Well understanding for a 5rh grader is different than high schooler, or graduate student, or historian. But because protestantism is such a critical historical theme in early America it makes sense to understand to some degree what those religious beliefs are. I’m not saying a fifth grader needs to dive into it, but for high schooler and college students, it’s a bit more important to have a general understanding of it. But I think that understanding also extends to learning about other religions.

The statement was in response to another commenting not talking about the specific policy, but making a general comment that in order to understand US History and thought of early American Settlers you likely need to have some understanding of the bible. That has nothing to do with this specific teaching policy, and the comment you responded to calls out the commenter didn’t trust the superintendent:

With that said, I don’t trust Oklahoma to teach about the Bible in a manner appropriate for historical analysis rather than religious dominance.

Cool. Sorry, I’m accustomed to being flamed on this thread for not being as liberal as the base here. Sorry if I came off super defensive. I can’t tell if the superintendent is just posturing or not. Without any curriculum definition, what does “teaching the bible” even mean. I agree his objective is probably hoping to teach christian fundametalism, but you can’t make that happen with some batshit memo by itself. I actually wish schools could teach religion in a balanced way. In a pluralistic multicultural society, it probably helps to have some background to understand basics of other religions.

You said this:

Really, you need to look no further than our legal system though to see how little influence the Bible and Christianity actually have. I don’t just mean the First Amendment, I mean the fact that our whole system is basically a gradual evolution from the laws of Ancient Rome.

this statement says nothing about what should be taught in schools, it’s a statement of history. my statement is simply stating it is very difficult to separate out the roman influence from the christian influence because of thomas aquinas linking christian tradition to greek thought. I would say that from a intellectual POV, founding fathers were probably equally or more influenced by greeks than romans, but at the end of the day we can just call it all classical thought. that’s pretty apparent in our architecture of state houses. This is a tangential discussion where we are not discussing what should be taught in schools, but just historical thought in the USA. Please re-read your own to catch up on the conversation topic.

It’s not appropriate for an elementary school kids. Per the article, this applies to grades 5 through 12. So what, 1 year of elementary with the primary focus of impact on junior high and high school?

But if you are getting into questions of “what was more important to our founding fathers, rome or christianity?” I’d say that’s pretty difficult to separate because of thinkers like Thomas Aquinas that married Greek Philosophy with Christianity. When you begin with a point that God is the source of reason, and build off of that, I think you can’t easily separate that out.

I have a lot of friends who, like me grew, up going to church. Some went to catholic high schools, some went to liberal arts colleges with required religions classes in the core curriculum, or had other exposure. None of us go to church in our adulthood and have no intention starting when we have kids. But we all want our kids to have an understanding of what Christianity is because it’s important for understanding American history, origins of non profit institutions, and contemporary political and cultural climate. Also want to ensure there’s exposure and understanding of Judaism, Islam, and other predominant religions. Not sure how kids are supposed to get that these days without growing up in a religious house hold.

Growing up in the Pacific Northwest I remember in school we studied Native American cultures which included some exposure to myth and religion. I wish there was a way schools could touch on modern religions in a more neutral way, perhaps more similar to how we teach classics/greek mythology.

I think you are really glossing over the work of Thomas Aquinas. It’s kind of hard to separate the Rome/Greek stuff from the historical Christianity stuff before modern day Evangelical Fundamentalism. Christian thought historically became very linked to Greek philosophy.

Well I think the Unions and government need to push back on this (the AG already is). I 100% believe that this should be reveresed. But reading the article it states that losing your teaching license is possible punishment. It’s really easy to be high and mighty when it’s not your livelihood and job on the line. If you need to wait it out while the courts settle it what do teachers need to do to protect their jobs, stay in compliance, and avoid retaliation until this gets settled? How many teachers already are in compliance just by teaching regular US history curriculum that says “yeah, protestants read the bible and disputes on interpretation of the bible with catholics is part of the history of America.” I think it’s important to note that the Gutenberg press published the first printed bible. With the increase of education and literacy lay people no longer had to get teachings directly from the literate Orthodoxy. This allowed to different interpretation and rise of different religions which led to conflict, etc…

The existence of the Bible is historical fact and artifact. There is historical merit in studying the various religious beliefs of historical peoples that factored into their values and thinking. Protestantism is factually a thing. Different colonies and denominational belief is a thing and a topic in American history. What made Quakers Quakers and how did that impact the Pennsylvania.

There’s a difference between teaching the bible, teaching theology, and teaching histories of religion. There’s definitely questions of what we are teaching and what is appropriate in public primary and secondary schools and in what subject, but I don’t think there is anything in and of itself bad if the historical religious beliefs and impact on historical civic life are discussed.

What’s the difference here between teaching the bible and teaching history? I recall getting through Hon and AP US History and Civics with and understanding of protestantism conflicts, Calvinism, and Deism. The law and mandate is bullshit, but what is the actual curriculum requirements. If you are teaching the historical content of the Bible that means you can also teach about atheists that took issue with it. Is there a lot of room for malicious compliance?

Lol. There is nothing in existence which has a choice of its being thrown into existence. Is all existence immoral?

Is this a black and white issue. Did and do hydro electric dams had/have a positive impact in global warming? Does the economic impact to native American tribes outweigh that? I feel like there’s a lot of complexity here.

People who think this doesn’t or won’t do anything are completely overlooking the advertising revenue impact. If social media must carry these warning labels, that devalues the ad space they sell. Does coca cola, Ford, etc. really want their ads to show up on content with these warning labels? Will they be getting a discount on ad space because it’s better to deliver ads to users on platforms that don’t have this warning?

That I’m pro this. That is the point. I can be pro something that is already the law and be pro things that increase the automation of it.

I’m for this. Don’t vote for war mongers when you or your kids or grandkids could be drafted for war.

The Atlantic ran a great cover story on this propaganda war the west is facing. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/06/china-russia-republican-party-relations/678271/

It’s interesting how the propaganda and fake news takes a few hops in other continents before being pushed into Western media.

I love the comments in these discussions that are like “Fuck hedge funds, fuck investing, fuck the stock market, fuck 401ks. Bring back pensions.” And then I have to explain that pensions are investing in the stock market and actually own like 20% of common traded mid and large size company stock. Apparently folks want the benefit of being in the stock market without the personal responsibility to do it themselves, but in the process get to hide their guilt of personally investing in the market themselves. But that’s okay, and that’s why I think we probably should have mandatory minimum retirement savings and investment programs.

I think the personal responsibility experiment of 401k’s is proving to be a failure. Yes, responsible people with sufficient incomes are somewhat at fault for not using the available retirement vehicles. But if individuals can’t be trusted to tend to their own future, we should probably be mandating retirement savings. And with that increasing minimum wage and considering UBI’s to make it reasonable for people save and have money in retirement.

But thanks for the sympathy for the downvote brigade. Merely suggesting personal responsibility seems to bring on the hate in lemm personal finance discussions. I have coworkers and friend’s with 6 figure incomes, top 75% of USA household incomes. They hardly use their 401k’s and use Roth IRAs when they have the means to be maxing those out.

I am very sympathetic to this. When I had a friend go through cancer, it made me realize a lot of important things about life. In the middle of that list, but critical in that list of things is paying for supplemental disability insurance. It was like a few hundred dollars a year that is the difference retaining an additional 20% of your salary in disability if needed. I am probably more likely to near term need supplemental disability insurance vs life insurance, and if I’m still alive and thriving and on disability that’s probably a bigger financial drain on my family that sudden untimely death.

This really comes down to who has and hasn’t saved. If you are a millennial that regularly saves into a retirement account you are probably looking good because the market has been good. But not a lot of millennials save for retirement which is the problem. Some of that is low wage, but some of that is bad spending habits.

Housing on the other hand is totally fucked for millennials regardless of what you are saving. If you got a starter home you are unable to sell and upgrade with decent rates. If you are first time buyer there is no inventory for starter homes because folks can’t afford to leave them even if they want to.