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.

[Limehouse]

Who said it worked well? I mean, it certainly worked well when people were forced to recite the Lord's prayer in order to test whether or not they were Jews, thus headed for torture chambers of the Inquisition. Or the death camps in Poland.

There's nothing wrong with prayer. There is something wrong with mandatory prayer. Or with pressured prayer. And I can assure you that the kids who don't recite prayers with everyone else are the ones who get cornered on their way home and interrogated by other kids. And some of us unluckier ones get the crap kicked out us by four or five prayer thugs who feel the need to punish us for killing their lord and savior.

There may have been a time when Christians responsibly and respectfully engaged in public prayer, but when they started abusing is about 900 years ago, they forfeited the privilege. Maybe after another 900 years of good behavior you could earn the right back.

Not all Christians are the same Errata and they can't all be responsible for the actions of a few. Many Christians risked their lives to save people from the death camps.

Back in the 1960s, when I was at primary school, non-Christians were welcome to join our assembly and some did so. As we lived in an area where there were a lot of Jewish neighbours, there being a synagogue a few streets away, the Jewish kids had their own prayer room and their own prayer time when we were in assembly but they were not excluded from ours. I think that was quite progressive for forty-five years ago!

At the college where I work, we have many multi-faith activities and celebrations. The sharing of faith is a very important part of college life, as we are a very multi-faith community.However, within that multi-faith mission, Atheism is not frowned upon but embraced as a legitimate non-belief choice.

[Zodiac]

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

School Prayers!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=...ture=endscreen

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

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fRJ0...eature=related

In the end, of course, no one gets out of here alive. No one can cheat death, but I still think that I'd try make like Max Von Sydow in "The Seventh Seal." Only, obviously, I would open with the "Ruy Lopez" if playing as White or else play a variant of the "Caro Kann" if playing as Black, against his opening of 1.e4!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoBTsMJ4jNk

Best wishes,
Zodiac.

[Errata]

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

Who said it worked well? I mean, it certainly worked well when people were forced to recite the Lord's prayer in order to test whether or not they were Jews, thus headed for torture chambers of the Inquisition. Or the death camps in Poland.

There's nothing wrong with prayer. There is something wrong with mandatory prayer. Or with pressured prayer. And I can assure you that the kids who don't recite prayers with everyone else are the ones who get cornered on their way home and interrogated by other kids. And some of us unluckier ones get the crap kicked out us by four or five prayer thugs who feel the need to punish us for killing their lord and savior.

There may have been a time when Christians responsibly and respectfully engaged in public prayer, but when they started abusing is about 900 years ago, they forfeited the privilege. Maybe after another 900 years of good behavior you could earn the right back.

[Tom_Wescott]

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

[Magpie]

At my school, which was predominantly white, during assemblies those who had a different persuasion, such as Jews and Catholics, simply waited outside the hall and then came in at the end to hear the announcements, sports results etc. I don't see why atheists can't do the same.

In my school, that was the precise "solution" that I followed. The message to my co-students was clear: I was not one of them. I was insulting their faith. I did not belong. I was looking for "attention". I did not have school spirit. etc. etc.

In my last year I refused to leave the homeroom for morning announcements. I quietly sat for the Lord's Prayer, then stood for the national anthem, and the sky didn't fall, riots didn't break out, nobody was possessed by demons in my presence--actually, after the first day of my teacher trying to humilate me into leaving, nobody noticed.



btw, I was not an atheist or a member of some fringe religion group at the time: I was a devout pentecostal Xtian, seriously considering ordination, who happened to believe that public prayer (especially public prayer sponsered by the school) was inappropriate.

[Magpie]

The fact that the guy is getting death threats suggests that the people who are so upset at losing their public prayer didn't have a very good grasp of its content to begin with.

Maybe they should just modified it a little:


Our Heavenly Father,
Grant us each day the desire to do our best, without issuing death threats
To grow mentally and morally as well as physically, so we stop sending death threats
To be kind and helpful to our classmates and teachers, by not sending death threats
To be honest with ourselves as well as with others, by signing our death threats
Help us to be good sports and smile when we lose as well as when we win, and not threaten to kill those to whom we lose.
Teach us the value of true friendship, which shouldn't include death threats
Help us always to conduct ourselves so as to bring credit to Cranston High School West, except for the death threat thing.
Amen

[Ally]

Wow...I am kind of amazed at this thread. I love the suggestion "If you don't believe like we believe you can just sit out in the hall til we are done, then you can come in". Really? In a public institution, paid for by the tax dollars of those very same people you are telling to wait out in the hall until YOUR religion gets honored? How about you wait out in the hall while each one of THEIR religions gets its daily allotment of hype?

As for the who are you asking to "grant" easy. Yourself. I grant myself the strength not to beat the living crap out of some moron nearly ever single day. I don't appeal to a higher power, there is no higher power than the individual when it comes to controlling the individual.

Or you could simply be appealing to the institution. Schools are supposed to give you the desire to do your best. Removing Heavenly Father and Amen is a reasonable solution which allows every individual person the ability to appeal to whatever they believe in, be it allah or jesus or mother goddess or themselves and the human spirit.

[Limehouse]

If you get rid of "Heavenly Father", who are you talking to? Who are you asking to grant you whatever? I object to the "Father" part.


Mike

Well, I see your point, but it could be seen as a collective striving towards a common goal.

[Robert]

Exactly, you have to convert the whole thing to "Let us be kind" "Let us strive" "May we be honest" etc etc.

[The Good Michael]

If you get rid of "Heavenly Father", who are you talking to? Who are you asking to grant you whatever? I object to the "Father" part.


Mike

[Robert]

But I thought this was the whole point : the atheist would presumably not object to this, because it's no longer a prayer once the first and last line have been removed.. All traces of religion have gone, except for the words "grant," "help" and "teach."

[DVV]

I have reproduced the prayer that was so objected against below because I think that, if you removed 'Our Heavenly Father' from the start and 'Amen' from the end, what is left is a perfectly acceptable set of objectives for any young person to adopt.

If this young lady is indeed an atheist, I fail to see how she can feel threatened by such a heartfelt little prayer.

Our Heavenly Father,
Grant us each day the desire to do our best,
To grow mentally and morally as well as physically,
To be kind and helpful to our classmates and teachers,
To be honest with ourselves as well as with others,
Help us to be good sports and smile when we lose as well as when we win,
Teach us the value of true friendship,
Help us always to conduct ourselves so as to bring credit to Cranston High School West.
Amen

Well said, Limehouse.

[Robert]

At my school, which was predominantly white, during assemblies those who had a different persuasion, such as Jews and Catholics, simply waited outside the hall and then came in at the end to hear the announcements, sports results etc. I don't see why atheists can't do the same.

[Limehouse]

I have reproduced the prayer that was so objected against below because I think that, if you removed 'Our Heavenly Father' from the start and 'Amen' from the end, what is left is a perfectly acceptable set of objectives for any young person to adopt.

If this young lady is indeed an atheist, I fail to see how she can feel threatened by such a heartfelt little prayer.

Our Heavenly Father,
Grant us each day the desire to do our best,
To grow mentally and morally as well as physically,
To be kind and helpful to our classmates and teachers,
To be honest with ourselves as well as with others,
Help us to be good sports and smile when we lose as well as when we win,
Teach us the value of true friendship,
Help us always to conduct ourselves so as to bring credit to Cranston High School West.
Amen