi_error]

There is no bullying at my school due to religion.

However, as a Roman Catholic, I have had to dealt with cruel words/insults from Baptists in the past.

[BrittneyNicole]

My high school never had any bullying due to religion and neither does my uni. My uni is a Catholic school and I've never seen a problem.

[KCisforMe]

I go to a Catholic High School and I've never seen any type of religious bullying, or really much of any type of bullying for that matter.

Everyone is pretty tolerant and understanding of each others religious beliefs. In fact, the only people I know who make a big deal out of religion are some of the more annoying teachers. Otherwise everyone else is just cool with it.

[TigerTank77]

I'm Jewish so obviously there's anti-semitism everywhere. But only a few cases in ym school.

There was this one kid on my bus, who talked shit about my religion all the time. Pretty much everyone got off at the same stop and when him and I got off, I tried to walk away and ignore him. He called me a kike.

Resolution? I broke his jaw. I would advise you NOT to take this course of action. Ever.

[Angel]

My school may be small, but everyone seems to be very close and friendly, and tolerant. I've been questioned once by a guy in my class why I'm so religious and what's up with my vow of abstinence, but I know him well enough to realize that's he's just very cocky. :)

[Pelios]

I go to a Catholic school, so in the school there is really no bully for your religion, but outside school if other people see you with my school uniform they will make rude comments and make fun of you. They think we are the prepy ones in town and rich ones. But thats not true some families have to work really hard in order to send there kids to a private Catholic school.

[SnowKitten]

Yeah, there has been some emotional bullying at my school...
I am the butt of it...

Me and my friend are Wiccan, and I decided to let people know about my religion.

Now people try to state that I, a Wiccan, worship the devil, a Christian concept.
While I understand that the majority of Christians of America are very tolerant of other religions, but the select few that think that their religion is the one and only really make me just want to punch a pastor in the face...

People also are very intolerant of anyone that isn't straight at my school, and I almost got beat up twice because I'm pansexual...
What is WRONG with this world?

[Penguin Queen]

Not bullying, but I was often excluded when I used to be a christian. When I became an atheist, some of my friends stopped talking to me!

[Lorelei]

At my school, people are all right when it comes to religious tolerance. If you want to get ahead socially you have to go to the Christian church, but since I never really cared about church or being social, it hasn't effected me much.

The bigger issue in my area is kids getting picked on for their sexuality. Urgh. If I see one more guy get called a "fag" I swear my head will explode.

[Grizabella]

At my school, religion was never really discussed. I never experienced or witnessed any bullying based on religion. With the exception of a few people, I couldn't even tell you if anyone followed any religion.

[Anomaly]

I wouldnt say theres bullying about religion but theres diffently arguments all the time. Like theres some very rude satanic people at our school not saying all satanic ppl are just those couple of people. Anyways we do this thing at school called see you at the pole where we go to the flag pole and pray and then sing amazing grace. And they decided to inturpt and start blaring lets just say not very good music. So that led to an argument. Most the time though its just christians trying to share there belief with people and some people not liking it.

[TakeTheLeap]

I wouldn't say religion never really posed any kind of a problem back in high school. I live in a predominantly Christian area, most of which are Protestants (Usually Baptists of some sort, from my observations at least). I've never been bullied about what I believe, nor would I ever bully anyone for their beliefs. There was a small group of us, Protestants and Catholics, that would get together and debate about doctrine, theology, Biblical references (they'd say a quote, I would generally finish it and disprove a point they'd make), etc. It wasn't bullying, it wasn't trying to push beliefs on to anyone. We were just talking about validity for each.

Now, I did have one story where some second graders that went to the local Catholic private school that I taught religious education to on a weekly basis, that told me that... because I didn't go to this Catholic school (I did for 2 years but went back to public school after being bullied by the kids in my class), I wasn't a good Catholic. Upon a bit further investigation, I discovered that these ideas actually came from their parents. But this was taken care of quickly and quite effectively as far as what I've seen.

[friendable]

I haven't noticed any real problems due to religion at my school. I think my school is actually one of the more open-minded schools in the area, because it's in the middle of the city and there are a lot of different kinds of people.

[Dream]

I don't even tell people my religion. I'm thinking about putting it on my facebook, but I'm not sure I want to deal with people yet, mostly my father. He is the only one who I think would put me down in a mean way for being religious. I've been bullied but never for religion.

[Poetically_Pathetic]

At my school, if anything - you are bullied for having a religion. It is not deemed normal to believe in anything, and have any higher concerns other than who has been going out with who or whats happening on eastenders.

[Rosein]

I would generally say there's a lot of racial tension in my school...and town for that matter!
My school's a very christian based church...so when i turned around and said i was Pagan, I was pretty much disowned and accused of being a satan worshiper! It's not like I was asking for special treatmant...I just didn't want to pray with everyone for a god I didn't believe in! It's just wrong!

[Algernon]

Yes. I was vice pres, and member of bible club all years in public school.

there was indeed... Bullying.