Muslims want to add holidays on NY school calendar
20 July 2010 by Stardust
The Muslim religion seems to be in the news a lot these days. Now, again in New York City, “Muslim parents, students and civic groups are campaigning to add two of their religious holidays to the New York City public school calendar, pinning their hopes on state lawmakers after failing to win over Mayor Michael Bloomberg to the idea,” states Karina Ioffee of Reuters.
Muslims seek to add holidays on NY school calendar
Putting Eid Ul-Fitr, a holiday marking the end of Ramadan, and Eid Ul-Adha, celebrating the end of the hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca, on the list of official school holidays will help ease suspicion and reduce anti-Muslim sentiment nearly a decade after the September 11 attacks, they say.
This is similar to the Christian tactics, always trying to find a reason to get some special accommodations for their religious beliefs. Students will be missing even more days of real learning. (And as for “easing suspicions” maybe it would work since most kids will be thrilled to be able to have more days off and will be happy with their Muslim friends for getting them another few days off).
Adding more days off to the whole list of days and weeks kids get off school during the year will make it even more difficult for teachers to do their jobs, and will give students less time to learn in.
Bloomberg rejected the proposal, arguing city students cannot afford more days off. Just four in 10 students graduate on time and one in 10 drops out, according to statistics.
“Everybody would like to be recognized but the truth of the matter is we need more school days, not less,” he said.
Christians and Jews already have official holidays from school in NYC and most places around the U.S. How many more religions are going to start demanding school holidays? A possible solution might be to give days off to those students whose families observe a certain religion while the others continue to go to class. The drawback from this option would be the disruption in classroom activity and the possible fraud that would also arise with students claiming to be followers of a particular religion when they really aren’t, just to get days off school. Then more and more holidays are added, that means less time in the classroom and as was pointed out in the article, students are having a hard enough time getting their work completed and graduating with the days they are currently attending.
Some say that students are being made to choose between religion and school, and as far as we atheists are concerned, school and real education is far more important than any imaginary superstitious beliefs.
20 July 2010, on 8:34 pm
Maybe if people are so religious that they need to take time off more important things like educating their children, they should enroll them in their religious schools where these things are automatically observed and time off expected to be taken. Religious holidays from public schools force everyone to observe those holidays whether we want to or not.
20 July 2010, on 9:55 pm
While they’re at it, now about those who follow the other silliness that is religion? There’s the Barhai’s (I think), the Bhudists (Boodists perhaps), the Scientologists (even sillier than the rest of them), the muzzies (hang on, they’ve started this whole thing going), then there’s the Hindu’s (Hindoos?) and the rest of the various religious incarnations. If we have holidays representing the whole variety of belief systems, nothing will be done. The school year will end up about a week long. Be good for retail though, lots of potential pressie buying opportunities, not to mention Hallmark cards.
20 July 2010, on 10:56 pm
Gee whiz……….. when do they add the holiday celebrating no more chopping off of HEADS?????? Or STONING WOMEN?????
20 July 2010, on 11:00 pm
Heeeeeeeeeeeeey, How about a holiday announcing the end of HONOR KILLINGS????? That would be a great CELEBRATION!!!!!
20 July 2010, on 11:25 pm
“holidays will help ease suspicion and reduce anti-Muslim sentiment nearly a decade after the September 11 attacks, they say”
These Muslims come across as impudent people! The only way they could possibly ease suspicion and reduce anti-Muslim sentiment is if they could reverse what they did on September 11th and bring back all those innocent people who died horribly that day. I know that the men who did this were fanatic fundamentalists and that the Muslims advocating for this holiday may not feel responsible for the action of their religious brethren, but in my mind I will never forget what they did that day. My suspicion and anti-Muslim sentiment will last a life time; like a vaccine I’ve been inoculated against Muslims and the anti-Muslim antibody is there for life.
20 July 2010, on 11:58 pm
Religions, IMHO, are nothing more than outright insane, total bullshit.
A suggestion…
Just do a Google RE Mecca…or…the sacred “Black Stone” being nothing more than a friggin’ meteorite.
What comes up includes various YouTube video links, which kinda fry your brain with just how ridiculous the history of Mecca (and, of course, the fucktard, pedophile Mohammad) is…and all manner of other links to total mindless attempts at defending Islam. Of course, mixed into the absolute insanity are the rather equally bonkers, Jewish & Christian, contrary, notions.
RE this particular story (as with so many other religious media topics) I find it amazing that not ONE atheist/skeptical voice is ever paid attention to, saying something about the falsehood of ALL religions; and that…especially in this day and age…and in a secular democracy, no less…we shouldn’t be cow-towing to any fantastical religious beliefs. It’s no wonder the educational system is so totally fucked up.
IOW…bottom-line:
PROOVE…and that goes for all of you fucked up invisible sky-god believers…that your belief isn’t total, absolute, mythological bullshit!
Or…as I might prefer to phrase it…with just a (pubic?) hair’s difference, perhaps?:
“PROVE IT!…all you totally brainwashed, idiotic, motherfuckers! There’ll be no more asinine bullshit religious “holidays” until that happens! ”
“Now, get outa the van!”
(pardon a little current “Men’s Warehouse” commercial reference?)
21 July 2010, on 12:46 am
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Global Atheist and Fred Delshad, God is for Suckers!. God is for Suckers! said: New Post: Muslims want to add holidays on NY school calendar: The Muslim religion seems to be in the news a lot th… http://bit.ly/cm3uy5 [...]
21 July 2010, on 5:30 am
I say keep them out of our schools in the first place the frickin creeps.
That should read “frickin primitive creeps”.
I am all for holidays though. Like maybe a holiday in school where the kiddies learned about how this great nation repudiated the xian religion of the king of England. How the Founding Fathers chose freedom “from” that religion and its head dick-tater.
ChuckA
Now get outta the van
Good one.LMAO
21 July 2010, on 7:06 am
Given the amount of fighting the ACLU et al. have been doing to keep religions out of school (and been backed up by the courts) you’d think these idiots would have got the message that you cannot have anything religious in schools and that includes holidays from school.
Incidentally, did you know that the Muslims in Indonesia have been praying towards something other than Mecca, but the chief rabbit, or whatever he’s called, says it’s okay, Allah hears your prayers anyway. Which begs the question, then why pray towards Mecca at all?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/indonesia/7898338/Indonesian-Muslims-praying-to-Kenya-not-Mecca-after-faulty-edict.html
Fallible religious leaders? They should covert to Catholicism.
21 July 2010, on 8:05 am
Which begs the question, then why pray towards Mecca at all?
To moon the west and their neighbors?
“Allah understands that humans make mistakes,” he said. “Allah always hears their prayers.”
Interesting that they are doing like the Xians and making up their own rules for their religion, making adjustments to what suits their own thinking. Interesting how they all claim to know the mind of their unknowable gods.