Weebles may wobble...

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Today’s piece is in three acts.



Hi. How ya doing? I am a double minded man. Weebles ain't got nothing on me.

With two brains even.

Some time back I opined on a lawsuit in on prayer at football games. One man objected to pre-game prayer and filed suit. Similar things have been done all over the nation.

While holding forth on this, I announced that if anyone ever files suit to stop prayer at our football games, we're gonna keep doing it. I stand by that.

I stand by it so firmly that if necessary I will be arrested and carried out (gonna take 4 deputies at least) before I stop. I'll be speaking the whole way. If the attempt to shut me down continues I will announce that everyone is invited to the 50 yard line 30 minutes before the game for prayer. I will make sure the visiting team knows and they are most cordially invited to join us.

Shut us down now! I crowed in that opinion piece.

I even admitted to looking forward to being sued. The headline would scream: ACLU sues newspaper editor over free speech.

I am, in case you didn't know, a newspaper editor, a champion and bastion of free speech.

Go forward in reverse.

Now watch this. NFL Hall of Fame running backs at the height of their career ain't got nothing on the broken field running I'm fixing to lay on you.

I am diametrically opposed to organized prayer in school. I am quite a bit opposed to any prayer in schools.

"Huhn?"

I support prayer in schools and I reject prayer in schools.

"Baker, lay off the street corner pharmaceuticals. You are making even less sense than normally."

Ayup.

As a Christian, I support prayer in school. I especially support it at sports events. People can be hurt. This year one of our high school team players was paralyzed. As in could not walk. As in sent to the Spinal Clinic in Atlanta. Now you tell families with such injured family members that you oppose pre-game prayer and you are going to get an extremely un-Christian response. Yeah well, people don’t make sense.

My belief system is such that I attempt to share my beliefs. If you don't like it, you don't have to accept it. You don't have to listen. Won't hurt my feelings. Once I've had my very brief say about it, I won't bring it up again unless you ask me to. Not going to push it on anyone. You may wonder then, about this column and previous ones on similar subjects. I ain’t making you read it.

With added flavor!

My kind of prayer can't possibly harm you.

Can their prayer harm you?

And that is why I object to prayer in school.

"Huhn? You dropped off the deep end again Baker."

Meet Brutal Antipathy, an atheist and friend of mine. Warning, if his insightful commentaries are filled with language and concepts many find objectionable. If you think you can handle it, here ya go.

I bring you a snippet from BA’s piece on atheists by way of illustration: “When atheists rally to protest prayer in public schools, they are not only trying to keep Christian specific prayer at bay, they

You don't have to believe the truth for it to be truth.

are trying to keep out prayers of other belief systems that some Christians would find objectionable as well. When atheists fight against religious encroachment into government, they are protecting likely enough your specific beliefs from being cast out with the bathwater come the institution of state sponsored religion.”


My prayer, I repeat, cannot harm you. Refer to the Aztecs whose forms of worship included ripping the heart out of warriors captured in war. Some believe the ancient Druids also put living people to death as part of their religious rites.

I am absolutely opposed to organized prayer in school because, who gets to pick the prayer?

BA comments: “Remember that church you belong to? How does it differ from the church down the street?  How does it differ from say the Church of Latter Day Saints or the Catholics? Do you even consider either one of those churches to be Christian? Do either of them consider your church to be Christian? Who gets to decide? Well, in supporting school prayer, in endorsing religious events sponsored by government money, by allowing the encroachment of any religious ceremony into any tax funded public venue, You are deciding that the government gets to decide, and are thereby paving the road for an official state church religion that will almost certainly not consider your particular brand of religion to be the correct one.”

Can I get a witness?

Right. Whose prayer are you gonna allow? Reject? Gonna let a Voodoo priestess come in a kill a chicken?

Congress, and by way of the 14th amendment the states, cannot establish a state-sanctioned religion. Whew.

Sayeth BA: “So yes, when atheists protest "In God We Trust", or when they take legal action against a school for allowing public prayer at state funded scholastic events, they are telling you to keep your specific concept of god to yourself. They are also telling the Catholics, the Mormons, The Phelps Whelps, the Islamics, the Buddhists, the Hindi, the Asatru, the Wiccans, and every other cult, sect, faith, and denomination to do the same. For once in their godless lives, they are actually on your side, trying to protect your rights as much as their own. “




So set aside other religions and let's just focus on Christianity.


Lemme testify to my testimony for I have been tested. I have personally experienced ostracism by the Christians in my community because of my Christian beliefs. I have been told by Christians that

I shall be me.

while I will be welcome in their church, the church does not expect me to fully engage my faith while within the confines of their physical church. I have even been told, by at least one church pastor, I should look for another church where I would be happier.

I am rejected because I refuse to conform to their way of thinking. In case you haven't figured it out yet, I'm a non conformist in a lot of things.

If people can't agree on what makes a Christian and how that Christian may pray, then bringing other religions into that boiling pot of dissension is a recipe for real, physical, brutal and bloody war. Religion is the chief cause of war across the history of humanity. We have enough problems in our schools today without bringing in religious war.

So I object to prayer in schools.

It's like Momma told us when we were little. If you can't play fair and share, I'll just take it away from you. So, we don't need organized prayer in school and we should only allow very limited single-person prayer in school under any circumstances.