Personal belief resides outside of classes. Theist or atheistic beliefs should be left at the door when you walk into school and the focus should be on education to better society.
Tell that to the Christians in Cranston. None of them seem to get it, including that poster that just posted that indirectly knows Jessica.
I don't know where you live or where this takes place but I live in a major metropolitan city and I not only grew up with but work with people that are atheists. Never have I once seen or heard them talk about discrimination and they don't hide their affiliation. Maybe I just grew up/live in an odd place. I guess I personally don't know a lot of people that flaunt their beliefs at all though.
Lucky for us, metropolitan centers tend to breed individuals who aren't as dogmatic in their beliefs but there are many places where lack of belief or the wrong belief will get you into hot water. It really is in a way similar to the gay issue in that you'll have people who are open to the idea but the majority are still quite divided.
Do you really think this country would elect an atheist to high office? Nope, it'd be a death on arrival simply because someone rejects the idea of a God. It's still a hot button issue that simply doesn't get addressed by the mainstream media at all because it's uncomfortable to discuss. The only atheists you see make the news circuits are men like Dawkins, Harris and the late Hitchens and these men are often painted in a way that makes them the 'enemy' to the wholesome USA.
Why is this?
Quote:
I have been personally attacked and had my life threatened based on who I am though and at the time what I was raised to believe. When I was 16 they called and threatened my life and came to my house and assaulted me because I a white Catholic and I was dating their daughter unaware of my offense against them. I was attacked because of my race and religious affiliation. Am I then a target of discrimination? Probably sounds silly to you huh?
It isn't silly and it's an example of the deep divides that religion erect between people and most certainly you were the target of discrimination as the label isn't reserved for minorities alone. The cruelties of faith (war, death, destruction, dogmatic groupthink amongst others) are a part of why I broke from the church and pursued this path of trying to be a moral person for the sake of being moral unhindered by rewards of religious belief.
You being Catholic reminds me of the controversy of Kennedy during his run for president back in the 60s. What a controversy that was and that's just within the same overarching belief in Christianity.
My point is that personal belief and what we teach in schools is something completely different. In schools we should teach our children what they need to learn to function in society. Creationism has no place in public schools as it has no applicability in science or our understanding of it.
Personal belief however is a completely different thing. You can't try to force something on someone because you believe that is what they should believe too. That goes both ways.
Then I apologize for entirely missing your point. I understand now, thank you.
It's cool. I probably didn't come off that clearly and tensions always rise with issues like these. I'm glad we could come to an understanding at least even if some of our other views differ.
Why does this thread title have Christians in it. Anyone who pulls anyone, gay or straight, from a wheelchair is not a Christian.
And for Jessica Ahlquist. I went to school at Cranston West and we had many, many non-believing students back then who never once were bothered or even realized there was a prayer in the auditorium. So why is it a big deal now?Because some teen tot (and I can say this since I know her personally through my brother) thinks she is going to make a name for herself and be recognized as this great conqueror.Take the banner down for all I care, I don't think I, as a Christian, ever read it, but don't act like this isn't just some big public media display for a headline and some recognition and probably a nice college essay.
Oh no you *** don't, that's a HUGE No True Scotsman.
Because it's a violation of the Constitution. How the *** is that not a big deal? You don't get it, do you? A public school is for the people. ALL THE PEOPLE. Not just your privileged, Christian ***.
You don't understand what was going on, that right there shows it. And as a Christian, I bet your brother is also a Christian and is one of those people threatening her at the moment. No wonder you're calling her a teen tot. Go look at one of her speeches, or her writing, and see that you are not dealing with some teenage tot.
The first plea was to take the religious components out. The school board refused. Take that for what it's worth.
Get off your high horse.
Read this "horrendous" prayer. Besides the "Our Heavenly Father" that opens it, and the "Amen" that closes it, it's not even religious in nature. You want to accuse my brother and me of being one of the one's who is giving her trouble online, like we have nothing better to do than that, come accuse me to my face, especially if you live in Rhode Island.
For the record, before you believe the sensationalism, such as in the above quoted post, 99.9% of Cranston doesn't care and isn't bothering this girl.
Personal belief resides outside of classes. Theist or atheistic beliefs should be left at the door when you walk into school and the focus should be on education to better society.
This should have been your point from the start. That makes perfect sense.
I have, but I don't appreciate the insinuation that the entire South functions the same way as little, po-dunk towns.
I find it humorous that you flame up when people insult the South in the same conversation where we explain that atheists face issues. It's the same damn thing, and you often criticize atheists for voicing the same damn thing you just did.
Yeah...Not really upset, but whatever. I think I've already said I believe in a walking, talking Three Musketeers bar that shits smoked salmon in another thread. I put my faith in that every month. :)
Night, all!
I've never seen you so close minded before... :\
Sorry. Tired, but I can't sleep. A little on the anxious side about this week. Meh...*** it!
Could be worse. This could be my philosophy...
EDIT: Haven't thought about this episode in a while. I forgot how much I liked it.
And here I thought you mad over the agnostic clip I posted on page 2, lol.
Read this "horrendous" prayer. Besides the "Our Heavenly Father" that opens it, and the "Amen" that closes it, it's not even religious in nature. You want to accuse my brother and me of being one of the one's who is giving her trouble online, like we have nothing better to do than that, come accuse me to my face, especially if you live in Rhode Island.
For the record, before you believe the sensationalism, such as in the above quoted post, 99.9% of Cranston doesn't care and isn't bothering this girl.
No, you come back to reality. Maybe you'll learn a thing or two.
They were asked to take out the religious parts and acknowledged that there were religious parts in a publicly funded building. That's not *** okay. Why don't you get that? It doesn't matter if it's offensive: it's religious in a publicly funded building: that's not allowed, and for good reason.
Well almost *** none of Cranston is defending the girl who defended the Constitution. I'll believe the worth of Christians there when they start doing that.
This thread has seemed to of got interesting, but I'm really not bored enough to read through all of it..
Anyone care to TL;DR the heated argument part?
A prayer in a public school wasn't offensive, so it should have stayed and we can ignore the threats of violence against the girl who upheld the Constitution and asked for it to be modified or taken down as it was not all-inclusive.
In addition to that, "NO TRUE CHRISTIAN WOULD HURT SOMEONE!"
Personal belief resides outside of classes. Theist or atheistic beliefs should be left at the door when you walk into school and the focus should be on education to better society.
Tell that to the Christians in Cranston. None of them seem to get it, including that poster that just posted that indirectly knows Jessica.
I agree with you that some people just don't get it. The problem with most people is that they focus solely on themselves and their own issues that they lose sight of the bigger picture. Am I excusing anything, no, and please do not take it that way. I wish I had the answers to the fundamental problems we face against basic human dignity and respect but alas I don't.
I might have skipped over the post you're referring to.
Unrelated kind of...but we should organize an FFXIAH BRAWL one day. Everyone wears a shirt with their user name printed HUGE on a white shirt and then you can be like "IT'S THAT ***" and you punch them in the face. Then there will be peace on here for a good while after we get it out of our systems!
Those who live get a special sticker or something.
Unrelated kind of...but we should organize an FFXIAH BRAWL one day. Everyone wears a shirt with their user name printed HUGE on a white shirt and then you can be like "IT'S THAT ***" and you punch them in the face. Then there will be peace on here for a good while after we get it out of our systems!
Those who live get a special sticker or something.
Violence is not the answer. What are we supposed to be, some sort of religious extremist group?
Unrelated kind of...but we should organize an FFXIAH BRAWL one day. Everyone wears a shirt with their user name printed HUGE on a white shirt and then you can be like "IT'S THAT ***" and you punch them in the face. Then there will be peace on here for a good while after we get it out of our systems!
Those who live get a special sticker or something.
Violence is not the answer. What are we supposed to be, some sort of religious extremist group?
Read this "horrendous" prayer. Besides the "Our Heavenly Father" that opens it, and the "Amen" that closes it, it's not even religious in nature. You want to accuse my brother and me of being one of the one's who is giving her trouble online, like we have nothing better to do than that, come accuse me to my face, especially if you live in Rhode Island.
For the record, before you believe the sensationalism, such as in the above quoted post, 99.9% of Cranston doesn't care and isn't bothering this girl.
No, you come back to reality. Maybe you'll learn a thing or two.
They were asked to take out the religious parts and acknowledged that there were religious parts in a publicly funded building. That's not *** okay. Why don't you get that?
Well almost *** none of Cranston is defending the girl who defended the Constitution. I'll believe the worth of Christians there when they start doing that.
You are just as ignorant as every religious zealot on the face of the plant. Only you are a lunatic, plus you like to play things to your favor.
You blame Cranston for bullying this girl, when in reality, the online posts that the articles about her are referring to are by anonymous internet trolls, most who don't even live in this state. No one in Cranston is defending her, because no one in Cranston cares enough to even follow the story. It made the local news once or twice as a blip and most of the kids at the school are so far past it, it's funny that you are still whining about it. Not only did me, my brother and my sister all go to that school, but some of the kids I went to class with and befriended teach there now.
You are the one who needs to come back to reality and make sure you get your facts straight. You probably haven't even set foot in that school and yet you assume you know what is going on. You assume Christians in Cranston are attacking her, when the truth is, they aren't. She may be facing some online drama from who knows who, but no one is walking around Cranston threatening and harassing this girl.
Why does this thread title have Christians in it. Anyone who pulls anyone, gay or straight, from a wheelchair is not a Christian.
And for Jessica Ahlquist. I went to school at Cranston West and we had many, many non-believing students back then who never once were bothered or even realized there was a prayer in the auditorium. So why is it a big deal now? Because some teen tot (and I can say this since I know her personally through my brother) thinks she is going to make a name for herself and be recognized as this great conqueror. Take the banner down for all I care, I don't think I, as a Christian, ever read it, but don't act like this isn't just some big public media display for a headline and some recognition and probably a nice college essay.
Except if you happen to be a believing Christian you eventually hit up against the problem of the text declaring gays as second class citizens, abominations, unclean etc etc.
You can resolve this issue by either taking Jesus' advice (leave it to him), believe the text at face value (gays are bad) or hashing out some middling compromise between the two. Either way within the rules of the text you cannot see a gay as equal to a hetero couple and this is where the problems begin because the text is instructing a tiering of men and this leads inevitably to violence.
I wouldn't go as far to say this issue wouldn't exist without religion but it is perpetuated and so hard to overcome because people cling to religious belief so tightly.
It's amusing though because many christians have written off other parts of the bible but the gay issue persists. Slavery being OK? Animal sacrifices? Public stoning? Death for working on the sabbath? Pork? Yeah.
This thread has seemed to of got interesting, but I'm really not bored enough to read through all of it..
Anyone care to TL;DR the heated argument part?
A prayer in a public school wasn't offensive, so it should have stayed and we can ignore the threats of violence against the girl who upheld the Constitution and asked for it to be modified or taken down as it was not all-inclusive.
In addition to that, "NO TRUE CHRISTIAN WOULD HURT SOMEONE!"
While funny, that didn't work as I planned.. I'm still confused how this turned into the shirt storm it did.. D:
You are just as ignorant as every religious zealot on the face of the plant. Only you are a lunatic, plus you like to play things to your favor.
You blame Cranston for bullying this girl, when in reality, the online posts that the articles about her are referring to are by anonymous internet trolls, most who don't even live in this state. No one in Cranston is defending her, because no one in Cranston cares enough to even follow the story. It made the local news once or twice as a blip and most of the kids at the school are so far past it, it's funny that you are still whining about it. Not only did me, my brother and my sister all go to that school, but some of the kids I went to class with and befriended teach there now.
You are the one who needs to come back to reality and make sure you get your facts straight. You probably haven't even set foot in that school and yet you assume you know what is going on. You assume Christians in Cranston are attacking her, when the truth is, they aren't. She may be facing some online drama from who knows who, but no one is walking around Cranston threatening and harassing this girl.
Lol.
BULL.
***.
***.
Those were people in her school, bio class particularly had a few girls saying they were gonna toss ***at her. I saw the *** tweets myself, I saw the Facebook posts from profiles of kids going to Cranston with my own *** eyes.
There are tons of people. There were people waiting outside her school to jump her.
There's news and police reports and investigations over it going around. Start reading the *** news.
Oh, wait, you think the people are gonna snitch on themselves, apparently. I witness the ***going on. I saw footage, I saw tweets, facebook posts. I saw all the evidence that showed she was in physical danger for doing what she did.
I think you're the one that doesn't know what you're talking about.
This thread has seemed to of got interesting, but I'm really not bored enough to read through all of it..
Anyone care to TL;DR the heated argument part?
A prayer in a public school wasn't offensive, so it should have stayed and we can ignore the threats of violence against the girl who upheld the Constitution and asked for it to be modified or taken down as it was not all-inclusive.
In addition to that, "NO TRUE CHRISTIAN WOULD HURT SOMEONE!"
While funny, that didn't work as I planned.. I'm still confused how this turned into the shirt storm it did.. D:
You are just as ignorant as every religious zealot on the face of the plant. Only you are a lunatic, plus you like to play things to your favor.
You blame Cranston for bullying this girl, when in reality, the online posts that the articles about her are referring to are by anonymous internet trolls, most who don't even live in this state. No one in Cranston is defending her, because no one in Cranston cares enough to even follow the story. It made the local news once or twice as a blip and most of the kids at the school are so far past it, it's funny that you are still whining about it. Not only did me, my brother and my sister all go to that school, but some of the kids I went to class with and befriended teach there now.
You are the one who needs to come back to reality and make sure you get your facts straight. You probably haven't even set foot in that school and yet you assume you know what is going on. You assume Christians in Cranston are attacking her, when the truth is, they aren't. She may be facing some online drama from who knows who, but no one is walking around Cranston threatening and harassing this girl.
Lol.
BULL.
***.
***.
Those were people in her school, bio class particularly had a few girls saying they were gonna toss ***at her. I saw the *** tweets myself, I saw the Facebook posts from profiles of kids going to Cranston with my own *** eyes.
There are tons of people. There were people waiting outside her school to jump her.
There's news and police reports and investigations over it going around. Start reading the *** news.
How about you stop believing everything the news tells you, that would be a good way for you to crawl out of your paranoid hole. You know how many kids "waited outside of class" to jump me when I choked a kid out for drawing a racial image of my girlfriend sucking his penis and sayin "mmm, tasts like eggrolls?" A lot of kids claimed they would be waiting for me...well they must be waiting for a special day, it's been 13 years now.
Everyone who reads the news from afar is just such a wonderful witness to what is really happening.
Not because it's not important to have these types of discussions, but in this context [forum] and the fact that the precedent has been upheld that nothing new is ever discussed, nobody's mind is changed and nothing is solved.
I. Hate.
I frequent sports radio and most of that is pretty much this forum. The same guys call in, back the same teams, the debates boil down to the same things yet it doesn't get old because there is fun in discussion.
You are just as ignorant as every religious zealot on the face of the plant. Only you are a lunatic, plus you like to play things to your favor.
You blame Cranston for bullying this girl, when in reality, the online posts that the articles about her are referring to are by anonymous internet trolls, most who don't even live in this state. No one in Cranston is defending her, because no one in Cranston cares enough to even follow the story. It made the local news once or twice as a blip and most of the kids at the school are so far past it, it's funny that you are still whining about it. Not only did me, my brother and my sister all go to that school, but some of the kids I went to class with and befriended teach there now.
You are the one who needs to come back to reality and make sure you get your facts straight. You probably haven't even set foot in that school and yet you assume you know what is going on. You assume Christians in Cranston are attacking her, when the truth is, they aren't. She may be facing some online drama from who knows who, but no one is walking around Cranston threatening and harassing this girl.
Lol.
BULL.
***.
***.
Those were people in her school, bio class particularly had a few girls saying they were gonna toss ***at her. I saw the *** tweets myself, I saw the Facebook posts from profiles of kids going to Cranston with my own *** eyes.
There are tons of people. There were people waiting outside her school to jump her.
There's news and police reports and investigations over it going around. Start reading the *** news.
How about you stop believing everything the news tells you, that would be a good way for you to crawl out of your paranoid hole. You know how many kids "waited outside of class" to jump me when I choked a kid out for drawing a racial image of my girlfriend sucking his penis and sayin "mmm, tasts like eggrolls?" A lot of kids claimed they would be waiting for me...well they must be waiting for a special day, it's been 13 years now.
Everyone who reads the news from afar is just such a wonderful witness to what is really happening.
