Is Rising Sun High School Filled With Hate?
Skyler Curtis is a student at Rising Sun High School. He noticed that there were different groups in his school, including Fellowship of Christian Athletes. He was recently inspired by atheist bus ads and had the idea of starting a group called Fellowship of Atheist Athletes. He asked a teacher to support his cause and approached the school administration for approval. It seems that the school administrators were concerned with his desire to use the word atheist. Maybe they were afraid that this word A-T-H-E-I-S-T would cause problems. Perhaps they were right. It was agreed that the group would use the name “NonReligious Solutions” or NRS.
Skyler talked to his dad about his plans and they designed posters based on the club title and content that was approved by the school administration.
Oooohhh how mean and scary is that? Within hours most were defaced or removed, soon they were all gone. One was found torn and crumpled in the school parking lot.
Things started to get a little too personal for Skyler.
I have been called an idiot for not believing in God which I think is quite rude due to the fact that it is my opinion.
He has even had threats…
I was told by a fellow peer that he would “Jack me up” and that he was not afraid of me because he was a “Crusader.”
Thankfully, Skyler has a very supportive dad. He is very concerned about what is going on and thinks that everyone should be free to have their own views.
“I spent 23 years defending this country (US Army) so each of us could decide our own views.”
So everyone can get the latest news, Skyler made a nice facebook page. Go there, sign up, show your support and get the latest news on this hatred and bigotry. Some ”loving” christians made an Anti-NRS page on facebook. They should be ashamed. Would they make and anti Jewish page or an anti African American page. I think they should take it down and I ask moderate christians to join me on this request. The vast majority of christians are good and loving people that want to do good. Don’t let others use your religion to promote hate. Stand up and be heard.
Letters to the editor started appearing in the local paper.
Here is a sample letter…
My favorite bit…
“But I will not have this type of atrocity taking place without having my voice heard.”
This oblivious idiot is not upset that the signs were pulled down; he is upset because they were allowed to be posted. How dare anyone suggest that we use science and logic! In reality, he is most likely afraid that if people start talking about religion, his child may discover that it is all made up. A fairy tale with less foundation in reality than Santa Claus. If there was any doubt of this man’s perspective, he closes with this gem…
I guarantee you do not want a religious war taking place, as I have God on my side and you’ll lose.
Please no more religious wars. I think we have had enough of those. I may never understand why some christians get so upset if we ask questions. Will your bronze age deity disappear if we look behind the curtain?
———————————————————————————————————————–
There is an update to this story – Is Rising Sun High School Filled With Hate? (part2)
If “Fellowship of Christian Athletes” is ok, and NRS is not, it is a violation of the First Amendment-government choosing one ‘religion’ over another.
Atheism is not a religion. Its a description for people who dont believe in one or more gods.
A-theism litterly means not-theism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theism
Little side note:
If Fellowship of -CHRISTIAN- Atheletes isn’t choosing one religion over another nothing is.
Maybe they think it’s “Rising SON” High School.
**rimshot**
Thank you! I’m beautiful! You’re here all week!
People have a right to believe in their religions, superstitions, or magical fantasies. They do not have a right, however, to bully, threaten, abuse, terrorize, or kill others who don’t believe.
I have a lot of respect for a high school kid with this kind of guts. It gives me hope that someday reason will prevail.
Again I thank you all for the support with the NRS. Its growing everyday thanks to you all.
Good luck Skyler! Great to see you standing up to these idiots!
Good luck Skyler ! From the Netherlands
Best of luck for Skyler, a good reason to start up my FaceBook accoutn again. Hope I can remember my password.
I wish I’d had the forethought to create something like this when I was in high school. More power to you, Skylar, you’re awesome for creating this and don’t let bigots destroy it for you.
Good for you kid!
‘Please no more religious wars. I think we have had enough of those. I may never understand why some christians get so upset if we ask questions. Will your bronze age deity disappear if we look behind the curtain?’
Interesting set of phrases. First a call to peace “please no more religious wars. I’ve had enough of those,” followed by a closing phrase only meant to provoke religious believers “Will your bronze age deity disappear if we look behind the curtain?” That’s like incredulously wondering why the dog keeps biting you when you throw rocks at it for an hour.
I call a very loud “BULLSHIT!” on your fuckwitted call to peace (and I’m even an atheist).
Bill:
Good for yoooooooou.
*thumbs up*
Sarcasm duly noted, Mike.
If you’d like to show how I was supposedly incorrect, you may.
Well Bill, its simply.
Christian letter writer (CLW from here on in) angrily warns of a religious war and claims divine intervention would let him (and i’m guessing that he is assuming other christians will join him) to win.
OP stated that we’ve had enough of religious wars. I certainly agree with this. Do you not?
Then OP stated he doesn’t understand why Christians get upset when atheists ask questions. After all if they are sure that their god exists, surely any question would lead to greater knowledge of that god and would lead to atheists converting. Questions surely would be welcome. This of course is not what we see.
Finally, and here i think is the bit you don’t like, the “Bronze age deity”. Except that its perfectly true, the Abrahamic god IS from the Bronze age. And frankly many atheists believe that hard good hard look “Behind the curtain” does prove how flakey the foundations of organised religion are.
Now, on to your post. You are of course, wrong. “incredulously wondering why the dog keeps biting you when you throw rocks at it for an hour”, hardly. Its a bad comparison. The OP has not throwing stones, he was asking questions. One is violence, the other merely words. Responding to words with violence is wrong, i hope you agree. The CLW threatened violence and was met merely with words. Rude words, sure, but why does CLW deserve respect for his idiotic letter?
Kudos to you, Skyler! I hope you and all the members of NRS continue the discussions for years to come.
Actually, the NRS will invite to more students to investigate your club than the Fellowship of Atheist Athletes, so I think this was the best way to go. Best of luck to you.
Adrienne
Pennsylvania
Way to go, Skyler. I hope you don’t get discouraged by all the “good Christians” out there.
“But I will not have this type of atrocity taking place without having my voice heard.”
For some reason it’s OK for Christians to make sure their voices are heard, but we atheists are expected to sit down and shut up. So a group of students who don’t identify with any religion wanting to get together and talk about things is an “atrocity?” Unfortunately this is the kind of attitude atheists face every day, and a lot of it is from mainstream Christians, not just the fundamentalists.
Skyler, well done! Take heart though, science is increasing the gaps in their already gap filled god fairytale.
Religion is a dying human failing (pun intended)
Regards from the thinkers in South Africa.
skyler is god! [he he he]
Skyler is quoted as saying: “I have been called an idiot for not believing in God which I think is quite rude due to the fact that it is my opinion.”
It’s more than ‘rude’. It explains, in part, why I decided that the word ‘stupid’ was inadequate… and so I found it necessary to modify that to ‘droolingly stupid’. But even that seemed not to be sufficient, so I finally arrived at ‘toxically, droolingly stupid’. Consider… these… these… God-bots?… ‘believe’ (the ILLUSION of knowledge) that a cosmic Jewish zombie, who is His own father, can make you live forever if you are subjected to a magical soul-douching ritual (complete with magical water, incantations and waving of hands), symbolically eat His flesh (genuine USDA Grade-A God-meat, in the form of a cracker) and telepathically tell Him that you accept Him as your master so He can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a naive, innocent and entirely clueless rib-woman was tricked by a malevolent entity (disguised a talking snake… with legs) into eating a piece of magical fruit from an enchanted tree… (etc.)… and that people who ARE NOT so stupid and gullible that they can be made to believe such outrageously ridiculous codswallop are ‘idiots’, or worse.
Skyler… I admire your restraint.
Um, do you have any source for this other than a FaceBook page?
@ Tualha – yes.
Readers… Please also see part 2. It has yearbook photo. See link in update above.
Good job Skyler.
I would do the same except, 1. I’d be all alone and have no support, 2. there would be an unprecedented amount of bigotry, plus Boy Scouts looks down on non-religious members.
Call me blind but I can’t find your sources. Even the facebook page doesn’t have any of this information on it. Is this a first hand article?
I’ve searched around but every page I find about this is using this page as their source. Call me picky but I like to read the original information whenever I can.
@ Nathan. First hand? Well, I was not there. However, my source is the student described in the post – and a parent. There also was an Anti-NRS facebook page at the time of this story. It was filled with hate and threats. It was very nasty! 100s of non religious people joined the group and tried to explain why hate is bad. The owner has gone thru and cleared it all up and kicked almost everyone off.
http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/NRSAnti-NRS-STFU-Club/230672078143?ref=ts
“How about a nice big cup of shut the fuck up” was and is their slogan. All that’s left is an appeal to ask everyone to shut up.
As you can see above there were also letters to the editor on the subject. You can also see the new comment from a parent in part 2 of this story.
Thank you for your response.
Yes, if you interviewed the people involved yourself then that is what I was referring to when I said “first hand”.
I’m sorry if you took my comment as being agressive but I do like to be sure of the quality of information before I start linking articles to my friends (which is what I am intending to do here). This is the internet after all.
@ Nathan no problem. I just was not sure what to make of “first hand”. I’m glad I could help.
Yesterday, when I’d first heard about this mess, I’d thought to myself that it sounded like ol’ RSHS hadn’t changed much, if at all, since I’d graduated from there myself back in 1997. Looking into it more, though, and seeing the comments directed towards Skyler and the above-quoted letter to the editor, I’ve sadly come to the realization that things seem to have actually gotten worse in my home down over the past decade. I always had been an out atheist and vocal when I lived and went to school in that town, and aside from the occasional incredulous, “you gotta believe SOMETHING” comments, I never took any grief for it. Now, however, it would seem that an open declaration of one’s godlessness is reason for parents to make declarations of coming holy wars and implications of genocide for the “infidels.” The whole state of affairs is depressing, since it’s forcing me to lower my already fairly poor opinion of my hometown.
I think is the bit you don’t like, the “Bronze age deity”. Except that its perfectly true, the Abrahamic god IS from the Bronze age. And frankly many atheists believe that hard good hard look “Behind the curtain” does prove how flakey the foundations of organised religion are.