When it comes to Prayer 76% of Americans Don't Give a **** About the Constitution

[The Neo Nerd]

American Christians should - and generally do - recognize that abortion is currently legal and focus their abortion-reducing efforts on convincing people to freely choose not to abort or to change the law by legal means.

Or better yet support proper sex education (not abstinence only).

This way less people are getting accidently pregnant.

Also they could stop trying to defund planned parenthood.

 

[Lyndon]

Please read the OP Carefully. If nothing registers read post 23 and post 54.

No it can't. The best that could happen would be repeal of an amendment, which would have to happen by the introduction of an amending amendment, as the 21st Amendment did, which has to be proposed either by the Congress with a two-thirds vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate or by a convention of states called for by two-thirds of the state legislatures.


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I'm pretty damn sure the SCOTUS can overturn its own decisions, or at least reinterpret it in such a way as to effectively overturn it, Roe vs Wade is not a constitutional amendment, just a ruling of the Supreme Court that has not been challenged by the majority of any Supreme Court we have had to date, a future Supreme Court could choose to challenge it or radically reinterpret it, though.

 

[lostwanderingsoul]

The Constitution does not forbid prayer in schools. It only says the government cannot "establish" a particular religion like England has the Church of England. Atheist court justices have decided this means no prayer is allowed but that is definately not what the Constitution says.

 

[Scott C.]

(As an FYI, for the last 54 years public school sponsored prayer has been against the law in America)

"More than three-quarters (76%) of Americans agree that public high schools should be allowed to sponsor prayer before football games. There are few differences by race, region, gender, or age.
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Disagreeing with the high court's ruling on what is unconstitutional, does not equate to disrespect for the constitution.

 

[Skwim]

I'm pretty damn sure the SCOTUS can overturn its own decisions, or at least reinterpret it in such a way as to effectively overturn it, Roe vs Wade is not a constitutional amendment, just a ruling of the Supreme Court that has not been challenged by the majority of any Supreme Court we have had to date, a future Supreme Court could choose to challenge it or radically reinterpret it, though.

No challenge, but, yes, it can reinterpret an issue, but not by simply "changing its mind and change its rulings in the future." What is required is that a different case come before the court involving the same constitutional issues as an earlier case---an extremely uncommon event. At that time, and only at that time, the court can review the new case, and if seen in a new light, issue a ruling different than the original one. No new case: no chance of changing an old ruling. Most often

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[Skwim]

Disagreeing with the high court's ruling on what is unconstitutional, does not equate to disrespect for the constitution.

You know what, after reconsidering the comment, "More than three-quarters (76%) of Americans agree that public high schools should be allowed to sponsor prayer before football games." I no longer see it as advocating breaking the law as much as merely protesting it.


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[Skwim]

The Constitution does not forbid prayer in schools.

No one says it does.

It only says the government cannot "establish" a particular religion like England has the Church of England. Atheist court justices have decided this means no prayer is allowed but that is definately not what the Constitution says.

Well, it says a lot more about religion than that. Today, as far as law goes, "the Constitutional" encompasses more than just the original 1788 Constitution. It also includes all of its amendments, and SCOTUS rulings.


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[lostwanderingsoul]

Maybe SCOTUS has too much power to interpret things that are not really there. Certainly no one should be forced to pray but no one should stop someone from praying who wants to do so. The court would not allow a law that stopped Muslims from wearing their traditional clothing. Only Christians are prevented from doing things because the courts are not against religion only against Christianity.

 

[Skwim]

Maybe SCOTUS has too much power to interpret things that are not really there.

?? Like what for instance?

Certainly no one should be forced to pray but no one should stop someone from praying who wants to do so.

Like a lot of stuff, it depends on how one goes about it.

The court would not allow a law that stopped Muslims from wearing their traditional clothing. Only Christians are prevented from doing things because the courts are not against religion only against Christianity.

Have a nice day.


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[lovesong]

Maybe SCOTUS has too much power to interpret things that are not really there. Certainly no one should be forced to pray but no one should stop someone from praying who wants to do so. The court would not allow a law that stopped Muslims from wearing their traditional clothing. Only Christians are prevented from doing things because the courts are not against religion only against Christianity.

Only Christians are prevented from doing things? Christians (as well as everyone else), are only prevented from pressuring their beliefs on others by school-sponsored prayer. As a Pagan I am prevented from doing that as well. Christians can wear religious garb, like Muslims, jewelry, like me, and say prayers in their free time out of class, like every other religious student. There is nothing denied to Christians that is not denied to everyone else, and there is nothing given to anyone else that is not given to Christians as well.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Atheist court justices have decided this means no prayer is allowed

That is blatantly false as more than atheists support such measures, and prayer is allowed along as it student initiated and not school lead. As long as a student is not being disruptive or praying during instructional time, there is no law preventing them from praying. And the laws apply to all religions, not just Christianity.

 

[Sultan Of Swing]

Would you be in favor of Christian children being forced to sit quietly for 15 minutes during public school time for sponsored Muslim prayer?

If I lived in a Muslim country it would be something I'd have to tolerate. I don't.

OK let's back up a second because no one is talking about Muslim or Christian schools. This makes me think you don't understand the issue.

In America at least we have public schools, and then there are private religious schools. If you choose to send your child to a religious school, they can pray until the cows come home, spend science class learning about Noah's Ark, anything the religious school wants. Have at it.

What this law covers is PUBLIC SCHOOLS. Non-religious institutions.

So let me rephrase the question to make it more clear. Would you be in favor of Christian children going to PUBLIC school (not a Muslim school) being forced to sit quietly for 15 minutes a day and listen to school sponsored Muslim prayers?

I wouldn't be in favour of this, because my country isn't a Muslim one.

Given the decline of Christianity in the West however, I can see your point. Here in Britain though most parents aren't really Christian and no one cares, in fact people like the prayers and hymns, it adds that cultural touch.

 

[The Emperor of Mankind]

The only value the Bible has for me are the words of Jesus, and man I consider vastly superior to anyone that had anything to do with writing the damn constitution or its amendments. Jesus was a spiritual genius and leader, the writers of the constitution were mere politicians.

And how often have the words of Jesus helped secure equal representation for minorities in America compared to the Constitution? The white privilege on display in your posts here is considerable: you don't need to empathise with just how much the Constitution has improved the lives of religious & racial minorities in the States. If the Thirteenth Amendment hadn't been written into the Constitution black people might still be slaves or might still be where they are before the Civil Rights Movement. If the First Amendment hadn't been written in Muslims and other non-Christians might not even be able to operate their own places of worship, much less worship freely. If the Fourteenth Amendment hadn't been written in it would be much harder to constitutionally justify extending equal legal marriage rights to LGBTs.

But as a straight white male who could easily pass for being a Christian, you can dismiss the Constitution out of hand because it hasn't improved your life.

 

[JoStories]

Just the fact that atheists are so against prayer shows just how powerful prayer is!!

Since there is absolutely no evidence that prayer works, what you say here is nothing more than your biased opinion. Or can you provide evidence that prayer truly works? Most would agree that prayer is not much more than wishful thinking. If one prays, most likely prayer is made effective through wishful thinking brought to fruition through one's wanting it to work. IOW, through one's own either conscious or subconscious actions making the prayer work.

 

[The Emperor of Mankind]

Since there is absolutely no evidence that prayer works, what you say here is nothing more than your biased opinion. Or can you provide evidence that prayer truly works? Most would agree that prayer is not much more than wishful thinking. If one prays, most likely prayer is made effective through wishful thinking brought to fruition through one's wanting it to work. IOW, through one's own either conscious or subconscious actions making the prayer work.

Or, taken another way, it's an admission of how inefficacious prayer actually is.

 

[JoStories]

I would guess that for most Americans this issue is like Christmas: it isn't a religious thing, it's tradition, and people are attached to their traditions.

I disagree that there is any comparison between the traditions of prayer and Christmas. Christmas, whether observed for religious reasons or simply as a season of caring and being kind to one another is vastly different, IMO, than school led prayer. that, IMO, was more about Christianity being having been considered the nation's one religion and forcing that down the throats of innocent children. Christmas can observed or can be not, as it were. School led prayer offered no alternatives but to be forced to listen to the teacher drone on about something that many people don't observe. And keep in mind that I was born when this was still being done. It led to my father telling me to leave the room when this occurred and he fought the school system about it.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Disagreeing with the high court's ruling on what is unconstitutional, does not equate to disrespect for the constitution.

The thing I've noticed about the religion thing, though, is that in general, Christians will acknowledge that the "all or nothing" approach required by the Constitution is valid in certain settings.

For instance, they'll recognize that giving Christians special access to schools to hand out religious materials (e.g. Gideon Bibles) means that they have to let other religious groups hand out stuff in schools, too (e.g. Satanist kid's books). When these sorts of situations arise, I haven't really seen any Christians argue that it would be legal to endorse Christianity but not other religions. The ones who argue for the illegal course of action tend to know that it's illegal and argue for knowingly breaking the law, IMO.

 

[JoStories]

The children don't have to be forced to say it now do they. They can keep respectfully quiet.

And no I wouldn't send my imaginary children to a Muslim school in the first place, this isn't a conceivable problem in Western countries.

The vast majority of Christians and non-Christians don't really mind, Christian prayers are rather benign.

Why should they be forced to be 'respectfully quiet'? This seems to intimate that such prayer is allowed. I strongly disagree with such a stance. Would you be fine with having to be 'respectfully quiet' while a satanic prayer is prayed or a Jain prayer or a Roscicrucian prayer or an atheist proclamation? If we were to allow ALL faiths to have a prayer led session, children would not learn a thing in school save the prayer led sessions and given that children under the age of abstract thought can even understand such a concept, it would seem a massive waste or precious time.

 

[JoStories]

The only value the Bible has for me are the words of Jesus, and man I consider vastly superior to anyone that had anything to do with writing the damn constitution or its amendments. Jesus was a spiritual genius and leader, the writers of the constitution were mere politicians.

Many, including me, would argue that Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, etc, were similarly leaders and geniuses. Just because you view Jesus as a 'spiritual genius' does not mean that all would consider him one. I would argue that Nietzsche was also a spiritual genius. And many others as well.

 

[crossfire]

The Constitution does not forbid prayer in schools. It only says the government cannot "establish" a particular religion like England has the Church of England. Atheist court justices have decided this means no prayer is allowed but that is definately not what the Constitution says.

In other words, observing "a moment of silence," where each person can silently pray according to their own tradition, meditate, clear their mind, set intentions, give thanks, give blessings, or simply allow others to do so would be the best fit for what the 1st Amendment states. It would diffuse all of this tribalistic posturing.