See You at the Gallows
Wednesday, September 27th, 2006This year, September 27, my birthday, has the unfortunate distinction of having been selected as “See You At The Pole” day.
Some of the Christian students at my high school had a few of these events while I was there. I just thought it was annoying — it was just another one of those “waah, we’re such a horribly persecuted minority that we have to have these little ‘clandestine’ meetings to share our horribly persecuted faith on school property” things. But I can’t be bothered to get up that early anyway, so it’s not like I’m going to be subjected to it. Let them indulge their persecution complex if they want to.
But yesterday my sister did some reading on the internets and relayed to me something truly horrifying…
From religioustolerance.org:
Ominous developments at recent SYATP events:
A main cause of public school violence is isolation, alienation and harassment of minority students. One basis for targeting students is religion. The student perpetrators typically represent either the majority culture, or a tightly organized minority. At past SYATP events, the following were reported in the media:
- Edmond North High School in Edmond, OK: Nearly 150 Christian students gathered in the school yard during the 2005 SYATP event. They wrote the names of non-Christian students on pieces of paper. Darrell Haley, a youth pastor at the local E-Church brought a portable wooden cross which was set up next to the school flagpole in an apparent violation of the principle of separation of church and state. The papers were then nailed to the cross. Darrell’s daughter Rachel wrote, “God truly moved in such a mighty way. I just felt the presence of God and the Holy Spirit at our school today.” Olga Cossey, an adult youth leader at Witcher Baptist Church, said that seeing the students nailing the symbolic pieces of paper on the cross was a very emotional moment for her.
- Kaufman High School in Kaufman, TX: The Baptist Standard web site featured a photograph and short article describing students from the First Baptist Church of Kaufman at the 2001 SYATP event. They who were attaching pieces of paper containing prayer requests to a wooden cross. It is not clear how many pieces of paper contained names of non-Christians in the school.
Hmm… let’s see… what would I like most on my birthday? Oh! I know! I’d like to be executed in effigy by a bunch of self-important religious fanatics! Wouldn’t that be just ducky??
I’m flabbergasted that they can get away with this. And yet, on some level, it doesn’t surprise me. 
There is a certain irony in these SYATP events. Students were nailing names of non-conforming students in a symbolic ritual to a symbolic cross of execution. Yeshua of Nazareth (a.k.a. Jesus Christ), also a religious nonconformist, was nailed in a real execution ritual to a real cross almost two millennia ago.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. The message is the same: isolate, condemn, oppress, and hold up to public ridicule people who follow a different religious or spiritual path.
Quoted for truth.
Tags: Christianity
4 Responses to “See You at the Gallows”
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Not being a christian must not equal being an atheist. Christianity is not the only religion in the world
You think I don’t realize that? It has nothing to do with this post, incidentally.
The state of Godlessness is a fool’s paradise. Think. Re-evaluate life. The One who Created you and all that exists surely didn’t leave you without signs, or without a message, to wander and stray to misguidance and, as bad as it may sound, eternal suffering in hell-fire.
Do you really think I’ve never been threatened with hellfire before? Getting it from a Muslim only makes it more novel, not more convincing.
No, I didn’t read this entry nor any of the other entries, and didn’t think I needed to.
That explains a lot.
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Abdullah bin Adam says:
October 3rd, 2006 at 11:02 amDo you really think I’ve never been threatened with hellfire before?
It doesn’t matter whether you have been or not. What matters is whether you bothered to even look into it with sincerety: not determined to stick to the dogma of atheism (does that sound paradoxical?), but determined to find the truth.
8. Almost bursting with fury: Every time a Group is cast therein, its Keepers will ask, “Did no Warner come to you?”
9. They will say: “Yes indeed; a Warner did come to us, but we rejected him and said, ‘(Allah) never sent down any (Message): ye are nothing but an egregious delusion!’”
10. They will further say: “Had we but listened or used our intelligence, we should not (now) be among the Companions of the Blazing Fire!”
11. They will then confess their sins: but far will be (Forgiveness) from the Companions of the Blazing Fire!Al Qur`aan, chapter 67 (The Sovereignty)
Furthermore, as quoted in the verses in my first comment, the signs that lie scattered around all throughout the universe are enough to make one think and wonder the origin of them, and of their own selves. And I believe they do as well. People are only in denial. It only scares them that they’d have to leave their ways of following their own desires, and have to give up so much that is, in their current lives, so dear to them - regardless of whether they’re good or not, in absolute terms.
If an alien (if they existed) were to see a child being given a flu shot and cry out in pain, they were to think that the person administering the shot were heartless. But once they would be educated enough, they would know that the person administering the shot wasn’t only being fair, but kind. If someone misadministers a shot due to lack of care, or lack of skill, or due to mental ills, it is not the science that is to blame. Rather, the responsibility goes to the individual. Similarly, unless you know what Islaam is, you couldn’t tell why Muslims do what they do, what part they’re doing right, what part they’re doing wrong - which, like the above example, wouldn’t corrupt Islaam itself, but make the individuals responsible, and accoutable for their wrong actions. But again, in order to judge right from wrong, one needs to know the science.
Whether you want to blindfold yourself, and live a life of forced ignorance, or want to look and dig and find the truth, lies with yourself. And may Allaah, the Mighty the Majestic, Help us and Guide us. Aameen.
I only wanted and needed a place to type in the words that would get to you, that is why I posted it as a comment - seeing no other option available. I apologize if that caused perturbation.
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It doesn’t matter whether you have been or not. What matters is whether you bothered to even look into it with sincerety: not determined to stick to the dogma of atheism (does that sound paradoxical?), but determined to find the truth.
You freely admit to not having read a single word that I have written on this site, and yet you think you can make judgements on me and accuse me of being as dogmatic as you are.
If a deity ever decided to stop playing cosmic hide-and-go-seek and incontrovertibly demonstrate its existence, then I would be forced to accept it. Whether that deity were worthy of being worshipped would be another matter.
I hope you aren’t suffering under the delusion that only you and people who think exactly like you are capable treating their fellow human beings with respect and dignity. In fact, I would wager that people who think exactly like you are less inclined to respect their fellow human beings because they’re too busy drawing lines in the sand and deciding who deserves to live and who doesn’t, based only on whether they talk to their invisible friend the same way you do.
Why aren’t you out raping and pillaging the countryside right now? Is it because you have some vague notion that an angry deity will punish you 60 years from now, or is it because you understand that your actions have consequences right here, right now? That woman standing over there holding her child has blood the same color as yours, she suffers the same way you do, and her child is your child too, because her child is everyone’s child. She deserves the same treatment you do, because she is the same as you.
I’d like to share a parable with you. On an episode of Malcolm in the Middle, Malcolm’s younger brother Dewey goes to church and the reverend tells him that God is so complex that we humans have as much chance of understanding him as an ant does of understanding a human. So, he goes home and contemplates the ant colony in his backyard. He tries to decide which are the good, righteous ants and which are the bad, sinful ants who deserve to be punished. But the ants all look the same to him, so he just smashes them all with a shovel.
He goes back to church and tells the reverend that he has learned a lesson: if we are like ants to God, then he can’t understand us any more than we can understand him. Therefore, the best we can do is to treat each other as well as we can… and try to ignore the angry god standing over us with a shovel.
Whether you want to blindfold yourself, and live a life of forced ignorance, or want to look and dig and find the truth, lies with yourself. And may Allaah, the Mighty the Majestic, Help us and Guide us. Aameen.
It seems to me that you’re the one who’s blindfolding yourself by burying your head in a thousand-year-old book (which was written by humans just like yourself, by the way) instead of looking at the world as it really is.
The Universe is huge. It wasn’t created just for us — we are not that important. We just happen to live here.
I only wanted and needed a place to type in the words that would get to you, that is why I posted it as a comment - seeing no other option available. I apologize if that caused perturbation.
My email address is on the bottom of every page.
October 2nd, 2006 at 9:39 pm
Not being a christian must not equal being an atheist. Christianity is not the only religion in the world, which surely didn’t come to existence on its own. The state of Godlessness is a fool’s paradise. Think. Re-evaluate life. The One who Created you and all that exists surely didn’t leave you without signs, or without a message, to wander and stray to misguidance and, as bad as it may sound, eternal suffering in hell-fire.
No, I didn’t read this entry nor any of the other entries, and didn’t think I needed to.