Place for prayer

Do not feel compelled to click on my ad above. – BUM

From a conversation over on Bloop with Vista:

“It is not the governments place to force religion on us. Like I said there is a difference between freedom from religion and freedom of religion. In this case I would feel there no harm in a person saying a prayer in the school. This does not mean you have an individual have to take part in that prayer. It is your right to practice your freedom of religion just as it is the guys right to say the prayer to practice his freedom of religion. Our problem in society is that Christians are being shunned for their religion. We are not able to practice our religion because it might offend another person.

For example it might offend you if I were a foot ball coach and said a prayer in the locker.”

It wouldn’t offend me, but it’s not the place for a government employee to espouse his religious beliefs on a captive audience. Would you be concerned if the football coach of your children at the public high school before each game recited, “God isn’t real, he’s an imaginary friend. Jesus died, did not resurrect because he was only human. God is just superstition. Let’s play football.”?

“This is and I should be able to practice my religion anywhere.”

You are. You can pray before a football game if you want. You can pray in school. You can pray right now. I can think to myself, “God isn’t real” all I want. You have a problem with not being allowed to lead class prayers? Tough, it’s not the place for that.

“At this you might say well not the government is not allowed to have a religion. The government has no right to force someone into a religion. That is freedom of religion. If we are going to worry about not letting people partake in prayer because it offends them then lets look at the flip side. This country is full of Christians what about offending them? It doesn’t matter what you do you offend someone.”

You’ll notice that I haven’t mentioned “being offended” as the reason for anything, right? You’re arguing against a straw-man.

Copied from the first paragraph, “Our problem in society is that Christians are being shunned for their religion.”

If society shuns a group for their religion, that’s tough for the religion, as you said, society/people are allowed to have freedom of expression, etc.  For example, I think that Christian’s beliefs are absurd, dangerous, and that we should work to convince Christians of their error through dialogue.

“If you do not believe in Christianity or you do not wish to respect it them maybe you should not take part in the holidays of it such as Christmas and Easter. [

Vista ]”

From wikipedia, “Many cultures celebrate or celebrated a holiday near (within a few days) the winter solstice; examples of these include Yalda, Saturnalia, Christmas, Karachun, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and Zamenhof Day…  The first civilization to celebrate the winter solstice were the Ancient Persians, deriving from their Zoroastrian religion.”

If you do not believe in Zoroastrianism, then maybe YOU shouldn’t celebrate Christmas. Wait, I don’t like that argument. Why not celebrate when you get a chance? How about I celebrate a time set aside for peace, family, hope; and you can call it whatever you want, and I’ll call it whatever I want.