In my Texas high school, many decades ago now, my English teacher made us read the bible, saying that it was only for its literary and historical value. It had nothing to do with how she was an extremely religious Mormon.
Apparently.
At least it wasn’t the official curriculum. Just her being an awful human.
Why didn’t you read the book of Mormon?
That’s a sound logical argument that immediately exposes her hypocrisy, and it didn’t occur to me to bring it up back then.
I totally would have, though. She caused a lot of problems due to her poor and biased teaching. I never understood the purpose of English classes back then, so I always asked a lot of questions that inevitably made her look bad. By the end of that class, she absolutely hated me and was marking my assignments worse than other people’s, even when the criteria was purely objective. My father had to schedule a meeting with the Principal to get her to stop.
Or maybe she didn’t teach the Book of Mormon partially because it obviously has zero literary merit. Every passage from it that I’ve read sounds like a person with an eighth grade education who is trying to sound like the King James version of the bible. I mean, “smite” (or smote) is a cool sounding word for a middle schooler, so a middle schooler who was trying to write a new book of the bible might use that word way more often than makes sense.
As an aside, the guy in the picture seems so awfully familiar.
There’s nothing better for turning Christians into atheists than making them actually read the Bible. I approve.
Yeah its ironic that the actual teachings of jesus and the gospel are about as far from Christo-fascism as one can be.
The teachings of Jesus are extremely woke at the same time. “Loving everyone unconditionally”, “not caring if someone’s doing religion wrong or thinking differently”?
AFAIK they won’t read the Bible directly, they’ll read excerpts. So basically Republicans are curating only the parts they think fit their needs and are leaving out context that could completely flip the lesson on its head.
They’ll be selectively read to. American kids can’t actually read well these days, and this will do nothing to change that.
Insert if them kids could read meme.
Reading fiction was required in my schooling as well. This particular thing doesn’t feel that different.
If it moves on to mandating prayer and citing a pledge daily, well that would be a wonderful time for protest or violence.
Yeah, well at least it’s not some Middle Eastern religion, with funny hats and a sacred book, that builds big towers to noisily advertise itself to the people around it…
That worships the same god.
slow clap
Damn Texas really looks like a shithole
I’m over here in California where we aren’t violating the Constitution, weed is legal, and my girlfriend has the same rights I do.
Sux to be from Texas.
always has been
but it’s “our flavor of sharia law so it’s good”.
I’m ready for Shakira law whenever, wherever.
At least hips don’t lie.
Never got the idea of ‘studying’ a book when no one in the room has read it front to back, even the priest.
If you want a solid leg-up on Christians, “I have” is the best comeback to “read the Bible”.
People who have read the bible are largely atheists.
This can’t be real. Tell me this isn’t real.
I fucking hate it here
Make them hate it here
If it helps, the rest of the world hate your country too.
I mean the pro is if they actually read the Bible maybe they’ll realize its not all anti everything, and stop using it out of context. Actually care about others?
There’s a dangerous difference between critical bible analysis and guided bible study.
With how cryptic it is and how heavy on metaphors and parables, interpretation and contextualisation are important aspects of actually understanding the text, and the context sometimes isn’t directly in the text but in the environment (time, place, recent events, social group) it was written in, or in other texts the writers expected their peers to be familiar with.
Critical analysis needs to investigate and consider thay extra-textual context. Guided study can explain it, but it can also omit or twist it. Critical analysis shouldn’t just pick out individual passages. Guided study can cherry-pick the parts I want you to read.
For example, consider the story of the good Samaritan: A guy gets robbed, beaten half dead and left in the ditch. Two priests walk by and ignore him. Then another guy (the titular Samaritan) comes by, helps him, cleans his wounds and pays for an inn to take care of him. The whole thing is told in response to the question “if I’m supposed to love my neighbour, who is my neighbour?”
I could frame it as Jesus telling that Rabbi “neighbour means peers, and the priests walking by had no obligation to help the peasant because he’s not their peer; let the rabble take care of each other and worry about your own”. I could also, however, point out that Samaritans and Jews had a religious conflict, oil and wine weren’t as cheap as they would be today and two full days labourers’ wages are not a sum of money to sneeze at. In that context, the point isn’t about peers and obligations but about how this guy helped a potential enemy at some expense, because that’s who you’re supposed to love: People whose humanity transcends borders, religious enmity and personal profit.
So depending on how I spin it, I can use it to encourage division and elitism, or to tell you that Muslim immigrants deserve your kindness and help too.
This is a bit of an extreme example (I hope; though I wouldn’t be surprised to learn otherwise), but having been in “bible study”, I can tell you that there absolutely are people willing and able to make the text fit their agenda quite convincingly.
I have zero faith thay this will actually be reading the bible critically so much as cherry-picked indoctrination.
“The devil can cite scripture for his purpose.”
I am strongly against pushing any religion to anyone. This is fucked up.
Cherry picked parts of the book spiced with conservative lies being stuffed into young minds is pure evil.
But if they actually managed to get the kids read the entire book, that could be a good thing. I read the Bible out of curiosity when I was in school and it was the most effective inoculation against theism I can think of.
Good, do it.
There’s no better way to raise a generation of atheists than reading the Bible. It’s ridiculous.
Okay but the last part of this sentence doesn’t adhere to anything.
What are we talking about?
And once we figure that out, is it in a way that the believers will understand?
And if not, are you armed?
I wonder if all those SECOND AMENDMENT nutballs in Texas will get just as worked up over the FIRST AMENDMENT being violated here
I mean given they have been alright with second amendment violations, for certain people, I doubt it.
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They don’t mind sharia law as long as it’s their christian nationalist flavor of it.
They’re cool with the christian caliphate.
Fitting alliteration, that.
This is the reason they went along with the George W Bush administration when they started the 9th Crusades which we experience today.
The criticism is mostly jealousy.
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Don’t worry soon those children will turn atheist after reading Bible
