this self-absorbed deity in classrooms, as punishment, apparently, is a sick, twisted, hateful and perverted being.

And do not realize that there was plenty of violence in the 14th and 15th centuries, a time when God was in every classroom and was part of the government. The government could force you to believe in God - yet there was still violence, and some of it based on that very thing - see the massacres of Hugenots, or other attempts to kill all the infidels.

In the Church, of all places?

And the German's were also a Godly bunch. Bin Laden seems to have been a prayerful man too.

Each to his/her own God I guess.

...and it is written by, and for, Christians...

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/exploringourmatrix/2012/12/what-fundamentalists-worship.html

is giving them WAY too much credit.

It's a clue they're using metonymy.

"Prayer" is metonymic for "values" here. If there's "prayer" there's "God," and belief in God is the source of values.


Sometimes I think that if people hear a rancher say he has 500 head of cattle they'd immediately want to know what he did with their bodies and what kind of weirdo is he holding on to all those cow heads.

Some of the points made stand (but not most of the attacks). I think that the college survey makes it clear that there's been a shift in values and priorities among kids. While we keep saying that the younger generation is more tolerant, we don't have a way of distinguishing between tolerance and indifference. We say that they're more socially engaged, but we ignore that many schools require community service hours for graduation (and colleges like it for admits) and claim those hours are voluntary "social engagement." Our overall evidence is weak and controverted, and what's not weak or controverted is anecdotal and limited.

just wondering.

malls. theatres. streetcorners. first-grade classrooms. churches. all due to lack of compulsory prayer? to whom? not "their" God. He's a jackass.