Doug Stanhope, Marriage, Separation o' Church/State
Capricorn
04-12-2013, 04:25 PM
Below is a quote from film critic Roger Ebert who recently died from cancer.
Quote:
I grew up attending Catholic schools. We started every day with classroom prayer at St. Mary's School, of course, but Sister Rosanne said there was a difference between voluntary prayer in a private religious school and prayer in a school paid for by every taxpayer.
This is really an argument between two kinds of prayer - vertical and horizontal. I don't have the slightest problem problem with vertical prayer. It is horizontal prayer that frightens me. Vertical prayer is private, directed upward toward heaven. It need not be spoken aloud, because God is a spirit and has no ears. Horizontal prayer must always be audible, because its purpose is not to be heard by God, but to be heard by fellow men standing within earshot.
To choose an example from football, when my team needs a field goal to win and I think, "Please, dear God, let them make it!" - that is vertical prayer. When, before the game, a group of fans joins hands and "voluntarily" recites the Lord's Prayer - that is horizontal prayer. It serves one of two purposes: to encourage me to join them, or to make me feel excluded.
Although some of the horizontal devout are sincere, others use this prayer as a device of recruitment or intimidation. If you are conspicuous in your refusal to go along, they may even turn and pray while holding you directly in their sights.
This simple insight about two kinds of prayer, which is beyond theological question, should bring a dead halt to the obsession with prayer in public places. It doesn't, because the purpose of its supporters is political, not spiritual. THEIR FAITH IS LIKE DIAL SOAP: NOW THAT THEY USE IT, THEY WISH EVERYONE WOULD. I grew up in an America where people of good breeding did not impose their religious convictions upon those they did not know very well. Now those manners have been discarded....
Quote:
I grew up attending Catholic schools. We started every day with classroom prayer at St. Mary's School, of course, but Sister Rosanne said there was a difference between voluntary prayer in a private religious school and prayer in a school paid for by every taxpayer.
This is really an argument between two kinds of prayer - vertical and horizontal. I don't have the slightest problem problem with vertical prayer. It is horizontal prayer that frightens me. Vertical prayer is private, directed upward toward heaven. It need not be spoken aloud, because God is a spirit and has no ears. Horizontal prayer must always be audible, because its purpose is not to be heard by God, but to be heard by fellow men standing within earshot.
To choose an example from football, when my team needs a field goal to win and I think, "Please, dear God, let them make it!" - that is vertical prayer. When, before the game, a group of fans joins hands and "voluntarily" recites the Lord's Prayer - that is horizontal prayer. It serves one of two purposes: to encourage me to join them, or to make me feel excluded.
Although some of the horizontal devout are sincere, others use this prayer as a device of recruitment or intimidation. If you are conspicuous in your refusal to go along, they may even turn and pray while holding you directly in their sights.
This simple insight about two kinds of prayer, which is beyond theological question, should bring a dead halt to the obsession with prayer in public places. It doesn't, because the purpose of its supporters is political, not spiritual. THEIR FAITH IS LIKE DIAL SOAP: NOW THAT THEY USE IT, THEY WISH EVERYONE WOULD. I grew up in an America where people of good breeding did not impose their religious convictions upon those they did not know very well. Now those manners have been discarded....
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