Oklahoma orders schools to teach Bible 'immediately' | Hacker News Reader

Oklahoma orders schools to teach Bible 'immediately'

bbc.com

35 pointscodezero55 comments

I have found the bible they are going to teach https://www.amazon.com/Hebrew-Bible-Translation-Commentary-T...

Is it? I hope so, because this is a fantastic translation, it preserves as much of the wordplay from the hebrew, and whatever is not able to be brought through in the translation is well-annotated in the notes below.

Completely agree. There really is not a better one. But, a student bringing in the Greek Old Testament familiar to Paul should be able to participate. And Jewish kids. I find no value in segregating kids into different groups like the way sex ed.

I look forward to the Satanic Temple’s predictable response to this.

Will Christian mythology be taught alongside Greek, Roman, Norse, etc.?

Please don't start religious flamewars on HN*. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.

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* yes, even in a religiously flammable thread. Especially then, in fact—note this guideline:

"Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."

I enjoyed reading the bible when I was a kid. It seemed very real and somehow approachable. Christianty, I think, is a very human-scale religion.

However, note the "teach" in the headline--as if education should be little more than an education beaten into you. Sure, this will help anyone succeed (just follow the asshole in front of you.)

Perhaps they should consider teaching all religions? Or, rather, give students access to all religious texts and teach them about hermeneutics and comparative studies.

It’s odd how we glorify religion in this country, and then are immediately horrified when it rears its head in certain places. We seem conflicted. Is it a good thing, or a bad thing? Or maybe just the “right one” is a good thing?

Full disclosure: I consider it a good thing.

‘Our’ religion, good. Others’ religion, bad. It’s so simple, really ;)

I understand you see value in it. But that may differ. I know I would have hated being forced to read the bible as a child. Even though I was baptized I very quickly became a student of science and I rejected religion as soon as I could talk. I was very opinionated in my school days. Luckily nobody tried to teach it to me or it would have been war >:]

In fact my school tried to put me in the optional Latin class because I was a really good student and "important people know Latin" and I made myself completely impossible there because I didn't see the point in learning a dead language. I look to the future not the past.

That didn't last long and after that I was a teacher's pet again, they just had to learn their lesson that no means no. Heheh

Ps they were right in the end and Latin would have been handy because now I struggle with Latin based languages. But oh well. Standing up for what you think is right is important and I would do it again :)

LOL, reminds me of Latin in school (UK 1940's) Latin, a dead language, Lying in the dust, First it killed the Romans, Now it's killing us!

I had a relative who excelled in Latin in high school and then found it a huge benefit in the natural sciences later, so much of the terminology originated in Latin. The same is likely true in the field of law as well.

True though I'm in tech fields and I've always known I wanted to end up there. In work I wouldn't have had any benefit from it, but I have had more exposure to Latin languages than expected :)

> I understand you see value in it. But that may differ. I know I would have hated being forced to read the bible as a child. Even though I was baptized I very quickly became a student of science and I rejected religion as soon as I could talk.

Likewise. I wasnt forced to read anything but had an appetite for any/all reading materials (particularly speculative fiction and dense academic texts for whatever reason.) Books were always better than the garbage on basic cable.

Also, note, having read so many texts in the western and eastern canons, there are uncanny parallels perhaps pointing to fundamental aspects of our shared humanity.

It's important to understand many perspectives I think, lest your individual identity becomes one of this or that.

At my Catholic private school religion courses which were required were essentially surveys of all religions. As an atheist I appreciated it.

I agree, the Bible is very approachable. I made some Ezekiel 23:20 buttons for my friends to wear and they love them as a way to spread the word and ignite conversation

> There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses.

It’s easier to fit the chapter and verse reference on a pin than the full text

The bible as a document is really fascinating from an historical & mythological perspective. Too bad that is probably not what is meant.

>The bible as a document is really fascinating from an historical & mythological perspective.

It is? I always considered the mythology rather boring. The Greek and Norse mythologies always seemed much more interesting and entertaining to me.

I think the part i find interesting is it seems like we have a better picture of how the mythology shifted over time and was interpreted by different groups than we do with greek and norse mythology. So not just the stories themselves but how they were adapted in different contexts.

I dont actually know that much about the subject. Recently this video on youtube popped up for me about early history of what would later become the abrahamic religions, and i was just kind of fascinated by it https://youtu.be/mdKst8zeh-U?si=nhdcZJAnQlRPQVv6

From a scientific perspective, the text is very rich and shows somewhat chronological evolution of beliefs and society systems. Coupled with responses to catastrophic events/influences, like the Babylonian captivity influencing what heaven and hell were understood to be, there’s a lot to study/research. There are many university courses on the subject that are not a religious class.

A lot of of the interesting mythology was left out of the Bible, unfortunately.

This atheist says the Song of Solomon is not at all boring.

This is hot on the heels of this man loosing one case against the Oklahoma Supreme Court.

Ryan Walters recently lost when the highest court in the State ruled that it’s unconstitutional to create a state funded religious charter school.

Not one to obey the law this one - it seems to be the thing with these Christian Nationalists, to embrace the courts when they rule in their favor, then complain, bitch and invariably then ignore when the courts rule against them.

Apparently he saw what Louisiana did, then looked around for someone to hold his beer…

Such a huge waste of time and resources that could be better used to make students actually smarter and better prepared for their lives as adults. This is just hollow virtue signaling that will inevitably be thrown out by the Supreme Court after wasting millions of dollars for nothing.

...I'm not entirely convinced the current Supreme Court will throw this out.

You have a point.

Alas, it's a little worse than "nothing" that since:

1. Perpetrators like Ryan Walters will benefit by getting/keeping political appointments under Republican governors like Kevin Stitt.

2. Perpetrators will personally benefit by getting more votes in the next Republican primary they run in.

3. Their supporters will be pleased because the cruelty is the point.

That could happen and simultaneously teach kids a lifelong satisfying understanding of Jesus and Christianity. The arrest of a money-changing protester by the Roman administration. Commonplace method and frequency of capital punishment. A radical who read, for example, Leviticus and his own handpicked selected emphasized passages persist into the New Testament; ready for a mildly rebellious teen to apply His teachings directly to the chafing hypocrisy of PTA meetings, school boards, college essays, and any place we as adults expected polite secular obedience but instead deserve to get our faces rubbed into the risky business of actually teaching Christ.

Cool cool. So we can expect forthwith the hasty inclusion of Locke, Hume, Hobbes, Paine, Voltaire, Spinoza, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Seneca, Cato, et al? I mean... those were all more plainly and specifically influential on the founders than the Christian Bible. I'd be interested to hear specifically what passages they will incorporate and on what basis of relevance to the history of the founding of the US these are chosen, and how they plan to not get lost in the weeds of religious doctrine.

Or is this just another cheap ploy to waste taxpayer money losing another lawsuit to the Satanic Temple?

It's becoming ever more silly & pointless to say as the travesty & ridiculous overreach (of these extremist theocratic/un-democratic) radicals keeps spreading, but like, low key thank you for showing us who you are, for so visibly not caring at all about anyone but yourselves & your particular & strange delusions.

I hope some day we survive (as a free society) to calmer chiller times, and look back & reflect. It feels like theres a total lack of moderation, that this extremism has been growing, and I hope we can survive & not be corralled into a top-down overbearing government that forces a select peoples chosen way of life on everyone.

>I hope we can survive & not be corralled into a top-down overbearing government that forces a select peoples chosen way of life on everyone.

When you have a country where too many groups of people have fundamental disagreements on basic issues, I think it's probably inevitable that one of two possible outcomes happens: the country breaks apart, or an authoritarian government takes over.

That is the Falsist of False Dichotomies.

You really think there are only two possible outcomes? And those are the two you've chosen? Unreal.

Can you point to many historical examples of countries where different groups inside were actively antagonistic towards each other, and the country wasn't authoritarian?

This is what decadent, weak, unprincipled governance looks like.

According to USNews OK is 49th in education, I presume that this decision is just like so many other cultural death spirals where the people have now become so ignorant from decades of substandard educational practices that they can no longer reason through what foundations are required for success in the first place.

Brain drain is very real.

Isn't this the US, the country of freedom of things like religion? Just asking for a friend.

Not at all.

You have freedom of religion but not freedom from religion.

It’s ok whatever god you worship, but only as long as you worship one.

I assume you're joking but just in case you're not.. Really?

I thought atheism was a perfectly fine option under "freedom of religion" too.

I guess it's ingrained in some parts of society. I would for example not be happy to swear on the bible. But in Holland we have this alternative thing for atheists where we have to swear to the king or something. I don't recognise our monarchy either but whatever :) it feels more acceptable because everyone can see that that's just a made up concept (I view a constitutional monarchy as a glorification of previous dictatorship)

If you are asking me, no, I am not joking. Did the US ever have an atheist president? There you go.

I, too, would rather swear on the monarchy (or on the republic) than on the Bible, but I am not sure they have that option in the US.

There's no atheism allowed in 12 step programs . . .

Under the Constitution, you have both freedom of religiois exercise and freedom from religious establishment, as well as a freedom from religious tests for public office. The last two preclude institutionalization of religion with state mandate, even something as broad as the generic theism you suggest.

> freedom from religious tests for public office.

I don’t think this is true everywhere in the US.

Add: link

https://www.alternet.org/2014/12/7-states-where-atheists-can...

> I don’t think this is true everywhere in the US.

It’s not clear that the religious test clause per se does, but the Supreme Court has ruled that the First Amendments religion clauses (the Free Exercise and Establishment clauses) include the same protection and equivalent protections to those in the First Amendment are applied against the states by the 14th Amendment. See, Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U.S. 488 (1961), cited in your own article. So, yes, the Constitutionally-protected right exists eveywhere in the US.

That article just notes the laws are on the books, despite being Constitutionally unenforceable. (Maryland's was the one specifically struck down in Torcaso.)

They may be unenforceable, but please let me know when Tennessee gets an atheist governor.

Completely irrelevant. Lack of a legal religion test does not mean that people can't choose candidates or make policy on the basis of religion. This is just like how protection from political discrimination doesn't prevent people from voting on candidates based on their party affiliation. It just means that states can't have a no democrat/republican criteria for office.

Is the Prince of Darkness considered a god in this context?

What about the Flying Spaghetti Monster ?

Here is a list of prominent American Athiest politicians:

The United States has Christianity as its national religion. This is obvious to anyone who has moved here from abroad. The nation proclaims it is not the case but factually here are a couple of things I have observed that make it obvious to me:

1. There is only one religious holiday observed by the nation, federally: Christmas

2. In San Francisco, where I live, there is a city-enforced exception to parking regulations for church parking on a street

3. The nation has a Pledge of Allegiance that specifies "One Nation Under God". On its own it could be any monotheistic religion, but combined with the rest it is clear that it is a Christian reference.

Ultimately, everyone is welcome, but the USA is a Christian nation.

I get your point, but:

1. Good Friday is a stock exchange holiday. This reinforces you argument, but admits that business is not the secular unifying force we’ve been taught.

3. If I recite the Pledge of Allegiance from before Feb 12, 1948, without that phrase, what will I be accused of?

Ostensibly, yes. But in actuality, Christianity (specifically a peculiar strain of American Protestantism) has been the dominant cultural and political motivating in the US since its founding, and there has always a significant populace who believes the US should be governed exclusively by Christian principles. The dynamic strain between secularism and theocracy is at the core of just about every American political struggle.

Recently, with the rise of certain neo-traditional ideologies intersecting with evangelicalism and the repeal of Roe V. Wade, the pro-theocracy populace (which includes the governments of many red states) believes it has an opportunity to push their agenda further than ever before. And so they are.

Please don't start nationalistic flamewars on HN, or religious flamewars, and certainly not both at the same time.

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I'm sorry. I meant it as a joke, thinking most of the audience here would find it ridiculous. I didn't consider this. My apologies.

Up next - evolution is just a "theory", like intelligent design.

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