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Bible Study

blobru

Philosopher
blobru
Joined
May 29, 2007
Messages
6,900
Bible course(s) should be compulsory once in:
elementary school;
high school;
college;
english lit major.

Bible course(s) should be optional once in:
elementary school;
high school;
college;
english lit major.

Teaching the Bible in public schools at any level should be forbidden.

The Bible should be forbidden.

On Planet X, there is no Bible (God blogs).
 
blobru said:
Bible course(s) should be compulsory once in:
elementary school;
high school;
college;
english lit major.

Bible course(s) should be optional once in:
elementary school;
high school;
college;
english lit major.

Teaching the Bible in public schools at any level should be forbidden.

The Bible should be forbidden.

On Planet X, there is no Bible (God blogs).
Click to expand...

Which Bibble? There is more than one, don't you know.

Why not the Koran or the Upanishads?
 
In an English speaking country, the Bible (preferably the KJV/Authorized Version or the Revised Standard Version which is close) needs to be taught at least once in high school and to English Lit majors in college. You need it both as literature (most read book in English) and because any intelligent conversation will eventually refer to it. Imagine reading James Joyce, Henry James, or William Shakespeare without the Bible; much of the meaning of their works would be lost. Even Dawkins mentioned in The God Delusion that the Bible was necessary reading. (Sorry, I loaned my copy out, so no page reference.)
 
Andronicus said:
any intelligent conversation will eventually refer to it.
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Although this is perhaps just a slight exaggeration, it overlooks the possibility that significantly more stupid conversations will immediately start with it

Andronicus said:
Imagine reading James Joyce, Henry James, or William Shakespeare without the Bible; much of the meaning of their works would be lost.
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A valid, albeit utopian, point

Sadly, all too many teachers have difficulty getting kids to read anything substantial at all... The sheer size of Ulysses makes reading the phone book look interesting

Andronicus said:
Even Dawkins mentioned in The God Delusion that the Bible was necessary reading. (Sorry, I loaned my copy out, so no page reference.)
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Everyone should read the Bible, says atheist Dawkins
Times Online
From The Times May 10, 2007

In an interview with Times2, Professor Dawkins, a Darwinian biologist, said: "You’d be rightly written off as uncultivated if you knew nothing of the Bible. You need the Bible to understand literary allusions."
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Collateral Damage: Part 2
by Richard Dawkins
Religious apologists will try to persuade you that, without scriptural texts, we'd have no moral compass, no guidelines for what is right and what is wrong. Anybody who advocates basing our morals on the Bible has not read the Bible with sufficient attention.
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YouTube Video: Richard Dawkins reading extracts of the God Delusion at the Free Library of Philadelphia

Transcript Source
The ethnic cleansing begun in the time of Moses, is brought to bloody fruition in the Book of Joshua, a text remarkable for the bloodthirsty massacres it records, and the xenophobic relish with which it does so.

<snip/>

Yet again, theologians will protest it didn’t happen. Well no, the story has it that the walls came tumbling down at the mere sound of men shouting and blowing horns, so indeed it didn’t happen. But that is not the point. The point is that whether true or not, the Bible is held up to us as the source of our morality. And the Bible story of Joshua’s destruction of Jericho, and the invasion of the lebensraum of the Promised Land in general is morally indistinguishable from Hitler’s invasion of Poland or Saddam Hussein’s massacres of the Kurds and the Marsh Arabs. The Bible may be an arresting and poetic work of fiction but it is not the sort of book you should give your children to form their morals.

As it happens, the story of Joshua in Jericho is the subject of an interesting experiment in child morality, by the Israeli psychologist, George Tamarin.

<snip/>
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While I agree about the importance of reading the Bible, I don't want it read as part of the school system. There is just too much potential for abuse when an atheistic child gets taught the Bible by a religious teacher.

Cheers,
Ben
 
I think all here would agree that giving lessons in religious history, and perhaps small pieces of the conclusions of higher criticism would be important.
 
To be honest if you have a Bible studies/religious studies thing in a school then you would have to ensure that there is an opt-out option. I went to a religious school and had to sit through some of the most boring studies of the Bible. The only positive about it is that I managed to find all of the bits in the Bible that have all the blood and gore and stuff like that.

As well as that, which has already been pointed out, you would have to teach stuff about other religions as well and in these turbulent times you would have to ensure that the student would have to go to all of the classes if they choose to study religion. I would make the assumption that in the US you would have parents that would want their kids to learn about the Bible, but not the Koran.

I have found that incorporating world religions into a religious class, I have learned far more about religions then I would have had I not been forced to sit through them. I found the sections on world religions to be the more interesting parts.

So to make my point clear, I think that instead of bible studies classes there should be classes taught about world religions. I am sure that even in the US, if taught correctly, would not be a violation of whatever section of the US constitution that covers the separation of church and state.

ETA: I forgot to mention that it would also help to foster understanding in students about other people's religions and beliefs, but only if it is taught correctly.
 
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You can be educated, intelligent, and well-adjusted without knowing anything about the Bhagavad Gita. You may be intelligent and well-adjusted, but can't be well-educated without having some basic familiarity with the Bible.
 
Andronicus said:
You can be educated, intelligent, and well-adjusted without knowing anything about the Bhagavad Gita. You may be intelligent and well-adjusted, but can't be well-educated without having some basic familiarity with the Bible.
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By the standards of your culture of course.
 
quixotecoyote said:
By the standards of your culture of course.
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Which goes without saying. If we were on a skeptical forum in India I'd reverse the two religious works and still believe the same point.

Also, let me state I don't have anything against comparative religion, but it is an "elective". If someone claimed they didn't have any idea who Krishna was, I wouldn't automatically think they were an idiot. Any American who doesn't know who Jesus is (in at least very general terms) is someone who I would put in the same catagory as person who didn't know the Earth was round and orbits the sun.
 
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When I was in school, the teacher would read something out of the bible at the beginning of the school day, somewhere around the fifth grade that stop, and I was so happy.

Paul

:) :) :)

Of course some parents said that is when the children started to act badly, it of course had nothing to do with the parent's lack of discipline on their children.
 
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All I know is that they stopped reading the bible in the morning. They may of stopped before 1963 in my school.

Paul

:) :) :)

I was glad too.
 
Andronicus said:
Which goes without saying.
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Not anymore it doesn't. :D



Then again, if it were up to me, no one would be forcibly educated about Jesus, Krishna, Moses, Mohammad, or any other mythological figure, including by parents when they are too young to have their filters up.
 
quixotecoyote said:
Then again, if it were up to me, no one would be forcibly educated about Jesus, Krishna, Moses, Mohammad, or any other mythological figure, including by parents when they are too young to have their filters up.
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That's asinine. Do you include "Raggedy Andy," "Brer Rabbit," and "Dora the Explorer" in that list of mytholgical figures, too?

Kiddy lit includes fiction. Fiction is, by definition, about made-up characters.

And education about a subject does not mean that one need be indocrinated into believing in its factual accuracy. I can tell you quite a bit about Moby Dick, but I don't believe in Captain Ahab.
 
Wildy said:
To be honest if you have a Bible studies/religious studies thing in a school then you would have to ensure that there is an opt-out option.
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I disagree. I couldn't opt out of studying The Scarlet Letter no matter how much I loathed it. Why is the Bible the single work of fiction to which students are allowed to opt out?
 
Wildy said:
To be honest if you have a Bible studies/religious studies thing in a school then you would have to ensure that there is an opt-out option. I went to a religious school and had to sit through some of the most boring studies of the Bible. The only positive about it is that I managed to find all of the bits in the Bible that have all the blood and gore and stuff like that.
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My kids went to a Christian school and learned during Bible how to pass notes, talke without being heard by the teacher, text and use their cellphones without getting caught, eat and drink (mohitos, I believe, were prefered) without getting caught, etc.

So it has some value.

Tokie
 
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