Why ban the Bible?

oh, was that tinker? i can't believe i missed that the first time around.have a look at hazelwood v. kuhlmeier, in which the court rules that the sudent newspaper falls under the jurisdiction of self-censorship. specifically:

quote:

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(a) First Amendment rights of students in the public schools are not automatically coextensive with the rights of adults in other settings, and must be applied in light of the special characteristics of the school environment. A school need not tolerate student speech that is inconsistent with its basic educational mission, even though the government could not censor similar speech outside the school.

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and

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The Court today casts no doubt on Tinker's vitality. Instead it erects a taxonomy of school censorship, concluding that Tinker applies to one category and not another. On the one hand is censorship "to silence a student's personal expression that happens to occur on the school premises." Ante, at 271. On the other hand is censorship of expression that arises in the context of "school-sponsored . . . expressive activities that students, parents, and members of the public might reasonably perceive to bear the imprimatur of the school." Ibid.

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similarly, in edwards v. aguillard (the creationism case), the court invokes tinker to help overturn religion in school. a student's first amendment right is not checked at the schoolhouse gate -- and that includes freedom from the establishment of religion.This message has been edited by arachnophilia, 12-20-2005 09:34 PM

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אָרַח

So, the OP was basically bull?Brian.

Seems so. It is obviously BS from the start. A feeble attempt to make a lame point, that was immediately withdrawn when all the falsehoods about it were exposed.

It was a weak OP. As AdminAsgara pointed out that had been discussed in Chat with the originator and he agreed that it probably should not be promoted.No falsehoods have yet been established since none of the facts are really known.Prophex did the correct and mature thing by readily admiting that he did not have all the facts and that even his source is questionable. All in all, he should be commended for the honesty and maturity shown in Message 15.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Ban the Bible? We can`t even find it. Close to the original, that is.

I really need to study the bible more, study my relationship with God more, and exercise more so my body won't disentragrate while my mind grows....

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Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.

or you could... you know... read the thread.

Go play with your dolls

Does the presence of a Bible in a courtroom demonstrate a "personal bent on the part of" the judge or other court officials?While it may be "very dangerous for teachers to profess personal opinions on school time," it happens all the time, yet nobody seems to raise too much of a fuss, especially if the teacher is a liberal.

{Content withdrawn - Probably not that on-topic}MooseThis message has been edited by minnemooseus, 01-17-2006 03:23 PM

Despite your snipe towards liberals I do have to agree with you to an extent. There is this gray area in between non-endorsement and free exercise where at one extreme we may have teachers spreading all kinds of religious material around the classrom with no obvious educational value and the other extreme which is what they are doing in france with all the laws forbidding religious expression in schools.I feel that a teacher bringing a bible to school falls technically on the good side of that line as long as they are not using it or referencing it inappropriatly. For example, a valid use would most certainly be in literature class when discussing allegory. An invalid use would be in circumstances where it has no relevance such as biology.The big problem is simply human nature and that the people who are most likely going to bring a bible to school and flaunt it are going to be the ones who are bent on delivering religion to their students. Obviously inappropriate

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No smoking signs by gas stations. No religion in the public square. The government should keep us from being engulfed in flames on earth, and that is pretty much it. -- Jon Stewart, The Daily Show

In my old job was necessary to go to court several times a year. I have been sworn in as a witness probably 10 times over the past 10 years or so. I have never had to swear on a bible. It was never brought up.

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Asgara
"I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now" Save lives! Click here!
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However in the court room you seldom see a Bible anymore. People are only ask to swear to tell the truth, and even in those cases where someone gets upset with the term swear, the person can simply affirm.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

You know, I'm about as militantly secularist as it gets, but I don't have a problem with a teacher that brings a Bible to the classroom, even takes some time out of the class to say "this is the Bible, and it's a book that has deep personal meaning for me, and if you're struggling with issues in your life, I invite you to check out the wisdom between these covers."Teachers are more than just spigots of information; good teachers are mentors. They're teaching more than just their field, they're teaching life. In doing so it's entirely appropriate for them to bring up and promulgate their individual spiritual beliefs; what may seem like a waste of classroom time to one may be a personal revalation to another. I would hope that an atheist teacher would have equal freedom to mentor to her charges, and explain how a life free of authoritarian concepts of God and rigid morality can be liberating and empowering, etc. Like I said maybe the objection is that it's a "waste of time", but my own classroom experience has shown me that I've often learned the most when the teacher was "wasting time" and holding a discussion about material that was, at best, only tangentially related to the syllabus.What is, of course, absolutely inappropriate is for a teacher to offer their beliefs set above any discussion or question by the class; teachers who wish to introduce their own beliefs into the classroom should be prepared to field honest questions. If that makes a teacher uncomfortable, better to leave the Bible - or their atheism - at home. And it goes without saying that "this won't be on the test"; students should never feel as though their grade will be based on the degree to which their own beliefs are congruent with the teacher's personal orthodoxy.Teachers, and even professors, are mentors. Mentoring requires the freedom to teach not only from the book but from your own life, from the headlines of the day, from a question from a student, from a personal crisis. Let us not ban the Bible, or any other personal expression, from the classroom; then teachers become little more than audiobook versions of their textbooks.

That was a good clarification of something I probably should have gone deeper into. What I meant by delivering religion is exactly what you described in your "bad" case there. Making belief a classroom requirement is the most extreme case of that.Certainly it would be against the civil rights of the teacher to prohibit them from expressing their beliefs to their students especially when it underlies their motivations. There is a fine line between that and establishment though which is why most teachers I know who are religious play it very conservative. (have quite a number of Christian public school teachers in the family)That is why though, at least from my perspective, most teachers who trot out the bible contra to curriculum are actually shooting for establishment rather than expression. Even when a teacher is within their rights though not all students and especially not all parents are wise enough to tell the difference. Unfortunatly these are also the ones who are most likely to raise a stink. Hence you probably are not going to find many of the great teachers, who also happen to be the smart teachers that love their job and want to keep it, will more often then not play it save. Unfortunatly all this really does is reinforce the misconception about appropriate expression of religion by a teacher.This message has been edited by Jazzns, 01-17-2006 03:30 PM

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No smoking signs by gas stations. No religion in the public square. The government should keep us from being engulfed in flames on earth, and that is pretty much it. -- Jon Stewart, The Daily Show