[net.religion] School prayer - An experiment

jho@ihuxn.UUCP (Yosi Hoshen) (04/04/84)

Some contributors to netnews raised the following  question:  Can
you  or  can't you pray privately in our public schools?  To test
this hypothesis my daughter, an  8th  grader  in  the  Naperville
public  school  system,  set  up an experiment. For two weeks she
privately prayed in school  during  lunch,  between  classes  and
during other free school time.  She did it silently, but with the
knowledge of her friends.   For  the  sake  of  completeness  she
selected  a set of deities to whom she offered her prayers. These
included among others:  Zeus, Jehovah, Rofdrak (the  God  of  the
dogs),  Odin,  and  the  Devil.  She was able to pray without any
interference by other children or school officials.

This experiment illustrates  that  it  is  possible  to  offer  a
private prayer to the deity of your choice in our public schools.
If any of you have any doubts  concerning  the  results  of  this
experiment, I strongly encourage you to repeat the experiment.

Can you imagine the problems that  would  arise  if  the  private
prayers  of  our  experiment would be replaced by vocal organized
prayers.  Wouldn't Christians and other God (Jehovah)  worshipers
be offended by the Devil worshipers and vice versa?
-- 

Yosi Hoshen
Bell Laboratories
Naperville, Illinois
(312)-979-7321
Mail: ihnp4!ihuxn!jho