Posts by Matthew Young35

The defense completely fell asleep on the job.

Now it's time to dig in. In this game, you play until the final whistle blows. There’s no such thing as coasting.

27-24... what a disaster!

Honestly, nobody actually believes in God. I mean, deep down, even the most devout people know it’s all just nonsense.
It’ll be interesting to see what happens twenty or thirty years from now, once the majority of the population has been through the whole school-system brainwashing process.

Paul Sanders5 said:Seriously, if you can't wrap your head around this, you're hopeless. You need to be hitting at least 12 out of 14 just to be considered decent. Otherwise, do us all a favor: grab a rope and find the nearest tree branch.

So, you missed two...
🤦

And honestly, you can't really blame Trump for seeing the world in black and white.
Beyond just the extremes, he’s actually capable of spotting those other shades that aren't quite white.

Well, here I am.
What’s on your mind?

briskbison55 said:Well, personally, I find the exaggeration a bit much. Like, do you have an issue with the Ten Commandments? Of course not. Sure, how someone chooses to follow them is another story, and that’s why we need actual laws, but those general guidelines are just as important as how you're raised at home or your own character. I see religious ed no differently than any other lecture; you get a framework and some principles, and then it's up to you how you use them. I think anyone who views it strictly as brainwashing is totally missing the point and looking at the whole thing through a really narrow lens.

Well, I certainly do.
I’d propose striking several points entirely and adding a few amendments of my own.

Points to strike:

1. I am the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me.

2. Do not make for yourself an idol or any likeness of anything in the heavens above, or on the earth beneath, or in the waters below. Do not bow down to them or serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God. I punish the sin of the fathers—those who hate me—on the children to the third and fourth generations, yet show mercy to thousands who love me and obey my commandments.

3. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is the Sabbath, dedicated to Yahweh, your God. On that day, you shall not undertake any work: neither you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your servant, nor your maidservant, nor your livestock, nor even the immigrant within your gates. For Yahweh created the heavens, the earth, and the sea, and everything in them, in six days, but rested on the seventh. Therefore, Yahweh blessed and sanctified the Sabbath day.

Proposed amendments:

4. Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live a long life in the land that the Lord your God gives you.
This should be revised to emphasize honoring parents only if they have actually earned such respect. Furthermore, we should strip the references to Yahweh and God entirely; after all, people believe in many different deities. Some don't believe in any at all.

10. Do not covet your neighbor's house! Do not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that belongs to your neighbor!

The terms "male servant" and "female servant" ought to be removed from the text, as they are completely out of step with modern American life.

shadowcrane91 said:Look, we only have one single shift for grades 1 through 8 here...
So basically, religious ed can't be scheduled in a different block, and we can't just move everyone to the first or last period... which means it ends up stuck right in the middle of the school day.
And yeah, sure, a staff member—like a teacher or a janitor—might catch them out in the halls if they're wandering around...
But it’s not like they're being supervised for the full 45 minutes.
Honestly? I'm fine with it.

Am I allowed to actually have an opinion and say this is okay to me?????

Or am I supposed to just bow down to your collective consensus and pretend it's a huge problem????

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If you work at a school, you don't get to have that luxury.

shadowcrane91 said:There’s always some staff member wandering the halls anyway... at least in my kids' school, they're popping in and out every 10-15 minutes like clockwork.

I don't see why that wouldn't be fine. Are we seriously saying they strictly need constant supervision and someone to micromanage their entire 45-minute period????
Or maybe even more often if you know there's someone around who's prone to causing trouble????

In my kids' school, it’s a revolving door of janitors and cafeteria workers, and the principal spends more time in the hallways than in his actual office......

Personally, I think it's totally fine....

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Good grief. If the law dictates that a six or seven-year-old has to be sent to school, then damn it, I expect someone to actually watch them. I don't want a janitor darting around just to make sure a kid hasn't stuck their fingers in an outlet. We aren't talking about fourteen or fifteen-year-olds here; we are talking about children who barely know how to write their own names. Of course, the school needs to provide supervision, but that should be handled by qualified professionals, not the cleaning crew or the lunch ladies.div>

shadowcrane91 said:Why on earth would I expect the school or the teachers to watch my kid like a hawk?????
I mean, they aren't at school to act as nannies, and from what I know, schools employ teachers, not daycare workers....
If someone looks out for them because they want to, cool... if not, also cool... it's not their job.....

😵

Of course teachers are responsible for watching over students at school.

Is this some kind of joke?

briskbison55 said:I mean, Isaac Newton wouldn't exactly agree with that claim. Neither would Faust Vrančić or Roger Bacon.

I can't say I've ever heard any of them weigh in on whether religious education belongs in the public school system.

briskbison55 said:I mean, yeah, what kind of gaps? I guess the only real gaps we had were when a teacher called out sick, but even then, a sub would step in or they’d just let us go out to the playground. Honestly, all this talk about "supervising" kids like they're some kind of fragile little things... it feels totally foreign to me.

That's just being preachy, and honestly, we have clergy here too.😉

And besides, the Constitution also guarantees everyone the right to practice their own faith, which is why elective religious studies classes exist in schools—so parents who are working don't have to drive their kids somewhere else.

But what about the Satanists?
If the Constitution guarantees this right to everyone, why aren't they being provided with their own organized religious education programs?

The issue here is a misunderstanding of the law. The US Constitution doesn't mandate that the government organize religious practices within state institutions; it simply guarantees the freedom to practice them.

When it comes to public schools, we are talking about the state actively organizing religious instruction and the indoctrination of children.
As far as I'm concerned, people can pray however and wherever they please, but the government shouldn't be the one organizing or funding it.

Karen Richardson3 said:

I honestly feel like I'm just staring at a brick wall here, almost like trying to explain the nuances of jazz to someone who only listens to heavy metal, you know? It’s one of those situations where you're putting in all this effort, pouring out your thoughts, and you just get nothing back—total silence. It feels a bit like being stuck in a dead zone in the middle of nowhere, Nebraska, with zero bars on your phone and no way to reach anyone. Just a lot of wasted energy and wondering if anyone is even on the same wavelength. Asks:
That's actually pretty interesting.

The only thing I honestly can't wrap my head around is what this article is even trying to accomplish—other than proving exactly why people call this site Imdex.

So, basically, according to contract So, if you look at Article 1, Section 1, of the agreement between Washington, D.C. and America regarding cooperation in education and culture, it really sets the stage for how both sides plan to work together. It’s kind of a funny way to phrase it, but basically, religious studies is just an elective that you have to take if you actually decide to sign up for it.

Do I even need to spell this out for everyone, or is it pretty obvious?

The way I see it, if you actually look at what's written in the contract, religion is supposed to be a mandatory subject once a student officially opts in.
Look, if the school regulations state that core subjects can't be scheduled during an opposing shift—while electives obviously can—then you can't just go around treating religion classes like they're some optional Italian language course. At the end of the day, it's more like mandatory English class; it's a fundamental part of the curriculum, not just some random elective you pick up on a whim.

Let’s just assume for a second that a deal actually went through with ExxonMobil, and that religious studies is going to be a mandatory subject for anyone who decides to opt into that track.

Another thing that’s been weighing on my mind lately is why all this online activism just seems to stall out instead of turning into something actually tangible. Like, we spend so much time shouting into the void on social media, but when does it actually evolve into real-world movement? I can't help but wonder why we haven't seen anyone push for a formal referendum to overhaul those existing contracts with religious organizations. It feels like we have all this momentum online, yet we never quite bridge that gap to demand a direct vote on changing how those agreements are structured.

It could be the first one or the last one, kind of like how an American high school period can fall at the start or the end of the day. But there's no way it can be scheduled for the opposite shift.

Because even a fool can see that such a referendum would be dead on arrival in a country where nearly 80% of the population identifies as Catholic.
It’s a bit like suggesting that Americans living in certain enclaves fight for their rights through a national vote.

Right now, regarding religious education in schools, we're seeing the tyranny of the majority in full effect. A minority simply cannot win its rights through a referendum when the math is so heavily stacked against them. It's just the nature of being a minority, isn't it?

I’m not trying to start a fight here, I’m genuinely curious about one thing: how do kids actually process it when they spend two hours listening to a teacher explain that God created humanity—you know, the whole story of Adam and Eve—only to sit through an evolution lesson immediately after?

It’s actually quite straightforward.
The core question is whether ideology has any business being in our classrooms at all.
Religion, by its very nature, is an ideological matter—whether one believes or doesn't.
And because of that, there shouldn't be a place for it in school, whether it's an elective or a requirement.

shadowcrane91 said:There you go... how does someone claim to be Catholic and then actively work against their own faith's teachings????
Seriously, how????
Everyone else is out there trying to spread the word, yet these self-proclaimed Catholics are just suffocating their own beliefs....

It's like they don't even know who they are or what they stand for!

Give me a break.
Since when has it been a core dogma of the Catholic Church that religious education must be mandated in public schools?

It honestly feels like you have no grasp of Catholic doctrine whatsoever.
At the very least, you're making it obvious that you haven't done your homework.

William Bennett53 said:You’re talking about "opting out" as if religious affiliation were membership in some social club or a political party. Where exactly is this registry you're referring to? Does the Church even maintain one? If you're talking about the Census, that covers everything under the sun; you can't exactly rely on those numbers to dictate policy until there's even a clear definition of what constitutes a Catholic.

Beyond that, we have to ask what this self-identification actually signifies.
I personally know plenty of people who identify as Catholic but would be the first ones protesting religious education in public schools.

Quincy said:I haven't heard of anyone actually getting removed from the census rolls just because someone else was mistakenly added...

Are you talking about yourself?

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Of course I'm not.
I really don't have the patience to deal with some bureaucratic census committee. Honestly, I’ve had enough. I already had to wait five hours just to submit a request for a damn driver's license last month.

shadowcrane91 said:But let's be real, they wouldn't have even bothered drafting an international treaty with the Vatican if the people hadn't identified as Catholic...
I mean, why would any country go through the trouble of making a deal with the Holy See if everyone had declared themselves Jedi?

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The idea that the people didn't identify as Catholic is simply false.
According to the census, 84% of the population was recorded that way.
Beyond the numbers, the entire census process was a total disaster. I personally know at least ten people who were listed as Catholic just because they weren't home when the enumerator showed up. They even listed me as Catholic. When I asked, "What the hell were you thinking?" the response was basically, "Well, you were baptized, so what else would you be?"