From: David Smalley
Date: Thurs, July 23rd, 2009, 6:48 pm
Jon-David Wells,
It bothers me that people are running our country, and influencing listeners of talk radio, that believe in a talking snake; you included.
The Bible is filled with so many fallacies and contradictions, yet so many people think our country was founded on the “Christian religion.”
Not only is that impossible (because Christianity is not a religion, but a subset of religious beliefs), its offensive to all of us who live without religion, and do perfectly fine.
Quotes like “a family that prays together stays together” imply that families that don't pray fall apart. It's simply not the case, and I don't appreciate the religious discrimination I face on a daily basis.
We need to keep prayer out of schools, and gods out of court rooms; not only to protect the rights of atheists and agnostics, but for the protection of all religions and their respective rights to worship in this country without government endorsement.
I'm the Design Editor of the American Atheist magazine, and host of The Dogma Debate, with a book set to be published next year.
I'd like to know your position on religion and government, and possibly speak with you regarding Atheists' rights in our country, as you appear to be active in the conservative community.
David Smalley
From: Jon-David Wells
Date: Fri, July 24, 2009 6:36 am
David....
The United States of America was founded on Judeo-Christian principles. It is not, however, a Christian Nation, and I have said so numerous times on The Wells Report.
Human Beings, collectively or individually, don't do well when they are the greatest source of intellect or morality in the Universe. Atheists, Agnostics, and other "Humans-First" ideologies leave civilization with no (even imagined) oversight....therefore leaving Human Depravity to operate enfettered.
This can be illustrated in your mind with this question: If there is no God, who is the greatest moral and intellectual force in the Universe?
(Stalin thought he was....Voila! 20-Million dead Russians.)
Further, your belief would not just loose the plague of Human Supremacy, it would also deny those condemned to the bone-crunching, meat grinder of despotic ego, even the smallest comfort of calling on a Greater Power for rescue or revenge.
Finally, you request a discussion of "Atheists Rights"....using the example of stopping the societal scourge of School Prayer. Apparently, you believe that your sensibilities are more important than the sensibilities of those Religious....thereby proving every point I have made in this email.
Perhaps you should spend more time thinking this through?
J-D
From: David Smalley
Date: Fri, July 24, 2009 9:20 am
J-D,
I began my religious journey as a young Baptist kid searching for a better way to worship. It took me on a 13-year journey; I assure you I've thought this through. As I researched other religions, (to be sure I had it right) I found that everyone had it right, and they had their own proof. It became obvious that religious doctrine is too subjective to be absolute. I looked for "God," and found gods. I looked for religion, and found religions; each of them warning of the others being false.
You asked me a question, and I shall answer it. "If there is no God, who is the greatest moral and intellectual force in the Universe?" Before I answer, I would assume that your answer is "God," referring to Yahweh of the Bible. It sounds good as a quick rebuttal to say that "God" is an absolute source of morality, and without him, we would be lost. But I am challenging you to communicate in meaningful terms, J-D. Think about where this ‘absolute moral source' stands on the real issues. Abortion: you have Christians on both sides of the argument. Homosexuality: (although the Bible says to kill gays in Lev 20:13) you still have Christians on both sides of the argument. Slavery: we think it's ‘wrong' now, but there are multiple biblical verses of Yahweh supporting slavery, even saying how many times to strike your slave when he breaks certain rules. War: Christians are on both sides of the argument. Death Penalty: Christians are on both sides of the argument. Why do you think that is? I know why. My answer is, there's not an absolute source of morality, because when it really comes down to it, ethics are dependent upon one's own interaction and culture, coupled with what each person feels causes the least amount of harm.
Even if you feel as though you have metaphysical inspiration behind your ethics, it's really just dependent upon your own perception and culture. For example, we could both agree that killing a baby is horrible; but if that ‘baby' is a 4 week old fetus that is growing inside one of our 9 year old daughters that was raped by her uncle, perhaps it does cause the least amount of harm to terminate the pregnancy. It's debatable; which thereby deems it as ‘not absolute.’ Until all Christians stand behind one moral source, or a single set of values, you will be hard-pressed to claim a monopoly on morality.
No religious doctrine will ever be absolute, as it is left to interpretation and subjectivity. The inconsistencies in your god are prevalent in the transparent followers of your belief.
As an Atheist and Secular Humanist, I have the same ethics that you do; I just don't pretend to have godly inspiration behind it to make myself feel more ‘correct.’ At the end of the day, J-D, you make decisions based on your culture and what's in your heart, but then you publically label that as "Christian morals." It's a copout, and I wish you would be man enough to step up and say "it's because I feel it's the best for my family" without putting the onus on something greater than yourself, because you can't handle it. This takes me back to our nation being founded on Christian principles; what are they really? They are nothing more than humanistic ethics with a metaphysical label. Saying that morals began with the Bible is like saying words originated from the dictionary. They both only recorded what already existed.
Lumping all Atheists in with Stalin is akin to me lumping all religious believers with radical Islam and Osama Bin-Laden. It's intellectually dishonest and I refuse to play the Hitler/Dahmer/Stalin game with you and debate their religiosity. Neither of us have control over what those idiots did to mankind; regardless of how misled they were in their belief, or unbelief. Stalin may have been Atheist, but he was not a Secular Humanist. He was power-hungry, and that supersedes all religious or humanistic convictions.
As for people being able to pray during hard times, I don't wish to prevent them; I just don't want to be made to feel like a lesser citizen because I don't. Words like ‘heathen’ and ‘infidel’ have such negative connotations; yet simply mean one is godless. This is the type of rights violation I'm talking about. Besides, what good would prayer do anyway? "God's will be done on earth as it is in heaven" and we are mere sinners. If he needs us to guide him in what to do, why do we call him "God?" If he needs to be reminded of whom to watch over, why call him "God?" If we can change his mind by simply begging, his power and decisions are subjective, and therefore not absolute. You see, by introducing "God" as the answer, it only creates more questions.
Finally, on your last point of my sensibilities being greater than those of religious backgrounds, that's simply a false statement. I want you to be able to continue to worship how you feel you should. I want you to be able to worship any god you choose, and remain free of religious persecution as our Founding Fathers stated in the Constitution. You just need to practice your worship in places dedicated for worship, and keep it out of the schools I pay for. I don't believe in your church, so I have the right to not donate money to that church. However, I pay for the schools, and I don't want to be cut out of the decisions on what is done with that money! (Sound familiar?) Besides, how do we intellectually justify teaching the laws of gravity and Texas History on the same platform as a talking donkey in Numbers: 22 of your Holy Bible?
In the seventies, Children were being forced to pray collectively to the Christian god in our public schools. That is unconstitutional, and violates everyone's rights. With "God" on our money, (which was added 132 years after the country was founded) and "God" in our Pledge of Allegiance (which was added 62 years after it was originally written) our government is endorsing the Christian religion by accepting "God" as a name, referring to Yahweh, instead of a title which encompasses multiple beliefs.
It seems that Atheists are the last remaining minority that it's okay to discriminate against, and I'm fed up. I'm taking a stand to keep my children safe from the induced psychosis and sociological brainwashing that is religion.
David
From: Jon-David Wells
Date: Fri, July 24, 2009 10:51 am
David...
Skillful rhetoric....few answers.
Your answer to my question is: Human Beings.
Stalin is an example of Atheist Governance. There are others equally as evil. If you feel that to be a comparison of Atheists to Stalin, if the shoe fits....Also, may I suggest that your "protection" of children from belief in a higher power than human beings before they have the opportunity to make up their own minds proves the totalitarian nature of your belief system.
My Christian beliefs mandate that I treat you as I would like to be treated. Your Atheistic beliefs demand that you be treated fairly. The result is that while I would gladly allow you to believe as you will, you publicly declare that my beliefs are mythology and dogma, and demand protection from even their exposure to you.
What's fair about denying Religious children an opportunity to acknowledge their Deity at school, in favor of Atheistic parents protecting the pre-determined sensibilities of their children?
Like I said....You really need to think this out.
J-D
From: David Smalley
Sent: Friday, July 24, 2009 12:16 pm
J-D,
Fine, I'll take Stalin; and you can have Iran, because that's what happens when religion and government are not separate. There is a happy medium of having a secular government with freedom of religion, and from religion, without government endorsement of any particular god. We're almost there.
Furthermore, if Atheism is a belief system, sitting down is an exercise, clear is a color, and not collecting stamps is a hobby! I have no system of beliefs to follow. I only know that my own personal ethics mandate that I treat you the way I want to be treated because I know what it's like to be harmed; it's really that simple.
Without a clear ability to have compassion for others, humans would have failed as a species long ago, because we wouldn’t be taking care of our children enough to raise them to adulthood. Compassion and sensitivity toward others through mirror neurons are essential for survival. A Secular Humanist is not a selfish humanist, but one that cares about his fellow man. Please separate the two in your ideology.
In sociology, we often examine the fine line between stating one's own beliefs, and offending others. On one hand, it's perfectly fine for you to worship Jesus, display your WWJD bumper stickers, and wear a cross on your neck as you ‘sin,’ but to stand up and scream "Jesus is the only way, and all others will perish" (while exercising your freedom of religion, and free speech) may be offensive to Muslims or Jews. Moreover, a statement such as "a family that prays together stays together" is offensive to my family, because it insinuates that we will fall apart without prayer. How many bumper stickers say "Real men love Jesus?" What does that make me? What does that make the thousands of foxhole Atheists that we cover in our magazine?
That's one of the things I touch on in my book; that Atheists must be tolerant to religious beliefs because our very existence is offensive to many, in that we reject everyone's god. The feeling is hardly mutual. You say "Bless you" when I sneeze, the courts make me say "so help me God" during trials, my kids are taught to say "one nation under God," in the schools I help pay for, and my money displays "In God We Trust," but if I respectfully refuse any of those, I'm the totalitarian.
I want to make it very clear that Atheists do not want "God" out of the country. We support your freedom of religion. If I were the President, I would not attempt in any way to rid our country of religions, but to uphold Constitutional rights of all Americans. I just want to remove the ability of a dominant religion creating sociological norms; so that when folks don't fall into them, they aren't ostracized or seen as hateful outcasts.
I have no hate in my body, and Atheists have a bad reputation of being ‘evil.’ I want to protect the rights and reputation of nonbelievers so that my children can progress in society without feeling the need to conform to religion to be accepted. Just public education is really all I want.
The point of preventing public school prayer is not based on sensitivities, and I do not feel my children's rights are more important than yours. It's just not the time or place for prayer. You pay school taxes for your child to get an education, but maybe I want my kid to stop class three times a day to tell everyone about the Harley Davidson product line. Is that not a waste of your resources? Is that a misuse of school tax dollars? Of course it is.
Children aren’t there for sales pitches to anything, including religion. There is nothing that prevents your child from talking about their god or religion with another student during free time; but for the district to support a stop in education to discuss something that is subjective, is just nonsense. Besides, we both know that the oversight of the prayer would depend on the denomination of the teacher. None of us want that, as it could create more problems than you could image, as Catholic students are under the authority of a Mormon teacher and a Protestant principal. Discrimination and teachers singling out students would run rampant.
I feel the need to state my final point again; I do not want all religion exterminated from our country, I just want the freedom from religion in my daily life, and let the believers worship on their own without forcing me to participate or acknowledge any particular god. The single most important thing to me is that my children can grow up in a society where they aren’t made to feel like lesser citizens because they don’t fall into the blind faith of Christianity.
David
Jon-David Wells never responded. I later asked him why I hadn’t heard back on this topic, and he simply said “Your last letter evoked so many points that I ran out of time responding to them.”
Date: Thurs, July 23rd, 2009, 6:48 pm
Jon-David Wells,
It bothers me that people are running our country, and influencing listeners of talk radio, that believe in a talking snake; you included.
The Bible is filled with so many fallacies and contradictions, yet so many people think our country was founded on the “Christian religion.”
Not only is that impossible (because Christianity is not a religion, but a subset of religious beliefs), its offensive to all of us who live without religion, and do perfectly fine.
Quotes like “a family that prays together stays together” imply that families that don't pray fall apart. It's simply not the case, and I don't appreciate the religious discrimination I face on a daily basis.
We need to keep prayer out of schools, and gods out of court rooms; not only to protect the rights of atheists and agnostics, but for the protection of all religions and their respective rights to worship in this country without government endorsement.
I'm the Design Editor of the American Atheist magazine, and host of The Dogma Debate, with a book set to be published next year.
I'd like to know your position on religion and government, and possibly speak with you regarding Atheists' rights in our country, as you appear to be active in the conservative community.
David Smalley
From: Jon-David Wells
Date: Fri, July 24, 2009 6:36 am
David....
The United States of America was founded on Judeo-Christian principles. It is not, however, a Christian Nation, and I have said so numerous times on The Wells Report.
Human Beings, collectively or individually, don't do well when they are the greatest source of intellect or morality in the Universe. Atheists, Agnostics, and other "Humans-First" ideologies leave civilization with no (even imagined) oversight....therefore leaving Human Depravity to operate enfettered.
This can be illustrated in your mind with this question: If there is no God, who is the greatest moral and intellectual force in the Universe?
(Stalin thought he was....Voila! 20-Million dead Russians.)
Further, your belief would not just loose the plague of Human Supremacy, it would also deny those condemned to the bone-crunching, meat grinder of despotic ego, even the smallest comfort of calling on a Greater Power for rescue or revenge.
Finally, you request a discussion of "Atheists Rights"....using the example of stopping the societal scourge of School Prayer. Apparently, you believe that your sensibilities are more important than the sensibilities of those Religious....thereby proving every point I have made in this email.
Perhaps you should spend more time thinking this through?
J-D
From: David Smalley
Date: Fri, July 24, 2009 9:20 am
J-D,
I began my religious journey as a young Baptist kid searching for a better way to worship. It took me on a 13-year journey; I assure you I've thought this through. As I researched other religions, (to be sure I had it right) I found that everyone had it right, and they had their own proof. It became obvious that religious doctrine is too subjective to be absolute. I looked for "God," and found gods. I looked for religion, and found religions; each of them warning of the others being false.
You asked me a question, and I shall answer it. "If there is no God, who is the greatest moral and intellectual force in the Universe?" Before I answer, I would assume that your answer is "God," referring to Yahweh of the Bible. It sounds good as a quick rebuttal to say that "God" is an absolute source of morality, and without him, we would be lost. But I am challenging you to communicate in meaningful terms, J-D. Think about where this ‘absolute moral source' stands on the real issues. Abortion: you have Christians on both sides of the argument. Homosexuality: (although the Bible says to kill gays in Lev 20:13) you still have Christians on both sides of the argument. Slavery: we think it's ‘wrong' now, but there are multiple biblical verses of Yahweh supporting slavery, even saying how many times to strike your slave when he breaks certain rules. War: Christians are on both sides of the argument. Death Penalty: Christians are on both sides of the argument. Why do you think that is? I know why. My answer is, there's not an absolute source of morality, because when it really comes down to it, ethics are dependent upon one's own interaction and culture, coupled with what each person feels causes the least amount of harm.
Even if you feel as though you have metaphysical inspiration behind your ethics, it's really just dependent upon your own perception and culture. For example, we could both agree that killing a baby is horrible; but if that ‘baby' is a 4 week old fetus that is growing inside one of our 9 year old daughters that was raped by her uncle, perhaps it does cause the least amount of harm to terminate the pregnancy. It's debatable; which thereby deems it as ‘not absolute.’ Until all Christians stand behind one moral source, or a single set of values, you will be hard-pressed to claim a monopoly on morality.
No religious doctrine will ever be absolute, as it is left to interpretation and subjectivity. The inconsistencies in your god are prevalent in the transparent followers of your belief.
As an Atheist and Secular Humanist, I have the same ethics that you do; I just don't pretend to have godly inspiration behind it to make myself feel more ‘correct.’ At the end of the day, J-D, you make decisions based on your culture and what's in your heart, but then you publically label that as "Christian morals." It's a copout, and I wish you would be man enough to step up and say "it's because I feel it's the best for my family" without putting the onus on something greater than yourself, because you can't handle it. This takes me back to our nation being founded on Christian principles; what are they really? They are nothing more than humanistic ethics with a metaphysical label. Saying that morals began with the Bible is like saying words originated from the dictionary. They both only recorded what already existed.
Lumping all Atheists in with Stalin is akin to me lumping all religious believers with radical Islam and Osama Bin-Laden. It's intellectually dishonest and I refuse to play the Hitler/Dahmer/Stalin game with you and debate their religiosity. Neither of us have control over what those idiots did to mankind; regardless of how misled they were in their belief, or unbelief. Stalin may have been Atheist, but he was not a Secular Humanist. He was power-hungry, and that supersedes all religious or humanistic convictions.
As for people being able to pray during hard times, I don't wish to prevent them; I just don't want to be made to feel like a lesser citizen because I don't. Words like ‘heathen’ and ‘infidel’ have such negative connotations; yet simply mean one is godless. This is the type of rights violation I'm talking about. Besides, what good would prayer do anyway? "God's will be done on earth as it is in heaven" and we are mere sinners. If he needs us to guide him in what to do, why do we call him "God?" If he needs to be reminded of whom to watch over, why call him "God?" If we can change his mind by simply begging, his power and decisions are subjective, and therefore not absolute. You see, by introducing "God" as the answer, it only creates more questions.
Finally, on your last point of my sensibilities being greater than those of religious backgrounds, that's simply a false statement. I want you to be able to continue to worship how you feel you should. I want you to be able to worship any god you choose, and remain free of religious persecution as our Founding Fathers stated in the Constitution. You just need to practice your worship in places dedicated for worship, and keep it out of the schools I pay for. I don't believe in your church, so I have the right to not donate money to that church. However, I pay for the schools, and I don't want to be cut out of the decisions on what is done with that money! (Sound familiar?) Besides, how do we intellectually justify teaching the laws of gravity and Texas History on the same platform as a talking donkey in Numbers: 22 of your Holy Bible?
In the seventies, Children were being forced to pray collectively to the Christian god in our public schools. That is unconstitutional, and violates everyone's rights. With "God" on our money, (which was added 132 years after the country was founded) and "God" in our Pledge of Allegiance (which was added 62 years after it was originally written) our government is endorsing the Christian religion by accepting "God" as a name, referring to Yahweh, instead of a title which encompasses multiple beliefs.
It seems that Atheists are the last remaining minority that it's okay to discriminate against, and I'm fed up. I'm taking a stand to keep my children safe from the induced psychosis and sociological brainwashing that is religion.
David
From: Jon-David Wells
Date: Fri, July 24, 2009 10:51 am
David...
Skillful rhetoric....few answers.
Your answer to my question is: Human Beings.
Stalin is an example of Atheist Governance. There are others equally as evil. If you feel that to be a comparison of Atheists to Stalin, if the shoe fits....Also, may I suggest that your "protection" of children from belief in a higher power than human beings before they have the opportunity to make up their own minds proves the totalitarian nature of your belief system.
My Christian beliefs mandate that I treat you as I would like to be treated. Your Atheistic beliefs demand that you be treated fairly. The result is that while I would gladly allow you to believe as you will, you publicly declare that my beliefs are mythology and dogma, and demand protection from even their exposure to you.
What's fair about denying Religious children an opportunity to acknowledge their Deity at school, in favor of Atheistic parents protecting the pre-determined sensibilities of their children?
Like I said....You really need to think this out.
J-D
From: David Smalley
Sent: Friday, July 24, 2009 12:16 pm
J-D,
Fine, I'll take Stalin; and you can have Iran, because that's what happens when religion and government are not separate. There is a happy medium of having a secular government with freedom of religion, and from religion, without government endorsement of any particular god. We're almost there.
Furthermore, if Atheism is a belief system, sitting down is an exercise, clear is a color, and not collecting stamps is a hobby! I have no system of beliefs to follow. I only know that my own personal ethics mandate that I treat you the way I want to be treated because I know what it's like to be harmed; it's really that simple.
Without a clear ability to have compassion for others, humans would have failed as a species long ago, because we wouldn’t be taking care of our children enough to raise them to adulthood. Compassion and sensitivity toward others through mirror neurons are essential for survival. A Secular Humanist is not a selfish humanist, but one that cares about his fellow man. Please separate the two in your ideology.
In sociology, we often examine the fine line between stating one's own beliefs, and offending others. On one hand, it's perfectly fine for you to worship Jesus, display your WWJD bumper stickers, and wear a cross on your neck as you ‘sin,’ but to stand up and scream "Jesus is the only way, and all others will perish" (while exercising your freedom of religion, and free speech) may be offensive to Muslims or Jews. Moreover, a statement such as "a family that prays together stays together" is offensive to my family, because it insinuates that we will fall apart without prayer. How many bumper stickers say "Real men love Jesus?" What does that make me? What does that make the thousands of foxhole Atheists that we cover in our magazine?
That's one of the things I touch on in my book; that Atheists must be tolerant to religious beliefs because our very existence is offensive to many, in that we reject everyone's god. The feeling is hardly mutual. You say "Bless you" when I sneeze, the courts make me say "so help me God" during trials, my kids are taught to say "one nation under God," in the schools I help pay for, and my money displays "In God We Trust," but if I respectfully refuse any of those, I'm the totalitarian.
I want to make it very clear that Atheists do not want "God" out of the country. We support your freedom of religion. If I were the President, I would not attempt in any way to rid our country of religions, but to uphold Constitutional rights of all Americans. I just want to remove the ability of a dominant religion creating sociological norms; so that when folks don't fall into them, they aren't ostracized or seen as hateful outcasts.
I have no hate in my body, and Atheists have a bad reputation of being ‘evil.’ I want to protect the rights and reputation of nonbelievers so that my children can progress in society without feeling the need to conform to religion to be accepted. Just public education is really all I want.
The point of preventing public school prayer is not based on sensitivities, and I do not feel my children's rights are more important than yours. It's just not the time or place for prayer. You pay school taxes for your child to get an education, but maybe I want my kid to stop class three times a day to tell everyone about the Harley Davidson product line. Is that not a waste of your resources? Is that a misuse of school tax dollars? Of course it is.
Children aren’t there for sales pitches to anything, including religion. There is nothing that prevents your child from talking about their god or religion with another student during free time; but for the district to support a stop in education to discuss something that is subjective, is just nonsense. Besides, we both know that the oversight of the prayer would depend on the denomination of the teacher. None of us want that, as it could create more problems than you could image, as Catholic students are under the authority of a Mormon teacher and a Protestant principal. Discrimination and teachers singling out students would run rampant.
I feel the need to state my final point again; I do not want all religion exterminated from our country, I just want the freedom from religion in my daily life, and let the believers worship on their own without forcing me to participate or acknowledge any particular god. The single most important thing to me is that my children can grow up in a society where they aren’t made to feel like lesser citizens because they don’t fall into the blind faith of Christianity.
David
Jon-David Wells never responded. I later asked him why I hadn’t heard back on this topic, and he simply said “Your last letter evoked so many points that I ran out of time responding to them.”
17 comments:
i heard your call on BDH on 1360 earlier today and wanted to check out your site. i like the debate i just read here. although i have a different belief than you ( i consider myself a deist ) i agree withh al your points made; and just wanted to say, keep it up.
Thanks for the post. - I really enjoy learning about the beliefs of others, and I actually mentioned yours on the show today, as we were talking about the Founding Fathers. A large portion of them were deists, and did not identify with Christianity.
I recently submitted a demo of my radio show to 1360 AM, so who knows, maybe we can work something out, and you can listen to my show on there too!
So tell me; why is deism your belief of choice? What do you have to back that up?
well i hope you can get that show.
i posted a response but it didnt show, yet.
aww well apparently it was lost in cyberspace.
to sum up what i said . . .
basically, to me, there has to be a reason for existence in general. which is why i believe that there is a "god" (that is my personal dogma) - i just dont believe in any "prophets"
what struck a chord with me about your debate above is that apparently we both believe that if there is a dominant "belief system" in our country, it kinda stops any sort of progression towards what us humans are made to do. . .
which is ponder. . .
Great point. On that note, I have something for you to ponder...
Saying that because our world is here, so there must be a reason for it, is like saying "How did they get all those rivers to run exactly along state borders?"
Sometimes, what appears to be the effect, was actually part of the cause.
I dont know.
clearly those state borders were made by state governments. those govts didnt choose where the rivers ran. the borders were decided by humans.
to continue with your metaphor, basically i would ask . . .
why is there a river in the first place? there has to be a cause for our existence.
keep in mind im a deist and not a christian.
I like your use of David Ellers statement about Atheism being a religion "then not collecting stamps is a hobby." I just finished reading that, hope to get his new book when some cash comes along. Very strong arguments... he didn't run out of time, he ran out of ammunition.
As a Christian and a father of two little girls in the public school system, I agree with you that religion should not be taught in school and that even a time of silence is wrong. However, I do not fully understand your stance; do you think it is ok for my children to pray in school at lunch or recess or other times when they have some unstructured time? Just looking for clarification. Thanks
Anonymous,
I absolutely feel that your children should have the right to pray on their own time, regardless of where they are. If your children wanted to pray at recess, I would have no more of a problem with that than if they chose to run laps, do push-ups, or sing Chinese proverbs backwards. It's recess.
The same goes for saying "grace" before eating lunch. If a child wants to take a few moments to pray before eating, I don't think that should be prevented.
The problem comes in when the school or its administrators allow those actions to impede school functions. Sure, the child can say "grace" before lunch, but if he or she chose to pray for 25 minutes before eating, I don't think their lunch time should be extended to accommodate their prayer. The school administrators should not host, plan, or help to gather prayer groups at recess, or any other unstructured time, but if the students chose to pray during free time, I don't think it should be stopped.
In fact, if your children were at my house playing with my children, and we sat down to eat, and they wanted to say "grace," my family and I would respect that, and wait for them to finish before eating.
I absolutely support a freedom of religion in this country, and respect others' rights to pray, but I also support a freedom from it.
I hope this clears things up.
Thanks for the clarification. This is a reasonable view. Schools should be secular just as our government should be.
So why don't you support prayer or creationism taught in public schools?
I oppose a formal prayer time because not all childfren in public school are religious. I respect the parents right to bring up their children as they see fit. The Bible says that the parents are the authority for children so I respect that. I only want my children to have the freedom to pray at appropriate times in school.
As for creationism, it is not science and should be understood by faith. Science makes claims in the realm of this world only and cannot tell us anything of spiritual matters. Science will never lead you to God only faith can.
Off topic, but I had an e-mail debate with him regarding the Federal Reserve. He suddenly stopped replying to my e-mails also. Not sure, but maybe he was losing the debate and just chose to stop?
He is basically a "neoconservative" dressed up as a populist "conservative", but is not for so-called small government at all, only he talks the game when democrats have the power.
Hi - I am certainly delighted to discover this. Good job!
This is a different anonymous, but I want to make a point about "atheist killings." Stalin did not kill people in the name of atheism. He killed people because they disagreed with his ideas and threatened to take his power. Stalin did not kill people because they were Christian or Muslim or Jewish or even Buddhist. He strongly tried to force atheism, but it never went through.
I also want to point out that there have been no wars fought over who has the best scientific claims. I guarantee that almost 75% of all wars in history have been over religion. No Christian can condemn Muslims for Jihads when they have all the crusades, the thirty years war, the troubles of ireland, and many other examples of inter-denominational or inter-religious wars they have in their history.
Frequently, Christians cite Stalin, Hitler and other atheist leaders as examples of the consequences of atheistic power gone wild. But Sam Harris says, "these regimes were not exactly bastions of rational thought".
When it comes to mass murdering though, no mere mortal can compete with god. It raises the question, where does god get his morality from? Ingersoll said it so well, "People have the right to expect their god's to be greater than themselves".
Few answers? Few answers? See this is why I hate reading dialog from theists, they ignore what was said and asked of them and just follow their routine. Its so fucken intellectually dishonest it pisses me off! You answered every one of his points, brought up some excellent new ones and squashed the Stalin nonsense. And whats his reply?-ignores what you wrote and brings up Stalin! He didn't reply because he was beat and beat bad
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