I am beyond sick of the right wing Christians who can never stop trying to force their way into the public schools paid for with everyone's tax dollars. They personify the, "It's okay if we do it" mentality. They would go out of their tiny little minds should any other faith attempt to do what they're doing. There is no shortage of churches in this country. Religious broadcasters and Christian bookstores abound. That the religious right keeps trying to force their way into the public schools speaks directly to how badly the churches have failed at getting their message across. They want a captive audience who has not reached the age of reason.
I still think it's at least in part blotting out any religious POV other than their own. I can't escape the feeling that alternative belief systems stir up the cognitive dissonance in the two remaining brain cells they manage to maintain, and thoughts of Buddhism or Shinto or [EEEEK! Hide the children!!!] The Satanic Temple can give rise to discomfort if not panic attacks.
And here is one more reason why the Trump administration has no use for the D in DEI, especially as it comes to RELIGIOUS diversity.
Religion, to be successful, needs the faithful to rehearse the nonsense constantly or even the strongly faithful start to slip away and lose the faith. It is a brainwashing technique.
This is true. I've read quite a few accounts of Scientologists who gradually managed the gumption to up and leave. Once out from under the cult's influence, they're no longer constantly bombarded with Scientology propaganda via email, snailmail, unwanted magazines and brochures.
Without the continual rain of cult garbage, they begin to wake up and look at the real world without Scientology filters. And thus, another Suppressive Person is created!
Well see, it's a handy way to reach kids who aren't christian and indoctrinate them. I can just imagine the turmoil at home when little Waldo brings home a bible and starts spouting christian bullshit in a non-christian household. There would be damage, all caused because a handful of pushy christianist officials wish to access this pool of children.
Once someone has convinced themselves that their Jesus doesn't really much care about how people worship him so long as they do so, well. There really isn't any room for compromise there, now is there?
They do these things with what they believe is divine sanction; stopping would be a sin in their eyes. The reality is that this is how religion propagates itself; but don't bother arguing the point with the religious. Like any successful weed, it tosses its seeds everywhere and the only strategy for most of us is to keep close watch and strike the roots at first opportunity. It's tiring, thankless work but the world is a better place for it. Hang in there.
Also - please forgive if this is a daft question - there are religious schools parents could choose, or are there not? So, there is no need to turn a public (secular!) space into a religious one.
Or to put it differently: Jesus said, give to Caesar what is Caesar’s i.e. a public school is ‘Caesar’s space’, i.e. it is a ca public space, a secular space.
PS: I went to a school run by nuns and it didn’t do me any harm (or at least not much, but that’s a different story), but that was a choice which we took. My parents and me looked at the available schools in the area and I chose the one with the nuns. We then applied for a place for me and I got accepted.
Let me repeat that, it was a CHOICE, other options were available!
I was left deeply scarred nursing alcohol and nearing suicide because it was drilled into my head that jeezy hated queers. I was branded a heretic in 5th grade and had left mentally by 6th grade. When Obergfell was decided I had become hard-core anti-theist. I had learned that my rights as a human being were to be decided by others who faced NO restrictions on their hatreds.
No. No prayer no religious activities in public schools. You want your child to pray during school hours send your child to a Catholic School. And pay the bucks for that Mom and Dad. No. Just no. Or if Mom and Dad don't have the money make time for prayer in the home. And if Mom and Dad don't have the time? Make the time. Do not force children of other faiths or no faith to recite Christian prayers. School is hard enough without praying in the classroom as well.
It's more about preying on a pool of kids from different religious backgrounds who attend because it's mandatory. A nice little pen of potential sheep. Praying is just one of their excuses for why it's necessary to intrude their nonsense into public schools. That, and the teaching of 'values.' But a quick google sesh will reveal that christians often have zero values; scammers, abusers, con men and other noble attributes, preying on trusting parishioners. Because don't we all know that 'men of gawd' would never molest your kid or steal your money, right?
Hey Spiller! The subtle change you are calling for to allow administrators to "encourage" prayer seriously undermines the "require or coerce" parts that are left. It seems to me that a young child who is "encouraged" to do something by an adult authoity figure will feel like that activity is required of them, thereby making the encouragement coercive.
We see what you are trying to do. You are trying to use semantics to establish religion with just enough plausible deniability to get past the lower federal courts that aren't already bought and paid for by der Führer.
The version I had was divided in two parts, one about sex and the other about courtship and seduction (dancing, singing, playing music, massages, crafting jewelry...)
He can't even complain, since there is precedent in Texas for sexually explicit content in religious texts being allowed. Didn't they reverse the banning of the Bible for explicit content?
Wasn’t there actually a bit of a stushie because they had a preacher of a different faith saying prayers at a Republican event? Might have been the RNC? Can’t remember the details, apologies.
Your state's powergrid, how's THAT going? Your god got THAT all squared away, does he? Seems that's a far more pressing issue then trying to force students to do something they already do (the Christian ones, anyway. You do not have the right to push your beliefs on those students who do not share them).
It'd be amusing as hell if parents of non-christian students told their kids to stand up and push back. Kids will do that if they know they won't be in trouble with their parents.
I'd love to see Miss Sourpuss taken to task by one of her unbelieving students.
This is the same state that let a mother and her children drown while they were crossing the Rio (Your governor's a killer).
This is the same state that treats women...particulalrly pregnant women...abominably.
This is the same state where a sitting US Senator abandoned his state during a crisis and fled to Cancun to sip mojitos by the pool while his constituents (and even his own dog) froze.
Does Spiller truly believe Texas would be instilling morality in children by having them read the bible and praying? Maybe the kids could pray for new leadership in the Lone Brain Cell State.
Btw - how’s Texas with healthcare for poor people? Food stamps? Housing assistance? Clean air and water?
Oh, I forgot something, Texas was also the state where they forbade cities to make local by-laws requiring regular breaks and water for people working outside in stupid temperatures?
Maybe we could ask Jesus to take a trip to Texas and have a look what his ‘followers’ are doing ….
The air and water are mostly clean. The problem is finding the water.
And surprisingly Texas is a leader in adoption of green energy despite our asshole Governor blaming windmills for the power issues during the Great Freeze.
Go down to Pasadena, Channelview, or Texas (Toxic) City and eat some fish you pull from the bayous. No really you don’t want to do that. It may have three eyes.
Look, if congress can make representatives or senators voting against any Trump initiatives a felony, this law is small potatoes. It’s only going to get worse. No one in the GOP will push back on this crap anymore, no one in the Democratic Party has a spine to call them out. The Judicial system is a farce. So much of what Trump has done in the past… what eleven, days has been remotely constitutional and yet government officials have followed through. They’ve paused payments, they’ve removed websites, they’ve collected immigrants in mass numbers, they’ve fired hundreds of government workers, and it is costing us. 63 innocent people because Elon was expected to follow safety guidelines that have been developed over decades. Last term it was easy to count the folks who didn’t survive his administration, hundreds of thousand of Americans dead from his malicious mismanagement of the Covid pandemic, but this time it will be 63 here, hundreds there, one or two per state for this or that. Maybe it will be a slow trickle of death until he gets his moment to wipe out his “enemies” en mass.
This law probably won’t pass, we all know it solves nothing, but that’s not what the GOP is trying to do. They’re not here to govern. They want to rule.
We can wait for it to all fall apart, or we can retaliate.
And some of then will try to tell you the god of the New Testament isn't the vengeful asshole of the Old. They are either lying or deluded. Without that the cognitive dissonance would be fatal.
Storing and accumulating water in aqueducts, cisterns and reservoirs.
Magic or sorcery.
Practice with sword, single stick, quarter staff, and bow and arrow.
Carpentry, or the work of a carpenter.
Architecture, or the art of building.
Chemistry and mineralogy.
Knowledge of mines and quarries.
Art of cock fighting, quail fighting and ram fighting.
Art of teaching parrots and starlings to speak.
The art of understanding writing in cypher, and the writing of words in a peculiar way.
The art of speaking by changing the forms of words. It is of various kinds.
Some speak by changing the beginning and end of words, others by adding unnecessary letters between every syllable of a word, and so on.
Knowledge of dictionaries and vocabularies.
Knowledge of ways of changing and disguising the appearance of persons. Knowledge of the art of changing the appearance of things, such as making cotton to appear as silk, coarse and common things to appear as fine and good.
Art of obtaining possession of the property of others by means of muntras or
incantations.
Knowledge of the art of war, of arms, of armies, &c.
After they finish coming for the Ts and 2Ss, it'll be time for the LGI and the out Bs and As. What do you think Rainbow Flag or Pink Triangle this time?
True. However, everything I’ve read about religion over the past decade or so has led me to think that J-boy either didn’t exist, or was based on some minor Judean rabble-rouser who was probably killed in a street fight or something, the story of which was told over and and over until he was made into some kind of folk hero, getting more grandiose with each telling, until the street fight became a trial and execution, and the ruffian was transmogrified into the Messiah.
You only have to look at how the story of Superman evolved over time to see how that works. Originally he could “leap tall buildings in a single bound”, later he could fly.
I am beyond sick of the right wing Christians who can never stop trying to force their way into the public schools paid for with everyone's tax dollars. They personify the, "It's okay if we do it" mentality. They would go out of their tiny little minds should any other faith attempt to do what they're doing. There is no shortage of churches in this country. Religious broadcasters and Christian bookstores abound. That the religious right keeps trying to force their way into the public schools speaks directly to how badly the churches have failed at getting their message across. They want a captive audience who has not reached the age of reason.
They have gone out of their tiny minds when other faiths attempt it. See: After School Satan.
Their weakling god is jealous of all the other, far stronger gods. That is why it runs around bullying people.
Exodus 20:3 NIV
You shall have no other gods before me.
So gawd is admitting there are other gods. That is why I say gawd evolved from one of many to the only one.
Obligatory:
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/46c6580450014782981196859f916dfda9da20688c7dd5c8980d171158e24590.jpg
Gods always reflect the cultures that created them.
I still think it's at least in part blotting out any religious POV other than their own. I can't escape the feeling that alternative belief systems stir up the cognitive dissonance in the two remaining brain cells they manage to maintain, and thoughts of Buddhism or Shinto or [EEEEK! Hide the children!!!] The Satanic Temple can give rise to discomfort if not panic attacks.
And here is one more reason why the Trump administration has no use for the D in DEI, especially as it comes to RELIGIOUS diversity.
+++
+++
Religion, to be successful, needs the faithful to rehearse the nonsense constantly or even the strongly faithful start to slip away and lose the faith. It is a brainwashing technique.
This is true. I've read quite a few accounts of Scientologists who gradually managed the gumption to up and leave. Once out from under the cult's influence, they're no longer constantly bombarded with Scientology propaganda via email, snailmail, unwanted magazines and brochures.
Without the continual rain of cult garbage, they begin to wake up and look at the real world without Scientology filters. And thus, another Suppressive Person is created!
Well see, it's a handy way to reach kids who aren't christian and indoctrinate them. I can just imagine the turmoil at home when little Waldo brings home a bible and starts spouting christian bullshit in a non-christian household. There would be damage, all caused because a handful of pushy christianist officials wish to access this pool of children.
Once someone has convinced themselves that their Jesus doesn't really much care about how people worship him so long as they do so, well. There really isn't any room for compromise there, now is there?
They do these things with what they believe is divine sanction; stopping would be a sin in their eyes. The reality is that this is how religion propagates itself; but don't bother arguing the point with the religious. Like any successful weed, it tosses its seeds everywhere and the only strategy for most of us is to keep close watch and strike the roots at first opportunity. It's tiring, thankless work but the world is a better place for it. Hang in there.
Also - please forgive if this is a daft question - there are religious schools parents could choose, or are there not? So, there is no need to turn a public (secular!) space into a religious one.
Or to put it differently: Jesus said, give to Caesar what is Caesar’s i.e. a public school is ‘Caesar’s space’, i.e. it is a ca public space, a secular space.
PS: I went to a school run by nuns and it didn’t do me any harm (or at least not much, but that’s a different story), but that was a choice which we took. My parents and me looked at the available schools in the area and I chose the one with the nuns. We then applied for a place for me and I got accepted.
Let me repeat that, it was a CHOICE, other options were available!
I was left deeply scarred nursing alcohol and nearing suicide because it was drilled into my head that jeezy hated queers. I was branded a heretic in 5th grade and had left mentally by 6th grade. When Obergfell was decided I had become hard-core anti-theist. I had learned that my rights as a human being were to be decided by others who faced NO restrictions on their hatreds.
There are religious schools but that isn’t the point. The objective is to get to the kids whose parents would never send them to a religious school.
They have spaces for praying and reading the Bible. They’re called “home” and “church” - school is for learning.
They want "church" and "state".
Learning actual facts, not myths and fairy tales about bullying gods.
No. No prayer no religious activities in public schools. You want your child to pray during school hours send your child to a Catholic School. And pay the bucks for that Mom and Dad. No. Just no. Or if Mom and Dad don't have the money make time for prayer in the home. And if Mom and Dad don't have the time? Make the time. Do not force children of other faiths or no faith to recite Christian prayers. School is hard enough without praying in the classroom as well.
It's more about preying on a pool of kids from different religious backgrounds who attend because it's mandatory. A nice little pen of potential sheep. Praying is just one of their excuses for why it's necessary to intrude their nonsense into public schools. That, and the teaching of 'values.' But a quick google sesh will reveal that christians often have zero values; scammers, abusers, con men and other noble attributes, preying on trusting parishioners. Because don't we all know that 'men of gawd' would never molest your kid or steal your money, right?
Kind of like the Youth of Hitler movement in Germany in the 30s.
Hey Spiller! The subtle change you are calling for to allow administrators to "encourage" prayer seriously undermines the "require or coerce" parts that are left. It seems to me that a young child who is "encouraged" to do something by an adult authoity figure will feel like that activity is required of them, thereby making the encouragement coercive.
We see what you are trying to do. You are trying to use semantics to establish religion with just enough plausible deniability to get past the lower federal courts that aren't already bought and paid for by der Führer.
So damn true! Thank you @Joe King
So ... David Spiller wants to encourage prayer in schools. How about:
"Dear Buddha, please bring me a pony and a plastic rocket..."
Anyone wanna take a shot at how such a prayer would go over with Davie? I'm going to take a wild guess and say, "Not horribly well."
I've got a better idea! have the student get out their copy of the Kama Sutra! Reading religious texts is "encouraged", after all.
With or without illustrations ?
The spells for coming forth by day, with the weighing of the heart.
Illustrated, of course!
😁
I actually read it in my late teens and I kinda remembered something.
https://virtualvinodh.com/writings/assorted/homosexuality-kamasutra
I gave it a cursory glance over once. None of that stuff looked like fun to me.
The version I had was divided in two parts, one about sex and the other about courtship and seduction (dancing, singing, playing music, massages, crafting jewelry...)
WITH. If you are going to drive them spastic, do it well.
Hot ziggedy!!!
He can't even complain, since there is precedent in Texas for sexually explicit content in religious texts being allowed. Didn't they reverse the banning of the Bible for explicit content?
Any bets that Spiller has NO IDEA about Ezekiel 23:20? Betcha a cup of java that he hasn't Clue One!
His eyes just slide past it when he is reading his bible. Maybe he would find out about it with an illustrated version?
Or 'Song of Songs'.
You really want to get a rise out of ole Davie? Start your prayer like this: "O, Great Goddess, Mother of all life...."
"Oh, heavenly Grid..."
The pony, fine....but something tells me Bud would carve a rocket from Ficus religiosa wood. 🫡
Could be. I was just relating what Malcolm Reynolds wanted. 😁
I’d love to see that, his reaction!
Wasn’t there actually a bit of a stushie because they had a preacher of a different faith saying prayers at a Republican event? Might have been the RNC? Can’t remember the details, apologies.
The wrong kind of preacher bit does sound kinda familiar.
Hey, Spiller...
Your state's powergrid, how's THAT going? Your god got THAT all squared away, does he? Seems that's a far more pressing issue then trying to force students to do something they already do (the Christian ones, anyway. You do not have the right to push your beliefs on those students who do not share them).
It'd be amusing as hell if parents of non-christian students told their kids to stand up and push back. Kids will do that if they know they won't be in trouble with their parents.
I'd love to see Miss Sourpuss taken to task by one of her unbelieving students.
It's obvious it will be fueled by the forced prayers, dummychou.
I strongly encourage Republican State Rep. David Spiller to go fuck himself with a cactus.
Sideways and without lubricant.
Don’t forget the chili powder
Made from Carolina Reapers.
Then the door was open and the wind appeared
The candles blew and then disappeared
The curtains flew and then he appeared
Saying don't be afraid
And the ginger oil.
Especially if we can light it on fire.
You don't need to put it on fire, just apply it on a mucous membrane to cause a sensation of burn without actual damage. Don't rinse, repeat.
And the capsaicin!
Already in the chili powder.
I mean STRAIGHT capsaisin! Chili powder is for amateurs! 😈
Rub the essence of a ghost peppers on the cactus, and infect it Ebola, just for good measure.
Somebody remind these morons that as long as schools give algebra tests, THERE. WILL. BE. PRAYER. IN. SCHOOLS.
In the current climate, that's more likely to result in them banning math class.
Numbers lernin is uv the debble. They's them airibik numbers and thy got that there WRONG god.
This is the same state that let a mother and her children drown while they were crossing the Rio (Your governor's a killer).
This is the same state that treats women...particulalrly pregnant women...abominably.
This is the same state where a sitting US Senator abandoned his state during a crisis and fled to Cancun to sip mojitos by the pool while his constituents (and even his own dog) froze.
Does Spiller truly believe Texas would be instilling morality in children by having them read the bible and praying? Maybe the kids could pray for new leadership in the Lone Brain Cell State.
I can’t ‘like’ this!
Btw - how’s Texas with healthcare for poor people? Food stamps? Housing assistance? Clean air and water?
Oh, I forgot something, Texas was also the state where they forbade cities to make local by-laws requiring regular breaks and water for people working outside in stupid temperatures?
Maybe we could ask Jesus to take a trip to Texas and have a look what his ‘followers’ are doing ….
The air and water are mostly clean. The problem is finding the water.
And surprisingly Texas is a leader in adoption of green energy despite our asshole Governor blaming windmills for the power issues during the Great Freeze.
Thankyou.
Does that mean that Texas is not part of the region known as ‘cancer alley’? Serious question. (I am not local.)
I’ve never heard the term applied to Texas.
Thankyou.
Go down to Pasadena, Channelview, or Texas (Toxic) City and eat some fish you pull from the bayous. No really you don’t want to do that. It may have three eyes.
The agency in charge of “environmental quality “ is actually a shill for the oil companies.
Thankyou for your response.
It’ll be a few years before I visit the US again. And even then Texas isn’t really on the plan. Apologies.
How damn invasive and insensitive to other's beliefs and a clear mixture of church and state!!
Get the Fuck out of my personal life.
They never get dissuaded until the 'negative' example happens. So what we need is:
1. Student or teacher reads Satanic book and prays to Satan before school.
2. Other student or teacher tries to stop them.
3. Original student sues district for violation of the 'person may not require or coerce a person to refrain from prayer' aspect of the bill.
4. Texas gets rid of bill when they realize non-Christians will use it to prevent Christians from harassing them.
4. Texas modifies the bill to prevent non-Christians from harassing them.
Look, if congress can make representatives or senators voting against any Trump initiatives a felony, this law is small potatoes. It’s only going to get worse. No one in the GOP will push back on this crap anymore, no one in the Democratic Party has a spine to call them out. The Judicial system is a farce. So much of what Trump has done in the past… what eleven, days has been remotely constitutional and yet government officials have followed through. They’ve paused payments, they’ve removed websites, they’ve collected immigrants in mass numbers, they’ve fired hundreds of government workers, and it is costing us. 63 innocent people because Elon was expected to follow safety guidelines that have been developed over decades. Last term it was easy to count the folks who didn’t survive his administration, hundreds of thousand of Americans dead from his malicious mismanagement of the Covid pandemic, but this time it will be 63 here, hundreds there, one or two per state for this or that. Maybe it will be a slow trickle of death until he gets his moment to wipe out his “enemies” en mass.
This law probably won’t pass, we all know it solves nothing, but that’s not what the GOP is trying to do. They’re not here to govern. They want to rule.
We can wait for it to all fall apart, or we can retaliate.
Fuck Trump. Fuck the GOP. Fuck all the MAGAots and assholes who didn’t vote. The blood is on all their hands.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/810a1f7016091dc8f0de8ab26308c89558e2e5f020f5b9c5d0259627fdbe9e72.jpg
Christianity - as a philosophy - needs to be called out as the dangerous, immoral drivel it is:
“Shun them..” * (Rom.16:17)
“Kill them in front of me..” - JESUS (Lk19:27)
“Remove your blessing..shake their dust from your feet.” - JESUS (Mat10:13)
“Burn them..”- JESUS (John 15:6)
“Hate them” - JESUS (Lk 14:26)
“I have come not to bring peace but a sword..” - JESUS (mt10:34)
"The slave must be severely punished..- JESUS (Lk12:47)
“If a man abide not in me, cast him to the fire”-JESUS
It is inhuman, undemocratic, unthinking, absolutist garbage.
And some of then will try to tell you the god of the New Testament isn't the vengeful asshole of the Old. They are either lying or deluded. Without that the cognitive dissonance would be fatal.
Not to mention primitive and ignorant!
insert after "Bible" ", Kama Sutra"
Really, Texas. Give it a rest.
The Kama sutra recommends studying (amongst others) the following subjects:
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/27827/27827-h/27827-h.htm
Storing and accumulating water in aqueducts, cisterns and reservoirs.
Magic or sorcery.
Practice with sword, single stick, quarter staff, and bow and arrow.
Carpentry, or the work of a carpenter.
Architecture, or the art of building.
Chemistry and mineralogy.
Knowledge of mines and quarries.
Art of cock fighting, quail fighting and ram fighting.
Art of teaching parrots and starlings to speak.
The art of understanding writing in cypher, and the writing of words in a peculiar way.
The art of speaking by changing the forms of words. It is of various kinds.
Some speak by changing the beginning and end of words, others by adding unnecessary letters between every syllable of a word, and so on.
Knowledge of dictionaries and vocabularies.
Knowledge of ways of changing and disguising the appearance of persons. Knowledge of the art of changing the appearance of things, such as making cotton to appear as silk, coarse and common things to appear as fine and good.
Art of obtaining possession of the property of others by means of muntras or
incantations.
Knowledge of the art of war, of arms, of armies, &c.
https://www.salon.com/2025/02/01/trans-army-pilot-falsely-tied-to-plane-crash-speaks-out-not-surprised-by-the-hate/
Typical. If she was flying the helicopter, why is she still alive?
After they finish coming for the Ts and 2Ss, it'll be time for the LGI and the out Bs and As. What do you think Rainbow Flag or Pink Triangle this time?
2Ss?
2 souls ?
2-spirit is the official name (minor nitpick, you have the idea)
It's a miracle praise JEBUS!!!
I wish I had never heard of Jebus or his religion.
Well, if Mary (Joseph’s wife) had a god damm abortion, we wouldn’t have to deal with all that batshit crazy Christianity now!
True. However, everything I’ve read about religion over the past decade or so has led me to think that J-boy either didn’t exist, or was based on some minor Judean rabble-rouser who was probably killed in a street fight or something, the story of which was told over and and over until he was made into some kind of folk hero, getting more grandiose with each telling, until the street fight became a trial and execution, and the ruffian was transmogrified into the Messiah.
You only have to look at how the story of Superman evolved over time to see how that works. Originally he could “leap tall buildings in a single bound”, later he could fly.
The Deep State. They rescued her from the crash and substituted another body.