God in our Public Schools

[lfwebb91]

Another hot topic in America today seems to be abortion. The right of a mother to end her child's life if she so chooses. Many support her right, but others believe that this is wrong. It seems that to justify the mother's right to do this people say that it is not a person yet so it is technically not murder. If this is the case then why if I hit a pregnant woman in a car and killed her would I go to prison for manslaughter against her and the baby? If it is not a person yet it should be insignificant that I killed it. The fact that the mother wanted the baby is irrelevent. Does wanting there to be a Santa Clause make him real? no. Therefore wanting to keep the baby does not make it a person. I am only adding this to my last post to vent about a personal situation I am sorry if I distracted you from arguing about allowing God in public school....But one last thing to the girl who said if there is a God why do bad things happen to people...If you were 'God' and people did not appreciate you and cursed your name on a daily basis would you let them live a life of rainbows and butterflies? I personally would make everyone suffer. Whether you believe in God keep that in mind its quite a funny thought. I'm agnostic and it makes me laugh.

[zjgaston]

The fact that there are so many gods in our world, I'm surprised that our seducation system is not destroyed by our religions. There is always going to be the arguments of whose god or religion is better. Plus, the fact that we put God on our money only proves that we are basically slaves to the economic structures of America.

[walksalone11]

So that means I should hate white people because what they did to my ancestors according to your logic.
See my Great Grandmother was pure blood Cherokee Indian and if you ever heard of the Trail of Tears, then I should hate the people that took over this country and killed the Indians.

Ok, respectfully, I just reread my entire post and I was just wondering where you read, anywhere in my post, about anyone being white?

I don't think I have ever met anyone who didn't claim Tsalagi ancestry. I am exaggerating of course but not by much. Most of the time these claims are false, but on the off chance that you may be a relative.....would you mind if I check and see if your ancestor is on the Dawes or Baker rolls? If they were in fact full blood, they will be.

I hope you don't decide to hate all of any race of people, actually my best friend and someone I consider as my Sister is full blooded white.
If you got that meaning from any thing in my post then I apologize but I think perhaps you should just actually read it.

[liljp617]

After reading all of the post on this forum today I have come to a few interesting thoughts. These have been brought about by almost all of you(save some of the more ignorant of you). When one thinks of the statute of right and wrong you have to wonder where this came from. The more religious of course will say that it came from the Bible so I will not direct this question at you, but I want to know from those of you similar to me. I have often thought that a conscience is something that we are all just born with, but as this forum shows, peoples so called 'inner voices' differ just as our opinions do. And since this is the case who has the right to say that what someone is doing is right or wrong. One example could be homosexuality and marriage. Some people are against it to the point of dying just to make sure that homosexuals never get the right to marry while others want to live to just see it happen. And then you have 'moderates who secretly take a stand on it but do not want to get flamed for their opinion so they either lie or just stay quiet. But let's take on a more extreme case such as racism. I would have to say that the majority of Americans will say that they are not racist, but I know many people who were afraid to say they did not vote for Obama this past election for fear of being labeled a racist. Because the popular 'belief' is that racism is wrong. My question is who says? If someone wants to hate members of another race who has the right to tell them they are wrong for doing it if they themselves think they are justified in doing so. If I have not struck at least some sort of nerve so far then this next topic will surely at least raise your eyebrows(if only for the fact you hope I never post again). Murder is seen by many as wrong and this is a common notion. But what if someone murdered your son or daughter right before your very eyes....on accident. And in a rage you murdered the person who did it. You believe you are justified in doing so and believe you did nothing wrong, but someone tells you that you are wrong. Many will simply just point to the Bible or even the Constitution, but both are just pieces of paper that millions of people follow every day.

As the answer you probably don't want at all:  It would be extremely tenuous and difficult to go into discussion about the origin of morality here.  It's such a huge subject with so many different proposals and requires a broad understanding of all the proposals to really make a reasonable conclusion (I don't think anybody here has this broad understanding of the field).  Your best bet is to simply hit the library and read everything you can find on the subject, as that would yield you better answers than I think you'll ever find on most Internet forums.

[liljp617]

If this is the case then why if I hit a pregnant woman in a car and killed her would I go to prison for manslaughter against her and the baby? If it is not a person yet it should be insignificant that I killed it. The fact that the mother wanted the baby is irrelevent.

As explained by a friend of mine, in words better than I could do myself:

The fact that the mother wants to carry to term is the only thing that is relevant. 

"Why? Because in the law there is a provision for protection of potential items and revenue, if you can reasonably show that the potential item or revenue would have become a complete item or real revenue had it not been interfered with. The value of the item for the purposes of the damages done is extrapolated based on what is a reasonable assumption for what its value might have been. The amount of revenue considered lost is based on reasonably expected earnings.

For example, if I started writing a story and then someone came along and took it while it is still unfinished and published it (in its unfinished form), I could sue them for damages of lost income based on what I might reasonably have earned were it to be completed and published by me. The value for this potential income calculated is determined by the judge based on a number of factors. Whatever value the judge calculates for me, it would be a hell of a lot higher if the author who was robbed was, say, J. K. Rowling, instead of me, simply because even if I write the next Lord of the Rings, I could probably never hope to make as much as Rowling would if she sneezed in a napkin and published the smear.

The same logic extends to other things, like if I was building a house or a car and you came along and destroyed it before it was complete, it would count as destruction of property, not destruction of potential property, and I could sue you for damages based on the potential value of the item, not simply the cost of its parts. In fact, if I bought a custom car from someone that I intended to use to make money with, and it was being delivered to me and I had not paid for it yet, and you destroyed it, I could sue you for the money I was unable to make even though I hadn't bought the car yet (but I couldn't sue you for the value of the car itself, because I had not paid for it). There is lots of tricky legal crap involved with proving your claim on the (potential) item and the reasonable expectancy of the money you might make, and thus, your rights to sue... but once that is established, it's suing' time.

So when you kill the fetus of a mother who was planning to carry it to term, you have literally destroyed their potential daughter. Yes, you did not kill a human being, but the potential value of what you stole from that woman was equal to the value of a human, because if the mother does intend to have the child, chances are very, very high nowadays that she will. In theory, without the fetal homicide clause, the mother could sue you for the expected value of what you took from her, just as with anything else, be it potential story royalties or a potential car. But that just gets wonky because what is the value of a human being - a child, someone's offspring? You can't put a realistic price tag on that, so, instead, they do the next best thing... they say the expected value of a wanted fetus is a child, and you have taken that potential value away from the mother, which is equivalent to the a priori murder of their child. Thus, fetal homicide.

So why is this different from abortion? The answer is simple. The expected value of a wanted fetus is the value of a human child, because a wanted fetus will - under reasonable assumptions - be a human being eventually. The expected value of an unwanted fetus is... nothing... because the fetus will not become a human being (under reasonable assumptions). Therefore, the abortion doctor that performs the procedure is not killing a potential human being... because the fetus doesn't have that potential from the moment the mother says, "I want an abortion."

[Falconer02]

So why is this different from abortion? The answer is simple. The expected value of a wanted fetus is the value of a human child, because a wanted fetus will - under reasonable assumptions - be a human being eventually. The expected value of an unwanted fetus is... nothing... because the fetus will not become a human being (under reasonable assumptions). Therefore, the abortion doctor that performs the procedure is not killing a potential human being... because the fetus doesn't have that potential from the moment the mother says, "I want an abortion."

You have no idea how much argument-ammuntion you just gave me. Danke, sir.

[Alphasee]

Religion on this forum just blows. It needs to be insta-banned because of all the fanatics and nobodys that think they have an opinion on something that has nothing to do with them. 

People should be able to express whatever they want so long as it doesn't HURT others. If you use the term "offend", then it will be a chaotic cluster-f*** of angry people that are offended by other people's existence and it's a self-perpetuating hate circle.

As for schools, I think it's cool that they have it, but it should be optional. As for the pledge of allegiance, that's a cultural and country-wide practice and that's ridiculous if you expect it to be any different. We cannot be a ghost of a shell of a country that is based on nothing.

[walksalone11]

What benefit is there to forcing someone to pledge allegiance to something they have absolutely no allegiance to?

My ancestors nor myself, immigrated to this country, we were here before there ever was an America.
We along with many other NDN Nations are sovereign countries within the borders of the US.

Several years ago we were all given citizen status for some political reasons that mostly benefited the US.

Constantly over the past 500+ years we have been asked/forced to give up more and more land and in exchange have been promised various monies and services in trade for these lands.

One of the provisions is the opportunity for an education, therefor we have the right to attend a public American school, even tho many of us do not consider our selves American and do not have very much allegiance to the US.

So what is the point in pressuring my child to recite a foreign oath, against their and my wishes.

The ol' "love it or leave it" saying doesn't really fit in this case huh?   

[Falconer02]

So what is the point in pressuring my child to recite a foreign oath, against their and my wishes.

Fortunately there's no pressure for a student to say no to it today as it does conflict with peoples' various beliefs. I never did it as a kid. I did stand up, but I never put my hand on my heart or said it. I felt kind of out of place during it (the same feeling comes over me at a long Catholic wedding), but the teacher or other kids never really cared.

[liljp617]

Religion on this forum just blows. It needs to be insta-banned because of all the fanatics and nobodys that think they have an opinion on something that has nothing to do with them.  

People should be able to express whatever they want so long as it doesn't HURT others. If you use the term "offend", then it will be a chaotic cluster-f*** of angry people that are offended by other people's existence and it's a self-perpetuating hate circle.

Frankly, most people here are pretty calm in the discussions.  I've seen much worse on forums.  Everyone has a right to an opinion and everyone has a right to criticize or address that opinion.  There is no such thing as "something that has nothing to do with them."  We're on a public forum.  If you don't want to read people's replies to your posts, you don't have to.  That's the beauty of the Internet.

As for schools, I think it's cool that they have it, but it should be optional. As for the pledge of allegiance, that's a cultural and country-wide practice and that's ridiculous if you expect it to be any different. We cannot be a ghost of a shell of a country that is based on nothing.

I don't think you'll find a whole lot of sensible people who want the Pledge removed from schools.  What you will find -- because it is unconstitutional and biased toward a specific religion, which is specifically prohibited in the First Amendment -- is people who want "under God" removed from it.  

[liljp617]

And, on everything else about God in the Schools, It dont matter to me but what was really crazy was my brother brought his bible to school and was reading it during free time reading and the teacher told him to put it away and when he didn't he got sent to the principle's office.

If he was reading it during free time, both the principal and teacher (specifically the teacher) should be reprimanded.  Though I wouldn't be too surprised if he was actually reading it during class, which I guess is his choice, but I would venture to say the teacher just wanted him to pay attention and do well in that case.  Probably overreacted.

Yes, One nation under God and if you remove it then I don't care because it doesn't remove God from my life.

You don't have to remove it from your life, you just have to remove it from other people's lives when they don't want it.  That's the entire point of just about everything discussed in this thread.

[jaytomirish]

No because not all kids in public school worship god

[liljp617]

And, on everything else about God in the Schools, It dont matter to me but what was really crazy was my brother brought his bible to school and was reading it during free time reading and the teacher told him to put it away and when he didn't he got sent to the principle's office.

If he was reading it during free time, both the principal and teacher (specifically the teacher) should be reprimanded.  Though I wouldn't be too surprised if he was actually reading it during class, which I guess is his choice, but I would venture to say the teacher just wanted him to pay attention and do well in that case.  Probably overreacted.

Yes, One nation under God and if you remove it then I don't care because it doesn't remove God from my life.

You don't have to remove it from your life, you just have to remove it from other people's lives when they don't want it.  That's the entire point of just about everything discussed in this thread.

No it was a Silent Free Time that kids chose what they read and he got suspended. Freedom of Religion and Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Expression. I don't make the laws and I don't have any control what laws get passed or even if they put One Nation Under God or In God We Trust on American Currency - That is just America and if people don't like it they can leave.

If that is the case, then as I said, the teacher was wrong and should be reprimanded for his/her actions.



And no, the entire point of having a democratic republic is so the public can take part in and change the actions of the government.  You don't tell people "if you don't like it, get out."  That destroys the very foundation everything about this nation.

[walksalone11]

The problem with a democratic society is if the majority rules, then the minority must go along the whims of the majority against their wishes.

And in this instance the minority I refer to isn't only to do with race. Religion also, in my opinion, has a great deal to do with it.

Take a look at "The Great Law of Peace" practiced by the Iroquois Confederacy.

Consensus by Representation. No religion needed.