I thought there was something about forcing school children to pray. This was the persecution I meant. I never winessed anyone persecuted by being forced to pray. Just my experience.
Merely an anecdote trying to describe how being exposed to religion didn’t cause my head to spin around or spew pea soup.
It’s just not something that warrants getting all worked up about to me…
…unlike some.
There ya go.
I think persecution is too strong a word. You seem to be putting words in my mouth and then castigating me for the word that you used. What gives?
Who’s worked up? You? Shodan and Miller seem the most worked up, IMO. Shodan’s hurling invectives like there’s no tomorrow.
O.K., we agree. 
I’d love to see how all of you would react if the president wanted to lead you in something inappropriate that you didn’t believe in. What if he said Wednesday was going to be the day we wave the crystal over New Orleans and if it swings North/South, we can be assured that they’ll straighten themselves out on their own, but if it swings East/West, well…we’re going to have to send in more money and troops because things won’t be able to heal themselves. Leading us in prayer is the same thing. Silly and inappropriate.
Fallacy of prejudicial language. There’s no “forcing” of beliefs on a “captive” audience under discussion. A presidential proclamation forces no one to do anything.
I understand exactly what you want. The thing is, you can’t have it.
You mean founding fathers like George Washington, Abe Lincoln, and so forth? You are claiming that they “ran away from” the notion of a National Day of Prayer?
You haven’t been paying attention, have you?
I know what you are saying. The problem is, what you are saying is stupid.
In this context, “improper” doesn’t mean anything besides “I don’t like it”. That is an unworkable definition of “improper”. Because you don’t have any right to stop things just because you don’t like them. The Constitution guarantees the rights of the majority, too. We have the right to pray. The President has the right to issue a call to voluntary prayer. It "neither picks your pocket nor breaks your leg, and does not create an establishment of religion. Therefore, efforts to stop it are an interference with the other half of the freedom of religion clause, which is “the free exercise thereof”. That half is just as important as the first, and just as worth of protection.
Accordingly, shut your yap.
Nope, wrong again. Prayer is voluntary behavior; marriage is voluntary behavior. Prayer is offensive to some, therefore you want to prevent it as a public act. Gay marriage is offensive to some, therefore you want to prevent that as a public act.
Right?
Just the knowledge that a public official is doing something that some portion of the public finds offensive is enough that the behavior ought to be outlawed. Yes?
Regards,
Shodan
Then… I would ignore him.
I know… it’s shocking. Probably what would actually happen is I’d be seized with angst and paralyzed with ennui, stifled with the repression of my beliefs and wholly unable to function for days or weeks on end.
I’m thinking I’d just go with “ignore,” though.
Me? I’m not worked up in the slightest. I’m a little weary of people deigning to speak on my behalf, is all. You’re making a lot of sweeping statements about what “atheists” feel and/or think, and so far, none of them have applied to me, or to any atheist I know IRL. That sort of thing makes me feel snippy, especially when I can compare it to groups that face genuine discrimination and ostracism on an institutional level. You want me to give a shit that the president thinks prayer is keen? Please. Come back when he starts trying to change the constution to keep atheists from getting married. That’s a genuine complaint. What you’ve got is sour grapes.
That was addressed to That New Guy, in case that wasn’t clear.
Not a very good analogy, I never heard any consequences linked to the day of prayer. It’s not like he is proposing doing anything one way or another based on the outcome of any prayers. A better analogy would be if he said to swing a crystal on Wednesday if you wanted to. I wouldn’t swing any crystals because I wouldn’t want to. And if I saw some crystal swingers, I’d chuckle.
A better analogy would be if he said don’t wear any underwear on Wednesday if you don’t want to. Some people already wouldn’t wear any, and nobody would know if you were wearing any or not. Not wearing any wouldn’t hurt anything, or help anything, and nobody would know if you were wearing any or not. People that wanted to wear underwear could with no repercussions.
There are some though, who seem to be constitutionally incapable of ignoring the president. Perhaps it’d be a nice gesture on Mr. Bush’s part if he declared the second thursday in October “National Sausage Day.” Sausage day has worked out well in Canada and Ireland. Here, it’d give the nontheists something tasty to look forward to, instead of focusing all their energies on the perceived injustice of a minor religious proclamation.
You missed a step. An example had been brought up where a school principal makes a general announcement over the PA instructing the students to pray. That’s what we were discussing. It’s an offshoot of the main discussion.
That’s not a great analogy either. How about the president declaring a day of asking Satan to help us.
If you’re looking for an admission that Christians can also be hypersensitive jerks, you’ve got it. So what? How does that excuse atheists being hypersensitive jerks? “He does it too!” isn’t a very good defense.
No, I don’t believe I made any sweeping statements. I believe that if an atheist has an opinion about something, that he ought to be allowed to express that opinion without being shouted down, but I’m pretty sure that I never said that all atheists are of like opinion.
But I never made any such comparison. I think you’re over-reacting. Just because you can come up with another situation that is worse than what we are discussing, shouldn’t bar us from having a discussion. It’s the old “How can you talk about X when Y exists?”, argument. It’s just not relevant.
Stay current. I was discussing the example given where the principal instructs the students to pray.
Again, that would be worse, but that doesn’t mean we should be barred from discussing what we’re discussing.
“Sour grapes” is when you fail to get something, and consequently rationalize it by saying that thing “probably wasn’t that great anyway.” I don’t think that’s what you mean, is it?
I think you’re inflating the importance of the arguments I’m making. Please show me where I ever said that a national day of prayer is as bad or worse than banning atheist marriages. You DO seem to be getting worked up, and what’s worse, it’s over arguments that I never even MADE.
That wasn’t my point. I think that if one of my examples actually happened, if the tables truly were turned, that Christians would have every right to complain, and would do so, rightfully. If a school principal told kids to be atheists, that would be inappropriate, and complaints would be in order. I just think people should be able to see that it works the other way around, too.
OK, September 12, 2001. The Principal:
“Children, let us take this opportunity to reflect on why religion, which purports to promote peace and understanding, instead creates an environment in which people kill people of different faiths. Let us hope that people the world over realize that there is no god and never again use an irrational belief system to justify acts of such barbarism. Please join me in singing ‘Oh What a Friend I Have in Darwin’”.
Well, I’m really not getting worked up. But it looks like I AM responding to arguments you never made. Sorry about that, I got you confused with some of the other posters in this thread.
As far as I know he is. There is nothing that says you can’t pray to Satan. Knock yourself out, it’ll be just like South Park!
Okay. I’ve read the thread, and come to some conclusions. First, calling for a day of prayer is a pretty innocuous concatenation of church and state, certainly rooted in the republic’s history and definitely less harmful than, say, declaring intelligent design a scientific theory on a par with darwinian evolution. An openly and avowedly (some might say, loudly) religious president isn’t a constitutional violation. I can see where it might lead reasonable people to suspect hidden violations, such as a bias toward coreligionists when it comes to federal appointments and nominations, but that’s a separate issue that has to be proven separately. Second, I’m having fun trying to figure out exactly what religious tradition friend Shodan follows, reconciling it with his treatment of others in this thread. I’d love to get a peek inside his church, at least for the opening prayer: “Dear Lord – go fuck yourself, moron! Regards, your congregants. Amen.” Third, I no longer care if the president turns to prayer, tries to contact space aliens, or orders the GSA to build and install a bat-signal on the White House roof. It’s no worse than creating energy policy through obeisance to Exxon. Fourth, sincerely religious people would do well to remember that their freedom to worship might be better served by a government indifferent to religion, rather than one steeped in its own dogma – our leaders won’t always be coming off your pew, you know.
Well, that may very well be what the text meant to him. But how do we know it meant that to others who voted on it and who had a less absolute view of things? If he really wanted it to mean “complete separation”, he should have used that term and then everyone could have voted on that. But he didn’t, and they didn’t. Frankly, I think it unlikely that a separation clause would have survived a vote. But that’s a dfiferent matter.