Poe’s law. I’m pretty sure you’re being sarcastic, but if this was any other board… all bets are off.
Speaking as a Catholic…
My son, now 11, has gone to school with kids from many religions and no religion. That’s life in the modern, diverse world. He figured out by the time he was in first grade that not everybody is Catholic. He’s had Iranian Muslim friends, Indian Hindu friends, fundamentalist Protestant friends, Vietnamese Buddhist friends (as well as Vietnamese Catholics who mix in some Buddhism), even (yes, horrors!) kids whose parents are resolutely non-religious.
Now, that’s never made him cry. He’s rather matter of fact about it. AT the Sunday catechism class I teach, he brought up the point “Some people don’t believe in God.” I just nodded, and said “That’s true. There are a lot of people in this world who don’t think God is real, and there are people who think there are many gods. There are people like us who believe Jesus was God, but there are other people who think he was just a good man but not God.” And then I got on with my lesson.
Knowing kids from a lot of other backgrounds has affected his thinking at different times. A few years ago, hanging with his Indian friend Nikhil got him believing in reincarnation. I told him that’s not what our Church believes, but I didn’t drum him out of the family! He’s way too young to understand fully what I try to teach him anyway! And at SOME point, he’ll decide for himself what he believes, and it will be out of my hands anyway.
A teacher of 7 year olds isn’t supposed to be a theologian. She’s supposed to teach kids reading and finger painting, and keep order. If she saw a kid crying because he just found out a classmate doesn’t go to church, it’s FINE to be sympathetic, but she should have just told him, “Well, our school and our world have a lot of different kinds of people who believe a lot of different things. We don’t all think the same way and we don’t all believe the same things. But I think we all try to be good, and we all try to get along with each other. Billy was your friend yesterday- you think you can still be friends today?”
It shouldn’t be that hard. Certainly not hard enough to require lawsuits or the AC freaking LU.
A nine year old nihilist sounds kind of adorable.
I thought the point was the the kid who WAS an atheist was targeted by the teacher for ostracizing and punished for his lack of religious belief, not that the kid he talked to was traumatized over it. Yes this is enough for a lawsuit and the A-C- fucking L-U.
- Atheism isn’t nihilism.
- He was seven, not nine.
Fuck it, lets go bowling.
Growing up a believer in Ft. Wayne I never saw anything like this while I was there, but then again I went to private schools the whole way through, so we didn’t have many.
But we were Lutheran and we had non-lutherans in the school and they never got any flak
You can join my group, Bowling with the Heathens. 
I’m guessing the spirit Simplico’s channeling is shomer Shabbos.
Well, until he drops a ferret in your bath and threatens to cut off your “johnson”.
Stranger
What do you need that for, dude?
Lutherans know how to stay the hell out of other people’s business.
I believe astorian’s point is that the reported behavior of the teacher is really stupid and inappropriate, and that the teacher should have acted as follows:
(With all of us assuming for the purposes of discussion that these reports are substantially accurate and that the atheist kid isn’t some little budding Joe Stalin or Damien the Antichrist who’s been going around threatening to light his little Bible-believing classmates on fire or some crazy thing. Personally, my money would definitely be on the “teacher and school administration are in fact acting like self-righteous jerks” but I could certainly be wrong.)
This is what happens when you fuck a stranger in the ass!
Amen = so be it. :dubious:
K?
I send money every year to help support the ACLU and NORML. It pains me to do it; it could go elsewhere, but fuck if we can’t grow up.
I know it will be sealed but I would LOVE to read the transcript or see the video from this trial. There has got to be some really interesting things that are going to come out from both sides before its all said and done with.
As a believer I can’t understand someone who thinks this is the way to win people for the church.
(consider the posts above as evidence) Satan’s best helpers are stupid Christians!
It’s funny how UnChristian many “Christians” act when their beliefs are questioned or challenged in any way. I was once having a somewhat light-hearted debate with a Christian that he started and when I brought up that I was an atheist it quickly devolved into a physical confrontation and the guy pushed/hit me in the chest and tried to start a fist fight, I however just stood my ground and turned the other cheek so to speak and did not strike back and he regained his composure and apologized. I’m not even militant or antisocial about my lack of beliefs like some atheists are I have a live and let-live attitude about the whole thing.
You think the problem here is that the teacher did a poor job of proselytizing? A teacher in a public school should not try to “win” students for the church. That is forbidden by the first amendment, and is especially obnoxious when directed at young children.