Crumb
c/politics · by FoxtrotDeltaTango@sh.itjust.works · 31d

Texas Republicans may regret mandating Bible in classes

https://www.salon.com/2026/07/01/texas-republicans-may-regret-mandating-bible-in-classes/

cross-posted from: https://discuss.online/post/42004497

It’s also likely to backfire on the religious right. They better hope that the kids skip the assigned reading, much less actual discussion and debate about it in class. As many an ex-evangelical can tell you, direct exposure to what the Bible actually says is often the first step to walking away from Christian fundamentalism altogether.

There’s a reason conservative Christians prefer quoting solitary Bible verses out of context: Not only does this allow them to twist the meaning for their own personal or political ends, but it also makes it much easier to avoid the critical thinking that engaging with longer passages can provoke. On my YouTube show “Standing Room Only,” the scholar and former evangelical Brad Onishi pointed to 2 Chronicles 7:20, a passage Christian nationalists often deploy to argue that America is meant to be a Christian nation by relying on the verse’s violent implications of God promising to “pluck” the unbelievers “up by the roots out of my land.” The larger context reveals that this story is about the ancient king Solomon, and it has nothing to do with the modern nation-state, much less one on a continent unknown to the writers of the Bible.

239 points · 31 comments · view on lemmy.world

31 Comments

Eldritch@piefed.world · 82 pts · 31d (8 replies)

Hopefully the teachers will maliciously comply as much as they can. Teaching the parts Republicans hate.

artyom@piefed.social · 30 pts · 31d (5 replies)

Teachers probably have enough to deal with without irate parents screaming at them.

Eldritch@piefed.world · 39 pts · 31d (4 replies)

Parents already scream at them over nothing. I think they would enjoy doing something to actually earn it for once. Especially by complying with this stupid law.

a_non_monotonic_function@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 31d (3 replies)

I think you underestimate the level of bullshit that they already deal with.

FistingEnthusiast@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 31d (2 replies)

And the stupidity of Americans, which is exemplified by the stupidity of Texans

StepUp2DaStreets@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 30d

Amen to that

hanrahan@slrpnk.net · 3 pts · 30d

give me an Amen!

GraniteM@lemmy.world · 22 pts · 30d (1 reply)

Matthew 6:24

No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

Leviticus 25:23

The land shall not be sold permanently, for the land is Mine; for you are strangers and sojourners with Me.

Ezekiel 16:49

Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.

James 5:1-6

Come now, you rich people, weep and wail for the miseries that are coming to you. Your riches have rotted, and your clothes are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have rusted, and their rust will be evidence against you, and it will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure during the last days. Listen! The wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in pleasure; you have nourished your hearts in a day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the righteous one, who does not resist you.

James 2:14-18

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”

Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds.

1 John 4:20

If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.

Proverbs 31:8-9

Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.

Leviticus 19:33-34

When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God

Exodus 22:21

Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner, for you were foreigners in Egypt.

Deuteronomy 10:19

And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt.

Deuteronomy 27:19

“Cursed is anyone who withholds justice from the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow.” Then all the people shall say, “Amen!”

III@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 30d

Thank you for listing all af the passages that these schools will avoid sharing with the children.

WhoIzDisIz@lemmy.today · 45 pts · 31d (2 replies)

Not to worry + I'm sure they'll have highly redacted versions published for school use. Or an AI-generated one that will contradict itself even more than the actual Bible does.

Then there's always the issue that the premise of this article relies upon the idea that the bulk of kids will be well-versed in using critical thought - something (sometimes literally) beaten out of southern kids via bullying from their own families.

starman2112@sh.itjust.works · 10 pts · 31d (1 reply)

I feel like you don't need much critical thought to find it unfair that an entity would create you for the sole purpose of torturing you for eternity (Romans 9:19-21), or that the mass killing of women, children, and animals is unambiguously evil (1 Samuel 15:3) or that we shouldn't kill people for working on Sunday (Exodus 35:2)

WhoIzDisIz@lemmy.today · 8 pts · 31d

You'd have to read it, understand it, & the critical part: know how to apply it to your own life. I come from a family where I was bullied - you are trained early on not to even think of "backtalking" authority for fear of your own safety. They just won't allow themselves to go there. There's a reason the right is so irrational: they never learned to question anything because they weren't allowed to. So their arguments are just a random combo of shit they were trained to "believe" and whatever sounds like a good bully argument. It's attack, or be attacked & that's their primary concern deep down.

I only escaped the clutches because my parents separated while the family was in a foreign country. I was the youngest & "Mom's baby", and my mother was absolutely clueless on how to parent & ultimately didn't. I wound up l spending a huge chunk of my life trying to figure out how the world worked on my own, which definitely had some huge drawbacks, but at least on the positive side it allowed me to see the world for what it actually was. Eventually.

grue@lemmy.world · 35 pts · 31d

This is cope. The unconstitutional mandate is still a bad thing and needs to be stopped.

RotatingParts@lemmy.ml · 32 pts · 31d (3 replies)

The best book to read in order to stop believing is ... The Bible. Have at it and enjoy!

DanceMomsSavedMe@lemmy.zip · 14 pts · 31d

I was so very religious until I got sent to a Juvenile Detention center as a kid and actually read the bible.

You are right.

datendefekt@feddit.org · 6 pts · 31d

Sunday school did it for me. When you read about a guy against wealth, dogmatism and organized religion and realize where you are.

Here, religion is part of the curriculum and we sent our kids to catholic class. After a few years they were like „it’s just silly stories that don’t make sense“

phutatorius@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 29d

Here's what Tom Paine had to say about it: "Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon, than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and, for my part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel."

Zedstrian@sopuli.xyz · 20 pts · 31d (2 replies)

The larger context reveals that this story is about the ancient king Solomon, and it has nothing to do with the modern nation-state, much less one on a continent unknown to the writers of the Bible.

Expecting reading comprehension from the average Texan is quite hopeful.

Today@lemmy.world · 17 pts · 31d (1 reply)

We're not really what you see on tv. We have a lot of blue people who don't vote because they've been told that blue votes don't matter here.

This gives me hope- https://www.dallasnews.com/news/texas/article/meet-flower-mound-texas-baker-sparked-maga-uproar-22339167.php

They've been selling out and closing early every day since Libs of TikTok 'cancelled' them a couple of weeks ago.

FistingEnthusiast@lemmy.world · -6 pts · 31d

We have a lot of blue people who don't vote because they've been told that blue votes don't matter here.

So either dumb, or lazy and making up excuses?

dan1101@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 30d

Let them learn about the kindness that Jesus preached. Except to the money changers using temples as places to make money. Hmm.

HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club · 17 pts · 31d

This is why Mormons control the teaching of seminary, even to the point of building classrooms off school ground so they can teach seminary class.

FirstCircle@lemmy.ml · 15 pts · 31d

Bible stories in the classroom sounds great, if teachers can use A/V aids like this:

The Goon Bible Project - Book of Job

Kids will love it.

Clutter@sh.itjust.works · 14 pts · 30d

Reading the Bible is the best way to become an atheist.

Still, this should not be a mandated thing. That is inhumane, cruel, against god and against freedom.

FirstCircle@lemmy.ml · 10 pts · 31d (2 replies)

Onishi and his co-host, with their "Straight White American Jesus" podcast, have been hitting it out of the park lately. Last week there was an episode about the Job story where their analysis made the God character come off as a real dick, and also showed how the Satan character is misunderstood badly - in the Job story he kind of works for God as part of his administration and they cooperate on certain projects such as the Job one. Also last week was an analysis of the Garden of Eden story and on the concept of Original Sin. It seems that the poor snake is not some kind of embodiment of the Satan character at all, at least according to the Bible.

ptychodus@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 31d

Just listened to the Job episode. Excellent. Thanks for the recommendation.

krull_krull@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 31d

Huh, i thought everybody knew in the original Bible (ot) satan job is always being a demon who tempts human, he never fell or anything.

And that the serpent is different guy.

tigermountain@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 30d

And of course we're mandating bible classes instead of critical thinking classes.

Angular@crazypeople.online · 7 pts · 31d

Oh yes indeed, most of the Bible is very explicit and rated R. However, they do sell those watered down kids versions that I’m sure they will require.

MokhtarStork@zirk.us · 1 pts · 31d (1 reply)

@FoxtrotDeltaTango Any religious fanaticism throughout the world will produce negative results because people in general treasure their 'freedom of choice'. Furthermore, there is a question of validity over the existence of the Bible. Jesus was a Jew, He observed the Sabbath, circumcised etc. It was Paul who opened the door for the 'uncircumcised' to enter the fold. So just what kind of 'Bible' classes are we going to have?

FoxtrotDeltaTango@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 28d

The Christian nationalist kind