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.
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?
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.”
Or how about an abortion ritual?
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.
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.
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).
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.
So many in fact they have a Kids Bible
Force them to read the whole bible. Nobody who actually reads the bible remains a theist.
I’ve read the Bible through many times. Both in times of belief and in times of doubt. I wound up becoming an Episcopal priest. I’d argue that the more someone reads the Bible and truly studies it the less likely they are to remain “literalists” when it comes to the Bible. Which also has the effect of broadening one’s view of God.
Have you read the Quran? How about the Tripitaka? The Torah?
Have you perchance read any texts regarding the The Satanic Temple?
I don’t know how common it is, but I’d be concerned if any high religious figure hasn’t done some at the very least surface level study of world religions, past and present
Oh helllll no.
Talk about how to get kids to reject religion. Do they think this is going to convert these kids?
I don’t think it’s about conversion. I see it as keeping those already born and entrenched having it normalized as part of a “christian nation” to further prevent critical thinking.
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.
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.
Another section of Gilead being raised.
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?
That would exempt basically most banned books
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.
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.
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?
