board77

Um, River? Anglicans are Protestants... Just so's you know...

LalaithUrwen wrote:

Either that, or it was so taken for granted that church, faith, God, and all of that were such a part of people's lives that it didn't even need to be mentioned.

It is possible (and I would say, likely) that many of the Founding Fathers of the U.S. did assume that religion was a normal and necessary part of peoples' lives, but that a Separation of Church and State was needed to protect minority faiths and prevent conflict. Religion was no longer the cause of wars in Europe, but it had been recently enough to concern them.

You can also make a good argument that some of the founders were deists, agnostics or even atheists who considered organised religion to be an irrational basis for government policy. Certainly Jefferson seemed to have some interesting views on Christianity given that he re-wrote the New Testament to exclude the Resurrection.

Regardless, the involvement of religion in politics is a fairly recent thing in the U.S. The 'Christian Right' was largely apolitical until it was drafted by the Republican Party in the 1970s and 1980s, and it was driven to do so in a large part as a reaction to the counterculture of the 1960s. Certainly the U.S. was not founded on any religious values - very few nations have been, even those with established religions.

To throw in a plug for a favorite book of mine that I've never actually managed to convince anyone to read, American Theocracy contains an excellent, minutely-detailed history of American religion and its involvement with politics. And when I say minutely-detailed, I mean it includes statistics showing denominational breakdowns during the Civil War. It comes to the same conclusion several people here have--Americans have always been religious, but the political religious right is a new phenomenon.

Lord_Morningstar wrote:

Certainly Jefferson seemed to have some interesting views on Christianity given that he re-wrote the New Testament to exclude the Resurrection.

It's interesting given the way things lie today, but until fairly recently the idea that the Bible contained great moral truths while not being literally true when it talked about miracles and whatnot was quite common.

Starting this fall, all Texas public schools will be required to offer an elective class on the Bible:
http://www.kltv.com/global/story.asp?s=10933571
http://www.examiner.com/x-8948-Dallas-A ... -the-Bible

Full text of the bill:
http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/tlodocs/ ... 01287I.htm

As stated in section 2, Texas law requires public schools to provide training in exactly (merely) 8 subjects. One of those is Bible study.

Why just the Bible?

On paper, the argument is that the Bible is more important to the history of Texas than other holy texts are (the same reason English and capitalism are given special emphasis in language and economics classes). In reality; well, I think we all know that.

I'm genuinely surprised by that. I don't have a problem with the Bible being discussed, particularly from a literature, cultural, or philosophical standpoint. I'm just surprised they were able to make it a requirement. That doesn't seem right to me.

So whose spin are they going to put on the Bible in these classes? Catholic? Orthodox? Some flavor of Protestant (and which)? And why can't parents just send their kids to Sunday school so that a state that's part of a country with a clearly delineated separation between church and state can spend its public school money on something secular?

They say they're not supposed to teach it from any particular religious viewpoint. I don't see how to do that apart from studying it in a literature class or discussing how it impacted our nation (and the world). But I think it would be worthwhile to compare and contrast the Q'uran, too, and other sacred texts.

I doubt that it will be taught as "literature". Sad, cuz it's great literature. At least the KJV. The others, not so much.

Don't be offended, anyone. To me the bible is just another book, albeit a more interesting book than common.

My High School had a class called "The Bible as Literature." This was in New York state, in the 1970s. The High School I taught in (in Massachusetts) in the 80s had a class in World Religions.

The church I went to all through my childhood and teen years (a large Presbyterian Church) had a comprehensive study of the Bible, which is not always the case.

LalaithUrwen wrote:

I'm just surprised they were able to make it a requirement. That doesn't seem right to me.

They're required to offer an elective about it from what I've read. So at least it isn't to the point where every student is forced to take the class.

I hope it never will be. No one should be forced to study it. I resented enough having to take a religion course at my university and it covered all religions.

That's right; the bill states that schools are required to offer it as an elective. Which means some other electives will need to be dropped since there are a finite number of teachers, classrooms, etc. And which also means the class is guaranteed to survive the "what shall we cut this year?" budget meetings, no matter how little interest there is.

*E*

I'm in a London hotel right now and the fiirst thing I had to do, which Ive done for years now no matter which country I'm in, was to dump the fucking Gideon bible in the minibar. No minibar, I leave it outside the room.

I don't get it. It's well into the 21st century.

Then put it in a recycling bin.




*E*

Put it under the mattress, then see if you can feel god.

That's what this site is for: http://www.divine-interventions.com/index2.php




*E*

LalaithUrwen wrote:

They say they're not supposed to teach it from any particular religious viewpoint. I don't see how to do that apart from studying it in a literature class or discussing how it impacted our nation (and the world). But I think it would be worthwhile to compare and contrast the Q'uran, too, and other sacred texts.

If a teacher takes the sacredness and authority out of the Bible and just teaches it as literature, the way he would teach the Bullfinch's Mythology or Navaho Indian Coyote stories, isn't that an atheistic approach? Would teachers be able to do that?

laureanna wrote:

LalaithUrwen wrote:

They say they're not supposed to teach it from any particular religious viewpoint. I don't see how to do that apart from studying it in a literature class or discussing how it impacted our nation (and the world). But I think it would be worthwhile to compare and contrast the Q'uran, too, and other sacred texts.

If a teacher takes the sacredness and authority out of the Bible and just teaches it as literature, the way he would teach the Bullfinch's Mythology or Navaho Indian Coyote stories, isn't that an atheistic approach? Would teachers be able to do that?

Atheistic? Not necessarily. A person can believe in a god without giving the bible any special status.