Hard to really even wrap your head around this one.
Hold my beer, says Oklahoma
- Thread starter TheOriginalHappyGoat
- Start date
I didn’t see a link to the actual curriculum and pedagogy… Teaching kids about lying and stealing cannot be all bad, can it? … Do you prefer the “he who has the gold rules” Golden Rule, instead.
Directive regarding biblical teachings
On June 27, 2024, Walters announced that all public schools under his jurisdiction should be incorporating the Bible and Ten Commandments into their curriculums. Of the directive, Walters wrote, "The Bible is one of the most historically significant books and a cornerstone of Western civilization, along with the Ten Commandments. They will be referenced as an appropriate study of history, civilization, ethics, comparative religion, or the like, as well as for their substantial influence on our nation’s founders and the foundational principles of our Constitution."[5]
Meh. If the Bible and Commandments are used to establish a religion, the rule will be stricken. The rule allowing teaching about the Bible is “public schools may teach students about the Bible as long as such teaching is ‘presented objectively as part of a secular program of education’.”. 
No, the rule says that teachers must have a Bible in the classroom and must teach from it.
No chance it stands.
Yes. The Bible as a wonderful historical. Written hundreds of years after the alleged fake events (Old Testament); or perhaps the history of events of New Testament. What facts are in the New Testament little Johnny? Yes of course, the resurrection of Jesus and how he died for your sins because God wanted to sacrifice his only son.
Want to read about first century history? Read Josephus.
Want to read about what happened in the era of the Old Testament? Read the Egyptian and Sumerian translations.
Want to put up the 10 commandments. Okay fine, just get rid of the first 4.
Mandating the Bible and 10 commandments as "history" is intellectual babble. It is a 💯 non secular path.
These guys don't even care anymore. Our Godless schools are the problem. Not the walking commandment breaker of all 10 commandments running for president.
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Y'all aren't asking the right question: who are the 5 votes they think they can get?
Clearly, they think Barrett will go their way, Alito, Thomas. I think Gorsuch is a no and I'm unsure about Kavanaugh. Roberts I doubt, but I'd have to read his opinions on this.
Clearly, they think Barrett will go their way, Alito, Thomas. I think Gorsuch is a no and I'm unsure about Kavanaugh. Roberts I doubt, but I'd have to read his opinions on this.
They'll get Thomas and Alito. Obviously they must think there's a chance for Barrett, Gorsuch, and K, too, but I don't see it realistically.
Agreed. I think the superintendent needs to enforce it before the court could strike it.
This will never get to the Supreme Court. The law about this is clear.
Assuming the lower courts overturn this, you're probably right. No way four justices agree to take this up.
Ha. R v W was always weak legal sauce. Not the same for religion in public school.
I don’t see 4 votes for cert.
I mean, I can probably pull a quote from every justice on the court now talking about how settled R v W and Casey were.
These people who did this must think they have 4 votes for cert, right? Or it's just a campaign stunt for a future election.
I think it’s a campaign stunt. School super is an elected office.
In more than one occasion I’ve told public officials they can’t do X, but the response is then the courts can say so, this is what my constituents want. Such is the mind of the public official.
Yep, he’ll be in every classroom.
Well, not really. This decision has as much chance at taking effect as an Oklahoma high school changing its nickname to the Hawk Tuahs
The current make up of the court would absolutely take this up. Thomas, Alito, Barrett and Gorusch are full in. Not sure about Kavanaugh. You can call Roe v Wade "weak sauce", yet it was a 7-2 decision and existed as a constitutional right for 50 years. Nothing more than a simple "nudge nudge wink wink" at the trial court level with the contrived testimony of "hey, these are wonderful secular rules to live by and look at all the genealogies in the Bible (that couldn't possibly be right)"--this is great history for the kiddos. Yah, we have teach the book of revelation, but it is a historical revelation of how people viewed the eschatology of the region".....
Why not mandate the teachings of Buddha? There are hundreds of largely contemporaneous things he said were were far more sublime and educational than Christian doctrine--how would that go over? How about mandating the eduction of the Koran? There's history there too.. Wonder how the Supreme Court would view those "secular" items. Or the Louisiana legislature. The Oklahoma secretary of education?
No way on Gorsuch. Barrett is a question. Thomas and Alito could.
There should be little question that the US domestic policy stems from a civil religion not unlike the Sermon on the Mount or the 10 C’s. Obviously the source material is found not just in the Bible.
They will hitch their wagon to Christianity's inextricable link to the West and it development over history. They're already saying something like that now. The argument will still lose as to the particular requirements, but it does delineate the ethical teachings of the Bible from other world religions.
We can address this by an honest and serious teaching of the foundations and implications for the Declaration of Independence, The Constitution, and even the message in the Gettysburg Address. But instead education tends to bash all of that because those were the product of white guys, some of whom owned slaves. So the counterpunch becomes the Bible.
There are only 4 commandments that found their way into western law:
1. Thou shall not murder;
2. Thou shall not commit adultery;
3. Thou shall not bear false witness;
4. Thou shall not steal
Of the 4 that were part of western law, I'm guessing that most states no longer have adultery as crime. Nevertheless, I'm certain that we did not need a burning bush and the hand of a divine creator to jot these things done on a stone tablet (twice). In particular given that a 1000 years before the Code of Hammurabi already had that written onto stone----in sumerian and Akkadian. 300-400 years before the Code of Hammarbi, the Code of Ur-Nammu was ironically enough written in stone and provided injunctions against murder, stealing, adultry, and lying.....
where do you find in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution biblical references. The declaration of independence took great pains to not identify ANY specific God and instead callled "nature's God". The follow-up paragraph refers to "all men created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights". No biblical reference and a clear desire to refer to a quasi secular deist position.
There is nothing in the old or new testament that needed to be relied upon to create either the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution.
Our founding is a product of the enlightenment in which Christianity played a role, maybe an important role.
I think a lot older religions/belief systems were saying the tenants of christianity far earlier than christianity. For example, 500 years before Jesus, a heavyset asian made said some things awfully familiar
Jesus: "Do to others as you would have them do to you." Luke 6:31
Buddha: "Consider others as yourself." Dhammapada 10:1
Jesus: "If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also." Luke 6:29
Buddha: "If anyone should give you a blow with his hand, with a stick, or with a knife, you should abandon any desires and utter no evil words." Majjhima Nikaya 21:6
Jesus: "Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me." Matthew 25:45
Buddha: "If you do not tend to one another, then who is there to tend you? Whoever would tend me, he should tend the sick." Vinaya, Mahavagga 8:26.3
Jesus: "Put your sword back into its place; for all those who take the sword will perish by the sword." Matthew 26:52
Buddha: "Abandoning the taking of life, the ascetic Gautama dwells refraining from taking life, without stick or sword." Digha Nikaya 1:1.8
Jesus: "Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it." Mark 8:35
Buddha: "With the relinquishing of all thought and egotism, the enlightened one is liberated through not clinging." Majjhima Nikaya 72:15
Jesus: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you." Matthew 28:19-20
Buddha: "Teach the dharma which is lovely at the beginning, lovely in the middle, lovely at the end. Explain with the spirit and the letter in the fashion of Brahma. In this way you will be completely fulfilled and wholly pure." Vinaya Mahavagga 1:11.1
I don't think it's debatable that for nearly 2000 years, the West has filtered moral thought through the lens of Christianity and that that lens is different than the Buddhist, Islamic, or Confucian one. I don't know how much it should be studied in K-12.
I agree though that many principles of all moralities can be derived "naturally," that from basic human emotions, desires, and drives--our biological and thus psychological nature--along with some type of either game theoretical or evolutionary explanation of why particular strategies work in satisfying those desires.
In the above video I linked Holland's main point for Christianity--which Nietzsche famously wrote about--was that it proposed the first should be last and the last should be first. Nietzsche called this a slave morality. That inverting of the classical values was pretty revolutionary at the time. Still is, really.
Christianity was certainly a significant part of western culture. Nevertheless, I think there is a lot more to western civilization than Christianity. Greek philosophy, roman philosophy all played roles. Many ideas existed in that region that would have been shared or adopted.
the phrase is found in Mark, Mathew (twice) and Luke. It is not present in John. Mark being first, was copied by Matthew and Luke. That phrase, however, isn't quite what Holland thinks it is. That phrase, in particular in Mathew refers to God having sent a savior to the Jews who rejected him, but the gentiles did not. Mathew's version is revision of Mark chapter 10 which also discusses this issue and refers to the rejection of the gospel and Jesus empowering the gentiles. Mark's book does not have the parable of the laborer's that Mathew uses. Commentary, including Pulpit's states:
"Most fitly does our Lord add this weighty sentence to what has just gone before. For thus he places himself, his grace, and his gospel in direct opposition to the corrupt teaching of the scribes and Pharisees. Perhaps the disciples thought within themselves, "How can it come to pass that we, the poor, the unlearned, the despised, are to sit upon thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel, amongst whom are men far our superiors in station, in learning, and in authority, such as are the scribes and Pharisees, and that rich young ruler just mentioned." Our Lord here teaches them that the future will reveal great changes - that some who are first here will be last there, and some who seem last here will be first there. The disciples, and others like them, who, having forsaken all and followed Christ, seemed to be last in this world, will be first in the world to come - most dear to Christ, the King of Heaven, in their lives; most like to him in their zeal for his cause."
Christianity 100% shaped the western world in many respects. The original discussion, however, was the 10 commandments, where those came from, etc.
