Sean Faircloth of Secular Coalition for America remarks on the National Day of Prayer

[ignostu]

dear Sean , you just volunteered yourself for Global Citizenship , a thing all nations MUST cling on to , to avoid having our children point out all our mistakes and having to correct us( and they will). The organization should be standalone , have Global power ,no IF, no AND, no BUT . The mission is all too clear isn't it..? Mankind is about to evolve beyond superstitions (...)19/20 th century thinking has no place in this millenium . Most eloquent , thank you.

Andrew

[bary1234]

Religion is ridiculous. Its stupid and poisonous. It has to die. This is a step to the right direction.

[caviper1]

..."bring fire upon the earth"...

[554466551]

Good luck. I hope I'm not soon forced to acknowledge the United Theocratic States of America.

[LotsaPixels]

Excellent speech! I agree 100%. However, please use a better (HD?) camera and a tripod (less than $1K). The swimming effect was nauseating and the audio was weak. Thanks for all your efforts and best of luck on this critical cause!!! :-)

[RLB2917]

Perhaps if Congress spent less time praying and more time working to solve our nation's challenges, we would be better off. Of course it takes a lot less effort to pray than to address a difficult problem. And in our society today, public prayer earns more votes than hard work. So who can blame our representatives for their lack of effort?

[MeBeMat]

I don't think it's a bad thing for Christians to have a national day of prayer, most of them would pray anyway - though I wonder if there will be a national wishing well day or national rain dance day...

[peterwetton]

i pray that one day jesus and his other make believe friends will piss off and stop humanity from embarrassing itself. lets all have a global day of banishing sky wizzards

[keagar1]

I am for a national day of prayer so we can finaly see if prayer works, If we can get everyone in the nation to pray for less crime, we can then measure to see if crime rates went down. It would be an awesome experiment!

[craigdb84]

Not only are you completely wrong, but what almost everyone doesn't understand is that their is no separation of church and state. The parts of the first amendment about the government and churches is actually about keeping the government out of churches, not churches out of the government.

[Beeht]

@craigdb84 Wow, you're an idiot.

[Fishqueen1972]

@craigdb84 There are far to many churches to allow in the government. Besides, who is going to keep you religiou wackjobs from killing eachother. Separation of church of state. Once you all feel that one demonimation is getting more power through the gov't than the other. You all will be scatching eachothers eyes out. You did it in the past. Someone has to protect your all from eachother. That is why us reasonable secularists fight for it because we care about your well being.

[TampaRed]

I'm not American, but I'm certainly for the progress of reason and the upholding of seperation of church and state. I'm also against pretty much anything that involves Billy Graham. Throw in Pat Robertson and you're guaranteed to have an international response to this foolish idea of a "day of prayer."

[LanceWinslow4]

Who cares if we have a National Prayer Day, if it makes people happy, let them do it.

[Kalamari92]

@LanceWinslow4

Thats not the issue. The fact that the government wants to mandate a day for prayer, when not everyone shares the same beliefs, indicates the exact thing the founding fathers did not want.

[strubinator]

Nothing fails like prayer. I mean really - talking to imaginary beings? Even if a god did exist, why should he/she/it need worship and why would he/she/it ever change the natural order of things created by him/her/ it just because some whiny-ass primate begs for it? Most importantly, why should the US government endorse and/or encourage such silliness other than to say that Americans have the right to have their delusions without government sponsorship?

[TXatheist]

Why must we stop having the national day of prayer? Because every study on intercessory prayer shows it's a waste of time and does nothing. Pray any time you want but don't ask politicians to waste time doing this exercise which has shown to be useless and does nothing but alienate non-believers for not submitting to this superstitious ritual.

[ORKEN6]

@TXatheist

TXatheist, I have to disagree with you. We must stop the NDP because our Constitution is too important to let any religious group destroy. Freedom of and from religion is a very important right, and the separation of church and state must always be fought for and maintained.

The fact that prayer is useless is completely irrelevant. It is the separation of church and state that matters.

I know we agree that it must be stopped, but why it must be stopped is where we disagree.

[TXatheist]

@ORKEN6 I agree with you that it is also a breach of the separation of church and state.

[FaganRoberts]

Justice John Paul Stevens can read the original intent of the 1st Amendment, which is a good thing. But Stevens had a BIG problem when it came to reading the original intent of the 2nd. Amendment. Not a good thing. Seems like old SCJ Stevens has a built in prejudice when it comes to understanding the Bill of Rights. He cancels himself out and becomes just another mediocre SCJ. What a waste.

[DastardlyDawkins]

What harm is there in having a national day of prayer, we here in the U.K. have something known as 'Rememberence Day' which is also a national day of prayer however we choose to dedicate the prayers of that day to the fallen heroes who gave up their lives to ensure the survival of our shared Christian heritage.

Why would anyone in their right mind want to abolish such a humblingly dignified occasion?

[jrtyrrell]

@DastardlyDawkins um.. I think you'll find that Remembrance day in England, is not a national day of prayer it does coincidentally overlap with the feast of St. Martin of Tours.

Aside that it is a time to consider and remember the fallen It is observed on 11 November to recall the end of World War I on that date in 1918 (by the signing of a treaty) Wilhelm II the emperor of Germany was a Lutheran by the way so no need to worry about survival of Christian heritage.

[DastardlyDawkins]

@jrtyrrell

You atheists are always looking to detract from the truth, always trying to twist the meaning and sentiment of anything you don't agree with.....i think you'll find the service is conducted every year by the Bishop of London, at the request of the royal household, on behalf of Her Majesty The Queen, who is of course head of the Church of England and also commander in chief of the armed forces....all purely coincidental of course!

[jrtyrrell]

@DastardlyDawkins okay firstly I haven't mentioned anything about faith yet, I am stating that remembrance day is *not* a day of prayer. Or anything like a day of prayer. It was not set up for religious reasons for the church. I was set up to honour the WWI heroes of the Entente powers who fought the Central powers.

Being English I am *very* certain of the sentiment and I think it's *very* important we remember those hero's though it has always been "two minutes of silence" ... (part 1/2)

[jrtyrrell]

@DastardlyDawkins (part 2/2)

in my memory it is always silence and contemplation NOT 2 minutes of prayer, I don't think I've ever listened to the bishop of London but the members of the Royal British Legion who organise most of the ceremonies around the country. I respect our fallen dead.

Even if we agree to disagree on that point (we could argue forever), it is not a day to pray for religions sake it is a day to remember the fallen a very different endeavour to the national day of prayer.

[Szakalot]

@DastardlyDawkins

the problem is 'national'. The nation of US is SECULAR, regardless of the beliefs of the individuals.

[colorschan]

Im an atheist living in europe.

To me, the preaching of the constitution is on the same level as preaching the bible.

They are both outdated documents. I do understand the seperation of church and state, and i know it is a good thing.

But please can we atleast have a updated view instead of just "THE CONSTITUTION SAYS SO".

[yoyohowjambo]

@colorschan

this is ridiculous, the constitution is a legal document, which regulates the major part of activities in a society. nobody preaches the constitution, like noone preaches a technical documentation for a car.

[FaganRoberts]

@colorschan Yeah! How 'bout the Communist Manifesto? LOL - You're funny.....

[MrJurekGG]

@colorschan

Possibly, the most retarded comment upon any subject in the recent weeks !

I said possibly - because the competition is very strong and there are many of the most debilic comments appearing on YouTube just about any time of the day.

A constitution is like a bible ?

Constitution preaching ?

They are BOTH outdated documents...?

Some brains never stop working.

[JosephW99]

YOU have my vote....thanks

[PaineLover]

Thank you, Mr Faircloth. Thank you from all of us who work hard to educate the masses on the great importance of upholding our Constitution, and the seperation of church and state.