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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sidney Reilly who wrote (26536)	12/6/1998 10:54:00 AM
From: E	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

The Christian children who tormented my sister and me and the little boy routinely called by them (with no correction from any parent except mine) "Joey the Jew," were operating in perfect fidelity to the Christian historical tradition of harassing, enslaving, killing, attempting to incorporate by any means necessary, their religious competitors. I do forgive them. It isn't their fault that they were raised in a belief system in which they were recipients of the instruction that all opposition to their own beliefs was to be attributed to a superhero of evil named Satan. Poor things, really, is the way I see it now. Then, of course, they were just a part of the larger picture that included being required each day by my teachers at the public school to lower my head and "pray" to a being I understood to be both imaginary, and the "reason" for my suffering at the hands of those who were under the impression the being was a real thing, somehow ordering them to make me "pray" to it, and to beat me up. I recently read about some studies demonstrating a positive correlation between religion and prejudice/discrimination. Here's a quote from one of the three, entitled "Religion and Prejudice," by Bruce Hunsberger. "Those who made the strongest claims to being 'true believers' of Christianity, and who reportedly follow traditional religious teachings most scrupulously, are also those who tend to be the most intolerant of their fellow human beings." The study finds that not only are religious people more likely to discriminate than nonreligious, but the intensity of the discrimination increases with intensity of belief. One of the other studies found that of all the religious groupings the one that was the least likely to discriminate was the non-religious one-- atheists. And of course we all already know that of all the religious categories represented in prisons, the most underrepresented compared with their proportion in the population is the atheists. I'm so proud of us!

To: Sidney Reilly who wrote (26536)	12/6/1998 11:10:00 PM
From: Krowbar	Respond to of 108807

It's the adults who wish to pray out loud who are doing the grandstanding. The children are innocent, and are being manipulated. I have never seen a child leading a prayer without an adult in the background doing the prodding. The "Jesus free zone" is a concept dreamt up by the wrong wingers to make it appear that those against coerced prayer are against any mention of Jesus or religion. I am favor of a high school class on comparative religion. I can assure you that the religious wrong will not allow that. I have never said that Jesus can't be talked about between students, or even be a topic of discussion in the appropriate class, and I don't know of any Atheist group that is against it. You again are distorting my words. Maybe I need to repeat. I am against coerced prayer in public schools, or any other public gathering. I find it extremely rude and insensitive to those gathered. It is wrong to assume that they are praying along because the want to. It is more probable that they are praying along because they are afraid of being seen not praying. There are a lot of people out there like X, that don't want to stir up trouble by not conforming. Del

To: Sidney Reilly who wrote (26536)	12/12/1998 11:56:00 AM
From: Grainne	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

Bob, I'm still lost with what is wrong with school being a "Jesus-free zone" (except for comparative religion classes in the upper grades). Why should Jesus be in the schools, anyway? If Jesus is real, then Christian children should be able to internalize him and carry his spirit around with them, without having to constantly reinforce his presence with prayer. Isn't sixteen hours a day adequate for religious training and practice? If the religion is real, it seems to me that it should be. Of course, if Jesus is in the schools along with Pan, Buddha, Allah and all the other deities, and atheist children are given equal time to do anti-prayers and explain rationally why they do not believe in God, then I think it would be more reasonable. But somehow I don't think that's exactly what the Christians have in mind!