I’ve had an account on these forums for a couple of months now and I’ve not contributed much, figured it was better to get a feel of things first. Now that i do have a feel for thing around here I though I should introduce myself. I am a student of a high school that has perhaps crossed the establishment clause a couple if not many a times, and I seek to end this behaviour, my geographic location of southern Ohio this is quite the “up hill battle” as I’ve been told. However I will persist in this goal.

Now for my beliefs or lack there of. I describe myself as an agnostic atheist who had an anti-theistic lean in the past but that has waned with time. I still see religion or perhaps dogmas is a better word as detriment to society, but the likely hood of them being elimination in the general populous is slim to none, and if they were to eliminated I feel that new mayhap less harmful but still dogmas non the less would surface.

Well for now that is all, I hope that this post will garner some sort of a reply and discussion that I hope to be apart of, but that will be in time of course.

Untill then:

Veritas Vos Liberbit
(May the Truth Set You Free)

Welcome to the CFI forums. We need some younger people around here to keep all us old farts up to date on how young people think. Good luck in your battle protecting the Establishment Clause.

Welcome, VVL.  Although I’m an antique, I went through the atheist>agnostic>atheist phases when I was a teen, and I can recall some of it so I understand a bit of your situation.  Fortunately for me, I grew up in So. Calif., and my friends were not at all religious so I had an easy time of it. 

I agree that religion has long outlived any possible value that it may have had, say, 3,000 years ago.  As far as worrying about what nastiness may replace religion if we get rid of it, we have to deal with one thing at a time.  Right now, religion is pretty destructive.  If we can help everyone learn to think critically and avoid falling for the many critical thinking fallacies used to manipulate us, that would be a big improvement.

We have a member in the forum who is or was a high school teacher in Ohio.  You may run into each other here.

Occam

Welcome to the CFI Forum, VVL. Glad we corralled another lurker! Feel free to chat to your heart’s content about the Establishment Clause and whatever else ails you.

Cheers,

Yea VeritasVosLiberbit you sound interesting and you sound like you have a few things you’d like to say.
I’m looking forward to it.

Incidentally, if you are intending to go up against your High School/School Board establishment,
you should be thoughtful about it,
and this would be a very good place for you to bounce your ideas around, a lot of smart people lurk these pages.
~ ~ ~

Welcome.
===========================================

PS.
you got me to thinking, let me share a little, you said

~ if old dogmas were to be eliminated
I feel that new, perhaps less harmful,
but still dogmas
would resurface. ~

You got a point there. 
Humans are very emotional primal creatures, we love thinking we’ve come so far,
but our gut instincts still drive us. 
Then we rationalize what we’re doing with whatever it takes. 

It’s one of those things that made our long term survival possible - but everything is different these days.
Our problem is that we are overwhelming our society sustaining biosphere.

The right-wing powers that be have managed to distract from the fact that every aspect of our biosphere is being confronted with a hockey stick graph reporting that we are destroying our foundations.  They pretend we still live in some rose place full of resources and potential, totally refuse to look at the wreckage they are producing.

And you, our young friend, are the generation that gets to deal with your parents and their parent’s hubris. 
just say’n
Don’t take no shit from them.

Ahhh high school!  Don’t get me started! 

Back in the 70s in Georgia, my high school still did “morning devotionals” even though the Supreme Court had already ruled against them.  They figured it was okay as long as nobody complained.  I was only just becoming an agnostic in those days, so I didn’t.  But I still remember walking around with a book (from the library) about evolution, and people saying, “You don’t BELEIVE in that stuff, do you?”  I would reply along the lines that I didn’t know what I believed unless I knew what it was about first, and since our teachers always skipped that chapter in our classes, I had to find out on my own.

Anyway welcome aboard!

Occam. - 09 August 2012 04:38 PM

We have a member in the forum who is or was a high school teacher in Ohio.  You may run into each other here.

Occam

If your talking about Captain Jack, then I guess you could say we’ve run into each other yes.

And to the rest of you thanks for the encouragement and other kind words I look forward to participating in more of the discussions here.

Yes, that’s who.  Your comment, “I guess you could say we’ve run into each other” sounds like there’s more there than meeets the eye.  Care to elaborate?

Occam

Yeah, I’m not sure if he’d like me talking about him, but he actually teaches at my school and refereed me to the site. I’ve had him as a teacher in at least one class since I got to high school, and had his wife in middle school so I know him well actually.

That’s great. I think it’s worthwhile for younger people to get interested in these discussions.  I mentioned the site to my stepson and he participates when he can.

Occam

Occam. - 10 August 2012 04:49 PM

I mentioned the site to my stepson and he participates when he can.

Care to elaborate? 

Nah, you’d pick on him.

Occam

Is it Tim? 

No.  And you don’t get any more guesses.

Occam

Well, that’s great, Occam. Now I won’t be able to sleep.

To quote Tom Lehrer, “have a glass of madera, m’dear.” 

Occam