Atheist Teen Gets 49 Year Old Prayer Banner Removed From School: Receives Threats

[mariab]

School Prayers!!!
Religion in my part of the world... The Third World... Yorkshire!!!

You're fun, Z. During primary school when I was a kid in Greece they used to have a prayer (followed by the national anthem) before classes started, luckily this practice went off when I went to junior high. At any rate, one fine day the director asks me to recite the prayer. I didn't mention I was an atheist, but was unable to recite said prayer to save my life. Sounded almost like what The Duke does with Hamlet's solliloquy in Huck Finn. Pieces and parts. It didn't have any repercussions on my school tenure, though the director was shaking his head.

[mariab]

they were Jews, thus headed for torture chambers of the Inquisition. Or the death camps in Poland.

Incidentally Errata, the nazis were atheists.

Something tells me that the way this thread is gonna turn up, it'll soon look like there are Christians and lions out there...

[Ally]

Incidentally Errata, the nazis were atheists.

Of course the Nazis were atheists. That's why some of their official insignia bore the slogan "God is with us". That's why Hitler made many public speeches condemning atheism. Because the Nazis were atheists.

The nazis were, like any political party, comprised of a variety of people of a variety of faiths. Except one notable religious exception of course.

[Ally]

If public prayer is so 'inappropriate' these days, then why did it work so well for long before becoming 'inappropriate'? The powers that be started giving in to uppity special interest groups generations ago, and now it's fully out of hand.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

How precisely did it "work well"? I mean really, what is your yardstick for it working? Did all the kiddies pass school? Did no one fail? Did all the children behave and no one had to go to the principal? Did everyone learn to read and write and do their algebra?

How precisely did the prayer "work" much less "work well"?

[mariab]

Of course the Nazis were atheists. That's why some of their official insignia bore the slogan "God is with us". That's why Hitler made many public speeches condemning atheism.

“God with us“ is simply a generic slogan, and as such has been used by any nation going to war. In their early campains during the Weimar Republic the nazis were selling themselves as Christians, to appear mainstream and to differentiate themselves from the Communists. The real reason why they persecuted the Jews were primarily financial and secundarily racist, not religious. They were also vehemently against gays, whom they perceived as “weak“. Their primary “philosophy“ was Nietzschean (concentrating on an assumed “Über-Mensch“ and “über-race“), which has nothing whatsoever to do with Christianity or religion.

Don't get me wrong here Ally, I'm an atheist myself at 100%, and this since I was a wee little kid.

[Ally]

Uh no. You don't get to claim that it's a generic slogan. People who are atheists don't put generic slogans honoring a GOD they don't actually believe in on their insignia. That's just weak thinking to rationalize.

The nazis were not atheists. They were a political party, that contained members of various religions. That's like saying the Republicans are atheist because their primary philosophy is Capitalism. Ones political ideology is not at all a ipso facto for their religious leanings. And the Nazis were not even primarily inspired by Nietzsche philosophy as a whole. Like any group of politicians they selectively picked out the bits that they liked while discarding the parts that didn't fit their goal. They conveniently discarded all of Nietzsche's disdain for anti-semitism and also for nationalism. Because that part doesn't fit their agenda. So no, their PRIMARY philosophy was not Nietzschean . It was one word, picked from a whole of Nietzschean thought and twisted to their own ends.

[Roy Corduroy]

I don't get it c.d.

This is not controversial at all. Its way up north somewhere. The only angle is why the Rhode Island ACLU took so long getting around to sue. Is that it? A throwback. A Gee-Whiz moment.

Roy

[Magpie]

If public prayer is so 'inappropriate' these days, then why did it work so well for long before becoming 'inappropriate'? The powers that be started giving in to uppity special interest groups generations ago, and now it's fully out of hand.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

No offense Tom, but the same argument could (and has) been made to support the opposition to suffrage, desegregation, gay marriage etc. etc.

[Magpie]

If public prayer is so 'inappropriate' these days, then why did it work so well for long before becoming 'inappropriate'? The powers that be started giving in to uppity special interest groups generations ago, and now it's fully out of hand.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

I just realized that you were responding to my post about my belief (at the time) that public prayer was inappropriate.

To repeat and clarify, I was a devout Xtian at the time, and I believed that because the Bible expressly advocated against praying in public, it was inappropriate for me to participate in the type of prayer conducted during morning announcements. It's the equivalent of going to a bar with friends even when you don't drink--your ordering a ginger ale doesn't interfere with anyone else's right to drink themselves into unconsciousness if they so chose.

[Stephen Thomas]

Uh no. You don't get to claim that it's a generic slogan. People who are atheists don't put generic slogans honoring a GOD they don't actually believe in on their insignia. That's just weak thinking to rationalize.

The nazis were not atheists. They were a political party, that contained members of various religions. That's like saying the Republicans are atheist because their primary philosophy is Capitalism. Ones political ideology is not at all a ipso facto for their religious leanings. And the Nazis were not even primarily inspired by Nietzsche philosophy as a whole. Like any group of politicians they selectively picked out the bits that they liked while discarding the parts that didn't fit their goal. They conveniently discarded all of Nietzsche's disdain for anti-semitism and also for nationalism. Because that part doesn't fit their agenda. So no, their PRIMARY philosophy was not Nietzschean . It was one word, picked from a whole of Nietzschean thought and twisted to their own ends.

Hi Ally

Hitler and his mates all had the benefit of a good brutal fundamentalist brain washing Catholic education, Mel Gibson style, where Jews were the ones who 'killed our Lord'.

As the Jesuit said,

'Give us a child til they are seven and they will be ours forever'.

Nietzsche really had nothing to do with it.

[Ally]

Not only did Nietzsche have nothing to do with it but back in the day (before Nazism) when the anti-semites were taking his Super Man concept and using it as fuel for their propaganda, Nietzsche was appalled and claimed they were perverting his ideal and theory. So you know...go figure.

Based on writings I have read, rather than being atheist, the ultimate goal of Hitler was to set himself up as the divine head of religion, the uber-messiah himself the prophet of god, which then makes him about as atheist as general christians (with Jesus), catholics (with the pope), Anglicans (the monarch) Mormons (with Joseph Smith), muslims (mohammed), Scientologists, (L. Ron) etc. Basically he wanted supreme dominance over religious thought.

No more atheist than any other religion that chooses to shape the religion around their political and personal ideologies.

[Steven Russell]

How can so many intelligent people believe in God? You don't believe in Father Christmas, The Tooth Fairy, or The Easter Bunny do you? Yet the sum total of evidence for the existence of all of these is the same... somebody told you.

[Robert]

Not quite as simple as that, Steven, e.g.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del's_ontological_proof

But don't ask me what I think of Godel's argument because I ain't going there.

[Ally]

How can so many intelligent people believe in God? You don't believe in Father Christmas, The Tooth Fairy, or The Easter Bunny do you? Yet the sum total of evidence for the existence of all of these is the same... somebody told you.

My personal opinion as to why otherwise rational people believe in a deity is simple: fear of death and personal ego. They are afraid and they cannot fathom that they do not matter at all in this universe. There has to be something out there that makes them special and a belief in a creator that designed the entire world just so they could inhabit it fills an emotional need and also provides a support system so that they won't just "wink out" of existence.

Fear and ego. That's my opinion only.

[Limehouse]

How can so many intelligent people believe in God? You don't believe in Father Christmas, The Tooth Fairy, or The Easter Bunny do you? Yet the sum total of evidence for the existence of all of these is the same... somebody told you.

I believe in God and I cannnot remember a time that he was not in my life. I have never had to question whether God is real to me because I feel, and see, and experience his work almost all of the time. God answers prayers - although not always in the way you expect him to. All you have to do to feel his presence is to ask him to come into your life and mean it.

Descarte, one of the great thinkers of his time, believed in God.

John Newton was a slave trader. He was made rich by the sale of human slaves and paid little attention to God. One day, in the middle of the ocean, when he had a ship's hold full of slaves beneath him, he felt the presence of God all around him. He threw himself onto the deck and prayed for forgiveness. He vowed to dedicate the rest of his life to God and His work.

John Newton later wrote the words:

Amazing Grace! How sweet the Sound!
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now I'm found,
Was blind but now I see.

Sorry if anyone thinks I'm preaching. I'm just trying to answer the question in a way that expresses my faith BUT I have the upmost respect for people who feel differently and I often attend meetings during which people share their different faiths or explain why they have no faith at all.