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'It's Not A Bad Thing For Children To Hear Prayer In School"


doggie

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ya ya heard it before. "I think it built our character, and I think it is what we should continue to do." Right we have seen plenty of that with the GOP. I love the nondenominational school prayer thing can there truly be such a thing? of course he forgets that there are other religions in schools.

I am really thinking the GOP has some mental issues going on.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/0 ... 68144.html

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"let children know there is a God"....so much for non denominational

We had the Lord's Prayer when I went to school....I don't think it did anything for us but buy us more time to get to class.

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but ONLY IF IT IS A CHRISTIAN PRAYER!

If they had to hear a Hindu, Jewish or G_D forbid MUSLIM prayer, it'd be the end of the effing WORLD.

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"let children know there is a God"....so much for non denominational

Plus like everyone does not know there is a belief in god. it is shouted out on tv spewed in the streets and brought to our doors and everywhere else by roving packs of bible thumpers..

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but ONLY IF IT IS A CHRISTIAN PRAYER!

If they had to hear a Hindu, Jewish or G_D forbid MUSLIM prayer, it'd be the end of the effing WORLD.

Hell ya. that's whats so stupid they seem to forget that there are other religions in the US. brain damaged. I think when they take the oath of office they hit them in the back of the head hard to make sure they are brain damaged enough to be controlled.

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I would like to ask him if he would be OK with alternating between prayers from Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, different Pagan religions, Native North American religions, etc. What about an atheist or agnostic sharing or something? Not OK? You meant only a Christian prayer? Religion doesn't belong in public schools for many reasons. Even having non-denominational prayer puts pressure on children to conform to the religious norm being perpetuated by the school prayer.

I still love the West Wing's explanation of why prayer doesn't belong in school in the episode Shibboleth:

TOBY

But I'll tell you why it should be front and center. It's not the first amendment,

it's not religious freedom, it's not church and state, it's not... abstract...

LEO

What is it?

TOBY

It's the fourth grader who gets his ass kicked at recess 'cause he sat out the voluntary

prayer in homeroom. It's another way of making kids different from other kids when they're

required by law to be there. That’s why you want it front and center; fourth grader;

that's the prize.

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"let children know there is a God"....so much for non denominational

Ugh. It's not the government's job to tell children that there is or isn't a god.

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Once the schools get math, science, and all that educational stuff down, then we still don't need prayer in schools.

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From a Christian (non-dominionist) standpoint--it's an awful thing to have enforced prayers like this.

Someone standing in a public setting, giving a watery, painful, enforced prayer is making a mockery of beliefs we hold dear.

It's setting us up for ridicule, it's creating an adversarial feeling among impressionable children, and it has potential in child minds to create a false association of school personnel with clergy-members.

(I'm not coherant today, but...I don't see why any christian would WANT this)

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Here's my $0.02 as someone who actually went to a public school where there was school prayer (in Ontario, from grade 1 through grade 8).

It did not teach me that there was a G-d out there that loved me.

It did not make me religious.

It did not lead me to engage in solemn reflection.

It did give me an extra minute in the morning during which I would frantically try to finish the last of my math homework.

It did put me in a situation where I got used to showing a lack of respect for prayer.

It did cause the name of G-d to be taken in vain.

It did highlight the fact that the beliefs that the school board was attempting to impose were at odds with the beliefs of my family.

It did lead me to a conversation with a friend in which she explained that we shouldn't be saying the Lord's Prayer, and taught me alternate stuff to say instead.

It did appear to be a stark contrast from the way that prayer occurred in Jewish settings, where we were told that we couldn't say the full "real" prayer with the Divine Name unless it was done in exactly the proper way, and where we were told that full attention and respect were required.

Even from a religious POV, I can't understand why someone would want to have tons of meaningless prayers said without respect.

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In the UK, it is compulsory for schools to have a daily act of Christian worship, although in practice not all schools actually manage this every day. Hymns are often sung during assembly, and many state schools are affiliated to the Church of England (there are state Catholic schools and a few other denominations but they are not so common). I have a postgraduate certificate in education, although I never went on to teach, and I wrote a paper at college on why I thought religion should be left out of school life.

Having lived most of my life in almost entirely 'white Christian' areas, I am not sure how this is dealt with in schools that have large ethnic minority student bodies, but I imagine it causes more of a problem there.

I was raised Catholic but would now class myself as agnostic. I do sometimes read and discuss bible stories with my kids but we do not attend church. I am happy for them to be taught about Christianity in the context of religious education, but it freaked me out slightly the other day when my youngest came home singing "my God is a great God". However, I do not want to remove them from prayers etc. as I know this will stigmatise them amongst their friends. My mother, as a child, was not allowed to be part of the Christian assembly because she was Catholic (!) and she has always remembered that this made her feel an odd one out.

As a teenager I went through a phase of deliberately not bowing my head during prayers to make a stand about this (not sure anyone ever noticed!). I strongly feel that it is up to families to make decisions about their children's religious life.

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My neighbor went to school in Wales in the 50's, and he says the school religious requirements did more to make him an atheist than anything else, so in that sense he's all in favor.

By me now they want to sneak in some "reflective time" or "possible prayer time" as a moment of silence, requiring people to sit and reflect for a minute. It's clear that this is only a way to sneak the concept of worship in, but I'd say I'm all for quiet time at the start of the day - IF they make it 15 minutes or some usable time that someone might be able to squeeze some self-study or meaningful free reading time :)

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Several of the kids at my high school, myself included, protested the Pledge of Allegiance being said in our school each morning, so I definitely would have an issue with prayers.

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Here's my $0.02 as someone who actually went to a public school where there was school prayer (in Ontario, from grade 1 through grade 8).

It did not teach me that there was a G-d out there that loved me.

It did not make me religious.

It did not lead me to engage in solemn reflection.

It did give me an extra minute in the morning during which I would frantically try to finish the last of my math homework.

It did put me in a situation where I got used to showing a lack of respect for prayer.

It did cause the name of G-d to be taken in vain.

It did highlight the fact that the beliefs that the school board was attempting to impose were at odds with the beliefs of my family.

It did lead me to a conversation with a friend in which she explained that we shouldn't be saying the Lord's Prayer, and taught me alternate stuff to say instead.

It did appear to be a stark contrast from the way that prayer occurred in Jewish settings, where we were told that we couldn't say the full "real" prayer with the Divine Name unless it was done in exactly the proper way, and where we were told that full attention and respect were required.

Even from a religious POV, I can't understand why someone would want to have tons of meaningless prayers said without respect.

^that's what I was kinda failing to say--much better said.

Amen.

Because all it does is make it into a rote chore and a diluted mockery of what these people claim they believe in.

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These people are all "Let the parents raise their own children!" when it comes to school lunches and Tango Makes Three in the school library, but when it's prayer THEN it's time for the school to do the raising?

Hypocrites, every last one of them. And in direct contravention of Matthew 6:6 as well. *I* don't care, but you'd think they'd give some thought to the actual words of their actual savior whom they actually believe actually lived in the actual past.

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Why do they want to do it? At least with a sizeable number of them in the US, it's because they want to make a statement that normative Americans are Christian, or at the very least believe in some flavorless version of God that doesn't directly contradict with Christianity. (Perhaps they'll make some allowances for Jewish references if they're feeling particularly open-minded (because after all, Judiaism is just the "first half" of Christianity, right? The Old Testament and all that.)

This is the same reason you have conflicts about non-denominational "prayer rooms" by me - a multipurpose room where the group brings their own cross in is not good enough! No, there needs to be a cross mounted in the room so that it's obvious to all who come in that it's REALLY a Christian prayer room, and yeah, you can use it if you want, and cover up that cross if you want, but you will KNOW that you're second class. You're not mainstream.

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The GOP thinks god will fix everything. well in 2000 years he has not done it yet so now he is going to start if we pray in school? already did that and people still had problems and still did bad things.

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Ugh. It's not the government's job to tell children that there is or isn't a god.

You're so silly. If they don't have a forced choice to know if there's a God presented by the GOP; how will they fight for their government in the name of God? Wait, what's that? You say that's how the Taliban is/was like and that the military just tries to show people how normal they dress and are even though the GOP wants to make it into a Christian Taliban through this type of disguise? Silly sheeple; the Christian God is better than the Muslim God! :roll:

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I am so grateful that there was no prayer in the public school system I attended for the very reasons that dawbs and 1xx2xy1JD outlined. And I say that as a practicing Christian. As for non denominational prayer, I wouldn't want my kids if I had them involved in any type of school or compulsory prayer. The State has no business in the relationship between you and your Creator if you have one, and no business trying to impose one.

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In the UK, it is compulsory for schools to have a daily act of Christian worship, although in practice not all schools actually manage this every day. Hymns are often sung during assembly, and many state schools are affiliated to the Church of England (there are state Catholic schools and a few other denominations but they are not so common). I have a postgraduate certificate in education, although I never went on to teach, and I wrote a paper at college on why I thought religion should be left out of school life.

Having lived most of my life in almost entirely 'white Christian' areas, I am not sure how this is dealt with in schools that have large ethnic minority student bodies, but I imagine it causes more of a problem there.

I was raised Catholic but would now class myself as agnostic. I do sometimes read and discuss bible stories with my kids but we do not attend church. I am happy for them to be taught about Christianity in the context of religious education, but it freaked me out slightly the other day when my youngest came home singing "my God is a great God". However, I do not want to remove them from prayers etc. as I know this will stigmatise them amongst their friends. My mother, as a child, was not allowed to be part of the Christian assembly because she was Catholic (!) and she has always remembered that this made her feel an odd one out.

As a teenager I went through a phase of deliberately not bowing my head during prayers to make a stand about this (not sure anyone ever noticed!). I strongly feel that it is up to families to make decisions about their children's religious life.

My primary school was mostly white, and there was one Muslim boy and some Exclusive Brethren girls who sat out for assembly (the Brethren girls also went home for lunch and sat out of religious education lessons). It was not a church school but many of the staff members were actively Christian. My secondary school however had a large amount of Muslim girls along with smaller amounts of Hindu and Sikh girls (all-girls' school but a comprehensive one) and I think there was a Jewish girl or two? I remember there being a big display about all the different religions at the school. We had end-of-Ramadan celebrations as well as Easter ones, but honestly Islam was more dominant than Christianity - we NEVER sang hymns, 'common worship' was more about discussing ~issues like bullying and diversity, and we all knew when it was a major Muslim festival because half the student body would be off school ;) I didn't become a Christian until after I left school, but clearly the lack of attention paid to Christianity at school didn't harm my chances of becoming a Christian, and I actually think it might have helped because it made me really think about what I believed. Most of my friends in the years preceding me becoming a Christian were pagan, and I still became a Christian.

I think acknowledging the various faiths of students is a good thing, but only when truly diverse and including everyone, including those of indigenous cultures and those of no faith. I don't think a set time of Christian prayers in the morning achieves this.

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My primary school was mostly white, and there was one Muslim boy and some Exclusive Brethren girls who sat out for assembly (the Brethren girls also went home for lunch and sat out of religious education lessons). It was not a church school but many of the staff members were actively Christian. My secondary school however had a large amount of Muslim girls along with smaller amounts of Hindu and Sikh girls (all-girls' school but a comprehensive one) and I think there was a Jewish girl or two? I remember there being a big display about all the different religions at the school. We had end-of-Ramadan celebrations as well as Easter ones, but honestly Islam was more dominant than Christianity - we NEVER sang hymns, 'common worship' was more about discussing ~issues like bullying and diversity, and we all knew when it was a major Muslim festival because half the student body would be off school ;) I didn't become a Christian until after I left school, but clearly the lack of attention paid to Christianity at school didn't harm my chances of becoming a Christian, and I actually think it might have helped because it made me really think about what I believed. Most of my friends in the years preceding me becoming a Christian were pagan, and I still became a Christian.

I think acknowledging the various faiths of students is a good thing, but only when truly diverse and including everyone, including those of indigenous cultures and those of no faith. I don't think a set time of Christian prayers in the morning achieves this.

Just shows what a pointless piece of the school curriculum compulsory worship is. There are very few schools where this would suit the majority of pupils, so schools are constantly having to work out ways round it. Religious Education (learning about faith and culture in general) is already part of the curriculum, so why is it necessary to force schools to timetable in 'worship' as well?

Interesting article here: http://www.secularism.org.uk/news/2012/ ... orship-law

"A survey by The Sunday Times has found that 40% of Church of England 'faith schools' are flouting the law that requires all state funded schools to provide a daily act of collective worship.

The survey revealed that in many C of E schools, Bible readings and prayers have been replaced by group discussions about community and society. According to the Sunday Times, even among those schools that abide by the law, many are doing the bare minimum."

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Went to a school with daily chapel services and Scripture classes. Became a communist with an arrest record. So that worked then.

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I had kind of a childish faith in God during primary school years but became an atheist later on. I kind of guiltily liked singing the hymns and saying the prayers but I don't think it should have been forced. Kind of funny that it's compulsory in most primary schools here and only 10% of the population go to church. We're more Christian in theory, secular in practise.

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We had this discussion, back when I was teaching. We got the "Fundies" to agree that so long as they could say their prayer first then every faith in the classroom could stand up and lead a prayer. We got a bunch of teachers together to simulate going round the class and everyone praying and it took about 10 minutes. Not a bad deal, right?

Ahem:

Currently, in the state of California, there are 54,000 instructional minutes (DOC; 107KB; 9pp.) required per year for each grade from four through eight. Many school boards have adopted more than the minimum requirements to meet the needs of their adolescents.

http://pubs.cde.ca.gov/tcsii/ch3/rdmdrqirdinstmin.aspx

These 54,000 minutes have to be spread out over the 180 days of the average teacher's annual contract. Now since praying was not considered instructional time, given that the state cannot teach religion, that meant that at the end of the term you had to come up with 1,800 minutes/30 hours/5 days. 5 more days to pay a teacher, pay your staff, pay to keep your classroom open....

As I recall it came out to something like $1,500 per teacher who wanted to pray to keep the school open that long. Amazing how quickly the idea died out.

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I remember when I was in the first grade we were taught a religious song in class and all the parents freaked out. While my school always embraced diversity, they didn't like strictly Christian things. In elementary school, we spent winter months learning about all sorts of religious holidays and in high school we had a Jewish Student Union that regularly put on performances. Different religions were always discussed but students never had to disclose their own beliefs and were never told that one was more correct than another. That's the way school should be. Kids should learn about all of the different belief systems out there in a fair and unbiased way. If the Christian God is the real god then they'll figure that out. Fundies should trust that people will discover Christianity on their own. (or they'll be ebil sinners and find some other belief system that makes more sense)

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