You belong in HellFollow

mathews problem is a demonstraition of why states should not be allowed more freedomn in how they govern themselves individually. the whole civil rights issue was an issue because states had more freedom.

the constitution of the united states of america is an awsome document. its depth, its scope, its farsightedness is astounding even today, when most of the stuff in it should be basic common knoledge by now. i doubt it could even be comprehended, much less repeated by todays politicians if they had to start over and write one themselves.

a clear indicator of our ineptness of learning from our mistakes and our inabbility to take what we have and move foward as a society instead of rehashing the same ole problems over and over that have already been solved with this document written over 200 years ago.

seperation of church and state. should be common knoledge by now. its pittfalls should be basic understanding by all states by now. why, after fighting with this issue for over 200 years, are we STILL fighting over this issue?

because people are idiots for the most part. we all try to create God in our own immage, and try to IMMPOSE that creation on every one and everything around us.

preaching in public schools. discriminating against homosexuals. abortion. refusing to teach science.

its all already been solved. why cant we take what we have solved already and move on?

because, by God, "I" have created perfection in MY own immage, and anything and everything that does not support or sustain the creation "I" have created is flawed and must be made right in MY eyes.

the mantra of every self rightious leader, tyrant, dictator, politician.....and apparently high school science teacher.

the constitution protects us from ourselves.

First off. We haven't really been fighting over this issue for the last 200 years. It's actually a relatively recent issue (last hundred years at most, and really only since the 1920s that it's become a "big" issue).

The issue is kinda interesting because it varies depending on who's looking at it. To hear the secularists say it, religion is imposing itself on us all. It's creeping into our public institutions. Our schools. Our courts. Our local governments. To hear the religious folks say it, secularism is imposing itself on us all. The right to worship is being infringed everywhere you turn around. You can't say Merry Christmas. You can't pray anymore. You can't teach your children about religion without being attacked...

IMO, both of them are right. And both are wrong. What's actually happening is that government is imposing itself more and more in our lives. There are far more public institutions today then there used to be. Public school didn't exist prior to the 1880s, and didn't become a mandated and heavily funded thing from the federal level until the 1920s (which is when this particular debate really started). Most parks back in the day were privately owned, but given over to public use. Most schools were privately owned. Even if they were paid for by the local townspeople, it was a matter of pooling their own funds to hire teacher(s) and build a building. All of this stuff was handled at a local level, and the local people decided what was taught in school, what could be done in the parks, etc. Even if the local government managed the funds, there was no sense that this was "public land" or that a separation of church and state issue existed.

Remember. The 1st ammendment only restricts "Congress" from passing any law that respects an establishment of religion or prohibits the free exersize thereof. Local municipalities were under no such restrictions. Over time, states adopted separation clauses in their own constitutions. Over time, funds began being taxed federally, then flowing back through the federal and state levels to the local level, meaning that those funds were restricted by those separation clauses. This is the "change" that occured. So, from the secularists point of view, he's seing more religion creeping into the public sector. From the religious person's point of view, he's seeing the public sector creeping into areas that previously were managed privately (and in many cases with some religious group organizing it).


One great example is monuments like the Mt. Soledad Cross here in San Diego. This was originally private land. A group of private individuals wanted to make a memorial. They erected a cross as part of that memorial. Over time, this private land was handed over to the city as an official public park (presumably due to funding issues and with much cries of "save the cross!" used as the rationale). Of course, over more time, the idea of a city holding public land in which a cross was the centerpiece of a memorial came to be seen as a violation of church and state. Thus, suddenly the cross must be removed. Let's ignore that it was the entire reason that piece of land became a park, and became public land in the first place...


This sort of process has been going on for some time. It's the "publicization" of America. Where private organizations once handled most things, we tend to look to the government to do them now. You can see this with charitable organizations. Used to be that they were all private and funded via private donations (and often tied to religious institutions). Somewhere along the line the government started getting into charities, and funded them to "help out". That's great and all, but with the restrictions placed on the funding (can't fund something run by a religious organization), this effective and over time squeezed out the church run charities and replaced them with purely secular ones. One can argue strongly in the case of charitable organizations that the act of funding only charities with no religious undertones can be seen as effectively preventing them from existing. Some still do, but without funding, it's harder for them to manage.


There's a lot of subtle changes like that. Again. I think the big change is that as we fund more things with public money, we replace the older private systems with public systems. That can easily be seen by religious people as an attack on their religion. At the very least it creates the controversy in the first place. Prior to federal level funding for public schools, there simply was no real issues with what if any religious stuff was taught there. Certainly, "prayer in school" was not an issue. It only became one as the public institutions replaced the private ones...

@Gbaji: However, on the issue at hand, you agree that the teacher overstepped his boundaries, right? You sort of went off on a very wide tangent. There is no mention of prayer in school in this article; indeed, prayer IS still allowed in school; it just cannot be forced on the students, and I don't think a teacher can do it in class. At least, that is how I understood the court rulings to stand.

The article seemed to show a clear-cut-case of a violation of the separation of church and state. The teacher in a public institute is a representative of the state, and even by expressing his religious views in class (and if you read the transcript or listen to the recordings taken over the course of multiple classes, it seems he definitely did more than just "express his views"), he is breaking the law.

---My own view---

Is it right or fair? Meh. This could be overlooked if the guy was a new teacher, but he's been teaching for over a decade. He should know the rules (and he should probably know other things, such as what a theory actually is, what evolution entails, and that the Big Bang has scientific evidence...).

I highly recommend checking out the link to the town forum; I looked at the original topic last night. When it first came to the forum on Nov. 15th, EVERYONE who posted bashed this kid. Many said things like "Mr. P is such a great guy, and this little punk sets him up." A few days later, someone actually posts in the kid's defense; the teacher was talking about religion BEFORE the kid starts asking questions. Even then, the teacher should not have risen to any challenge that could get himself in trouble. As I said, he knows the rules. He can't tell people from his position that if you reject the gift of Jesus' salvation, you belong in hell.

The townspeople, interestingly, never seem to focus on the fact that the teacher was in the wrong. They blame the kid for being raised by lawyers and atheists, that he doesn't stand for the pledge, that he looks ugly, suggest that he needs a good a**kicking, and that he'll never get laid. Eventually the kid's father gets into the conversation, and while I think the guy would probably get on my nerves if I knew him personally, he does a damn good job pointing out all the faults of the arguments presented up until that point.

From page 7-18 or so, the views are split, increasingly supportive of the kid. This is after the kid's dad is there, and I believe is when other blogs started picking up the story and spreading it. A lot of people from Australia are commenting, oddly. Almost every post after the 20th page or so (after the story broke the national press, December 18th) supports the kid. It goes the other direction, outsiders beating down the town and people who support this teacher. One girl even talks about the demographics of Kearny, NJ: the amount of education in the town is lower (highschool and college), and the amount of Catholics is MUCH higher than average across the country.

It's a good case of the effects of whistleblowing when internal channels fail. The kid went to his principal, who apparently said "I don't believe you." The principal calls in the teacher (Mr. Paszkiewicz) and another guy (I believe the superintendent), and the teacher denies saying anything religious in class. The kid pulls out two CDs, his recordings from class. The teacher says something like "Oh, you've got a big fish now. You went after the big Christian guy," and goes for his union lawyer. The principal still takes no action, so the kid talks to his parents. They send FOUR letters to the principal, and are finally told that something was done (but not what). Weeks after the initial incident, the teacher was still teaching, and the kid is getting beaten up for whistleblowing (there's a post from facebook about a kid who got suspended for 5 days for shoving the kid into a locker. "If I knew I was going to get suspended for that, I would have shoved him down the stairs," the other boy says). So, a month after all of this, the kid finally goes outside the system to the local paper. It gets passed along, and doesn't get to the NY Times until December 18th. The incidents started in mid-September.

The teacher broke the law. He's probably a good guy, but he did the wrong thing. He lied, and got caught by a kid smart enough to record his comments so he couldn't get off with just calling the kid a liar. The teacher had a history of this, apparently telling a Muslim girl in previous years that she would go to hell. Very very interesting article, rate-up to the OP :)

http://www.christianembassy.com/content.asp?contentid=449


I have to post this again. If you really want to see distubing things.. browse through this site.

It's a pretty big operations concidering it is permeated all through our governemnt. They look all smiley, but not wehn they are teaching our soldiers to be religious fanatics.

do I look fat>?

This thread has given me a case of insomnia. I been reading the posts on Kearny on the Web for most of the day and feel suddenly how I did when my Daughter was attack 1998 for being suspended for being witch all over the Internet.

When will people learn that you don't have to believe in Their God, to be religious and/or spiritual. While there are Ethical Culture members, that are in the logic Atheist, there are as many if not more who have a rich spiritual life. There is no rule that you must not believe in a higher power to join and suspend your faith at the door.

The attacks on Matthew and his parents for bring attention to what Mr. David Paszkiewicz was saying during class time, instead of teaching AP History is frighting, when all they did was show how he broke the line between the Church and State, as held by the Supreme Court.

I'm proud of Matthew and what is taught in Ethical Society's Sunday Schools. I sent my 3 girls to BES Sunday School because I wanted them to learn about many religions and decide for themselves what to believe in, while reinforcing the values my parents taught me outside of their own religion beliefs as Catholic and Protestant. While my girls were younger, they looked forward each year to the Youth in Ethical Society's conference and being around others teens from the many Societies across the county.

Tomorrow I expect many Societies will be holding their Winter Festival, as the members of the Baltimore Ethical Society will. For us, it is a day to give to others as we decorate the Mitten Tree with items that go to those in need, while giving thanks to those who have help us during the pass year. We also bring gifts to be pass around in a basket for each other may have one in return. Because the Holidays always seem to bring a few visitors, members try to make sure there are enough extra gifts to go around.

I just hope that I can get enough rest tonight, that I can attend again this year. With That I Wish you all Happy Holidays and Peace, Love and Joy for the New Year.
I'm going to take a sleeping pill and hope to fall asleep shortly.