Welcome to the Nonprofits the thrice weekly show, where we look at news and current events through the lens of atheism and secular humanism.

For our first segment, this week, we step into the good ol American tradition of college football.

Utah kicker Dylan Curtis faced backlash after continuing his warm up during BYU's pregame Mormon prayer in the Holy War rival game.

BYU fans viewed it as disrespectful, prompting Curtis to issue an apology days later, saying he meant no offense and was just following the coaches instructions.

The controversy highlights the deep religious ties between the schools, BYU being predominantly Mormon and Utah being a little bit more secular.

In the end, Utah lost by three points, and Curtis's on side kick mishap added irony to the drama.

This story is from Thebrobible dot com by Grayson Weir on October twenty third, twenty twenty five.

All Right, folks, I want to go to Jonathan first.

I think Jonathan the riverboat gambler or what Jonathan refresh us of which you're or you're just you're just just a cool ass motherfucker.

Right, that's what you are.

That's it.

I'm just I'm just I'm just a eighteen hundreds person.

That's right.

There we go living in eighteen hundreds.

So, so, Jonathan, I want to uh so this pregame prayer really is just a it's a long standing tradition by BYU.

And considering that it's a private college, do you think that it's reasonable to ask attendees and the players of both teams at the game to observe this religious tradition.

No, it's absolutely not.

Uh.

Utah though both both of these universities were founded by Brigham Young, the number the second head of the Mormon Church.

He founded Utah to be more of a secular place, and it is.

There are various religions there, but everybody was supposed to be welcome there.

Also there they do have Mormons, it's only about I think twenty five or thirty percent of their population in the Utah.

But BYU of course is ninety eight percent Mormon.

But I don't think that when you're playing another team who isn't Mormon, that you can expect to have a Mormon prayer to open or close your game.

If you want to pray, pray, do it quietly in your own own way.

This is the same thing I saw when that that coach was, you know, causing a prayer in the middle of the field after a game or before a game, and that was definitely against church and state.

Since this university, Utah University, is a private school, it's not a public school.

Well I guess it is now.

I guess it is now a public school, which means that the separation of church and state should apply.

And so that's why I feel that it was inappropriate for them to first have a prayer and secondly to call anybody out for doing what they want, you know, before the game.

You know, So so you think does just flat out violation of church state separation.

Yes in this case.

Yes.

Now, if it was BYU playing another complete Catholic school and they both did different prayers and shared the religious nonsense, then yeah, yeah, that would be okay.

But you know, or if you know, Utah could put up whatever prayer they wanted as well, that it'll probably be okay.

Because you know, there are very few, if any atheists involved in this.

So but if there's one atheist involved in this, then they should just can it stop?

Stop with the proselytization, stop with the prayer stuff.

So you know, all right, well, thank you, thanks Jonathan.

I want to jump over to our spooky ghosty.

Uh what does that?

I have a feeling that that's some kind of character that I should be aware of that.

I don't know.

I'm just I'm just an adorable bunny.

Just an adorable little bunny.

Okay, you are just being super adorable as a bunny with my little bunny ears.

Just you are down the door.

I do have to have to give you that much.

I'll hand you that, okay, flabbergas, Yes, that's right.

Maybe maybe I've been right.

That's my only weakness.

And I actually, oh my goodness, I actually have that bunny somewhere and I'll pull I'll pull them out for another segment now, all right, So so tune into the next segment too and get to see Flabbergasted's bunny.

All right.

So I have a question for you though, we actually have to talk about some stuff here.

So what was the reaction to this quote unquote incident and do you think it was an appropriate reaction?

I mean, the reaction was was outrage, right, outrage at the fact that someone dare do something other than capitulate to their religion and their God.

And that's my problem, Like, I actually don't have a problem.

This was done at by US Stadium, and even though there was a state school there, this is being done on on the grounds of a private university.

I don't mind if they're doing a prayer.

I don't mind if they have a moment of silence for people to do prayer.

Like it's not I actually don't think it's a violation of church and state that they did the prayer in this particular case, because again it's being done in a private environment and not in a publicly funded area.

But the fact that there's outrage for the fact that someone just dare like just not participate and just like live their life and keep doing their thing, especially.

A kid he's eighteen years.

Old, Like, yes, an adult, an adult kid, and he's both sorry but not trying to like talk down to you here, but like he's a young guy who's just there to play football, and he's a kicker, and he's warming up, he's practicing.

The story goes that he was told to practice and so he was just practicing.

He may not even been aware because that's not his thing.

And like the fact that there's people upset about it, the fact there was a state senator that came out and was complaining and criticizing this guy publicly.

Come on, seriously, well, you bring up a good point about you know, it was so Jonathan was saying that it's, uh, you know, there's public schools involved, and so that so that makes it a violation.

Flabbergasted you actually said that, Well, it's taken place on the on the property and in the in the house at the house.

Of the of the private school.

But we could also say that this private school is participating in a league where there's not many you know, there's not all that many, So you know, I think there's different I actually agree with both of you.

I think it's in principle, at least to me, it seems like it's disregarding.

I wouldn't say it necessarily a violation of church and state separation, but at least it's it's and this is just my opinion, it's, uh, it's going against the the the spirit of of that intention, even though technically it's you know, it's it's taking place at a private school.

I don't think I wouldn't.

I would be surprised if BYU would demand that other schools do a prayer when they're at other when they're at other colleges.

You know, I don't know if they do or not, but I I would be surprised if that were the case.

But interesting, and so we got a couple different takes on this.

I want to throw some Bible at you.

If you don't mind, I want to read.

You read with me in your bibles.

I'm going to go into the Gospel of Matthew chapter six, Versus one and five through six.

Jesus spake, thusly, be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them.

If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.

And when you do pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues or in the you know, the football arena, and on the street corners, to be seen by others.

Truly, I tell you they have received their reward in full.

But when you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your father, who is unseen.

Then your father who sees what has done in secret will reward you.

So I think the word Jesus was looking for there is posers, basically, right.

The implication here is that it's religious virtue signaling, and just like from the Pharisees and the Scribes, you know of Jesus a story there, and they're just gaining the public approval rather than showing a genuine devotion to God.

So let's go to Jonathan first.

Here are by you just a bunch of posers.

Why don't they obey what Jesus commanded?

Well, I'm not so sure.

I haven't read the Book of Mormon, so I don't know if that's in the Book of Mormon.

And good point.

You know, so I know very little about Mormonism, and so I know the original story, the hat, the gold plates, blah blah blah blah, all the ridiculous conjob stuff to form the religion.

But it's just one of those things, you know, disrespecting one side is respecting another.

So it's like, that's my problem with the whole thing we talked about just a minute ago, is that, even if it's not church and state problem, if you are hosting a bunch of people that aren't part of your religion.

You should be urious enough and have enough hospitality to not force them to listen to your religion as part of the event.

So, or at least not if they decide not to.

Yeah, right, it's yeah, it's it's it's disrespecting your guests, is what it's doing.

If you say the guest is disrespecting you, hey, turnabout's fair play.

So yeah, that's true.

That's true.

Flabbergasts And I want to jump back to you sticking with my question here though, from my understanding, the Mormon or the LDS religion uh.

Is building on top of the Bible.

Right, So I think that they that they you know, they consider themselves to be you know, full bore Christians plus right with an extra extra something something on the top there.

So do you think that do you think that this is posing?

You think this is this is for the cameras?

Or do you think this outrage is manufactured or you know, or why are they not doing what Jesus told.

Him to do?

I wouldn't call it posing or manufactured outrage.

I'd call it ignorance of the scripture in which they propagate and to and claim to adhere to right there.

The average person in that stadium probably has ever read Matthew meaningfully.

The only engagement most people have had with their scripture is what the pastor or their priest, or their their whatever the name of the Holy Person is.

And Mormonism, as you can tell, I'm a horrible Mormon since I.

Never grew up as one Hormon.

Are you a Hormon?

Wow, that's a story.

Well, okay, I'm just getting spicier and spicier.

All right, you.

Haven't even seen my other bunny.

But at the end of the day, like most people only engage with this stuff when they go to their church, when they go to their temple, and they go through what the pastor is curated for them to share with them and to give them a particular interpretation and and version of that part of the Bible, and they're going to jump around, and most people aren't going to get through the whole thing.

Most people that I know that are religious haven't read the whole Bible.

No one in my family who is still religious has read the entire Bible, even though I've bought most of them, multiple of them, because that's what they said they wanted for Christmas.

I said, sure, as long as you promise you read it and they don't.

And doesn't it say something in there about lying?

You're not supposed to lie.

You know, they said they were going to read it and they didn't.

I thought that was maybe that that was the first thing they should read that first that I should.

I should have I should have highlighted that one in there, some bookmarks in or something, right, I swear I wanted to get an annotated one, but I figured that was just pushing it a little bit too far.

But no, at the end of the day, like they don't engage with it.

They it's not hypocrisy if you're not aware of it, right, it's just ignorance.

And they're going to go out and they're going to preach and they're going to criticize people for not doing the thing that they're doing, even though it's in contradiction with their scrupture.

You know, Actually, you just said something really fascinating right now.

You said you didn't buy your you wanted to get your family an annotated Bible, because that's what you wanted to give them, right, But you respected their position and just got them a regular