Forced public prayer in school is always a hot topic.  In ye olden days it was commonplace to force kids to participate in Christian prayers at school.  In more progressive times schools have begun to remove prayer for a myriad of reasons:

• Separation of Church and State
• Embarrassment
• Impropriety
• Debate from other religious groups

Do you think forced prayer has a place in school?

When a person is born into a religion their life is altered.  From the day they are born the ideas, prejudices, positives, and negatives of that particular religion are drilled into their heads. In effect the religion shapes their lives and the way they view the world.

Religions provides many things.  Chief among them are:

• Structure
• Hope
• Camaraderie
• Guidance

The question is this.  Do these things make a person better or worse off?

The following information is credited to Damian Thompson at Telegraph.co.uk.

The percentage of Americans who call themselves Christian has dropped 11 per cent in a generation. And I think this is the beginning of a very long slide.

More than ever before, people are just making up their own stories of who they are,” says Barry Kosmin, co-author of the survey. “They say, ‘I’m everything. I’m nothing. I believe in myself.’

The new American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) is based on 54,000 interviews carried out last year, updating a database of 113,000 interviews carried out in 1990. The new figures show that the percentage of non-believers has nearly doubled from 8 to 15 per cent in the past 18 years.

Non-believers now outnumber every religious group in America except Catholics and Baptists. This is not a surprise to me – though it may surprise British people who are regularly fed garbage by our media, who insist on portraying Americans as people of simple and sunny faith, whatever form it takes.

What do you think about this movement?  Are there good reasons for people to become less religious.

God goes by many names: God, Allah, Jehovah, and YHWH are just a few.  For centuries people have used the Holy Bible, Quran, and other Biblical texts to guide their lives.  People who follow these doctrines readily admit that they are doing so based more on faith and scientific evidence.

That sentence alone leads to much debate about the existence or non-existence of an omnipotent god.  Do you think god exists?  If so, why?  If not, why not?

Preachers carry an incredible load.  From the outside the position looks rosy.  How demanding can standing in front of a crowd of receptive believers for 45 minutes a week be?  In actuality, the demands are many.

Preachers must deliver sermons, counsel members, oversee the financial offers of the church, evangelize, and perform a myriad of other duties.  In the corporate environment this type of workload requires a bachelors (at a minimum) or a master’s degree.  Preachers have an incredible amount of influence on the lives of people.  Their corporate counterparts (with far less influence) need degrees.

Should it be a requirement for preachers to have them as well?

Religion impacts many areas of life:

• Marriage – a legal entity with religious overtones
• Social status – claiming a religious organization opens many more doors than the alternative
• Career Progress – if you don’t think this affects your career then you don’t live on earth.

These are three HUGE areas of life.  A choice to either participate or not participate in religion can significantly alter your options.  Is religion an intrusion on the natural order of things?

Wikipedia defines separation of church and state as

a political doctrine that government and religious institutions are to be kept separate to prevent government intrusion into the religious freedoms of Americans.^[1] The term most often refers to the combination of two principles: secularity of government and freedom of religious exercise.^[2]

Reflecting a concept often credited in its original form to the English political philosopher John Locke,^[3] the phrase separation of church and state is generally traced to the letter written by Thomas Jefferson in 1802 to the Danbury Baptists, in which he referred to the First Amendment to the United States Constitution as creating a “wall of separation” between church and state.^[4] The phrase was quoted by the United States Supreme Court first in 1878, and then in a series of cases starting in 1947. This led to increased popular and political discussion of the concept.

The concept has since been adopted in a number of countries, to varying degrees depending on the applicable legal structures and prevalent views toward the proper role of religion in society. A similar principle of laïcité has been applied in France and Turkey, while some socially secularized countries such as Norway have maintained constitutional recognition of an official state religion. The concept parallels various other international social and political ideas, including secularism, disestablishment, religious liberty, and religious pluralism.

Lets make a long story short.  Separation of church and state does not occur in  the good ‘ole USA.  Every president has been a man of Christian descent as a result.  This stigma is likely eliminating a set of talented men and women who have ambitions to lead the country.

Our world is one of uncertainty and changing times.  Do you think the times will ever change so drastically that we will experience an atheist President?

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It is no secret that younger people rebel against the need to attend church.  The church attendance cycle of a good number of people looks like this:

• Ages 0 – 18 – Go to church because you have no choice
• Ages 18-22 – Drink through college and attend church when you feel guilty
• Ages 22-30 – Forget that church exists
• Ages 31- 39 – Rediscover church and attend sparingly
• Ages 40 – Death – Attend church religiously

Church attendance at a later age can be attributed to many things…wisdom, experience, peer pressure, and fear of the unknown are just a few possible reasons.  I’ve seen peer pressure turn many people who could care less about church into full time attendees.  However, I can’t speak for everyone.

What do you think is the main reason?

Today’s article was written by guest writer Cynthia Bateman from Blog About It . You know the drill…read, vote, and comment.

Yesterday, a close acquaintance of mine said to me, “I read that thing you wrote about the gays going to the prom, and I think you’re wrong. If my son went to that high school, I wouldn’t want him around that kind of thing.” And so the conversation began…

It wasn’t long into my questioning Sarah* about her views on homosexuality before she brought up God. Sarah is a devout Catholic, married and in her late thirties, with three kids. She told me it says in the Bible that homosexuality is a sin, and went on to list a few verses that supported her position. She said, “Gays won’t go to heaven, I know that.” I asked her if there was anything besides her religious beliefs that made her think homosexuality is inappropriate. She said she thought it was a “disgusting lifestyle” and that she wanted no part of it and wanted her children to have no part of it.

Oh, where do I begin? First, there are a multitude of logical pitfalls in the belief that homosexuality is a sin. The most obvious being that such a belief posits the existence of God and we all know what a philosophical can of worms that is to prove. Second, the terms and phrases used in the Bible are some of the most misinterpreted, misunderstood words ever captured on paper. For example, there is much debate about the translation of the Greek word “arsenokoite” as homosexual offenders when a more accurate translation may be simply male prostitutes.  Third, while the terminology of the translation of the Bible is open for debate, as is the interpretation of its message by various religious officials. For Catholics, the interpretation of the Bible by the Pope is final. For Lutherans, it’s the Bible according to Martin Luther. How is it that so many different religious sects interpret the Bible with such variation and yet all claim to be the correct interpretation?

The next problem I have with using religion as a means to validate anti-gay ideologies is that I thought the Christian God was supposed to be all forgiving. Even if I subscribe to a belief in God, and I believe the translation of the Bible is correct, and I believe the Pope’s interpretation of the Bible is correct (if I’m Catholic like Sarah), then isn’t the God I believe in supposed to love all his children. Gay people weren’t dropped from the sky by some alien spacecraft. If I believe God made me, don’t I also have to believe that God made homosexuals? And if God is all-knowing, all-good, and all-powerful, mustn’t He have known what He was doing when He made homosexuals? So homosexuals must be exactly the way God intended them to be, because God cannot make a mistake.

And, if a religious supporter wants to argue that God didn’t make homosexuals the way they are, they choose to be gay, then I revert back to my point about God being an entity of love and forgiveness. Even if people choose to be gay (which I do not believe they do), then wouldn’t God love them anyway? After all, they are still His children, misguided, perhaps, but His children nonetheless. God is supposed to “Forgive us our sins,” right? Why wouldn’t that forgiveness be extended to homosexuals?

I didn’t gain any ground in my conversation with Sarah. While she couldn’t answer most of the questions I’ve asked above, she held tightly to her belief that God doesn’t like the gays. But given the logical imperfections of her position, as I’ve pointed out in this post, I have to wonder if God is the actual reason Sarah is anti-homosexuals or just the excuse she offers to justify her disdain. For that matter, I wonder how many others use God as a scapegoat to validate hatred.

Relationship compatibility has many layers.  In a relationship it is important that you are:

• Physically attracted to the person
• Able to carry a conversation with that person
• Compatible with each others’ friends and family
• Financially compatible
• On the same wavelength in terms of money

In most relationships saying no to one of the above bullets is enough to flush the relationship down the toilet.

Now lets add religion to the mix.  Think about all the religions out there in the world.  Now think about all the people in the world who have different religions.

Is it possible for people to have healthy romantic relationships when they practice different religious patterns?

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