When I was in high school I was an atheist. I confess that it was a bit of an affectation; I hadn’t thought through all the consequences of my belief, but I had read a number of Jean-Paul Sartre’s books – to my mother’s consternation – and discovered that amorality is a logical result of atheism. If I was an atheist, I could do as I pleased; to a hormonally dominated 16-year old, that seemed like a good arrangement.

A few years later in university, my mathematics tutor asked me why I had such dreadful marks and why didn’t I feel guilty using taxpayer money to go to parties, get drunk and chase girls rather than study. “Well”, I said, “I agree with Dostoyevsky: if God does not exist, everything is permitted”. He stared blankly past my head and suggested I see my home tutor for further counselling. I never did.

But back to high school. The teacher I liked was an atheist. He was well-read, interesting and, so I thought at the time, unencumbered by the trivial niceties that prevented lesser teachers from showering blows of withering sarcasm down upon those with whom he disagreed. He introduced me to Sartre, Bertrand Russell, Camus, Joseph Heller, Huxley, Orwell and Dostoyevsky among others – and to the delights of mathematics. The professional Christian on staff, hired to teach Religious Instruction, was unconvincing and timid; consequently, he was teased mercilessly. He was, I thought, an excellent advertisement for the benefits of my newly acquired atheism.

There was a rather disagreeable lad in my class who received what my atheist teacher mockingly called a “visitation”; he became a born-again Christian. Regrettably, that didn’t make him, by my reckoning at least, any less irritating, pompous and noisily self-righteous. I will mention no names but the individual I have in mind had orange hair: you know who you are, Langley.

All this makes me wonder about the kid wearing the Jesus t-shirt. I fully support his right to free speech; I just hope he is not the Langley of Forest Heights.

From here:

“He will not attend this school unless they are having reading, writing and arithmetic — good old-fashioned academics,” he said, waving a New Testament bible. “When they’re having forums, when they’re having other extra-curricular activity, he will not attend that school.”

Students said William Swinimer has been preaching and making them feel uncomfortable, and the shirt was the last straw so they complained.

“He’s told kids they’ll burn in hell if they don’t confess themselves to Jesus,” student Riley Gibb-Smith said.

Katelyn Hiltz, student council vice-president, agreed the controversy didn’t begin with the T-shirt.

“It started with him preaching his religion to kids and then telling them to go to hell. A lot of kids don’t want to deal with this anymore,” she said.