Hear, Hear!

It's about time.

In my kids' school, Halloween has been designated "Fall Festival" and Christmas has been renamed "Winter Break". No word on what non-Christian holidays have been renamed.

The kids were even warned - obliquely - that Halloween is verboten.

I'm about this -->

Bloody hell. Dhimmitude, thy name is the American public school system.

Thom

Easter break became Spring Break several years back too...AND many times it no longer even falls around Easter. As I remember, it was always between Palm and Easter Sundays.

Yes, scrub the public square of America's Judeo-Christian identity, and let kids play at all the OTHER religions.

How many more Johnny Walker Lindhs will be the result?

What hypocrites! Why don't they teach them the real story about Islam, like in the Sudan, Pakistan, the Taliban, Hitler collaboration, love of jihad?

Dang. My #2 confused the html genie thingie.

What I was trying to say is that I am

"this -- /-- close to homseschooling, or is that tantamount to surrender?"

Sorry.

OT:

I am being clobbered in a German-speaking forum by a coalition of Moslem Arabs and socialist Germans. So what else is new, you ask? Well, it's supposed to be a Jewish forum.

The thread is here at hagalil.com.

Any German speakers on LGF today? kid c.? You do not have to be registered there to post a comment.

Apologies to anyone who feels my comment does not belong in this thread -- you are right.

OT, but Charles, I sent this to you by email... Sadly, the EU reaction to their own report is not unexpected.

Disgusting, but not unexpected:

The European Union's racism watchdog has shelved a report on anti-semitism because the study concluded Muslims and pro-Palestinian groups were behind many of the incidents it examined.

The way you say "this close" in print is thisclose!

-We allow them access to our young children's minds...

-We allow them access and study privileges to inmates...

-We are so, so, PC'ly correct and allow them to be racists against us, all the while they're screaming at us that we're racists...

When will we wake up? "We" being the West as a whole.

C.

Remember, kids: The single greatest threat to church-state separation in America is the movement known as . . . the Religious Right.

I have no objection to teaching high school kids about other religions, so long as the course is not required. Ideally, they should get a good ground in their own culture first (which I know doesn't happen much in these multi-culti times) before wading into foreign waters.

That mandatory course in Islam that Duke University had for incoming freshmen for a short while was much more reprehensible, IMO.

Thom-- that depends what are you surrendering?

Your children to a deficient, hipoctitical, over-priced system of dumbing our children down ?

Faith (oops,sorry) in our government school system?

Saving your children from a fate worse than death (dhimmitude) is a victory, not a surrender

Those damn Christians! What with their wanting to be able to worship and stuff! Always ramming their faith down our throats and converting us by force with their celebration of holidays and wearing crosses. What? Islam? Oh sure, we should teach, endorse, make exceptions for and celebrate that everywhere. When we run around screaming "seperation of church and state," you didn't think we meant on principle, did you?

#12 Sanity,

When schools offer a course on Comparative Religions, it does so from the stance of studying their history, culture, practices, beliefs, etc. It doesn't take one religion and say to kidlets... let's be them for a few days, eh?

I also feel such classes should be restricted to 7th grade and up. IMHO, of course!

Can you imagine these students being asked to fast on Yom Kippur, or to eat only fish on Fridays, or to fast (Catholic definition of the term*) or give up candy on the 40 days of Lent?

Such utter hypocrisy.

*To Catholics, the term "fast", for Lent, means to eat only one full meal a day, and whatever else is eaten that day, should add up to less than that. Since Vatican II, this has only been required on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, not the entire period of Lent (less Sundays) as in olden days.

In a local public library, there was a poster titled "exploring Islam" or similar. Just before I noticed it, I was copying a WSJ column on Islamic terror for myself; when I saw the poster, I made one more copy, found a couple of thumbtacks, and posted a copy of the article right over the bottom of the poster.

Just curious, are Muslim students in that school system allowed to opt out of sex education?

When I was in 5th grade in public school, we were asked to read a biography of a famous person in history and report on it.

I chose a book about Martin Luther. I grew up in a Catholic home; my 5th-grade teacher also happened to be Catholic. She asked to have my parents' permission to read the book, because in her opinion, the book was overly sympathetic to Martin Luther, and she did not want to be in the position of seeming to endorse anti-Catholic propaganda.

How times have changed!

Er, I'm afraid to ask what they call the Easter Bunny these days.

"Spring Festival Enslaved-Human-Companion Rabbit", perhaps?

What is wrong with that teacher to even have thought of offering "extra" credit for a religious custom?

Isn't that discrimination in principle? Are the Muslim children going to get extra credit for doing so?

I thought children under a certain age were exempt from fasting? Does anyone know?

You know, this could solve the whole school lunch funding program problem. Extra credit is cheaper than buying food, you know.

Heck, why not give an automatic A to any student that doesn't eat anything for the entire school year, day and night?

Answered my own question: Children under the age of puberty are exempt from fasting -

[Link: www.jordan-explorer.com...]

Those who are exempt form fasting are children under age,

[Link: www.ezsoftech.com...]

Children under the age of puberty.

#19 Nancy: Trust me, if the members of a Christian church in the community told the school that on days x-y their children would be observing a religious fast, the school would move at warp speed to have the children removed from the home for dangerous and abusive treatment.

PS: this was their mistake --not mine --

exempt form fasting

Model4 (#22),

And the ACLU would get an injunction to have the whole school shut down and fumigated. ;-)

#7
tictoc et al,
You can go here to iTools -
[Link: www.itools.com...]
at which you can paste any URL into a web page language translator.

I call the Easter Bunny rabbit with mustard sauce. A few pureed root vegggies, some nice Pinot Noir and he is delicious.

I have this fantasy in which all the world's festivals are consolidated into 8 mega-festivals:

Winter Solstice: Hannukah, Christmas, New Year

Winter Cross-Quarter: Candlemas/Groundhog Day, Valentines Day, Mardi Gras/Ash Wednesday, Chinese New Year, Mela, start of Ramadan

Vernal Equinox: Passover, Easter, Holi, Spring Break

Spring Cross-Quarter: Pentecost, Shavu'ot, May Day, Cinco de Mayo

Summer Solstice: Fourth of July, Bastille Day, Dominion Day

Summer Cross-Quarter:...hmmm... not much on at this time of year (around August 1)

Autumnal Equinox: Days of Awe, Ashura

Autumn Cross-Quarter: Halloween/All Saint's Day/Day of the Dead, Diwali

/Universalist Moonbattery

Speaking of the Easter Bunny:

I know the early Christians celebrated Christmas around December 25 because that was about the time of the Roman's solstice celebrations, and wouldn't bring undue attention.

Easter, on the other hand, is tied to The Last Supper, which was a Passover sedar, and thus Easter comes during the Spring. Most years Easter is celebrated about the same time as Passover, every few years (IIRC) it misses for reasons I am not sure of.

Anyway, rabbitts and eggs are almost certainly pagan fertility symbols. I guess Spring is as good a time as any to have fertility festivals, but how such pagan trappings have gotten involved in Easter, I have no idea.

I know Thanksgiving is basically a celebration of a successful Fall harvest (and to give thanks to G_d for the successful harvest). So shouldn't T-day be late October, not late November? If the Pilgrims had settled in central Texas, a late November harvest festival would make sense, but it is kind of late for that kind of thing in New England, IMHO.

Its about time, my uncle left AMECA not too long ago saying that they were full of Islam apologists... I guess something opened their eyes eh?

Ed Moran (#28),

I know the early Christians celebrated Christmas around December 25 because that was about the time of the Roman's solstice celebrations, and wouldn't bring undue attention.

Read this translation of an ancient roman guide to Saturnalia to see how closely Christmas was copied from it.

Sub sole nihil novi

Fed up with Christmas and all its excesses? Such woes have an ancient provenance. The following manuscript was recently unearthed during building work in Rome. Written in colloquial, even chatty, Latin (our translation can only be an approximation), the text is a first-century guide to etiquette during Saturnalia, the pagan festival which Christmas replaced. Such guides were popular among imperial Rome’s workaholic middle class

Ed Moran: And the Christmas tree is also a pagan symbol- the Druids worship trees still. I find these histories of rituals and festivals fascinating.

On Thanksgiving, didn't the pilgrims have a really lousy harvest that year? The story goes that the Indians gifted them with a feast and saved them. (Little did the Indians know what lay ahead for them.) I think a lot of the harvest celebration thing was added later.

Also, the Canadian Thanksgiving is in October, perhaps more appropriately.

Does anyone know if the NYC schools still have those Muslim prayer rooms? Quite an unequal accommodation, if you ask me.

Geepers:

My gut feeling is that this is a modern satire

• How can I avoid family arguments over which shows to watch?

There is no point in having such arguments, since nothing of quality is ever put on for the holidays. It is always the same old formula: criminals torn to pieces, a commercial break, followed by Gauls eviscerated, and ending with a crowd-scramble when the emperor throws out vouchers for free wine.

Are there any druids left to worship trees?

Well there are those neo-Druid Celt Wiccan people. You know, the ones who have pewter dragon figurines and played a lot of Dungeons and Dragons as children.

And probably as adults...

Ed Moran, That's what I thought too, but the Economist is too stodgy not to put the [parody] disclaimer on it.

I think translating any colloquial texts centuries later would be hard, and this gives an modern feel for the 'intent' of the writer.

Either way it's fun. ;-)

IAH went from 75 farenheit (that is for SoCal Justice) to 60 farenheit between 1 pm CST and 2 pm CST with the passage of the bitter arctic front. ( 24 to 16 for our European friends). DFW already 48/9, Dalhart, Texas is 33F/1C, with a windchill of 23F/-5C.

BTW, the dewpoint temperature at DFW is 22F (-5C), which suggests a steep drop in temps after dark, especially if the winds drop ( the clouds are clearing out now).

Freeze warnings for the northern suburbs of HOU. I may indeed be scraping ice of the windshield, as I live in a normally colder suburb ( although I am south of the warning). I don't plan to cover/wrap my Washingtonia Robusta, as they are able to handle temperatures as cold as -5C ( thus they are quite popular in the HOU area. I have seen a few businesses in DFW with W. Robusta, but I suspect it may be a bit too cold during the harsher DFW winters for them)

The multiculti brigade seems determined to have our society commit cultural suicide. But whenever I fret too much, I think of an incident with my daughter in the 4th grade.

I looked at one of her school books and saw a word problem about Wang Pao having 12 apples to give to his friends Treboro and Juniatta (I'm making these names up, but you get the idea)...

I commented to my daughter about how unusual the names were, and she said that basically her whole class snickers when they read that sort of stuff.

We live in a fairly diverse school district, but even the Asian kids have typical American names, like Tiffany and James.

I know this seems minor compared to inculcating Islam in our children, but the point is that even kids can see clearly through PC bullshit.

Still, it's a sad state of affairs when 10-year-olds are wiser than the bone-headed educators charged with teaching them.

On an unrelated note, two US soldiers were killed in Iraq, their throats slit, and their weapons and personal effects stolen.

Iraq has become the frontline in the war against radical islam ( along with Israel ).

I pray for our soldiers, and the people of Israel.

(BTW, I meant to capitalize islam, but missed the shift key, but on further review, I'll leave it lower case).

Just when I thought the Texans had the Patriots beat. Zheesh.

Never mind.

The Texans have the ball. 4th and 3, Chris Brown is coming in to kick a field goal for a 7 point lead.

Hard to watch the game and type at the same time.

For some reason, Fox isn't showing the Dallas game here.

For the ultimate in extra credit, they can follow this example:

Iraqi teenagers dragged the bloody bodies of two American soldiers from a wrecked vehicle and pummeled them with concrete blocks

I'm sure the teacher would be honored to be the victim for the sake of cross-cultural studies.

#33 Ed Moran: Abu Dr. Flatulus Maximus Presbyterious: You've obviously never heard of the Sierra Club. And they're the "moderates."

To think that the radical Islam just all of a sudden in 1979 popped up with Jimmy Carter's hostage crisis is naive. Islam in itself is radical - jihad anyone? Wahhabism is a more radical spawn of Islam, and Radical Wahhabism (Al Qeda, Taliban, etc.) are the reactions of people who think that the Wahhabis are hypocritical in doing business with the West.

As such, here is part of a book review of Jon Loftus's, the Secret War against the Jews.

The modern world begins, the authors suggest, at the end of World War I, when British diplomat/adventurers Jack Philby (father of Soviet spy Kim Philby and legendary Arabist) and Lawrence of Arabia endeavour to unify a bunch of warring Bedouin tribes into nationhood, best represented by Saudi Arabia. Aware that black gold (oil) lies underneath the desert sands, Philby gingerly befriends Ibn Saud, and makes him the first Saudi king. But Philby is not solely interested in empire, even his own British one; he is interested in making money, and forges an alliance with an American intelligence agent in charge of Middle Eastern affairs, Allen Dulles. By the 1930s, Ibn Saud and Philby are secret supporters of the Nazi rise to political power in Germany, and bring Dulles, a NYC-based corporate lawyer for Sullivan and Cromwell, in on their scheme. It is a triple game driven by their hatred of Zionism and the Jews, motivated by their obsessive seeking of profits, and designed to completely transform the landscape of the Middle East. Philby and Dulles convince Ibn Saud to allow limited Jewish immigration to Palestine, assuring him that the numbers will never challenge or upset his control. When Jews leave Germany, their assets are confiscated by Hitler, who shares a percentage of these with dummy corporations established by Philby, Dulles, and their allies. Some of this money is used to arm Ibn Saud, and intelligence disclosures to him by Philby enable Ibn Saud to become king of Saudi Arabia over other Arab leaders supported by the British government. This double-dealing by British and American corporations continues throughout World War II, and incredibly is never halted by the Western allies, who would rather that Dulles stay in place and round up German intelligence agents after World War II's end for the upcoming Cold War against a previous ally, the USSR. One of the reasons that Jews are so hated by this clique, which includes Rockefeller's Standard Oil, is that many Jews were supporters of the left, anathema to corporate internationalists.

You may find the rest at john-loftus.com

PDM.

Good to see you.

You may have a fan club. I saw a white Mustang in the parking garage of the Sak's in the shopping mall/hotel/ice rink/office building complex with Texas plate PDM.

One of your many fans, I assume.

Spoke too soon, now the Pats are driving.

Flag on the 18.

No, its a late hit on Wong.

Ed Moran:

Yes, Thanksgiving used to be in the last part of October. That would tie in nicely with my proposed Universalist Fall Cross-Quarter Festival.

And I'd actually prefer that it was still in October, because now it is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Christmas.

The Texans are happy to go to overtime.

Fools, Infidels!

Gotta go, my 2 year old is awake from his nap, and he is the master of the right mouse click.

Somehow, he knows how to change text size to small, so web pages look funny to me when I open them, and he changes settings on other things.

So time to shutdown -F the old (1998) Gateway.

ATLAST, 'The American Middle-East Christian Association'.

It is nice to see that Arab Christians are beginning to speak up.

Till now CAIR and other such groups have inflated the numbers of Muslims in the US by counting all Arabs as Christians. I suppose they do this in 'good faith', as in their view, all Arabs are technically born Muslims.

Arab Christians are the one group that can take on CAIR for several reasons

1. Arab Christians have been the main victims o Islam in the ME and know what is is to be a Christian and be at the mercy of the RoP.

2. Arab Christian cannot be accused of racism by CAIR and our own Lefties.

Hm I have to try posting this via my shell account since AOL/Compuserve are blocked from posting (I'm on "vacation" in nyc at the moment)

This reminds me of the exchange here I had with von a few weeks ago about that Ilsamic Camp and the boy scouts, and the differences (which amounted to the ACLU = "protecting *unpopular* speech and not simply speech)

Encouraging students to fast in celebration of Ramadan is no different from having a Seder in class to celebrate Passover or to have "red wine" (or grape juice) and wafers to demonstrate what it is Catholics do for Christmas (or any other sunday really)

"To think that the radical Islam just all of a sudden in 1979 popped up with Jimmy Carter's hostage crisis"

Is that the same guy as "Dhimmi Carter"?

#44 Ed Moran:Abu Dr. Flatulus Maximus Presbyterious

You may have a fan club. I saw a white Mustang in the parking garage of the Sak's in the shopping mall/hotel/ice rink/office building complex with Texas plate PDM.

The police haven't been able to find my car... but leave it to Ed Moran:Abu Dr. Flatulus Maximus Presbyterious. Good work Ed.

Gotta go, my 2 year old is awake from his nap, and he is the master of the right mouse click.

Somehow, he knows how to change text size to small, so web pages look funny to me when I open them, and he changes settings on other things.

It only gets worse pal.

I could not find the site for 'The American Middle-East Christian Association'. Does anyone know.

Googling got me this

[Link: christianactionforisrael.org...]

Which is a site for Christian Action for Israel. It catalogues the depravities Muslims towars Israel and Christians in the ME.

And this

[Link: christianactionforisrael.org...]

43 Firebrand

Yup. Jihad is as old as Islam itself. In fact Islam, the Koran and Jihad are inextricably linked.

When our leaders ask Muslims to condemn violence, they may get some meally-mouthed denunciation of violence and terrorism by Muslims and with a 'BUT Isreal blah blah...'

What our leaders should demand is that Muslims condemn THE JIHAD. That is the acid test.

Clearly these teachers do not understand how to teach facts. Remember those? Now teachers want students to have experiences. Sorry, but some experiences (such as living under a veil) I can do without.

I went to a Catholic High School (Jesuit) and we had a very rigourous year long course in world religions. I learned about the history of just about every faith you can name... No fasting necessary.

To this day I can name the pillars of Islam and the high holy days of the Jewish calender. I was able to learn about these without experiencing them. We had these amazing things called BOOKS and we READ from them. then the teacher actually stood in front of the class and lectured - imagine that!

I think that in many ways having chirldren go throught he motions of another faith only cheapens the beliefs by making them into a childrens game. I sure wouldn't support having a public school teaching children to perform the mass... then again I have no worries on that score.

Here's the local newspaper's take on the story. Link

11 NC

From The Americans United Website: [Link: www.au.org...]

"The single greatest threat to church-state separation in America is the movement known as the Religious Right. Organizations and leaders representing this religio-political crusade seek to impose a fundamentalist Christian viewpoint on all Americans through government action.

Americans United, as part of our educational responsibility, regularly monitors the agenda and activities of the Religious Right. We share our research with journalists, elected officials and all Americans who care about church-state separation, democracy and pluralism."

You betcha - Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell are the single greatest threat to this country. I think we should do even more to remove any sembelance of religious devotion, morality, or sense of right and wrong from our government. There's too much there already.
Especially our schools.
We need much more PC indoctrination and multiculti (a religion, but hey it's progressive so it's OK). Our children are being warped by any mention of an absolute truth or greater responsibility. The only sure way to ensure that our country is safe, is to instill an unwavering adherance to moral relativism. As America is attacked by mad islamofascists that want to assasinate every man, woman and child, hopefully our leaders will have been fully absorbed into the "America is Wrong at any Cost" school of ideology. It is our only hope of surviving the onslaught. The first thing will be to turn over the gun owners, followed by the 'religious right' (though no doubt many of those would be swept up with the gun owners). This would set us up for dhimmitude [Link: dhimmiwatch.org...]
Of course that may be a problem for Americans United - afterall we would be under sharia law...

/sarc off

You got a problem with religion? - tough, don't listen (pray, bow, dance, self-immolate, whatever). Falwell and Robertson don't speak for me or most others, but at least they don't want to help our enemies indoctrinate our kids. Barry Lynn is a hypocrit to the extreme - masqurading as a preacher to sell his leftist crap.
You're nothing but a hate-religion group with stained glass windows.

This is probably not the right forum for this argument, but I coudn't let this pass.

If you were being sarcastic with your post, then nevermind.

#38
I remember teaching seventh grade pre-algebra to a class of Mexican-American kids in a tiny rural school outside of Austin, TX. I stopped in the middle of a word problem where we had to turn Juanita's situation into an equation or something similar. I looked at the kids and dead-panned, "Let me ask you kids honestly. Does having the names in these problems sound Latino motivate you to study harder or help you learn better?" Well these kids looked at me in a way that basically asked "WTF are you talking about???" I then explained to them that there are a lot of people who write textbooks and are in charge of educational 'issues' who think that because of their ethnicity they need those chorus of "That's the stupidest thing I ever heard!" and "What?? What do they think we're dumb or something?" was music to my ears. That cleared up my sociological concern for the year and they were factoring quadratic equations by the end of the year.

preview is my friend -- pardon the grammar glitch - damn laptops.

The reason for the separation of church and state was, in their infinite wisdom, the founding fathers clearly recognized the peril to which we would eventually be subjected when (not if) the church ceased the power of the state...and all that this implies. In this regard, the church (Christian Church of course) was wisely seen to be a danger to the state.

We still collectively feel the same way today regarding the Christian Church. On the other hand, the PC style embrace of Islamic hocum inside government sponsored schools clearly demonstrates the universal regard for Islam as a harmless expression of love and peace.

#60 JOEY

The 1st amendment ≠ "separation of church and state".

C'mon now everyone...I'm SURE the school doesn't favor one religion over another. In fact, I'm positive that the parental consent forms for next month's circumcisions and baptisms are in the mail already.

#57 john

I'm pretty sure NC was being sarcastic.

60 JOEY

You said:
"The reason for the separation of church and state was, in their infinite wisdom, the founding fathers clearly recognized the peril to which we would eventually be subjected when (not if) the church ceased the power of the state...and all that this implies. In this regard, the church (Christian Church of course) was wisely seen to be a danger to the state."

The founding fathers never recognized any such thing. Are you trying to say that they thought the church was going to attempt a coup on the government? And that the constitution was aeffort to strop the take over? I must have read a very different document than you. The first amendment states [Link: memory.loc.gov...] :Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
This says that the government shall not establish a religion. A far cry from preventing a church take over. Why do you say 'Christian Church of course'? Gotta a problem with Christians?

You said: "We still collectively feel the same way today regarding the Christian Church. "
Who's we? Please point to one example of this. I think if you look closely, exactly the opposite is going on. Judeo/Christian beliefs are being systematically rooted out of all public discourse - to be replaced with a divinty of multiculti, PC and new age phyco babble.

63 Colt

Yeah, I think you may be right.

What a waste of a good head of steam... ;-)

#64 john: abu enough of this crap

Judeo/Christian beliefs are being systematically rooted out of all public discourse - to be replaced with a divinty of multiculti, PC and new age phyco babble.

Exactly. To hell with the 1st amendment, up with "separation of church and state", which in this effed-up world is code for "government (the judicial branch in particular) trampling on certain religions and the constitution".

#60 JOEY: Thanks for sharing your ignorance. Now your task is to find the person who did this to you (albeit with your complicity) and spend the day bitch-slapping each other for your shared idiocy.

First, the Founding Fathers' wisdom wasn't infinite, though pretty darn amazing. Good enough that if they'd agreed there should be a "seperation of church and state," they'd have put it in the Constitution along with all the other ideas they thought were important.

There's also no such thing as "the Christian Church." There are several branches of Christianity, and they didn't want the state to establish any one over the other.

Read a little more before posting again. OK, a lot more. And quit pretending to speak for others when you're so desperately clueless.

#34 Stormi Abu Flashdance Legwarmers 11/23/2003 12:15PM PST

easy now i collect dragon and wizard figurines and love rpg [ad&d style games] i even still play on muds mudconnector.com and i'm not a crystal carrying wiccan druid i actually think its funny when they do their yearly stonehenge thing so please dont put me on their level

The "separation of church and state" means:

God doesn't help the state.

Do you want this?

Hello crew.

This is my first post here (oh, the emotions...)
I'm Italian, currently living in London and... you will learn with time all the rest.

I'm not willing to become a dhimmi for sure!

Then: the early Christians in the Roman Empire did a lot of work to give a Christian signifiance to older Pagan festivals - even some minor gods/legendary figures were turned into christian saints.

The Easter date, according to the Catholic use, is calculated from the lunar phase, and thus does not match the standard months. In fact, the date of Easter can range from 1st to 25th April, more or less.

I studied Latin and latin authors, and I can tell you that the translation is probably a bit fanciful, but Saturnalia were a real chaos of banquets, alcohol, orgies and bloody public shows...

BTW, in Italy a child's parents (or the pupil himself, if over 18yrs) can choose wether to attend the "religion" - now probably is more a comparative religions course, I guess - or not.

Bye people
Fabio

#69 Jackson 11/23/2003 03:32PM PST

>The "separation of church and state" means:
>God doesn't help the state.
>Do you want this?

Oh, my ...
Is church the god? No.
It is even debatable if a church is a representative of a/the god.
That a church says so is not an indicator that it reflects any factual reality.

From the article

Students were also given another option. Instead of fasting, they can type a two-page paper comparing different religions that encourage sacrifice during the year, according to a permission slip sent home to parents.

I wonder if any Jewish kids will write about what they learned from fasting on Yom Kippur? Hindus writing about a sacrifice, Wiccans- hey this could get interesting.

It would serve the school right if instead of teaching the kids about Ramadan, the teachers end up doing a lot research to grade papers about a variety of once esoteric religous customs.

Easter is now calculated as occuring on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox (first day of spring). Don't know if it was ever thus, or what the current formula for Passover is. FWIW.

Welcome to LGF, Fabio:-)

where can I contribute?

#87 MODEL 4

You said, "Thanks for sharing your ignorance."

In case you aren't aware, the 127'th ammendment clearly states, "a right to be an ignoramus".

hi all
my two cents worth.
i see no problem teaching kids a good overall comparative religion class,, here in Jerusalem, my7 grader this year has learned all about Christianity, including Christian symbolism, and is currently learning about Islam.. they will also do all of the eastern religions in depth.. .
ignorance is a crime, and much of world hatred regarding religion is due to ignorance.
however, there is a huge difference between learning about another religion, and being asked to " dabble " in it. it relegates the religion dabbled in into a mere farce,, to fast without understanding its meaning is a silly exercise in discomfort(take it form a Yom Kippur faster since age 12) it reveals a total disneyfication of religion which is very offensive.
regarding the preference of any one religion in school, heres some memories form my far off school days in Houston, in the late 70s , early 80s.. when i happened to be the only Jewish kid in the whole school..
before i went to the public " performing and visual arts high school' in 1980 i went to a regular high school, the now closed " spring branch high school" from 78 to 80
as a Jewish kid fresh from new York, i was shocked to see one of the biggest clubs in school was the " fellowship of Christian athletes" and that being a Jewish kid from new York couldn't join.. my parents were upset, but went with the " dont rock the boat thing"
i also remember ,when i returned to school after fasting and praying on Yom Kippur, the vice principle wanted to know where id been,, when i told him it was a Jewish holiday called Yom Kippur, he was suspicious, as he had never heard of it,, that's a case my parents did call the school. remember i talked about ignorance of religion? i also remember going to a friends graduation in the school after id changes school ( remember this was a public high school) and having the principle blessing the class in the name of Jesus Christ.
now dont get me wrong.. i think its a lovely thought to bless the class thusly ,, it is just in- appropriate in an American public school,, for any religion to be singled out.. therefore this ridiculous precedent of extra credit " for trying to fast " need to be stopped as quickly as it appeared.

Saturnalia were a real chaos of banquets, alcohol, orgies and bloody public shows...

Do any other LGFers want to get together to celebrate Saturnalia? Now that's my idea of a holiday! And for the bloody public show, well, maybe we could beat Robert Scheer with a stick. Or feed Michael Moore to the lions,...,:-)

#76 JOEY

Damn! How did you pull that off? You are in the future!

Proof:

> #87 MODEL 4

#87 is not up yet.

>You said, "Thanks for sharing your ignorance."

No comment, it may be just misinterpretation, discerning of future events is, ahm, sometimes difficult. Not saying the assessment does not have a merit, though.

> In case you aren't aware, the 127'th ammendment clearly states, "a right to be an ignoramus".

Way, way in the future, then :-)

lizzy,
an interesting post. I also think it's a good idea to teach comparative religions, although doing so too early and before a child has a good understanding of their own faith may be too confusing for a kid.

When I met a Jewish child for the first time at age 7 (the son of our family doctor), I asked him about sacificing doves and lambs at the synagogue. My ideas about Judaism came straight from Cecil B. DeMille movies. I thought Jews headed down to the synagogue every Sabbath with half a pet shop! He thought that was hilarious and I, being a great animal lover, was very relieved to find out the Jews haven't been doing animal sacifices for quite some time:-)

"Our" Thanksgiving does not commemorate the "first" Thanksgiving. It's simply a day set aside for giving thanks. Although many colonies did set aside an autumn day for thanksgiving, it wasn't really universal until George Washington declared a day of thanksviging in 1789.

The Thanksgiving we now celebrate - the last Thursday in November - was set by Abraham Lincoln in 1863 as a means of unifying the nation. This date has been the norm ever since, with three exceptions. Unable to resist tinkering even with America's holidays, from 1939-41 Roosevelt (ptui) decided to lengthen the pre-Christmas shopping season by moving Thanksgiving to the 3rd Thursday. Congress had enough of that by 1941, when it passed a joint resolution setting Thanksgiving on the original (4th) Thursday date.

[Link: www.westcov.org...]

I agree with lizzy about the fact that school children should at least read about other religions.

I was raised in a small town in Louisiana that was/still is predominately Catholic. And we were told that any and all other religions were false and therefore those people were going to hell.

As a result, I never learned about Judaism, Hinduism, Islam.

I didn't know what islam was until Sept. 11, 2001.

I remember watching the movie "Not Without My Daughter", and not understanding why the woman would be in trouble if a little bit of her hair showed from beneath her veil.

I didn't know Hinduism was even a religion, until I met my current boyfriend.

I had heard about Judaism, but only from like, reading Anne Frank's diary in English class or something.

Maybe if I had been allowed to learn about other religions, I might understand all that's going on in the world today, better than I do now. :

#50 h0mi -

Encouraging students to fast in celebration of Ramadan is no different from having a Seder in class to celebrate Passover or to have "red wine" (or grape juice) and wafers to demonstrate what it is Catholics do for Christmas (or any other sunday really)

Er, do public schools these days have Seders or wafers in class these days? I seriously doubt it.

Fabio -

Welcome to LGF. We'll have to hook you up with Zaza. :)

#76 Joey -

A sense of humor is a very welcome quality in LGF, trust me. :)

Brian O'Connell:

Easter is now calculated as occuring on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox (first day of spring). Don't know if it was ever thus, or what the current formula for Passover is. FWIW.

The Eastern Orthodox formula for calculating Easter is the first Sunday after the first FULL moon after the first NEW moon after the vernal equinox. I believe this follows the Jewish formula almost exactly. Passover is on 15 Nisan - the day of the full moon. I believe Nisan is timed (by means of adding an additional month of Adar every 3 years) so that it always starts on the first new moon after the Vernal Equinox.

In case I didn't make this clear previously, I am totally FOR public schools teaching Comparative Religion. My main concern is that they will say "Islam and Eastern Religions GOOD", "Christianity and Judaism BAD", which they appear to be doing now.

Lizzy, like you I see no problem with teaching about all the religitons (although I also feel that things like the Wiccian and Hindu religion should also be included). I DO have a serious problem with students participating in religious activities for class. That's the extent of my PC however.

I do have an old fashioned attachment to Christianity without being a practicing Christian. I don't like the idea that grace berfore lunch is not allowed because of "separation of church and state" or renaming holidays. Holloween is Holloween dammit and Christmas is Christmas. Have you noticed that the malls are decorating for "Winter Fest" instead of Christmas now? While hypocrically hoping that people will do their Christmas holiday shopping there. I get more furious about this each year. I'm doing my Christmas shopping on line in protest.

OK, twice in one thread.

D'oh

:-)

ACLU™ = un-American Communist Liberation Unit !

Donna V. (#78),

I'm all for a Saturnalia feast, but, ...

Or feed Michael Moore to the lions,...

Are you trying to get us in trouble with PETA? ;-)

I still think, since most people don't get any days off for Easter or Passover, we should have a federal holiday in the US for Ramadan. Now I know, as a lunar month in a 13 month system with no way to adjust for the solar calendar, Ramadan slowly moves throughout the western calendar.

IIRC, the Honorable Elijah Mohammad, founder of the Nation of Islam, decided a changing Ramadan was too confusing for his Black Muslim disciples, and had Ramadan as a fixed period.
( One of the reasons NOI used to be viewed with suspicion by the Wahhabists, until they realized how easily these people could be recruited in prison).

Therefore, I propose a federal four day weekend, to be celebrated the second week in April ( I'd propose setting it so that it always fell during Passover, but that would require using lunar observance, which would obsfucate the logic of having it the same time each year) celebrating the Eid al Fitr. It would be further evidence that we are indeed sensitive to the Muslims.

Many years it would fall during Easter and/or Passover, and it would make the Islamists nuts to see American stores, such as we have at the great shopping mall/hotel/ice rink/business tower complex, like Neiman-Marcus and Sak's having "Ramadan Sales".

Plus, mid February to the end of May is just too long to go without a day off.

If that doesn't work, how about a federal holiday for Mohammed's birthday, which would rapidly become a three day weekend excuse ( see Labor Day ) for barbecuing pork ribs and drinking beer.

@78 Donna V.

That would take an awful lot of lions.

What about a celebratory car swarm?

At 8pm CST, IAH is 50F/10C
DFW is 40F/4C
and Dalhart, Texas is 20F/-7C with a windchill of 12F/-11C.

I have never been to Dalhart. I know it is at an elevation of 1217 m, which is fairly elevated for Texas, but I don't know if it has hills around. The coldest air tends to settle into valleys. I've been to Kadane Corner and Electra, Texas, and they will be cold tonight, as they are in the Wichita river valley.

Buffalo, NY had a record high today (70F), but the sharp cold front will end that for them tomorrow. A brief period of heavy snow squalls should drop a quick ~3" ( which is no big deal in BUF)

19C at Ben Gurion airport. Do you Israelis get jealous of us in Texas, where we have all four seasons and college football?

Debka reporting US helicopter down in Afghanistan, probably from hostile fire, 5 believed dead.

The whole post and comments is pretty much an indictment of our poor performing public school - about 60 comments before we got a correct history of Thanksgiving - and that holiday is this week !! We will appreciate Thanksgiving more when we teach our kids about the Pilgrims, Lincoln at Gettysburg and Roosevelt, the Great Depression and World War II - times of strife, war, bravery, sacrifice, perserverance and God's grace through it all. We have to teach this at home because the schools have dumped it out. Aping Ramadan fasting goes right along with Diwali performances where kids are taught how to give offerings to the goddess - also observed in American Schools. The solution to all this - brace yourselves can only be school choice - the public schools can't please averyone, and won't please anyone. Everyone will go where they please and thewhole debate will just go poof.

#78 Donna V

Or feed Michael Moore to the lions,...,:-)

Aren't lions an endangered species? I'm not sure there are enough of them left to get the job done. in which case we'd be left with the rotting carcass of Michael Moore. Not a pleasant though. Excuse me. I must go bleach my eyes.

There should be no immunity from prosecution in our courts for Mullahs, Imams or Clerics of Islamism (or others who laud and glorify terrorists) when they preach and incite their followers to prey on Americans, Jews, or other non-believer groups. These preachers of hate and their teachings are terroristic by their nature and cannot be tolerated in our democratic society and are direct violations of the sedition laws of most all civilized countries of the world! The Quar'an does NOT glorify and honor God but rather is an abomination to God. The Quar'an is the writings of satan. It is a satanic instruction plan for the subjugation of people,the enslavement of women and the elimination of all non believers, and for total Earth domination and Mohammad is Satan's advocate! IT IS TIME FOR A NEW CRUSADE!

Re Michael Moore lionfest:

An equally troubling picture is of a noble pride of lions, kings of the jungle (well, savannah, actually) reduced to a gaggle of violently ill, puking pathetic beasts, after attempting to eat the poisonous meal that is Michael Moore.

Related to the discussion of religious calendars - on years in which the month of Adar occurs twice ("leap" month occuring every three years to keep lunar calendar in step with solar calendar) is Purim observed twice? If not, in which of the two Adars?

Forgot to add this to my Universalist Holiday Unification Scheme - Purim would of course be the Winter Cross-Quarter, along with Candlemas/Groundhog Day, Valentines Day, Mardi Gras/Ash Wednesday, Chinese New Year, Mela, start of Ramadan.

I graduated from Purdue University in 1998 with a degree in Political Science and a minor in Italian. I was browbeaten by the usual collection of liberal fanatics who passed for professors, and I made my way through with a 3.5 in my core classes. The biggest problem I had was in some of the required classes meant to make people a little more well rounded. I had to take IDIS 271 (African-American Studies), PHIL 350 (Religions of the East), and HIST 235 (Women in American History). I did not have a prima facia disdain for any of these classes when I enrolled. They were part of the curriculum, ad someone with more degrees than me decided it would be a good idea to have these classes taught. The spin placed on these classes was not to be believed.

In the IDIS class, I was made an example of by the TA, in the course of presenting her masters thesis in front of the board and our class, that I was responsible for her great-grandparents being brought here in chains. When I informed her that when I was born the slaves were free for 111 years, she retorted my ancestors were responsible. I told her to try again, as when they came to this country in 1920, the slaves were free for 55 years. She told me not to interrupt, and that she was using me as an example of "all white folks". I told her that was racist, and I was resentful of the fact that she would essentially indict the entire present white race for policies made well before anyone in the room was born. I was asked to leave the room for the remainder of the presentation.

In the History class, I went in thinking it was all Clara Barton and Dolly Madison. It was all Women's Lib all the time. Mary Cady Stanton and Susan B Anthony would have been fine. Instead, we had 10 of 16 weeks dedicated to the period from 1965-1995 and the "struggles" of the American woman. Glass ceiling. Men are pigs. The works.

In "Religions of the East", we got cursory lessons on the history and traditions of Jainism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Zoroastrianism. When I say cursory, I mean 1 or 2 lessons tops. Islam was crammed down our throats for weeks on end. We had to write papers on Islam and the merits of an Islamic theocracy (using Iran as a model). Judaism and Christianity were not covered even as a contrast. Terrible bias and this was 10 years ago!

The one truism that was consistently taught to me was in 1996 and 1997, one of my International Relations professors predicted that a catastrohic terror attack using non-conventional means (not restricted to NBC weapons) would befall New York within 5 years. He made that prediciton first in 1996. He hit the nail right on the head. He also said that fanatical Islam would be respinsible and whoever the President was at the time would have a hell of a time convincing the public that they were evil people.

#98 Andy -

You got a mouth on you, boy! :)

But seriously, that's absolutely atrocious.

The only things in my experience that come close is a "History of Computing" professor who spent about half the course lecturing on the evils of the Patent system as well as claiming that John von Neumann was "persecuted" for his association with Robert Oppenheimer. And also the "Critical Thinking" professor who spent much of one class lecturing us about the history of Civil Rights in America culminating in urging all of us to participate in a rally demanding that the University withdraw all investment in South Africa.

If we all converted to the "religion" of peace, and there was not a single Christian or Jew left on earth, then muslims would kill muslims. It's what they do, and history holds the proof.

#99 Frank-

I love it. $20,000 a year to learn about civil rights in a computer class!

This protest (and this article) is ridiculous. A whole bunch of information was not included in this article. This assignment was NOT mandetory. Even if you wanted to receive extra credit without having to fast, you could have written a paper comparing different religions and sacrifices that they make. The teacher never once stated that anyone should convert to islam, or practice the islamic religion in anyway. It is stated in the California state standards (7.2) that "Students analyze the geographic, political, economic, religious, and social structures of civilizations of Islam in the Middle Ages." There is a big difference between preach and teach. This teacher was only TEACHING what was in the state standards by also offering a new experience for the students. NOTE TO PROTESTERS: By protesting this assignment, you are teaching your children (1) Islam is a bad religion and all islamic people are terrorists (as it says so on your signs), (2) To be ignorant of any other religions beside your own, (3) and to not exprience anything new. I have done this assignment myself 2 years ago. I learned a lot from this. I learned how hard it was to make such a sacrifice and I understood more about the islamic religion WITHOUT CONVERTING OR PRACTICING THE RELIGION MYSELF. I hpoe that all the protesters will finally get their facts together and realize that this assignment was not supposed to convince your child to practice Islam.

Another thing i forgot to mention was that the protesters claimed that Christians are not allowed to practice their religion in school. That is completely wrong. The origins of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, as well as many other religions are taught in history classes. So if you don't like that, then just pull your child out of school.

amy (#103)

Practicing your religion at school and being taught about the origins of various religions in a history class are two different things. Which one is it that the protesters supposedly got wrong?