....this is just ridiculous.

Oooooo! It mentions God! We can't have something like that! Jim, sound the alarm for the Censorship Guard! We must try to offend as few people as possible, even if we distort history and facts while doing it!

I indirectly blame this on civil attornies(yes, even the one in the story assuming the guy gets an attorny).

why should i sound the alarm... it's jeff's turn i'm busy

is this the one about the declaration of independence?

sillyness incarnate.

*shifty eyes*

Uh..no Civil Attornies here, sir...

What.
The.
****?

This is absurd. It's a historical document. At the time it was written, God was an important part of society. It's about context.

This makes me sad to be the same species as these people...
poor silly humans

All these atheists are really gonna feel bad when God comes to town and owns there doubting asses.

assuming that actually happens before we forget about religion or destroy ourselves, or ever.

I saw the human race has about a 100 years left in her... by then the planet will die, we'll wipe ourselves out, or the big dude upstairs will put his foot down. Whatever the case it'll be interesting to see....

Which is why I fully intend to be cryogenically frozen once the technology is in place, assuming I have the cash for it. I'd love to see us go down, like a huge grand finale...or not so grand. Either way, I want to see it with my own eyes.

*Don't Thaw Until Armageddon*

wow. Way to "ban" history.

Might as well ban the Civil Rights movement, World War II and events of that sort.

What is happening to America...:( .

I cant wait until I move to Sweden.

This reminds me of that feminist group who tried to get the canadian anthem changed because it said "thy sons" and they thought it was sexist.

Or PETA trying to get Hamburg, PA renamed.

"Sometimes its a source of pride not to be a human"
"... I'm with you"

<3 Calvin and Hobbes

YES!

Here are some scans of the papers filed in the suit, and while they still only explain the plaintiff's side of the case, some of the content is a little fishy. For example, the teacher's choice of a presidential proclamation example was Bush's speech on the National Day of Prayer, and he's using a handout called "What Great Leaders Have Said About the Bible". Certainly not inappropriate material per se, but given the context of the lawsuit it makes me wonder.

My guess is that the teacher is a history revisionist using his position as a pulpit, but I also wouldn't be surprised if the principal is an anti-religious moron. My elementary school administration tried to ban kids from wearing crosses, and my American History teacher in my Junior year of high school butchered history to fit her religious and political views, so I'm very familiar with both forms of zealotry.

These hardcore liberal people really piss me off. the teacher was trying to give an accurate representation of history, nothing more. The school systems are full of these liberal b******, and they have ridiculous ammounts of power, and are held accountable to no one. B/c of this, they like to force their views on other people. And they claim that the conservatives are trying to indoctrinate America's youth, when in reality, the school system is becoming a propaganda delivery system for the left.

These people really have to die. There is no other way.

Wow. This thing about separating church and state has become a monster. Seriously. These are the beliefs that our country was founded on, and for many a long year, conservatives and liberals alike lived with them. Why do the liberals kick and scream about them now? Have they just been in a coma all this time and have just now woken up? We shouldn't be trying to change history here when we should be focusing on the present.

Amen (sorry about the pun) to your post, Pagewizard.

Well, there might be more to the story than the article tells.

Sorry to burst your little bubble here, but forcing your views on someone makes you a conservative. Liberal = open minded. I don't care how much you people like to call yourselves 'open minded conservatives', such a thing just doesn't exist. If you're open minded, you're liberal. If you're closed minded, you're conservative. Don't like it? boohoo, go reinvent the english language.

I think this is in reaction to the lawsuits in various US states. Religious fanatics say biology school books should mention 'evolution is just a theory'. Stupid fundies.

I swear, if that gets through and biology books are forced to mention 'evolution is just a theory', I'm going to US supreme court, attacking ANY book that doesn't mention

• gravity is just a theory
• erosion is just a theory
• photosynthesis is just a theory
• rational choice is just a game theory
• continental drift is just a theory
• giant impact is just a theory
• statistical extreme value is just a theory
• axiomatic set is just a theory
• plate tectonics is just a theory
• ad infinitum

I swear, I'm gonna force, by rule of consistency, that they put all this disclaimer bs in, anywhere a noun is written. Hoping the book will be so cluttered that even the most zealous religious fundies get their infinite stupidity.

Yes, this is in reaction to 'mothers for jesus' or 'parents against the danger of atheism' or whoever senselessly attacking ratio. Guess what, ratio strikes back (even though I don't agree with this particular instance either, since that document was obviously a product of it's time, and it doesn't do anyone harm).

So, any more people coming in here putting up the religious suppressed martyr act, need to ***ing pay attention, if not, you risk coming off, and DID come off, as hypocrite.

Excuse me again for not having slept

not really. what that principal is doing can hardly be considered to be openminded.

You are completely wrong if you are referencing the Political meanings. Liberal and Conservative are simply words to denote the left and right, respectively. They not longer have much at all to do with the dictionary definition. the right can be open minded as much as the left can be closed minded, and your inability to see this just proves the point!

I was with you until that right there.

Gold. :p

when people do this things i just think of one thing!!!

La La La...I Cant Hear You...La La La !!!!

Well, i mean that the fact that he was saying all conservatives are close minded just showed how close minded he is. Both sides have thier own groups of open and closed minded individuals, saying all liberals are open minded and all conservatives are closed minded is just ignorant and insulting.

I thought he was arguing tha tpeople were incorrectly identifying themselves, but I get you now.

Anyway, my take on this is that it's entirely possible that the case is more complex than it seems. We don't have specifics (or if we do, they're complicated and I'm lazy). I can see a lot of situations where I'd be upset with a teacher for doing this, even if the way it is worded here makes it seem incredibly, incredibly stupid (which it does). However, my initial judgement is "Calm the hell down!"

I live in the Bible Belt, my teachers constantly throw in little biblical things, it can get on my nerves.

Math teacher: "Notice how it naturally forms this nautilus. Almost as if it were PLANNED that way."

Or:

English teacher: "Class, where else did we see something similar to this happen?"
Class: "Oh, oh, Josiah 3:29, when Jesus told the blind man to stop whining!"
(and of course I have no idea what is going on at this point)

etc.

This situation hardly seems like that, though.

The whole thing with religion vs. government (yes, I said versus) is on the verge of rediculous. Hell, it's way *past* rediculous.

Mention the word "god" - get in deep ****.

WTF is that?

I think the concern here was that the founding fathers are seen to represent America and American values, and if they promote religion, it does suggest that American values are inherently religious and anyone that opposes religion is 'unamerican'.

Now, there are various ways to tackle this:
- You could teach that being 'unamerican' isn't a bad thing. Anyone that doesn't live in America is 'unamerican', there isn't anything inherently 'bad' about all of them.
- You could teach that the founding fathers could have been wrong.
- You could teach that the founding fathers weren't especially good religious philosophers, as indeed they were trying to establish a country, not write any profound philosophical material.
- You could teach that the values of the founding fathers, and that of the 18th century in general, do not represent at all modern American society.

Those are all possibilities, but simply removing the religious stuff really seems a whole lot easier. Personally, I'd go for the last one, but the 'problem' that strikes up is that it leads on to suggest that the values promoted in the Constitution or the Declaration of the Indepedance do not represent modern society and are not valid because they represent an outdated system. That's probably not something you'd want to get dug down in, or something American schools would be too keen to teach.



What I find far more worrying is:


what. School children have to repeat the pledge of allegiance? Once? Every week?
Surely this must be only state schools. Is it actually law, or is it just tradition? Do all children off all ages have to do it?
What about exchange students or immigrants or students that simply don't support their country?
This sounds like mass indoctrination, force feeding them patriotism. That I think is scary. Getting rid of that should be a much higher priority than pushing for equality for atheists. Lets face it, America is not going to achieve secularisation any time soon.

It is allowed for students not to say the Pledge.

Too bad God still didn't like throw lightning bolts and totally beat people down like the bible refers to.

Dude, that's bs and you know it. 'Religion versus government'... Even more so in the US, now ruled by fundamentalist conservatives.

Why is everyone so interested in becoming a religious martyr? Fact is man, 'get in deep ****', that you're not prosecuted. You are not suffering for your belief. On the contrary.

There's actually a new wave of fundamentalism going through America, of fundy lawsuits trying to, AND succeeding in depriving students of science. Government versus religion? Wtf? Doesn't your president end his speeches of mass conditioning with 'may God continue to bless America [the best country on the face of the earth]'?

If anything, it's science -> deep ****. Your 'anti-religion' government just funded research on ESP with an insane amount of dollars. Yep, there are people dying of literally millions of diseases, but your government spends it on religion (which it is - faith not based on ratio).

Hey Mort-Hog, you know that in the US, more people believe in ESP than in evolution? You know what this means? It means people think 'Charmed' is a documentary and 'National Geographic' is fiction.

So for crying out loud, stop feeling sorry for yourself and take of the cross you burdened yourself with. It's guys like me who try to fight ignorance. I'm in the minority, not you.

Edit: and btw, apparently I'm losing that fight

i'm an atheist also.
these people need to get jobs.

Tradition. It is up to the individual school on the policy of it.

And I've always been confused how someone can use the term "unamerican". That doesn't make sense. There is no such thing as unamericanism. America is supposed to be diverse by nature.

Anyway, am I the only one that doesn't necessarily see this as a problem with religion vs government but atheistic ***holes making frivilous lawsuits, so then people like the principal feel they need to do everything to eradicate anything of God or bible from school so they don't get their ***es sued? I see this as an issue of fear.

Yep exactly, I see it like that as well.

I'd say that saying all Liberals are open minded is ignorant, but that saying all liberals are open minded is not. If your arsehat politicians want to start making up definitions, they can go for it, but we don't have to accept them.

here's the way i see it.
people are idiots.