Posted on 09/09/2006 8:49:37 AM PDT by buccaneer81
Blessing of school may have done more harm to students than good Saturday, September 09, 2006
I write regarding the Aug. 27 blessing of Woodward Park Middle School and the Aug. 31 editorial "No harm done." Even if I grant that the 180 people who took part in this blessing were legally exercising their free-speech rights and that no unconstitutional mixing of church and state occurred, I am far from convinced that no harm was done.
Can you cite any empirical studies proving that such blessing ceremonies are safe and effective? If you can’t, is it possible that students who learn of this ceremony will develop a false sense of security? Will they be less likely to look both ways before crossing a street if they believe a supreme being has been asked to look out for them? Will this make it more, rather than less, likely that they’ll be victims of a terrible accident? I don’t know. Do you?
More generally, will young people who learn of this blessing be more likely to follow the example set by those at this ceremony and embrace magical thinking and practices rather than rational, practical ones? Will they be more likely to shift responsibility for their safety and success onto adults who pray to supernatural forces and thus less likely to accept personal responsibility for their lives? If the coming academic year turns out to be a safe and successful one, will they attribute this to the prayers of others rather than to their own conscientiousness and hard work?
Finally, what message does it send to non-Christian students when a large group of Christians surrounds their school and invokes the blessings of a Christian God with the apparent support of neighbors and school officials? Is it a message of inclusion and respect, or is it one of religious intimidation and disrespect?
If even one student believes it to be the latter, will The Dispatch revise its "no harm done" opinion? Did The Dispatch make sure that no such student exists before offering that opinion in the first place? Although I’m glad that 180 people want to help a school and its students, I’m just not convinced that they didn’t do more harm than good in this case. If you could explain more clearly why The Dispatch came to a very different conclusion, I’d appreciate it. DAN BIRTCHER Westerville
The message is that you live in a good community.
This one sounds more like a satire, parodying those who object.
"More generally, will young people who learn of this blessing be more likely to follow the example set by those at this ceremony and embrace magical thinking and practices rather than rational, practical ones?"
This genius think's he's the rational, practical one, when he's clearly terrified of what he terms to be "magic." He sounds profoundly superstitious, to me.
Finally, what message does it send to non-Christian students when a large group of Christians surrounds their school and invokes the blessings of a Christian God with the apparent support of neighbors and school officials? Is it a message of inclusion and respect, or is it one of religious intimidation and disrespect?
Every nation must suffer its fools but they are, after all, our fools. I believe it was Thomas Sowell who recently observed; some people are so busy being clever they don't have time to be intelligent.
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
George Bernard Shaw
LOL! What is it with Westerville, Tony? The other wackjob letter about this was also from Westerville. Clintonville refugees who realized they didn't want their kids going to Columbus schools perhaps.
Can you cite any empirical studies proving that such blessing ceremonies aren't safe and effective?
Well can ya?
This is so far out, it HAS to be a satire.
Could you post the link to the actual article, please, I couldn't find it. Your link just goes to the home page of the newspaper.
Thanks.
I did finally found the link:
http://www.dispatch.com/editorials-story.php?story=dispatch/2006/09/09/20060909-A7-05.html
Well, I guess may it isn't a satire, leftists are their own caricature.
And that really is indicative of the state of "rational" thinking, particularly of True Believing Empiricists, who fail to understand the presupposition that "Truth" exists is not only not universally accepted and essentially an article of faith, but that Western Science owes much to Christianity for that underlying faith in the existence of Truth, without which experimentation would be meaningless and the scientific method .
The Madness of the Left has made it increasingly difficult to detect sarcasm from the purely Moonbat.
Is God Christian? That's news to me. I was taught that God was everywhere, omnipotent, and the only God.
There are profound differences between magic and religion, which knee-jerk secularists fail to understand. To the, both are merely "superstition."
To be precise, religion is the worship of a God or gods, an admission that there are higher and greater powers in the universe than men. To be sure, some religions are better than others; and for believers some are true and some false. But religion involves the admission that men owe worship and obedience or service to higher powers.
Magic, on the contrary, is an impulse to control nature and gain power over it and over other people. Paradoxically, science arose in the West out of magic, because both magic and science involve the desire to understand the secrets of nature and thereby to gain control over it.
That's one reason why there was far more interest in magic in the Renaissance than in the middle ages. It's one reason why tens of thousands of witches were burned in northern Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, unlike the very infrequent appearance of witches during the middle ages.
Ignorant, knee-jerk secularists confuse the middle ages with the dark ages, and assume there was steady progress upward from the dark ages to the Renaissance. Not so. Historians have demonstrated that superstition was rampant in the Renaissance. And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to observe that superstition is rampant right now in modern America and Europe. Just think of California, for instance. Think of Shirley MacLain. Think of your average hippy channeler or spiritualist.
Monotheism is so limiting.
I apologize for the state of Ohio - but the closer you get to the lake, the stranger the people become. Perhaps it is in the water.
The letter writer reminds me of the Jehova's Witnesses (apologies if I have the wrong one) who refuse to allow anyone to say 'bless you' when they sneeze, for some obscure religious reason. A friend of mine worked somewhere with a person who went ballistic when he said 'bless you' after a sneeze.
I apologize for the state of Ohio - but the closer you get to the lake, the stranger the people become. Perhaps it is in the water.
" Think of Shirley MacLain."
I still get a laugh out of recollecting her dancing along the beach in CA, wild eyed, arms thrust skyward and yelling "I am god," followed by her entourage, trotting along at a "respectful" distance and recording everything she uttered, for posterity (and for a tv miniseries and a book "Out On A Limb").
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.