What do prayer at beginning of class or city hall meetings, and the national anthem before sports games have in common?

They are at the beginning.

Please save your answers everyone I’ve flagged it for typo and to add detail.

Really, that ^^^ is it. What is your point @flo? I feel like you’re getting at something.

And they are all (likely) inappropriate.

They are the beginning of something important.

They are at the beginning.

They create a sense of unity and common purpose.

Both are insidious, ritualistic propaganda.

Pure evil.

But @Jaxk not everyone thinks/feels the same way about either of these 2 items.

I hope someone has flagged the OP I made a typo.

They both serve to suspend active thought.

@flo, you can flag your own stuff.

@flo – Not everyone feels the same about any activity. If we could only do things that everyone agreed with, we wouldn’t be able to do anything.

@Jaxk, The anthem is not necessary, at the very least.
See here:
https://www.fluther.com/207884/is-it-the-right-or-wrong-thing-for-the-nfl-to/#quip3462081

Added:
@Jaxk By the way, how about @ragingloli‘s and @stanleybmanly‘s posts? And @canidmajor‘s post, if it says that the anthem and prayer are inappropriate.

They impose a unity that may not be there and squash individual rights and beliefs. And certainly prayer before a civic meeting is against the separation of church and state. We are not a religious hegemony.

I wouldn’t say they are necessarily inappropriate. They ARE traditional, but those not interested in participating, should be tolerated without consequence.

I find prayer before a class or city hall meeting to be a bit spooky. These are activities that God has delegated to us. The idea that God has a seat round the table or is an ethereal presence floating near the ceiling to make sure the correct decision is made re bin uplifts seems wrong.

I don’t have a problem with the national anthem being played before international sporting events. If you can’t play it then when can you play it?

They are both multicultural events. They remind us, for instance, that some people believe in God, or belong to America.

@flo – I’ll give you the prayer argument not because it has any merit but because it’s not worth fighting If you don’t believe in religion, why is it so damned important that you denigrate those that do?

The National Anthem however, symbolizes the country. It doesn’t mean it’s perfect but only that its someplace you want to be. If you don’t want to be here, hell get out. Nothing holding you here. The US is rather unique in that almost everyone here, came here of their own volition. They wanted to come here. They’re here by choice. If you now hate the country you can choose another more to you liking. Maybe Iran, Cuba, Venezuela.

“The US is rather unique in that almost everyone here, came here of their own volition.”

I won’t argue with you @Jaxk, we’re each entitled to our own opinions but that one statement is patently false in respect to one group of people.

‘Almost’, being the operative word. It’s not false.

@Jaxk
So, what country did you come from?

@janbb & @Jaxk It isn’t true of anyone born here either. The great bulk of us are here by random chance, and as things are developing there are places where we might fare better.

@flutherother Everyone can play it just like any other song on thier play list. And of course the Olympics.

@Jaxk
1)“I’ll give you the prayer argument not because it has any merit but because it’s not worth fighting”
If it has no merit please present the argument. I wouldn’t see it as fighting.

2)Re. your “If you don’t believe in religion, why is it so damned important that you denigrate those that do?”
Please quote my statement that denigrates them.

flo – Your reference to @ragingloli,‘s @stanleybmanly,‘s and @canidmajor implied support for those positions. Pure evil, suspend thought? sounds like denigration to me. And once you feel it necessary to denigrate religion or those that are religious, there’s not much point in arguing. I’m not sure where you want to take this point. Seems unlikely we’d get any agreement or even tolerance.

@Jaxk
1)I shouldn’t have included @ragingloli ‘s post. But as for the rest, I don’t know if it is _denigration
By the way I was trying to get you to respond to other posters as well, it’s more interesting.

2) What about re. the prayer in classroom item? You’re saying my post has no merit, at the same time you’re saying I’ll give you that which means you think it does.

3) If you have a veteran friend/family member who doesn’t feel patriotic anymore because of
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/mar/26/us-veterans-inadequate-care-war
not be able to go to a football game (if that’s the only thing he/she finds pleasurable, let’s say)?

@flo – The whole religion argument simply gets too much play. I’m not religious but wish I was. It would be comforting to believe that those I known and loved have gone to a better place. That someday I may be with them again. Unfortunately I don’t know how to make myself believe something I can’t logically prove. However, I can’t see the benefit in denigrating someone that does believe. I don’t see the goal. Is it to convince those that find comfort in an afterlife that it doesn’t exist? To convince those that believe their son or daughter have gone to a better place that they haven’t? Why is it so damned important to destroy that which provides comfort to others? Especially when it costs you nothing to let it go.

As for prayer, I’ve bowed my head for 60 years when others pray. Surprisingly it has never cost me anything nor changed my views even slightly. Never felt the need to protest.

I’m not sure I understand your point about wounded veterans. I don’t know any that have turned against their country but I don’t doubt that some exist. Help them if we can but I won’t encourage disrespecting the country. We all have to right to protest. Some anxiously await the opportunity to protest anything and everything. I don’t.

While I will agree that there are issues to be addressed more dire than religion or patriotism, isn’t it interesting that both are now regarded as the big totems for conservatism? The big thing common to both is that at bottom both are about loyalty without questioning. You know “mysterious ways”, or “my country-right or wrong”.

No, I don’t know “mysterious ways”, or “my country-right or wrong”. Nor do I know about loyalty without questioning, I arrived at the “religious” points I believe in college, taking graduate level classes, when I learned about historical evidences supporting the scriptures (manuscript evidences, a science) , the spread of Christianity in the first and second centuries, and the evidences around the Resurrection of Christ. There was far more than I could spend a lifetime unpacking.

As far as politics, I got most of my ideas in the Reagan era when I was still young and impressionable. I learned SOMETHING from every administration. The last Democrat I voted for was Obama during his first term, because his campaign was VERY positive in an era of partisian politics. Soon, however, many small business owners who HEAVILY supported Obama—people who own specialty shops and small restaurants in the arts community—NOT right wingers—formed the first Tea Party rallies, They played by Obama’s rules and were punished by his polices. By Obama’s second term, he was telling Israel to go back to its pre-1967 borders, and that Christians were just as bad as Muslims because of things that happened 500–550 years ago. During his second term, I saw how radical and dangerous the Obama administation was.

Conservatives have a LOT more information on their websites, talk shows, and networks than I can get from mainstream, alternative, and underground media of other sources, and they have never been wrong.

I suppose MOST conservatives were driven to the sources they use because they were seeking alternative information to find out what was behind the lies and bias our mainstream culture was feeding them through the media. If they were unthinking and stupid they would be following the mainstream CNN, MSNBC and whatever else is piped in their banks, airports, waiting rooms, lounges, food venues, smart phones, cable networks, etc etc

It takes some inquisitiveness and ability to seek truth in order to get away from the drool and pablum endlessly spewing from “mainstream” sources into our society at large.

@Jaxk How does my “don’t feel patriotic anymore” get turned into
”...wounded veterans….that have turned against their country”?

@Yellowdog you have a sentence above on media with words like “stupid” and “unthinking” without “FOX”? Was this an oversight?

@flo – what was the link to inadequate healthcare at the VA supposed to mean? I assumed it was your point. If not what is your point?

@Jaxk Please, did I imply that those veterans joined a terrorist group, or became moles? Is that why you wrote ”have turned against their country”?

@Yellowdog I’m still reading your post