School of Doubt | Going Up Against the Good News Club: An Interview with Dan Courtney

 One tactic of cultic indoctrination,,,

But the most important discovery that demanded my attention was one particular club activity I found. In this activity a child, as young as 5 years old, is singled out. The child is presented with an envelope and told that they have earned what’s in it. After some discussion the child opens the envelope and finds the word DEATH written on a piece of paper. The instructor tells the child “…you have earned death – separation from God forever in a terrible place of punishment…”

After I picked myself up off the floor, I sent the lesson to a mental health professional (a psychotherapist) and simply asked for their opinion. He described, in a very basic sense, how children need to feel good about themselves and feel safe to grow into well adjusted adults, and how presenting this lesson to a child undermines that entire process. He was quite blunt in saying that this lesson is, “incompatible with mental health.”

Another example of church planting,,,

There are so many issues it’s hard to single one out – The Good News Club is part of a broader religious right push to actually destroy public education; they use children to evangelize other kids in the school as a way to bypass objections from parents that don’t share their extreme beliefs; they intentionally use schools so kids think the message is sanctioned by the school – but for me the one overriding issue is the psychological abuse of the kids. Parents expect schools to be a place that is safe for their kids, and then in comes this group claiming to be nothing but fun and games, when in fact they’re causing real, long-term damage to innocent children. And this isn’t just my opinion, but rather a broadly accepted view in the mental health community, and backed up by the real human tragedy of lives spent in shame and fear.

On the 2001 Good News Club vs. Milford Central Schools,,,

Aside from the broad legal issue in which religious speech was granted unprecedented privilege, it’s rationally indefensible.  The majority opinion in this case concluded that children – as young as 5 years old – would not perceive the message provided to them in a school classroom immediately after the regular school day as sanctioned by the school. In other words, we’re supposed to believe that 5 year olds can distinguish between official school instruction and the instruction of a private club in the very same room, often by instructors that volunteer in the classroom during the regular school day. This is preposterous on its face.

School of Doubt | Going Up Against the Good News Club: An Interview with Dan Courtney

Dan Courtney's Secular Invocation Before the Town Board of Greece, NY - YouTube

Atheist Dan Courtney delivers a historic secular invocation before a meeting of the Town Board of Greece, NY on July 15, 2014. Greece is the town at the center of the Greece v. Galloway Supreme Court case, which cleared the way for sectarian prayers at government meetings.

According to the Democrat & Chronicle:

Quoting philosopher Immanuel Kant and drawing on the words of the Declaration of Independence, Dan Courtney made history on Tuesday speaking before the Greece Town Board.

Courtney, past president of the Free Thinkers of Upstate New York, delivered the first atheist invocation at a town board meeting, following the May U.S. Supreme Court decision that said Greece's practice of allowing sectarian prayer was permissible, as long as the town didn't discriminate.

Noting the Declaration's assertion that "Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed," Courtney said this central premise of the Founding Fathers "is today, more than ever, under assault. This central pillar of free society; this notion that is deeply heretical to authoritarian culture, proclaims that it is from the people that moral authority is derived."

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Outside, on the lawn of the Town Hall, free thinkers, atheists, non-religious, supportive religious and others gathered to decry the Supreme Court decision, and pledge that they will hold the court and governments to the decision's edict against discrimination.

"There is prejudice based on the misguided belief that belief in God is the only path to morality," said Ronald Lindsay, president and CEO of the Center for Inquiry. "And we need to overcome that prejudice."

Dan Courtney's Secular Invocation Before the Town Board of Greece, NY - YouTube

Atheist to Deliver Invocation at Greece, NY Town Meeting July 15 | Center for Inquiry

Atheist Dan Courtney will deliver an invocation at the July 15 board meeting of the Town of Greece, New York, the municipality involved in the recent case of Town of Greece v. Galloway, in which the Supreme Court ruled in favor of sectarian prayer at government meetings. The president of the Center for Inquiry, a secular advocacy group based in Western New York, will speak at a press conference immediately following the meeting.

CFI will be represented at the press conference by Ronald A. Lindsay, president and CEO of the Center for Inquiry (CFI), an attorney, and author of the upcoming book The Necessity of Secularism. Last year CFI – an internationally renowned organization whose headquarters is in Amherst, NY – submitted an amicus brief to the Court in Greece v. Galloway urging them to rule against sectarian prayer at government meetings, on the grounds that they are exclusionary and discriminatory to those who do not share the majority faith.

Atheist to Deliver Invocation at Greece, NY Town Meeting July 15 | Center for Inquiry