Prayer in Schools

[Lady Macaiodh]

[color=darkblue]Okay, I do agree with that.

That sad fact is, expressing your beliefs, especially when they are dissenting from the majority's opinion, will usually lead to nothing but trouble.

Damn, it's so ****** up. We are supposed to be living in a free society. As long as we express our views in a civilized manner, what harm could there be?

Except for those ignorant bastards who automatically hate everything remotely different.

I think I'm going to move to Ireland. At least we [i]admit[/i] we're just a bunch of drunks.[/color]

[Transtic Nerve]

[QUOTE=ChibiHorsewoman][color=darkviolet]The military's rules on religion are if it's in the military chaplin's handbook, it's a recognized religion and should be allowed to be practiced.

However, there are always prayers done during military functions. (I could tell you a great story about the last 'Holiday' party I went to with Lincoln) Including the Signal Ball where we said the Pledge, the National Anthem and a small prayer. I'm sorry, but I hadn't actually done the Pledge of Alligiance since 9th grade. However I guess you also have to do this before a movie on post. The prayer was a bit intrusive though. It's like reguardless of the handbook, any religion other than Christianity isn't acknowledged.

The military has strange ways of showing support for practicioners of other religions. My husband has had his car photographed by his first seargeant and told he needs Jesus. So yeah, the military definately has different rules.[/color][/QUOTE]

I wasn't specifically referring to the military. I was mearly citing an example of the fact that military and school grounds both have different rules than public grounds... And that maybe that was the problem.

[Junsui_sama]

I'm in 7th grade myself, and at our school we have a moment of silence, the only reason it does not bother me is because the principal doesn't call it prayer time. Me, myself, I am an agnostic, I personally think School and Church should be seperate, unless you go to a private church school (catholic schools and such).

I went to one in 3rd grade, please do not ask me about my time there, I had a good friend, but I didn't like the school.

On school merchandise they put things like 'May God Bless us' and other quotes like that, I feel insuted, but of course I live in North Carolina, which is in the south, so naturally there are many Christians and Baptists (Too many TYPES of Baptist to put down on this thing), so I know that there are some VERY religious people down here and I RESPECT that.

There is one girl in my class, her name is Dani,we're good friends, the only thing seperating us from being VERY good friends, is that she is a Baptist and I'm agnostic. We'll get into arguments about what the 'true religion is' and such.

I'll add more or reply later.

[Guest Midnight Rush]

Idealistically speaking, school is a time for education, not for expressing religion or cultural background. I am a Christian and believe strongly in the monotheistic reign of Jesus over all things, however school is not the time or place for prayer. Prayer is a personal thing, and people that insist it be done it public because lack of it is anti-religious are incorrect.

It should not happen on tax funded minutes for several reasons:

1. The government (and thus the tax payers) pays for this time to be used in educating the American people, not for a personal thing.

2. If one religion prays, the freedom of religon clause would make all religions have a time of prayer. That is ineffiecient, and thus bad.

This is not to say however that a moment of silence or whatever it is termed should be outlawed, because that makes sense: a time in which students can clear their heads and better prepare for the day. If a student wished to pray silently to whatever diety they believe is, so what.

This debate should not be solely limited to prayer, but all non-essential aspects of the school day. As I said before, ideally school is a place of learning, church/temple/mosque or wahtever is the place for religion. Some people may argue "But my relationship with Jesus (I'm using my personal example here) is personal and lasts 24/7!" Let me tell those people something:

You are DAMN right. Your [I]personal[/I] relationship is constant! It is not a public relationship! It is an intellectual and spiritual one that can be carried to fruition entirely in silence! Why disturb others with your [I]personal[/I] things?

On another facet of this that I forgot (thus the edit):

Why are people "insulted" by things of other religions?

I honestly don't understand it at all. Here is why:

As I said before I am a Christian, yes a 'born again Bible believer' and proud of it. However, I have a Muslim friend, and when she talks about her faith, I am not [I]insulted[/I], but interested in what others think and believe. Now, I obviously don't expect everyone to be a student of religion, but I wonder this:

In the case of athiests be [I]insulted[/I] by the words 'Under God' in the pledge of alliegience (sp? lol ^_~ ), I ask this question: If God truly does [B]not[/B] exist, and for arguments sake lets say He doesn't, why be offended by some poor idiot thinking that there is a God? To me that shows immaturity and a rather weak belief in Atheism. People who try to validate what they "believe" by coercing everyone else into at least pretending to agree, is an obvious sign of weak belief. And if these people are not even secure in their own faith (Faith that there is no God is just as much faith as saying there is. Both are equally unprovable.), who are they to dictate to others?

You see, if you truly believe something, and someone suggests a different idea, you should not be disturbed by this idea. If you are, you never truly believed the first idea to begin with. Its really sad, but people of all faiths, too many to list inclusively, are susceptible to this insecurity.

I may be wrong, although I severely doubt it. From a true believers (of any kind) perspective, it should not matter if school merchandizing includes "May God Bless Us". Like it or not this nation supports the idea of a God.

To close:

May the Lord Bless America, and may the Lord bless you!

[Godelsensei]

[FONT=Courier New][QUOTE=Undefeated] (Faith that there is no God is just as much faith as saying there is. Both are equally unprovable.), who are they to dictate to others?
[/QUOTE]

[COLOR=Gray]Let's not even get started on [I]this one[/I] again. =_=

Undefeated, it is very, very reasuring to see that not every religious individual demands that every aspect of every moment of every one's life be directly related to GOD in some way.
It would seem that so many 'true believers' will take any slightly negative comment about involving religion in places where it doesn't belong, interpret it as a direct attack at their intelligence, and start insulting every one who doesn't demand that we sit the little children down to pray every morning. Sheesh. I don't know what those people think they're proving.

It seems that pretty much every one agrees on this issue for the same reason: no prayer in public schools because the practice has nothing to do with public education.

I'm surprised no one else brought up the ever-tabboo CHRISTMAS CONCERT. *scary music* We're not multi-cultural any more: we're no-cultural.

*sigh*[/FONT][/COLOR]

[IceWolfEyes]

[QUOTE]I'm surprised no one else brought up the ever-tabboo CHRISTMAS CONCERT. *scary music* We're not multi-cultural any more: we're no-cultural.[/QUOTE]

Good point. When I was in choir, we had the annual x-mas concert. Only we called it the Winter Concert, or Holiday Concert. The majority of the songs were about Christmas, but our director sprinkled in Kwanzaa and Chanukah melodies. I always respected her for that.

[Heaven's Cloud]

[color=indigo][i]Side Note...wow, this thread has stayed alarmingly on-topic...[/i]

I attended high school in the thick of the bible belt. Every morning before class groups of kids gathered on the lawn, around the flag pole, or on the football field for group prayer. It never really bothered me, nor did it infringe on my rights in any way. I didn't have to participate or have to pay attention to them and although I was invited to join various groups I never felt pressured to participate nor made to feel inferioir because my beliefs were different from theirs.

On Friday nights at football games the head coach usually addressed the stadium with an ambiguous prayer (this was before all of the hullahballoo about organized prayer before sporting events) imploring God to keep both teams safe and injury free during the event. The prayer mentioned nothing about Jesus Christ, nor did it mention Allah, Jehova, Zeus, Buddha, Lehigh or any other religious icon. It mentioned God in a very secular way as a higher benevolent power, and think that most organized (and disorganized, lol) religions are covered by some sort of benevolent diety. By my Sophmore year, the head coach was no longer allowed to address the stadium in any religious fashion, so a random student usually stood up and said a few very secular words. When my senior year rolled around my school passed a rule that barred anyone from saying anything even remotely religious at a sporting event. They were concerned about offending people, namely atheists.

Anyway, I always wondered how a fairly secular (perhaps ambiguous is a better word then "secular") speech imploring God to protect athletes during a potentially dangerous sport could offend anyone. As I stated their was no mention of any particular God and the coach (or student) never used any Christian terminology like "amen", so therefore most religions were covered. I also failed (and still fail) to see how an athiest could be offended by the prayer. How can you be offended by something you don't believe in? If you don't believe in a divine presence someone imploring a figure that, to you, is no more real than the Kool-Aid man should hardly be offensive.

These forms of prayer, however, did not interupt the school day, and personally I don't think that time should be made to allow prayer during school hours. Students have more than enough time to pray outside of hours that are designated for school and learning. I know that seems somewhat contradictory, but I think that school (which is mandatory until you are sixteen) is a very different atmosphere than an optional social event.

One thing I would like to see in schools (at least American schools) is an increased emphasis on the study of religous beliefs in both history and literature. While I was in high school I had a brilliant literature teacher who was nearly crucified for telling us that we should read the bible. Obviously one student took what he said out of context, for my teacher was only suggesting that we read the bible so we could better understand religous symbolism that writers we were reading incorparated in their works. In college I took a few general theology classes and I found them interesting and enlightening. I realized how little I knew about the frame work and belief structures of even the most major religions. Since these belief structures (perverted or otherwise) are often the fundamental motives behind historical occurences, famous art work, incredible feats of construction and scientific break throughs.

Teachers teach Norse, Greek, Roman, and Egyptian "mythology" because understanding these various religions (they all are religions) influenced the writing, drama, and science of the time. Think about the charts that students are given depicting the heiarchy of the Greek pantheon. Could you imagine the uproar that would be caused if that same teacher gave a child a chart showing all the apostles and their contributions to the Christian faith? [/color]

[Godelsensei]

[COLOR=Gray][FONT=Courier New]Greek and Egyptian mythology are consitered, well mythology, now-adays. Although an atheist will consider any religion to be the same, the fact that such a great number of people believe in these things is what seperates things.
I see nothing wrong with educating students about religion, as long as it does not directly condone the beliefs. After all, one of my greater interests is culture and how it develops (but it's not as interesting as the grammar diffrentiations between languages^_^).

As for atheists being "offended" by prayer...well, I don't know where you got this idea from. None of the atheists I know (all but one of my closest friends, and most of the people I assosciate with on a regular basis--not because we're atheists, BTW) are anything more than irritated by prayer. Perhaps "irritated" isn't the right word: religious situations are often uncomfortable, especially when the individuals involved know you're an atheist.

Anyway, that wasn't really on topic, but I felt like commenting about those two points.[/FONT][/COLOR]

[Heaven's Cloud]

[QUOTE=Godelsensei][COLOR=Gray][FONT=Courier New]Greek and Egyptian mythology are consitered, well mythology, now-adays. Although an atheist will consider any religion to be the same, the fact that such a great number of people believe in these things is what seperates things.
I see nothing wrong with educating students about religion, as long as it does not directly condone the beliefs. After all, one of my greater interests is culture and how it develops (but it's not as interesting as the grammar diffrentiations between languages^_^). [/FONT][/COLOR][/QUOTE]

[color=indigo]Really? I didn't realize ancient Greek and Egyptian theology was considered mythology...despite the fact that I specifically used the term in quotation marks, lol. The point is that if a teacher teaches the principle beliefs of major religions to his or her students, those students will have a better grasp on how they influenced art, literature, music and society in general.
[/color]

[QUOTE=Godelsensei][COLOR=Gray][FONT=Courier New]
As for atheists being "offended" by prayer...well, I don't know where you got this idea from. None of the atheists I know (all but one of my closest friends, and most of the people I assosciate with on a regular basis--not because we're atheists, BTW) are anything more than irritated by prayer. Perhaps "irritated" isn't the right word: religious situations are often uncomfortable, especially when the individuals involved know you're an atheist.

Anyway, that wasn't really on topic, but I felt like commenting about those two points. [/FONT][/COLOR][/QUOTE]

[color=indigo][quote][b][i]me[/b]
They were concerned about offending people, namely atheists.[/i][/quote]

I think you are taking what I wrote out of context. Nowhere did I state or imply that atheists [b]were[/b] offended, I said that people (implying school administrators) were concerned about offending atheists. Just thought I would clear that up.[/color]

[Justin]

It doesn't really matter to me what they do with prayer time in school. If they take away a designated time for people to pray, it won't affect me at all. I'm just as able to pray with my head bowed and eyes closed as I am walking around in the hallway. And if I feel the [i]need[/i] to bow my head and close my eyes, I'll do it anyway regardless of whether they want me to or not.

I also wouldn't care if they allowed students of other religions to gather together somewhere to pray/meditate--the flagpole, even. I personally think a lot of modern Christians in America are too touchy. Many act like all these out in the world who are not Christians should behave as though they are--which is, of course, a dumb notion.

But...uh...yeah. That's about all I have to say. Let them take designated prayer time away, I'll pray anyway. Or let them dedicated time and space for people of other religions, I'll pray anyway.

The Lord Jesus Christ bless y'all,
-Justin