I wasn't even thinking about teachers having a problem with it, though that was probably naive on my part. I was thinking about the response from peers when the child doesn't join in the group recital. It didn't go well for the Jehovah's Witness kids in the 40's, and I seem to remember more recent cases around 9/11.
For a long while kids weren't *required* to join in school prayer, but by choosing to abstain they disassociated themselves from the group. It's literally equivalent to having a "voluntary" recital of any other political rhetoric, where any child is "free" to separate themselves from the group and watch.
As a reminder, this interesting derail started from the phrase "Under God" in the pledge of allegiance.
Assuming the God represents an actual deity, can someone explain why it isn't a betrayal of our ideals of liberty and religious freedom?
I don't think anyone would argue that the under God phrase in the pledge violates the separation of church and state. And today I'd say it violates our ideal of religious freedom too. Why it violates the ideal of liberty I'm not completely sure your reasoning for that, although as a monotheist, Loud Whispers point probably applies to me. The thing is that no one seems toseriously care enough about the pledge outside of schools enough to change it.
I think you missed a word, but you're saying it does violate separation of church and state? Based on your second sentence.
As for liberty, the pledge is asserting that our nation is "under" another entity. It's not Britain, but it's still a rejection of our independence.
Just to belabor my point, some of the people who pushed this through were Catholic.
How much of the Bible have you read? Just curious to know where in the Bible God rapes. Also, what do you mean by fossilization.
There was a long discussion about this, let me find it...
Okay well, Numbers 31 involves giving women to the Levites (special chosen people of God, like Samson) to be raped. Not exactly God raping though.
Oh it was in the previous thread, found it:
Mary did not choose to let the Holy Ghost impregnate her, she wasn't even asked. She probably knew some of the stories of God's wrath, or at least that her cousin-in-law the priest had been struck dumb by a terrifying angel. And here was the same angel, informing her of imminent... well... rape. What the Holy Ghost did probably wasn't technically sex, but she was impregnated without her consent.
And did she really even accept it? She didn't openly defy the terrifying angel who cursed her cousin-in-law and made her cousin supernaturally pregnant. It would have been pointless and she probably expected punishment if she expressed doubt or ingratitude. So she agreed that the thing would happen, then *didn't tell her fiancee*. She tried to go through with the marriage but her pregnancy was discovered. Either she thought both visitations were just dreams, or she was trying to hide the fact that she was bearing *the Messiah*.
So yeah, as you probably expected, we're saying that God raped Mary by impregnating her without consent. Even if that didn't involve penetration.