Required readings would include passages from Old and New Testament for students in middle school
The conservative-majority Texas State Board of Education is considering adding at least 15 passages from the Bible to a required reading list as part of English lessons in public schools – the latest push from conservatives to implement Christianity into school curriculums.
Beginning in middle school, Texas students could be forced to read stories from the Bible including Jonah and the Whale, David and Goliath, and Lamentations 3 in addition to passages such as The Definition of Love from the New Testament, according to the list reported by the New York Times.
The new proposed changes have raised concerns from advocacy groups and academics who believe the changes will teach children a one-sided history lesson and “indoctrinate” students.
What Would Jesus Do? Flip every fucking table on the planet.
Jesus says they are wicked, meanwhile, He promises to kill everybody on Earth who won’t bow to Him.
That’s kinda creepy, don’t you think? His promise is to be the greatest murderer of all time (again)
Time for the Satanic Temple to do its work.
Kids, there’s plenty of verses to read from if you’re called upon. Try this one first:
NIV Ezekiel 23:20 “There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses.”
Me too, thanks.
I don’t mind them reading the Bible, if they are able to read the whole thing, one end to the other. For many people, a thorough reading of the bible beginning to end is what causes them to question Christianity and realize that it is a population control tool for those with power (and riches), not the word of a God. It is such an incoherent mess that cannot literally be followed - if you follow one edict, you break another. Reading it destroys the idea that an all powerful, all knowing God was it’s roundabout creator. If there was a God surely it could have done a better job, even using inadequate humans to produce the product. So, after reading, you know it was a man made project. The Koran and Torah yield similar results. I think that is the main reason why religions try, or have tried in the past, to restrict reading to a select few leaders and try to keep the propaganda to what they want it to mean at any given time in history.
The Koran and Torah yield similar results. I think that is the main reason why religions try, or have tried in the past, to restrict reading to a select few leaders and try to keep the propaganda to what they want it to mean at any given time in history.
Regarding the Koran, your statement is verifiably false. It was widely read and memorized by the masses so that a select few leaders couldn’t control what they want it to mean.
Quite a large number of those masses, in non-Arabic-speaking countries such as Pakistan and Indonesia, memorize the Qur’an without knowing what it means, which is a piss-poor way of preventing elite capture. More effective is that fact that, in Sunni Islam, there’s no formal religious hierarchy, and each congregation operates independently (like the Christian Congregationalists used to). Though social conformity squeezes out the diversity of beliefs, and there are respected institutions and scholars such as Al-Azhar university that are widely respected, but there’s no Sunni Pope. Sufis are structured similarly. Shia’s, on the other hand, have a hierarchy of authority that puts the Catholics to shame.
Not knowing the language is a problem which doesn’t fully eliminate the issue, you’re right, but it does eliminate the possibility of changing the written scriptures. As a result there will always be thinkers who can return to the original text and come to their own conclusions, challenging the prevailing thoughts of their region or era, something that has repeatedly occurred in Muslim history.
Your claim of their statement being verifiably false is in itself verifiably false.
Their claim was the works do not inspire a belief in God (for them), and they know it was a man-made project. Since they know themselves so much better than you, they are the only ones who can give their opinion.
Yes, people memorized the Koran, Bible, Tanakh, throughout the history of each faith. However, there are many examples (legions!) of those same works (in whole or in part) being protected by a variety of sects… not one of those faiths was consistent throughout their history.
Remember, God hates liars! Don’t call others liars just because one of their points isn’t all-encompassing. Recall, they said “I think”… this means it’s an opinion. Don’t lie, Allah would be ashamed of you if He was real.
I was responding to the text I quoted, not the full post 🙄
Do you know how long and boring that is? This would be like just a dozen pages.
you really don’t need to get to the end.
But you do! The ending is the very best part, it renders everything before it into an absurdity.
It’s the punchline
I was finishing elementary school in the late 1960s, in extreme right wing Anaheim, California. Twice a month, the (public) schools had something called “released time religion.” Two trailers would pull up to school, one for the Catholics and one for the Holy Rollers. The kids whose parents had signed a release would spend the afternoon learning Jesus things. The rest of us were expected to sit quietly, reflecting on our moral inadequacy for not being in the trailer.
As you might imagine, the majority of students who did go to the trailer, took umbrage at those who did not. And even then, I noted that there was nothing for the Jewish or Muslim or Hindu kids.
we had a few things like that back in the 90s when i was in HS. I went to every available one. Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Wiccan (we actually had a Wiccan club!). It got me out of class and was fun to learn about other cultures.
Shouldn’t the bible be subject to that age verification thing that’s going around? You know, to actually protect the children.
Exactly, the Bible talks about donkey dicks and horse cum!
Also child slaughter. Some kids made fun of a dude for being bald, and god sent a bear to tear them apart. Wholesome story.
When I was a kid, my best friend’s dad liked to cite those verses when we made comments about his receding hairline.
They made fun of Elisha for being a prophet, as well as for being bald. His predecessor Elijah was said to have ascended to heaven. The kids were saying “Go on, Baldy, why don’tcha go up to heaven!”
And that’s why the naughty little fuckers got torn apart by a she-bear.
As a bald man, I approve of that message.
And if you believe that you’ll believe anything
I’m less concerned about the anatomy lesson and more about the celebration of child rape and genocide.
Didn’t The Satanic Temple do something similar to that when a bunch of book banning in schools was going around not so long ago?
I hope they study James 5…
Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. 2 Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. 3 Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. 4 Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. 5 You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter.[a] 6 You have condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you.
I think that would make an epic face tattoo
Based on the law of unintended consequences, this is one of the best inoculations against religion.
It’s the fundamental flaw of Protestant theology. Hand out ten bibles, absent any further religious instructions, and you get ten different religions. Leave people to stew too long and they just start making up their own Apocrypha - a la Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Texas is already a melting pot of faiths, quite a few of which aren’t even Christian. You’re going to be demanding teachers read from the Bible to such a wide range of denominations, all with their own priors as to what any of this stuff means.
Like, as a kid, I remember my dad explaining to me that the Sermon on the Mount and the Loaves and Fishes miracle was a lesson on the power of sharing. Jesus took a bit of bread and fish, passed it among the crowd, and then everyone in the crowd helped to pitch in with what they’d brought for themselves. And in the end they had more than what they began with. I’ve sat in class with people who seriously believe “No, Jesus just magicked up more fish and bread, because DUH it was a miracle”. And that’s firmly within the Christian spectrum. We’re not dragging in Muslims or Hindus or outright born-and-raised Atheists to weigh in.
They need to make them read the entire thing
I grew up in Texas in the 90s, in their public schools and going to church every Sunday. I’d be fine with Christianity if they all actually read the teachings of Christ and acted accordingly. But… Nah…
And even then, if that fantasy were reality, it shouldn’t be forced in public schools
Christ teaches that He will return, and murder EVERY non-Christian across the globe, billions will die. The lake of blood will be miles wide, according to Him, and as deep as a horse’s bridle!
Not only that, the murdered can’t even have peace in death. Christ will banish them all to Hell, for an eternity of torture, with infinite wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Why do you want to teach this? Just wondering
Fair point. I wasn’t really thinking of the book of revelations when I made that comment. Or the concept of hell. I’m agnostic/atheist now and don’t really care what people think the afterlife or end of times may look like (as long as they’re not actively trying to start the apocalypse or some shit). I more meant the teachings about loving your neighbor and feeding the hungry and helping the poor.
Pretty sure he also taught about false prophets and not trying to predict the end of times, but they seem to be ignoring that too, at least the extremists. I’d be on board with people living their daily lives how Christ taught is what I meant.
Do it. Forcing students to read the Bible will create a loooooot more Atheists. Better than “believers” who don’t even know the source material, which is what we have now.
There’s a reason they choose specific passages, and they’ll come with specific interpretations as learning goals.
I mean, that’s what they tried to do with me and my fellow students at my private christian school, but it just raised questions, and when the adults didn’t like our questions it was very insightful. Most of the people I went to school with are no longer evangelicals, in fact I don’t think a single one is.
My kids’ mother’s family are Muslim, so the kids were offered Islamic instruction when they were young. When they were teaching about the 99 prophets who preceded Muhammad, my daughter said “hey, wait a minute, this can’t be right, none of them are women.” So the school called me, I had to take her home from class early, and she never went back.
They also told her that her Barbies had djinn living in them, which she immediately realized was ridiculous.
My other kids also figured it out, but in a lower-profile way.
All my kids were also given the opportunity to be instructed in Christianity and to attend Jewish services, and all but one took that opportunity, but didn’t buy what they were selling either. All are now atheists.
You’re anecdote is nice and all, but it’s an anecdote.
I couldn’t find much data specifically on rates of students of religious schools leaving that religion, but what little data I found says more people stay in the religion when enrolled in religious schools than not.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/4621974
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S073805932500238X
Most students in religious schools have very religious parents who indoctrinate them from early childhood, and my anecdotes are different from yours. Few students decide that losing their friends and support system are worth leaving the religion, and remain in it even if they have doubts. The more you force religion to be a part of a person’s social support system, the tighter you hold them in.
I agree that if they start reading and studying it honestly the more disillusioned they’ll become, that’s my personal experience also. But most people in my experience do not have the critical thinking skills or the ability to study independently to come to those conclusions, they rely on the religious text being interpreted for them, and they accept a figure head (priest or pastor or Imam or Rabi) to answer difficult questions and reject anything that makes them “question” their faith, because they’ve been warned about the evil world that will try to get them to question their faith their whole life. They don’t begin engaging critically with counterarguments because religious apologetics give them comfort.
Cult members might be fooled, but cult leaders aren’t stupid, they know what they’re doing. They’re targeting people who aren’t in religious schools, and don’t have religious indoctrination already, so there’s no effect on “leaving” the faith to consider here, any hooked student is a success.
Forcing students to read the Bible will create a loooooot more Atheists.
Forcing students to pretend to be Christian in order to get educational perks and avoid harsh discipline will create a lot more implicit segregation and cliches of Mean Girls who can harass non-confirming students with impunity.
Check out The Third Wave
Texastan
Good, the best way to get more atheists is to force students to read the Bible.
it’s ridiculous tripe
I just joined Lemmus today. This is the very first post I see and this being my first comment. I think this is gonna be fun.
Welcome!
One of the biggest mistakes resulting from the Protestant Reformation’s push for the proliferation of Bibles was the belief that one can just pick the thing up and read it like it’s any other book, divorced from the tradition that wrote and shaped it. The whole idea that God assembled 66 books and bound them up in leather and dropped it from heaven is both foreign to the vast majority of Christian thinking throughout history AND grounds for a very dangerous heresy (turning the Bible into the “ultimate” revelation of God, rather than Jesus being that or at the very least redefining the Trinity as “Father, Son, and Holy Scriptures”).
The funny thing is, is that the same people who hold to an idea that if everyone read the Bible the world would be better are the same who offer selective readings and ignore/downplay the parts they don’t like (as we see in this proposal).
Quite a few of those bumpkins believe that not only is the Bible the literally true word of God, but the King James version in particular.
Smart people sometimes do stupid things, but never vice-versa.
Oh I know! I grew up around King James-only people. The committee tasked with finding a new pastor for my church growing up was deeply split over this issue with some members claiming that the New King James translation celebrated the “Mark of the Beast” (this is because the NKJV used a Celtic knot as its logo; yes, the famous symbol associated with helping illustrate the doctrine of the Trinity).
Kind of related story: I had a lisp growing up and went to a speech therapist. Reading the King James out loud was difficult because all the -th suffixes ran counter to my therapy. So I started swapping the -th suffixes with -s whenever we’d read aloud from the Bible (like in school or congregational settings; no one seemed to notice). To the point that this is now just what happens when I read “olde English.” Which was never a problem until I became a priest in the Episcopal Church and the early morning services tend to use what’s known as “Rite I” which maintains the older English of previous prayer books (the people who go to such services take this very seriously). And so I’d have to consciously undo this habit when celebrating at Rite I masses.
Those kids would be furious if they could read.
