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Well maybe this will do something to increase their reading levels. And as they say, one of the best ways to lose your Christian faith is to read the Bible.
Yes, a lot of Christians never read it and just assume it is full of profound wisdom. If fact, it is mostly boring bullshit that hasn’t aged well. People are used to better writing nowadays, and even children today are less ignorant about the nature of the world than the average adult from the period when the Bible was being written.
They'll start with sanitized versions of select excerpts and build up tolerance and indoctrination.
I could honestly see this backfiring in a really funny way. Not only will they actually try harder to get them to learn to read, but in my experience kids tend to hate books they are forced to read. In the setting that is church there's more of a peer pressure from all the other kids and adults to learn the bible. In high-school/middle-school there's peer pressure to not read the books you are supposed to read save for those that love reading. The only books I remember reading from those years are the ones I chose to read while the ones I was told to read had left my brain almost entirely by my mid 20s
Banned books are also popular.
They are probably gonna ban Quran soon if they haven't already so double-backfire?
Texas recently passed a law preventing books that involve sex from being in libraries. The story of Lot and his daughters, and the famous quote in Ezekiel mean the bible should be banned under that law.
Wasn't there a ruling, that the Bible is exempted because it's "culturally important" or something?
At this point I’m surprised they haven’t started rewriting the Bible to bring it inline with their version of the faith. You know, drop the commandment about not committing adultery and swap it with “Thou shalt not abort”. Instead of Jesus feeding the masses and preaching neighborly love he says “get a job you fucking poors” and “hate the gays”. Moses frees his people with the power of the 2nd Amendment.
Shouldn’t the bible be subject to that age verification thing that’s going around? You know, to actually protect the children.
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.
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."
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
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.
There’s a lot of….interesting sexual things in there. Anyone thinking of the children here!? 🤣
I really am tempted to walk into a bible thumping school and read every single sex related verse just for kicks. but I'm trans so chances are they would shoot me and claim I had a bomb.
It is funny when you see one theocracy (Israel) in alliance with another (the US is a de facto theocracy, not a de jure one) bombing a third theocracy (Iran) killing indiscriminately. And they all believe in the same God, practicing similar methods, only their rituals of worship are different. Is there a more obvious fact that religion is the source of all evil in human history?
Like others in here, I have a lot of concerns about indoctrination and separation between religion and government. However, I can see a serious argument for Jonah and the Whale and especially David and Goliath as cultural touchstones that are regularly referenced in modern media. Other stories may be a harder pitch, maybe Cain & Abel?
Yeah, if I set aside my deep seated hatred for religious people undermining the Texas public education system-
I do actually think some of those stories are relevant literature to have read, alongside beowulf, epic of gilgamesh, the Iliad, arthurian legends, etc.
Beautiful, the bible is full of stories about murder, incest and adultery is a bestseller through the centuries.
Adjusted dozens of times so that the lies are more in line with the times.
New International Version
^30^ Lot and his two daughters left Zoar and settled in the mountains, for he was afraid to stay in Zoar. He and his two daughters lived in a cave. ^31^ One day the older daughter said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is no man around here to give us children—as is the custom all over the earth. ^32^ Let’s get our father to drink wine and then sleep with him and preserve our family line through our father.”
^33^ That night they got their father to drink wine, and the older daughter went in and slept with him. He was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up.
^34^ The next day the older daughter said to the younger, “Last night I slept with my father. Let’s get him to drink wine again tonight, and you go in and sleep with him so we can preserve our family line through our father.” ^35^ So they got their father to drink wine that night also, and the younger daughter went in and slept with him. Again he was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up.
^36^ So both of Lot’s daughters became pregnant by their father. ^37^ The older daughter had a son, and she named him Moab^[a]^; he is the father of the Moabites of today. ^38^ The younger daughter also had a son, and she named him Ben-Ammi^[b]^; he is the father of the Ammonites^[c]^ of today.
I always took that story to mean, Lot raped his daughters but then changed the story. People were pretty messed up back then.
Are they using the original book written in Aramaic or are they using that NEW one in English with all the translation errors?
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.
Religious people are full of shit. Or they’d all have died in service to their make believe bullshit already.
If they still breathe and claim religion their lying
Good, the best way to get more atheists is to force students to read the Bible.
it's ridiculous tripe
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
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).
I'm done with Christians. They can't stop pushing their religion on the rest of us
Based on the law of unintended consequences, this is one of the best inoculations against religion.
Oh, man, I would so be there!
Ezekiel 20:24-26
"24 Because they had not executed my judgments, but had despised my statutes, and had polluted my sabbaths, and their eyes were after their fathers' idols.
25 Wherefore I gave them also statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live;
26 And I polluted them in their own gifts, in that they caused to pass through the fire all that openeth the womb, that I might make them desolate, to the end that they might know that I am the Lord."
Matthew 6:1-2,5-9
"1Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven.
2 Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
5 And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
6 But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
7 But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.
8 Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him."
There are some passages they could read to open their eyes about religion. Those that their pastor never uses in church...
I grew up Southern Baptist, was in church EVERY Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and Wednesday evening. I also went to the school attached to our church from first grade through high school and was extremely involved in our youth group. I wound up having a bit of a messy break-up with the Southern Baptists and, after about two years of relative spiritual aimlessness, I found the Episcopal Church (which is quite different from the Southern Baptists, what with our women and Queer clergy and openness to a variety of things now deemed "woke"). I remember the Sunday when I heard both the reading and a sermon from Matthew 24 (the part where Jesus talks about His return and says "what you do for the least of these you do for me") and, I swear, I'd never heard that part before then. If I had, we must've just glossed over it. But it was like hearing from a completely different religion and made me really excited about being a Christian.
Freedom of religion (of our choice, not yours).
From the "your body my choice" crowd? Ya, that tracks.
Talk about how to get kids to reject religion. Do they think this is going to convert these kids?
Force them to read the whole bible. Nobody who actually reads the bible remains a theist.
Time for the Satanic Temple to do its work.
Texastan
They gonna be real angry when they get to Leviticus and find out what foods they can't eat...
Lol, jk they'll skip the inconvenient sections.
If you are in a comparative religions class or an ancient literature/mythology class and also reading passages from the Torah, Quran, Toa Te Ching, Bhagavad Gita, the teachings of Buddha, etc. for comparison, by all means, read the Bible. If you are just reading the Bible under a pretense to push Christianity onto students, push the law to its bounds and normalize indoctrination (and we know you are), then fuck all the way off.
