I attend a school in Virginia. recently they started that whole moment of silence thing. I have the same outlook on this as on the pledge and god bless america. You always hear of those damn moms trying to get the pledge and god bless america banned from schools but they are just so stupid. My outlook is this if you have a problem with god just dont participate. these perople are always bitching that religion is being forced on their little faggot children but why don’t there kids just not participate.
BTW- sorry about being so riled up its just this issue really pisses me off.
Ill tell you what I think. I think the kids have no problems with it its just those bitch parents.
donotprodme
The language of your OP violates the ettiquette of the SDMB in a big way.
You must modify it soon if you are not to be labeled as a troll.
Please retract. BTW: I am referring to your use of the phrase “faggot children”.
is really offensive. Yer not gonna make points for your arguement that way.
While I personally think that a moment of silence is a very nice, meaningful gesture, I have to submit that it’s pretty difficult for a person in a room where one is happening to not participate. What are they supposed to do? Yodel? Sing the Happy Birthday song?
I don’t understand the objection to a moment of silence but, short of sending people out of the room, I don’t see anyway around the problem.
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No, it won’t let you alter it. But nothing stops you from retracting it and then rephrasing it. You might get more interesting replies about your topic instead of about how you presented it. Your call, though. Wouldn’t want to push anything on you
I also do not like the language in the OP. However, I’m going to leave that to others to address and get to what was intended.
It’s easy to say “Just deal with it” when you’re not the one who has to deal with it. Especially in high school, there are social repercussions for not going along with everyone else. No one wants the embarassment of explaining why they’re not a godless communist just because they don’t say the pledge, or don’t approve of a moment of silence. This puts these people in a very awkward situation, and can be viewed as an infringement on their first amendment rights, which is something that a public school (being a government establishment) is not supposed to do.
I know “faggot” is a term of disparagement for homosexuals, but it also means “twigs to be bundled,” as apt a metaphor for cxhildren packed off to school, actually, as it is for inter-gender sexuality.
With that in mind, why do we need to enforce even more uniformity on kids in school, while manitaining our conviction of a united yet individualistic society (symbolized in the fascines - bundles of faggots - on the back of the American dime)? Sure, in Japan they can live by the slogan “the nail that sticks out must be hammered in,” but in Japan after WWII, mixed-race children begat by American GI’s and Japanese women were aborted or murdered at birth. We can’t take such a puristic stance, either racially or spiritually.
I’ve often wondered why the “just deal with it”-ers can’t turn the situation around, place themselves on the side of the offended party, and see the problems with their “deal” attitude.
F’r instance, what if donotprodme was a student in a school where all of the students were to take a minute to offer benedictions to Buddha, or chant something to Zeus, or sacrifice a goat to Satan – whatever he/she wants to use as an opposite equivalent to a “minute of silence.” I suspect that donotprodme would not enjoy sitting on the sidelines while everyone else was benedicting/chanting/sacrificing, and I strongly suspect that he/she would get rather annoyed if everyone said, “too bad, just deal with it.”
But then, in my experience, religious fundamentalists (and those are the folks who are always the backers of such measures) aren’t that good at thinking “outside the box” anyway…
That is a result of ignorance, or maybe a cause of it. They are not taught to think for themselves, just to think and do what everyone else does. I’m sure alot of us can relate to being the odd man/woman out in highschool, but alot of people can’t. They are used to conformity. And, thanx to our puritan forefathers, many people still like that guy does.
The whole objection to the moment of silence thing is that said moment is a prayer time in an attempt to get around the constitutional issue of separation of church and state (and yes, that actually is a constitutional issue).
To the OP: You, and perhaps your contempararies, may think it’s “kewlies” to disparage those with whom you disagree, or just those you just plain don’t like, with the offensive term “faggot” (and yes, you obviously consider it offensive, else you wouldn’t have used it in a disparaging manner), but the plain fact is that particular word has long been used as a demeaning term, when applied to humans, for homosexuals. Now, you hae every right to not like homosexuals for whatever reason you don’t like them; however, it’s quite inaccurate, and thus destructive to your argument, when you apply that term to anyone you don’t like, especially if you use the demeaning term for them.
donotprodme, echoing many others, your OP was offensive and out of place here.
Getting to your point, I partly agree with you. I’m an atheist who went through school many years ago when prayers were still read. They didn’t bother me. (although I’m aware of others in my situation who were bothererd.) Similarly, a MOS wouldn’t be a problem for me.
However, I’m not sure a MOS really has much value. Here’s a question:
What do kids actually do during the Moment of Silence? How many of them actually pray? Do they think about schoolwork? Friends? Just daydream?
In other words, what’s the real impact of a moment of silence?
I have never felt comfortable with Christian dogma, and I have always resented having religious rituals thrust upon me. I can vividly remember being in Sunday School class at the age of 7 or 8 and feeling very uncomfortable with the presumed truths being taught in the classes. Parents have a right to expose their children to such situations. Public institutions do not share this right.
You know, it is just a moment of silence, not a prayer, right? A moment of silence is completely secular, it’s just a time to reflect.
However, that said, I have to agree with december here. An MOS really is pretty pointless, as far as I am concerned. Most teachers would likely not enforce it very hard, and most students will use it to get a bit of extra work done on their homework from the night before. Or at least, that’s what we used to do during morning announcements.
I thought you were supposed to stand – or at least sit there and study your hands quietly – during an MOS. No homework allowed!
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having a short period of time to pay last respects, even in a school. I thought the whole point of an MOS was that it’s like a secret ballot–no one knows what you’re doing and no one’s going to ask. There are plenty of pious atheists who still appreciate an opportunity to remember the dead, aren’t there?
I remember when I was in 6th grade, a girl in my school died. We had a moment of silence in class, which was fine, until the teacher embarrassed us all by saying that we could pray silently if we wanted. Squirms of humiliation! (This was before all the furor over school prayer happened, and we had never heard of such a thing.)
You might get more interesting replies about your topic instead of about how you presented it. Your call, though. Wouldn’t want to push anything on you 