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Permalink Reply by doone on June 4, 2012 at 11:41am

Not a nice story from the Bible but even worse to teach it know,  I found this on Wiki

Survival of the Amalekites

It is not clear if the historical Amalekites were exterminated or not. 1 Samuel 15:7-8 seems to imply ("He took Agag king of the Amalekites alive, and all his people he totally destroyed with the sword.") that - after Agag was also killed - the people of Agag were extinct, but in a later story in the time of Hezekiah, the Simeonites annihilated some Amalekites on Mount Seir, and settled in their place: "And five hundred of these Simeonites, led by Pelatiah, Neariah, Rephaiah and Uzziel, the sons of Ishi, invaded the hill country of Seir. They killed the remaining Amalekites who had escaped, and they have lived there to this day." (1 Chr. 4:42-43).

[edit]Haman and the Book of Esther

In the Book of Esther, the arch villain is Haman, an Amalekite (his origin is evident from the epithet the Agagite—i.e., descendant of the agags, Amalekite kings) that led the plot to kill the Jews. Because the Lord promised to "blot out the name" of Amalek (Exodus 17:14), it is customary when the book of Esther is read at the Purim festival, for the audience to make noise whenever "Haman" is mentioned, so that his name is not heard.

[edit]Ethical issues

Some commentators have discussed the ethics of the commandment to exterminate all the Amalekites, including the command to kill all the women, children, teenagers, little girls, little boys and the notion of collective punishment.^[11]

Maimonides explains that the commandment of killing out the nation of Amalek requires the Jewish people to peacefully request of them to accept upon themselves the Noachide laws and pay a tax to the Jewish kingdom. Only if they refuse must they be physically killed.

Some commentators, such as Rabbi Hayim Palaggi (1788–1869) argued that Jews had lost the tradition of distinguishing Amalekites from other people, and therefore the commandment of killing them could not practically be applied ("...We can rely on the maxim that in ancient times, Sennacherib confused the lineage of many nations." [Eynei Kol Ḥai, 73, on Sanhedrin 96b])

[edit]Commandments to exterminate Amalekites

Of the 613 mitzvot (commandments) followed by Orthodox Jews, three refer to the Amalek: to remember what the Amalekites did to Jews, to not forget what the Amalekites did to Jews, and to destroy the Amalekites utterly. The rabbis derived these from Deuteronomy 25:17-18, Exodus 17:14 and 1 Sam. 15:3. Rashi explains the third commandment:

From man unto woman, from infant unto suckling, from ox unto sheep, so that the name of Amalek not be mentioned even with reference to an animal by saying "This animal belonged to Amalek"..

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Permalink Reply by Neal on June 4, 2012 at 11:45am

I had a shortened version in the planet, thanks for elaborating on the thought. I think there is no separation of church and state issue here since it is after school and voluntary, but haven't read up on all the details yet. 

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Permalink Reply by Adriana on June 4, 2012 at 1:22pm

Sorry i missed it on the planet. Yes, it is after school and voluntary BUT it's in a school classroom and if it's the only afterschool program available in most schools, working parents would have no choice but to enroll their kids in the program. I totally oppose after-school programs that teach religion within school classrooms; it's all too easy to confuse just a rented room with a school-endorsed activity. New York State just revoked the rights of religious institutions to use public schools for this purpose, for exactly the reasons I just mentioned. 

Worshippers Kicked Out Of N.Y. School On Principle

by FRED MOGUL

February 5, 2012 from WNYC

 

For years, small churches have been meeting in New York City public schools. Some want cheap rental space, and others are part of a "church planting" movement. The idea is to "plant" congregations, often in unconventional settings, to attract the unaffiliated.

A federal court last year ruled that these school gatherings violate the separation of church and state. The congregations now have one week left to vacate.

The Bible tells of the Israelites wandering in the desert for 40 years, before entering the Promised Land. On a recent Sunday, Pastor Jon Storck joked that he envied the Israelites' mobile temple, called the Tabernacle.

"It's too bad we don't have a transportable worship area," Storck told Grace Fellowship Church, during a sermon about the superiority of faith and grace over bricks, mortar and other worldly attachments.

Grace Fellowship has been gathering at PS-150 in the Sunnyside neighborhood of Queens, N.Y., since 2006, but is scheduled to be evicted in a week by the city's Department of Education. The Presbyterian-affiliated church gets about 80 regulars and newcomers a week.

The city rents school space to hundreds of different organizations — including dozens of churches. But since 1995, the city's Department of Education has been trying to evict religious groups in the name of separation of church and state.

The department gave the churches until Feb. 12 to vacate. Last week, the department provided a list of 53 churches with active permits to worship in schools, but it's not clear how many are still in auditoriums like the one at PS-150. Some contacted by WNYC have already found new homes, and others are weighing different options for the future.

Court rulings have gone back and forth. Last June, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the city. The court said the city, in barring "worship services," was excluding "a type of activity" but wasn't being discriminatory. And it ruled the city was neither infringing on personal expression nor free speech under the First Amendment.

The U.S. Supreme Court, in December, effectively accepted that argument when it declined to hear an appeal.

State Sen. Martin Golden, a Brooklyn Republican, has sponsored a bill he says will override the distinction between religious clubs meeting in schools for education and edification, which is constitutional; and religious congregations making schools their own personal worship space, which isn't.

The Education Committee passed his bill by a 17-1 margin this past week, and Golden expects it to go to the full Senate before the churches' Feb. 12 eviction deadline.

A spokeswoman for his counterpart in the Assembly, Bronx Democrat Nelson Castro, said the committee is trying to get the bill on its agenda. Mayor Michael Bloomberg's office has submitted a letter to the legislature asking it to defeat the bill, based on the federal court rulings.

The New York Civil Liberties Union says Golden is missing the point.

"You have a right to pray, of course. You have a right to worship. Freedom of religion is critical," said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union. "But freedom for a church to take over a school and convert it to a house of worship is not what our Constitution stands for."

Storck isn't sure what Grace Fellowship's next move is. He said he has leads on a couple of rental spaces in Sunnyside, and could also temporarily bring his flock to an affiliated church in nearby Astoria. He's also considering applying for a permit to use PS-150 in ways that are constitutionally permitted and don't involve formal worship.

Fred Mogul reports for member station WNYC in New York.

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Permalink Reply by Michel on June 4, 2012 at 1:39pm

"It's too bad we don't have a transportable worship area," Storck told Grace Fellowship Church, during a sermon about the superiority of faith and grace over bricks, mortar and other worldly attachments.

The Catholic clergy (at least in Québec) have always had a portable kit to celebrate mass anywhere. Convenient when your sheep are all over the place. Dates back from the Colonies. Once they managed to cover the land with (ridiculously) big churches it became obsolete.

In fact there are so many parish churches here that to survive they have to rent out their facilities to secular concerns looking for cheap rent.

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Permalink Reply by Adriana on June 4, 2012 at 1:47pm

Churches renting space to secular organizations: now that brings a big smile to my lips :-)

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Permalink Reply by Neal on June 4, 2012 at 3:25pm

Thanks for the clarification, I thought it would be one of many after school activities that could be used by students, not the only. =(

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Permalink Reply by Adriana on June 4, 2012 at 9:21pm

Ophelia Benson did not like this story one bit either:

And this is an after-school program – which means it’s done on school property, in the school building – which means children are going to think of it as part of school, and true.

The CEF and the legal advocacy groups that have been responsible for its tremendous success over the past ten years are determined to “Knock down all doors, all the barriers, to all 65,000 public elementary schools in America and take the Gospel to this open mission field now! Not later, now!” in the words of a keynote speaker at the CEF’s national convention in 2010. The CEF wants to operate in the public schools, rather than in churches, because they know that young children associate the public schools with authority and are unable to distinguish between activities that take place in a school and those that are sponsored by the school.

In the majority opinion that opened the door to Good News Clubs, supreme court Justice Clarence Thomas reasoned that the activities of the CEF were not really religious, after all. He said that they could be characterized, for legal purposes, “as the teaching of morals and character development from a particular viewpoint”.

As Justices Souter and Stevens pointed out in their dissents, however, the claim is preposterous: the CEF plainly aims to teach religious doctrines and conduct services of worship. Thomas’s claim is particularly ironic in view of the fact that the CEF makes quite clear its intent to teach that no amount of moral or ethical behavior (pdf) can spare a nonbeliever from an eternity in hell.

It makes me so sick and so furious I can’t even deal with it. You fix it; I’m going to go smell the flowers.

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