Seniors Told They Can't Pray Before Meals 179
Seniors at the Ed Young Senior Citizens Center near Savannah, GA, have been told they can't pray before meals anymore out of fear of losing federal money for meals. From the article: "But Senior Citizens Inc. officials said Friday the meals they are contracted by the city to provide to Ed Young visitors are mostly covered with federal money, which ushers in the burden of separating church and state. On Thursday, the usual open prayer before meals at the center was traded in for a moment of silence."
Who the hell is "samzenpus"... (Score:2)
Or maybe the idea is that we are supposed to cheer this development?
Or maybe Temple Beth El was leading the prayers, and that's why we're supposed to be in mourning?
FFS (Score:4, Insightful)
More useless tripe from people who have no understanding of anything.
Look, nobody is saying you can't pray. The only issue, if there really even is an issue, is that the organization can't lead the prayer. Individuals can do whatever the hell they want, and they can even organize and pray collectively. But the institution has to stay out of it.
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Forcing people to publicly either consent or not consent places people in just as awkward a position. Would you really want to be the person that raises their hand and says "yes I have a problem with the prayer"? I'm calling reactionary bullshit on this anyway, but even if it's true, people are more than welcome to pray on their own.
Re:FFS (Score:4, Insightful)
If the majority of the people would like to have someone say a prayer, out loud, I see nothing wrong with that. The people who do not want to participate in the prayer can sit quietly for a few seconds out of respect for the people who do want to participate (by bowing their heads, closing their eyes, folding their hands, or whatever). It’s no more than I would do if I went to, say, a Mormon funeral, and they had a Mormon prayer. If the majority of the people want to have a prayer, the rest should be respectful of that.
If your religion (or lack of religion) will not permit you to even listen to me pray, nor will it allow you to respectfully avoid making a disruption that prevents me from praying or distracts people who want to listen to my prayer, then your beliefs are intolerant of mine, not vice versa.
In fact, that goes for any public setting... not just a prayer. If the majority of the people want a couple of troublemakers to shut up and be quiet so that they can hear the person who is talking, their right to hear the speaker should overrule those few people’s right to be noisy and disruptive.
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"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;"
There is no stronger language in the constitution than SHALL MAKE NO LAW. Just because the specific words "separation of church and state" are not specifically spelled out does not mean that they are not expressed. It is entirely inappropriate for state organizations to forbid, coerce or lead a prayer in any capacity. It doesn't matter if it is to Jerry Fallwell, Christ, Allah, Yahweh, the reptilia
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Its interesting that you state "entirely inappropriate for state organizations to forbid" when that is all they rea
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The Constitution features two Amendments within the Bill of Rights, known as Amendment 1 and Amendment 6, which respectively prohibit any laws respecting the establishment of religion or laws restricting the free exercise of religion, and prohibit tests of religion as qualification for public offices or roles.
Since an agreement to form the Bill of Rights was necessary and essential to gain ratification of the Constitution, and the Bill is generally included within the meaning of the Constitution, I'd say it
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I'm not sure what you think that phrase means, but it seems pretty clear that the Constitution doesn't want the government messing with religion, nor religion messing with the government.
I think it means that the government shouldn’t be telling people whether or not they can pray, nor where they are or aren’t allowed to do it.
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I’m willing to concede that it was rude and inappropriate of him to interrupt if you’re willing to concede that blindly swallowing anything Obama says is practically like a religion. :p
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Well... he did utter some pretty good ones on the campaign trail, and his Vice President hardly disappoints when it comes to frequency and hilarity of gaffes.
I do, however, agree with your first statement: Blindly accepting everything that anyone says is a mistake.
No! (Score:3, Insightful)
You don't even get into the possible conflicts, muslim prayer, christian, hindu... Which one or each one by one?
I do not have any 'lack' of religion. What I 'lack' is the stupidity of having a religion. Do you normally go around telling people they are lacking something?
Do you even realise that you made a bigoted statement? When you acc
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Bullshit. Your freedom of religion does not give you the right to prevent other people from exercising their own.
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You are welcome to be silent before your God.
If your religion mandates that EVERYONE ELSE also be silent before God, then you are preventing them from exercising THEIR OWN freedom of religion.
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I lack a lot of things. I lack a hole in the head, for one thing. Saying I lack something doesn’t necessarily imply that I want to have it, nor does it necessarily imply that I ought to have it.
Another thing I lack is a sense of insecurity or whatever else it would be that might cause me to go around taking offense at people for petty imagined slights when no offense was meant.
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You most likely don't realise how pervasive (not quite "all-encompassing", but...) those "petty" things are in daily life. Not only because you (possibly?) consider yourself part of that social construct (so large portion of its influence is just "life as usual"), but also...don't really know any better.
Me...well, let me put it this way. I'm originally mostly from Poland (officially arounf 95% Christians...); but this also means that right across the border (on which I basically live for now; border cities
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And oh boy...it's so much nicer there.
You’re really going to have to expound on that. I have no idea what you’re getting at. Please don’t tell me you’re distressed just by having to drive past churches.
Now, the bets part - when your average "devout Polish Christian" goes, say, to Czech Republic (a lot of beatiful monasteries for example)...well, that person typically doesn't realize it was a trip to a very strongly atheist country. They just don't know. That doesn't work so well in the other direction. We know how to "not get in your way"...but here is the place for mutualism...
Evolution is equally pervasive where I am. I believe that God first of all exists, secondly could create, thirdly happens to have created, and while I really don’t care if someone disagrees with that, just about anywhere I go is saturated with evolutionary theory: billions of years this, millions of years that. In co
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Oh, there are a lot of churches allright... (though admittedly some of them converted to buildings of public utility; at least there's some use)
It's just that hardly anybody verbally (or worse...) attacks my way of life. Nobody is of the arrogant position that I'm "poor" (that's a recent citation). Nobody forces on me performing their rituals (I'm not kidding, literally forcing oneself into my private space to perform a ritual on me). If this is about people who you come in contact with regularly...yeah, mu
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Look, you just described your situation, and I agree that (if it’s as bad as you claim) then you have cause to be irritated.
You then proceed to belittle my belief in a God who created. I told you what I believe. There is a conflict; the Roman Catholic Church happens to be, in my humble opinion, wrong about that – and a lot of other things. I offered it as an example, not just to “throw evolution into it”, but as a way to show that atheism and humanism are just as prevalent in my soci
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Now realize that without some opposition (and safety checks in law, etc.; of which this /. story is about...even if the particular situation was handled poorly) - a large part of religions, when left to do what they want, reverts to such state (or worse). OK, you might be sincerely convinced that you would never support such things. But, by nonetheless identifying with them to some degree, you give them power. You agree almost fully with people who are just "a little" more towards the "extreme" side. And so
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I felt the need to share because people were being told that they couldn’t exercise their religion the way they wanted to, and I happen to think that is wrong.
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People do not have the right to silence someone else for different beliefs, either. That is exactly what happened at the senior center in TFA.
That is what religious intolerance means. I am not expressing opinion here; I am showing you the definition. There is nothing for you to “argue” about. it is fact.
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Hence again illustrating, "only my group can decide what it means being left alone, what it means being reasonable". Not trying to come to some greater understanding, but just doing what "you feel is right"; working on the basis fait accompli, probing how far you can push it.
You can say that in a different, "nicer" way...but this won't change the essence of it.
OK, this is Slashdot...but this place is irrelevant anyway, we're really discussing rules of the society here. You said that you will just do somethi
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No, illustrating that the law decides what “being left alone” means, and it happens to mean that I get the same rights in public that you do, which includes being able to speak to whomever I want. Just as you have that right.
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Who is it who can’t distinguish fact from fancy?
The Supreme Court has ruled that religious speech is protected, under the first amendment, just as much as any other speech.
In fact, the University of Missouri - Kansas City attempted, in the late 1970s, to prevent the use of rooms (which were available to all student groups to reserve) by groups which intended to use the rooms for a religious purpose. The Supreme Court ruled:
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Accidentally, I didn't mention what one more thing when describing the situation - I don't have such law. "Hurting of religious feelings" (I kid you not, it's worded like that) is an offense.
Which of course is a direct evidence meaning either that, or the part about "freedom from religion" in the constitution is a fiction...they are mutually exclusive.
In practice this "don't hurt feelings" law applies mostly to the dominant religion of course, also somehow by proxy to the close ones, and not at all to mostl
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So you are saying that fictions should be tolerated and given the same acceptance as facts?
Indeed they should not. Evolution should absolutely not be taught as fact.
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I could just as easily write some code that would prove it does not work. Evolutionists put far too much faith in the nigh-magical power of natural selection. Sure, the Mona Lisa can be made with random polygons. You just have to have an algorithm to kill the bad mutations and keep the good ones alive. There is absolutely no hard connection between that algorithm that you write and the effects that natural selection is actually able to cause in real life.
Hell, we’ve just barely sequenced the genome, w
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Freedom of religion includes freedom from religion.
Bullshit! Let's change one word twice and see if it still flies:
Freedom of speech includes freedom from speech
So, if freedom FROM religion means you can stop a group of people from praying, then freedom FROM speech means that I can make you STFU.
So, let's try it out. STFU!
If I see you post here again, that means that you agree with me that freedom of religion does NOT meant freedom FROM religion.
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In the past 5 minutes, I’ve heard people compare the tragedy of having to hear another person praying with first rape, and now slander. Can somebody hurry up and godwin us already?
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The Supreme Court has, in fact, ruled that religious speech in public is protected. It is nothing even remotely similar to slander.
Slander is ILLEGAL. I-l-l, e-g-a-l.
Religious speech is PROTECTED. P-r-o-t-e-c-t-ed.
You have freedom from being slandered. You do NOT have freedom from hearing me pray.
Can you tell the difference between ILLEGAL and PROTECTED? No, obviously not.
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lol... you like strawmen?
In most countries you do have some freedom from speech. Slander laws etc.
And, no, you cannot impose your unilateral rules on me. You are actually supporting my point.
Thank you for proving my point. You are quick to impose your unilateral rules on others, but when someone tries to do it to you, you get all huffy.
And no, it's not a strawman. If anything it's math. All I did was change "religion" to "speech" and continued to apply your interpretation. Both rights are equally protected by The Bill of Rights so if you can apply your loose interpretation on one, it should apply to the other.
In this particular case, no one is forcing anyone to pray. Anyone present is free
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http://kyon.pl/img/1622.html [kyon.pl]
http://kyon.pl/img/11186.html [kyon.pl]
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If your religion forces me to sit through several minutes of rambling to a fictional entity, or endure your regular disruption of everyday life that make everybody who doesn't want to participate uncomfortable or distracts people who don't want to listen to your prayers in their social lifes
Oh, cry me a river. You’ll live. I had to read your whining pathetic post and I’m not complaining.
Basically you want to force your religious habits onto others. You said it yourself: those who don't want participate should stop their lives till you are finished, out of "respect", probably "for the children", too. Also, we're talking about dinner. Not an elective visit to a religious celebration like a Mormon funeral. Red herring and all that.
No, YOU are forcing YOUR religious habits onto EVERYONE else. If everyone except you and a couple other people want to have a prayer, you are the one forcing the issue by making a fuss.
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http://kyon.pl/img/11186.html [kyon.pl]
http://kyon.pl/img/2823.html [kyon.pl]
http://kyon.pl/img/1622.html [kyon.pl]
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If your cartoons had any relevance to the actual situation, they might be more amusing. The vast majority of Christians don’t go around bashing people over the head with their beliefs.
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...or so they think.
Really, come on, you're talking here about a group of people who is convinced that they know the ultimate (of those which are really relevant to us) truth about the Universe, who think that have the absolute moral guidance. Wouldn't you be at all surpised if such people noticed readily any systematic errors in their ways?...
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As opposed to any other religion, which is also convinced that it knows the ultimate truth about the Universe, and has the absolute moral guidance?
Or atheists, who are convinced of their own ultimate truths about the universe (typically chance and evolution) and their own moral guidance (typically self-imposed sense of ethics, civilly imposed sense of law, etc.)?
We’ve degenerated into the stupid situation where simply believing someone is wrong is considered to be the same as intolerantly bashing them
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You really think there's no difference or only pretend?... O_o
Religions are of the position that they represent the absolute truth (each of them separately, which btw tells something about it...). You can of course easily find atheists who are like that (though to many it's really more about post-theism). But not only that doesn't follow to "absolute moral guidance" in this case, those people...generally...just want to be left alone. Really, everything else (secularisation, etc.) will just follow from that,
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I really wouldn’t have a problem with atheists who just wanted to be left alone. It’s just that leaving them alone too often means that I can’t do perfectly reasonable things in public places while they’re there to be offended by it.
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You just said "only my group can decide what it means being left alone, what it means being reasonable". I agree, sums it up pretty good.
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What I said was, if your freedom from religion means I can’t talk to one of my friends (imaginary or not) in a public place, you are an intolerant bigot.
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If your freedom for religion means I can't be left alone by your friends (imaginary or not) in a public place, you are an intolerant bigot.
So there...
But I guess "only your group can decide what it means being left alone, what it means being reasonable"
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Freedom of speech, etc. People have the protected right, in the US, to be (to a certain extent) intolerant bigots if they are so inclined. See: Westboro Baptist Church, a la the Phelps. The Supreme Court has, in fact, ruled in favour of their right to stand in public places and be intolerant bigots.
You can’t just walk up to someone and tell them “your speech offends me, shut up”. Quite frankly everyone will know they’re intolerant bigots, but it is their right to continue to do so. I
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Oh, but you (group, again) can just walk up to someone and tell them your speech offends me, shut up? Don't pretend it's not the case...what, you don't have censorship? Really? What with constant bitching, about pretty much most media, about nudity, "violence", "promoting innapriopriate cults", etc. by some vocal groups?
Yes, "I would never do that"; but you give them power to do that and be treated seriously
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Oh, but you (group, again) can just walk up to someone and tell them your speech offends me, shut up?
When exactly did I say that? Or are you making assumptions about me based on your perception of what all Christians are like?
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So, was it that hard to notice...
a) "you (group, again)"
b) "but you give them power to do that and be treated seriously"//notice no "group"
?
It's perfectly valid to judge also you by the dynamics of a group you identify with. A group which feeds its power from followers like you.
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I think I’ve made my position clearly enough distinct from the position of those that you accuse me of associating with. I can’t help it if they call themselves by the same name that I do, but what I can do is clarify my position.
Pigeonholing people based on the group that you associate them with, on the other hand, is easy and lazy because it doesn’t require you to address their positions, only to knock down a few straw men that apply to the misconception you had of the entire group.
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Again, it doesn't matter that you personally (and even if mostly sincerely) think you don't stand for such people. In such social dynamics individuals hardly matter. You, me...we don't matter much individually.
Oh, and describing this (using again previous example) clear censorship (in a place with supposedly "freedom of speech"...) as "misconception" - that would be a straw man. And very in line with the comments one might expect from people you supposedly don't support...
But you do. You believe in mostly
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Well, that’s convenient. You don’t have to argue with me, merely with the straw-man you’ve constructed that represents all Christians as a lump. Any time I deviate from that straw-man you just claim that I’m deviating from what Christianity is, which is in fact just what you think that it is.
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I'm looking at its actions, nothing more. Things is, there doesn't seem to be much of a positive reinforcement between the prevalence of Christianity and mature societal ethics, maybe a bit the contrary here and there...
Again, describing a quite valid IMHO approach, for which you have to yet present solid argumentation why it's wrong, in derogatory terms almost as principle (who would done that again?...) - that's a straw man, if anything here is.
And were you really, at any point, of the impression that I'm
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sure, sure. if me and thirty other people in the room wanna rape you and your mom, you're the one making a fuss by objecting.
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It’s not even like you’d be forced to sit through it if you don’t want to.
If you’re really so offended by listening to someone exercise their own religion, just come to the meal just before it starts and after the silly religious nonsense is over with.
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Oh, he should just stay away from publicly founded avenues?
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I suppose he could, at least until it’s made illegal to pray in public.
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...and you thought nobody sees the subtle difference between "should" and "could"?... (the latter meaning the former too often anyway; ostracism is rampant throughout the world)
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He “could” also do as I already suggested, so your little dilemma over “could” vs. “should” is quite unnecessary.
It’s not even like you’d be forced to sit through it if you don’t want to
just come to the meal just before it starts and after the silly religious nonsense is over with
Now, quit making me repeat myself.
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So are you at least equally supportive of the idea that any religious ones should do their business in private and then they can come to public space?
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I’m not against the idea, no. Certainly if a majority of the people didn’t want to have a prayer, then the ones who did should pray silently to themselves or do it in their rooms or some other place before coming to the meal.
If the majority of the people do want to have the prayer, though, a few arrogant killjoys shouldn’t be allowed to prevent everyone else from having it.
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You know, a large part od being a modern democracy is also having a respect (heh, there it returns again ;p ) for minorities, especially since it appear to be along the lines of the law...
Otherwise, you just have a mob rule.
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After reading TFA (yes, surprise), it seems my original idea [take a vote, have somebody pray, keep most of the people happy] wasn’t really very relevant.
There is no unified prayer given by someone.
They are, in fact, telling the individual people that they are not permitted to pray audibly before they eat. It might offend someone.
Unless there is a total prohibition on TALKING while you eat, it shouldn’t matter whether you are talking to the guy sitting next to you, to an imaginary friend, or to
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better idea: i'm gonna go in time for prayers and be a douchebag, all loud and on purpose. because if the christians don't have to be quiet for that minute, neither do i. *OR* we could *ALL* have a moment of silence to reflect on things in our own heads and THEN THERE WON'T BE A FUCKING PROBLEM. are you actually retarded, or do you really believe that tyranny of the majority oughtta be government sanctioned?
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You assume a lot of things that may or may not be true.
Smoking, perhaps, I would mind, though not probably. It’s harmful to my health in a very legitimate way, not that I haven’t been with people who smoked before or mind it terribly (some people do, so I’m just saying it’s reasonable for them).
As far as giving a prayer to your deity, whether you be a satanist or whatever else? If you’re no more disruptive than the Christians are being, then I really don’t have a problem
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I'll put it another way, if Southern Baptist Christians in the audience decided to say a prayer to save the Jews (one of their doctrines is to convert Jews, amongst others), or to save homosexuals, or to save America from the evil of "Liberals" and "communism" then some people (even if they aren't Jews, homosexuals, or communists) might be offended.
Well, that’s just tough. Freedom of speech and freedom of religion mean that whatever freedom someone else has to speak, a Christian has to pray.
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No Christians in this case are hunting down people. No Christians in this case are forcing their views on people. They are simply trying to pray, out loud, in a public place where speech is supposedly free.
and that is, it is probably better for the world for religion to be outlawed completely
Thanks for clarifying your position, then. Thankfully our nation’s founding fathers thought differently and in fact guaranteed freedom of religion so that idiots such as yourself should never be able to enforce your bigoted opinions on the rest of us.
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It wouldn't work so easily in a small community.
It's not hard to have a small, "passionate" group that would start poitning fingers. Yes, they have some chance to be wrong in pinpointing the "guilty"...so what?
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You've never heard about religious ostracism?...
Sigh (Score:4, Insightful)
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I take you live in a place without ostracism? Really?
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Thing is, "Not pressured or coerced in any way to participate, or made to feel embarrassed by having a different belief system" is mostly a fiction. It's rather easy to not see it if you do have some sort of faith, because although there are many different ones (virtually each "condemning" in one way or another the rest btw...), in modern world they try to act, with such stuff, on a quid pro quo basis. "OK, I don't really like that you display yours, but I have to bear it, somehow, to display mine..."
What a
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Certainly you can be. But I was looking more at how this ideal ends up (generally how it works) in practice...
Sure, who cares how people waste their time. But what when they start to waste your time?
bullshit (Score:2)
The seniors can pray all they want, wherever and whenever they want. But the organization providing the meals cannot ask them or encourage them to pray, and a lout group prayer is not acceptable either. The organization can hold a moment of silence during which everybody can pray or do whatever else they like.
Pray on your own time, not during federally funded events.
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It is very simple to solve this democratically.
Question 1: What sort of prayer you would prefer before meals (ex: Christian, Buddhist, Islamic, moment of silence, none; be as specific as you wish)?
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Question 2: Will you, or will you not, be able to respectfully and silently sit without disrupting the proceedings if the form of prayer that is given is not according to your own religious beliefs?
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Then choose a form of prayer (or no prayer) that, based on Qu
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It is very simple to solve this democratically.
Nazi Germany was overwhelmingly Christian and voted to deprive non-Christians of their civil rights and later kill them; tyranny of the majority is not democracy.
The US Constitution has the non-establishment clause; you can vote as much as you want, it's not going away. You probably can't even eliminate it with a Constitutional amendment.
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Ha! What a joke.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof
Now show me the law, made by Congress, that would respect the establishment of a religion if the seniors were allowed to have their prayer before they eat, which really sounds to me like the freedom to exercise their religion that was just affirmed by that very amendment.
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No federally funded organisation would be allowed to say "Let's pray for a minute"
But neither are they allowed to say "You're not allowed to pray"
What they're meant to do is say "Here's the food" and then the seniors can do whatever the heck they'd like.
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Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof
Explain to me how you get, from that, the notion that no federally funded organization would be allowed to have someone pray.
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Not at all. You are free to say you disagree with the prayer, or with the faith of the person who gave it, so long as it is done in a respectful, non-disruptive manner that doesn’t infringe on the rights of the person who is trying to pray or the other people who are trying to participate in the prayer.
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Let someone who represent the largest group of people give a blessing before the meal. Let anyone who objects, or wishes to give their own blessing or prayer, do so privately or in a smaller group in the community room or somewhere else. It’s not like you have to start eating the instant you’ve finished the prayer.
Furthermore I never said that the majority (who wanted to have the prayer) have to give the objectors a pulpit from which to announce their objections. They can voice their objection t
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You don’t really think that the most people they’d get to agree on this would be 2 people. You are just being intentionally difficult.
If the largest group who could agree to anything were in fact two out of thirty, then YES, it would be simpler to dispense with it or do it elsewhere.
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Your argument has been fucked all along.
If the two guys over there are allowed to politely converse between themselves before, or during, their meal, then I am allowed to have a polite conversation with my friend, even if you think he is imaginary.
The alternative is making everyone eat their meal in perfect silence. Either they may talk, or they may not. So which is it?
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Not strawmen.
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Way to take the verse out of context. (Yes, I know exactly which verse you’re referring to, at least from the Christian Bible. If you care to show me where in Judaism it teaches against public prayer, feel free... nothing springs to mind from the Old Testament, but I know there are other written teachings and traditions besides the Pentateuch, or Torah.)
“Be careful not to do your ‘acts of righteousness’ before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.
“So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
“This, then, is how you should pray:
“ ‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.’ ”
— Mt. 6:5-15
It’s very specifically referring to the boastful prayers that hypocrites of that day would make on street-corners. Rather than really talking to
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I do not disagree that there is much hypocrisy in Christianity, but public prayer is (and has always been) perfectly appropriate and proper in many situations. Giving thanks before you eat is one of those.
If you want to tell God how wonderful you are and/or ask him to give you stuff that you think you need (maybe you do need it, like food for the table... but plenty of stuff you ask for is probably stuff that you don’t need)... then yes, that is a matter between you and God and shouldn’t be done
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If you think that public prayer is appropriate then you disagree with what christ taught.
At that time Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure. All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” — Mt. 11:25-27, Jesus speaking in front of a crowd
And he directed the people to sit down
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I don’t know what rock you’ve been hiding for all your life, but when someone “gives thanks” for their food to some divine entity, most people call that prayer.
The first definition for prayer given by Google is:
“the act of communicating with a deity (especially as a petition or in adoration or contrition or thanksgiving)”
Every one of the verses I quoted from the New Testament portrays Jesus praying in a more-or-less public setting. Sometimes he was “giving thanks
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How would you define “prayer”, then?
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He never defined it. Are you referring to the example he gave? It’s not some sort of magic incantation.
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In any case I don’t understand your complaint. Whether we use “pray” or “give thanks” is irrelevant to the action that is actually being done. This story is about people being told they cannot talk to God to give thanks for their food before they eat. This is commonly referred to as “praying” but if you want to call it “giving thanks” that’s fine too.
They were forced to stop giving thanks for their food, as Jesus had done plenty of times and we are
Officious People are So Stupid (Score:2)
There was a classic (but perhaps apocryphal) story running around a few months ago about officials at a hospice for the dying who decided it was inappropriate for the visiting chaplains (of various denominations, Christian and non-Christian) to refer to God when privately counseling their patients.
If it's a government-run institution that feels they can't sanction grace before meals, somebody could help the interested people gather privately and informally a few minutes beforehand to have their prayer befor
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I think you have to right idea, but the wrong scapegoat. It appears to be the vice-president of the privately run company that provides the food that is afraid that their federal funding might be in peril because of the prayers.
Mostly it seems to be one old fool who's thrown a spanner in the works. The Senior Citizens Inc. company should stick to delivering the food, what's said before or after should be no concern of theirs as long as they are not the people saying it. They don't even own the venue wher