Thoughts and Prayers: The Religion Thread

Again, the videos and pictures of the prayer proved that he and his attorneys were lying about the nature of the prayers. That was the point. As I wrote, but you ignored, they claimed that the prayers were "quiet, personal expressions of faith." That was a lie. They were loud. He was leading groups of players in prayer. That's not a quiet, personal expression of faith. Maybe you don't care about people lying to the court to try to win a case, but those things matter. Maybe you don't care about a coach abusing his position to push his faith on a bunch of teenagers. Even worse, he was in a position of authority over those teenagers. That was a violation of the separation of church and state. The coach and the people supporting him were looking to use it to erode that principal. He wasn't trying to get his job back, which was the stated goal of the lawsuit. Maybe that was his intent at the start, but it certainly was not by the time the case reached the Supreme Court. By then, it was yet another lie.

Also, your response regarding felt coercion is misleading. It isn't just that people felt it. It is that it was reasonable for them to feel it. Anybody who thinks otherwise has no idea how much influence a high school football coach has over his players.

 

Well, it kind of is.

At least insofar as the First Amendment is only whatever any Supreme Court has said it is since 1791.

Same for anything in the Constitution / Bill of Rights. It is open to interpretation and argument in every age.

The 2nd Amendment is a great example of how those interpretations and arguments change and change and change again to suit the era in which they're made.

 

But what if they're eating babies there?

 

Ok, turn it around. What if the coach is the local chairman of the FCA and a pillar of the First Baptist Church. Players who don't participate and aren't the 103rd player on the team find starts and playing time perceptibly smaller than that of loud praying kids at a similar skill level.

Is this a problem, or just the nail that sticks up getting hammered down?

 

I think a big difference is that the coach is bringing the prayer to the football field, where the non-church players are essentially being forced into deciding whether or not to join the coach in praying, with all the accompanying possible consequences of either decision.

The players who go to church with the coach are (presumably, unless their parents are forcing them) wanting to be there, and the purpose in being there is to pray. The non-church players are wanting to be at the field to play football, not pray.

 

Of course that's wrong. I don't recall anyone here disputing that. That said ... "perceptibly" and "similar skill level" can be pretty nebulous.

 

True.

 

So the religion is “I’m the man” and that’s it? I’ll rephrase : What are the core tenets of Christianity? Which of them are most consistent with liberal thinking and which are most consistent with the right?

 

The core tenet of Christianity is that Jesus is the son of God, died for the sins of humanity, took God's wrath for those sins, and rose from the dead for victory over death.

The Bible is first and foremost a story about God, not politics.

But now that I've said that, you go ahead and make the point you want to make about Jesus and the Left.

 

Myth or fact?

 

Does it matter?

Was Noah 600 years old?

 

Wasn't he?

I want to know if Alma believes as fact that Jesus rose.