It never ceases to amaze me at the things which seem to offend Atheists. Any mention of God, Christianity, or religion seem to set them all aflutter. The newest target is Charlie Brown. Yes, you heard correctly: Charlie Brown.
(The Daily Caller) — Charlie Brown’s Christmas is on the outs at an elementary school in Little Rock, Ark. — at least among atheists who are calling foul over a planned student trip to see a stage production of the beloved Peanuts story.
The trouble began when students at Terry Elementary School brought home letters detailing the trip to see “A Charlie Brown Christmas” at a local church, according to a report from Arkansas’ KARK. A parent who had a problem with the play’s content notified the local atheist group of the field trip.
“We’re not saying anything bad about Charlie Brown,” Anne Orsi, vice president of the Arkansas Society of Freethinkers, told KARK. “The problem is that it’s got religious content and it’s being performed in a religious venue and that doesn’t just blur the line between church and state, it oversteps it entirely.”
“A Charlie Brown Christmas” is about the title character’s struggle to overcome the holiday’s commercialism and embrace the true meaning of Christmas. The holiday classic culminates with the character Linus quoting from the second chapter of Luke.
While students can opt out, the parent whistle blower who preferred to remain unnamed told KARK that she is letting her child go because she does not want her child to be bullied.
The church, Agape, told KARK that they have offered other family friendly shows to students in the past without issue and the Little Rock School district said that they do not endorse any religion.
Perhaps it’s my own personality that makes me want to mock these people for their contrived offense, or maybe this silliness deserves to be ridiculed. I’ll let you decide. Sure, it’s in a church, I get it. Why is that so offensive? Does it really cause unease, displeasure, and resentment? If so, you’re a bigot. If just being in a building causes you to be offended, you’re hyper-sensitive. The children are not being made to worship God or participate in a religious ceremony. They are watching Charlie Brown. Oh. The. Horror.
This nonsense about not wanting her child to be bullied, by who exactly? Bullied from someone like you? Here’s the thing, if you as a parent didn’t make your child feel as though they can be near someone who might talk about their religion, or in a religious building, they wouldn’t feel bullied. This parent taught their child to feel like a bullied victim. Let’s be honest here. You can’t stomach just being in a building where you know some people practice their religion, and you want to prevent people who actually want to participate from doing so because of your hyper-sensitivities? You are the bully, get over yourself. The world doesn’t revolve around your feelings.
Sifting Reality 
It’s all part of the whining liberal agenda of “offense.” “I feel offended, so I must sue you.” But don’t forget they want tolerance.
A huge generalization is made here. I am an Atheist and if I had children who gave me a permission slip to see charlie brown in a church. I would let them, because I would know that my children aren’t really going to be exposed to anything harmful such as a person of the church preaching to my child. (it would say so in the form I suspect.) PLUS, My children would know my views and would be taught to just believe whatever they wanted to believe and I would support them. I wouldn’t be worried about some form of “brainwashing” whilst my child is there for like an hour and a half to watch a fucking children’s movie.
Not all atheists are the same, not all Christians are the same… We may share the same views but we don’t all speak our views with the same tone. Which in this case would be angry,obnoxious, and irrational to say the least.
Because of one group of atheists, or just one concerned (overly and irrationally concerned) parent says that they don’t feel comfortable with their children being in a church. Does NOT imply that all Atheists are “pathetic.”
Ivory
Thanks for renewing my faith in Atheists. Of course this is a generalization. It is steeped from the frustration of Atheists in particular feigning outrage and disgust in such benign activities such as what I rail against above. Kudos to you — I mean that sincerely — for recognizing that just because something might have a religious reference or be held in a building whose primary function is religious worship, it doesn’t mean they are being inundated with or indoctrinated to religious teachings. Thank you for your sanity, please spread the word!
I’m going to agree with you in this specific case- because the play is themed to Christmas and I think it is beneficial to expose children to the various reasons cultures celebrate the holiday season. I think atheists are rightfully offended by many incidents of the blurring line between religious instruction/ endorsement in public schools- but this case is not one of them.
If george agrees with me then I’m definitely right, I might as well shut down the comments!
It’s not Christianity. It’s Christianity in a public school. No one is ‘offended’. The parent is pointing out the Constitutional violation and the co-opting of our public schools to promote personal religious views. Kids go to school for approved curricula and if they want church, they can go to church. Saying someone is ‘offended’ is just an attempt to distract from the legal issues.
You can tell since no one has a problem with Charlie Brown or even a Charlie Brown Christmas or even a Charlie Brown Christmas in a private school. The objection only arises from a Charlie Brown Christmas in a public school.
Agape is proselytizing in government. If it were a Muslim or Hindu prayer, you’d be right there waving the Constitution. But since it’s Christianity, you’re happy to be liberal about your interpretation of the first amendment.
Jason,
You are like every other liberal who has no clue what the Constitution really says, rather you have bought off on the liberal nonsense. The Constitution only states that Congress – i.e., the Federal government, can not make a law establishing a religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
If you read the intent of the authors, you will learn that they did not want to have a national religion (denomination, by the way, is what they were referring to – Christianity was assumed to be the religion of the people) the way they did in Europe – e.g., Roman Catholicism in much of Europe, Lutheranism in Germany and nearby countries, Church of England, etc. Nothing anyone has ever done has violated that rule, but people like you claim a school who participates in a Christian exercise somehow violates this law – as if the school represented the Federal gov’t and made it a law! Of course I have yet to see any atheist outrage over all the school shenanigans, especially in California, where the kids have to dress up as Muslims, participate in celebrating Muslim holidays, etc, etc, etc.
Oh, and don’t forget the Yoga and other New Age religious beliefs constantly being taught in school. That’s also okay for atheists. Just don’t mention the Christian faith.
Actually they did have a problem with Charlie Brown Christmas because they claimed it had religious content. And secondly the kids werent asked to participate in prayer or a worship service. It was a play in a church building. Hence the hypersensitivity of bigoted Atheists.
I don’t see what the issue is with going to see a play that has a reference to a religion during a season where that religion is celebrating a holiday. It is Christmas, for crying out loud. It is a Christian holiday- the same way that Chanukkah is a Jewish holiday. If a public school wanted to teach a lesson about the symbolism of a menorah or a dreidel, that wouldn’t be doing anything more than acknowledging the fact that this is the time of year that Jews celebrate Chanukkah and turning it into a learning experience.
Some of these kids in public schools might not have much exposure to the religious significance of Christmas- they might be Muslim, or Sikh, or atheists. Exposing kids to ideas and different cultures is not the problem- the problem is when those ideas are presented as being unquestionably better than competing worldviews.
It’s a rather selective sensitivity to religion, I’ve noticed. Some time back I read a story about a public school (in Toronto, I believe, but I’m not sure anymore) that had some sort of politically correct event that involved taking classrooms of elementary school kids to a local mosque to take part in prayers and listen to preaching, complete with the boys in the front and girls in the back. Parents were not told about what this “field trip” involved and didn’t find out about their kids being made to say Islamic prayers at a mosque until afterwards. There were some complaints, which got ignored, it barely made the news, then disappeared as an issue. Of course, no anti-theist activist organizations would complain about that!
The bullying concern made my eyebrows go up, too. Really? I remember another homeschooling mom in BC telling about an incident she’d found out had happened to her daughter before they pulled her from school. Her daughter, then in grade 2, had been outside at recess, talking to a friend. She invited this girl to an event held by a Christian organization. Another girl nearby overheard what she had invited her friend to and promptly attacked her, knocked her to the ground and curb stomped her head for daring to invite someone to a Christian event. It took the girl 2 years of home schooling before she was able to tell her mother about what happened. Sadly, physical and verbal assault of children by other children for their Christian beliefs (and Jewish, from what I’ve heard from other parents) is not unusual. In Canada, at least, anti-theism and Islam are the two officially (by the school boards, at least) sanctioned religions being pushed onto our children. Other religions are humoured, but Christianity and Judaism is openly attacked, as are the children who dare show be part of, or even just defend, either.
Come on Kunoichi, that doesn’t even pass the smell test. It doesn’t even sound plausible. Kids in Grade 2 commit religious hate crimes? Really? Kids get “curb stomped” and don’t have any noticeable marks or bruises when they go home? They only recount the story 2 years later after the child’s parent has been proselyting about the evils of atheism? What about that story sounds even remotely plausible?
You want to believe a third hand urban legend because it validates your persecution complex. Even when the specifics seem entirely ridiculous.
I don’t doubt that the Toronto School board had a field trip to a Mosque- you might be surprised to hear that Toronto has a very diverse religious community. I doubt however, that any children were forced or even asked to participate in a religious ceremony. That seems like augmented worry on the part of Christian parents whose children attended- and again adding fuel to their perceived persecution complex. Is it possible that the children attended a Mosque where at times girls and boys would be separated? Yes. Is that a cause for concern? Yes. The obviously false and ridiculous idea that atheist and secular organizations support religious field trips and indoctrination if it is Islamic just shows how unbelievably ignorant you really are.
” Kids in Grade 2 commit religious hate crimes? Really?”
Kids in gr 2 don’t think of what they’re doing as “hate crimes.” If this sounds unbelievable to you, either you don’t remember what it was like to be a kid or you led a remarkably sheltered life.
” Kids get “curb stomped” and don’t have any noticeable marks or bruises when they go home?”
Did I say there were no noticeable marks? I just said that the child hadn’t told her mother what happened until years after the event. For children who have been pulled from public school, it can take a very long time before they learn to drop their defenses. School culture has a very strong “us and them” mentality of kids vs adults. That was strongly displayed after the Reena Virk murder. The students knew exactly what had happened and who did it, but no one came forward to the authorities. There was an implicitly understood “code of silence” that was considered worse to break then the murder itself. I remember it from when I was in school, too. Adults where the “enemy.” You just didn’t tell them certain things.
“They only recount the story 2 years later after the child’s parent has been proselyting about the evils of atheism? ”
Now that’s a bizarre leap. Why do you assume this girl’s parents were “proselytizing about the evils of atheism”? A rediculous accusation that shows more about your own prejudices than anything else.
“What about that story sounds even remotely plausible?”
Hmmm… Maybe because I actually knew the mom at the time? Because that sort of physical assault is not actually all that uncommon in schools? Because I remember what it was like at that age? Because I’ve seen similar situations my children have encountered? Yeah, I home school my kids, but that doesn’t mean stuff like this doesn’t happen. My daughter had a 9 yr old boy pull a knife on her because she and a friend told him to stop bullying younger kids (all home schooled kids on a weekly park day). Granted, he was more in danger of hurting himself with the cheap POS he had.
Not only is the story plausible, it’s not that unusual.
” I doubt however, that any children were forced or even asked to participate in a religious ceremony. That seems like augmented worry on the part of Christian parents whose children attended- and again adding fuel to their perceived persecution complex.”
Wow. What a strange mix of denial and conspiracy theories.
“The obviously false and ridiculous idea that atheist and secular organizations support religious field trips and indoctrination if it is Islamic just shows how unbelievably ignorant you really are.”
I didn’t say they support such field trips. I’m saying they don’t object to them the way they attack anything that even hints at Judeo/Christianity. If I am accusing these anti-theist groups of anything, it’s of being lilly livered cowards and hypocrits. It’s not the anti-theists that are objecting to “mosques” in public schools.
http://www.torontosun.com/2011/07/18/religious-groups-plan-to-protest-in-school-prayer-sessions
http://life.nationalpost.com/2011/07/11/muslim-prayer-in-school-exposes-flaws-of-religious-accomodation/
Did you post that to prove my point, John?
Thank you.
See, when I hear the word “curb-stomped”- I think of a truly violent act. I think of the victim being injured enough that the school would have investigated. I think of a parent going into the school and making a huge issue- potentially pulling my child immediately from the school. I think of police coming and getting statements from the children and parents.
I don’t usually think of a parent thinking this is “par for the course”, or “kids will be kids”- and just brush aside a curb-stomping until my child wants to talk about it. I would think that someone retelling this story would say it was the reason why the child was pulled from school.
I remember the Virk case, and I also remember that it was not motivated by her being of Indian descent, or a JW. Kids don’t care about stuff like that. Especially not secular kids.
I went to school too. I don’t think I went to school in an overly religious area. No one- ever- was physically attacked for being overly religious. It never happened. I’m not sure what horrible crime infested hard-knocks neighborhood you grew up in in Canada, but in North Bay, Ontario, people don’t get curb-stomped enough for it to be “not really uncommon”. A kid got beat pretty bad with a skateboard once-when I was five years out of high school- and it was all the newspaper talked about for days. One of my best friends was “that bible thumper” kid- you would think I would know about it if he was being curb-stomped on a bi-weekly basis.
As for the two articles you linked to- both on the same incident- neither of them say that secular groups and atheists seemed to be indifferent to the situation- and in fact the NP article was written by Jackson Doughart, who as the article explains:
So much for indifference….
“when I hear the word “curb-stomped”- I think of a truly violent act. ” And about as damaging as a 7 yr old can be. Violent, yes, but less likely to have the same sort of damage.
“the school would have investigated.” They can’t investigate what they don’t know about, and even then, schools have an odd way of turning a blind eye to real abuse while freaking out of kids holding out chicken nuggets and saying “bang.”
“potentially pulling my child immediately from the school. ” etc. etc. They can’t act on something they don’t know about. As for this mother, she had pulled her daughter out of school for many other reasons and had no idea it had happened until her daughter told her about it 2 years later. I’m repeating myself here, because you seem to have difficulty with reading comprehension.
“I remember the Virk case, and I also remember that it was not motivated by her being of Indian descent,” Speaking of problems with reading comprehension… WTH?? I used the case as an example of how school culture prevents children from talking to adults about even the most atrocious crimes. That’s it. Where on earth did you get the idea that I suggested it had anything to do with her ethnicity?
“No one- ever- was physically attacked for being overly religious. It never happened. ” Congratulations. Consider yourself blessed. Oh, wait… Nevermind.
” I’m not sure what horrible crime infested hard-knocks neighborhood you grew up in in Canada, ” My first school was a 2 classroom building with so few students, grades K-3 were all in one of them, and the other was used as a gym. My second school was in a neighbouring town that was the only one big enough to have a school, and even then only because kids from all the surrounding towns and farms were bused in. My graduating class had 47 students, including myself. At the time, such incidents were relatively rare, with the odd broken leg or ribs and a spate of suicides. Now the high school is rife with gangs and drugs expanded from the nearest city (Winnipeg), and the idiots in the town council chose to build the new elementary school right next to it. Moving back to my home town, it was the only place we lived where my kids were NOT given the choice of going to public school or staying home schooled. Where I grew up was actually not that violent, relatively speaking. One of my neighbours was raised in Winnipeg, where he witnessed his first murder at age nine, on the sidewalk outside his home. Another kid, slightly older then himself, stabbed to death by another kids. This stuff barely even makes the news anymore.
“in fact the NP article was written by Jackson Doughart, ” Again with the reading comprehension problems. He may be a policy writer for the CSA, but no anti-theist or secular group came forward to object to the “mosqueteria”. None.
Here is a new title for this “blog” entry: Parent (s) Concerned over School Field Trip to Church.
And for what it’s worth every atheist I know shows concern for or actually does something about the use of or exposure to religion of any kind in a public school. Whether it be islam, new agey tree worship or christianity. Enough already with the purposefully inaccurate generalizations.
“every atheist I know shows concern for or actually does something about the use of or exposure to religion of any kind in a public school. ”
You know, I’m really starting to have doubts about your mental faculties. Did I say anything about individual atheists? No. I was talking about the activist groups that claim to speak for atheists and their double standards and hypocrisy.
Seriously, Nash. Either bone up on your literacy or get psychiatric help, because you’re starting to come across as downright delusional.