So, there’s this site called National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools, and it tries to say some non-threatening stuff:
The curriculum for the program shows a concern to convey the content of the Bible as compared to literature and history. The program is concerned with education rather than indoctrination of students. The central approach of the class is simply to study the Bible as a foundation document of society, and that approach is altogether appropriate in a comprehensive program of secular education.
But I’m sure there’s no long-term goal for any of this.
If it said “The central approach of the class is simply to study critical
thinking by examining the bible” I would be ok with that.
I doubt there’s gonna be one lick of critical thinking in that class though.
Yeah, how do you think that might go if somebody suggested we talk about all they kinds of stuff that the excellent Skeptic’s Annotated Bible mentions? Now, that would be a nice course in some critical thinking.
I like how it says that they’d study the bible ‘as compared to literature and history.’ So at least they realize that it is neither.
I respectfully disagree that the bible is not literature. If people want to read/study it in the same manner as Greek, Norse, Roman, Celtic, etc. mythology I think it would be ok. The problem arises when, like you say, “believers” attempt to add the events in the bible to world history.
I took a class like this in college last year. In one part of the course, we had to read the Bible (particularly the creation stories and the books of Exodus, Isaiah, and Matthew), the Koran, the Bhavagad Gita (Hinduism Holy book), and analyze each book for its literary aspects. We also had to do the same with ancient Greek literature and literary material from the Renaissance. It’s a good class for an adult atheist to take, but I don’t know if schoolchildren should be taking such a class because of the work involved.
I predict a war - I believe that the longer these obsessive bigots of society attempt at incorporating their religious mythology with our government (and in doing so, removing exactly that which has allowed this country to prevail), the more it will bring down our government when the religion eventually falls to science - I think some see it, and have resorted to a last desperate move in the removal truth, reason, pholosophy, and science from public textbooks to deafen upcoming generations from outside influence and reason, in an attempt to build an army of children to fight exactly that which moves society forward - How sad.