Wyoming school district lifts ban on kids praying in school

[cheri1122]

It seems to me that pretending to have virtuous character, and the contrivance of a false appearance of virtue or goodness is precisely what they're guilty of. They contrived to appear virtuous and good by having a Christian prayer before every meeting, [where Christian is synonymous with virtuous], but showed their real character when prayer of a different kind [but no less virtuous] was offered. The tolerance they'd always enjoyed was entirely one sided, and the command to 'love thy neighbor' only applies to some neighbors.
I could see the rebuff if the prayer were offered by a Pastafarian, or a Satan worshipper, or even a Pagan [if they have prayers, I don't actually know about that], but Buddhism is a major and well accepted religion, as is Islam.
That's the whole problem with freedom of religion: it treats 'religion' as just one thing, when it's many. And the believers of each very often cannot get along with the others. That goes for Christianity, as well, which has many different splinters, offshoots, and sects, and they don't play well with others at all. Trying to please all of them is a nightmare.

 

[Turtle]

They contrived to appear virtuous and good by having a Christian prayer before every meeting, [where Christian is synonymous with virtuous], but showed their real character when prayer of a different kind [but no less virtuous] was offered.

What you're describing is...
They contrived to satisfy their own needs and wishes by ordering a pepperoni pizza before every meeting, [where pepperoni is synonymous with virtuously delicious], but showed their real character tastes when a pizza of a different kind [but no less delicious to the yahoo who ordered it] was offered, and instead of eating it as is, they simply decided they didn't want any part of a squid-anchovy-pineapple pizza.

 

[cheri1122]

When pizza becomes synonymous with virtuous, that will make sense. People declare themselves Christian [or describe others] as a way of saying "of high moral character", but that doesn't jibe with refusing to extend the same courtesy of hearing a prayer as has been always extended to them. If you don't like hypocritical, how about two faced?

 

[Turtle]

Refusing to sit through another religion's prayer out of courtesy isn't even remotely in the same category as virtuosity. Virtuous is high moral character, while courtesy is social character of civility. They are not the same thing. Thieves have honor among them in their social setting as a high courtesy, but that doesn't make them virtuous by any stretch.

And as "two faced" is nothing more than a metaphor for hypocritical, no, that doesn't work, either. You can call it rude, or discourteous, or impolite, or even churlish, if you like. But it ain't hypocrisy.

You don't like Christians. I get that. I'm not a big fan of them, myself. But I can respect other people and their beliefs, even if I don't agree with them, and I can be fair about how I treat them. You can't demonize them with the h-word when the hypocrisy just isn't there, simply because you think they need to be made uncomfortable, or punished, in a "do as the Romans do" situation. That's not fair. It's just mean.

If you want to talk about courtesies having been "always extended to them" without yourself hopping aboard the Hypocrisy Soul Train, you have to seriously reconcile the "always extended to them" of more than two centuries of prayer in school being intolerantly and discourteously revoked. That's both rude and hypocritical, as the ones who are doing it want to punish Christians for believing in something different, and because they claim they just want tolerance or courtesy for their own beliefs, or lack thereof, and are unwilling to extend courtesy and tolerance of the views of Christians.

"When pizza becomes synonymous with virtuous, that will make sense."

Pizza is one of the most virtuous things ever invented. It's practically a synonym. Pizza was invented as a specialty gift by Romans (see? there's a whole theme going on here) for the Bishop of Gaeta in 997 AD as payment for rent and blessings of good harvest for occupying certain lands that stretched the 125 miles or so from Rome to Naples. The Bishop received 12 pizzas on Christmas Day, and another 12 on Easter Sunday to celebrate not only the birth and resurrection of Jesus Christ, but of the glory of God's providing of the especially tasty San Marzano tomatoes from the volcanic plains of Mount Vesuvius, the wheat of the Lazio Valley, and the mozzarella of water buffalo raised in the marshlands of Campania (the ingredients of which were recently avariciously claimed as their own by the Napoli's Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana as a Traditionally Specialty Guaranteed Dish and a Protected Guarantee of Origin.

 

[OntarioVanMan]

this so brings Turtle to mind.....LOL

 

[Turtle]

That's exactly me. When the optimist says that glass is half full, I don't understand the optimism at all. "Where's the rest of my drink?" is what I wanna know.

When the pessimist says the glass is half empty, I don't understand the pessimism, either, because hey, could be worse, it could be empty.

No, someone merely pulled the wrong size glass out of the cabinet.

In any case, whether a glass is half empty or half full doesn't depend on optimism or pessimism, it depends on when you start the clock. Did the clock start before you poured anything into it and now it's half full, or did the clock start when it was full and now it's half empty?

Just give me the bottle.

 

[Mdbtyhtr]

As an aside, Christianity does not mean perfect or holier than thou, rather an attempt to emulate Christ in one' behavior. Because man is fallen by nature, we will all fall short of that lofty goal, should one aspire to that goal, and I do. I do not apologize for being a Christian and can acknowledge hypocritical behaviors by many, including myself.