What is your opinion about prayer in schools? should we allow it or not?

Question

please no rude answers. If you agree we should or disagree we shouldn't then say so nicely. Im not trying to start a religous battle with anyone....lol .....I believe prayer in schools is a good thing...but thats just my opinion.

a moment of silence would be more politically correct I guess.......thats what we have now.

Answer 1

I think that prayer should be allowed in school... not in a mixed classroom... and perhaps not at the sports events... but perhaps in a setting where EVERYONE there is in favor of prayer... like prayer meetings for the community...

after all, they allow other community groups to meet in a public school... but now they are starting to kick religious groups out... citing seperation of church and state...

you can kick God out of the school... but then who is going to keep Satan out of the children's hearts?

Answer 2

The word "prayer" seems to be too powerful a word for some people. I agree with your additional comment that calling for a moment of silence would be better. However I think the point of doing that would be lost on some children without some sort of guidance as to what the "silence" means or it's purpose.
Calling it a moment of reflection may be better. A time to reflect on the golden rule a moment. Most people would agree to the golden rule. Maybe having kids write out what the golden rule means to them and having their statements read and discussed. Maybe reading a positive quote or something. Teaching about sharing, friendship, acceptance.
Yes, I think a moment of reflection and positive thought would be good even if it was reading some good news or heroic act of someone in the community.
Well, it looks like you have alot of reading to do and you gave people a lot to think about. Thanks

Answer 3

I think prayer in school is fine. As long as it's in the student's own time and not complusery. School is not the place for religion. That's what churches/temples/mosques/other are for.
Adding it as compulsivly is just a waste of everyone's time. I wouldn't put up with it had my school started such nonsence, and I wouldn't want any child of mine - or sibbling, neice, nephew... you get the idea... to put up with it either.
It has no place in a place of learning. There are lunchbreaks, there are other breaks. Let the student that wishes to pray do so then. If it has to be as a particular time, let them have an empty classroom.
But don't force it on everyone or use unessisary teaching time. Even two minutes of it. Those who have nothing to say to god get pretty bored.

Answer 4

Majority of the children come from religious families, so there should be no harm in designing a multi-religious or non-religious generalised prayer which requests the Supreme Being to help the children to learn better to choose what is good for them...
There should be no harm for such a prayer. It does not impose any belief, dictates or any thing !
Then there is also a moral science class where the option to choose should be taught.

Answer 5

If you allow prayer in school, you must be prepared to allow ALL prayer in school - not just "the ones you agree with". That means if Susie is saying a prayer to God, then Abdiel can be saying a prayer to Allah, while Brandon can be saying a prayer to Pan, and Kikyo is honoring her ancestors, and Morgan is saying a prayer to the Goddess, etc. etc. etc.

Judging from the posts on this board, I don't think there's enough tolerance in the population at large for that sort of thing. And thank you, erikamoureau, for proving my point.

Answer 6

Prayer in schools is allowed. There's no rules that students and teachers aren't allowed to pray if they want. The only rule about it is that school staff isn't allowed to tell students to pray. If a student or teacher wants to pray in school, they have the right to. If, however, teachers told the students that they were to have a prayer in class, that would be wrong. Not everyone practices the same religion and many different people pray to different gods or they don't pray at all.

Answer 7

Prayer never ended in school. No one can stop you from praying. What was taken out was lead prayer. The school itself is not allowed to lead the classes in prayer... in favor of one religion over another. Unless everyone is willing to extend school another hour so we can get all the religions in there.

Answer 8

In OUR schools, prayer should be allowed but not mandated. The United States of America was founded on Christian principles. If this is offensive to people, they do not have to participate in the prayers. If just hearing other people pray disturbs you, there are private schools for every religion, send your children there. This way they can pray whichever way they want to......or not pray at all.

Answer 9

Anyone can pray whenever they want, but it shouldn't be forced in schools because you wouldn't have any idea what religion to pray for. At my school, there are Jews, Muslims, Atheists, Witches, and Buddhist as well as Christians, so, prayer in schools is a bad idea.

Answer 10

Before going further, I will admit that I am not well versed in this argument other than to know that it is one of many debates going on regarding the separation of church and state.

When I was in high school (which was quite some time ago), we were asked to observe "a moment of silence" following the Pledge of Allegiance. This was the time where one could pray, individually and silently, meditate, think about the day ahead, the night before, whatever. If we are going to allow prayer in schools, I think (imho) that this provides a happy medium which allows for individual prayer.

If your question regards collective prayers in school, I recall that we had a Fellowship of Christian Athletes club who met regularly, and even if you weren't an athlete you were welcome to attend. I often wondered if that posed a problem with the issue of separation of church and state - and I don't know if such groups are still allowed.

But if your question regards sanctioning prayer in school, given that we have freedom of religion in this country - I think that if we sanction one religion then, according to that philosophy, we are obligated to sanction them all. What then occurs is that time that should be focused on education will then be spent on prayer, each school will need to have at least one faculty member or administrator of each faith (and as it stands right now, at least in higher education, one cannot be asked about one's personal religious and political views on an employment application or at an interview) who will be available to lead and guide students of a particular faith (and what of those who choose not to belong to any religion?) and lots of other logistical problems. I don't mean to make the situation complicated, but I think that it is, by definition. I also think that many of our schools need to "tend to their own house", meaning that we need to address what (imho) are much greater and more pressing concerns regarding our educational system's ability to fulfill its intended purpose.

Those are my thoughts. Thanks for asking the question.

Answer 11

I'm not personally bothered with it and I'm an atheist, we hate all prayer, lol. I don't see what harm it does, but only on the condition it isn't compulsory and other children with different faiths are allowed to pray to, and atheists are allowed to abstain :-). I suppose it's the whole separation of church and state thing, that's fine, but you cannot no matter how u try separate humans from faith and we will have faith (faith god exists or faith he doesn't) no matter what setting we are put in.