Oh religion, you're adorable!

[Rainbow Dash]

http://www.alternet.org/belief/151086/high_school_student_stands_up_against_prayer_at_pu blic_school_and_is_ostracized%2C_demeaned_and_thre atened?page=entire

welp

[TeeKup]

I hate people.

[Rainbow Dash]

A lot of them are pretty fucking appalling :s

[Donut]

holy shit, fuck all of them. people like that guy threatening to call the ACLU need to step the fuck down from their high horse, and the religious people need to fuck off and recognize that not everybody agrees with them.

[DarkHalo003]

I'm a spiritual person, I can see where people get emotional over this sort of thing, and I think taking the step to contact the ACLU was a little much; but when the parents kick their son out of their house and people threaten this guy for simply saying pointing out the legality of the situation, that is just sick. At first I thought it was similar to a predicament in my own community; a non-Christian girl decided to aid a political organization hell-bent on having cases ruled in their favor regarding the removal of school from religious situations. There's a difference though; unlike my community's situation where I school simply was using the church to hold the graduation ceremony so all of the families could actually be there for their children, this time it's simply chaos regarding the legality of a situation. That school had no right to have a school-sponsored prayer for the graduation ceremony; it's simply no legal. Why the state did not intervene is beyond me; this action by the state fails the Lemon Test. It's simply baffling, if you ask me.

[Rainbow Dash]

holy shit, fuck all of them. people like that guy threatening to call the ACLU need to step the fuck down from their high horse, and the religious people need to fuck off and recognize that not everybody agrees with them.

How is protecting his civil liberties being on a high horse :S

He has the right to not have this shit shoved down his throat and they have been violating that right.

[Spartan094]

What the hell did I just read.

People these days....

[Mr Buckshot]

iirc, Christianity preaches tolerance and compassion for all, even non-believers. While their religion gives them the right to ask him to join them, it does not give them the right to treat him this way if he declines.

The "religious community" that's doing this to Damon Fowler is a fucking hypocrite. It's like how terrorists indulge in the "evil sins" (alcohhol, strip clubs, pr0n, etc) while bashing the West for doing the same.

[paladin]

I was watching the prayer during graduation and the woman video taping it yelled, "1st Amendment Rights!". I was waiting for a Left4Dead a-car-alarm-just-went-off flash mob to kill her.

[Botolf]

The harder and more ferocious the religious right attacks, the sooner it guarantees its obscurity. Bring the venom!

Glad to hear the kid's got backing from reasonable people.

[n00b1n8R]

So is this an anti religion thread or just a misanthropy thread?
If it's the latter then..
ihLBCbNIDbI

[Dwood]

your all dumb. this thread is dumb. everyone who posted in this thread before me needs a loss of 300 rep for being so astoundingly dumb.

[Bodzilla]

One of the chunks of mud that's most commonly slung at atheists is that we're selfish. Amoral. That without a belief in God and the afterlife, people would have no moral compass, and would just act to please themselves, without any consideration for others. That without a belief in eternal punishment in the afterlife for bad behavior, eternal reward in the afterlife for good behavior, and a supernatural authority figure refereeing it all, people would have no reason to be good people, and no reason to avoid doing terrible things. That without religion, people would have no compassion, no sense of justice, no empathy, no desire to see society running smoothly... and would just do whatever we wanted to do.

But when Damon Fowler was suffering and in need, the atheist community stepped up. It provided compassion. It demanded justice. It offered emotional support. It offered practical support. It opened its wallets. It made it unassailably clear to Damon Fowler that he was not alone: that although his school, his community, even his parents, had all turned their backs on him, atheists would take care of him, as best they could, until he could take care of himself. It made it clear that, even though he no longer had a home in Bastrop, he had a home in this movement. When Damon Fowler was suffering and in need, the atheist community proved itself to be a real community.

best piece in the article.
i hope to god i stop hearing about that flimsy moral high ground i get when ever this kinda shit crops up, because right there is your proof.

[Kornman00]

Hmmmm, you know what I just noticed?

Bible belt:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c2/BibleBelt.png
Major tornadoes (of 2011)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a5/US_killer_tornadoes_of_2011.gif

Natural selection at its finest!


your all dumb.
:fail:

[DarkHalo003]

Screw it, there's no point in trying to talk here. Both sides are hypocritical. It's just human nature. It wouldn't surprise me if my post right now somehow was.

@Korn: Or maybe God is letting us know that we're supposed to support one another as human beings. There's a thought.

[PlasbianX]

People like that make me pray I never snap some day.

[Hotrod]

Those religious people who did that to the kid are fucking retarded, and this is coming from a catholic guy (yes, I'm religious). If they want prayer at their graduation then they should have gone to a christian school instead of a public school. Kudos to that guy for standing up in what he believed in, and fuck his parents for treating their kid like shit. People should be allowed to follow their beliefs, but they can't go and force them upon others like that.

/rant

[DarkHalo003]

@Plasbian: I was like that once, now I never want to be like that again, where I hate non-believers for not believing in what I do and being filled with that hatred. All I can do is hope and question myself that nothing like that happens again. It's scary stuff, especially when it contradicts everything I believe in as a Christian. Love your neighbor and your enemy (not saying non-believers are my enemies, but they contrast with my beliefs) and not the chaos that engulfed this nonsense.


Those religious people who did that to the kid are fucking retarded, and this is coming from a catholic guy (yes, I'm religious). If they want prayer at their graduation then they should have gone to a christian school instead of a public school. Kudos to that guy for standing up in what he believed in, and fuck his parents for treating their kid like shit. People should be allowed to follow their beliefs, but they can't go and force them upon others like that.

/rant
More or less exactly how I feel here. But I don't feel so much anger towards the people as I do understanding and I feel sorry for how they have acted. The parents just make me want to cry though. You don't abandon anyone. No one deserves being abandoned by their parents and this guy's parents are just crooked.

[Amit]

I wonder what this guy is like. I want to know what people thought of him before he requested the prayer to be removed from graduation. I want to know what his situation with his parents was before they kicked him out. What those people did was wrong, but I have some concerns of why his own parents disowned him. It's probably not because they are super religious or something.

[Donut]

How is protecting his civil liberties being on a high horse :S

He has the right to not have this shit shoved down his throat and they have been violating that right.
the article says the whole prayer thing was a tradition at the school. yeah, he has the right not to have religion shoved down his throat, but is it really necessary to raise all this chaos over something so stupid?

just so you know, im not agreeing with the religious people. what they did is some of the stupidest shit iv heard of in a while. like amit said though, his parents disowned him for this? theres something else to this story that we're not getting. maybe this kid is a career asshole or something, or maybe he just has the misfortune of living in one of those areas where everyone is a baptist and if you dont believe in god or that the sun revolves around the earth youre a spawn of satan and all your neighbors run outside and bang pans together to drive you away.

[Rainbow Dash]

I don't see how any of that is relevant at all. All that matters is he had the right to not have that shit shoved down his throat, and the entire community became immensely hostile to him for standing up for his rights.

:S

[Amit]

Forgive me for straying from the main subject at hand. I just want to know more about this boy that had garnered so much hate from his peers. I want to know if the same reaction would have met another person, be they male or female and of some some other established religion (or maybe just atheist too). It's just so peculiar that this guy is now hated by even his own parents. You know how the media stations and newspapers roll. Most of the time they only get some of the details rather than all of them.

All that is aside from his current situation and I agree with all of you.

[Hotrod]

Amit has a point, stuff like this doesn't happen for just a single reason. There's a lot more to the story that the media is hiding to create a huge bias towards the kid.

[Roostervier]

@Korn: Or maybe God is letting us know that we're supposed to support one another as human beings. There's a thought.
Wouldn't it make the most sense if god's people were the ones leading by example then, especially considering that it goes against their religion to do what they did in the first place?


the article says the whole prayer thing was a tradition at the school. yeah, he has the right not to have religion shoved down his throat, but is it really necessary to raise all this chaos over something so stupid? There was no chaos until the community reacted. He had no control over how they acted either, so I don't see how you could really blame him at all. He only stood up for his American right--that doesn't warrant the shitstorm that ensued. It'd be different if he was simply told "we don't care" and then he started throwing a hissy fit and doing all kinds of crazy shit, but that's not what happened. His own parents kicked him out and dropped all support for him... just because he was recognizing an American right and trying to uphold it. Who are the real godless bastards here?

[Kornman00]

Yeah here come the Rooster (you know he ain't gonna die)

For those who didn't fully read the article, he (the kid) contacted the school with his complaint with how they can't legally promote a prayer. Afterwords, his name was leaked in association with the cancellation of the prayer. Someone in the school pinned the tail on the donkey. Then some fuck faced bitch of a teacher went on record in a paper, calling him out. Apparently school and other students wasn't enough, so his piece of shit parents gave him the boot.


But Fowler -- knowing that government-sponsored prayer in the public schools is unconstitutional and legally forbidden (http://www.au.org/resources/brochures/prayer-in-public-schools/) -- contacted the school superintendent to let him know that he opposed the prayer, and would be contacting the ACLU if it happened. The school -- at first, anyway -- agreed, and canceled the prayer. Then Fowler's name, and his role in this incident, was leaked.

In a normal setting, this would probably require questioning of the student, because it would seem like all of these reactions would have required more instigation than this one single event. But this happened in the Bible belt. You can't understand shit that happens there with the same mind as a sensible person's.

[Warsaw]

^ Basically that.

I live on the very edge of the Bible Belt. I was in a seminar (think Theory of Knowledge, only not 12th grade) class one day and we somehow started talking about god, etc. Someone asked me for my thoughts . I said I wasn't a believer. The shock on most of the peoples' faces was most telling. "Aren't you afraid you'll go to hell!?" No. Not really. At any rate, all this dogma is just a way to squeeze money and gain control. You don't need a huge institution to tell you how to do.

[Donut]

Forgive me for straying from the main subject at hand. I just want to know more about this boy that had garnered so much hate from his peers. I want to know if the same reaction would have met another person, be they male or female and of some some other established religion (or maybe just atheist too). It's just so peculiar that this guy is now hated by even his own parents. You know how the media stations and newspapers roll. Most of the time they only get some of the details rather than all of them.

All that is aside from his current situation and I agree with all of you.
this is what im talking about. unless its like korn said and everyone is just looking for someone to bastardize, i find it really hard to believe EVERYBODY is going to gang up on one kid for pointing out something a public school should be fully aware of in the first place. like i said before, it sounds like this particular kid might be a career asshole and is just doing this to push buttons. he has a right to not have to be exposed to religion like this, but most atheists i know would say "whatever" and ignore it.
it sounds like the kid is doing this just to strike back at authority.

[Gwunty]

your all dumb. this thread is dumb. everyone who posted in this thread before me needs a loss of 300 rep for being so astoundingly dumb.
> has no argument
> resorts to mindless insults because he has no argument

[Dwood]

> has no argument
> resorts to mindless insults because he has no argument

Nothing is mindless as long as rep is involved, tyvm.

[DarkHalo003]

this is what im talking about. unless its like korn said and everyone is just looking for someone to bastardize, i find it really hard to believe EVERYBODY is going to gang up on one kid for pointing out something a public school should be fully aware of in the first place. like i said before, it sounds like this particular kid might be a career asshole and is just doing this to push buttons. he has a right to not have to be exposed to religion like this, but most atheists i know would say "whatever" and ignore it.
it sounds like the kid is doing this just to strike back at authority.
This is what I'm thinking. Something else could have happened to result in such extreme measures. The news reports shit that most people would find drastic. Having an innocent minority being attacked by a belligerent majority is always a hook for readers, even if the minority was being opposed due to their -insert malicious action here-.

[Bodzilla]

you guys keep creating and attacking strawmen.

they tried to pray in a public school which is against the constitution.
he opposed and coped a massive backlash over it.


thats all there is to it.

[cheezdue]

you guys keep creating and attacking strawmen.

We do it all the time so its ok. Staying on topic, all the hate Damon is getting is just uncalled for. I went to my friend's graduation today and they prayed soon after all the graduates received their diplomas. But I didn't say anything about it mostly because I didn't want to cause a shitstorm.

[Botolf]

This is what I'm thinking. Something else could have happened to result in such extreme measures. The news reports shit that most people would find drastic. Having an innocent minority being attacked by a belligerent majority is always a hook for readers, even if the minority was being opposed due to their -insert malicious action here-.
Does it draw in readers? Certainly. But deeply pious religious fundamentalists overreacting with viciousness and bile is something that hardly needs invention. Without basis for it, "looking for the middle" and guessing at hidden motives or character faults is frankly slimy.

[DarkHalo003]

Does it draw in readers? Certainly. But deeply pious religious fundamentalists overreacting with viciousness and bile is something that hardly needs invention. Without basis for it, "looking for the middle" and guessing at hidden motives or character faults is frankly slimy.
I was simply speculating and surmising. I still think this is a legal screw-up on a huge level. Local laws being messed with is one thing, but don't screw with Constitutional rights. The point of the Bill of Rights was to preserve peace, which we can all see was the exact opposite result here.

[Roostervier]

The point of the institution of the Bill of Rights was to protect the rights of the people from the newly created federal government, not to preserve peace.

And to all those theists in the thread trying to say that both sides are at fault, this is an argument I quite commonly hear from the side of an argument that is losing and realizes it but still wants to bring down the other side with them.

Face the facts: there is nothing this kid could have done short of burning a large crucifix with Jesus on it in the school parking lot that could have warranted the kind of treatment he got (not even that is deserving of it). Quit defending the community that did this to him unless you are okay with what happened. Religious people did something bad and were at fault here, get over it.

[Sanctus]

Just my two cents here:

If you guys haven't already guessed, I'm a deeply religious person. I may not always act like it but I am. However, when TeeKup called me yesterday and told me about this, as a Christian and a HUMAN I thought this was one of the dumbest, cruelest thing that hick town could do to this guy. I understand the separation of Church and State, and while I'd personally prefer to have prayer at functions like graduations, I know that it isn't constitutional and fair for everyone as an official thing to do. And of all people, his PARENTS? WTF? I'm siding with the ACLU on this one, even though they've done a couple things that I think are unfair to my religion; but that's for a different thread.

[DarkHalo003]

The point of the institution of the Bill of Rights was to protect the rights of the people from the newly created federal government, not to preserve peace.

And to all those theists in the thread trying to say that both sides are at fault, this is an argument I quite commonly hear from the side of an argument that is losing and realizes it but still wants to bring down the other side with them.

Face the facts: there is nothing this kid could have done short of burning a large crucifix with Jesus on it in the school parking lot that could have warranted the kind of treatment he got (not even that is deserving of it). Quit defending the community that did this to him unless you are okay with what happened. Religious people did something bad and were at fault here, get over it.
No one said he did warrant such radical behavior. We're just wondering if there was any background this guy had else-wise. You need to get over that fact. We just wonder if there may have been any other reason why this happened. Does another reason justify it? In no sense or form. But we have the right to speculate and wonder for whatever our reasons may be. This was never really an argument too. Everyone here said the religious community way overreacted and is at fault. Stop pointing fingers and overreacting yourself.

[king_nothing_]

We're just wondering if there was any background this guy had else-wise.
Why would this be relevant at all? It's fairly clear that the backlash he's getting is a direct result of his protest. Read the quotes from the community members. They are responding specifically to his actions in this incident. His background is completely irrelevant. He could be a drug dealer and a serial cat killer for all I care. Would that make him any less right in this matter, and his school/community any less wrong?

You seem to be grasping for some piece of information about him which could possibly make the God-fearing people in his community seem like less terrible people for ostracizing him. There's really no good reason to be doing that. They are in the wrong here. No amount of negative background information about him is going to change that.

[Kornman00]

Yeah, I can't see this being the "straw the broke the camel's back" with his parents if he was a drug dealer or a serial cat killer. "You dealing drugs and killing cats, we could handle that, but Jimmy! You called the school out for being unconstitutional and then your name was leaked in association of the event! We are disappoint! GTFO!". This is entirely the community's fault.

[DarkHalo003]

Why would this be relevant at all? It's fairly clear that the backlash he's getting is a direct result of his protest. Read the quotes from the community members. They are responding specifically to his actions in this incident. His background is completely irrelevant. He could be a drug dealer and a serial cat killer for all I care. Would that make him any less right in this matter, and his school/community any less wrong?

You seem to be grasping for some piece of information about him which could possibly make the God-fearing people in his community seem like less terrible people for ostracizing him. There's really no good reason to be doing that. They are in the wrong here. No amount of negative background information about him is going to change that.
Uh no. Simply no. But because there are people who simply cannot fathom my wanting to know of his background due to sheer curiosity, I suppose that means I want to justify the actions of an obviously radical group of religious folks. That is totally it. Despite how many times I have said that what the community did is unacceptable and that I'm merely curious, I suppose I can't speak for myself and that anything you say is automatically correct.

I've said numerous times this is the community's fault and the worst part is that his parents abandoned him, which is actually the true reason why many of us want to know this guy's background. Did his parents abandon him because he was austricized by the surrounding community? Or was there another reason (though I still can find a legitimate reason why any parent should abandon their child) and the "parents disowning their son" was just a way for the press to juicy up the story further.

If you know me, then you'll know most of what I do and think will make absolutely no sense to you. I also have a great hatred for the press because they tend to bend the true truth of the story for their own gain. Not saying what happened here didn't happen, but I'm paranoid when it comes to the press and some parts of this story just sound to good for the Press' benefit for me to not ponder and ask questions. Savvy?

[Dwood]

Reminds me of dont taze me bro.