New School Prayer
 

I got this email @ work and laughed a bit.

A 15 yr old in Arizona wrote this in response to the pledge of allegiance and prayer being banned from public schools.

Heheh :D I like it!

yeah... I'll pass that on that one.

It creeps me out.

No thanks. Especially since neither of those have been banned from schools, schools have been banned from requiring them.

Try again.

Snopes on the New Prayer
Undetermined whether it's bunk or not, but it's been around since 1999.

Not that it has any impact no the quality of the poem but here's the Snopes page on the history of this poem (record of it goes back to 1985).

If it's actually written by a 15yr old, I'm impressed with their gift of rhythm and rhyme(neither of thoose words look right to me).

<gag>

But meter, not so much.

⌣⌣⌣/⌣/⌣/⌣/
⌣⌣////⌣/⌣/
⌣/⌣///⌣⌣/⌣/
⌣/⌣⌣//⌣/⌣/

I must admit, I'm persnickety about scansion.

Whoever wrote it, 15 or not, has no idea what is and isn't allowed in schools.

Oh really? Of course, I haven't been in school for a long, long time. But I was under the impression prayer was pretty much not allowed.

I guess I shouldn't put it that way. I'm sure some kid could walk down the halls praying. But rather that there could not be any kind of formal or "led" prayer in any classroom.


Not that I have a problem with that. I think it's out of place, and apples to oranges to compare it with purple hair. I'm sure hair-dying sessions are also neither allowed nor discussed as part of the ciriculum or class activities.


But I'm sure the feeling exists among Christian kids that prayer is very looked down upon in a scholastic environment, and that it's a bit of p.c. that's gone overboard.


Of course, I more bemoan the fact that - gangs the cause or not - kids are often not free to dress as they want, and certainly are not free to express political or other opinions in the scholastic environment.

I don't know what it was like at other high schools but at my public high school there were several religious student groups that held group prayers around the campus throughout the day during non-class times. And many students that audibly prayed in classes during periods where general talking was allowed and silently to themselves when they weren't.

Nobody ever raised any objection to that. Just to the time a substitute English teacher tried to lead a class in a prayer.

Though I'm sure there have been plenty of examples of school administrators cracking down too hard out of fear of litigation just as there are many examples of school administrators being way too lenient out of personally held religious beliefs.

That's correct, and is what my response said. Prayer is not banned from schools. The school teaching/leading/forcing prayer is. As it should be.

Will you guys get your stories straight damnit! Was 1985 or 1999 - I need to know these things.

Read the page, it explains. 1999 is the earliest real solid find, there are earlier references as far back as '85 but they're not so solid.

Ditto my experience. Then again, I grew up in Michigan...

Do Christian kids honesty feel they're being stifled by school policy, I wonder.


Then there was that horribly decided (imo) lawsuit a while back of the kid who displayed an Anti-Bush sign off of school property (but at a school-related event) and was ruled to not have free-speech rights under those circumstances.

Or the fact that kids CAN'T have purple hair or wear the Queen's purple clothes because any freaking color can be associated with some violent gang or another. Would you sit still for wearing a gray burlap sack to school everyday??? I would have been in the principal's office sticking up for my principles every day of the school year.

I think these limitations on freedoms at school have gone too far, and so I wonder about how Christian kids feel about the prayer issue.

Why would improper limiting of personal prayer be a problem only for Christian kids?

I don't think it is. But they seem to be the ones making a stink about it.

Yes, because they seem to be the ones that want more than the freedom to use their own time for their personal prayer and feel it's somehow an infringement on their rights to not require everyone pray.

Conversely, I went to a school where you had to pray out loud and go to church on a regular basis. I found it to be too controlling, so I didn't go along with it.

I suspect that the desire to have everyone pray might have more to do with Puritanism than anything else. Sort of falls under the "One bad apple ruins the bushel" mentality, except that it's not bad apples, it's sinners.

Just a thought, at least on perhaps an origin of such a requirement, especially given their influence on the earliest years of America's public education system.

Most of the hype over 'Prayer in Schools' IMO is stupid. They're just getting riled up and defensive because some are claiming that prayer is not allowed, evah ever. It's uneducated nonsense, and it's a shame that it's continually being put out there by people who want to freak out themselves and others and want to feel like their rights have been violated somehow. Just dumb.

I feel bad for Christians. It's no easy trick being an overwhelming majority who controls almost everything in this country while being oppressed at the same time.

I'm surprised that no one has brought up the old adage that, "As long as there are tests, there will be prayer in schools."

In that case, I guess my old report cards are proof that God doesn't exist.

I like it, and do find it relevant. I don't believe for a second that it was written by a student and while prayer and the pledge haven't actually been banned outright they are two forms of expression which, for some odd reason, are often targeted by the PC fascists for censorship. Why it's okay to limit them and not other forms (which I am an opponent of across the board, by the way) I'll never understand, but it does happen. We had a high school here where a ruckus was raised when most of the football team chose to kneel in a circle for a pre-game prayer and the ever so enlightened and "tolerant" PDX public cried foul and put a stop to it. It was voluntary, discreet and not pushed on anyone but the hopelessly extreme left dwellers here in town just couldn't stand it happening. Sadly it wasn't the first time I've heard of that, or similar instances, happening and as time goes by I fear it will only get worse. I'm a firm believer that the separation of church and state was intended to preclude the government from designating or pushing a state sanctioned religion and not meant to completely erase religion and spirituality altogether, so every time it is used to prevent the pledge, or a prayer circle, or anything else referencing God in schools it irritates me. So yeah, while I don't buy the backstory to this poem I find it totally relevant and poignant.

It's like Darfur, only more tragic.

Wow, this certainly hit a nerve w/ some of you.

Oh my!

Um, my personal thoughts on the topic of prayer in school:

I don't mind if someone does it, as long as it doesn't interrupt the classes. I don't agree w/ the reason for banning the POA but I don't mind it being gone. I never saw it as necessary or relevant to what we learned in class. It really just mindless lip service (IMO).


I don't know whether the backstory to the poem is true or not. I just got the email at work & found it amusing.

Okay, carry on and GOD bless ;)

???

Is that an attempt at humor?

:confused:

Naw, I'm just tryin' to find different ways to say "Shut the fvck up and stop your incessant whining, Christians. You own this country lock, stock, and barrel...what else do you fvcking want?" without being rude.

Oh, I get it. In other words, you have no idea what you're talking about.

Okay, carry on then. :)

*snicker*
and again :cool:
Ding Ding Ding we have a winner!

I just want to know where all these people come from who hang out in front of Target and keep trying to get me to sign a petition to "Keep God in the Pledge of Allegiance"? I guess they don't know that was cooked up during the 50s when McCarthyism was all the rage. *rolls eyes*
God Bless America.

Goddess Bless America


:cool:

Or America bless itself.
Or whatever/whomever bless America.

:shrug:
:)

Or Gazuntight America.







(did America sneeze? I knew it farted occassionally)

Yes, it does.
And if Florida is America's wang, then where's its asshole? D.C.?
:D

Amerca's wang used to watch me shave, now it just stares at the floor.

No, DC would be a nipple if Florida is the wang. I'd say that the southern part of Texas would be the asshole with Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama being the taint.

I guess so, if its facing that way.

So America is nothing but a torso?

I was a big fan of taint up until 5 minutes ago. Alabama? Ewww!

Wait, America is a dude with a big wang. I like female taint.




Stupid short term memory loss, I forgot what we were talking about. Taint does that to me sometimes.

Yes, we keep our brain in Canada.

I just thought we were anencephalic.

Jazz, I guess that's where we agree and where we differ on the topic. I appreciate that they were able to kneel and pray, I just hope (I don't pray, because I'm an atheist ;) ) that there wasn't any pressure to. Just that it was heartfelt, as any form of spirituality should be.

I, too, believe in the same intent of the separation of church and state. I am saddened that others' beliefs were trampled on, wrongly, in the name of said separation (your football example). But I feel that given the facts, the poem is incredibly misleading... particularly to a misinformed public. This is just, as I feel most propagandist literature, etc is (to the left, the right (neither of which do I feel a part)) meant to persuade a certain segment of a population to feel outrage, and perhaps to act on it by whatever means (and by those means, I don't mean the most fringe means).

More clearly, I don't like this poem because it treats the reader as though they don't know any better... and sadly, many people don't. They don't know their rights any better than when their rights have been trampled upon.

Prayer.
Hmm.
I don't know if I call it actual prayer, but sometimes I find myself talking to a higher power. Kind of like Tevye did in Fiddler on the Roof. Like when I hit my head on a cabinet door in the kitchen, I think "Well, thanks for that, bastard."

To me, and this isn't meant to insult anyone, I find atheism as frustrating as fundamentalist religion. Both are saying they know the definite answer to something. But neither has proof. So, as an agnostic, I say, "I don't know. No one knows. We'll find out (maybe) when we're dead." And move on with life.

I find dogmatic atheists as annoying as dogmatic Christians - but I claim to be an atheist without claiming it as absolute knowledge but rather as an honest assessment of the way I live my life - with the belief that no God exists. I may be wrong, but that's not changing my behavior in any way. Plenty of Christians lead better lives than me, I have no desire to rock that boat as long as I can keep sailing my own.

I often, incorrectly (as I did above for the sake of proving some stupid point), identify myself as an atheist, when I am most truly an agnostic.

I <3 you, GC.

That is all.

And in no way am I judging anyone. I hope I didn't come across that way. Just me thinking out loud. And, in fact, it was something that kinda hit me while I was driving to the park one day recently.

And, I love the pic in your sig, Chris. It makes me happy.
:)

Doesn't it, though? It feels happy, yet sneaky at the same time. Me likes.

I often joke that I'm not arrogant enough to be either true believer or athiest. Or maybe, as Stephen Colbert says, I'm an athiest who lacks balls.

Or maybe that's me, too...

Damn, my insecure self!

I'm an atheist in the sense that I have seen absolutely no reason to even begin suspecting a god exists and therefore live my life as if this is true.

But I'll readily admit that I could be wrong but that I see no reason to change my views just because, without any concrete evidence indicating so, I might be wrong.

So, while you could technically say this is agnosticism, I would then have to say I am similarly agnostic about whether there are invisible phase-shifted evil robots in my bedroom closet just waiting for me to go to sleep tonight so that they could kill me.

I could be wrong that they aren't there but lacking any positive reason to believe it I'm not going to be putting a padlock on that door. So there really is no functional difference between atheism and my behavior.

The current big names in atheism (Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett and Christopher Hitchens) all agree that we can't know for certain that there is no God. They rather say that the probability is so remote, it doesn't merit accepting the idea as true. (Sam Harris, alone in this group, has stated that the term "atheist" is too problematic, given its negative connotation, especially in the US, and might best be avoided.) I am comfy with the term atheist, and would like to help remove the stigma by being a kind and good-hearted specimin. On the other hand, like many of you here, I don't wish to dogmatically assert there is no God. Luckily, the terms atheist and agnostic are not mutually exclusive.

One worry I have about the example given earlier regarding prayers at athletic events is that they can become tools of group exclusion. If you are the only non-theist on the team, and opt to stand off to the side while the other members circle together, I can't help but think that this is going to have a huge negative effect, on how the team perceives you, how the crowd in the stadium sees you, and so on. Given the extremely personal nature of faith, and seeing how little it means if it is not voluntary, this sort of situation seems to me to sow distrust and disunity.

When I was in High School Theater - we'd do a "group prayer" before each performance - sort of a round robin where whoever wanted to put in their brand of good will/mojo.

I recall being put off by the terminology - but I suppose it was accurate, and I participated, never feeling someone was imposing a religion on me.