My short story of religious intolerance in schools.

I had an experience in high school to which I have recently given some more thought.

I'm not claiming that I was the poster child for good behaviour, but on the particular day of this event, I was calm, quiet, and bothering no one.

I was in class, and I had a small wooden box which contained a bible. I know it sounds strange to carry a book in a wooden box, but as a teen I was just somehow giving the book more significance (not sure why at this point). Anyways, the teacher became suspicious of the box (this was around 1998-1999 when there seemed to be a lot of violence in schools). He asked me to open the box & show him it's contents. I complied. He then proceeded to confiscate the box & the book. I never got it back.

I have debated this with others, and the general consensus seems to be that I should have been allowed to keep it as long as I was not bothering anyone with my beliefs (which I certainly was not). However, the hypocrisy of some people became very apparent when I informed them that it was not the christian bible. I do not intend to turn this into a christian bashing thread, but when things like this happen it is a good example of why christians are also responsible for keeping god out of schools. If equality cannot exist for non christians, it should be easy to see why they are against christian practices in schools.

End of rant.

reply to post by Visceral
My opinion is that as long as it didn't contain nudie pictures or bomb making recipes (which would probably be against school policy) you should have been able to keep your "bible" no matter which religion it represented. I'm going out on a limb here and guessing- was it a Satanic Bible?

I'm a sophomore at a high school in Louisiana. During my freshman year, I was an outspoken atheist. This earned me hatred throughout my entire campus. Nobody except my current friends would talk to me and to strangers (to me) I was a pariah and perhaps Satan himself. I have since digressed in those beliefs and turned from my atheistic viewpoints; which I clarified publicly on Facebook since I have quite many of the students added. However, to this day, I am still rejected from friendships because of my past beliefs. Sucks to suck. I feel your pain.

reply to post by Philosophile
Sadly, as long as you live in the same area there will be people who will continue to shun you for the rest of your life for any number of things which you do while you are a teenager, and worse yet they will push it a step further and have their children shun your children when you become a parent. One of the worst hazards of living in "The Bible Belt" is the very un-Christian like tendencies toward disregarding what Jesus commands us in the way of forgiveness and tolerance- and I speak as a Christian living in the heart of the Bible Belt!

Thx for the replies. No, it was not a satanic bible. I've rererred to it as a bible honestly for the sake of telling the story because doing otherwise would bias the opinion of most people around here. Holy book would probably be a more fitting term. I have read the satanic bible though, and I have to say that it made a lot of sense to me. It is more of a look into a person's psychological need for religion, faith, imagery, etc. However I don't see a need to use the imagery, symbols, & rituals of a religion that are put in place just to condemn other religions. It seems to me that the same basic things can be accomplished while at the same time respecting the beliefs of others. Even if it were the satanic bible, I still would feel like it was not the teacher's place to take it.