Should we allow prayer back in public school?
Hey, I live in the UK, and in my school (just a normal state funded grammar) we say the ‘Lord’s Prayer’ every time we have assembly’s ^^ Personally, I don’t see any reason to abolish this tradition, and I really cant understand how anyone could be truly offended by it…By ‘allowing prayer’ I guess you mean something like the ‘Lord’s Prayer’ I have to add that I don’t really see how anyone could have possibly ‘disallowed’ prayer in schools; at least not prayer in the heart or mind…
Which prayer from which religion? If it is a buddhist prayer or even time set aside for meditation, I would happily agree because it supports my husband’s religion. If it is a Unitarian time devoted to reading philosophy, then I would happily agree because it supports MY religion. But I am assuming that you meant a “christian” prayer, specifically one from your own brand of christianity and that I do not agree with, for myself and my children. Our PUBLIC schools exist to provide a basic education to ALL children. That is children from catholic homes, Unitarian homes, Muslim homes, evangelical homes, etc. By forcing children to pray a prayer that does not include them because it is not a prayer of their religion, is a great form of religious repression. The constitution forbids the country from adopting one specific religion. Public schools are controlled by the government and thus, forcing school children to pray a specific prayer is tantamount to establishing a state religion. If you
I’m all for allowing prayer time in public schools as well, but perhaps the part where we don’t agree: I’d like to see ALL types of prayer permitted in public school. Judging from your previous Q’s and A’s you’re not at all on the side of Muslims, and that means you’re probably not for putting up with anyone else’s prayers as well. As you may or may not know, some prayers use incense, gongs, chants, recitations of holy texts, and so forth. While you may be all for seeing Bibles in school, I doubt you could handle seeing Qurans, pentagrams, Vedas, and you definitely would misunderstand the Sikh kirpan without a doubt. While I think involving ALL religions in educational environments is the best thing for this world, some people (particularly ignorant, arrogant, ethnocentric people) don’t want to have any part in it. For this reason, there is no time set aside for prayer in public schools. That saying one bad apple spoils the bunch… that applies here. One can ruin it for everyone.
There is still prayer in schools just not school sanctioned prayers. I agree with you. Too many churches are in the business of filling pews and entertaining people instead of preaching what the Bible states. I believe their are still people that bow their heads and pray in their homes together. We do at my house and my grandparents house. We say our bedtime prayers at night and I consistently pray throughout the day. However I think that we should not make a spectacle out of ourselves and that prayer is a personal time between you and your creator. If we are praying simple to say “look at me I am praying” then we send the wrong message. As far as I am aware there is still freedom of expression and that we are allowed to pray publicly. The idea of Separation of Church and state was so that the Government could not establish a government controlled religion like the kings of England had done. Separation of Church and state was never intended to restrict religious activities or speech. S
