Well maybe this will do something to increase their reading levels. And as they say, one of the best ways to lose your Christian faith is to read the Bible.

Texas recently passed a law preventing books that involve sex from being in libraries. The story of Lot and his daughters, and the famous quote in Ezekiel mean the bible should be banned under that law.

I could honestly see this backfiring in a really funny way. Not only will they actually try harder to get them to learn to read, but in my experience kids tend to hate books they are forced to read. In the setting that is church there's more of a peer pressure from all the other kids and adults to learn the bible. In high-school/middle-school there's peer pressure to not read the books you are supposed to read save for those that love reading. The only books I remember reading from those years are the ones I chose to read while the ones I was told to read had left my brain almost entirely by my mid 20s

Shouldn’t the bible be subject to that age verification thing that’s going around? You know, to actually protect the children.

Kids, there's plenty of verses to read from if you're called upon. Try this one first:

NIV Ezekiel 23:20 "There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses."

There’s a lot of….interesting sexual things in there. Anyone thinking of the children here!? 🤣

I was finishing elementary school in the late 1960s, in extreme right wing Anaheim, California. Twice a month, the (public) schools had something called "released time religion." Two trailers would pull up to school, one for the Catholics and one for the Holy Rollers. The kids whose parents had signed a release would spend the afternoon learning Jesus things. The rest of us were expected to sit quietly, reflecting on our moral inadequacy for not being in the trailer.

As you might imagine, the majority of students who did go to the trailer, took umbrage at those who did not. And even then, I noted that there was nothing for the Jewish or Muslim or Hindu kids.

What Would Jesus Do? Flip every fucking table on the planet.

One of the biggest mistakes resulting from the Protestant Reformation's push for the proliferation of Bibles was the belief that one can just pick the thing up and read it like it's any other book, divorced from the tradition that wrote and shaped it. The whole idea that God assembled 66 books and bound them up in leather and dropped it from heaven is both foreign to the vast majority of Christian thinking throughout history AND grounds for a very dangerous heresy (turning the Bible into the "ultimate" revelation of God, rather than Jesus being that or at the very least redefining the Trinity as "Father, Son, and Holy Scriptures").

The funny thing is, is that the same people who hold to an idea that if everyone read the Bible the world would be better are the same who offer selective readings and ignore/downplay the parts they don't like (as we see in this proposal).

Time for the Satanic Temple to do its work.

Like others in here, I have a lot of concerns about indoctrination and separation between religion and government. However, I can see a serious argument for Jonah and the Whale and especially David and Goliath as cultural touchstones that are regularly referenced in modern media. Other stories may be a harder pitch, maybe Cain & Abel?

I don't mind them reading the Bible, if they are able to read the whole thing, one end to the other. For many people, a thorough reading of the bible beginning to end is what causes them to question Christianity and realize that it is a population control tool for those with power (and riches), not the word of a God. It is such an incoherent mess that cannot literally be followed - if you follow one edict, you break another. Reading it destroys the idea that an all powerful, all knowing God was it's roundabout creator. If there was a God surely it could have done a better job, even using inadequate humans to produce the product. So, after reading, you know it was a man made project. The Koran and Torah yield similar results. I think that is the main reason why religions try, or have tried in the past, to restrict reading to a select few leaders and try to keep the propaganda to what they want it to mean at any given time in history.

There are some passages they could read to open their eyes about religion. Those that their pastor never uses in church...

Oh, man, I would so be there!

Ezekiel 20:24-26

"24 Because they had not executed my judgments, but had despised my statutes, and had polluted my sabbaths, and their eyes were after their fathers' idols.

25 Wherefore I gave them also statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live;

26 And I polluted them in their own gifts, in that they caused to pass through the fire all that openeth the womb, that I might make them desolate, to the end that they might know that I am the Lord."

Matthew 6:1-2,5-9

"1Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven.

2 Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

5 And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

6 But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

7 But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.

8 Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him."

Based on the law of unintended consequences, this is one of the best inoculations against religion.

I'm done with Christians. They can't stop pushing their religion on the rest of us

Freedom of religion (of our choice, not yours).

How to cause school shootings 101

I grew up in Texas in the 90s, in their public schools and going to church every Sunday. I'd be fine with Christianity if they all actually read the teachings of Christ and acted accordingly. But... Nah...

And even then, if that fantasy were reality, it shouldn't be forced in public schools

It is funny when you see one theocracy (Israel) in alliance with another (the US is a de facto theocracy, not a de jure one) bombing a third theocracy (Iran) killing indiscriminately. And they all believe in the same God, practicing similar methods, only their rituals of worship are different. Is there a more obvious fact that religion is the source of all evil in human history?

If you are in a comparative religions class or an ancient literature/mythology class and also reading passages from the Torah, Quran, Toa Te Ching, Bhagavad Gita, the teachings of Buddha, etc. for comparison, by all means, read the Bible. If you are just reading the Bible under a pretense to push Christianity onto students, push the law to its bounds and normalize indoctrination (and we know you are), then fuck all the way off.

They gonna be real angry when they get to Leviticus and find out what foods they can't eat...

Lol, jk they'll skip the inconvenient sections.

Texastan

Talk about how to get kids to reject religion. Do they think this is going to convert these kids?

Those kids would be furious if they could read.

I just joined Lemmus today. This is the very first post I see and this being my first comment. I think this is gonna be fun.

Are they using the original book written in Aramaic or are they using that NEW one in English with all the translation errors?

Good, the best way to get more atheists is to force students to read the Bible.

it's ridiculous tripe