Georgia House passes Bible bill
March 29th, 2006The Georgia House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill today that will allow public high schools to offer elective courses on the Bible.
Thanks to my lovely wife for the link.
12 Responses to “Georgia House passes Bible bill”
Great! Now what happens when a Jehovah’s Witness is the teacher?
In high schools, electives go both ways. If there isn’t a teacher interested in teaching the subject, then it doesn’t get taught.
I think that ultimately, this will be a good thing. There are far more Christians in Georgia than there are Jehovah’s Witnesses or other cults. The school board can also allow anyone to teach as long as they meet the criteria for being certified. I would be willing to bet that almost every school district in Georgia will have a good Christian who is qualified and willing to teach this.
If nothing else, it is a step in the opposite direction of removing the influence of God from our public schools.
Yay! My state rocks.
But, I can almost assure you that it won’t be taught in my county, Bryan. That’s because my superintendent is highly anti-religion in schools. Although this course is not technically a religious course, I bet it still won’t be offered. I can’t wait until we get her out of office.
But, I do think this is a positive step forward.
The secular government schools teaching the Bible. Why do I not get the warm and fuzzies over this? The issue is not teaching the Bible, the Bible is taught lots of places. The issue is teaching it CORRECTLY. If its taught as no more than a piece of literature no different than Shakespeare or Milton then there’s really no point in it.
Larry nailed it and I’d bet my hat (which I really, really like) that is how it will go down. My very-liberal fine arts college had several courses of the like, including “The Bible as Literature”.
No warm and fuzzies here either but hopefully Larry and I are wrong.
Hopefully.
This is a great thing. Religion is such an important part of who we are as Americans. But honestly, I do not think that it is legal or appropriate to teach the Bible in schools. As part of a religious history class, absolutely! But the provision of separation of church and state is infringed upon here. I mean this is America, not Iran.
Someone missed the provision of separation of church and state a long time ago Don. Please refer to the pledge of allegiance or your US currency; please refer to the many monuments in your state and us capitol. There is no provision just a ploy to rid the US of God and by doing so we will suffer, you, me and our children. God forgive us!
Let’s take a look at this so called separation.
Article VI last paragraph of the Constitution
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.
Amendment I of the Bill of Rights
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Wow says a lot about the bible in school doesn’t it?
Once and for all:
The “principle” of “separation of church and state” IS NOT OFFICIAL GOVERNMENT DOCTRINE! IT IS NOT IN THE U. S. CONSTITUTION! That phrase was pulled out of a private letter written by President Thomas Jefferson to Danbury Baptists. It was not intended to be, nor does it stand as, law in this country. It has been pulled out of context, and used for political purposes. Besides, remember Tim’s review of the book about Jefferson? He was no prize when it came to religion anyway.
That is all.
The key phrase in the First Amendment that is ignored is:
NOR PROHIBITING THE FREE EXERCISE THEREOF.
Very good point about Jefferson’s letter. None of the Founding Fathers or individual states voted on Jefferson’s letter. So, in this small point, we have a Jeffersonian Dictatorship.
I’ve never understood why the religion-free argument was given serious consideration in the first place. The constitution guarantees no government infiltration of religion, not the other way around. This nation contains a vast Christendom (not Christian) majority. When the government tips its hat to Christendom, that doesn’t bother the Muslims or Jews or Druids one bit, it only bothers the athiests. Athiests by definition shouldn’t care; they should only laugh and mock at our silly belief. Only Christians should care about government incursion into religion.