Enforcing the 10 Commandments in public school? Children must be able to learn before they also have to worry about politicians personal beliefs getting in the way. Learn the 10 Commandments in church! Learn reading writing and arithmetic in school.
I’ve never noticed before how oddly specific the “don’t covet” commandments are. I mean the “don’t kill” commandment is pretty all encompassing. There wasn’t the need to specify who all you weren’t supposed to kill. No exceptions for the guy driving the speed limit in the left lane or the really sweaty person who won’t wipe off the gym equipment. Same with don’t commit adultery. No specified list of people you were not to step out with.
But we have to have two separate commandments listing various different things we can’t covet? So we can covet other stuff? We couldn’t just have a “Don’t covet” commandment?
This is what happens when the creator of the entire universe decides to take up writing. Even omniscient beings shouldn’t go with their first drafts. But who’s going to try and edit God and tell Him He’s being redundant?
The thing about "coveting," too, was pointed out by Christopher Hitchens some time back. Coveting isn't an action; it's a THOUGHT, and as such, the 10th Commandment amounts to criminalizing thought-crime, a couple thousand years before George Orwell would write 1984.
There are perfectly good secular justifications for outlawing murder and robbery. Under certain specific situations, it can be illegal to lie. Everything else is purely religious, none of which have any real bearing on our culture.
I feel I should point out that in some versions, it's more "Thou shalt not commit murder" rather than "Thou shalt not kill" - and interpretation issues abound even on that one. I have neither the patience nor the interest in close examination here, but felt it worth noting that even the simplest and most obvious of the group still has problems that make it unsuitable for the instruction of children. One of the single most obvious reasons Christians shouldn't be allowed to dictate anything in the classroom is simply they can't find any reasonably universal interpretation of their own scripture, and that applies to the Ten (Twelve?) Commandments without exception.
I was taught in my parochial school to pretty much dismiss the bloodthirsty tribal god of the Old Testament and pay attention to the New. The OT was considered "a shadow of things to come." The reality is that too many Christians mouth Jesus's name but really love the bigotry and hatred for the 'other' enunciated in the OT.
Don’t covet. Nothing wrong here, just do not covet.
Do not covet wanting to be loved (worshiped)
Do not covet other people’s children, including first born
Do not covet other people’s land, this includes Israel
Do not covet wanting all the attention
How about the wisdom of practicing what you preach god. Don’t:
Covet everyone’s love under penalty of death. Goddamn, what an overreaction
Stay the HELL away from my children
Stop encouraging massacres in Israel from the Canaanites to the present
Stop talking about yourself all the damned time
While I’m at it, why in hell do you still keep telling your “Chosen People” IsraEL is their land in your name when it has EL’s name? You ain’t no El. El was a good family man with wife and kids. You just live alone with all your servants—angels.
The Ten Commandments are a purely religious concept. There was a time when the courts would have shot this down in a heartbeat. That was when we believed in the Constitution and church-state separation. It is completely lost on the people who push measures like this that eight of the Commandments would be unconstitutional if anyone tried writing them into law. I have no idea what they think this is going to accomplish. It is a measure of just how incapable they are of dealing with genuine problems, and prefer congratulating themselves for applying meaningless band-aids.
I'd ask, "How many times do we have to go through this?" but it's obvious that the answer is, "As many times as they are stupid-ass people who think that 1) There's nothing wrong with religion, 2) I'm a Christian, therefore everyone around me is a Christian, and 3) It's perfectly okay to promote my religion in a public school." We did this after a different fashion with Roy Moore in Alabama and multiple other places as well, but it appears as if Louisiana simply wasn't aware of those instances or more likely, didn't care.
So, more than likely, once more into the breach with the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the ACLU, and/or any other organization which takes State / Church separation more seriously than the people who pushed this foolish bill do.
They will keep doing it until it takes hold. This is related to Project Blitz (if it is not directly a part of it, the idea behind both is the same) keep pushing unpopular and frankly unconstitutional policies over and over and over until the other side misses one or gives up or gets outnumbered in a key position. It worked with abortion, Roe was decided and then the fascists hit every state with first a trigger law, then with little rules that were not bans but could be argued to be necessary for safety or whatnot, death by a thousand cuts as it were, then work on installing people friendly to the cause in more and more positions of authority. Until there’s no way to push back.
Project Blitz is exactly what it sounds like, constant pressure, and attacks to pass unconstitutional legislation until there’s a slip up from the other side. Ten Commandments in classrooms, prayer in schools, good news clubs, allowing teachers to cross previously defined lines, rules against tolerance acceptance and empathy, across the country and at every level of government. Just an overall constant strafing of our constitution.
Tim was talking about the struggle for LGBTQ+ rights, but unfortunately, the same could be said for the fight to maintain State / Church separation, and the hell of it is, in both cases, we're fighting against religion in general and Christianity in particular. Christianity seems to be that spoiled kid who always wants his way and will have screaming tantrums if he doesn't get it. If he's gotten louder lately, I think it's because the declining numbers of church goers has left a remainder of hardcore believers who are determined to have their way with a cherry on top.
And that is why I continue to work with and support the Freedom From Religion Foundation. They don't blink. Neither do I.
Yup, all human rights are defined and permitted by the people and can be taken away with the stroke of a pen. Progress is an illusion. Progress toward a more perfect union is a struggle against the inertia of power games.
Project Blitz. The concept is like holding a cat in your arms who doesn't want to be there. The cat just exerts a constant pressure to jump down until its owner gets the message.
They will keep doing it AFTER it takes hold. Because the re-election vote-getting value of submitting the bill is still there, even if an equivalent bill already passed.
“Those people” have no incentive to stop so we will have to go thru this endlessly. I’m beginning to think that legislators who do this shit after it has been ruled illegal time and again should be subject to fines.
I suppose it's to be expected. I still hold that their insecurity about their "faith" is what drives them to actions like these. Any kind of disagreement or second opinion just sets off the cognitive dissonance in their heads, and they have NEVER dealt with that very well.
So yeah, we may be looking at a Sisyphean task here.
When you look at the stories Christians are told about their religion (many of them derived from the Mithraic cult) it's no wonder that deep down inside their ridiculousness makes them insecure.
You are correct, they will never stop, they have no incentive to, they are completely emboldened since 2016.... but in particularly 2020.
Perhaps the federal government should design a bounty law, where private Louisiana citizen can file a lawsuit against schools for $10,000..... we will co-opt the abortion trafficking bounty hunter law in Texas.
Hold onto your hat, Arizona's vote hasn't rolled around quite yet. I have no doubt at all that there will be shenanigans around that vote, and there's a very good chance that the Republican government will have several options on the ballot simply to see to it none of them pass - it's happened before, with the vote to pass an MLK Jr. Day: three options were on the ballot, and none of them passed. I already got an opinion poll call trying to push a false narrative last week trying to undermine the only current bill. Pretty sure this one's going to be an ugly fight one way or another.
Arizona has a initiative that will likely be on the November ballot to enshrine abortion rights into the state's constitution. It's less encompassing than I'd like, but it's better than the more-or-less ban the state currently has. The problem is that we're talking about a very red state, and the Republican party here has a long history of finding ways around the will of the people. I suspect that the results may, in Arizona's case, be more in line with the Republican expectation than what may have been seen elsewhere.
Well since conservative evangelicals use it as a election/re-election tool, I'd say we'll have to deal with it every 2 years.
And the funny thing is, I bet we will see it *even if* it passes. Even if the state legislatively mandates a 10C poster in every classroom, I guarantee that next eleciton cycle some legislator will submit a bill mandating a 10C poster in every classroom. B
So, all classrooms must display the posters and they can be countered with other posters of actual governmental foundation documents, meaning a teacher who didn’t want to spread Christianity in this way would have to put up several 11x14” posters in their science classrooms, art classrooms, math classrooms, probably the gymnasium, shop class, home ec classroom. This takes up lots of wall space that could be used for actual useful information about the subjects being taught in the classrooms, or space where the students’ work could be celebrated, you know, the actual purpose of classroom walls. Nevermind the special education classrooms that have minimal posters on the wall to help the kids with sensory issues. These posters aren’t even relevant to the history and civics classrooms, at least not for the entire year.
Mandating what is displayed in classrooms should only be for public safety purposes, like fire escape routes and emergency equipment. (This even goes for displaying the flag, no one should be forced to have one in their classroom) The classroom teacher should be the the first decision maker on what is on the walls in the classroom, and I’ll warrant that there should be a little oversight to keep things appropriate, but what tends to cross the line is the blatant, over the top religious displays zealous teachers have been known to put up. But what gets headlines and outrage are the little LGBTQ flag stickers on a teacher’s desk or in the window to show students where they can go for understanding.
Exactly, like learning the capitals of all 50 states - and World Geography. As long as they know where their "Jesus" was born I guess that's all that matters. Maybe Utah will get a set of fake gold plates for all their classrooms. 🤣
What, LGBTQI2SAA students will have school chaplains to go to for understanding. Understanding that they're evil for existing and will burn in Hell for eternity
Feature, not bug- the people who passed this bill hate public education, after all. The less educational information on the walls, the better! The only thing kids should be learning in school is that they should be in church instead!
Agreed, that's part of their strategy - the death by 1,000 cuts of of the public school system and teachers.
I currently live in Tennessee, we did have a big win this year (just kicking the can down the road to another year) ..... there was so much opposition to the school voucher scam that it did not get through the supermajority GOP legislative. There were some high-profile Republicans, Principals, School Board members in opposition.
This was mentioned a few months ago somewhere in the atheist blogosphere, IIRC and someone suggested presenting schools with them on a plaque but in arabic or an indian script so that the islamophobes got their knickers in a twist. In the 1980s in London, at a protest at the Iran-Iraq war, an asian-looking guy was holding a poster in arabic script with a large arrow on it which made some folk regard him with suspicion. At the bottom, however, there was some 'small print,' which said 'Don't worry, it says 'the nearest MacDonalds is this way.'
Someone in the comments on yesterday's post suggested to post copies of the commandments in every church. Maybe they should be posted alongside with posters of the parts of U.S. Constitution about the free exercice of religion.
Ok, I know you are not but why should there be a free “right” of anything since, apparently, rights are given by mythological being that does not exist? Talk about insanity.
I have no lords, as I am not a slave. I have no gods because they are imaginary. Graven images? If I can't make anything that resembles anything in the sky, on the ground or under the sea, that pretty much means everything. There would be no art, architecture, etc. I don't use a god's name to benefit myself (like Trump does). I treat every day the same, so sabbaths are meaningless. I honored my mother and father while they were alive, but some parents are unworthy of honor (David and Louise Turpin come to mind). Would I take a life? I might in self-defense or in defense of another who faced a threat of murderous intention. I maintain that what I do with a consenting adult in privacy is no authority's business. I have no desire to steal (would that Christians and conservatives felt likewise). I refuse to lie about others (again, it's too bad conservatives and Christians don't seem to feel the same way). And finally, what's so bad about wanting things like others enjoy?
What I object to most about these bills that try and force the Ten Commandments on schools is the idea that all children belong to Christians. Yeah, I know, 4-14 window, they're after the soft targets, so on and so forth, but they're still acting as though kids are to be told what to do and think as though said kids are property. I don't like that idea, kids are people in need of guidance and assistance, sure, but they aren't property by any means.
Churches have a long and dubious history when it comes to children. All too often, they've shown they cannot be trusted with children for a wide variety of reasons; as a result, the public should be suspicious whenever some religious person wants to tamper with public education in any form. If the listed Decalogue were of actually of such educational importance, there would be a lesson on it at some point during the year rather than just slapping it up on a wall and calling it a day. This bill is intended to be a wedge to pry into the classroom so that other similar things can be added later as 'traditional' to Louisiana classrooms. Christians keep doing this because they know they'll be able to force more of their bad ideas on the public in the future when they win these theoretically minor victories. They're looking to win the long game here, and it's becoming increasingly difficult to stop them. Here's hoping the FFRF, ACLU, and other like-minded groups can stop them this time.
The Ten Commandments is a phrase held in some sort of mysterious awe by the stupid and by the gullible. Who is this person who issues the commands? What authority does it have? Arbitrary and wrongheaded doesn’t begin to describe these commands. Holding them up as some sort of form of reverence isn’t just pointless (and unconstitutional), it’s counterproductive. Kids need to learn how to think, how to come to a point where they are capable of reasoning to a moral compass. The people who adhere to the concept of forcing the Ten Commandments on kids in this way are those likely abusing their wives, molesting children, and generally exhibiting precisely the opposite of what most secularists would consider moral.
Seems those who adhere really are in need of explicit simple commands. Before the XC a person who readily murders others just could not believe most folks were so upset with him. The murderer would say “who says murder is bad? Where is it written?”.
Dear God.
Please protect me from those who worship you.
Yes!
Thank you god Ellen. 😉
Enforcing the 10 Commandments in public school? Children must be able to learn before they also have to worry about politicians personal beliefs getting in the way. Learn the 10 Commandments in church! Learn reading writing and arithmetic in school.
Right now we have a politician running for president who has clearly violated most of these.
He should not be running for anything.
Maybe we should make him run, uphill, and see how long his heart lasts before exploding.
True!
❤️🎯
He should be running for his life.
(Of course, he'd have a coronary if he did)
Yes. Teaching these commandments is the purview of home and church, never schools.
I’ve never noticed before how oddly specific the “don’t covet” commandments are. I mean the “don’t kill” commandment is pretty all encompassing. There wasn’t the need to specify who all you weren’t supposed to kill. No exceptions for the guy driving the speed limit in the left lane or the really sweaty person who won’t wipe off the gym equipment. Same with don’t commit adultery. No specified list of people you were not to step out with.
But we have to have two separate commandments listing various different things we can’t covet? So we can covet other stuff? We couldn’t just have a “Don’t covet” commandment?
This is what happens when the creator of the entire universe decides to take up writing. Even omniscient beings shouldn’t go with their first drafts. But who’s going to try and edit God and tell Him He’s being redundant?
The thing about "coveting," too, was pointed out by Christopher Hitchens some time back. Coveting isn't an action; it's a THOUGHT, and as such, the 10th Commandment amounts to criminalizing thought-crime, a couple thousand years before George Orwell would write 1984.
Swell, huh? [no, not so much]
See? That just proves how relevant the Bible still is today. It prophesied thought-crime!
Oh, gee, SWELL! 🤢🤮
It invented it.
"Lust in my heart" oh Jimmy Carter ,you are still the world's best christian!
Betty Bowers already claimed that title.
There are perfectly good secular justifications for outlawing murder and robbery. Under certain specific situations, it can be illegal to lie. Everything else is purely religious, none of which have any real bearing on our culture.
I feel I should point out that in some versions, it's more "Thou shalt not commit murder" rather than "Thou shalt not kill" - and interpretation issues abound even on that one. I have neither the patience nor the interest in close examination here, but felt it worth noting that even the simplest and most obvious of the group still has problems that make it unsuitable for the instruction of children. One of the single most obvious reasons Christians shouldn't be allowed to dictate anything in the classroom is simply they can't find any reasonably universal interpretation of their own scripture, and that applies to the Ten (Twelve?) Commandments without exception.
I was taught in my parochial school to pretty much dismiss the bloodthirsty tribal god of the Old Testament and pay attention to the New. The OT was considered "a shadow of things to come." The reality is that too many Christians mouth Jesus's name but really love the bigotry and hatred for the 'other' enunciated in the OT.
You have nailed it, they love smitey, old testament goid. Not new agey jesus.
Don’t covet. Nothing wrong here, just do not covet.
Do not covet wanting to be loved (worshiped)
Do not covet other people’s children, including first born
Do not covet other people’s land, this includes Israel
Do not covet wanting all the attention
How about the wisdom of practicing what you preach god. Don’t:
Covet everyone’s love under penalty of death. Goddamn, what an overreaction
Stay the HELL away from my children
Stop encouraging massacres in Israel from the Canaanites to the present
Stop talking about yourself all the damned time
While I’m at it, why in hell do you still keep telling your “Chosen People” IsraEL is their land in your name when it has EL’s name? You ain’t no El. El was a good family man with wife and kids. You just live alone with all your servants—angels.
No exceptions for the person who drives with the left turn signal always on.
Well, the neighbors never coveted the writer's dirty laundry or his (quite frankly inedible) casserole recipe, so he didn't need to include those!
A tribal god worries only about coveting things that are valued by the tribe, I suspect.
The Ten Commandments are a purely religious concept. There was a time when the courts would have shot this down in a heartbeat. That was when we believed in the Constitution and church-state separation. It is completely lost on the people who push measures like this that eight of the Commandments would be unconstitutional if anyone tried writing them into law. I have no idea what they think this is going to accomplish. It is a measure of just how incapable they are of dealing with genuine problems, and prefer congratulating themselves for applying meaningless band-aids.
We need a new Madelyn Murray O'Hare.
I'd ask, "How many times do we have to go through this?" but it's obvious that the answer is, "As many times as they are stupid-ass people who think that 1) There's nothing wrong with religion, 2) I'm a Christian, therefore everyone around me is a Christian, and 3) It's perfectly okay to promote my religion in a public school." We did this after a different fashion with Roy Moore in Alabama and multiple other places as well, but it appears as if Louisiana simply wasn't aware of those instances or more likely, didn't care.
So, more than likely, once more into the breach with the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the ACLU, and/or any other organization which takes State / Church separation more seriously than the people who pushed this foolish bill do.
They will keep doing it until it takes hold. This is related to Project Blitz (if it is not directly a part of it, the idea behind both is the same) keep pushing unpopular and frankly unconstitutional policies over and over and over until the other side misses one or gives up or gets outnumbered in a key position. It worked with abortion, Roe was decided and then the fascists hit every state with first a trigger law, then with little rules that were not bans but could be argued to be necessary for safety or whatnot, death by a thousand cuts as it were, then work on installing people friendly to the cause in more and more positions of authority. Until there’s no way to push back.
Project Blitz is exactly what it sounds like, constant pressure, and attacks to pass unconstitutional legislation until there’s a slip up from the other side. Ten Commandments in classrooms, prayer in schools, good news clubs, allowing teachers to cross previously defined lines, rules against tolerance acceptance and empathy, across the country and at every level of government. Just an overall constant strafing of our constitution.
𝐼 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑛𝑜 𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑢𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒’𝑠 𝑎𝑛 𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑔𝑎𝑚𝑒. 𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑠𝑒 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑏𝑙𝑒𝑚𝑠 𝑛𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑔𝑜 𝑎𝑤𝑎𝑦. 𝑌𝑜𝑢 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑒𝑑𝑢𝑐𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦 𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑙𝑒 𝑔𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑎𝑏𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑚𝑎𝑘𝑒 𝑠𝑢𝑟𝑒 𝑖𝑡 𝑑𝑜𝑒𝑠𝑛’𝑡 𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑒𝑝 𝑏𝑎𝑐𝑘 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑜 𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑠𝑜𝑐𝑖𝑒𝑡𝑦. 𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒’𝑠 𝑛𝑜 𝑠𝑒𝑛𝑠𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑐ℎ 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑗𝑜𝑏 𝑖𝑠 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑑𝑜𝑛𝑒.
-- Tim Gill
Tim was talking about the struggle for LGBTQ+ rights, but unfortunately, the same could be said for the fight to maintain State / Church separation, and the hell of it is, in both cases, we're fighting against religion in general and Christianity in particular. Christianity seems to be that spoiled kid who always wants his way and will have screaming tantrums if he doesn't get it. If he's gotten louder lately, I think it's because the declining numbers of church goers has left a remainder of hardcore believers who are determined to have their way with a cherry on top.
And that is why I continue to work with and support the Freedom From Religion Foundation. They don't blink. Neither do I.
I support Americans for the Separation of Church and State.
Excellent!
🎯🎯🎯
Yup, all human rights are defined and permitted by the people and can be taken away with the stroke of a pen. Progress is an illusion. Progress toward a more perfect union is a struggle against the inertia of power games.
Project Blitz. The concept is like holding a cat in your arms who doesn't want to be there. The cat just exerts a constant pressure to jump down until its owner gets the message.
It will happen until the lights(a new Renaissance) are turned back on and the roaches scatter.
They will keep doing it AFTER it takes hold. Because the re-election vote-getting value of submitting the bill is still there, even if an equivalent bill already passed.
“Those people” have no incentive to stop so we will have to go thru this endlessly. I’m beginning to think that legislators who do this shit after it has been ruled illegal time and again should be subject to fines.
I suppose it's to be expected. I still hold that their insecurity about their "faith" is what drives them to actions like these. Any kind of disagreement or second opinion just sets off the cognitive dissonance in their heads, and they have NEVER dealt with that very well.
So yeah, we may be looking at a Sisyphean task here.
When you look at the stories Christians are told about their religion (many of them derived from the Mithraic cult) it's no wonder that deep down inside their ridiculousness makes them insecure.
You are correct, they will never stop, they have no incentive to, they are completely emboldened since 2016.... but in particularly 2020.
Perhaps the federal government should design a bounty law, where private Louisiana citizen can file a lawsuit against schools for $10,000..... we will co-opt the abortion trafficking bounty hunter law in Texas.
Brilliant!
"but it appears as if Louisiana simply wasn't aware of those instances or more likely, didn't care."
Like every red state who got a referendum about enshrining abortion rights in their Constitution and was surprised by the results.
Hold onto your hat, Arizona's vote hasn't rolled around quite yet. I have no doubt at all that there will be shenanigans around that vote, and there's a very good chance that the Republican government will have several options on the ballot simply to see to it none of them pass - it's happened before, with the vote to pass an MLK Jr. Day: three options were on the ballot, and none of them passed. I already got an opinion poll call trying to push a false narrative last week trying to undermine the only current bill. Pretty sure this one's going to be an ugly fight one way or another.
???
Arizona has a initiative that will likely be on the November ballot to enshrine abortion rights into the state's constitution. It's less encompassing than I'd like, but it's better than the more-or-less ban the state currently has. The problem is that we're talking about a very red state, and the Republican party here has a long history of finding ways around the will of the people. I suspect that the results may, in Arizona's case, be more in line with the Republican expectation than what may have been seen elsewhere.
The initiative can be found here: https://ballotpedia.org/Arizona_Right_to_Abortion_Initiative_(2024)
They cannot seem to get their heads around the fact rights are not matters of majority rule.
If only the majority didn't have to keep being reminded about that.
They believe in the old adage, if at first you don't suck seed, try, try again.
Well since conservative evangelicals use it as a election/re-election tool, I'd say we'll have to deal with it every 2 years.
And the funny thing is, I bet we will see it *even if* it passes. Even if the state legislatively mandates a 10C poster in every classroom, I guarantee that next eleciton cycle some legislator will submit a bill mandating a 10C poster in every classroom. B
Talk about indoctrination and grooming.
Bingo! It is always projection with that lot.
So, all classrooms must display the posters and they can be countered with other posters of actual governmental foundation documents, meaning a teacher who didn’t want to spread Christianity in this way would have to put up several 11x14” posters in their science classrooms, art classrooms, math classrooms, probably the gymnasium, shop class, home ec classroom. This takes up lots of wall space that could be used for actual useful information about the subjects being taught in the classrooms, or space where the students’ work could be celebrated, you know, the actual purpose of classroom walls. Nevermind the special education classrooms that have minimal posters on the wall to help the kids with sensory issues. These posters aren’t even relevant to the history and civics classrooms, at least not for the entire year.
Mandating what is displayed in classrooms should only be for public safety purposes, like fire escape routes and emergency equipment. (This even goes for displaying the flag, no one should be forced to have one in their classroom) The classroom teacher should be the the first decision maker on what is on the walls in the classroom, and I’ll warrant that there should be a little oversight to keep things appropriate, but what tends to cross the line is the blatant, over the top religious displays zealous teachers have been known to put up. But what gets headlines and outrage are the little LGBTQ flag stickers on a teacher’s desk or in the window to show students where they can go for understanding.
Exactly, like learning the capitals of all 50 states - and World Geography. As long as they know where their "Jesus" was born I guess that's all that matters. Maybe Utah will get a set of fake gold plates for all their classrooms. 🤣
What, LGBTQI2SAA students will have school chaplains to go to for understanding. Understanding that they're evil for existing and will burn in Hell for eternity
Feature, not bug- the people who passed this bill hate public education, after all. The less educational information on the walls, the better! The only thing kids should be learning in school is that they should be in church instead!
Agreed, that's part of their strategy - the death by 1,000 cuts of of the public school system and teachers.
I currently live in Tennessee, we did have a big win this year (just kicking the can down the road to another year) ..... there was so much opposition to the school voucher scam that it did not get through the supermajority GOP legislative. There were some high-profile Republicans, Principals, School Board members in opposition.
If I were a Louisiana teacher I would post the commandments, then pin a copy of the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution over it.
Nobody said it had to be entirely visible!
Yes, because that offends them.
This was mentioned a few months ago somewhere in the atheist blogosphere, IIRC and someone suggested presenting schools with them on a plaque but in arabic or an indian script so that the islamophobes got their knickers in a twist. In the 1980s in London, at a protest at the Iran-Iraq war, an asian-looking guy was holding a poster in arabic script with a large arrow on it which made some folk regard him with suspicion. At the bottom, however, there was some 'small print,' which said 'Don't worry, it says 'the nearest MacDonalds is this way.'
Someone in the comments on yesterday's post suggested to post copies of the commandments in every church. Maybe they should be posted alongside with posters of the parts of U.S. Constitution about the free exercice of religion.
“The free exercise of religion.”
Are you suggesting the free right of insanity?
Ok, I know you are not but why should there be a free “right” of anything since, apparently, rights are given by mythological being that does not exist? Talk about insanity.
I said, what does God need with a commandment anyway?
Jim!
C'mon, Bones, he's got a plan, why order anything?
Seriously, this is indoctrination. Plain and simple. Just cookie cutter instructional torture.
I hope students write the numbers 1-12 in front of the “10” commandments. Just number them.
Well, let's see..
I have no lords, as I am not a slave. I have no gods because they are imaginary. Graven images? If I can't make anything that resembles anything in the sky, on the ground or under the sea, that pretty much means everything. There would be no art, architecture, etc. I don't use a god's name to benefit myself (like Trump does). I treat every day the same, so sabbaths are meaningless. I honored my mother and father while they were alive, but some parents are unworthy of honor (David and Louise Turpin come to mind). Would I take a life? I might in self-defense or in defense of another who faced a threat of murderous intention. I maintain that what I do with a consenting adult in privacy is no authority's business. I have no desire to steal (would that Christians and conservatives felt likewise). I refuse to lie about others (again, it's too bad conservatives and Christians don't seem to feel the same way). And finally, what's so bad about wanting things like others enjoy?
What I object to most about these bills that try and force the Ten Commandments on schools is the idea that all children belong to Christians. Yeah, I know, 4-14 window, they're after the soft targets, so on and so forth, but they're still acting as though kids are to be told what to do and think as though said kids are property. I don't like that idea, kids are people in need of guidance and assistance, sure, but they aren't property by any means.
Churches have a long and dubious history when it comes to children. All too often, they've shown they cannot be trusted with children for a wide variety of reasons; as a result, the public should be suspicious whenever some religious person wants to tamper with public education in any form. If the listed Decalogue were of actually of such educational importance, there would be a lesson on it at some point during the year rather than just slapping it up on a wall and calling it a day. This bill is intended to be a wedge to pry into the classroom so that other similar things can be added later as 'traditional' to Louisiana classrooms. Christians keep doing this because they know they'll be able to force more of their bad ideas on the public in the future when they win these theoretically minor victories. They're looking to win the long game here, and it's becoming increasingly difficult to stop them. Here's hoping the FFRF, ACLU, and other like-minded groups can stop them this time.
Kiddie diddling christains and their enablers have zero business being near children full stop.
"...Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence, and the Northwest Ordinance alongside the Ten Commandments."
How about the actual law of the land, the US Constitution. It supersedes those others.
...but how could they use 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 completely secular old thing to piss-mark the school for Jesus?!
At the very least, The Bill of Rights.
The struggle with the separation of church and state continues, even though it’s unconstitutional for connecting the two!
The Ten Commandments is a phrase held in some sort of mysterious awe by the stupid and by the gullible. Who is this person who issues the commands? What authority does it have? Arbitrary and wrongheaded doesn’t begin to describe these commands. Holding them up as some sort of form of reverence isn’t just pointless (and unconstitutional), it’s counterproductive. Kids need to learn how to think, how to come to a point where they are capable of reasoning to a moral compass. The people who adhere to the concept of forcing the Ten Commandments on kids in this way are those likely abusing their wives, molesting children, and generally exhibiting precisely the opposite of what most secularists would consider moral.
Seems those who adhere really are in need of explicit simple commands. Before the XC a person who readily murders others just could not believe most folks were so upset with him. The murderer would say “who says murder is bad? Where is it written?”.
Ape shall not kill Ape.
Zardoz has spoken: https://youtu.be/gavlcbunY00?si=6N2h-NGXOkaB2GgF
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