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Texas makes Bible passages required reading for millions of public school students
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 27 Jun 2026
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As someone who supports reading the bible by choice (whether you’re religious or not, it’s a really interesting canon), what they’re mandating is like requiring students to read specific passages from Animal Farm or Hamlet.
In what way does a few out of context passages from a book that’s part of an assembled collection of works central to one religion, that’s then grouped with a collection of letters from a secondary religion, teach students anything except dogma overlaid over the passages without appropriate context?
I mean, they could have at least selected things like the beattitudes or the parable of the Good Samaritan or the book of Philemon if they wanted something Christian; instead they picked out of context passages from works from the Jewish canon. And I doubt they’re teaching why Jonah didn’t want to go to Nineveh in the first place, OR the end of the story that sums up its point.
As someone who has read the entire Bible more than once due to a strict religious upbringing: what the fuck are you on about. There's nothing in any way interesting about it. It's simplistic, barbaric - and worse - BORING - and loathsome from front to back. It's not particularly original or novel nor does it in any way recommend itself unless you are a fan of misogyny, slavery, murder and outright genocide.
in this interesting canon you will read about the God that murdered a baby because its father committed adultery and murder (2 Samuel 12:1-24). The God that snuffed out the lives of 42 children for calling one of His prophets "old bald head" (2 Kings 2:23,24). The God who kills people for picking up sticks on the Sabbath (Numbers 15:32-36) and for trying out of reflex to keep the Ark of the Covenant from falling off an oxcart (2 Samuel 6:6,7). The same God who commands His followers to slaughter every living Hittite without mercy, women and children slaughtered in a bloody rampage (Deuteronomy 20:15-18). The God who destroyed the lives of everyone in the entire cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, though sparing the life of the "righteous" man Lot, who was so "tormented" by the "lawless deeds" and "loose conduct" of the Sodomites that he got completely shitfaced one night and knocked up both his daughters. (2 Peter 2:7,8; Genesis 19:30-38). The God who consigned all of humanity to live in misery and suffering until their pathetic death ends it all because two people ate a piece of fruit they were told not to eat (Romans 5:12). The same God that had His favorite Son murdered by torture, nailed to a piece of wood in order to restore what He took away in the first place (Genesis 3:22).
SO INTERESTING!
You seem to be conflating "interesting" with "morally correct". Yes, all of that is interesting.
That's true. I react because the only thing most people know about this book is that a significant number of people in the world look at it as some kind of blueprint for good living, even when they haven't read it or even portions of it. Look at the OP for crying out loud.
There are people in the world who find Hitler "interesting" - and such people are not all the same, but everyone generally understands this and knows why. Not so much with the Bible.
Also it really is actively boring. The stories are not well written or in any way engaging to a modern sensibility, because they are catechisms as much as they are stories. I immediately suspect people who laud the writing of apologia not intellectualism.
I'm a hardcore atheist and if you can't find anything philosophically interesting in the bible I think you're blinded by trauma.
How about Kierkegaard's discourses on Matthew, for example?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Discourses
In the context of whether it should be mandated reading in HS fuck no. But it's important in relation to western literature, so if you go into the humanities you'd better have a passing familiarity with it.
haha thanks but part of my prior programming was to read meta commentary about the Bible as well. I've read more commentary about Matthew (not to mention Mark, Luke and John) than I have read of the Bible itself.
In my studied opinion, it's not worth that kind of attention, nothing in the Bible is. I promise you I won't waste another second of my life reading any more of it and I truly suggest that no one else does either.
Sure I've got trauma, but suggesting I'm blinded by it is some apologist bullshit. It's all boring AF.
You're a "hardcore atheist" are you? I find that fairly shocking. I'm reminded of a quote from the book Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh: “He seems deeply interested in Church matters. Are you quite sure he is right in the head? I have noticed again and again since I have been in the Church that lay interest in ecclesiastical matters is often a prelude to insanity.”
Ah yeah, No True Atheists