THIS week in philosophical debates: what role should religion play in schools, asks a non-religious organisation? And what role should the military play in schools, asks a pacifist religion?

The Humanist Society Scotland (HSS) is seeking a judicial review at Edinburgh's Court of Session after the Scottish Government rejected calls for a change to current rules that permit only parents to opt out of religious observance on their children’s behalf.

A recent review by the United Nations Children’s Rights Committee recommended the parental right to opt out should be extended to young people.

In Scotland, all young people require parental permission to opt out of religious observance but in England and Wales sixth form pupils have the right to opt out.

The Catholic Church responded with the not entirely constructive: "If you don't like it, open your own Humanist schools."

It's a largely unchallenged notion, that a child of Catholic parents will be Catholic, or a child of Jewish parents will be Jewish or the child of Baptists will be Baptist. Of course it is, religion is hereditary as the basis for its survival. It's opt-out, not opt-in.

This isn't a challenge to the rights of religions to influence schools, it isn't suggesting religious practice should be removed from schools. That's an entirely different argument.

What the HSS is saying is that children should have the right to opt-out, if they so choose, of religious observance. There is nothing alarming or threatening about that.

Religions are belief systems and trying to force someone to believe something undermines the entire purpose.

Essentially, the HSSis asking for autonomy for young people. Not so dreadful.

The Quakers, meanwhile, along with the organisation ForcesWatch, sent a petition to Holyrood on Thursday asking for a Government review of how the Armed Forces operate in Scottish schools, after data from 2014 showed four fifths of state secondary schools were visited by the armed forces over a two year period.

Some were visited by the military as many as 20 times or more over two year period between 2014 and 2016.

ForcesWatch and the Quakers, fearful of militarisation of schools, want the Scottish Government to monitor whether the British Army, RAF and Royal Navy is targetting areas of high deprivation. So here we have a good example of religious interference in state schools.

In Glasgow, the questions have been far less philosophical but no less nuanced and complex.

Following a year of interviews with hundreds of pupils and parents, Glasgow City Council's education department has issued guidance to schools designed to make sure no child feels stigmatised or left behind due to poverty. One third of children in the city live in poverty, this rising to 50 per cent in some school communities.

The Cost of the School Day project asks schools to ensure that parents have access to information about benefits. Uniforms must be chosen with cost and accessibility in mind - there's no point a pale blue cardigan at bargain price if parents can't afford to travel to the school wear shop to buy it.

Possibly most surprisingly, it asks that teachers not set homework requiring computers to complete it. There's a tendency to think every child has an iPhone6 glued to them. Parents worry their child will be left out without a mobile phone or iPad and are scared to be the lone voice telling their son or daughter "no".

School trips must be educational and, preferably, paid for by fundraising rather than from parents' pockets.

I wondered how better off parents would feel about this, if they had concerns that their children would miss out on occasion to stop other children routinely missing out.

I didn't have to wonder long. I was emailed by no fewer than four parents from the school used as a case study to let me know they aren't on benefits and their children have laptops at home. Good for them. And how nice to know everyone's on board with the spirit of the thing. It's hard to give weight to a wrangle over whether a child can say no or not to taking communion when others have no breakfast.

As education secretary John Swinney announced a major shake up for Scottish schools this week, a head teacher, Jamie Petrie, gave evidence at the Scottish Parliament's education committee to say parents shouldn't be given too much say in the running of schools. "There are very few other jobs where the public can tell folk how to do their jobs yet in schools we are expected to accept this."

I'd say Mr Petrie's sentiments could be extended further than parents. Schools are awash with conflicting opinions from every side.

It's time to beat our sword-like opinions into ploughshares and let the professionals get on with their jobs.