This Texas High School has a prayer room for all students to use.
http://www.care2.com/causes/high-school-prayer-room-sparks-uproar-in-tex...
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I'd be okay with this IF there was a door lock on the outside of the door into that room. Once the room's student capacity is reached, CLICK.
Imagine having to drop everything and crouch down to talk to the floor five times a day. The school should teach the children to think.
All a waste of time.
Allah waste of time.
What I want to know is whether there's any sincerity in its practitioners. Praying X-number of times per day has got to weigh on a person's honesty. How many religious infractions can a person commit between prayer sessions that makes the frequency of them a cultural need? How many prayers are actually prayed. Are they praying for the same thing repeatedly? Are they praying for themselves? Are they praying for a better world? Are they praying out of simple obligation to (outwardly) appear religiously virtuous?
I remember my pious mother making her kids kneel around a round coffee table during the so-called Cuban Missile Crisis and say the entire rosary. Really?
So if I'm into Santeria can I kill a chicken in the room?
That's blasphemy. It's goats, not chickens.
DancingFool is onto something. High school prayer rooms with prayers to the goddess Eros in front of a multi-breasted Ashtoreth idol might be a popular passtime with the post-adolescent crowd.
I agree.
I wonder what a pastafarian can do there?
Perhaps the Satanic Temple need to be contacted...
So how many tits does Ashtoreth have? I'm down with just two. More than that just gets creepy.
I don't know, but it was a lot of tits. And she was generally a very well fed character. A "whole lot of Rosie", as AC/DC put it. So we'd have to improve on Ashtoreth's looks to accomplish the desired effect.
Wasn't she also Yahweh's wife?
I don't know, but Yahweh has since shacked up with Mary, the eternal virgin who Yahweh seduced away from Joseph the carpenter. Which made Yahweh guilty of adultery. And envy. And beastiality (assuming he's a perfect being of light and she's one of us earth-bound mammals). And theft. Oh, and jesus would be a literal bastard, on top of the figurative sort. I would add that Yahwweh was guilty of the sin of rape as well, but Yahweh never made rape a sin. How very convenient for himself.
I can attest as a highschooler that my friends and I would certainly look for loopholes like that one, however I'm not terribly certain that most students are that versed on their mythology, and administrators would probably prevent this on the grounds of insincere belief. My teachers know I am an atheist, so if I showed up at our FCA (fellowship of Christian Athletes) meetings to miss first period on Fridays, there would be some dissent. Much like a group of students recently approached our councilor to ask for permission to start a satanist club that would meet every Friday the 13th, and the councilor denied it despite the handbook's rule of equal religious representation in extra-curricular activity. This same thing will prevent any Muslim, Buddhist, or Hindu groups from ever springing up, because nobody believes in those things here in Amity, Arkansas. I'm the only atheist at this school who's uncloseted, so there will never be an atheist club, either.
Since your school is a government funded school, It can be sued for allowing one religious group and not another. It is a clear violation of the first amendment. There are many organizations that would probably help you with that.
It would be a hollow victory, unfortunately. While I can get on board with a just cause, I don't need to create even more local disdain for myself and other atheists, all to create a group that only I would join. Sometimes battles don't need to be fought. If I went to school in a place like Dallas, where I used to live, I would be all over that. However, majority rule is a bit of an understatement here.
Damn, Jared. How did you get so smart in just 16 years? "Sometimes battles don't need to be fought." Would that more people understood that.
Heh, yeah I lived about 100 miles from there (Johnson County) until I was 14. So I know exactly what you are talking about.
Oh, and to be clear, the group who asked to start a satanist club only did so as a joke, and simply wanted to see if the councilor would even consent. She probably suspected this, which is why she denied the request. If enough legitimate satanists (15+) came to her, she would most likely agree. However, every extra curricular group requires a teacher to be their sponsor, and it has to be voluntary. So, even if permission was given, the club could never be realized simply for lack of teachers who would support them.
If there is going to be a room in which to pray, people should also be allowed to go there to think.
Absolutely not. There should be a separate room for thinking. Please don't confuse prayer with any rational acts
This is a clear violation of the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution. It is at the very least encroachment by christian to make religious indoctrination the law of the land.
Religious freedom is an INDIVIDUAL right, NOT a group right. I hope that this school is sued into submission.
The Establishment Clause or the Religion Clause is the first of several pronouncements in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, stating, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...
How do the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause differ?
Freedom of Religion. The First Amendment provides: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” These two clauses are referred to as the “establishment clause” and the “free exercise clause.”
Case law dictates that no one can coerce even slightly the practice of any religion or none religion.
This school is acting outside it's authority to teach, relying on it's mandate to accommodate. It is authorized to accommodate any and all students to learn approved material. Providing a room for prayer is NOT an accommodation for the purpose of learning approved material.
https://home.ubalt.edu/shapiro/rights_course/Chapter5text.htm
Is there a special room for buddists? Is there a room with prayer mats for muslims? Is there a special place assigned in this school for each and every religion that exists on earth? If no, why not? Is there holy water for catholics? If not, why not?
What the hell happened to the separation of State and Religion? Kids don't need to pray to nobody, their future is all they need to dedicate themselves to, me included. But, alas, this will also be a opportunity for other religious groups to get it their way.
Toronto school board ends all new US trips for students.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39371696
This story about compulsory praying got me thinking about how Muslims pray on planes, since I'm flying to Austria via Dubai on Emirates next week. I found a useful guide to praying on planes (https://islamqa.info/en/82536).
I was intrigued to learn that it's blasphemous to pray when you feel a fart coming on, but I guess that's understandable when you see pictures of hundreds of people kneeling with their arses sticking up in the air.
So I went on to a christian website and checked out what they said about prayer. Heres what I got and It seems oddly sexual.
"Prayer is conversation with God; the intercourse of the soul with God, not in contemplation or meditation, but in direct address to him. Prayer may be oral or mental, occasional or constant, ejaculatory or formal. It is a “beseeching the Lord” (Exodus 32:11); “pouring out the soul before the Lord” (1 Samuel 1:15); “praying and crying to heaven” (2 Chronicles 32:20); “seeking unto God and making supplication” (Job 8:5); “drawing near to God” (Psalms 73:28); “bowing the knees” (Ephesians 3:14)."
Then after they Quote Dawkins out of context and spew a lot of bull I got to this line and said WTF?
"The crux of the matter is this: If one accepts there is a God who created us, then that God also owns us. He thus has a right to set the rules by which we must live. In the Bible, He has revealed to us that we are in rebellion against our Creator. Because of this rebellion called sin, our physical bodies are sentenced to death—but we will live on, either with God, or without Him in a place of judgment".
Ya keep praying to that God
@JamieB: ."...God also owns us."
That perception is just a quick mind-flip away from the idea that it's ok to own people.
Here are two legal points of view. From the first legal point of view it seems logical that if a religious belief can use part of a school to pray, the rest should also be able to, otherwise that would be discrimination. But from the second legal point of view, it seems contrary to the Constitution of any civilized country that a public school allows to pray... Wasn't it clear that morning prayer in schools was illegal?
What has made me laugh was that General Texas Attorney, Ken Paxton, spoke about discrimination... of Christians, of course, but not of the intrinsic illegality of allowing prayer in school, whether Muslim, Sinto, Hindu, Or Christian. A shame.
Shouldn't there be sacrifices offered to the lord at an altar too at these prayer houses ?? burnt offerings and stuff ??
It's going to be fun when they make the kids fast during Ramadan.
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