Praying in school

Good morning,

I am 43 years old and grew up in Connecticut.
I never, never prayed in school.
Am I unaware of what was going on in our country?
I went to public school and a Catholic college.
Even in college, we did not pray in class.
They had a church on campus, but we did not pray in class.
At the Catholic College I took a class on World religion.
It was taught by a nun and she was VERY respectful of All religions.
Am I totally sheltered from the real world in the blue state????

I am totally pissed, to think, that they want to make my kids Pray in school.

and it never came. go figger. before long, they will be forcing prayer in public schools and ballgames too. a person could actually go all the way through his life without ever praying and be just fine. we are dealing with a large dangerous cult, and it's time we got real.

Screaming loudly during the prayer at a ball game.
And I will tell my kids to talk loudly during prayer in school.
They will give up on it here in CT. It will never be inforced.
I hope i get called into the principles office because my child will not pray.
I will tell him, expect me here every day!!!!
Me and 100 other moms.
I will make sure the absurdity is made known

My father had to pray in school, it didn't stop him from being an atheist.

the Supreme Court and had prayer every morning in school. Everyone had to stand and be quiet. Some prayed, some did not. They also had prayer at every high school football game. Most were generic, but they were still Christian prayers.

We did not have any kind of sanctioned school prayer. We did say the pledge daily in grades K-5, with "under God" in it. I was amazed at some of the things my school did allow:

1. Young Life, an evangelical group I participated in, was allowed to post signs in the hall weekly to announce whose house the meeting was going to be at. I don't really have a problem with this. The counselors from that program, and any local minister/rabbi/etc., were allowed in the school at lunchtime, and were allowed to eat with the students. Again, I don't see a real problem with this and there were hard days when I was glad to see one of the counselors to have someone to talk to other than the idiot guidance counselor I was assigned to. As long as anyone's clergy (including pagans and muslims) is allowed the same privilege, I have no problem with it.

2. In my district, the local catholic church did not have a parochial school. In elementary school, the church sent busses over twice a week and took the catholic kids out of school for 2 hours (including lunch time) for "cat prison", as we protestant kids called it. It was a major problem for teachers trying to get lessons taught, and usually ended up in an extended recess for the protestant/non catholic kids. This was seriously wrong on the school district's part, because it interfered with school work.

3. In 5th grade, the Gideons distributed little red New Testaments at school. We had to bring home a permission card, and if our parents signed it, we got a bible. There were parents who occasionally objected to this, and my parents signed the form, but told us the school was wrong to let the Gideons distribute Bibles.

They would distribute them at WMU when I was in college, but that was okay. We were adults, and if the Moonies, Maranathas and Krishnas could be at our student center, the Gideons certainly should be allowed there. Actually, an influx of the previous three groups usually led to the Gideons hanging around for a few days. They were concerned about students getting caught up and fleeced by the cults, and were really nice old guys-I took the time to talk to them and get to know a couple of them.

4. In high school, I played in the orchestra. Every year, the orchestra was required to play at the Sunday Bacaluareate service for graduates (a semi-secular prayer service). The band played at graduation, which was on a week night. My sophmore year, my church had it's picnic on the same day at the same time. Orchestra was a graded class. My mom called the school to get me excused from the service. The principal wouldn't excuse me, and said that the teacher could mark me down if I didn't show up. First, however, he asked my mom which church. When she told him Plymouth UCC, he said, "I would have excused her if it was a Christian Reformed Church" (dutch conservatives). Incidentally, I didn't want to go to the picnic, this was my mom's issue, not mine. The school was wrong, however, and the principal was lucky my mom was not inclined to hire lawyers. This was in 1980.

It was a regular state school. But we never said "under God" to the flag. The same kids I went to grade school with also went to Sunday School with me.I do not believe in mixing church and state. I hated reading the Bible and my parent thought it was wrong. We were Republicans.

I guess the Northeast was godly so recently.
It looks like we are going back, by force.
I like the fact that your parents thought it was wrong and they were Republicans. It shows you how much Republicans have changed.

We began every day with the "pledgallegiance"--then we sang "My Country Tis of Thee."

In later years, (Jr & Sr High) I believe there was an occasional prayer at a special school function. They never got the "Our Father" right & would have run away screaming at a "Hail Mary."

School prayer and bible reading in the bible belt was common. Sometimes the teachers led us in the prayers, others let student volunteers lead in prayer. I thought nothing of it; since I was also raised in church, the prayers we heard at school didn't sound too different from the prayers I heard elsewhere. Most of us were Baptist, and the only diversity I was aware of were a few Methodists and Presbyterians; if there were any Catholics or Jews or Atheists, they kept it to themselves.

Things have changed somewhat, but there's still plenty of sentiment in favor of the "good-old-days." Still think the majority should get their way (even if they are no longer the majority!), still don't see any harm in it (might even do those poor atheist kids some good), still try to blame all of this country's problems on the 60's SC ruling. But of all the reasons they are wrong, of all the reasons why I oppose the thing they get so worked up over, my strongest opposition is a theological one: The same Jesus in whose name those prayers are offered taught that we are to pray in private, where only God can hear our prayers; praying in public is only done for show, and God does not hear those prayers.

The religious right sure to love to pick and choose which scriptures they will use and which they will conveniently overlook. Too bad their actions don't match their rhetoric.

I don't recall reading in the New Testament that prayers must be sanctioned by local authority figures, or even spoken aloud in the presence of others. In fact, last I checked it is supposed to be private.

I am referring to the King James version, the only one that I ever read. I am beginning to wonder if fundamentalist Christians use a different edition of the Bible.

The Abridged Fundy Bible. It's got the first half of Genesis, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, the Pauline epistles, and Revelation.

Conspicuously absent are the Gospels (except maybe a few bits of John) and Christ's message of love and forgiveness.

In elementary school girls were required to wear dresses and each school day opened with prayer and the pledge of allegiance. Thankfully, before I got to junion high both the prayer and the dress code were gone.

Then I went to college at Six Flags Over Jesus. Lots of prayer in class. Including mandatory student led prayers in foreign language class which were graded and required to be spoken in the language being studied. I was clueless - and that is how I learned to speak in tongues.

:evilgrin:

Seriously, teach your kids to think for themselves and to ask questions. Not saying don't object just saying their critical thinking skills will serve them well in the long term.

i sit down to a teacher conference and they always say, pray first and we bow our heads. i forget each time. oh ya. pray that we have the wisdom to take care of this child,........ i do have the wisdom, i dont need to pray for it from an outside source like i dont have a clue

yup. we do lots of prayin and pray and pray as we totally ignore what is up in the world. being clueless maybe that is why they pray so hard for wisdom