Obviously not. It is grass roots in nature.

“So where’s the argument?”

My previous post.

So, you are saying, that the US has an official National religion (Christianity)?

So where’s the argument?

Regards,

JohnD

The Hindus celebrate Diwali (Festival of Lights)
& Vaisakhi (solar new year), but those are not recognized on most U.S. calendar. And rightly so.

The Buddhists celebrate Buddha Day (his birthday) & Buddhist New Year (feb., march or april – depends), but those are not recognized on most U.S. calendar either. Same for the Jains, Sikhs and Muslims. And rightly so.

We all know the reason.

Whether the secular hummanists of the West want to admit it, the U.S. of A. is a Christian nation. For schools this is very significant because schools involve not only children, but parents and extended families. Holidays matter. But only certain holidays. That is why we discriminate or differentiate and establish what is important to us, as a nation.

And even though the secular humanists have attempted to water down the true meaning of some holidays; ie: ‘winter holiday’(the term of pagan religious orgin) is still Christmas – the birth of the Christ child. ‘Spring break’ (the term a reference to the pagan religious celebration of new birth & planting equinox) is still Pass Over / Easter Holy week. (Many Jewish holidays dovetail with Christian holidays, so they get a ‘coattail effect’.)

You are correct in stating that Muslim religious sensibilities (or lack thereof) are not compatible with Western thought, philosophy & culture. Sharia law is a brutal task master and would grant NO quater for any of the above mentioned religions. Religions that are welcome, tolerated and even protected in this Christian nation. Islam is not so generous.

Also, the seemingly paradoxical observation that gays, lesbians and most left wingers tend to support and defend Islam effectively boils down to this: The enemy of my (perceived) enemy is my friend.

http://drsanity.blogspot.com/2007/05/socialist-food-chain.html

“If you’re an American citizen and you believe in supporting its Consitution and laws, then it’s not a question of compatability of a religion with the West but of the 1st Amendment, which forbids the government or agencies of the government, such as schools, from favoring a particular religion.”

The pertinent text of the 1st amendment:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”

I interpret this to mean…. Congress (i.e., the Goverment) can’t make laws that dictate how churches are ran, and that anyone is free to practice whichever religion they please.

It doesn’t say one word about taking God out of our schools or ‘doing away’ with religous holidays. I agree with LaShawn. There are a majority of Christians and Jews who have established holidays that are observed by a larger population than those of Muslim, Satanism (or whatever it’s called) and the like so it makes sense to me that the schools would happen to be closed around Christian/Jewish holidays.

At one time, they didn’t close for the Jewish holidays, but when the population grew large enough that it also presented an attendance issue, then they closed for those holidays as well.

Yea I was going to school there when they didn’t close. They just allowed the Jewish kids to take the day off. It was like a vacation for the rest of us, because there were not enough students or teachers to have regular classes. (I lived in Pikesville, which was known as the “Israel” side of Reisterstown road .) I guess they finally wised up and closed the doors, because it really was a waste of money allowing just a few of us to come in to play ball and watch movies all day. But the school indoor basketball court with the break-away rims was so much nicer than playing outside . And the school TVs were pretty nice too.

Furthermore, we Jews don’t really see our G-d as harsh and unforgiving. Rather, we are quite amazed that G-d was as tolerant and merciful with those stiff-necked people as He was! I still can’t understand the whole incident of the Golden Calf. I mean, gee, G-d Himself performs obvious wonders and miracles to you, and five minutes later, you are back to worshipping idols? Oy vey. If I were G-d, I’d have smacked them all down! That’s not being harsh.

Also, the Tanakh is only one piece of our holy literature; the Talmud is integral to our practice of Judaism and to our understanding of what G-d wants from us. You can’t separate them and make any sense of it. In the Tanakh, the death penalty was prescribed for infractions that seem minor to us now, yet in the Talmud, a Jewish court that put to death a single person in 70 years was deemed a “bloody Sanhedrin.”

Anyway, I truly hope that Christians will pause before comparing the “Old Testament” to the Koran in terms of brutality. More importantly, how do we Jews and Muslims live now? It’s been three thousand years since Jews waged an offensive war on anyone; for Muslims, it’s been, what? sixty seconds?

If you look at the most fundamentalist Islamic nations, you can hardly raise your head if you are Christian or Jewish. If you look at the most fundamentalist Christian nation (arguably the U.S.), you can pretty much do anything you like and find a place to do it, untouched by death.

And the point here is not really to argue for reciprocity. The point here is that there are actual massive differences between religions, and one ought not to jump to the conclusion that all religions are equally benign in practice or result.

I actually believe that Christians, Jews, and Muslims serve the same God, but the truth gets distorted to varying degrees, in the same way that one can whisper a message in the ear of the first person, and by the time the fiftieth person gets the whispered message it has morphed away from the original intent. God as Constitution, with much illiteracy, plagiarism, denial, and lack of listening skills along the way.’

There is no Christian Al Queda, plotting to kill the King of Saudi Arabia, or blowing up people round the world on a daily basis. Any such comparisons between the most ardent believers of Islam and the followers of Christianity is absurd, and when people make the comparison it reveals a certain ignorance wrapped up in a coat of tolerance.

Yes, there are those of us who get vocal, and want America not to see boobies at the movies, but we fundamentally understand the idea that God gave man freewill, and that you cannot make someone love you. God is love, wants it from us, but does not want to bully us into giving that love. That is supposed to be the Christian model.

Also, there are those (in suggesting that Islam should be as acceptable as anything else) who make the case that the Old Testament is chock full of havoc and God commanding people to kill.

But anyone with a serious understanding of Christianity would know that Christ and his teachings are the primary guide for the Christian, with the Old Testament being more an object lesson in how the world would be if a pure God had to deal directly with sinful man. We don’t live by the (Old Testament)law, nor try to fulfill it- someone else has.

Islam offers no such relief. One could possibly argue that Judaism is as harsh as Islam, given the Tanakh, but at least they have spent hundreds of years explaining away (via the Talmud) how the law has to be adjusted for real life; the Talmud doing for Judaism what Jesus does for Old and New Testament Christianity.

I think before we start giving government stamps of approval we really have to know what we are approving, and too few people understand what we have here in our own religious culture, let alone the trojan dove coming from across the waters.

One wonders if Islam can have a kind of spiritual awakening, where all old things can become new. But if the rising influence of highly conservative Imams is that awakening, we will have hell to pay.