I don’t know, but I’d think someone would have mentioned it if He had.
Looks like it wasn’t real.
FWIW, I don’t particularly feel the need to publicly distance myself from opinions I don’t share, ideas I don’t defend or behaviours I don’t condone. Do you ?
Hey my tax payer money goes to fund things that I consider immoral and anti-Christian like aborition. WHy is that ok?
Parents? In the real world, the divorce rate is high, and many kids come from broken homes, single parents who use the internet and tv to babysit the kids while they work their tails off to put food on the table. Where do these kids get their morals from then?
As for ancient ignorant people, the Jews have become perhaps the world’s most influencial race, defying the odds, surviving genocide and becoming a nation again. Israel is the geo political center of the world just as the Bible predicted. Israel is also a major producer of food, oranges in particular, in what was once just sand dunes. Just as the Bible predicted. And the list goes on and on… Yes, I believe this people does have relevance to modern life.
Not quite sure why you feel it’s relevant to bring Michale Beckwith into it. He doesn’t claim to be a Christian.
The Holy Word of God is the standard, and it clearly says that we should show love to our neighbors and enemies. You obviously don’t know a single thing about Christianity. War that was waged in the name of Christianity was waged by evil men, not true Christians. OTOH, atheism has ruined a generation, giving hopelessness and despair to our youth.
Yes, I do. My former church is pro child rape. They bent over backwards protecting vile monsters who destroyed the lives of children while pretending to be god’s ambassadors on earth. They vilified people and victims who spoke out about the child raping priests while shielding the guilty from civil authorities. I will speak out against this evil organization and distance myself from it as far as possible. The fact that so many don’t is appalling to me and frankly anyone who still belongs to that organization I have less than zero respect for. And I have many family members included among them.
Feel the love, atheists. Feel the motherfucking love.
The “Holy Word of God” is just a meaningless phrase. There is no god of any kind, and the followers of these imaginary gods can’t agree on what that “Word” is. The “Word of God” is just a way for believers to restate their own prejudices and desires, while stamping “Made by God” on them. The “Word of God” has no more authority than declaring “because I say so”.
True Christians are evil men (and women), judging by history. Being a good person means being a bad Christian; rather like how being a good person means being a bad Nazi. Some Nazis were good people, but they were bad at being Nazis, just as there are good Christians, but they are bad at being Christian. The two forms of “good” are mutually exclusive.
The vast majority of kids are Christians. And overwhelmingly, Christianity is a religion of guilt, self hatred and the hatred of any form of happiness that doesn’t come from cruelty. Christianity doesn’t reduce hopelessness and despair; promoting hopelessness and despair is one of the things Christians have typically made a point of doing; in their eyes it “promotes faith”. And that’s when it isn’t browbeating people into believing they are evil for being homosexual, or female, or like sex.
Personal comments are not allowed in this forum. You’ve been told this many times, and since it isn’t sinking in, I’m making it a formal warning this time. Other posters are also advised not to comment on GEEPERS or other posters.
And let’s see if we can keep this thread on topic. The subject is the Rhode Island school case and other First Amendment and religion-related issues. Discussions of the efficacy of prayer, modern medicine, and the purported evils of religion and belong in another thread.
So who are the true Christians? I see the highest level leaders of both church and government preaching hatred and intolerance.
Despite a history of infidelity, people like McCain and Gingrich get votes and are listened to by the voting population. How many nationally known preachers are found to be unfaithful, hiding the sexuality they condemn and rip off their supporters while living a decadent life style?
ETA: Marley got in there while I was typing.
It isn’t anti-Christian, that’s why.
Christianity, most likely; it permeates our society.
:rolleyes: Please. The Jews aren’t a race, and aren’t that influential. Israel isn’t the center of the world, and it isn’t very profound for a religion to to “prophesize” that Israel is going to be considered important by people who follow that very same religion.
It also say that wearing clothing of mixed fibers and eating shellfish is bad, yet selling your daughter into slavery is good.
Did you do any of that shit ? No ? Then what have you to apologize for, or distance yourself from ?
Do you feel a similar need to apologize on behalf of and distance yourself from PosterYouCan’tStand because you’re a Doper, from Charlie Manson because you’re American, or from Genghis Khan because you’re part of the human race ?
Say what you say, do what you do. And if others judge you based on anything beyond that, they’re just garden variety assholes. Who cares what assholes think, long as they’re not being violent about it ?
I do think our friend **GEEPERS **here has a serious cognitive dissonance problem if he can’t come to terms with the fact that Christians can do shitty things ; but I’m not about to ask him to apologize for those things just because he’s a Christian himself - these jerks really aren’t speaking for him nor acting on his behalf ; no more than Bin Laden is speaking for Muslims or representative of them.
There is a difference between a legal medical procedure and forcing young, innocent children to be subjected to a specific religious belief system that they or their family do not agree with.
Yes parents and other family, friends and church.
There is one race, the human race. Many groups of people have suffered because of the stupidity of their fellow man. And so, because they grow oranges now that means that what their ancestors believed 2000 years ago is true?
So what defines a ‘true’ Christian? I’ve heard countless arguements before about how one denomination or another, one sort of people or another are not ‘true’ Christians. That becomes a very difficult line to draw, eventually. Soon, one finds themself all alone, screaming to the skies “None of them are Christian but me!”
Expecting someone to embody all Christian values 100% of the time is an exercise in futility. Last I checked, there was only one guy who did that. He’s dead now. Or back. Or…coming back. I can’t remember.
Point is that being Christian does not make you free from sin, nor does it make you any less likely to make mistakes. You can’t just point to any Christian who has done wrong as say “They are not true Christians.”. Christians do, in fact, commit sin, ‘better moral compass’ be damned. Everyone is guilty of being wrong, everyone is capable of evil. Anyone who says otherwise is selling something.
I feel that I as an ethical and decent person must distance myself from an organization that endorses and supports vile behavior. If I didn’t I’d feel like I’d essentially be supporting it by proxy. Now, if the powers that be in the organization stopped it when it was discovered, I would agree with you. But this behavior went to the very top of the church.
So if the US government helped Manson leave California, avoid prosecution and moved him to say Vermont with a new identity and let him roam free to kill more pregnant women, then yes I would criticize America and distance myself from it for supporting the murder of pregnant women.
The problem I have with all of your logic is that I don’t see how a banner that says “heavenly father” actually in any way promotes Christianity. I don’t believe in that NLP shit that everything you see somehow has an effect on what you believe. I have no doubt that absolutely no student has ever been converted to Christianity because of that banner.
That’s where I object. It’s not that schools should be teaching this stuff. It’s that all it takes is one person who wants to create strife to cause a problem where absolutely none is necessary. The school is not net better off because the banner is gone. If anything, all this stuff does is embolden Christians like GEEPERS to believe they are being persecuted and causes them to double down.
There is a reason I support the concept of ceremonial deism, and that’s exactly what this was. You guys are inflating the importance of this due to your personal beliefs.
It does worse than promote it - it establishes as a base ground fact that children going to this school are *naturally *good little Christians and no one would ever object to the words nor feel excluded or ostracised by them.
That’s what ceremonial deism does.
Besides this, as has been stated in the thread already, the “heavenly father” and “amen” parts are not necessary for the sentiment or message at all ; the banner would have been just as much bland pap without them. But the good folk defending the banner REFUSED to have it amended that way, preferring to take it to court where they were, naturally, soundly beaten and told to remove it altogether instead.
So who’s causing problems where there are none ?
It probably is at that, if little atheists and little Muslims and little Buddhists get the notion than they don’t have to sit and take it should they be bullied by the Christian majority. That they *can *rock the boat. That the law is actually on their side.
The removal of the banner is meaningless as an act, but not as a symbol. Just as it was a bland-ass banner as a message, but a toxic symbol to uphold.
Irrelevant to its constitutionality.
A majority used to oppose women’s suffrage and civil rights, so what? Also irrelevant.
It’s not the responsibility of the school to promote religion.
So what? It goes beyond “ceremonial deism,” in my opinion, which has always seemed totally dubious to me as a argument for state promotion of religion. But regardless, appeals to “Heavenly Father” are characteristic of a very narrow, Judeo-Christian subset of religions. You don’t think it’s an appeal to Brahma, now, do you? Or Odin?
It’s promoting a “Heavenly Father,” so it’s promoting a very specific subset of religious belief. The creed could be equally effectively stated without a call to prayer to a “Heavenly Father.”
Damn that pesky establishment clause. But, actually, it wasn’t just a single atheist, was it? If significant people hadn’t agreed with her, she would have gotten nowhere. NB: not everyone who agrees with her is an atheist. I rather suspect only a minority of them are.
By the way, are people in the school prohibited from, say, wearing similar slogans on their T-shirts? Praying when it does not obstruct the class? Covering their folders or binders or laptops with stickers expressing similar sentiments? If not, then their rights to express themselves are entirely unhindered.
Why do religious types require an authority to trumpet their beliefs in official settings, otherwise they think their rights are being infringed upon?
Calls to a “Heavenly Father” in an official setting with approval of a state authority run afoul of the U.S. Constitution.
And could convey that same message without some asinine appeal to “Heavenly Father.”
Your scholarship is a bit off, here. The Constitution specifically prohibits the establishment of religion: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” Invocation of “Heavenly Father” in an official place sanctioned by authority clearly runs afoul of this, and is therefore un-Constitutional and furthermore un-American.
Wow, Christians really do yearn for martyrdom. Sorry, ain’t gonna happen.
Is heroic. Is distinctly American. Shows that our Democracy works.