Georgia Law could allow bible classes in public school

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Saint Kurt
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Georgia Law could allow bible classes in public school

Post by Saint Kurt »

The Governor of Georgia recently signed a bill that allows the 10 commandments to be displayed in courthouses and in public schools. There is a new bill that he is due to sign that will approve the use of the bible as a text book in public schools.

NY Times Article
Macon Telegraph Article

The classes in question would be extra curricular "literature" classes using the Old and New Testament but I think anyone who has spent five minutes in this particular section of the site alone knows that even that's not so easy.

Who will these literature classes be geared to? Will they assume belief in the existance of God? It seems like calling it a literature class is just sneaky when you have people saying things like this:
"Kids are illiterate of the Bible," Mr. Williams said. "They don't understand the text and how it affects government or history. If we're teaching a kid what the Good Samaritan law was about, they wouldn't know."
I learned about the Good Samaritan Law before I'd read the New Testament and I understood it just fine. I can't think of a single topic in the bible that supports this guy's point. It's true that the bible is a nice condensed source of allegory, but it's not the only source.

Stuff like this bugs me because when the government takes on religion ecumenicism is immediatley called into question. I was in a multi-denominational bible study class reading the old testament and nobody running it knew a thing about Judaism. Yet here they were talking about the history of the Jews!

This was in New York and while I hate to show prejudice about the south, there are a lot more Jews in New York than there are in Georgia. (It's the heart of the Baptist Bible Belt, according to a friend even the Catholics get funny looks.) The classes might be truly comparative as they promise, but the probability is lower. This doesn't even get into which version/translation they are going to use, because even that is an issue if you're going to call it "literature" and then preach the gospel.

The ACLU is going to be all over this like a rash.

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Georgia Law could allow bible classes in public school

Post by NachtcGleiskette »

I just see no reason for this. At all. Kids wanna read the Bible? They can read it on their own time. It seems like dealing with a topic as heavy, philosophical, and frikken difficult to understand as the Bible should be reserved for college courses, where it seems the context would probably be mapped out a bit clearer.

Even still, are they going to allow classes teaching other religious texts as well?

You know what? Let the South do what they want. I'm so sick of hearing they're putting the bible in their classes but taking out fractions. Screw it. It's not like we can do anything to really stop it. Because once this is taken care of, a whole 'nother thing is just going to come up...

And you wonder why our education system seems to be falling behind....
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Georgia Law could allow bible classes in public school

Post by Angelique »

Heh. I only wish the ACLU were all over this. Here, public school students can attend LDS seminary as sort of non-credit elective classes. And up until relatively recently, they used to be able to get public school credit for their religious education. Think that privilege is available to non-LDS students?

Theoretically speaking, yes. The law requires it. But in practice it's a different matter entirely.

I can accept the reality that living in an area with a religious supermajority of which I am not a part comes with a few requirements in order to cope. Like learning to tolerate not being able to venture out the door without being reminded of that. And taking pride in the fact that I am a part of what passes for diversity around here.

But our public schools are tax supported. I don't mind that some of that money may help some kids learn about their religion, but the same opportunity should be extended to students of all religions.

I want to see a class on the Qu'ran as literature. And the Bhagavad Ghita! (I couldn't wrap my mind around it as scripture, but found the prose extremely rich. Definitly not the sort of thing you can just skim.) Book of Mormon- well we already have that here. And the Bible- why not, as long as the texts sacred to non-Christian students also get a fair shake?
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Georgia Law could allow bible classes in public school

Post by fourpawsonthefloor »

I just don't get this. How this can be interpreted as anything but religious favoritism is beyond me. Religion can be a huge part of what a person is, but it needs to happen OUT of public schools.

What this feels like to myself, as I am sure it does to a lot of others, is that these people have an agenda to take over the fricken world...they want to force everyone to believe as they do. The problem for me is that in forcing it on others, rather than letting them find their own path to God, how meaningful spiritually do they think that it is for a person? That's what doesn't make sense to me. Not that I believe that anyone should have to believe in God - it is totally up to the individual - but if you do believe in something you should believe it because you DO - not because someone says you should.

Phah. Idiots.

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Georgia Law could allow bible classes in public school

Post by LadyErin »

What scares me is that this would be offered to kids about the same time I started to question my own faith needed to view other ideas than what I had been raised with to understand what it was I felt was true and what I believed. And in my family, I would have been expcted to take the class, even if I didn't want to.

But Paws, you are completely on point - forcing someone to believe it dooesn't make it mean anything to them.

But then, this seems pair course for the history of the area.
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