Lords Prayer advert banned

loopy, Christmas isn't just a christian festival. It's a midwinter festival that is much older than christianity. Early christians adopted and adapted it to their needs as they did other festivals like the spring one, which we now call Easter. People celebrated Easter long before Christ.

Well I think it is going to be one for m'learned friends.
According to the Times, Digital Media Cinema the company that handles adverts for Odeon, Cineworld and Vue Cinemas, has a policy that states 'an advertisement must not in the reasonable opinion of DCM constitute political or religious advertising'.
Perfectly fair and reasonable IMHO. Advertising the commercial aspects of Christmas is one thing, the Archbishop reciting the Lord's Prayer quite another.
The C of E is claiming religious discrimination.
Good luck with that.
Policy culture is now so engrained in this country that the importance of adhering to a Policy must surely outweigh the hurt feelings of anyone who feels they have been discriminated against.
<slight irony emoticon>

I think we ought to follow the French example. Public life should be secular. However I take Dawkins point about free speech, but if we were in France this would not have occurred.

I do not go to church to listen to the Lord's prayer so why should I pay to listen as a member of a captive audience in a cinema? Religion is private and I do not like it pushed down my throat.

The cinema is not the place for religion or politics. I go to the cinema to be entertained not preached to or politicised (is that a word lol).

I see Richard Dawkins is against the ad being banned.

It's on the basis of supporting free speech and also he says if anyone is offended by something as simple as a prayer, they deserve to be offended.

It's not often I agree with Dawkins. He's gone up in my estimation.

I presume then that advertising Christmas will be banned too?

Yes, I've no problem with the decision by the cinema chain. It isn't banning the Lord's Prayer, simply saying cinema's don't do politics or religion.
As has already been said, the world and our country has enough difficulty working out what should be secular - i.e. schools for example, without creating a problem in cinema's

It has not been banned. A company decided not to show the prayer advert in line with its policy of not showing religious or political adverts. That seems like a fine upstanding unprejudiced policy to me.

If you want to recite the Lord's Prayer, then do so. No-one can stop you unless they administer mind-altering drugs or something.

roses are red, my sentiments exactly. I think prayer is mainly a private thing or for places of worship. I think there is enough trouble being caused through religion right now as it is, or should I perhaps say religious intolerance. I don't think the cinemas need to add to it and also would not want cinemas to become a target for certain organisations who would protest using aggressive means.

Prayers relating to any religion should be confined to the home and places of worship and definitely not to public places such as cinemas where audiences are "captive". It worries me that people, presumably at a senior level, in the Church of England even entertained the idea.

Otherwise, where would it end?

Yes, I think that I do too. it is a lovely prayer, but the cinema isn't a place for any religious adverts. if you have chosen to go and see a film which is about or features religion, that is one thing, but the ads should all be secular.