Anonymous strawberry_hair 7w

It is different because 90% of the country is either christian or atheist with christian roots

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Anonymous #4 7w

Midwit take

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Anonymous #8 7w

Yeah that’s not true. Either way, my point still stands. You never seen Muslims or Jews doing this in America. But Christians do.

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Anonymous #7 7w

Yeah but we’re talking about elementary and middle school education

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Anonymous #8 7w

Essentially there’s a difference between it being taught and it being forced everywhere no religon should ever be forced

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Anonymous strawberry_hair 7w

It is true though, don’t lie

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Anonymous strawberry_hair 7w

“When including the broader group of religiously unaffiliated people (many of whom grew up in Christian households), the total combined percentage reaches roughly 90% to 93% of the U.S. population”

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Anonymous OP 7w

Yeah i agree with that, but the person asked why is it different, when there is a clear reason it is different

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Anonymous #8 7w

I know why it’s different. I was speaking rhetorically.

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Anonymous #9 7w

Ya the Bible isnt being taught. Maybe certain passages/stories are being read but they aren’t preaching any religion in public schools. I would think it’s interesting to hear any ancient story from any religion

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Anonymous #9 7w

the problem is that they mandated the Bible as a Christianity thing though

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Anonymous #11 7w

except one is telling the stories of groups that have often been left out of our history and the other is government mandated teachings of a religion that not everyone subscribes to, which objectively goes against what our country stands for

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Anonymous #2 7w

Reading religious material is different than teaching it as true. Did you guys not learn about pieces from all the religions ? like in world history

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Anonymous #9 7w

I didn’t, we just learned the very basics of what they believed in like reincarnation, one god, multiple gods, that sort of stuff. We dove into Greek gods though because of the fables

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Anonymous #5 7w

Oh interesting we learned about the people like Jesus and Muhammad and even Joseph smith and quakers and what they taught and how the religions spread and stuff. But nah elementary is probably too young

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Anonymous #9 7w

Lots of history is tied to religion though so I think it would be hard to avoid the more you learn

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Anonymous #9 7w

I did, but if you read the Texas law in question, the point of this is explicitly to be pro-Bible, not to introduce some broad religious education. there's a reason that Thatcher's eulogy for Reagan is on the reading list too. it's blatantly ideological

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Anonymous #12 7w

No, there is no difference. Both are objectively not required for curriculum. I can see your bias as you describe the religious aspect as government mandated, but the other examples are seemingly not described as such? These groups are included in history, the history where they were prevalent. The United States for much of its history was predominantly white Christian, hence much of its history will include white and Christian. 🤷‍♀️

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Anonymous #11 7w

You say that because we've only really been taught about the history of white christians. Black people still made up about 40% of the population in southern states during the antebellum period. They weren't just a minor presence. You claim that groups are only included in histories where they were prevalent, but women have always been prevalent in our country but we still to this day don't know much about the women of the past at all.

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Anonymous #12 7w

Nor do school curriculums teach much of history about the Native Americans aside from the genocide and suffering they faced from white christian men. Much of the history we're taught is still from the lens of white christian men, hence why a few stories about history told from the perspective of these groups are taught(ideally, but not always), despite all of the backlash from white christians who claim that those histories are "part of an agenda." It's real things that happened to real people.

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Anonymous #12 7w

The history books were written by white Christian men 🤷‍♀️. Groups in the southern states don’t make up the majority of the rest of the country either, I’m sure if you look up history specific to that area the picture is closer to what you are looking for. For the Native Americans, many that settled the current US did not have traditional written languages to record history and few translated texts suffer from time since colonization.

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Anonymous #11 7w

I believe I had a comprehensive education in natives due to my proximity to a reservation, probably more than most. Also I am neither white nor Christian, so don’t paraphrase me in the context of one. 🤦‍♀️

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Anonymous #11 7w

what does reading a picture book about david and goliath add to a kindergartener’s history education? everyone loves to preach about indoctrination in schools but somehow when it’s christians doing it it’s for “history”. if parents want their kids to study the bible in k-12 then they can send them to private school

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Anonymous #6 7w

That’s not for history for history’s sake, David and Goliath is a pretty basic anecdote on underestimating your opponents? Not to discount people on their size but to value their character. I’m not even Christian and that makes sense? Take off your anti-religion glasses and just read it as it is.

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Anonymous #11 7w

if the sole purpose of the readings are to impart basic moral principles, surely there are secular stories that would work exactly the same. that's not the purpose of the readings though.

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Anonymous #2 7w

Perhaps there are alternatives but it’s ignorant to deny the simplicity and the prevalence of David and Goliath in modern media. The word Goliath actually comes from the bible, irrespective of its use. The story also is completely neutral in an anecdotal context, there is no mention of Jesus or god or any other Christian principles.

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Anonymous #11 7w

do you think the only part of the Bible they mandated in the curriculum is the story of David and Goliath?

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Anonymous #11 7w

The new proposed curriculum not only has several passages directly ab Jesus and Christian teachings but it also cuts out important content like world cultures and sociology classes centered around race/minority groups to favor these Biblical teachings. They eliminated standards for having students consider less represented perspectives of history and of muslim contributions to algebra and astronomy. They don't add readings from other religions. Think deeper about why TX is pushing this so hard

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Anonymous #2 7w

Do you think I’m gonna bring up every possible thing they could talk about or just what the example was 😐

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Anonymous strawberry_hair 7w

The Bible literally contains the Torah?? and some of the Prophets as well??

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Anonymous strawberry_hair 7w

Also I’d argue it makes sense to have it because of how much influence it’s had on western society throughout history

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Anonymous #14 7w

The Bible does not contain the Torah. A lot of what’s in the typical Bible is cheerypicked stories. Either way, that still wasn’t my point. I was saying that people are excusing it because it’s the Bible- where that would never happen with the Torah or the Quran.

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Anonymous #12 7w

After actually reading these the legislation, the whole system is actually optional for schools to use. I won’t deny that Texas probably has an agenda, but like I started this chain with its no different than any other agenda like lgbtqia+ or black literature or Jewish literature. No group is forced to participate, it specifically says that. Should a school decide the curriculum doesn’t match their student base they don’t have to incorporate it. Majority comes first unfortunately

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Anonymous strawberry_hair 7w

Do you know what the Old Testament is? It contains Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. It also contains the rest of the Tanakh, though it’s arranged differently. Catholic Bibles contain even more, including Tobit, Judith, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, and Baruch, as well as extended portions of Esther and Daniel, that are *not* present in the Jewish Tanakh. Aren’t you Jewish? I thought you’d have known this stuff ngl.

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Anonymous strawberry_hair 7w

Oh, you must be reform! That checks out actually.

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Anonymous strawberry_hair 7w

No offense, lol.

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Anonymous #14 7w

Of course I know what the Old Testament is. I’ve been around enough Christian’s to be aware that most of what they discuss from the Torah isn’t our full stories.

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Anonymous #14 7w

No offense you say, very offensively talking negatively about a faction of a religion.

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Anonymous strawberry_hair 7w

Just because we don’t always discuss the full details of the Torah doesn’t mean it’s not in the Bible

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Anonymous strawberry_hair 7w

I take it I guessed correctly, then. If it makes you feel any better, it's not because you're Jewish. I get along just fine with the orthodox guys. Besides, you came in saying it'd be "absolutely horrific" to include the Bible in a western education, even though it inspired like a third of the entire western literary canon. It seems like you have a lot of contempt for Christianity if you find it horrific that it will be studied, even in a purely academic context.

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Anonymous #14 7w

You clearly did not read my post or the original context. “How do you feel about Texas REQUIRING the Bible to be taught.” No religion should be taught in school. We have separation of church and state. If you wanted to just argue you could’ve said so.

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Anonymous strawberry_hair 7w

No religion should be taught in school? That’s news to me, I distinctly remember learning about Hinduism, Taoism, Buddhism, and paganism. We even had to read pagan texts like “The Iliad” and study their pantheons throughout elementary, middle, and high school.

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Anonymous strawberry_hair 7w

Separation of Church and state means we shouldn't have something like the Church of England, not that we should pretend the Bible isn't a foundational text in the western philosophical, cultural, and literary tradition. It's not like they're requiring the students to recite the Nicene Creed lol. An atheist can read the Bible the same way a Christian can read the Iliad. Why permit states to require one to be taught but forbid them from requiring the other?

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