Bible Literacy

keeponrockin

As a highschool student, this would be informative.

However, being the lose cannon I am, as soon as someone says 'this is truth', it would start a big arguement, putting the teacher in a difficult situation. If the teacher says its truth, you bet your ass I'm in the office wanting to know why religion is being pushed. If the teacher says its literacy, someones gonna tell her shes gonna go to hell.

I agree with Uncle Leo that people just wouldn't be mature enough to handle this (there are too many lose cannons on both sides of the arguement).

MakingWaves

Ahnimus wrote:

In fact Christmas and Easter aren't Christian celebrations either.

More people know the names of all the Reindeer than the three wise men.

If Christmas isn't a Christian celebration then how come people don't want others saying "Merry Christmas" on public signs or schools because it is pushing Christian beliefs?

Pacomc79

It'd just be better as a collegiate course.

Unless the teacher is fantastic and dosen't much care about moonbat parents and administrators it's pretty tough material to go over without a lot of whining.

I absolutely think it would be a fantastic historical course because so much is relative to the Bible in history, I just don't see it as worth the trouble in public schools because no matter how you presented information, someone would get thier panties in a bunch.

I'd love to take a course on religous texts, and go indepth into the bible, the koran, teachings of Budda etc. etc.

I've often found I get more out of the historical context what was going on at the time rather than just the actual words.

Ahnimus

MakingWaves wrote:

If Christmas isn't a Christian celebration then how come people don't want others saying "Merry Christmas" on public signs or schools because it is pushing Christian beliefs?

Some people don't want others saying Xmas, others don't like Halloween.

That's all kind of irrelevant. The point is that these things survive because they are traditional. A lot of people want to celebrate Xmas, but not Christmas, because they want the tradition but not the theism.

MakingWaves

Ahnimus wrote:

Some people don't want others saying Xmas, others don't like Halloween.

That's all kind of irrelevant. The point is that these things survive because they are traditional. A lot of people want to celebrate Xmas, but not Christmas, because they want the tradition but not the theism.

No, I disagree. They don't want their children at school doing Christmas plays or having a worker at a store tell them Merry Christmas or have their local city government put on a Christmas play because they want seperation of church and state or don't want someone elses religious beliefs being pushed on them. Take the Christmas Trees in the Seattle Airport last year. That wouldn't have been a problem if it wasn't a Christian Holiday.

Ahnimus

MakingWaves wrote:

No, I disagree. They don't want their children at school doing Christmas plays or having a worker at a store tell them Merry Christmas or have their local city government put on a Christmas play because they want seperation of church and state or don't want someone elses religious beliefs being pushed on them. Take the Christmas Trees in the Seattle Airport last year. That wouldn't have been a problem if it wasn't a Christian Holiday.

But those same people want Santa Clause, Rudolph, Stockings, Trees, Presents, Holly, Mistletoes, etc.. etc.. etc..

And most religious folks want those pagan traditions as well.

Christmas is for the largest part a pagan tradition and for a very small part religious.

MakingWaves

Ahnimus wrote:

But those same people want Santa Clause, Rudolph, Stockings, Trees, Presents, Holly, Mistletoes, etc.. etc.. etc..

And most religious folks want those pagan traditions as well.

Christmas is for the largest part a pagan tradition and for a very small part religious.

These same people do want all the tradition parts of the holiday as well. You are right about that. But with about 75% of America being Christian the roots of Christmas to the majority is religous.

Ahnimus

MakingWaves wrote:

These same people do want all the tradition parts of the holiday as well. You are right about that. But with about 75% of America being Christian the roots of Christmas to the majority is religous.

That's a non sequitor.

The roots of Christmas are clearly pagan and most people know that.

Juberoo

qtegirl wrote:

Second, in that little sentence, you paired together "holidays" with "evolution concepts". I don't know what you mean by "evolution concepts" but I'm thinking you're refering to the theory of evolution. In case you didn't know, the theory of evolution is a scientific theory, not a "belief". It doesn't require "faith" to be true. Unlike God, religion and faith, evolution can be investigated, tested, etc.

Oh please, who are you trying to kid? Evolution is not based on fact, it is based on assumption...ie: your chosen term, theory. No different than religion.

Ahnimus

Juberoo wrote:

Oh please, who are you trying to kid? Evolution is not based on fact, it is based on assumption...ie: your chosen term, theory. No different than religion.

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/

Overwhelming evidence supports this fact. Scientists continue to argue about details of evolution, but the question of whether life has a long history or not was answered in the affirmative at least two centuries ago.
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/0_0_0/lines_01

Strangest Tribe

As a public school teacher how would you give a test on it? It's so open to various meaning that students of different theology would argue test questions and with good reason.

It would be a time killer and besides there's glaring historical inaccuracies.
Even teaching works of fiction in Literature class can be frustrating. Some parents get upset when we assign Fahrenheit 451 or Orwell's 1984. I can't imagine what it'd be like to try and tackle the Bible in a few weeks.

I believe that the church or home should be the best place to study your bible whether you study it secular or not.

Ahnimus

Strangest Tribe wrote:

As a public school teacher how would you give a test on it? It's so open to various meaning that students of different theology would argue test questions and with good reason.

It would be a time killer and besides there's glaring historical inaccuracies.
Even teaching works of fiction in Literature class can be frustrating. Some parents get upset when we assign Fahrenheit 451 or Orwell's 1984. I can't imagine what it'd be like to try and tackle the Bible in a few weeks.

I believe that the church or home should be the best place to study your bible whether you study it secular or not.

Yea, see, but people are amazed when I say "I've never read Animal Farm" because it was required reading for so many. I never read "Orwell's 1984" either. All very good reading. "Network" should also be required. Parents suck.

hippiemom

Strangest Tribe wrote:

As a public school teacher how would you give a test on it? It's so open to various meaning that students of different theology would argue test questions and with good reason.

It would be a time killer and besides there's glaring historical inaccuracies.
Even teaching works of fiction in Literature class can be frustrating. Some parents get upset when we assign Fahrenheit 451 or Orwell's 1984. I can't imagine what it'd be like to try and tackle the Bible in a few weeks.

I believe that the church or home should be the best place to study your bible whether you study it secular or not.

I understand the difficulties in trying to teach it in a public school, and it's a damn shame, because you can't really be literate (at least not in the Western world) if you don't have a working knowledge of the Bible. Many (possibly even most) writers allude to it ... hell, you can't even really understand a lot of song lyrics without knowing the Bible. It seems to me that you're going to miss a lot of the meaning in the things you read and listen to if you don't have at least some basic Biblical knowledge. We should study the Bible for the same reason we study Shakespeare, the great poets and philosophers ... you can't possibly understand everything that's come since without that background.

But as I said, the problems are obvious. I think there would be abuse on the part of teachers trying to be preachers, either for or against the message. I wish there were some way we could just read it the same way we read "King Lear," but I suppose there isn't. I'd encourage anyone who doesn't know it to study it on their own, because it's all around you whether or not you realize it.

By the way, I'm a devout heathen and I think it's pure fiction.

kenny olav

i thought this was going to be a thread about how although American is a very Christian nation, most Americans are very ignorant about the Bible. i think children should be taught about the Bible under the stipulation that they are also taught about the Koran, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, the various forms of paganism and athiesm. but i'm sure Americans wouldn't go for all that.

Ahnimus

The purpose of teaching the Bible in school is this;

English literature takes for granted that the reader knows the story of say "David and Goliath". Much of english literature uses references to biblical stories. So the purpose of teaching bible literacy is not to promote Christianity, but to equip children with the tools to interpret english literature.

hippiemom

Kenny Olav wrote:

i thought this was going to be a thread about how although American is a very Christian nation, most Americans are very ignorant about the Bible. i think children should be taught about the Bible under the stipulation that they are also taught about the Koran, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, the various forms of paganism and athiesm. but i'm sure Americans wouldn't go for all that.

If you're studying the actual theology, I think that would be a separate class. As Ahnimus said, you need a basic background of biblical stories to be able to understand western literature. I'd like to think we could teach such a class, but people are so touchy about religion that we probably can't.

A class in comparative religion, which is what I think you're talking about, would also be an excellent idea, and also probably can't be accomplished for the same reason.

Ahnimus

hippiemom wrote:

If you're studying the actual theology, I think that would be a separate class. As Ahnimus said, you need a basic background of biblical stories to be able to understand western literature. I'd like to think we could teach such a class, but people are so touchy about religion that we probably can't.

A class in comparative religion, which is what I think you're talking about, would also be an excellent idea, and also probably can't be accomplished for the same reason.

Its weird. I've heard Richard Dawkins advocating teaching biblical literacy in school, for the reason stated above. Likewise, if you were studying arabic literature, you would need a sufficient understanding of the Koran.

However, its not going to be anti-theists like Dawkins that stops it from being taught in school. Its more likely theists who are afraid that it will be taught with a secular slant.

Bu2

Ahnimus wrote:

The purpose of teaching the Bible in school is this;

English literature takes for granted that the reader knows the story of say "David and Goliath". Much of english literature uses references to biblical stories. So the purpose of teaching bible literacy is not to promote Christianity, but to equip children with the tools to interpret english literature.

as you well know. When I was a kid in school, we were exposed to Greek and Roman mythology and their effects on art and literature. That was in English Lit. In Social Studies we were exposed to the three branches of the US Government and their roles and rights. I was a 9th grade high school freshman, High Honor Roll Student, who soaked it all up in that first year and have never forgotten what I learned.

The following year, I moved to southern Florida, where in my English class I was taught where to place a comma in a sentence. I had no Social Studies class. Instead, I had Business Math, where I learned how to calculate mileage on a rental car and the interest on a loan.

I dropped out.

kenny olav

hippiemom wrote:

If you're studying the actual theology, I think that would be a separate class. As Ahnimus said, you need a basic background of biblical stories to be able to understand western literature. I'd like to think we could teach such a class, but people are so touchy about religion that we probably can't.

A class in comparative religion, which is what I think you're talking about, would also be an excellent idea, and also probably can't be accomplished for the same reason.

well, i suppose you could/should incorporate the bible into a class about western civ.

Bu2

I feel that if schools are going to introduce the Bible as a work of literature or as a reference tool to students, they should do the same with the Koran, Buddhist teachings, etc. as well as Greek and Roman mythology.

No omissions.