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Teaching the Bible in Georgia's Public Schools

ATLANTA, March 28 — Georgia is about to become the first state to approve the use of the Bible as a textbook in public schools.

On Monday, the State Senate passed a bill providing money to high schools that offer elective classes in the Bible, and setting specific guidelines for those classes. The bill was approved by Georgia's House of Representatives last week.

Gov. Sonny Perdue is expected to sign the law.

The bill creates two courses, the History and Literature of the Old Testament Era and the History and Literature of the New Testament Era, that can be offered as electives. It gives the state's Department of Education a year to approve the curriculum, but it requires that the Bible itself, not a textbook, be the core material used. Supplementary materials can also be used.

Other state school systems offer classes in the Bible, but Georgia's law would be the first to require that the Bible be the core text. Legislators in Alabama and Missouri are considering similar measures.

With the enactment of the law, public schools in Georgia will be pushed, once again, into grappling with whether or how ideas tied to religion can be introduced into classrooms without violating the separation of church and state.

NYTimes story

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ATLANTA (Reuters) - Georgia lawmakers have approved a measure to fund elective Bible courses in public schools, raising concern among civil liberties groups the classes could violate the U.S. constitutional separation of church and state.

Under the bill, which now goes to Gov. Sonny Perdue for his signature, the State Board of Education would have to adopt curricula for two classes on the history and literature of the Old and New Testaments. School districts would then have the option of offering the courses.

The measure's enactment threatens to again inflame the debate between secularists and the religious right that has been invigorated under President George W. Bush.

The elective courses, according to the bill, are to "be taught in an objective and nondevotional manner with no attempt made to indoctrinate students," and should "not disparage or encourage a commitment to a set of religious beliefs."

Senators in the Bible Belt state approved the bill in a 45-2 vote late on Monday, following passage by the Georgia House of Representatives in a 151-7 vote the week before.

Reuters story

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"Are we to say that the world's best seller, a book that has influenced Western culture more than any other, is off limits to kids?" Georgia Sen. Tommie Williams, the measure's chief sponsor, told Reuters, adding that he was concerned about biblical illiteracy among students. "If you asked a kid what the Good Samaritan Law means, there's a history behind that that they probably don't know."

SAV
Apparently, not using a book as a textbook means that it's off limits to kids now.
Really, Senator Williams, there's more in that book that you don't want those kids to know than there is in than book that you do. (But let me guess: you're too dumb to realize that?)

DAR
Let the games begin. This will start a mini religious war as all the religious nuts line up to have the kiddies be told which doctrine is correct and the skeptics will be able to stand back and point out what good scholarship tells about the good book.

This desperate grasp has the potential to blow up in their faces. And remember, nothing leads people to atheism better than a good scholarly understanding of the Bible.

D.
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Did you know that a scrap of the lost Gospel Zaccheus was found the other day in a piss-pot in the archaeological dig of a first century carpenter's shop in Nazareth, Israel? It read as follows:

Joseph: "Son, I don't like these harlots and drunks you've been hanging around with."

Jesus: "Shut up. You're not my real Dad."

I'd be happier if the schools also offered History and Literature of the Koran, the Torah, and the other "holy" books. I'd also be happier if the courses they are offering (they are electives - maybe we should wait and see how many kids sign up for them - they might just disappear from lack of "making") held an archeological timeline against the biblical one - just as a comparison, you understand.

Because there is one heck of a lot of stuff in the Bible that is not nice, I have no problem with introducing kids to the "literature" of the bible. I don't think the parents will be nearly as happy with this little "victory" as they think they'll be.

Barbara Fitzpatrick wrote:Because there is one heck of a lot of stuff in the Bible that is not nice, I have no problem with introducing kids to the "literature" of the bible. I don't think the parents will be nearly as happy with this little "victory" as they think they'll be.

In Georgia, they'll teach only the parts they want to teach, and the kids won't feel inclined to read anything else. Remember, this is the same state that wanted evolution disclaimer stickers on their textbooks.

Savonarola quotes:

"Are we to say that the world's best seller, a book that has influenced Western culture more than any other, is off limits to kids?" Georgia Sen. Tommie Williams, the measure's chief sponsor, told Reuters, adding that he was concerned about biblical illiteracy among students. "If you asked a kid what the Good Samaritan Law means, there's a history behind that that they probably don't know."

DOUG
They probably dont' know some of the following moral precepts too. Can I teach the Bible class?

GE 38:9 "... whenever he (Onan) lay with his brother's wife, he spilled his semen on the ground to keep from producing offspring for his brother. What he did was wicked ..., so the Lord put him to death."

EX 21:20-21 With the Lord's approval, a slave may be beaten to death with no punishment for the perpetrator as long as the slave doesn't die too quickly.

LE 26:29, DT 28:53, JE 19:9, EZ 5:8-10 As a punishment, the Lord will cause people to eat the flesh of their own sons and daughters and fathers and friends.

NU 31:31-40 32,000 virgins are taken by the Israelites as booty. Thirty-two are set aside (to be sacrificed?) as a tribute for the Lord.

DT 7:2 The Lord commands the Israelites to "utterly destroy" and shown "no mercy" to those whom he gives them for defeat.

DT 20:13-14 "When the Lord delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the males .... As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves."

JS 8:22-25 With the Lord's approval, Joshua utterly smites the people of Ai, killing 12,000 men and women, so that there were none who escaped.

JS 10:10-27 With the help of the Lord, Joshua utterly destroys the Gibeonites.

JS 10:28 With the Lord's approval, Joshua utterly destroys the people of Makkedah.

JS 10:30 With the Lord's approval, Joshua utterly destroys the Libnahites.

JS 10:32-33 With the Lord's approval, Joshua utterly destroys the people of Lachish.

JS 10:34-35 With the Lord's approval, Joshua utterly destroys the Eglonites.

JS 10:36-37 With the Lord's approval, Joshua utterly destroys the Hebronites.

JS 10:38-39 With the Lord's approval, Joshua utterly destroys the Debirites.

JS 10:40 (A summary statement.) "So Joshua defeated the whole land ...; he left none remaining, but destroyed all that breathed, as the Lord God of Israel commanded."

See many more atrocities listed here:
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/ ... ocity.html

I'd love for DAR to teach the bible course - he'd last almost as long as I did as the middle school Sunday school teacher at St. Thomas Aquinas (back when it was a parish church and I was a catholic).

Oh, and I wonder what Senator Williams thinks Sunday schools are for, if not to teach what he wants taught in public school.

Barbara Fitzpatrick wrote:I'd love for DAR to teach the bible course -

DAR
Doug would be far better. Together we have taught two well attended Bible study classes at the U of A. The first one packed the room and they stayed for three hours (as I remember). Standard Bible scholarship and all quite consistent with our heretical freethought views. Course, we focused a little on the nastier bits often skipped over by the preachers.
Doug has given his same Bible power point presentations at our Freethinker meetings to.

D.
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Have you ever noticed that the Library of Congress (a governmental agency) call number for “Bible” begins with "BS?"
Yes, that's correct, your eyes are not deceiving you, the Bible is classified under the most famous two (2) letters for garbage or nonsense in the English or American language.
Who hasn't heard someone say, "Oh, that's BS!" or "B--- S---!"
So well known are these two letters that they DO NOT show up on my computer's spell checker as misspelled. Try it with other letters. They will show up as misspelled, but not these letters which herald your trip into a Bible topic at any library using the Library of Congress system.
Both vulgar and blasphemous are these letters. Vulgar, blasphemous AND closely associated with Christianity and the Bible according to the Library of Congress.
–Burney (edited, he applied the “bs” to Christianity but Ralph corrected him)

It just happened that the number for Xianity turned out to be BR, so
the Bible would naturally be BS, the next number. The system was worked
out in the later 19th century. I don't know when the slang term "BS"
began but I think it is quite possible that the librarians of that time
had no idea that in later years BS would also mean Baloney Sausage.

Many years ago, when I was revising filing in the University of Idaho
Library card catalog, a rather belligerent-looking older man,
obviously not a student, asked me, "Where are the books about the
Bible?" I took him into the next room, pointed down the aisle, and
said to him, "Just go down to the end of this aisle to the BS section.
That's where you'll find the books on the Bible." He gave me a scowl,
but went. About half an hour later, he came out looking quite happy. It
made me happy, too, to know that yet another customer had discovered
what BS stands for. --RALPH (retired catalog librarian)

My mother loved the bible as literature - but then she was a sucker for Elizabethan english - she also love Shakepear - which is why you'd never find a modern translation in her house, it was King James or nothing. She was also - probably deist is probably the closest I can get. For her use of language is what made a book holy and she would have considered an oath sworn on a book of Donne's poetry to be as binding as one sworn on the bible. (So would I - and oath is an oath - doesn't matter what you swear it on.) She was more discriminating about books than about land - she considered ALL land to be holy.