jay_a2j wrote:a)Sensible people? Maybe they should look at the statistics of what taking prayer out of school has done.
Don't confuse correlation with causation. Violent crime by minors is down for another year, and Teen pregnancy is still at an all time low. Meanwhile, crime committed by white males over 30 has skyrocketed.
Perhaps we are demonizing the wrong generation.
b)You tell me. It is not the child, it is the atheist parent who gets offended. Its bending to the will of a small group of people. And THAT is the real danger.
Danger? You think that removing prayer time from the morning announcements is dangerous? I'll tell you what's dangerous, forcing children not of the same religion out of a classroom because they don't want to participate in the prayer session. It teaches exclusion and segregation, and it's wrong.
Everyone must be represented equally, or no one gets represented at all. That's the beauty of our system. A manger at City Hall? I don't give a care. Ten commandments in a courthouse? Well, considering that 8 of the 10 commandments aren't laws, I don't see how they have any place in a courtroom. If you want a stone memorial to ancient laws, put up a pedestal to the Codes of Hammurabi (the first ever set of state laws).
That being said, I agree that the atheist community does tend to overreact from time to time. Take that yahoo who wanted "Under God" taken out of the pledge. He would have had a better chance at getting the pledge taken out of schools as a whole, considering that it's just a marketing slogan.
Initiate discovery! Fire the Machines! Throw the switch Igor! THROW THE F***ING SWITCH!