Prayer in schools yes.. as long as peeps arn't forced to do it...let it be their choice. The Gov has no right to abolish it!

All I can give is my experience in the 1940's and 1950's--when I was in grade school, the entire pubic school was involved during school time in a Christmas program. The nativity was presented along with the reading of the Christmas story in Luke. Every class was assigned a Christmas carol to sing. Later in pubic high school, Catholic students complained about attending their Baccalaureate in a Protestant church. In the first case no one seemed to care about the Jewish students, and in the second one even though it was a Christian complaining, it was a Catholic Christian. Also in high school Jewish students were forced to read the St. James' version of the Old Testament when it was their time for "Bible" reading as well as the Catholics reading the St. James New Testament. All prayers over the loud speaker were ended with "in Jesus name we pray." During my daughter's Baccalaureate, it was held in a large Baptist church, but the speaker was a Catholic priest.

Whenever there is a math test, there is definitely prayer going on in school. Of course, the real question isn't whether students should be allowed to pray while they are in school but, instead, whether these government indoctrination centers (public schools) should compose specific prayers and lead students in those prayers. The famous (or infamous) Supreme Court case Engle v. Vitale made it clear that it is not the role of government (schools being an arm of the government) to lead students in acts of religious piety.

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A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes toward the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

It's clear that we all need to pray to Vishnu the Destroyer every morning before class that he kill our enemies and bring us much luck.

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As long as there are exams, football games, and pretty girls to ask to the prom, there will be prayers in high school. Always have been - always will be.

The issue becomes a problem when they are facilitated (led) by school officials, or when acting as emissary for the school (such as over a p.a. system). Then the prayer becomes an endorsement of the government and has no place in a public school system.

Students are in school - and free to pray all they want to themselves - for 8 hours a day. That leaves 16 hours for all the public prayer they wish to engage in. It can take place in their homes, in their churches, in a mall, in a library - it can take place anywhere it is not being endorsed by the United States government.

I find it interesting that with as much fuss as there is about people demanding public spectacle prayer in the school, I rarely (ever?) saw students praying over their own lunches before eating in the cafeteria - and I rarely (ever?) see the parents of those students praying over their food in a restaurant before eating. It seems the only time they're really interested in prayer is when it becomes a "statement" and is a public spectacle. Part of the Bible (which my church teaches from) states quite clearly that a person should pray silently (I believe the term is 'in your cupboard').

On top of the incredibly unconstitutionality of a government led school prayer, I get disgusted with people who are pretentiously pious and self-servingly sanctimonious. I'm pretty sure those are the people who Jesus called the Pharisees... and threw them the f out of the temples.

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"No man is happy without a delusion of some kind. Delusions are as necessary to our happiness as realities."

...Christian Nestell Bovee

Someone pointed out that all the people who support prayer in schools are Christians, while those who are against tend to be of other faiths or atheism.

Look, guys, there's nothing wrong with praying a silent prayer to yourself, or with assembling a small group of students to pray at the flagpole before school begins. The religious right has an agenda - they're painting this picture of all their opponents as being immoral radicals who want to destroy religion entirely. This is not the case. Your preacher might tell you that radicals want to make it so you can't pray in school. This is biased and incorrect. Nobody's trying to stop you from praying altogether. It's a conservative ploy, intended to make all those who object to government-sanctioned prayer look like evil satanic lunatics.

And that whole deal about the Jewish family being persecuted - I give a huge 'thank you' to the loving Christians of that area for so vividly demonstrating the problem with organized religion. Those wonderful defenders of the Faith helped further the kingdom of Jesus by driving those dirty Jews out of town. Hallelujah!

"no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship...whatsoever...nor shall otherwise suffer, on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion...." -- Thomas Jefferson, "A Bill or Establishing Religious Freedom," 1779

"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." -- Thomas Jefferson

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steve

Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum!
NOTE: If you agree with what I have said in this post, there's a new feature on Political Fever that allows you to express agreement. Look in the top right-hand corner of my post, and you should see a little silver scales button. Please, use that.However, sign it with your username so I know who sent it please...thanks all.

I think it would be good to allow people the choice. Pray or not pray - to whoever they want. But to punish people for doing what they feel they need to spiritually is also a denial of freedom. It doesn't have to be structured. Just let them if they want to.
If they don't want to - that's cool, they can do something else.

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www.westernusawx.com

I guess that a "Minute of Reflection/Meditation" wouldn't hurt. Then again, I've always gone to a private Catholic School where no one really cares about the whole prayer thing, so I can't really pass judgement.

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In a thread "Why are there Chrisians?"

Nobody has ever stopped anybody from praying in school - ever.

However, making a public spectacle of it is something else indeed.

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"No man is happy without a delusion of some kind. Delusions are as necessary to our happiness as realities."

...Christian Nestell Bovee