Heh, it took me a while to parse that, because I kept trying to figure out what Mordecai was commanding the Jews to do (unto). I gather he was just asserting his right to command the Jews, and widely disseminating this declaration.
I am possibly misinterpreting, I admit. There might be some important detail in Esther 8:8.
I just skimmed the Wiki entry on the Book of Esther. I suppose if there’s an third-grader who’s starting to appreciate Shakespeare, he or she might be entertained by this as well.
I have a FB friend in Oklahoma, she’s an atheist and from the stories she has told about the problems that her kids have had in school because of their lack of religion, this is pretty par for the course for OK.
For the record, I went to Catholic schools for most of my primary and half of my secondary education and I never once got handed a bible in school. Bibles, usually the New Testament, were handed out in Catechism - Sunday school - AT CHURCH! We rarely discussed our religion in any classes other than the actual religion class.
Context is everything. Are the bibles being distributed to be studied in a literature course, or a comparative mythology course, or a world religions course, or are they being distributed as truth from the Christian God and offered as an encouragement to personally follow Christianity? Obviously in this matter the purpose is recruitment.
In Ontario, Canada, most schools are public non-sectarian, in which individual school boards may prohibit or may permit the handing out of bibles, but if they do permit it, they must permit all creeds (including atheism), and the kids must not be pressured into it.
In Ontario there are also a great many Roman Catholic public schools, in which Christianity is core, and the bible is taught as truth. For example, when teaching the Miracle of Fatima to kindergarten students, some of whom asked if it was true, I was required to tell them that it was true.
In Ontario there are many private schools, which in addition to the non-sectarian provincial curriculum, are free to include as much religious education and practice of whatever sort they wish. For example, I attended a private school that included attending church every day in addition to formal Christian religion courses a couple of times a week, with Gideon’s bibles being handed out in grade five.
The only significant controversy arises when public non-sectarian schools ban religious proselytizing, which ruffles the feathers of bible thumpers. Quite a few major school board have instituted such bans. What is worth noting, however, is that much of our population (two thirds to three quarter’s of Ontario’s and a quarter of Canada’s) is in the Golden Horseshoe conurbation (Toronto, Hamilton, etc.), which is marvelously cosmopolitan. For example, in the City of Toronto, almost half of the population’s mother tongue is something other than English or French, and there are over 180 languages and dialects spoken. In this context, Christian proselytizers are not relevant to most people’s lives.
Christianity is a very big thing in the USA. It isn’t so to anywhere near the same degree in Canada. When it comes to religion and its involvement in education, healthcare and politics, in Canada it is more live and let live, rather than out-shout each other, although of course we too have our occasional moments of insanity. Because it is more live and let live, we don’t have to fight as much to keep others from forcing their creeds upon us.
Esther 4:5. I was skiing with Esther and her hubby last Sunday.
That sort of thing pisses me off so much. Bullying? Kids not allowed to visit the godless house?
And from Houston, we have another teacher pulling a similar stunt.
Bullying and the teacher wasn’t any help. Also, one of her kids is mixed race and she was bullied for that as well. When my friend would talk to the principal she about it she was offered no help. She was going to home school them but it didn’t work out for her. Eventually they moved so went to a different school.
In high school my 12th grade AP English class read some of the Bible. Zero preaching. In fact I worked in the English book room senior year and read the introduction to the Bibles there. I had never realized about the multiple authorships - and I became an atheist then and there.
I agree that 3rd grade is way too early. And we had to give our Bibles back.
Coincidentally, for the first time in my eight years of teaching, today I had a kid bring a pocket Bible to school and start reading Psalm 23 aloud while we were lining up for recess. As a committed atheist, I reminded him that he’s supposed to line up quietly and told him to save the reading for recess.
Which he did, reading it to a couple other curious kids, kind of on a lark (his other recent literary endeavor was writing a truly excellent brag-poem about his farting prowess; he’s a fun kid). No harm done.
“My expelled gas is nothing like the sun;
Garbage is far more stinky than my farts;
If sulfur be smelly, why then my toots are fun
If rotten eggs be wires, then my ass shoots wire darts”
I actually got *snuck *a Bible once (in the US, where else ? Colorado Springs to be precise). I’d spent the summer living with some pretty religious folks who, while they probably didn’t approve my then-metalhead ways and going to a Metallica concert with my boss, never directly confronted me about it. I found the book tucked inside my luggage when I unpacked back in France.
In retrospect I should probably have been a whole lot madder about them rooting about in my shit than I was at the time. I was more nonplussed than anything then.
A couple of great-aunts left Jack Chick tracts under my pillow when I was in high-school. I was a Jesus Freak at the time, but still found Chick to be whacko.
An excerpt from your new work, “Rotten Eggs and Hamlet” I presume?
Some of the best lines from Hamlet :).
You don’t see a difference in handing out bibles versus making it known that they are available in the library?
Someone is logic-deficient here, and you might just be surprised at who that is.
On the larger issue, handing out bibles is not the same as handing out literature. It is fundamentally (pun not exactly intended) different. If it was not steeped in the intent to proselytize, there wouldn’t be bibles left in hotel rooms and assholes on the corner wouldn’t be shoving religious shit in my hand. Beyond that, most religious people don’t even read the fucking thing themselves - it’s just an ensign of their affiliation and they want others to join them. Fuck a bunch of giving it to little kids in public school.
At first I assumed this was a mountain over a mole hill. But then I read the link. Assuming it happened as stated, the teacher was out of line. The very fact that she was asking kids if they’d like one indicates it was not being used as a part of the curriculum, which leaves us with the idea that it was proselytizing.
Also, most of the kids who liked the Bible would already have one, so it would be unlikely that the majority of the students would go for one unless there was some sort of pressure to do so. Even if said pressure is unintentional, that violates what I understand to be how the Separation of Church and State works in public schools.
No student is ever supposed to feel religious pressure from a teacher at school. Heck, the teacher can’t even be involved in the student organized Bible club, even. There was a huge argument that “moments of silence” are bad because they encourage prayer.
From a much earlier post:
Yes, I see the difference between “handing out” (your words) and “making available” (reality). Apparently you don’t. Available in the classroom or available in the library = no difference.
FTR, I wouldn’t get worked up if the book in question was the Koran, Torah or Great Spaghetti Monster for Dummies. If it is not prohibited in the school library it should not be prohibited in the classroom.
Having a bible available in the school library does not rise to the level of any kind of peer pressure unless the librarian makes sure to remind everyone there is one available on a regular basis. I would have zero issue with a kid asking for one and receiving access to one in a school library so long as it is by their own initiative.
Handing out or providing them for distribution in individual classrooms is a different story. Much like a classroom prayer, it singles out those who do not participate. When 70%+ of the country self identifies some flavor of christian/catholic/baptist/lutheran it highlights those who do not share those views as “not one of us” by their non-participation. Leading to many flavors of tyranny of the majority that equal protection laws are designed to block.
Folks here in this thread seem to be fixated on “bible” (and in fairness, that was the book involved in this case). I’m saying it wouldn’t bother me regardless of which text, religious or otherwise, was stocked in the classroom so long as it was not specifically, legally excluded from the school library (porn, for instance). YMMV.