growing up when i did, i remember having to say the pledge every morning up until my junior year...and to be honest, saying the pledge meant little to me other than an excuse to prolonge the moment before the lessons began....
as for prayers in class...that with most certainty i never had to do even in public schools.....
but of all the things that irks me to the degree of having a thorn on my side is this business of bringing god into our lives and to our childrens lives as if that were the more important issue other than teaching the children the skills and the necessary education to be productive citizens when adults....
it's as if these religiously saturated people, while of good intentions, forget that society's problems are not solved by prayer or invoking god's help in times of crisis...but by actual communication with others of differing thoughts and beliefs without tainting it with their religious credo....enough already
you want to solve society's problems...then start it at home - parents have to realize that teenagers are on the cusp of change....what these teens need is not an authoritative figure, but someone who'll actually listen and at least try to understand what their problems are....
but then what do i know....i could be spewing verbal diarrhea 😐
Well, i'm not an American, hell, i live East where things are much much simpler. You'll see plenty of goths, "boys from da hood" and other crap like that, but they grow out of it. See over here things are very very different. We don't have all the problems you have and that has nothing to do with religion. Mostly people that live in the countryside are religious, while most that live in the cities aren't.
However, it's a matter of mentality. Hell, when i was a little kid watching american movies where the teenage daughter/son kept arguing with their parents, and kept yelling and shouting i was baffled. Because over here, you don't do stuff like that. You have respect for your parents. Not to mention Westerners are waaaaaaaay too soft on their kids. Over here, "You raised your voice at me? BAM*.
Sure, there's always been fighting in the schoolyard, and cursing, swearing, bla bla bla, but as we grow older we focus on what's more important. Making a living and waking up to reality.
It may sound harsh but it seems to me that there's so much liberalism going on over there that people either try to find a way out, or just become retarded little idiots that wait for their monthly check from mommy and daddy while they pursue their "true self".
~wickerman~