Back of a student's shirt

[Goblinmonger]

as she is taking a test in my class right now:

"Dear God,
Why do you allow so much violence in our schools?
Signed, a concerned student

Dear Concerned Student,
I'm not allowed in schools.
God"

First of all, :puke:

Second, this is a very bright student which is disappointing.

Third, the irony of it is that she is writing an essay concerning Old Man and the Sea and we spent about 5 days talking about Christ imagery in literature and what that means.

Fourth, is it wrong of me to want to take a sharpie and write underneath God's reply:

"Dear God,
You sure are an impotent bastard, aren't you."

[phantom power]

1. Her god is the Old Testament version -- spiteful and jealous

[tbyg52]

2. I get so sick of that "God is not allowed in school" crap.

You can pray any time you want to in school. You're just free from having teachers and administrators foist *their* religion on you.

[YankeyMCC]

3. Well that's a pretty impotent god

that can't ignore man made rules on paper just to stop violence against the people he's supposed to love.

[moggie]

4. Isn't that shirt an incitement to violence?

It appears to imply that school violence is committed by godless students. If that's the case, then wearing that shirt is like walking around with "kick me" on your back.

What you need to do is wear Ben Goldacre's "I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that" shirt, the all-purpose answer to dumb shirt-based theology.

[ThomCat]

5. It must be very frustrating having to bite your tongue

when you are faced with this. :(

If she's a bright student you can only hope she outgrows her need for religion. I'm sure you're teaching her critical thinking skills so give them time to sink in and get some use. You might hear at some point down the road that she's thrown away the unnecessary crutch and learned to get by without it. :)

[Goblinmonger]

7. I bet she would be shocked and appalled to hear

that I am an atheist.

[LeftishBrit]

8. It's not the 'need for religion' that bothers me here...

It's the need to force others to follow her religion. The implication is either that if you aren't religious you must be violent, or that if you aren't religious you don't deserve protection from violence. Pretty nasty, either way.

[progressoid]

6. Ugh. There's not much you can do with that much stupid.

[tiddlywinks]

9. o LORD

i saw that one today
what a coincident
christers

[varkam]

10. Wow - that's a pretty painful shirt.

And yeah - I'm sure God got all tooled up to march right in there and clean out the thugs, but just as God opened the front door the volunteer parent hall monitor shot Him a glance and he decided it would be a better idea to back down. Don't want to fuck with those hall monitors, man.

[moggie]

11. No, it's not that

God is a bit of a dick. The victims cry out for him to do something about the violence, but he's all "nuh-uh! If you kids and teachers aren't loudly praising me at school, you can all be shot for all I care. Serves you right"

People create God in their own image, or at least how they would like to be. This shirt-wearer evidently aspires to be a petulant douchenozzle. Isn't it great for kids to have goals?

[varkam]

12. I think that's the idea of Strenger's "Horrible, Hidden God"

And, IMO, a righteous individual cannot properly serve such a being. Indeed - the righteous individual would be the one actively lashing out against such a monstrosity, or, at the very least, not wanting to have anything to do with it.

[cosmik debris]

13. So god obeys U.S. laws?

And god honors and respects the First Amendment?

That's confusing.

[varkam]

14. As the song says, God is an American.

Would you expect any different?

[onager]

15. Yep. And his kid is American, too...

We've got the American Jesus,
Saw him on the interstate,
We've got the American Jesus,
He helped build the President's estate...--Bad Religion

[tiddlywinks]

16. wow! very astute!

i know i'll never have the chance to say that to the kid
it's history
but that would've been perfect

(when i saw the back of this kids shirt i was walking through the hall of one of my skools several weeks ago and
I'm a teacher and have no idea who he was but that was perfect)

[sarcasmo]

17. It must be hard to teach narrow minds.