High school Christian club banned

[Big ned]

Oh please. Jesus wouldn't have done this? Jesus wasn't a Canadian citizen with every right to do this. Do you not think that if this was reversed and an atheist club was being denied the right to assemble that there wouldn't be challenges being made? The Christian kids shouldn't have to "settle" for alternate freedoms available to them. Many Christian Canadians fought and died to maintain our Charters of Right and Freedoms and this is a slap in the face to every single one of them.

I would dare say that if any religious group wanted to form a club in this school they would not be permitted so what is this about? If a Muslim club was allowed to be established would the Charter of Rights and Freedoms apply equally in your mind? Are you fighting for the rights of all Canadian citizens, or only the Christian ones?

PS As far as the slap in the face goes...turn the other cheek.

Of course I would allow Muslim students to have a club... as long as they abide by the laws of Canada. Did I ever say I wouldn't? Why do you make the assumption that would be a problem for me?

Christ didn't turn the other cheek when his father's house was being destroyed by the money changers, now did he?

As for christians restricting themselves to their meeting places... what are you so afraid of? There are many christians that don't attend church or belong to a fellowship. Why shouldn't they be able to associate as a club at school? You haven't given any reasons that would stand up for any religious group to not have a club at school.

I attended a bible study at the professional school I attended in California. I went for a few times and despite being Mormon and having a different take on the scriptures, I had some very enlightening and interesting discussions with members of different sects. You don't get that by attending your own church and burying your head in the sand. It is indeed very educational to find out what others believe. Perhaps people like Danksworth would find it an interesting part of their education to better understand others.. you know, the open mind thing. They didn't convince me to join their way of thinking, but I do understand them better.

[coffeeFreak]

One of the concerns I would personally have is that in any religion, there are extremists. I have met Christians from one end of the spectrum to the other, where they believe they have broken the generational sin of an ingrown toenail upon the birth of their grancchild free of this affliction, but I have also met Christians who smoke, drink and only frown on premarital sex.

Each religion and church has variations of philosophies and rules. So which group should we propose comes into our publically funded schools? Who monitors their teachings? What is to stop an extremist group to slowly poison the minds of our kids? I'm sorry but the world we live in is too full of wing-nuts to trust that my kid is safe from being brainwashed. I am not painting any one religious group as "wing-nuts", only that there is potential for this to occur in a student led and unafiliated religious club.

[Big ned]

You don't have a pastor or leader come to a religion club. You have a teacher that acts as the adult volunteer and the school kids discuss things they are interested in. It is a school club. If there was an astronaut club you don't think an astronaut comes and teaches the kids do you?

There are plenty of non religious wing nuts out there as well. Let's have a chinese club and have Mao tse tung come and pollute the minds of the kids. I mean really... are we being serious here?

[Nebula]

There are plenty of non religious wing nuts out there as well. Let's have a chinese club and have Mao tse tung come and pollute the minds of the kids.

That would be interesting since Mao is dead.

Ned, would you be okay with a Black Magic club? What about a Wiccan club? Witchcraft club? How about a Seance club?

[nolanrh]

You don't have a pastor or leader come to a religion club. You have a teacher that acts as the adult volunteer and the school kids discuss things they are interested in. It is a school club.

I'm still with you on this one Ned; however this point raises a slight concern. I have a slight issue with a government paid employee participating in any kind of religiously biased education. Because you specified volunteer, I understand it would likely be outside normal school hours but its a very fine line here.

Secondly, teachers have a natural authority position. I hesitate to say that a school should allow teachers to supervise these types of clubs, and risk the misuse of their positions of authority to influence children religiously.

I see similar problems with any kind of teacher supervised political group.

Ned, would you be okay with a Black Magic club? What about a Wiccan club? Witchcraft club? How about a Seance club?

I thought he has been quite clear, he would be.

[coffeeFreak]

You don't have a pastor or leader come to a religion club. You have a teacher that acts as the adult volunteer and the school kids discuss things they are interested in. It is a school club. If there was an astronaut club you don't think an astronaut comes and teaches the kids do you?

There are plenty of non religious wing nuts out there as well. Let's have a chinese club and have Mao tse tung come and pollute the minds of the kids. I mean really... are we being serious here?

I'm being very serious here. Somehow I can't imagine a Jewish teacher leading a Christian club, so it would likely be a Christian "believer"? So who defines acceptable believer and/or volunteer teacher? And just because a teacher or any other adult leads this type of group, it does not guarantee acceptable teaching/or discussion of the subject matter.

[Captain Awesome]

Religion should be banned from school. Take all Christian, Jewish, Hindu clubs and toss them all out.

[coffeeFreak]

Amen Captain Awesome!

[steven lloyd]

... , would you be okay with a Black Magic club? What about a Wiccan club? Witchcraft club? How about a Seance club?

As long as I could belong to all those clubs. Way too cool.

[nolanrh]

Religion should be banned from school. Take all Christian, Jewish, Hindu clubs and toss them all out.

Slippery slope. No ideology should be banned from school without a damned good reason. Religion is bad, therefore it shouldn't be in our schools does not cut it.

[Captain Awesome]

Slippery slope. No ideology should be banned from school without a damned good reason. Religion is bad, therefore it shouldn't be in our schools does not cut it.

Who said religion is bad? Religion clouds young minds with inane made up stories about people that never existed and events that never took place. Next thing you know we tell children about magic, unicorns and dragons with a straight face. You want children know about Jesus - tell them outside of school.

How's that for a reason?

[nolanrh]

Who said religion is bad? Religion clouds young minds with inane made up stories about people that never existed and events that never took place. Next thing you know we tell children about magic, unicorns and dragons with a straight face. You want children know about Jesus - tell them outside of school.
How's that for a reason?

A horrible one. If children want to explore their world through spirituality then school is a great place to do it. If schools continue to teach students how to critically think and remain open minded, religion is harmless. I'm not advocating teaching children religion, merely that they should have the freedom to create clubs to enjoy whatever they want. You don't 'protect' people from religion by hiding it from them. Answer this, would you be advocating for the banning of a unicorn club if it arose?

[Captain Awesome]

A horrible one. If children want to explore their world through spirituality then school is a great place to do it. If schools continue to teach students how to critically think and remain open minded, religion is harmless. I'm not advocating teaching children religion, merely that they should have the freedom to create clubs to enjoy whatever they want. You don't 'protect' people from religion by hiding it from them. Answer this, would you be advocating for the banning of a unicorn club if it arose?

Hahhaha. Religion and critical thinking in one sentence? New one.

Sure, unicorn club is all right by me. But if they opened up a club about this great unicorn who created the world (while teaching about biology and physics), and unicorn's son who unlike Bamby died for our sins and we should all do good things or big Unicorn will kill us all how he did on numerous occasions before...I'm sorry, I don't want my kids to hear that. There are churches where he can go and get brainwashed, school is for studying things that actually make sense and don't cloud your judgment.

Keep school clean of drugs for your body and drugs for your soul. Kids will have plenty of opportunities by screwing up their life by doing drugs after school or going to church.

[steven lloyd]

self-deleted - I thought a moderator would have done it by now (got the other ones).

[Captain Awesome]

voting Liberal

Hey, you promised to watch college football.