|
Bibles for Students?
by Jan Brazill
| A California attorney is seeking a ballot initiative that would require California to issue Bibles (King James Version) to public school students - elementary, middle and high school - unless their parents object. This lawyer should be wary of the law of unintended consequences. |
The trouble with giving schoolchildren Bibles is that they might read them. |
Many Freethinkers developed their first inklings of skeptical thinking toward religion as children (they couldn't possibly get all those animals from every region of the world onto that little ark) or as teens (an egotistical god who consigns people to eternal torment simply because they don't believe in him can hardly be called a "loving" god). Young minds can be more discerning than adult minds conditioned by hundreds of Sundays of "bible-preaching," and they will notice the glaring discrepancies of Genesis - night and day being created on the First Day while the sun wasn't created until the Fourth Day. Plants were created before there was any sun. It sounds like a story line written by a not-too-bright student. |
Then there's the confusion of the second creation story with its different order of creation. Also, young readers will perceive the unfairness of a God who would give Adam and Eve a garden with one tree whose fruit they were forbidden to eat and then punish them for their disobedience in eating that fruit, even though they had no understanding of right and wrong until after they had eaten the fruit. Teenagers will instinctively rebel at such injustice! |
And if Adam and Eve were the first creations, how did their son Cain find a wife in a neighboring country? |
Some youngsters may use the Old Testament as a substitute for some of the more violent Video games banned by their parents. Thomas Paine wrote, "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." |
Rape is a prevalent theme in the Bible. While modern society considers genocide to be a war crime and Serbs who raped thousands of enemy women to be war criminals, the Bible shows Moses telling his soldiers to do exactly that - kill their captives, but keep all the women children who are virgins for themselves. |
Perhaps this book, which denigrates women throughout, has contributed to the rash of sexual assaults occurring in the military services and in our Universities. |
Very few people actually read the Bible for themselves, being content to listen to the more uplifting verses chosen by their pastors on Sundays. Ruth Hurmence Green first read it when she was convalescing from cancer. Her shock at what she found led her to write "A Born Again Skeptic's Guide to the Bible," listing the Biblical cruelties, mass killings, discrepancies, contradictions and vulgarities found in this book and her commentary on it all. A revealing read for those who think that this commonly described "Good Book" is all goodness and light! |
Before parents grant permission for their public school to give this book to their child, they should be required to read the Bible themselves. Only then can they decide if such material should be put into the hands of impressionable children. |
"A Born Again Skeptic's Guide to the Bible" is available from FFRF, Inc., PO Box 750, Madison WI 53701 for $15. |
Send us an Email
Or write to us at:
Freethinkers of Colorado Springs
P.O. Box 62946
Colorado Springs, CO 80962-2946
Phone: 719-594-4506