Peaceful but conspicuous
Wrong.
It’s a secular school, which means it’s open to children from all religious backgrounds and none. Group public prayers go against that. Runnymede Trust should have a long hard think about the moral pressure public prayers exert on other children from Muslim backgrounds at that school.
Public prayer is a not very subtle form of proselytizing. Secular schools should not be forced to allow it.
I like this simple phrasing, and must remember it.
I had a disagreement with a religious friend who was part of a running club. She liked to pray with other members before their runs. I tried to make the point that this was rude to the people who didn’t want to participate, who had to wait around at the meet-up spot while the religious zealots did their thing. Something like “public prayer is a not very subtle form of proselytizing” might have been a helpful response.
They really don’t give a crap about people who are not part of their religious group, do they? Or maybe they do, in the sense of demonstrating clearly “You’re not one of us”.
Well quite. For many people the attraction of religion is the “I’m better than you” part. Oddly similar to trans ideology that way.
Matthew chapter 6 verses 5 & 6
5 “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen.
I damn near took the trouble to look for and quote that bit of Jesus-wisdom, but didn’t. Thanks for doing so.
It’s funny how many Christians forget that bit of Jesus wisdom in order to indulge in the “I’m better than you” part.
Which is funny because it’s the whole point.
The greatest amount of coercion employed in this “not very subtle form of proselytising” is against other Muslims, or people who were born Muslim and may be moving away from Islam. The rest of the students are just “kafirs” and the holy rollers don’t really care about them. Group prayer serves a function of guarding a society against apostasy – whoever didn’t show up and participate properly can be persecuted. Unlike in many other modern religions, in Islam apostasy is very strictly judged – it is punishable by death in some countries. Insisting on group prayer is insisting that you can do violence to those who waver.
The ruling was absolutely correct. A community school is no place to impose Sharia. As the headmistress said, the group prayer ban occurred “against a backdrop of events including violence, intimidation and appalling racial harassment of our teachers.” This is what the parents and students who insisted they get to turn all schools into madrassas did to the teachers and to other students, and it’s not random, it’s part and parcel of an intolerant and aggressive system of beliefs. People who want to live like that should just choose a different school, and leave alone the kids who want to be free of such impositions.
Absolutely; it’s all about pressuring the naughty fellow Muslims.
[…] a comment by Papito on Peaceful but […]
Completely irrelevant. Islam is The Religion of Peace; except for unbelievers, apostates and the like. They are for public execution, or else target practice.
https://www.thereligionofpeace.com/
Well it’s what you get when a religion is strong. Christians who actually give a damn would absolutely love to have the kind of power that Muslims do to punish people for drawing a cartoon, but grasping as the Reformation was a festering wound that would eventually take their vigor and most of their teeth. Good on the court here for telling the bastards “no, we don’t do that sort of thing here, we’re a civilized country”.