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.
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.
Good, the best way to get more atheists is to force students to read the Bible.
it’s ridiculous tripe
Those kids would be furious if they could read.
Another section of Gilead being raised.
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.
Is this only old testament bullshit?
Are your eyes broken?
Stop commenting on headlines.
Edit- nevermind you don’t even need to go because OP posted the relevant part too.
Oh helllll no.
I am just going to leave this here again
(https://ffrf.org/outreach/ffrf-chapters/)
Isn’t a bad idea to get involved
we need in person community organization, like yesterday.
get involved.
Based on the law of unintended consequences, this is one of the best inoculations against religion.
They need to make them read the entire thing
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 reach 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.
This is not the start of a theocracy, please move along.
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
See you in court, Pharisees.
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.
Do you know how long and boring that is? This would be like just a dozen pages.
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.
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.
you really don’t need to get to the end.
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.
And wait until they find out that their mixed polyester/cotton clothing is an abomination.
One of my own deeply held beliefs is that any religion that bans shellfish and carnitas cannot possibly be divinely inspired.
I don’t care what the bible says.
You’ll care when they come after you because of how they interpret some oblique passage.
and we shall fight back against having religion forced on us
there is no freedom of religion without freedom from religion
