(Fair warning: I Am Angry.)
On a forum that I refuse to post to because it's overflowing with ignorant, santimonious jackasses and people who deliberately and willfully reject logic and reason at every point that it comes into conflict with their prejudices, self-interest, and bigotry, I peeked in today for the first time in several weeks and came across a thread in which a user posted one of those insipid little "jokes" that's really a poorly-disguised call for institutional theocracy - a teacher reciting a long list of duties and ending with "and then you tell me I CAN'T PRAY?"
Hur hur hur. So clever. 
You'd think an omnipotent God could find better writers.
Another posted responded - correctly - that of course you can pray, you just can't force your students to pray or allow their religious beliefs to be criteria for their academic standing in a public school.
Then this digusting pig comes back and says "Oh really? The vast majority of of public schools nation wide can not allow prayer endorsed by the school or teacher for fear of offending."
You dishonest, dissembling boor.
FIRST: There is NOTHING that prevents teachers, students, administrators, or the lunch lady from praying. The law forbids the tying of religious instruction or worship to academic achievement, and that is how it should be.
That's not a matter of "the vast majority," nor is it a matter of "fear of offending." It's called the Establishment clause, and it has been interpreted since this nation was founded as a strict prohibition against any form of state sponsorship or endorsement of religion. My tax dollars are NOT going to pay for you to worship your God any more than they already do, and my children will NOT be forced to worship your God with you. That is not only the approach supported by scripture, it is the approach that the US Supreme Court, in McCollum v. Board of Education 1948, interprets as the only constitutionally allowed solution to the question of religion in publicly-funded schools. The poster's ignorance of history is exceeded only by his ignorance of the teachings of his professed religion and his willingness to ignore any logical failure for the sake of inflating his miserably under-inflated sense of self-worth (note well that I do NOT say self-importance - that's plenty inflated).
If you have a problem with that, then by all means let's get an Imam to start leading prayers for class credit and make kids carry prayer mats. Let's get a Satanist to come in and make your kids follow that religion, too. Maybe a Druid, and a few hundred Native Americans. Maybe get some ancestor-worship involved too, since that's just as valid a religion - from a legal standpoint, regardless of what you might think about it from a religious standpoint - as any other.
Either that or stick your kid in a private religious school. Can't afford it? PRAY FOR MONEY!
All of a sudden this whole compulsory prayer thing doesn't seem like such a good idea, HUH?
If you obnoxious morons that complain about the prohibition against school-sponsored prayer were dealing with a religion that you DIDN'T believe in, you would be the first and loudest to start bitching and calling lawyers and begging the ACLU to help you, so just shut up. You make me sick and you disgrace yourself, your country, your religion and your God with this nonsense. Every lying, disingenuous word out of your mouth is a whiplash across the back of your Messiah, you miserable cretins. Hypocritical, sanctimonious, self-righteous, godless jackasses, every one of you.
SECOND: This method of "debate" is relied on consistently by theocratic agitators and radical clerics, and it is utterly sickening. Time and time and time AGAIN I see them do the same thing:
- Make an assertion that has nothing to do with reality
- Wait for someone to challenge you on it,
- Change your assertion and claim you were right all along.
First you say "I CAN'T PRAY!!" and then when someone points out - rightly - that you sure can pray and there's not a thing stopping you, you change it to "Oh really? The law says public schools can't allow prayer *endorsed by the school.*" You know that the first statement is pure crap, and the second is accurate, and that the two are entirely different things, but you'll sit there with your smarmy, self-righteous condescension patting yourself on the back because HAH I SURE TOLD YOU!
People like this are *precisely* the reason that this country has abdicated its position of intellectual and ethical leadership in the world, and that so many people loathe organized religion.
If Jesus was here he'd punch you in the mouth.
Here's a parting shot for you, "Christians":
"But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly." - Jesus Christ, Matt 6:6
Reconcile THAT with mandatory religious service in public schools, heretics. What kind of paper-thin God is it that you worship anyway, that needs a government sponsored compulsory worship service to get any attention?
You're about as Christian as Anton LaVey. At least LaVey was honest about it. When will you learn that you can't take away the rights of people you disagree with, without taking away your own?
No wonder Jesus wept. I would too, if I was him.
