Sunday, April 08, 2012
Bible Thumpers: Ban the Bible and you shall go to hell
"TORONTO - A public school board's decision to ban distribution of Gideon Bibles to its young students has unleashed a torrent of threatening calls and hateful emails directed at trustees."
"When are you 'politically correct' idiots, with your heads buried in the sand, going to realize that every action you take to destroy Canadian heritage...?" one email began.
"Allowing newcomers to Canada the ability to walk all over our heritage has got to stop before they carry us into the realm of a warring nation like the one they often left behind," another writer said.
Read the story here. Recommend this post
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The distribution of materials is something that all school boards must deal with. Schools receive pamphlets and booklets for summer camps, Scholastic book orders, Canada's Wonderland discount passes, and other good crap. Teachers are expected to distribute these to their students.
ReplyDeleteAs a supply teacher, my rule is to distribute report cards envelopes and other official documents to the students directly. I personally make sure that the students receive these in their hands. I will place school newsletters and field trip forms on the students' desks. As for general advertising crap, I let an eager student or two hand them out. If no one is eager (usually students in grades-seven and eight), I just place the crap by the door near the garbage can/recycling container.
Schools in Ontario (and I assume across Canada) are required to accommodate religious practices. These may include students wearing clothing and items significant to their religions. They also include providing space for worship. Space may consist of a small room, lunch room, or gymnasium. For example, Muslim students do get space to worship at lunch-time. I suppose if Christian students wanted to get together for worship or fellowship, their schools would provide them space.
Should the Gideons have the right to distribute their Bibles to willing students with their parents' permission? No. The Gideons are an outside group. Schools only need to accommodate the students and staff members. However, I suppose if some students with parental support wanted a Gideon religious service, then their schools would need to accommodate them. Note: that does not mean that an outside person or group has an automatic right to distibute Bibles to participating students. The schools would only need to provide space for their participating students. Besides, if the Gideon Bible distributors are not being directly supervised, they would need criminal background checks. As a teacher, I would not supervise their services.
SD, thank you for a detailed and great comment. I fully agree with you.
ReplyDeleteI taught at a university in Ontario and they had similar policies as your school. I attended a few meetings of the Born- Again- Christians. However, my motives were not so pious. I just loved one of the preachers as she was very beautiful. Never asked her out as I was afraid that she would reject me once she found out that I was not a very religious person.
I used to love watching Circle Square. All the girls looked like miniature versions of Shelly Glover of the Conservative Party.
ReplyDeleteOh no! Shelly Glover? LoL.
ReplyDelete[Re Bible thumpers, I found the following on the web. Replies?]
ReplyDelete(The following paper was inspired by Bill O'Reilly whose TV show favors God Dumpers and not "Bible Thumpers." Quotes are from "Vital Quotations" by Emerson West.)
DANGEROUS BIBLE THUMPERS OF AMERICA
ROBERT E. LEE: "In all my perplexities and distresses, the Bible has never failed to give me light and strength." (p. 21)
DANIEL WEBSTER: "If we abide by the principles taught in the Bible, our country will go on prospering and to prosper." (p. 21)
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS: "I have made it a practice for several years to read the Bible through in the course of every year." (p. 22)
ABRAHAM LINCOLN: "I believe the Bible is the best gift God has ever given to man. All the good from the Saviour of the world is communicated to us through this book." (p. 22)
GEORGE WASHINGTON: "It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible." (p. 22)
HORACE GREELEY: "It is impossible to mentally or socially enslave a Bible-reading people." (p. 23)
THOMAS JEFFERSON: "I hold the precepts of Jesus as delivered by himself to be the most pure, benevolent, and sublime which have ever been preached to man. I adhere to the principles of the first age; and consider all subsequent innovations as corruptions of this religion, having no foundation in what came from him." (p. 45)
THOMAS JEFFERSON: "Had the doctrines of Jesus been preached always as pure as they came from his lips, the whole civilized world would by now have become Christian." (p. 47)
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN: "As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the system of morals and his religion, as he left them to us, is the best the world ever saw, or is likely to see." (p.49)
WOODROW WILSON: "The sum of the whole matter is this----that our civilization cannot survive materially unless it be redeemed spiritually. It can only be saved by becoming permeated with the spirit of Christ and being made free and happy by practices which spring out of that spirit." (p. 143)
PATRICK HENRY: "There is a just God who presides over the destiny of nations." (p. 145)
THOMAS JEFFERSON: "Material abundance without character is the surest way to destruction." (p. 225)
THOMAS JEFFERSON: "Of all the systems of morality, ancient or modern, which have come under my observation, none appear to me so pure as that of Jesus." (p. 237)
GEORGE WASHINGTON: "The foolish and wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing is a vice so mean and low, that every person of sense and character detests and despises it." (p. 283)
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN: "Here is my creed. I believe in one God, the Creator of the universe. That he governs it by his Providence. That he ought to be worshiped." (p. 301)
CALVIN COOLIDGE: "The strength of a country is the strength of its religious convictions." (p. 305)
GEORGE WASHINGTON: "The perpetuity of this nation depends upon the religious education of the young." (p. 306)
Prior to our increasingly "Hell-Bound and Happy" era, America's greatest leaders were part of the (gulp) Religious Right! Today we've forgotten God's threat (to abort America) in Psa. 50:22----"Now consider this, ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver." Memo to God Dumpers: In light of Rev. 16:19, can you be sure you won't be in a city that God has already reserved for destruction?