What do you think of them passing a law to allow a "Bible" elective in high school?

If that's what the voters want. Personally, I think it's ridiculous. But as long as it isn't part of the standard curriculum.

That's fine. It probably has constituent support, and the people who pay the taxes which fund the school are undoubtedly entitled to a stake in the school's available courses. Being that it's an elective, it doesn't affect the core requirements, and won't affect accreditation.

If such measures catch on, we might can expect to see atheists/liberals pull stunts like try to have accreditation withheld from schools with such course offerings under the guise of something like requiring equality, courses which should be applicable to all persons, or some nonsense like that... along with the typical liberal victimized-by-religion lawsuits.

Edit...

As for other faiths, if the TAXPAYERS are willing and want to fork out the money for those courses, then they are free to do that, as well. It's important to understand that we're NOT talking about the wishes of a religious community, per se, so much as it is the wishes of the tax paying constituents whose taxes support the school.

As Don H indicates, another risk is that liberals may instead latch onto religious courses and restructure them so that they will fit into the mold of the liberal agenda machine... and students will be taught how the Bible is "superstition" and that Christians have victimized the world and such. Thus, such courses will be corroded from the inside out and utilized to further indoctrinate young people with liberal ideology. That's why liberals adamantly oppose private school vouchers and homeschooling.

I was in high school from 2007-2011 the popular kids were cliche and not at the same time. 1. They wear AE, Aeropostal, etc; they have coach bags and wore plenty of makeup 2. They were the children of doctors, lawyers, the rich people 3. Football payers were as stupid as bricks and sometimes not the most popular. Being athletic (no matter the sport) made you more likely to become popular, something I never rightly understood. Another oddity was that many people in marching band were popular. i.e. they hardly feel under the nerdy, awkward stereotype. 4. You also described the popular students very well as that it was similar here too. ( fashionable, funny, slutty sometimes, they drink, do sexual stuff to get attention, skip class but get good grades). I always thought it was weird how many popular kids were athletic and on the A-honor roll. The cheese growing on trees thing is funny, but I believe that could happen. There are people who are so stupid, so, so stupid and it's worse in teens.

My problem with it is that I'm willing to bet if another religion wanted the same thing, the community would be out protesting with pitchforks and torches. There is no reason to give Christianity a free pass while condemning the other religions. Is there an atheistic studies option? I doubt it. What about Islamic studies? It's a way to sneak the teaching of Christianity into public schools. I have a problem with that.

Will there also be a Quran elective? Or a Torah elective?

And so on...

Making on the Biblical course an elective shows favoritism for one religion over all of the rest and means that the influence of that religion is infiltrating on the powers of the secular i.e. education system.

Why can parents not teach their children the religion they want to at homes and at the places of their worship and leave the schools for actual education?

It's an elective, so there should be no problem as long as other religious books are able to be taught as electives as well.

Granted, it is a waste of time and it shows just how little Christians believe that the meaning in the Bible is revealed by God.

Elective, sure why not? It is not required.

However, I did take Bible Lit as a part of my freshman honors english class in high school.

The teacher taught it purely as just another book with stories in it and we tested in that. It wasn't taught as a fact and no position was taken on it, no debate took place on whether it was valid or not, it was analyzed as a storybook.

I see no harm in students learning about other cultures, even if it is a religious culture. Knowledge is important for everyone to understand the world.

I always thought that a comparative religion course that compared the bible to other ancient scripture so students could see where much of the christian mythology came from would be a good thing.

Education in this area could free a lot of people from some troubling guilt ridden nonsense.

Love and blessings Don

As a Christian, my first reaction is terrific, but the more I think about it, the more I think it's a bad idea. If they allow the Bible to be taught (who would be the teacher?), they would have to allow every religion, including atheism (sorry, I know you guys don't believe it's a religion), witchcraft etc.

It would be better to pass a law allowing creationism and evolution to be electives.

Long past due. The Bible is the single most influential written work in Western culture.

Not teaching The Bible to Western students is like outlawing the teaching of the Declaration of Independence in the U.S. - except that The Bible has had a far more significant influence on the U.S. than has the Declaration of Independence.

*Not* having such education available is probably the most serious deficiency in the American public education system.

Jim, http://www.biblechooser.com/

I personally don't think that public school is the place to teach any religion or philosophy. But since Humanism has inundated our schools, why not Christianity? I guess if it's an elective and not a requirement, I wouldn't have a problem with it.