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Quite thoughtful:
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Good questions! But of course they’re not going to teach a literary view of the bible that asks people to engage on an intellectual level with it (which you can do, even with kindergarteners, who are often much more perceptive and smarter than adults understand)… they want to shove the right wing sunday school version of the bible favored by today’s right wing Christian nationalist to put the fear of god into children so that they’ll “obey”.
It’s enraging, because many of us have no problem with people learning about religion and different faiths, etc… But this is just indoctrination…
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Because if we’ve learned nothing else from school kids over the last 60 - 90 years, it’s that mandatory indoctrination results in 100% compliance. 
Why, thanks to Reefer Madness and D.A.R.E. programs drug use is a thing of the past…
/s (just in case it wasn’t self-evident)
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They’ll just bully the rest into compliance. Just like they used to. And still do. We’re about to see a huge wave of kids getting bullied for being different in a variety of ways. 
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I hate that I’m writing this, but I don’t think it will lead to any new bullying, just provide an imprimatur to bullying that is already there. (And I know it is there, I was raised Catholic in Minnesota Evangelicalstan and got to hear all the slurs, and use all the snappy comebacks.)
But as far as achieving their unstated goal of getting more butts in pews (evangelical attendance and conversion has been plummeting), it will backfire. The bullied kids will hate them with even greater fury, the kids who might have sat in the pews will increasingly see the experience as infintile and lame, while the fascists who propagated this horrible policy will continue to wonder why nothing they ever try seems to work, never learning the lesson of the Sermon on the Mount, specifically Matthew 5:14-16.
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Yeah, it’s already a big problem, very true, but some schools do take it seriously and try to prevent it. that goes out the window and there will be new encouragement to bully non-conformists, I think. It will be more open and more likely to be supported by administrators in red states and red areas…
I don’t know that that’s the actual goal. I think it’s really just about imposing their “values” on the rest of us (meaning imposing white Chrsitian nationalism). After all, there seems to be a lot of people who do identify as “evangelical Christian” who do not themselves regularly attend any services. This is an authoritarian movement more than it is an actual religious one…
But that’s WOKE! /s
Jesus would hate these dipshits…
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OH, that sounds amazing!
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Yeah, he’d be flipping some tables for sure. And then MAGA would say he’s a false prophet sent by Satan and call him a groomer, and that would be that.
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I liked the begining of the article.
“This book will not please convinced Christians, but it will interest those who were believers and one day began to look at religion from a rational perspective. Or lovers of history in general.”
Faith is not discussed. Any attempt to rationalize the divine, in addition to being very difficult, can offend the faithful. But at the same time I see many believers using science, history, archeology, rational tools, to legitimize their faith…
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This, exactly. It’s not religion per se, it is about power and authority over lesser humans. Period, end of subject. And, of course, “lesser” is subject to redefinition at any time. Women, LGBTQ, PoC will be subject to far greater scrutiny, but a whole lot of cis, white, straight, white men are going to shocked to find themselves classed as lesser due to income, disability, “wrong opinions,” whatever. Leopards need faces, and there will always be a supply.
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There’s a scene like this in the cartoon Persepolis, by Marjani Sartrapi. The main character runs to catch the bus that would take her to university and is stopped by a virtue officer who asks her to run modestly. He, slightly embarrassed, explains that the sight of her body, running, can arouse male lust. The girl, extremely irritated, responds harshly that he should be the one who should look away.
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I don’t think they are mutually exclusive goals. They definitely want to impose their “values” on the rest of us, and they want to put butts in pews. They’ve seen their cultural influence wane, and their numbers plummet, and since they are no longer the dominant cultural force, makes them want to impose their views by force of law.
I don’t think it will work in the long run, but I agree with you that this will only make things worse.
He’d be braiding a whip right now…
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Wait till they find Micah 6:8.
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The Bible is WOKE!!!
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