WOM, I respect your desire for equal expression with those whose agendas differ.

I think school should be about school. Period. Public school should teach the curriculum. Period.

Leave religion to religious schools. As for the curriculum only....we have enough trouble getting them to

learn that. Why add superfluous stuff to it.

School cannot (and should not) do the parent's job. School is public. Religion is private.

As for the rest of the hair/iercings/pagan stuff....in my day we had an unwritten dress/conduct code that everyone knew.

Let the kids be taught at home and those that aren't? Well, they're going to run into problems.

Parenthood/reproduction need to be licensed activities. If the future is the children, then shouldn't their progenitors be demanded to show the same proficiency needed for parenthood that is demanded of driving a vehicle before that is licensed?

WOM, this is why I go around checking some of the older threads and bringing them "back from the dead".  Some of them have relevant topics that might get some new light shed on them.  For instance, this thread, which deals with a very sensitive issue for folks on both sides of the fence.  And it is just as relevant today as the day you wrote it.  My town is in the midst of a lawsuit brought by someone who doesn't think it's right to have a trailer on school grounds that kids can go to and be taught about god.

I'm ok with the trailer on school property.  I'm ok with them teaching those kids that want to go there and learn.  As long as it isn't forced on the children.  That's when I have a problem with it.  I don't believe in religion.  But I don't shelter my children from it.  If they want to go to church, they can go.  If they want to go to youth group, they can go.  I believe they should learn as much as they can about everything they can.  How else are they going to be able to make sound, well educated decisions?  I was brought up in a household that force fed religion.  I'm very versed in the bible as it was a punishable offense not to be able to recite the required scriptures.  Later on in life, I read as much as I could about as many religions as I could.  I wanted to be educated.  And in the end, that's all I want for my children, to be well educated, responsible good adults.

So the questions should be, why have they left, or, why don't they post anymore?

Spot on!

Agreed. I once met one worker at place I used to work at... His first words were "I'm very good christian." Well I thought that it was a funny intro... and it was.

He missed 3 work days in a first week, and then recovered for a bit. Then he kept missing in least once a week for few weeks before being fired. Before that he become rude and took it out on clients of assisted house for deaf and blind. That's a good christian? Sure. : P

During that time, I, the atheist, missed only a total of 7 days in almost 2 years I worked there.

Don't get me wrong, I have met many good christians and atheists, but I also met some bad christians and atheists. My point is that religion got nothing related to moral, like Jafo said.

Not quite. For a drop of blood lost due to goverment, money or etc wars, there is more than a gallon of blood lost due to religious wars.

*edit*

Oops didn't notice that it was from 2006.

Sorry that happened to you, munkeh. Really. 

"Let the little chidren come unto me and suffer." Was definitely not the reputed speaker's intent.

The point of that was if you force something on someone, they are apt to rebell.  It was in the end a good thing that they did it because I learned a lot more than 1 organized religion would want you to.  And with that knowledge, I learned that I really had no use for religion. 

"atheism is a non-prophet organization"

 I agree...and understood the point in the first reply.

As for religion...especially the organized variety...don't favor it, but don't deny G-d's existence....after all, how can one be sure one way or another?

It isn't a matter of "fact" as some would have it...it's faith. Some need/enjoy it, some don't.

Nice to live in a place where that (supposedly) doesn't matter.

I'am a christian but wouldn't go so far as to say Good.  Hehe, nope as I know I'am not.  If ya believe ya believe, if ya don't ya don't.  If ya believe ya came from apes or whatever, then thats what ya believe.  The dollar has in God we trust, the pledge of allegance used to have God in it(when I was a kid).  You used to have to swear on the bible in court.  There has been many changes since I was a kid.  What screws things up is church doctrine, doesn't matter what church ya belong to. 

From the way I understand it, individual, student prayer is not forbidden -- teacher/faculty led prayer is, because it coerces the students into a particular faith.  To allow faculty-led prayer would be intimidating to students not of the particular faith of the faculty member, exploit the vulnarability of the child for sectarian purposes, and moreover, it would dilute the meaning of true faith.  

This is why I don't understand the pull of forced conversions.  It dilutes the faith.  People should come voluntarily and of their own free will into any philosophical ideology, and to compel someone into a system of belief by force, authority, or other means aside from the desirability of the ideology itself, is to show a LACK of faith in the basic value of the base philosophy on the part of the person doing the proselytizing.

That being said, there are still parts of the United States where teachers are more than willing to break the law on the separation of church and state, and dictate their religious views as though they were approved of by all.  When my daughter was in high school 9 years ago, her Algebra teacher called me because she was concerned that my daughter had expressed she was a nonbeliever when the teacher was using her religion as a tool to intimidate submission into the class ("if y'all don't behave proper, yer goin' ta hell.") -- when I informed this teacher that I was completely aware of my daughter's infidelity, and I, myself, did not believe, she had the gall to insult me by saying "Ya mean y'all are satanist, I mean atheists?" It took three different incidents with calls to the principal, finally threatening a law suit, to get this woman to back off.

WOM - if you had a child in public school, and their teacher was a Muslim, who used these sort of strong-arm tactics to bring the class into submission to Allah, how would you feel?  Would you think the public school would be a place for this sort of prostylizing to take place?  What if the teacher were a Scientologist?  Would it be proper for that teacher to suggest the children be scanned for Engrams?

The reason "No word of God must reach this crowd" is because the jury is still out on the authenticity of a supreme deity and just who/what He/She/It is.  If one deity is allowed in and supplications made in their name, then ALL of them must be allowed in -- which then is an affront to "the one" that insists all the rest are "idols and false gods."  

If you cherish your faith, then you'll keep your faith in the private sector, where it won't get blasphemed, trashed, polluted, and desecrated by the infidel.

You know what, I cant smoke in bars, your ass cant pray in schools. Get on w/ your life and get over it.