Boise State keeps team chaplain away from game after atheists protest postgame prayer with BYUAnd

[watsup]

“Boise State University’s football program no longer has a team chaplain after a complaint by an atheist advocacy group following a voluntary postgame prayer involving some team members and players and coaches from Brigham Young University.

“Public school athletic teams cannot appoint or employ a chaplain, seek out a spiritual leader for the team or agree to have a volunteer team chaplain because public schools may not advance or promote religion,” a staff attorney for the Freedom From Religion Foundation wrote in a Nov. 25 letter to Boise State.”

Boise State keeps team chaplain away from game after atheists protest postgame prayer with BYU

Religious liberty defense fund characterized the complaint as bullying by the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

www.deseret.com

 

[Dragonfly]

“Voluntary” is a key word.

This crap gives atheists/atheism a bad name.

 

[RabidAlpaca]

“Voluntary” is a key word.

This crap gives atheists/atheism a bad name.

Lol, "We're just a public school promoting Christianity mid field at an official game, with a Christian chaplain who has special access and privileges. The prayer is 'voluntary' in that you can **** off if you don't like it."

It's a public school, they shouldn't be using public resources to support a specific religion. If it were an Imam doing the same thing a lot more people would see the issue. What is it about the religious that they have to involve their religion in official government resources?

 

[ASHES]

“Voluntary” is a key word.

This crap gives atheists/atheism a bad name.

I'm sure it was 'voluntary' in the same sense the pledge in school is generally 'voluntary'. Sure you don't have to do it, there may not be official action taken, but non-participation in such activities is often heavily discouraged with peer pressure and even punished in other ways. Unless there's going to also be a rabbi, shaman, monk, etc, for everyone, keep it out of publically funded activities.

 

[Dragonfly]

This is college right?

Voluntary on multiple levels.

 

[rjay]

Oh no.

How is God going to know which team to cheer for?

 

[vegas giants]

This is college right?

Voluntary on multiple levels.

Fail to show for lots of voluntary things gets you benched in football

 

[Daisy]

Oh no.

How is God going to know which team to cheer for?

Exactly my thoughts...having a person pray over an athletic game is stupid beyond belief anyway...

 

[Noodlegawd]

I could never understand why bible-thumpers need to pray every 30 seconds, especially with an audience.

 

[Dragonfly]

While others are praying, I can be singing Iron Maiden in my head. Or thinking about the hot cheerleader getting naked.

The time others spend praying is just silent me-time for me.

 

[stevecanuck]

If a group of Muslim players wanted to make the pray-offs, would they be told they couldn't? Oh, hell no.

 

[Grand Mal]

“Boise State University’s football program no longer has a team chaplain after a complaint by an atheist advocacy group following a voluntary postgame prayer involving some team members and players and coaches from Brigham Young University.

“Public school athletic teams cannot appoint or employ a chaplain, seek out a spiritual leader for the team or agree to have a volunteer team chaplain because public schools may not advance or promote religion,” a staff attorney for the Freedom From Religion Foundation wrote in a Nov. 25 letter to Boise State.”

Boise State keeps team chaplain away from game after atheists protest postgame prayer with BYU

Religious liberty defense fund characterized the complaint as bullying by the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

www.deseret.com

Jesus told his followers to go into their innermost room and pray there, not out in public and certainly not in front of a stadium full of people. But that's just one of the biblical cherries that many Christians leave on the tree.

 

[Grand Mal]

If a group of Muslim players wanted to make the pray-offs, would they be told they couldn't? Oh, hell no.

Must be a relief. You haven't been able to work the word Muslim into a post for ages.

 

[Daisy]

Jesus told his followers to go into their innermost room and pray there, not out in public and certainly not in front of a stadium full of people. But that's just one of the biblical cherries that many Christians leave on the tree.

And then there's this...praying for something so frivolous as winning a ball game is not something we should pray for, nor does He hear our prayer...

"And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that no matter what we ask according to his will, he hears us." 1 John 5:14

 

[ecofarm]

Post game prayers are indoctrination. Those not partaking or just faking are made to feel left out and not really part of the team. It's basically, "you wanna be a success, you better agree to our beliefs". If there was an after game communist values assessment, the hypocritical dumbass neck parents would throw a fit.

 

[stevecanuck]

Must be a relief. You haven't been able to work the word Muslim into a post for ages.

Would they???

 

[ecofarm]

Would someone like to claim, "it's voluntary so nobody fakes it"? I think we can all agree that's stupid on its face and we can all agree that children faking beliefs to fit in is not what we wanna do after a sport event.

 

[noonereal]

“Voluntary” is a key word.

Not really.

I went though this at a Power 5 public school. The kids get pressured into the prays led by fellow student athletes.

 

[noonereal]

This is college right?

Yes.

Your point?

 

[noonereal]

While others are praying, I can be singing Iron Maiden in my head. Or thinking about the hot cheerleader getting naked.

The time others spend praying is just silent me-time for me.

why do the bitches pray out loud?

BTW, the ones praying are picturing that same naked girl while they are mouthing the words.

 

[ecofarm]

Football has always been a place of inclusion. Any Christian is happy to be thrown a TD by a Muslim or have a Jew run a TD or throw a TD pass to a Satanist. Who cares, we're talking touchdowns! ESPN has always been good about keeping politics and religion out of sports coverage. Not perfect, but the effort is there.

Then along comes Thumper U, "what football needs is more God in it!" Wrong. Not even Southern Baptists agree. God is busy with other stuff. Football is a creation of man.

 

[vegas giants]

If a group of Muslim players wanted to make the pray-offs, would they be told they couldn't? Oh, hell no.

Can we tell the entire team we have "voluntary" prayers to allah now?

 

[vegas giants]

Dear baby jesus....please ensure our zone protection can pick up the wide receivers on the post patterns.

 

[Grand Mal]

Would they???

It's a meaningless question. Muslims don't pray at random intervals. You might as well ask if a Buddhist wanted to meditate.

 

[Lisa]

“Voluntary” is a key word.

This crap gives atheists/atheism a bad name.

I don't see how enforcing the strict separation of church and state gives atheists or those who support the 1st Amdnement a bad name. Your religion is not to be part of a public university or supported by the state. James Madison opposed the hiring of chaplains on the taxpayer dollar.

Ironically, James Madison, who served on a joint committee that created the congressional chaplains, later criticized the system in his writings.


America’s fourth president, Madison was a longtime advocate of religious freedom. He was considered a “founding father” of the Constitution and was a primary author of the First Amendment. He addressed the chaplaincy issue in a series of essays scholars believe were drafted between 1820 and 1830. Known as the “Detached Memoranda,” the essays cover a range of topics, including religious freedom.


In one essay, Madison asked the question, “Is the appointment of Chaplains to the two Houses of Congress consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure principle of religious freedom?”


He then answers himself: “In strictness the answer on both points must be in the negative. The Constitution of the U.S. forbids everything like an establishment of a national religion. The law appointing Chaplains establishes a religious worship for the national representatives, to be performed by Ministers of religion, elected by a majority of them; and these are to be paid out of the national taxes. Does not this involve the principle of a national establishment, applicable to a provision for a religious worship for the Constituent as well as of the representative Body, approved by the majority, and conducted by Ministers of religion paid by the entire nation[?]”


Concludes Madison, “The establishment of the chaplainship to Congs is a palpable violation of equal rights, as well as of Constitutional principles.”


Madison offered an alternative: He suggested that members of Congress, if they desired the services of a chaplain, pay for one out of their own pockets. He also believed the practice had degenerated into mere ritual, observing, “[A]re not the daily devotions conducted by these legal Ecclesiastics already degenerating into a scanty attendance, and a tiresome formality?”

The Chaplain Controversy - Americans United

The recent flap over the firing – and subsequent “un-firing” – of House chaplain Rev. Patrick J. Conroy raised a number of questions about House Speaker Paul B. Ryan (R-Wisc.) and his motives. An even more compelling question: How did a nation founded on separation of church and state end up...

www.au.org

You should be praying on your own time and out of the public view.
Matthew 6:6-7

But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.