At least so far they can't legally require you to be a Christian to teach in Oklahoma, and even if they could, you could get baptized just to teach and then still teach whatever you want.
So maybe forcing schools to teach religion is a bad idea.
Funny how this thread became an argument about baptismal requirements. For what it’s worth, there are Christian religions, such as Salvation Army and Quakers, that don’t require baptism for membership. Also, there are so many independent Christian churches out there that I’d be shocked of some of those also don’t require baptism.
I’m Catholic (kinda maybe?) and baptism is such a huge big deal for us. I was a little surprised that it’s such a big deal for most Protestant churches too, since Catholics think they have the corner on all these core beliefs.
Speaking of which, I was a Catholic attending a Southern Baptist private school as a kid. There was so much anti-Catholic sentiment at that school, especially from the more religious teachers. If this Bible requirement actually goes through, it will open a huge can of worms in every direction.
You misunderstand. I'm saying that if someone doesn't have a belief system, they could choose to get baptized disingenuously just so they could teach, count as a Christian under the law, and teach about things the government wouldn't want them teaching.
It's an argument about the silliness of requiring religious teachings in schools, not an argument saying we SHOULD have this requirement. We absolutely should not.
Therein lies the problem. Regardless of the unconstitutionality of it and the fact that people other than Christians deserve to be educated free of forced religion— There’s over 200 forms of Christianity in the United States alone. Which Jesus are we going to state mandate in Oklahoma? Is it the one who’s cool with infant baptisms like the Methodists believe, or is it the one who doesn’t believe there should be instruments allowed in church like the church of Christ, or the Baptist one that believes in determinism, or the other Baptist one that doesn’t? It goes on and on. Ridiculous.
Well I guess the solution would be to just straight up read the Bible to the students with no personal interpretation and leave the rest up to the students.
Or, here’s a crazy idea.. leave it up to the parents to give their child the spiritual instruction they want them to have and keep the state out of it.
Which bible would you like to be straight up read to the students? There’s over 450 versions in English alone.
True. No one would understand the kjv so esv would be my choice. Honestly I'm just gonna grab popcorn and see what happens because this whole thing should be entertaining.
You just said you wouldn't want to force it on anyone. How is this your solution? The bible has no place in public school. It's unconstitutional for one.
What about that would be teaching? This isn’t Mesopotamian Poetry Jam, it’s a school where you only introduce topics to help students achieve learning goals.
If there are no learning goals it’s not teaching, it’s babysitting.
Something I’ve noticed is that the vast majority of Christians haven’t studied the philosophy of their religion so I want to give you a modified take on the problem of evil to think on as an example of why religion should be a family matter and not up to the state:
First, Yahweh (your god) was originally a weather and war god alongside a variety of Canaanite gods and goddesses, including El, Asherah and Baal before the Israelites became monotheistic and believed Yahweh to be omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent- this means all powerful, all knowing, and present in all places.
There is a problem with Him being able to be all three of those and the nature of our reality though.
If God is all knowing and all powerful then why does evil exist? Either he doesn’t not know of evil or he is not powerful enough to stop it. The common response is that God allows for free will and therefore evil is a byproduct of that.
But, how can God know every action you will take before your very creation and free will still exist? He cannot be all-knowing if you as a mere mortal can take an action of free will that he does not know will happen, and if he does know it will happen then the very act of your creation means you do not have free will.
That means that he knows that he is creating people that by their very creation will now be sentenced to an eternity in hell by his own rules because they made choices he knew they would make before they made them and yet created them anyway.
Free will cannot exist if we are created by an all knowing, all powerful, always present god of our entire universe.
If you want to believe that isn’t the case then that is up to you, but it isn’t the state of Oklahomas job to try to teach my kid it isn’t.
I appreciate the response, but the Israelites existed before they got to Canaan so the first point makes no sense.
As far as "not being powerful enough" please read the book of Revelation and see what happens. The reason there is good at all right now is because he is restraining the evil.
On the free will issue, just because He knows what you will choose does not mean He determines what you choose. You still choose, but because he is omnipotent he knows what you will choose before you even do it.
The reason why He is still moral for creating people that are doomed to hell is because he gave us a choice, to either believe in Him and spend eternity with Him, or to not care and go to hell. It is not guaranteed that any one person will go to hell since they get to choose what they do. It is our own wrongdoing that sends us to hell. (why babies who die go to heaven automatically since they have no knowledge of good or evil)
They did exist before arriving in Canaan, and both peoples worshiped wider Levantine pantheons. There is no debate that before the monotheistic form of Judaism it was a pantheistic religion.
Why is God having to restrain an evil he created? He is the creator of everything. Formed the universe from an empty void. All things good and evil are of his creation. Does he not have the power to end evil instead of merely restrain it?
As to the illusion of choice, if he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt what choices you will make before you are created how can you choose anything? It is determined. He knows what will happen. The very act of my creation means I am doomed to make the choices he knows I will make. There is no way for me to do anything he does not know will happen, which means he has created untold millions of people solely to populate a torture chamber he created himself for us. You may think you can choose good over evil but whatever you choose it has already been decided. For God the ending of the movie has already been spoiled. The moment he created you, your fate was sealed. Unless, he does not actually know what is going to happen with your life, that by creating you he has allowed for random chance and your own choices to unfold in a way he does not know how it would end. Which would mean he is not an all-knowing god.
Ok.... I have never heard that the Jews were ever truly polytheistic. I think that every single practicing Jew in Israel and abroad would stare at you blankly if you said that to their face. The whole entire reason the Israelites even went to Canaan in the first place was because their 1 God told them to go there and claim the land.
When God created everything, it was good, but his angels apparently have/had free will, and Lucifer fell from heaven etc. He was the first being to sin, and then influenced Adam and Eve to sin. No one forced or made them sin, they still chose to eat the fruit. The point is, everything was good, and His creation messed it all up without His intervention. He did not create anything inherently evil.
As for free will, let's look at a hypothetical. We plan a barbecue together in a week. So I know we are going to have a barbecue in a week. You still have the ability to choose whether or not to cancel the barbecue before it happens, but you don't, and I knew you wouldn't because you had nothing else planned. Free will in a nutshell.
Southern Baptists are the least likely to blindly treat baptism = Christian.
Like the major point of baptist theology is a repudiation of everyone getting baptized regardless of their actual relationship to Christ and the church
>No actual church would baptize just anyone willy nilly.
Yes they do. I was willy-nillied. I got baptized in a Baptist church. Answered the invitation call (or whatever it is at the end of each service) and requested to be saved and baptized. Badda bing badda boom, baptized the following Sunday.
Travelling Tent Revivals do this very thing. They 'sell' a little healing, a little salvation and maybe some books and snake oil. They will dunk anyone who shows up and be gone to the next town on Monday.
It is crazy and it's how all these performative grifters have been allowed to enter the church. So many of those you think believe, don't, and use the church for their own benefit. It's a special kind of evil, but people in the church trust them because they've done xyz so that other members believe they're true believers.
It’s a hard monster to fight, the idea now is if your not a Christian teacher your gonna be outcast and possibly fined for teaching about dinosaurs. Same with getting anywhere in any Christian dominated social space, there a ton of peer pressure to join the faith even tho none of us understand it or are ok with half the shit they say until you’ve given up and joined and been indoctrinated
I agree with you. However, the fact that you disagree with a lot of people in this thread highlights the issue. There are tons of sects within Christianity. Latter Day Saints is a Christian sect, but it is one that many evangelical Christians believe is unorthodox. Fundamentalist Baptists believe that Catholicism is run by the devil. Some Christians include the deuterocanon in the Bible, some don’t. Some consider any Bible, other than the king James version to be an abomination.
“Teaching the Bible” is incredibly fraught in anything other than a survey of religions. Even if it did not run a foul of the establishment clause, it is a terrible idea because of the diversity within the religion itself.
Right, but most churches keep record of your baptism and use it for verification that you're an eligible member. You can make a personal declaration for Christ without baptism, but you couldn't prove to anyone else that you had done so. Baptism is the proof.
They will. Then the schools will pay out lots of money. The schools won't be able to afford to stay open. Now there are only private schools left, mission accomplished. This one law won't do it by itself but they are working on it.
Same thing. It's like if you sue the police department it's not the pd that pays damages it's the city. Any money lost in a lawsuit will come from the education fund. That just leaves less money for schools to pay for teachers and resources. To counter that they close some schools and consolidate. Next year when they pass a don't say gay bill(or whatever else) then they have to repeat. Then some private company will come in and save the day by managing all the states schools because the government sucked at it.
you "hoping" that the schools are sued to oblivion is exactly what ryan walters wants. embrace (walters was a teacher) extend (im a good christun jes' like you!) extinguish (public schools are destroyed after the inevitable supreme court challenge)
I highly doubt this will actually occur. The courts will put a temporary stop to it until a higher court can make a ruling. This is clearly unconstitutional and even our own Attorney General who is also a republican , knows that.
Walters is just trying to make a name for himself nationally. He has political aspirations & is trying to get his name out there. He also has aspirations to make this state “Gilead”. Right now he and Stitt are wasting tax payers money & it’s as simple as that,
At this point the bar is low I think we would take anyone as long as the R is by the name.
If you need a campaign manager I’ll do it for free. All require is a margarita machine in my office once you win by a landslide
🛎 🛎 🛎 Walters DOE financial expenditures are already being looked at as he is using state money to promote himself on a national level. He is further wasting educational funding as none of this will hold up to legal action, as he well knows. It’s a self-created opportunity for him do lots of posturing in hopes of furthering his political career.
If you want to help get losers like him out of office, support getting rid of straight party voting!!!
Malicious compliance is the answer
Per the wording of the memo they must “ incorporate the Bible into their curriculum”
Math: Let’s find the surface area of the Bible
English: No change, as always, it’s been a decent or reoccurring source for analogies across many other fictions. “Oh yeah this scene in this book is like that story in [insert bible ref]; the moral of that was generally blah blah blah”
Science: Tell the truth with your scientific findings, don’t fake results or god, thru me as your Teacher, shall SMITE THEE, with a failing grade.
History: okay students in this passage of the Bible you’ll read when it’s okay to kill other people. That’s why this war happened in history and these are the following consequences that…..
Math: let’s find the circumference of a circle, but you must use 1 Kings 7:23 for the Biblical reference, wherein the true value of Pi - 3 is revealed.
Let’s go build some roads and houses with what we’ve learned!
hahaha how many cubits long would US-412 be?
EDIT: i did the math myself. 1 mile is 3576 cubits (roughly 18 inches) so US-412 is 4,041,241.6 cubits (or, 1,130 miles)!
I would get a teaching certificate just for the joy of teaching the Bible to public school students. Let’s get the true face of that demiurge in front of these kids with the verses Christians like to pretend aren’t there.
I teach physics. I can dispel the magic of miracles using science that wasn't understood 'back in the day'. I'm certain they have thought this through....
As bad it is now you don’t need a certificate to sub. That is the route I’m going if this actually occurs. I‘m retired and don’t even want to work but Shitt is forcing me to.
NAL but know a lot of them.
What Walters is doing is going to fail immediately. All you need is one Jewish or Muslim teacher, which I GUARANTEE the Oklahoma ACLU would love to hear from, and this goes away. Trying to force this would be illegal on the grounds of the US and Oklahoma state constitution.
The practical effect is that those teachers who don’t want to won’t teach it and can comfortably ignore this, while religious teachers will use this as license to be (even more openly) discriminatory against kids who don’t follow their religious beliefs. In the meantime a culture of hostility towards non-Protestants becomes manifest. Ask me how I know.
All the need is one large lawsuit from each school district, this is their way to win the privatization of public schools. They want them to sue. And it will definitely happen.
Well, honestly of we want to end this quickly - since Mr Walters is so opposed to "porn," let's all open our books to the song of Solomon ... for a little background, King Solomon was professed to be the wisest king by God. He had 1000 wives and several girlfriends on the side... and this book is all about how he enjoyed servicing them and being serviced... but let's start at the beginning, shall we...
1 The song of songs, which is Solomon's.
2 Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine.
3 Because of the savour of thy good ointments thy name is as ointment poured forth, therefore do the virgins love thee.
4 Draw me, we will run after thee: the king hath brought me into his chambers: we will be glad and rejoice in thee, we will remember thy love more than wine: the upright love thee.
5 I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon.
6 Look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me: my mother's children were angry with me; they made me the keeper of the vineyards; but mine own vineyard have I not kept.
7 Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon: for why should I be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of thy companions?
8 If thou know not, O thou fairest among women, go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock, and feed thy kids beside the shepherds' tents.
9 I have compared thee, O my love, to a company of horses in Pharaoh's chariots.
10 Thy cheeks are comely with rows of jewels, thy neck with chains of gold.
11 We will make thee borders of gold with studs of silver.
12 While the king sitteth at his table, my spikenard sendeth forth the smell thereof
Now then, let's dig deeply into this book and see what we can learn aside from the love between humans in this wonderful book full of people of color, and the ancient civilizations they ruled prior to the interference of Europeans....
Hit up Ezekiel 23:19-21 for some spicy Bible action:
Yet she became more and more promiscuous as she recalled the days of her youth, when she was a prostitute in Egypt. There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses. So you longed for the lewdness of your youth, when in Egypt your bosom was caressed and your young breasts fondled.
They announced they want to hire 40 some new teachers. Good luck w that unless they are all Christian. Nobody wants to teach here already. Let’s add more obstacles. Stitt’s whole thing is making OK a Top Ten state. Doing a bang up job so far making it top ten of the worst states.
They actually are doing a good job when you consider their goals do not align with ours. When it comes to school privatization, they’re like velociraptors testing the fencing around the park. They will never stop trying, in this case because they have too much money being driven into it. Many ways to do so, too. Total collapse in personnel is just one.
It’s still wild to me we’re paying for RW’s PR firm to help him cook this shit up and further harm our schools. Like just simmer on that. We are paying for them to destroy our schools *on purpose*.
Pretty sure the whole point of this is to waste taxpayer money on frivolous lawsuits, and further erode the number of people who want to teach in public schools. Walters and Stitt both know this won't stand, but it does show future teachers what kind of hostile environment we have here, thus prompting them to leave for greener pastures and our public schools will struggle to meet the test scores needed to avoid losing accreditation. Sure it seems like Walter is an unqualified idiot of a superintendent. However his job isn't to be superintendent, it's to dismantle public schools and get parents to send their kids to religious private schools.
Not yet. But in a year or two when the court says religious tests for office and state religions are fine—but only if it’s Christianity—then yes, you will have to be an evangelical.
Surely you won't have to be a Christian to be a teacher but I'm sure they'll come up with some clever way of telling whether you are or not, say a little patch that you have to wear on all your clothing. Something like that.
And which bible are they going to teach from? Catholic? King James? English standard?
I saw a few comments bringing this up, but I believe ( this would take more study ) that a state is required to have public schools to receive federal funding....like that's part of what the federal budget is per state, so the less public schools their are then OK will get less funding.
I believe DipSitt already tried to stop recieve federal funding and went crawling back.
They Wanker and DipSitt will ruin the state to the point the federal government will have to step in to fix it...
Now that will probably only happen under Dem, and probably would require a Liberal Supreme Court ( instead of the illiberal one we have ) and a Senate who isn't insane.
Most of us will be in wheelchairs before it gets to that...but it probably will from the lasting damage of the moron squad
No, you don't need to be a Christian: You just need to be a republican who hides behind Christianity. After all, republican policies don't align with Christianity - not even their anti-abortion stance - but they do align with F the homeless, hungry, poor, hate your neighbor if they're LGBTQ, and jail the stranger who dares migrate to Oklahoma.
Oh they will make the money. If you think they won’t you have a rude awakening coming. Should the money be spent in other places yes. If they are trying to bankrupt the public schools this would just speed it up.
Even if they do manage to afford it, it wouldn't be hard to sabotage them in a way that leaves them operable but ineffective. There are ways around everything they want to do, and parents need to be sure we're involved and harassing OSDE so that they don't have the time to harrass our schools.
The lawsuits are more so what they are banking on. Cameras would open a lawsuit, I don’t see how forcing someone to teach the Bible isn’t going to be a lawsuit. They don’t need to win them.
The thing that gets me, though, is what's stopping us from reorganizing and asking for federal assistance that we should be getting anyway. We could let them do their private nonsense but skirt the issue entirely by talking directly to the feds. Why do we need the OSDE?
It would have to be an elected one. I am not sure how that would even work. I mean we had the civil war so it shows you people can break apart from the government.
Wouldn't it more than just Christian? Wouldn't they have to be the approved state version of Christianity, too?
Just imagine the damage this will do.
.. 🤦🏼♀️ People who are ok with this have not really thought this through. There are many different interpretations out there. What about Catholics? *Sigh*I can see this causing a lot of infighting.
I see no way not for this to become a religious test. Even if Walters had the department of education write out the curriculum, it's only a matter of time before some fundy parent takes a teacher to court for teaching a doctrine out of the Bible that the parent thinks is heretical.
Walters cares nothing about the actual details or faith itself. Walters cares nothing about the students and teachers of Oklahoma. He is trying to get attention for a run at higher office and raise campaign funds for the future. The students and teachers are merely pawns in his political game.
They want everyone to become Christians.. In the end they will call Christians who believe differently to be Not Real Christians; Heretics. Non believers they will call some name like pagans, infidels, kafirs. There will be purity tests. Inquisitions, religious police. They opened up a can of worms.
At least so far they can't legally require you to be a Christian to teach in Oklahoma, and even if they could, you could get baptized just to teach and then still teach whatever you want. So maybe forcing schools to teach religion is a bad idea.
Funny how this thread became an argument about baptismal requirements. For what it’s worth, there are Christian religions, such as Salvation Army and Quakers, that don’t require baptism for membership. Also, there are so many independent Christian churches out there that I’d be shocked of some of those also don’t require baptism.
Hell my Baptist household growing up considered it just a formality anyway.
I’m Catholic (kinda maybe?) and baptism is such a huge big deal for us. I was a little surprised that it’s such a big deal for most Protestant churches too, since Catholics think they have the corner on all these core beliefs. Speaking of which, I was a Catholic attending a Southern Baptist private school as a kid. There was so much anti-Catholic sentiment at that school, especially from the more religious teachers. If this Bible requirement actually goes through, it will open a huge can of worms in every direction.
They certainly will try with their systematic dismantling of all diversity equality and inclusion requirements
No no someone could not just get baptized. For people not of that belief that is akin to selling their souls. No one should ever have to be baptized.
You misunderstand. I'm saying that if someone doesn't have a belief system, they could choose to get baptized disingenuously just so they could teach, count as a Christian under the law, and teach about things the government wouldn't want them teaching. It's an argument about the silliness of requiring religious teachings in schools, not an argument saying we SHOULD have this requirement. We absolutely should not.
I’m ready to see Mary Boren take Walters to court
Getting baptized does not make you a Christian.
It does with southern baptists. "I got my golden ticket, you git your golden ticket?!?" ~Literally my pastor when I was a kid.
Lol well perhaps they need to revise some things
Hell, as long as they leave the rest of us out of it, they can believe whatever. Lol
I'm a Christian so I don't necessarily agree, but I wouldn't force it on anyone either
Therein lies the problem. Regardless of the unconstitutionality of it and the fact that people other than Christians deserve to be educated free of forced religion— There’s over 200 forms of Christianity in the United States alone. Which Jesus are we going to state mandate in Oklahoma? Is it the one who’s cool with infant baptisms like the Methodists believe, or is it the one who doesn’t believe there should be instruments allowed in church like the church of Christ, or the Baptist one that believes in determinism, or the other Baptist one that doesn’t? It goes on and on. Ridiculous.
Well I guess the solution would be to just straight up read the Bible to the students with no personal interpretation and leave the rest up to the students.
Or, here’s a crazy idea.. leave it up to the parents to give their child the spiritual instruction they want them to have and keep the state out of it. Which bible would you like to be straight up read to the students? There’s over 450 versions in English alone.
True. No one would understand the kjv so esv would be my choice. Honestly I'm just gonna grab popcorn and see what happens because this whole thing should be entertaining.
You just said you wouldn't want to force it on anyone. How is this your solution? The bible has no place in public school. It's unconstitutional for one.
No I was explaining what my solution would be to "which Jesus would they teach", not that I am for or against this situation as a whole.
What about that would be teaching? This isn’t Mesopotamian Poetry Jam, it’s a school where you only introduce topics to help students achieve learning goals. If there are no learning goals it’s not teaching, it’s babysitting.
True so idk
Something I’ve noticed is that the vast majority of Christians haven’t studied the philosophy of their religion so I want to give you a modified take on the problem of evil to think on as an example of why religion should be a family matter and not up to the state: First, Yahweh (your god) was originally a weather and war god alongside a variety of Canaanite gods and goddesses, including El, Asherah and Baal before the Israelites became monotheistic and believed Yahweh to be omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent- this means all powerful, all knowing, and present in all places. There is a problem with Him being able to be all three of those and the nature of our reality though. If God is all knowing and all powerful then why does evil exist? Either he doesn’t not know of evil or he is not powerful enough to stop it. The common response is that God allows for free will and therefore evil is a byproduct of that. But, how can God know every action you will take before your very creation and free will still exist? He cannot be all-knowing if you as a mere mortal can take an action of free will that he does not know will happen, and if he does know it will happen then the very act of your creation means you do not have free will. That means that he knows that he is creating people that by their very creation will now be sentenced to an eternity in hell by his own rules because they made choices he knew they would make before they made them and yet created them anyway. Free will cannot exist if we are created by an all knowing, all powerful, always present god of our entire universe. If you want to believe that isn’t the case then that is up to you, but it isn’t the state of Oklahomas job to try to teach my kid it isn’t.
I appreciate the response, but the Israelites existed before they got to Canaan so the first point makes no sense. As far as "not being powerful enough" please read the book of Revelation and see what happens. The reason there is good at all right now is because he is restraining the evil. On the free will issue, just because He knows what you will choose does not mean He determines what you choose. You still choose, but because he is omnipotent he knows what you will choose before you even do it. The reason why He is still moral for creating people that are doomed to hell is because he gave us a choice, to either believe in Him and spend eternity with Him, or to not care and go to hell. It is not guaranteed that any one person will go to hell since they get to choose what they do. It is our own wrongdoing that sends us to hell. (why babies who die go to heaven automatically since they have no knowledge of good or evil)
They did exist before arriving in Canaan, and both peoples worshiped wider Levantine pantheons. There is no debate that before the monotheistic form of Judaism it was a pantheistic religion. Why is God having to restrain an evil he created? He is the creator of everything. Formed the universe from an empty void. All things good and evil are of his creation. Does he not have the power to end evil instead of merely restrain it? As to the illusion of choice, if he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt what choices you will make before you are created how can you choose anything? It is determined. He knows what will happen. The very act of my creation means I am doomed to make the choices he knows I will make. There is no way for me to do anything he does not know will happen, which means he has created untold millions of people solely to populate a torture chamber he created himself for us. You may think you can choose good over evil but whatever you choose it has already been decided. For God the ending of the movie has already been spoiled. The moment he created you, your fate was sealed. Unless, he does not actually know what is going to happen with your life, that by creating you he has allowed for random chance and your own choices to unfold in a way he does not know how it would end. Which would mean he is not an all-knowing god.
Ok.... I have never heard that the Jews were ever truly polytheistic. I think that every single practicing Jew in Israel and abroad would stare at you blankly if you said that to their face. The whole entire reason the Israelites even went to Canaan in the first place was because their 1 God told them to go there and claim the land. When God created everything, it was good, but his angels apparently have/had free will, and Lucifer fell from heaven etc. He was the first being to sin, and then influenced Adam and Eve to sin. No one forced or made them sin, they still chose to eat the fruit. The point is, everything was good, and His creation messed it all up without His intervention. He did not create anything inherently evil. As for free will, let's look at a hypothetical. We plan a barbecue together in a week. So I know we are going to have a barbecue in a week. You still have the ability to choose whether or not to cancel the barbecue before it happens, but you don't, and I knew you wouldn't because you had nothing else planned. Free will in a nutshell.
Yeah, clearly Christians aren’t trying to force anything on anyone. They are just gently suggesting, while easing the safety off the gun in their hand
I'm not defending them
Southern Baptists are the least likely to blindly treat baptism = Christian. Like the major point of baptist theology is a repudiation of everyone getting baptized regardless of their actual relationship to Christ and the church
>No actual church would baptize just anyone willy nilly. Yes they do. I was willy-nillied. I got baptized in a Baptist church. Answered the invitation call (or whatever it is at the end of each service) and requested to be saved and baptized. Badda bing badda boom, baptized the following Sunday.
Travelling Tent Revivals do this very thing. They 'sell' a little healing, a little salvation and maybe some books and snake oil. They will dunk anyone who shows up and be gone to the next town on Monday.
That's kinda crazy
Kinda crazy the Baptists like to baptize? It’s sort of in the name..
It is crazy and it's how all these performative grifters have been allowed to enter the church. So many of those you think believe, don't, and use the church for their own benefit. It's a special kind of evil, but people in the church trust them because they've done xyz so that other members believe they're true believers.
Yup
It’s a hard monster to fight, the idea now is if your not a Christian teacher your gonna be outcast and possibly fined for teaching about dinosaurs. Same with getting anywhere in any Christian dominated social space, there a ton of peer pressure to join the faith even tho none of us understand it or are ok with half the shit they say until you’ve given up and joined and been indoctrinated
I agree with you. However, the fact that you disagree with a lot of people in this thread highlights the issue. There are tons of sects within Christianity. Latter Day Saints is a Christian sect, but it is one that many evangelical Christians believe is unorthodox. Fundamentalist Baptists believe that Catholicism is run by the devil. Some Christians include the deuterocanon in the Bible, some don’t. Some consider any Bible, other than the king James version to be an abomination. “Teaching the Bible” is incredibly fraught in anything other than a survey of religions. Even if it did not run a foul of the establishment clause, it is a terrible idea because of the diversity within the religion itself.
Right.
Depends on who you ask, since there are like ten thousand versions of Christianity.
Anyone who says getting baptized makes you a Christian has not read their Bible properly. Getting baptized is to be done after you're saved.
Right, but most churches keep record of your baptism and use it for verification that you're an eligible member. You can make a personal declaration for Christ without baptism, but you couldn't prove to anyone else that you had done so. Baptism is the proof.
Exactly
Only according to whatever versions of Christianity you agree with. Which is the whole fucking point.
It doesn't, but if we're applying a legal standard for Christianity, that would probably be the starting point
Being elected doesn't make for a competent policy maker, but Ol' Ry-Ry's still fumbling on
I'm hoping a teacher will sue for being required to teach from a religious book.
They will. Then the schools will pay out lots of money. The schools won't be able to afford to stay open. Now there are only private schools left, mission accomplished. This one law won't do it by itself but they are working on it.
Teachers should sue the state as it isn't their *school* that's mandating the Christian lesson plans, but the State Superintendent and his office
Same thing. It's like if you sue the police department it's not the pd that pays damages it's the city. Any money lost in a lawsuit will come from the education fund. That just leaves less money for schools to pay for teachers and resources. To counter that they close some schools and consolidate. Next year when they pass a don't say gay bill(or whatever else) then they have to repeat. Then some private company will come in and save the day by managing all the states schools because the government sucked at it.
This exactly!!!! They know someone is going to sue.
you "hoping" that the schools are sued to oblivion is exactly what ryan walters wants. embrace (walters was a teacher) extend (im a good christun jes' like you!) extinguish (public schools are destroyed after the inevitable supreme court challenge)
I highly doubt this will actually occur. The courts will put a temporary stop to it until a higher court can make a ruling. This is clearly unconstitutional and even our own Attorney General who is also a republican , knows that. Walters is just trying to make a name for himself nationally. He has political aspirations & is trying to get his name out there. He also has aspirations to make this state “Gilead”. Right now he and Stitt are wasting tax payers money & it’s as simple as that,
wtf? I should run for governor, at least I’d waste tax dollars on cool stuff, not trying to destroy the education system.
At this point the bar is low I think we would take anyone as long as the R is by the name. If you need a campaign manager I’ll do it for free. All require is a margarita machine in my office once you win by a landslide
🤝 you got a deal. I’m gonna goof everyone and legalize recreational pot 🤭
I'd rather waste tax dollars on Ice Town than on a Gilead starter
Ice town costs ice clown his town crown
🛎 🛎 🛎 Walters DOE financial expenditures are already being looked at as he is using state money to promote himself on a national level. He is further wasting educational funding as none of this will hold up to legal action, as he well knows. It’s a self-created opportunity for him do lots of posturing in hopes of furthering his political career. If you want to help get losers like him out of office, support getting rid of straight party voting!!!
This is honestly so terrifying. I thought I would live the rest of my life in Oklahoma. Now I know that's probably not in the cards.
If it wasn’t for grandkids, we’d be gone as well.
Malicious compliance is the answer Per the wording of the memo they must “ incorporate the Bible into their curriculum” Math: Let’s find the surface area of the Bible English: No change, as always, it’s been a decent or reoccurring source for analogies across many other fictions. “Oh yeah this scene in this book is like that story in [insert bible ref]; the moral of that was generally blah blah blah” Science: Tell the truth with your scientific findings, don’t fake results or god, thru me as your Teacher, shall SMITE THEE, with a failing grade. History: okay students in this passage of the Bible you’ll read when it’s okay to kill other people. That’s why this war happened in history and these are the following consequences that…..
And teachers could teach from the Skeptic's Annotated Bible.
Math: let’s find the circumference of a circle, but you must use 1 Kings 7:23 for the Biblical reference, wherein the true value of Pi - 3 is revealed. Let’s go build some roads and houses with what we’ve learned!
hahaha how many cubits long would US-412 be? EDIT: i did the math myself. 1 mile is 3576 cubits (roughly 18 inches) so US-412 is 4,041,241.6 cubits (or, 1,130 miles)!
I would get a teaching certificate just for the joy of teaching the Bible to public school students. Let’s get the true face of that demiurge in front of these kids with the verses Christians like to pretend aren’t there.
I teach physics. I can dispel the magic of miracles using science that wasn't understood 'back in the day'. I'm certain they have thought this through....
As bad it is now you don’t need a certificate to sub. That is the route I’m going if this actually occurs. I‘m retired and don’t even want to work but Shitt is forcing me to.
I, thankfully, don’t live in Oklahoma anymore, but if I did I would do that too to teach these kids why the Gnostics were Gnostics.
NAL but know a lot of them. What Walters is doing is going to fail immediately. All you need is one Jewish or Muslim teacher, which I GUARANTEE the Oklahoma ACLU would love to hear from, and this goes away. Trying to force this would be illegal on the grounds of the US and Oklahoma state constitution. The practical effect is that those teachers who don’t want to won’t teach it and can comfortably ignore this, while religious teachers will use this as license to be (even more openly) discriminatory against kids who don’t follow their religious beliefs. In the meantime a culture of hostility towards non-Protestants becomes manifest. Ask me how I know.
All the need is one large lawsuit from each school district, this is their way to win the privatization of public schools. They want them to sue. And it will definitely happen.
Local elections matter.
Well, honestly of we want to end this quickly - since Mr Walters is so opposed to "porn," let's all open our books to the song of Solomon ... for a little background, King Solomon was professed to be the wisest king by God. He had 1000 wives and several girlfriends on the side... and this book is all about how he enjoyed servicing them and being serviced... but let's start at the beginning, shall we... 1 The song of songs, which is Solomon's. 2 Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine. 3 Because of the savour of thy good ointments thy name is as ointment poured forth, therefore do the virgins love thee. 4 Draw me, we will run after thee: the king hath brought me into his chambers: we will be glad and rejoice in thee, we will remember thy love more than wine: the upright love thee. 5 I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon. 6 Look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me: my mother's children were angry with me; they made me the keeper of the vineyards; but mine own vineyard have I not kept. 7 Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon: for why should I be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of thy companions? 8 If thou know not, O thou fairest among women, go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock, and feed thy kids beside the shepherds' tents. 9 I have compared thee, O my love, to a company of horses in Pharaoh's chariots. 10 Thy cheeks are comely with rows of jewels, thy neck with chains of gold. 11 We will make thee borders of gold with studs of silver. 12 While the king sitteth at his table, my spikenard sendeth forth the smell thereof Now then, let's dig deeply into this book and see what we can learn aside from the love between humans in this wonderful book full of people of color, and the ancient civilizations they ruled prior to the interference of Europeans....
Hit up Ezekiel 23:19-21 for some spicy Bible action: Yet she became more and more promiscuous as she recalled the days of her youth, when she was a prostitute in Egypt. There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses. So you longed for the lewdness of your youth, when in Egypt your bosom was caressed and your young breasts fondled.
Solomon had a lot to sing about.
Graphicly
They announced they want to hire 40 some new teachers. Good luck w that unless they are all Christian. Nobody wants to teach here already. Let’s add more obstacles. Stitt’s whole thing is making OK a Top Ten state. Doing a bang up job so far making it top ten of the worst states.
They actually are doing a good job when you consider their goals do not align with ours. When it comes to school privatization, they’re like velociraptors testing the fencing around the park. They will never stop trying, in this case because they have too much money being driven into it. Many ways to do so, too. Total collapse in personnel is just one. It’s still wild to me we’re paying for RW’s PR firm to help him cook this shit up and further harm our schools. Like just simmer on that. We are paying for them to destroy our schools *on purpose*.
Love the velociraptor analogy.
Pretty sure the whole point of this is to waste taxpayer money on frivolous lawsuits, and further erode the number of people who want to teach in public schools. Walters and Stitt both know this won't stand, but it does show future teachers what kind of hostile environment we have here, thus prompting them to leave for greener pastures and our public schools will struggle to meet the test scores needed to avoid losing accreditation. Sure it seems like Walter is an unqualified idiot of a superintendent. However his job isn't to be superintendent, it's to dismantle public schools and get parents to send their kids to religious private schools.
Not yet. But in a year or two when the court says religious tests for office and state religions are fine—but only if it’s Christianity—then yes, you will have to be an evangelical.
Fuck Oklahoma
We only allow certified ministers from now on.
Good question. Don’t count on an answer anytime soon.
Surely you won't have to be a Christian to be a teacher but I'm sure they'll come up with some clever way of telling whether you are or not, say a little patch that you have to wear on all your clothing. Something like that. And which bible are they going to teach from? Catholic? King James? English standard?
RSV, The living buybull.........
I saw a few comments bringing this up, but I believe ( this would take more study ) that a state is required to have public schools to receive federal funding....like that's part of what the federal budget is per state, so the less public schools their are then OK will get less funding. I believe DipSitt already tried to stop recieve federal funding and went crawling back. They Wanker and DipSitt will ruin the state to the point the federal government will have to step in to fix it... Now that will probably only happen under Dem, and probably would require a Liberal Supreme Court ( instead of the illiberal one we have ) and a Senate who isn't insane. Most of us will be in wheelchairs before it gets to that...but it probably will from the lasting damage of the moron squad
Not at the school the Satanic Temple is wanting to start
They'll probably pay better. So I'll be working there.
No, you don't need to be a Christian: You just need to be a republican who hides behind Christianity. After all, republican policies don't align with Christianity - not even their anti-abortion stance - but they do align with F the homeless, hungry, poor, hate your neighbor if they're LGBTQ, and jail the stranger who dares migrate to Oklahoma.
Nope. Even if they do try to require it, how do you quantify that?
From what I have read they will be putting cameras in classrooms so the parents can have access to what their children are “learning”.
Right, like they could afford that.
Oh they will make the money. If you think they won’t you have a rude awakening coming. Should the money be spent in other places yes. If they are trying to bankrupt the public schools this would just speed it up.
Even if they do manage to afford it, it wouldn't be hard to sabotage them in a way that leaves them operable but ineffective. There are ways around everything they want to do, and parents need to be sure we're involved and harassing OSDE so that they don't have the time to harrass our schools.
The lawsuits are more so what they are banking on. Cameras would open a lawsuit, I don’t see how forcing someone to teach the Bible isn’t going to be a lawsuit. They don’t need to win them.
The thing that gets me, though, is what's stopping us from reorganizing and asking for federal assistance that we should be getting anyway. We could let them do their private nonsense but skirt the issue entirely by talking directly to the feds. Why do we need the OSDE?
I would think because Oklahoma is still a state they wouldn’t want to overstep the government here.
It would be a citizen organization at that point. Oklahoma would have to start arresting citizens to stop it.
It would have to be an elected one. I am not sure how that would even work. I mean we had the civil war so it shows you people can break apart from the government.
Wouldn't it more than just Christian? Wouldn't they have to be the approved state version of Christianity, too? Just imagine the damage this will do. .. 🤦🏼♀️ People who are ok with this have not really thought this through. There are many different interpretations out there. What about Catholics? *Sigh*I can see this causing a lot of infighting.
I see no way not for this to become a religious test. Even if Walters had the department of education write out the curriculum, it's only a matter of time before some fundy parent takes a teacher to court for teaching a doctrine out of the Bible that the parent thinks is heretical.
The powers that be want it to be a requirement to even live in the state and the the country. Not a Christian, GTFO. Republicans want a theocracy.
Man why can’t school be school. No religion no politics just education and ofc good male and female role models
Walters cares nothing about the actual details or faith itself. Walters cares nothing about the students and teachers of Oklahoma. He is trying to get attention for a run at higher office and raise campaign funds for the future. The students and teachers are merely pawns in his political game.
Not yet. Give it time 🙄🤦🏻♀️
I was planning on becoming a substitute teacher this fall but I’m pagan so am I like, disqualified now or …?
Not even a little bit. It’s all just political posturing.
They want everyone to become Christians.. In the end they will call Christians who believe differently to be Not Real Christians; Heretics. Non believers they will call some name like pagans, infidels, kafirs. There will be purity tests. Inquisitions, religious police. They opened up a can of worms.