chuck Norris Bible Thumper

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7czRrFNRQO0"]YouTube[/ame]

 

oh dear, the bible as History and english lit.! for one, the bible has little/if any use as a history subject, something verifiable like the womens rights movement, world war's 1 & 2,the hundred years war, the rise of the soviet union, something usefull across faith and nations,something than you can find the source of,debate with and verify, thats what history should and tends to be about.

Can you imadgine doing your exam paper on Sauls conversion?, perhaps david and goliath or the raining of hailstones to destroy an army in the book of joshua?. how can that be plausable or indeed legal, your only source would be the bible, you couldn't cross reference anything, the only plausable subjects in it as history would be pauls letters and the development of the early chruch and perhaps jewish and early christian law but still its nonsesne. i cant beleive its been accepted and adopted, i can only hope it makes up a small part of the history paper.

as for english lit. using the bible,espeically by itself is a bad move, perhaps religious works by Aquinas,Augustine or Kant or discussionson religion by Hume or somesuch. i think its a verry poor book to use, not only will it probably cause offence with those of other faiths, it seems demaning to use a religious book for such purposes, and will cause factions to appear in its interpretation at a place(Schools) where religion should have little place and where universal facts,beleifs and views would be more applicable and benefit the whole. i see problems such as -


Teacher - ' okay can i have an example of metaphor please'
Timmy - ' yes miss,'this bread is my body, this wine my blood'
Teacher - 'well done timmy,excellent metaphor'
peter - ' miss,my parents and pastor told me everything in the bibles true,it cant be a metaphor,this is wrong'
Fred - ' Im from religion X,this isnt my holy book and i refuse to study it'.
jane - ' Im from religion Y,this isnt my holy book,i refuse to study it'.
Teacher - 'oh dear,what a silly book to teach from, the religious and social implications outweigh the little benefit of its use,i will teach from a much more appropriate book'.

so thus far you have a division in the class room which is bad for a child at a time when he/she should be looking to learn the ways of a mixed race/culture and religious society, you have your fundamentalists,religious liberals who accept it may be a metaphor,members of other religions aswell as non religious folk who consider the fact that many other books show much finer styles of writing than the haphazard and muti authored bible, for example you could say ' Throughout pride and predujice,there is a theme of social inequality,discuss' and you could happily write your essay, but in the bible you have a collection of books some of which completely clash in an ideological sense,some based on life and 'fact' some based on a more spirtual level ie ' luke and john',its just a silly collection of books to use!

on a lighter note, look at the outrage it caused the chuck norris fanclub on youtube,there upset because hes a christian with a lisp as opposed to the texas ranger they last law him as,and the loss of his beard seems to cause a chuck-ology religious schism too! but all must agree...his wife is hot.

Does anyone know if this religious education(to use the term education lightly) is actually in place or how it is used?

 

I think I disagree. Imagine if you were interested in Roman-occupied Palestine in the 1st century and want to know all about the culture of the time. Then, amazingly enough, you find a large document which details the power structures, relgions, conflicts and ideological issues of the time. It might not be a completely impartial document, but they're quite rare in historical research anyway.

 

As history I could see it being useful in conjunction with other materials for specialised topics like, as Dr Moose said, Roman occupied Palestine. As a school textbook, no way the areas on which it would be useful are far too specialised and the use of a religious document for them is inappropriate.

As English lit... the fact that it's a translation through various languages and so isn't actually English literature would sort of ruin it for that topic.

 

Chuck Norris wrote the bible

 

I see your point, and there are parts of the bible which could be useful such as the social infrastructure as you mentioned and i mentioned the laws and customs, but would you agree to the point that the bible is pretty inappropriate for state education and it has many implications which would make it socially sensitive with many religious groups? Of course, in a faith based school, then i guess there isn’t much room to argue if that’s the way they would like to teach and you are making the choice to learn there, but as for use across the board in schools, i think it can bettered by much much more A) appropriate B) verifiable and C) universal texts.

Take for example if i was teaching a class about the battle of Waterloo, i would first show them period texts from numerous sources both by French, English and the other European combatants, then i would propose archaeological findings as further auxiliary proof that the battle happened, and i would then ask them to write an essay comparing the sources and discussing a point. although history can never be impartial, at least such things like the battle of waterloo, have more evidence and sources fro both sides that can be obtained through various means and it avoids any social stigma or religious connotaions,for example napoleon didn’t ask god for a hail of musket balls to fire from heaven to destroy those impious Englishmen, you get a petty reliable account of how the battle was conducted in realistic terms.

The Bible being a religious book, although containing a significant history is intended a primarily a religious book, and although it contains a history of a people it is from a religious viewpoint, if i am going to teach a class about the battle of Joshua against Amorites, i cant use the one source for it - ie - the bible and then try to be objective, and it is hard to make objective historical statements with -

'While they fled before Israel along the descent from Beth-horon, the LORD hurled great stones from the sky above them all the way to Azekah, killing many. More died from these hailstones than the Israelites slew with the sword'.

While we can verify locations of battles, of which we can tell happened, there is still one main literary source which explains the battle, and that’s written by the perspective of a god fearing people with a bias towards god, which is clearly going to be an issue if you are teaching state education.

whilst schools do teach some aspects of history with few sources outside of itself this is rare and most subjects tend to be on much more verifiable things such as the afore mentioned Waterloo or soviet history, and although there is the matter of perspectives, it is possible to find information from other nations involved without the religious bias evident in the bible.

I would no more teach the bible in schools as history than i would teach about King Arthur or Beowulf or the Illiad. if one teaches the 'de-mythologicalised' parts of the bible such as the laws and social customs this would be acceptable as you could find other sources to verify your data and you avoid most of the religious parts, although they are evident as the basis of the laws, they are more of a social custom than a religious custom, which would be more palatable to non religious and non judeo-Christian students alike.

I think teaching the bible as history in school, is much like teaching Tacitus and Julius Caesar’s conquest of Gaul, while it is both informative and well written, one must agree they are highly flawed and bias sources and due to the fact there is no other supporting literary evidence (other than minor extracts by Strabo) and as such, they are not generally taught as history but rather as classics, that’s how I see the bible, a classics and classical civilisation(which usually involve study of myth, and usually Greek or Roman study) study area rather than a subject or universal non faith based area for schools and taught as fact. one way around this I suppose is teach on the basis that ‘ biblical scholar X believe's God/Jesus did this….’ Rather than ‘ when Jesus/God did this…’

In the case of new testament, on may use the accounts of the Gospels to verfy each other as they have differing authors however they do all share the same religious bias and the often use of metaphor i beleive invalidates it as a usefull historical texts compared to more apropriate texts.also translation errors and misunderstandings also feature in its downfall as a usefull text let alone the confusion as to who are the authors of Matthew and Mark and what validates ther gospel.


a good site for biblical archaeology - whch does propose some of the happenings in the bible are true,there is still much subjectiviy in this work,and it is flawed to teach from one literary source(espeically one with religious bias i beleive)whatever archaeological data is found, as the interpretations of archaeological data can be just as subjective depending on who is interpreting the sites,and they only propose a what survived of what hapened(flawed in itself), and not a why it happened, and the when it happened is always up for debate. http://skeptically.org/enlightenment/id17.html

 

To my knowledge it is not in place, but there are schools that are private for christians to go and study. By private I mean you can get in so long as you attend their mass etc. Not familiar with all the rules.
I like the part where he mentions how the US was founded upon the bible, This may be true, but too bad that has fallen by the wayside.

 

The problem with using the bible as history is that whilst the bible may be founded on history, it is history coloured by faith. That is to say, the deutrononic and New Testament editorscollaborated the bible with the thoughts of the future survival of the religion in mind. For example, when the Old Testament describes the exile, the reason for the exile is given as "We have not obeyed God, therefore he is punishing us", when really, Israel and Judah were fantastic trade routes, and every great empire of the ancient world has attempted to occup them - Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans.

As far as English lit, oes, it is a good idea to teach the Bible as literature, as there are very distinct literary types in it, for examples, in apocalyptic literature, there is always strong, vivid imagery of monsters, angels, demons, etc. Also, there are distinctive styles - myth and legend, eschatology, parabolic, allegorical, etc. however, to base one's entire Literature syllabus on this is ridiculous. It should form a minor categoy of it, or better still, be confined to Religious Education.

 

It may be?

 

oversoul,
not a conspiracy person
sorry that sounded wrong I meant as in may be, not maybe. hmmmm, nevermind, I know the US puritans had the ideals there

 

Chuck Norris has been a Christian for a long time.
Why are there so many friggin anti Christians on this site?

Sorry I just re edited this;

Man Chuck Norris is cheesy!

 

Its chuck norris right?
s**t.

 

The US founding fathers didn't base anything on Christianity. While many of them were deists, a lot of them the sceptical of the divinity of Jesus.

 

I say, bring it on.
But use Bart Ehrman's textbooks. ^_^
Let's see how much right wingers like Bible studies in public schools when they include gnostic gospels and emphasize the difference between ancient and modern Christianity.

 

I think that a class on the Bible should be taught just because of the impact that it has had on the world. The Bible has helped shape the world we live in today.... so much so that I feel a history class on the Bible would be appropriate. Not necessarily using the Bible as the only textbook for the class... but in studying the history of the Bible, it would make sense to the contents of the Bible.... if for no other reason then to give you more perspective and a deeper understanding of why it has the impact that it does.

 

The bible is very important if you're studying English literature I would say.
Very influencial and full of some fantastic saying, quotes and social comment (many of which people don't realise are from the Bible).
Even arch-atheist Richard Dawkins accepts that studying the English Bible translations is intrinsic to English as a language and much of western history.

 

Hmmm i think the bible is verry inappropriate for universal english lit study,perhaps it could be an option to choose but not a requirement.I think there are much better works to study because a) the religious implication of the bible on the non christian comunity B) the fact its a translation of a translation with numerous editions which didnt originate in the english language C) it could possibly be seen as a trivial use of a holy book perhaps? D) how do you get around deciding weather it is a work of fact or fiction? and if you decide on weather a passage is fact or myth/symbolism/analogy,you then have to deal with the fallout from that within the religious community in the school.

The bible belongs in religious education i feel,not in the arena of better writers that are less likely to cause religious disharmony.

 

I expect I'm going to regret this, but... that is Chuck Norris and is not a spoof. Right? I mean, it is Chuck Norris. And he's never really had a gift for comedy. So I assume that he's playing it straight.

Am I missing something?


Stuart