Skepticum

In Oct. I reported that Illinois Atheist Rob Sherman and his daughter Dawn filed suit in U.S. District Court to challenge the constitutionality of the Illinois Silent Reflection and Student Prayer Act, that requires state schools to observe a moment of silence each day.

Nov. 14, U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman ordered the superintendent of the Illinois State Board of Education not to enforce the act. According to Chicago Tribune:

“Gettleman issued the preliminary injunction Wednesday for District 214, finding that a new statute mandating the pause is too vague and may violate the 1st Amendment.”

The act was criticized as a way to establish prayer into public schools under the guise of “meditation.” Despite lawmakers’ claims the act was not introduced for religious reasons, the name of the act purposefully lists prayer as one of the activities thus legalized.

After yesterday’s judge order, Sherman wittily stated,

“It seems to me that the judge has indicated that this law doesn’t have a prayer.”

Tags: atheism, education, prayer, Religion

BlackSun commented yesterday on the news that Ga Governor would hold an open call for prayer on the steps of the capitol. The prayer was to be for rain.

“What Sonny Perdue is accomplishing with this (either uber-cynical or mind-bendingly stupid) stunt is the diversion of attention of citizens from their own accountability–for the dunce governor they elected, bad water infrastructure decisions over decades, and for the continued cheating and waste of now-scarce water by Georgians,” writes BlackSun.

In the irreverent anti-religious tradition of Skepticum, let me put a more entertaining spin on this. I’d prefer, instead of boring capitol prayers, that we do an old Eastern European ceremony, that involves skimpily dressed virgins, wet t-shirts and lots of dancing. I’ll admit that religious rituals are more fun than atheism in certain instances, especially when they involve dancing and naked people.

In the Romanian agrarian rite of Paparuda, young women are nude or dressed in rags covered in leaves, and are paraded dancing through the village, while older women throw water on them. This Summer-time rite is meant to function as a fertility ritual to bring about rain and help the crops grow.

What better way than to bring prayer and wet t-shirt contests into one? It would probably provide more entertainment than such a poor excuse for irresponsible entitlement as displayed by Perdue.

Tags: prayer, Religion, ritual