Well, the opinion is available for anyone to read.

I find the idea of "offering" (as the majority opinion puts it) prayer to God about playing football well exceedingly silly, myself. As if the God of the universe would care about football games and their outcome, or be inclined to grant prayers that relate to the performance of football players and teams. But I know that people think God listens and responds to such prayers.

But what concerns me about this decision and others is the tendency to ignore information readily available, and even mischaracterize circumstances relevant to a case, in pursuit of a particular outcome. Alas, we lawyers are known to do just that, as advocates. But judges shouldn't be advocates.

I've been a lawyer a long time and I recognize the technique.

The majority and the dissent appear to be considering very different cases. Submitted for your consideration--

From the majority opinion:

"Joseph Kennedy lost his job as a high school football
coach because he knelt at midfield after games to offer a
quiet prayer of thanks."

"He offered his prayers quietly while his students were otherwise occupied."

"Mr. Kennedy offered his prayers after the players and coaches had shaken hands, by taking
a knee at the 50-yard line and praying “quiet[ly]” for “approximately 30 seconds.” I

"Eventually, Mr. Kennedy began incorporating short motivational speeches with his
prayer when others were present."

"Naturally, Mr. Kennedy’s proposal to pray quietly by
himself on the field would have meant some people would
have seen his religious exercise."

From the dissent:

"Kennedy’s practice evolved into postgame talks in which Kennedy would hold aloft student
helmets and deliver speeches with “overtly religious references,” which Kennedy described as prayers, while the players kneeled around him."

"After the game, while the athletic director watched, Kennedy led a prayer out loud, holding up a
player’s helmet as the players kneeled around him."

Before the homecoming game, Kennedy made multiple media appearances to publicize his plans to pray at the 50-yard line, leading to an article in the Seattle News and a
local television broadcast about the upcoming homecoming game. In the wake of this media coverage, the District began receiving a large number of emails, letters, and calls, many of them threatening."

"On October 16, after playing of the game had concluded, Kennedy shook hands with the opposing team, and as advertised, knelt to pray while most BHS players were singing the school’s fight song. He quickly was joined by coaches and players from the opposing team. Television
news cameras surrounded the group.2 Members of the public rushed the field to join Kennedy, jumping fences to access the field and knocking over student band members. After the game, the District received calls from Satanists who “‘intended to conduct ceremonies on the field after football games if others were allowed to.’”

Mr. Kennedy is apparently something of a publicity hound. There are pictures of him kneeling and, presumably "offering" prayer in front of the Supreme Court building as well.

I'm ashamed to admit I find the thought of Satan worshippers "offering" prayers to Lucifer on the field after a high school game is played a bit beguiling.

Anyone who has seen the many pictures of these displays would, I think, hesitate to characterize them as "private prayers." I'm amazed that accomplished lawyers (and I'm willing to assume, arguendo as we like to say, that the Justices are just that, though it seems like Justice Barret never practiced law beyond a few years at a private firm) would be so clumsy in employing this kind of argument.

Kennedy v. Bremerton School District is an embarrassing decision, in which the majority is reduced to asserting that a prayer by a coach surrounded by players at the 50 yard line is a "private expression" of religious belief that the coach engaged in "alone."

How could Jesus learn something from Marcus Aurelius? — Tate

Didn't say he did. I said the Stoics (and others), who were walking the Earth long before before the Holy Spirit or whoever it was magically impregnated Mary, taught values taught by Jesus centuries later.

He didn't talk much about virtue. His focus was on love and forgiveness. — Tate

That may be, but it strikes me a virtuous life would include loving and forgiving. I mentioned the Stoics refencing love. Both Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius thought highly of forgiveness, and recommended it as proper.

Largely laudable, yes, but also a definite element of insanity/radicalness that frequently flies below the radar with modern Christians who use selective reading. — Moses

Particularly that bit about the rich and the eye of a needle.

Who else preaches what Jesus says in that time period? What's similar? — Moses

I don't know who preached similar ideas, as "preach" has religious connotations. But the pagan philosophers taught the desirability of virtue, and to the extent Jesus did so he had many predecessors. Plato touted the four great virtues, Wisdom, Temperance, Justice and Courage. Aristotle's virtue of "generosity" is similar to the Christian concept of charity. Roman great men were expected to give benefits to the poor through public works. The Stoics taught the brotherhood of man, the common good, and love. According to Seneca, "No school has more goodness and gentleness; none has more love for human beings, nor more attention to the common good. (Seneca, On Clemency, 3.3) Friendship was valued by the Pythagoreans and Epicureans; Cicero believed it essential to good life.

What Jesus is said to have said is largely laudable. I simply don't think it unique.

Are they antifascists or fucking collaborators? — 180 Proof

They are politicians, and Disraeli was right when he said that in politics there is no honor, so I'm not certain what they'll do. They'll do what seems to benefit them politically. These suggestions might.

I could swear salvation through Jesus was mentioned in Matthew. — Moses

He's identified as the messiah, and called the Son of God, but the messiah wasn't necessarily God, and there were quite a few sons of gods in antiquity. I don't think he was ever claimed to call himself God except in John

But I think this is a very difficult claim to support-how can you establish whether Jesus, NT or OT writers directly engaged with pagan philosophy, other than similarities in content (especially since the writers of the synoptic gospels were anonymous)? — Paulm12

Well, we certainly know that Greek culture greatly influenced the Jews, and indeed that Judaism became less exclusively Jewish after the Babylonian Exile. The book of the OT which probably is most appropriately considered philosophical, Ecclesiastes, is thought to have been written after the exile, sometime during the period from the 5th to the 2nd centuries B.C.E., and have been influenced by Persian and Greek thought. Hellenism impacted Jewish culture from at the latest the time of Alexander. Philo, of course, was profoundly influenced by Greek philosophy.

I think Paul was far more influential in the development of Christianity than Jesus, and Paul was quite aware of pagan philosophy. Whoever wrote the Gospel of John certainly was as well, borrowing the concept of the Logos.

A quick glance at the opinion indicates efforts were made to make Alito appear less obviously the angry, self-righteous crank he appeared to be based on the draft. But one wonders what lengths the Supremes will go to in applying right-wing notions to the three primary obsessions of our Great Quasi-Republic--sex, guns and religion.

Does this really matter though? There's dozens of miracles associated with Jesus. We can disregard the miracles. — Moses

We certainly can, but if we do we should ask ourselves whether we should disregard other claims made about what he did and said, or at least consider them questionable. That's not easy to do if you believe Jesus to be God and the authors of the Gospels, the Acts, etc. to be divinely inspired. How do we disregard the miracles and accept the Resurrection? If we disregard the Resurrection, why do we believe Jesus was God? Because he said wise things? Why did he say some of those living at the time he spoke would see the Kingdom of God on Earth? Are we to disregard that as well? Even that most sophistical of Christian apologists, C.S. Lewis, found those comments embarrassing.

I'd maintain we shouldn't think he's God because, in the Gospel of John, the latest of the Gospels, he claimed that nobody comes to the Father except through him, that he was the way, the truth and the light. I'm struck by how odd it is that, as far as I'm aware, none of the other Gospels mention this remarkable statement. Did their authors forget he said this, or consider it too unimportant to mention?

Considering how most historians date Philostratus's writing of the Life of Apollonius to around 220-225 AD, and the synoptic gospels being dated from 60-110 (with Pauline writings probably even earlier), its more likely that the story of Jesus (and perhaps its circulation among pegan audiences) influenced Apollonius than the other way around. — Paulm12

That may be, though Philostratus claimed to base his work in part on the memoirs of Apollonius' disciple, Damis, called Scraps from the Manger. Damis supposedly knew and travelled with Apollonius. If that's true, he knew far more of Apollonius than Paul did of Jesus.

It was a time when religion was inclusive, and different cults influenced one another. That was to change of course due to the relentlessly intolerant and exclusive religion Christianity became, but for a time we know that some inhabitants of the Roman Empire kept little statuettes of Jesus, Asclepius and other pagan gods together, honoring or at least seeking to placate them all. Christianity famously borrowed the birthday of Sol Invictus and Mithras (now known as December 25) and proclaimed it to be the day Jesus was born. Several gods were said to be born of a virgin. If we're to trust the angry comments of some of the Church Fathers, the Mithraic holy meal (sometimes depicted as including loaves or pieces of bread marked with crosses) preceded the Christian communion. The Fathers were reduced to claiming that demons, knowing the future, inspired the Mithraic ceremony to mock the coming sacrament.

But my little comment was intended to counter the claim that Secular Humanism is simply Christianity "rebranded." In fact, the ethical tenets of Humanism, and those of Christianity, were borrowed from ancient pagan philosophy. I've always been baffled by those who maintain, wrongly, that Judeo-Christian values are the product of those two Abrahamic religions.

Many scholars argue (secular) Humanism is simply a "rebranding" of Christian ethics/Christianity. — Paulm12

And then there are those who argue Christianity is simply a kind of stew of pagan philosophy (particularly Stoicism), the pagan mystery cults and Judaism, with bits and pieces of the story of Apollonius of Tyana thrown in as a kind of seasoning.

I don't feel addressed by it at all. — baker

Me as well. I never understood why a Jewish religion 2000 years ago is supposed to speak to me. — Jackson

Christianity has shown an extraordinary capacity to assimilate, defer to, and "work around" prevalent beliefs, customs, governments and cultures in those instances when it isn't possible to ignore them, or temporarily tolerate them or destroy them utterly. It will speak to you anyway it can, if it works. Ask and ye shall receive.

In recent times, there's been a tendency to disregard the less credible aspects of or stories about Jesus, for example. I think most Christian apologists these days would rather not address the story of the loaves and the fishies, for example, or the water into wine business. There were a good number of miracle working religious folk wandering about the Roman Empire back then (and lepers and ex-lepers), doing similar things, and my guess would be these stories are more a source of embarrassment than anything else now, or are treated as mere allegories.

Similarly, it's been useful for Jesus to be considered the Greek Logos, or Aristotle's First Mover, from time to time; useful for the Church to do deals with such as Mussolini or Napoleon; useful for them to don native garb in Japan--it's been a very pragmatic religion.

Father, I have sinned... — Lucifer

Ego te absolvo a peccatis tuis.

Awww. — baker

I'm picturing a cute, but very sad, Christian puppy or kitten with abnormally large eyes, too.

Well, a religion which one can profess and yet disregard so blithely, as most Christians do, is bound to be popular.

It's as well for ↪Dermot Griffin that Islam preserved the classical texts Christianity destroyed so that they could become "gateway philosophies". Doubtless that was God's plan all along, to plunge us into the good, cleansing middle ages, and then bring us out of that darkness. — Banno

Yes, but perhaps the Eastern Church, like the Eastern Roman Empire, kept some of them too for a time. I'm not sure. But the Latin Church never like those guys anyhow, and probably was happier to deal with Islam than heretical Christians.

Christianity actively demolished the philosophical schools of Athens and Alexandria, destroyed philosophical texts and persecuted teachers of philosophy. The detrimental impact of the Christin hegemony on intellectual life was not reversed for a thousand years. The classical texts were so utterly destroyed in Europe that they had to be "rediscovered" in the east, mostly from Islamic sources. — Banno

Yes, though the schools weren't formally closed by edict until Justinian. But things became especially bad for pagans--and of course Christians deemed to be heretics--starting with the reign of the first Theodosius.

I think that the Latin western part of the Empire and the Roman successor states there, and the medieval kingdoms of Western Europe, were especially "cleansed" of pagan knowledge and culture. I attribute that in large part to Augustine, who, after some waffling, condemned the pagan philosophers though they couldn't have known of Christ, and of course popularized the notion of original sin.

What’s interesting about Christianity is that it adopts whatever culture it mixes with, not destroying what is good. — Dermot Griffin

Just ask any of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. But perhaps there was nothing good there before the Christians arrived.

If you ain't doing your basics right then you will get what is coming to you. — Moses

Yes, things haven't changed much since the fifth century C.E. monk Shenoute said "There is no crime for those who have Christ." Better get your mind right.

The absence of any appreciation of irony is impressive.

In short I think that the concept of Logos applied to God becoming Jesus, in a Kierkegaardian sense, is interesting. That’s why I see all the aforementioned schools of thought as pointers to Christianity but that’s just an opinion. One could study Stoicism and become Buddhist. One could study Platonism and find himself a practicing Hindu and so on. — Dermot Griffin

With the exception of the short mention of the Logos at the beginning of the Gospel ascribed to John, the last Gospel written, there's nothing connecting the Logos as defined by the ancient pagan philosophers with Jesus (I confess I haven't read Kierkegaard, who has always struck me as too distraught for my taste). I think it's likely its mention in that Gospel is part of a later development in the history of Christianity, along with its claim that belief in Christ is the exclusive means by which we can approach God.

I guess the "pull" may be a reference to "fishers of men" but if so, I don't think of the systems of thought listed as being in the nature of bait for that purpose.

Christianity was influenced by and borrowed extensively from virtually every philosophy and religion popular in the Roman Empire. I would think Neo-Platonism influenced it more than Platonism at least early on, and would add some Cynicism to the mix, as well as some of the beliefs of the Gnostic sects and the Hermetic tradition.

I'm not sure what you mean by "pull one towards Christ."

Let us, then, recede context, with all of its hubristic self-importance, including sub-textual intentions, into the background for the moment. — ucarr

We can certainly do so, if we choose to, but I think we should recognize that in that case we don't consider how questions are used in our ordinary discourse. It would be like trying to understand or define language without considering irony, sarcasm, exaggeration, nuance, etc.

Let's just say that there is no external world and continue to live our lives as if there is one. Then this silly debate would finally come to an end, and we'll do what we do in any case.

Placing a filter over the grammar of question, such that we read it as a formal question that, in actuality, intends to make a statement, i.e. a rhetorical question, is a contextual maneuver that converts query into statement by social agreement. If this socially constructed reading of question as statement supports paradoxical word play, the grammarian of question can read it as would-be paradoxical piffle. — ucarr

I'm not sure whether you're saying, in that case, that rhetorical questions are, or are not, questions for your purposes (unless you maintain that purpose has nothing to do with whether or not there is a question--because there is only one true question or form of question). Nor am I sure whether you're addressing grammar, or metaphysics, or if they're one and the same.

What about questions asked during the cross-examination of a witness? Are those really questions? The lawyer often knows the answer which will be given.

then a categorical examination of the grammar of question is possible — ucarr

So, it's grammar we're concerned with?

So I've heard. I love the Romans in that movie, and particularly the "Romanus eunt domus" scene.

You don't get to be a Diogenes just because you masturbated in the marketplace.
— Baden

No, but you can be Pilate...as long as you wash the blood off your hands. — Leghorn

As far as we know, Pilate never masturbated in public. You're thinking of his great friend in Rome, Biggus Diccus.

Well, better late than never.

If something exists, so does nothing exist. — Jackson

Well of course. If a thing exists, it's obvious it doesn't exist.

If that's the case, then questions which aren't questions are questions. If Socrates' (which is to say, Plato's) questions are questions, of course, then I suppose rhetorical questions would have to be as well; those questions posed by Plato via his character Socrates were always intended to have a particular effect and never intended as actual inquiries. But I question whether all questions are alike, and think they vary in purpose and according to context.

Casual answer - any question — ucarr

Rhetorical questions?

What is the metaphysical status of a question? — ucarr

Which question is that?

Unlike juries, Judges must generally explain the bases for their decisions on trials to the court. Thus, there isn't the need to guess what the decision-maker was thinking. If anyone's interested in actually reading the decision issued by the Judge in the UK, you can find it on the Web, here: https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2020/2911.html

Tertullian (Latin for "turtle") was probably just parroting Paul's curious argument that since God is so much wiser than man, his truth would appear foolish to wise men. So, the more foolish or absurd Christian doctrine is, the more worthy of belief it becomes. "Paul", by the way, derives from the Latin for "small, humble idiot."

The late, great Warren Zevon described the curious blend of fear, loss of self-esteem, belligerence (or perhaps chest-thumping) and eagerness which characterizes the gun culture and so much else in our Great Republic in his song Rottweiler Blues. Have a listen. And by the way, I own three shotguns, and just you try to take them away!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_0e4chKXQ4

Well, it serves as an excuse to watch Springtime for Hitler one more time, which is always worthwhile. I bet Heidi saw it and wished he had thought of it. Well, not really. I don't think Heidegger was capable of irony, anyway.

When mass shootings occur, somehow the debate is always about gun control and never about why kids are massacring kids.

It's not normal, obviously. I would be wondering what kind of rot has seeped into society that's causing it. — Tzeentch

Whatever it may be, you can be certain even less will be done to correct it than is done to control guns. It's not the government's problem to find out why kids are massacring kids and do something about it, is it?

There is no American gun control debate. — Streetlight

There's never a real debate, here, when there's money to be made. Thus far, the more guns, the more money. That may change when we each begin to make our own cheap versions, though I suppose there will always be a market for high-quality firearms, like there is for high-quality booze. By that time, though, gun control won't be a possibility.

Edward Bernays

Nephew of Freud; propagandist who assisted the United States government in the overthrow of Guatemala; got women to smoke; persuaded the entire population of the United States to eat bacon and eggs for breakfast - among other schemes and deviltries. — ZzzoneiroCosm

Indeed. He also fraudulently claimed to be the creator of Bearnaise sauce, explaining the difference in spelling as part of an an effort to get women to smoke tobacco from Guatemala after consuming bacon and eggs smothered with the sauce. His effort came to naught, though.