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It's not just prayer in public schools, it is the anti-religious bigotry that led to its demise and the casting out of the Bible.

Actually, its not prayer that was banned, it was Christian prayer. Because now, Islam is demanding time for daily prayer and the public schools are agreeing to it.

We don't. It should not be permitted. Surely any Christians attending a public school can have family prayer prior to leaving home. School is for the purpose of receiving an education. Prayer has no place in a public school system. Public schools should be neutral to any religious influences or practices.

I agree with your statement. It does not increase the potency of your prayer. But 'fellowship' in the Lord is a good thing. Fellow believers gain strength from praying together. Our schools used to pray together all the time, sing Christian songs, do Christmas plays, and our children learned right and wrong and had a value system. When we took prayer out of the schools and the Ten Commandments, kids no longer had a guide. As a result, our kids are becoming more and more unruly and disrespectful of authority. I don't believe the Christian faith should be pushed on anybody. At the time of prayer (or quiet time) each child should be able to observe their own religion. But I do think we need to get back to having God recognized in our schools.

When I was in high school (in the mid '90's) the Muslim kids were aloud to go to a quiet part of the school for their noon prayer. They did not invite people to come and pray with them, nor did they demand that everyone join in with their prayer. My school also had prayer at the flag pole, which was for a lot of Christians. We had Gospel Choir, and Holocaust awareness, we lived in a large Jewish community so we always had the major Jewish holidays off like Rosha Shona and Yom Kippor (Happy New Year by the way!) My point being that this is a public school, and even though we had a lot of different religous practices going on we never forced it on anyone. We didn't have mandatory prayer time for everyone in the morning, nothing was enforced on us, we went about our daily lives not bothering anyone.

Prayer in public school is a way to insure that the US stays a christian country. It is purely politics. Prayer in a group at school has never done any good or harm for that matter. But it does keep certain superstitions alive and well and blocks the study of science and allows bigotry and bullying to grow in schools. We need to focus on having good safe schools that teach are childer to think and to become productive. We also need to make sure our schools are safe and one thing prayer the way the supporters want it to be causes divisions and hate. So my view is leave it as it is now anyone can pray but cannot organize a prayer for a group. That is the way it should be.

If a group of kids want to get together, and have prayer meetings why should they be stopped. I don't think it should be a class, or an organized thing, (except for student organization). I truly don't think it should be stopped, or encouraged. Even though it may be happening on school grounds. I also think students should be able to do this no matter the religion.

Blessed Be

Not a supporter myself (undecided on the issue), but I suspect it is to help establish socially acceptable norms. If out of a class of 30 students, on the first day, only 3 of them take time out to pray, how many do you think will try praying on the second day?

Personally, I see no reason not to have a few minutes for prayer/meditation/what have you, but religion specific does become a bit dicy.

Some religions like Muslims have to pray a set number of times a day on time. One of our prayers is Dhur(noon) and we can't say that if we are denied prayer. I think prayer should be allowed. Honestly you don't need any of those classes in school anyway aside from Math, writing and reading. Everything else is useless. I think if students want to pray they should be allowed to pray and students who don't want to pray don't have to pray.

I remember when prayer was in public schools; we didn't have lost children shooting other students, staff and the school and then turning the guns on themselves then. We didn't have lost children shooting up shopping malls then either. We didn't have as much violence then, as we do now.Children weren't as disrespectful then to adults and rules as they're are now. Children were not as wise of worldly things as they are now. Prayer, whether or not applied did unify people in common goals and innocence was'nt lost so young in one's years. Prayer gave parents the rights to petition the schools influences of negative news to the children. Prayer in school gave opportunities in fellowship that might not have been offered outside of the school walls. Prayer kept God and godly behavior in school. Prayer in school kept injustices out of school. Prayer in school helped unified Americans with common ground. Children that prayed, made better grades because unified teachers and parents were more tolerant of each others methods of instruction and discipline.Yes, I remember prayer in public school when I was a child; it is such a loss.

Because God said that were two or three are gathered, there am I in the midst.(Matthew 18:20)

God is saying that the more people that come together in prayer, the more power that prayer has. I am not sure were you data comes from.

In addition, even you must be able to see that they replaced God and the Bible in schools with guns, drugs, and sex. Must be more than just a coincidence.

The problem of "prayer in school" is not the praying itself.

The problem is the parents and/or teachers who want to use that as a jumping off point and totally immerse the public school system in fundamentalist religion.

The problem is wanting to use the prayer for teaching "Creationism."

And so on and so on.

Too bad. A little prayer or moment of silence could not help but calm students and focus them.