Bartimaeus,

I too appreciate your input on these discussions.

I'll clarify my points.

Here in the United States, organized prayer in public schools is banned. A teacher cannot lead a prayer, neither can a student. Certainly nobody can prevent a student from praying silently, but a student is not allowed to lead a group prayer in the school. The reason used is that prayer in the school would violate a separation between church and state (specifically, it would violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution which states "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ...". Apparently many believe that allowing organized student prayer establishes religion. My question was to ask, based on your prior statements, whether prayer establishes religion or in fact whether it has anything to do with religion (and instead has to do with faith). Since we've established that religion and faith are not the same, if we find that prayer is about faith, then it should not violate this part of the Constitution. I would further ask, since you said you are not from the United States, how your nation views this issue.

For the record, I wouldn't really support a Teacher or school led prayer because that falls into the realm of indoctrination. On the other hand, a student led prayer, especially in the context of each student having the opportunity to lead one over time, could expose many different beliefs to the students and raise open discussion of similarities and differences which would beneficial to the collective students.


As to my question about holidays. Again, in the United States, we find that many communities are being sued by special interest groups to take down holiday displays (especially dealing with Christmas and Easter, but in general all holiday displays for faith based holidays) on public property. Similar to the prayer issue above, the argument is that these displays promote or establish religion.

-- Jeff

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"Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem." --Ronald Reagan