There are Christian Colleges, even High Schools, of course. But the only difference in them and any school is obeying their rules while there. They don't insist you convert if you aren't Christian.

The best way to determine if one is prejudiced against any religion other than your own is to simply ask the question: would you mind if the following religious leaders preached your funeral; wanted your vote for President of the United States; wanted to adopt a Christian baby; was a Televangelist (had no church, as such); was Buddhist; was Hindu; was Sikh; was a "saved" murderer, but now a Chaplain; was a Democrat?
Reverend IKE; The Pope; Either of the Crouches; Benny Hinn; Billy Graham; The Dahlia Lama; Reverend Dollar; The President of Notre Dame.

This is the problem with religion mixed up in our government!
Promotes almost certain war.

Great Link- Does this make you want to go to church. I loved it, have you read Rebel with a Cause- great book.

Why don't we send all these guys that are being so nice to us one of the Legend of the Candy Cane.

Hey, my son gives them to his teachers for Christmas- it's no problem..

So funny a few months back someone told me that the ACLU was working for me. What do you think? Ha.

Some people read way too much of David Limbaugh’s and Billo’s stuff. They should listen to more Paul Harvey and find out “the rest of the story”.

• A school prohibited a student from passing out candy canes with cards telling the Legend of the Candy Cane.

The United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts ruled the school district had violated the student’s first amendment rights and entered an injunction barring the school from punishing them or enforcing similar speech restrictions against them. The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts filed friend-of-the-court briefs, urging the court to rule in favor of the students in the case.

• A Texas school district has a policy of not allowing students to write “Merry Christmas” on cards that they send to U.S. soldiers or to hand out invitations to church events on school property.
• The use of red and green plates and napkins at the school's annual “winter-break” party is also prohibited.
• School officials promptly seized a little girl’s gifts for her classmates after seeing the religious message "Jesus is the reason for the season" printed on the pencils.

All of this happened in Plano, Texas and the families filed the lawsuit in December, 2004 saying the 52,000-student district in suburban Dallas had engaged in “unconstitutional and illegal actions" and a federal judge ruled for the families in all points of the case.

A little critical thinking would lead to the question of why a school district in a heavily Republican district full of fundamentalist Christians would suddenly be acting like a bunch of brie-eating, Chardonnay sipping, ACLU backing atheists?

The chief counsel for the Plano Independent School District explained that all religious references were banned pending a court ruling because the previous year the school system had incurred huge financial loses after the Republican fundamentalist Christians in the district had sued the school system accusing the school district of promoting the Wicca religion by offering a Harry Potter-themed party as an auction fund raiser item.

• An Oklahoma public school banned all religious music and displays during the Christmas season.

The ban lasted three days until parents got legal help from the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), a Christian legal group. The ADF announced this year that it has 800 attorneys available nationwide to file suit if a school prohibits religious Christmas songs in its concerts.

• A church's submission for a display at the annual "Holiday Fantasy of Lights" festival at a county park was rejected because the display contained the church's logo, featuring a cross. After months of battling, the county allowed the church to keep its display and logo, but the church had to reword the accompanying sign from "Jesus Is the Reason for the Season" to "Calvary Chapel Says Jesus Is the Reason for the Season."

The explicitly religious displays by Lamb's Chapel and Good News Club, within the HFL were allowed but Calvary Chapel's wanted their proposed display to appear side-by-side with unsponsored displays erected by the County. Calvary Chapel suggested the change in the sign.

• A religious-themed float was banned from an annual holiday "Parade of Lights" in Denver.

The private Downtown Denver Partnership, a coalition of 350 businesses which sponsors the Parade of Lights, said they wanted to keep the parade secular. Jim Basey, president of the partnership, told the Denver Post, "We have a policy designed to not put us in position to make value judgments [such as] which religion gets in because the parade was so small and limited”

The official Denver's St. Patrick's Day parade has always welcomed religious floats.

Incidentally, all of this happened in 2004. The Parade of Lights policy has changed and now and religious themed floats are welcomed.

• For a performance in its "winter program," a Wisconsin elementary school changed the traditional Christmas carol "Silent Night" into "Cold in the Night" with secularized lyrics.

Diane Messer, administrator of the Dodgeville School District, said the holiday show is titled "The Little Tree's Christmas Gift'' and was copyrighted in 1988. It's about a family that goes to buy a Christmas tree and uses a collection of familiar Christmas carol melodies to tell the story. "Somebody totally misunderstood and had the belief that one of our teachers took it upon herself to rewrite the words to 'Silent Night,''' she said.

• New Jersey middle school officials canceled a field trip to see a performance of Charles Dickens' play A Christmas Carol for fear of offending some students.

The principal at South Orange Middle School said the cancellation of the field trip had to do with concerns that the play didn’t mesh with the class curriculum and noted that A Christmas Carol has little to do with religion and everything to do with the merits of charity, it being the story of a man who is miserly in spirit and with his money.

So be of good cheer, we are winning the War on Christmas!

I'm not in a war over Christmas??????????????????????????????

Celebrate it the way you want and I celebrate it the way I want. I will continue.
Thank you..

And you are on the right side!

I had a very nice Christmas and I hope you did too.

However, your question marks lead me to believe that you don’t know about the War on Christmas. I hope you don’t mind if I refer you to the definitive book about this:

How the ACLU and other secularist Grinches have almost stolen Christmas

And Bill O’Reilly’s comments (he has been a real leader here):

O'Reilly's "War" on Christmas

Even though this year Bill has declared victory:

Bill O'Reilly declares victory in war on Christmas

I urge you to remain vigilant. If you don't then they will win and you will not be allowed to say "Merry Christmas" in public places. Christmas will just become commercialized.

I didn't see you response to me, I had to go and celebrate CHRISTmas with my family and husband's family in N.C.

Sorry, I won't stop saying Merry Christmas - it's called freedom of speech.

I don't know why it matters to you how I celebrate CHRISTmas- I said celebrate it the way you want to and I will celebrate it the way I want to. I don't have to do it your way and you don't have to do it my way.

I still hope you had a Merry Christmas!

"His parents were told he was not welcome at the celebration...

"Headmaster Ian Davidson said that because the youngster had no interest in religion he could not celebrate the birth of Christ."

What if any religious significance is there in, "while his friends received presents from Santa and tucked into ice cream and jelly." Were the children forced to say a prayer first? Were the other children required to genuflect to Santa in order to receive a gift or ice cream?

"I've helped out at the Christmas party before and it's got absolutely nothing to do with Jesus." So it's okay for the mother to help out the Christmas party even though she herself doesn't "believe"? Why was her assistance allowed? Why didn't the school refuse her assistance? (A hint Denise, rocket science not required for an answer.)

Please Denise, your arguments have no merit.

"Headmaster Ian Davidson said that because the youngster had no interest in religion he could not celebrate the birth of Christ." That’s it, period, no other reason.

"She contacted Moray Council to find out its policy on school parties and was told these were non-religious."

Call it what it was/is, an attempt by a fanatically religious "Headmaster" to force his version of religion on a 9 year old boy.

"Is that with your Dawkins’ book or without?" Without; except it goes a long way towards lending credence to what Dawkins writes about

"After the council spoke to the school, the decision to exclude Douglas was put down to a "misunderstanding".

I bet it was. The "misunderstanding" was on the part of the Headmaster being the envy of every Proctologist.

As to your "Speaking of lawsuits, I’d be remiss if I failed to mention similar stories:"

As you're the only one speaking of lawsuits, the article makes no mention of anything like that, please feel free to embellish as you see fit.

And, as you know, I've been a little less than inspired to join the choir.

May I recommend a book?

Philip Yancey grew up here on the south side of Atlanta--in the East Point/College Park area, I believe. Several of his books deal with his own alienation from organized Christianity due to bad experiences. (The church he attended, for instance, was openly racist in the days of King's civil rights movement, with the minister stereotyping blacks from the pulpit itself.) Yancey is an excellent writer with a blanced and common sense approach to his topics.

What's So Amazing About Grace? is his discussion of how things ought to be but often are not. (He laments the "religious right's" sometimes nasty tactics and hateful attitudes, for instance.)

It's a great read.

He has a later one titled Soul Survivor, with the great subtitle, "How My Faith Survived the Church." This book is a series of chapter-long biographies of people whose lives have inspired Yancey himself. The idea, of course, is to see how it can and ought to be.

________________

Floor Mosaic, 3rd cent. church, North end Sea oif Galilee

Reading is something I truly enjoy.

Like my music collection I listen to music because I enjoy listening to music. Reading is the same with me. I'll read just about anything and the chance to learn something new is always part of the reward.

Phillip Yancy is one the best authors- I have read What's So Amazing About Grace - thanks for a great suggestion, it has other books that are great like Dissapointment With God etc. What's so amazing about Grace I got from the Tryone Lib.

There is another author I read, I will have to find my book- forgot his name- very outstanding book on the topic.