How It's an Act of Violence to Force People to Listen to Prayer
You don't know the religions of a gathering and your behavior is highly disrespectful
Hello Friends,
I find myself contemplating something that happened recently which I found to be kind of troubling. It bothers me how so many people are accustomed to making casual transgressions against other people's deeply held personal beliefs. There's a mechanism in place that emboldens privileged groups to ignore the preferences of others and it amounts to little more than a form of religious bullying.
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I also suspect that this trend is going to get worse instead of better. But let me give you the details from the most recent scenario.
We were at the pasta feed for my daughter's sports team. It was a casual event. All the families brought food. They actually did a really nice job, there were about 12 crock pots sitting on a table with a variety of offerings.
The girls had served themselves and we were about to eat, when one of the coaches said, “Should I lead the group in prayer?”
He was kind of joking, but the suggestion concerned me The head coach said, “You can do whatever you want,” which I've found is the phrase she uses when somebody suggests something she doesn't want them to do.
The coach who offered to pray just laughed and turned to his food. Fortunately there was no prayer, so I didn't have to stand up and stop it—which I would have.
My deeply held personal belief is that religion is hate indoctrination. People don't have to agree with me, but I will not stand silent as my children are subjected to that. Neither do I expect that my children should have to leave the room because somebody wants to perform a hate ritual in my presence.
The only correct solution to this diversity of beliefs is for the prayer not to happen in a public place. Fortunately for me, that's what the Constitution says. Unfortunately for me, we have a presidential administration that uses the Constitution as toilet paper daily.
In one way, I should be grateful for this scenario because it's given me the opportunity to walk through how I should respond if that happens again.
The simple fact is that we don't know the religions of all the girls in the room, so we should not impose the prayer of any specific religion upon them.
This should be obvious. We need to emphasize that it's impolite to offer to lead a prayer. However, some people always demand an exception from propriety for themselves.
People try to impose their Christian prayers on you all the time. It's always Christian. I've never had anyone elbow his way to the front of the room and give any other sort of prayer. I think members of other religions in the United States of America do not demonstrate that level of entitlement. Other religious, frankly, show more respect.
Make no mistake, any time somebody forces you to listen to a prayer against your will, it's a show of disrespect.
Somebody needs to emphasize that to the Christians.
So, if this happened again, I think I'd say, “Let's not impose a prayer on these kids from a religion that's not necessarily of their faith.”
I think that's a pretty reasonable statement and difficult to argue with. But what always happens in these situations is that you start to get bullied. The Christian who wants to impose a prayer on kids against their will, will say something like, “It's just a prayer. There's no harm in it.”
What makes an altercation like this difficult is that the person who is imposing a prayer on people will act like they are the ones being treated unfairly. The self-righteousness that turns to moping is what makes this scenario uncomfortable. They act like a boyfriend who is furious that his girlfriend doesn't want to have sex with him. They sit and they sulk and they pressure until the other side finally gives in and allows them to be abusive.
My answer would be to say, “You are free to offer words of encouragement, just do not invoke the name of any God.”
We have to stand on propriety. Also, there can be no suggestion that the kids should disclose their religion because that potentially signals them out.
They have a right to privacy when it comes to their faith.
What's interesting about this part of the conflict is that it reveals that prayer is not about simply offering words of good will and fellowship. It's about indoctrination. The prayer distracts from the good works of a group of girls coming together to overcome a challenge, and transforms the gathering into another obedience ceremony for some form of male authority.
I don't like it. I don't want my daughter hearing prayers from a religion that prohibits her from holding a position of leadership. That's unacceptable.
It bothers me that the church does not ordain women. It bothers me that there will never be a woman Pope. I think endorsing that message in any way, shape, or form is entirely inappropriate when it comes to a middle school girl's sports team.
If anything, we should be empowering those girls to reject organizations that don't respect women enough to recognize them as leaders.
I'd much rather have a woman stand in front of the group and say, “You are powerful, you are capable, and you don't owe obedience to any man.”
To do the opposite and to have a man stand in front of them and lecture them on subservience makes me sick.
The idea of pressuring people into enduring the assaults of any religion is truly offensive. There are enough things in our society that divide us already. It's time that we started having louder discussions about how our right to personal faith shall not be infringed.
But this whole conversation, as with so many things, has gotten completely twisted. People have convinced themselves that it's “acceptable” to offer a prayer and they won't seriously consider how disrespectful their actions truly are.
If you want to offer some words of kindness and humanity, that's fine. But leave God out of it. There's no reason to include God. There's nothing that you have to say which can't be said without invoking the specifics of your religion.
“Good luck! Play hard! Take care of each other! Have compassion!”
See how easy that is?
But the sad part is that we don't live in a society that understands this. Christians always falsely claim that they are persecuted when the truth is that they are often the ones doing the persecuting. I think we've reached a turning point in the place religious faith must have in our society.
It's time for you to stop preaching. It's time for you to listen instead.
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I just think of the countless indigenous peoples of America forced into boarding schools. Made to change their beautiful names. Forced to dress according to the schools rules, instead of in their native garb. Abused in every way including religious abuse. They had their own spiritual practice. They were robbed of it. It just sickens me.
Exactly! I respect the Christians’ right to hold their views, and in our country at least, they should respect my right to hold my own (atheist) beliefs instead of forcing me to participate in their cultish rituals.