From The Guardian

This fall, more than 100,000 American public school children, ranging in age from four to 12, are scheduled to receive instruction in the lessons of Saul and the Amalekites in the comfort of their own public school classrooms.

Oh My Dog!

A hundred thousand kids will swallow this crap, and taxpayers will pay for it.

With this kind of “education”, in a few years the religious freedom in the U.S. will be pretty much the same we can find today in countries like Pakistan.

Full article here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/may/30/christian-fundamentalists-plan-teach-genocide

jls7227 - 01 June 2012 10:43 AM

With this kind of “education”, in a few years the religious freedom in the U.S. will be pretty much the same we can find today in countries like Pakistan.

This is hyperbole.

Still, I don’t see how it’s clear that teaching this stuff to kids will actually recruit them as the Child Evangelism Fellowship intends. Do kids latch on to this part of the Bible? It is, after all, pretty dark stuff.

TromboneAndrew - 01 June 2012 02:01 PM

jls7227 - 01 June 2012 10:43 AM

With this kind of “education”, in a few years the religious freedom in the U.S. will be pretty much the same we can find today in countries like Pakistan.

This is hyperbole.

Still, I don’t see how it’s clear that teaching this stuff to kids will actually recruit them as the Child Evangelism Fellowship intends. Do kids latch on to this part of the Bible? It is, after all, pretty dark stuff.

As a Southern Baptist child, I didn’t latch on to it, while going to church regularly, but then I was the kind of kid who would grow up, eventually, to be an agnostic.  I don’t recall that these kind of harsh stories from the Bible seem to have had much relevance, and were not the typical Sunday School faire, anyway.  Maybe if it seemed like part of my school curriculum, it would have seemed more salient.  I don’t know.

Anyway, I don’t like the idea of fundamentalists having our schools as a platform for promoting this sick part of the Christian doctrine, just as I would not want Muslim fundamentalists to have the potential to spread some of their socially sick ideas through the public education system.

Do kids latch on to this part of the Bible? It is, after all, pretty dark stuff.

Why not? Adults do!

Hmmmm, it appears that this bible study is an after school program - not part of the curriculum; it still doesn’t belong in public school though.  I don’t think there is much to worry about.  Kids can’t be magically transformed in to genocidal warriors anyway.

Typical left wing British crap from the Guardian.

mid atlantic - 01 June 2012 08:50 PM

Hmmmm, it appears that this bible study is an after school program - not part of the curriculum; it still doesn’t belong in public school though.  I don’t think there is much to worry about.  Kids can’t be magically transformed in to genocidal warriors anyway.

Unfortunately, yes they can, as was and is evident in some Islamic countries and some African countries.

Is this gong to be on the test? 

mid atlantic - 01 June 2012 08:50 PM

it still doesn’t belong in public school though.

That was my point. The neutrality of the State respect to religion is a two-hundred year old concept, and reading the book of one specific religion violates that principle. Parents are free to send their kids to whatever church they prefer, so there is no need to waste public money in religious matters.