Petition Against Chaplain
- Thread starter ia8manfan
- Start date
"I am not all that comfortable with this, It's rather hard for christians to not prosleytize. The religion sort of demands it."
- joepublic
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Well, if you are uncomforatble....then the team should not have this service.
"Originally Posted by BryceC
Follow up question - do we have anyone on the team currently that's not Christian or atheist? I don't think the atheists need a chaplain of any kind and if there aren't any Muslims on the team, it would be a real waste of money on an Imam."
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No, but now a player that wants access to an Imam, mullah, Rabbi, Priest, or Minister.....they have someone on the staff to go to....to help them meet and build a realtionship with one of the above. What everyone is forgetting is this is not about us, Shawn Keelor, these "embarrasment" to the university proffessors, or anyone else, BUT the players. Until one of them expresses concern....then the point is moot.
- joepublic
####
Well, if you are uncomforatble....then the team should not have this service.
"Originally Posted by BryceC
Follow up question - do we have anyone on the team currently that's not Christian or atheist? I don't think the atheists need a chaplain of any kind and if there aren't any Muslims on the team, it would be a real waste of money on an Imam."
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No, but now a player that wants access to an Imam, mullah, Rabbi, Priest, or Minister.....they have someone on the staff to go to....to help them meet and build a realtionship with one of the above. What everyone is forgetting is this is not about us, Shawn Keelor, these "embarrasment" to the university proffessors, or anyone else, BUT the players. Until one of them expresses concern....then the point is moot.
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With the amount of stress and strain put on College athletes, it is definitely helpful to have someone like a team chaplain who is really only there to listen. Sometimes they will give advice, but the main thing they are there for is to be a non opinionated listener. I think that its a shame that people are seizing this moment to make a political scene.
I believe in a separation of church and state, but I don't think that attacks made on a private entity within public university's athletic department is worth the trouble. Of all issues to jump at, they choose this one.
Players need someone who is not one of their coaches and I also feel that they do not need a professional shrink on the team. A chaplain's vocation is to listen, give advice when sought, and be a friend.
I believe in a separation of church and state, but I don't think that attacks made on a private entity within public university's athletic department is worth the trouble. Of all issues to jump at, they choose this one.
Players need someone who is not one of their coaches and I also feel that they do not need a professional shrink on the team. A chaplain's vocation is to listen, give advice when sought, and be a friend.
I am sick of these petitions.
What people fail to grasp here is that there is effort here by Prof. Avalos and his cohorts is to make any public university spiritually inert. It's called Secular Humanism and it's a philosophy or belief system, a "core belief" commensurate with any religion. That was at the heart of the ID debate recently, and it's popping up again here with this chaplain question. To the fault of many evangelical Christians and these Secularists is that they are trying to subjugate the rest of us to conform to their beliefs. In the case of the Secularists they want a theological vacuum, which would allow their "core values" to prevail as the de jure standard on public campuses, and therefore is an institutional endorsement of one philosophy or belief system: Secular Humanism.
What people fail to grasp here is that there is effort here by Prof. Avalos and his cohorts is to make any public university spiritually inert. It's called Secular Humanism and it's a philosophy or belief system, a "core belief" commensurate with any religion. That was at the heart of the ID debate recently, and it's popping up again here with this chaplain question. To the fault of many evangelical Christians and these Secularists is that they are trying to subjugate the rest of us to conform to their beliefs. In the case of the Secularists they want a theological vacuum, which would allow their "core values" to prevail as the de jure standard on public campuses, and therefore is an institutional endorsement of one philosophy or belief system: Secular Humanism.
Is there a problem on the team with this? If a Muslim, Jew, Atheist or anyone else on the team is saying, "Hey, I feel left out!" Then maybe it should be dealt with. Wherever the money is coming from shouldn't be the issue here. If the team wants to have a chaplain, it's their choice. As long as all options are available for those who feel left out. I guess I just get tired of people saying, "That's not mine! So you can't have it." Without even investigating to see if any other options are open. ISU is a public institution, but, even with that, I wasn't allowed to play Football for ISU when I started school here in 1989. Should I have said, "Well, if I can't play football, then no one should be able to." It's a public institution, everyone should be allowed to play." The reality is, Life isn't fair, we don't always get what we want. That doesn't mean everyone else on the planet should suffer. The other reality is is that this is the teams choice. Why is anyone, not associated with the team, allowed to try to change how they do things within full accordance of NCAA rules. It may be "Our" team, but, in reality it's their team. Let them prepare for games and deal with the season how they wish. I should not be allowed to tell them how to deal with religion and this includes not being able to tell them they can't have religion in their locker room.
Now, if we could put our energy towards finding solutions to real problems, that would be fantastic! "Oh crap, did you hear the Cyclones have a Chaplain for their team?" "Really, we're still fighting a War in the Middle East!" "Oh, who cares about that, These young impressionable minds might be exposed to God!" What I'm really amazed at are what people try to crusade against. I think there are a lot of people in this world that need to deal with their own lives before they start messing up other peoples. This includes myself!
Now, if we could put our energy towards finding solutions to real problems, that would be fantastic! "Oh crap, did you hear the Cyclones have a Chaplain for their team?" "Really, we're still fighting a War in the Middle East!" "Oh, who cares about that, These young impressionable minds might be exposed to God!" What I'm really amazed at are what people try to crusade against. I think there are a lot of people in this world that need to deal with their own lives before they start messing up other peoples. This includes myself!
Going back to the founding fathers is not impossible. In fact, it is rather easy. Most of those men were prolific writers, and their thoughts are captured for us in their many writings. Through scholarly research, we can very accurately determine their intentions when it comes to the constitution.
The founding fathers wrote the constitution the way they did because that's the way they intended government to function. If we don't intend to interpret the constitution to follow the wishes of the original writers, then why bother having a constitutuion at all? It makes absolutely no sense to claim to be governed by a document, and then interpret that document any way we want to.
I have not seen any writings by any of the Founding Fathers that indicate that they intended the constitution to be some kind of dynamic document that would be interpreted differently by subsequent generations. I challenge you to provide one such document written by any founding father that supports the concept of dynamic interpretation.
This dynamic interpretation position is the invention of lazy, 20th century politicians and philosophers who's views differ from those of the founding fathers. They are unable/unwilling to change the constitution to meet their viewpoints through valid means (i.e. amendments), so they have abused the judicial branch by turning it into an organization that makes laws instead of the organization that was charged by the constitution to interpret laws.
A little analogy...Suppose you were a passenger on one of the many 1960/70's vintage DC-9's still flying for passenger service. One of the engines catches fire, and the pilot has to pull out the vintage 1960's flight manual to solve the problem. If the flight manual says, "You must flip switch A1 to position C to put out the fire", would you want the pilot to interpret that as "Flip switch A1 to position B to put out the fire"? Of course not. The people who wrote the flight manual knew what to do to put out the fire, and gave instructions for how to deal with the issue. If 40 years of flight experience has not provided a better solution (i.e. the manual has not been updated), then that instruction should still be considered valid governance for how to deal with that particular aspect of the airplane.
We treat most documents as described above. Why is it then, that when it comes to the constitution, now we must treat that document as one that requires dynamic translation? Again, I'm open to any writings of the founding fathers indicating that the constitution should be treated as such.
Somehow, the amendment that the government should not establish a state religion, and that people should be free to practice religion is now being interpreted such that prayer cannot take place in public instituions and at government-related events. However, that interpretation violates the freedom to practice religion clause of the amendment.
If one interprets a statement such that said interpretation ends up violating the original statement, then said interpretation is probably wrong.
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Actually you are totally wrong.
The Nazi party came into power in Germany in 1933. At that time they had 2 million members...the population of the country was about 66 million. They catered to the 6 million or so that were unemployed at the time (about 9% of the population) to gain power.
The Nazi party in Germany is actually the story of a minority capturing power and then a country being run by a very small circle of fanatics in control of military power...not the vast majority beating down the minority.
In fact the story of the Nazis in Germany is quite illustrative of why it is so important that we not give up our 2nd Amendment rights. One reason the Nazis maintained control was that they had very strict "gun control" laws that repressed gun ownership by the masses.
Nice try, however, to label those of us that think the ISU FB Coach should be able to have a team Chaplain as Nazis!
Now that was a great rebuttle, thanks for correcting the first Nazi comparison and hope we don't see that again. I didn't know U of Co. Ward Churchill was a member here.
I think there are a lot of people who don't really understand what a chaplain's role is. They are not a pastor or priest, and they don't give sermons to the team. They are essentially nondenominational religious guides. They are there to listen, and to give guidance if asked for it. They are typically quite knowledgeable about the three big religions, and often a number of smaller ones (depending on geographic region), regardless of which one they themselves subscribe to. They are there to give any help they can, and to put the athletes in contact with an elder representative of the student's religion if either the chaplain or the student think that the student would be better served in that way. As someone mentioned earlier in the thread, military chaplains in the field can be Christian, Catholic, Jewish, or Muslim (or even something else, though you probably won't find many). But they administer religious and spiritual guidance and comfort to soldiers of any or all of those religions. Just because I'm not Jewish doesn't mean that I think a rabbi has no help to offer me. If I were spiritually troubled, I would feel very comfortable about going to a rabbi, knowing that he was a spiritual man even if his beliefs didn't exactly match my own. I'd know that he would be able to offer very sage advice, and would be able to direct me to a Christian pastor if I needed or wanted it.
The bottom line is 'chaplain' does not automatically equal 'Christian'.
And you missed my point. The Nazi party had an elitist attitude for the aryan race, which was the dominant demographic, while considering the gypsies, homosexuals, Jews, etc. as irrelevant because they weren't the majority. Nice try at skewing my words, though. I didn't call anyone a Nazi, just stating that if we ignore the minorities, it's dehumanization and then people start seeing them as objects or subhuman because there isn't a need to take their views into account. I have no problem with there being a chaplain for the team, or someone for them to confide in, but it should never be someone who has a religious agenda. Out of all the people I've met in my life, the agnostics are those who treat all religions the same. Sounds like the kind of person who should be a team chaplain, not a christian conservative who has an agenda to tell a student-athlete that he's a sinner if he confides that he's a homosexual and doesn't know if he should come out of the closet to his teammates.
Why not just hire a Sports Psychologist? Not only someone far less contaversial but somebody trained to deal with the kinds of problems these kids will have and get them focused where they need to be, school and sports...
One of these days, you'll figure it out...everybody has a "religious agenda". Everybody adheres to some philosophical worldview. Everybody places their faith in something. Sometimes it is God, sometimes it is their own strengths and abilities, sometimes it is money, sometimes it is another person, etc.
The ones who say they don't have a religion are the ones you should be afraid of, because they are either blinded to what governs them, or they are trying to disguise their true motivation...
1. Because this will be a Christian thing.
2. The donors will not step forward unless the guidance offered is coming from a christian.Christians are not going to fund a jewish chaplain for example.
That's a mesh of political and religious agendas. Let me rephrase what I meant. The chaplain should never be someone with an organized religious agenda. It should be someone who doesn't impose their beliefs when giving people advice. A simple test of this would be to have someone tell the chaplain they were thinking they may be homosexual. If they tell them that they're living a life of sin and need to change, the chaplain needs to be replaced because they're imposing a religious agenda before giving advice to the student.
The founding fathers built the government around basic rights, knowing that future generations could and would adapt it to present day situations. The whole purpose of the Judicial Branch is to keep Congress from signing into law any legislation that would take away those rights.
It's difficult to believe that anyone who has studied our government to any extent would compare it to a flight manual.
You really can’t go anywhere these days without someone shoving religion down your throat. I’m fine with a person believing in anything they want but don’t preach to me because I don’t want to hear it. It’s like your life-long friend that suddenly wants to allow you in his pyramid scheme.
Are there not churches in Ames? Why does there need to be a Chaplin on the team?
Remember the people with the signs last year at the first couple of games? Maybe Pollard will let them come onto the field at half time and we could all have a little prayer and talk about baby killing or something fun like that.
Are there not churches in Ames? Why does there need to be a Chaplin on the team?
Remember the people with the signs last year at the first couple of games? Maybe Pollard will let them come onto the field at half time and we could all have a little prayer and talk about baby killing or something fun like that.
