Over 100,000 Public Elementary School Students To Get Bible Lessons On Killing Unbelievers

blogs.alternet.org...

a May 30, 2012 story in The Guardian, journalist Katherine Stewart, author of The Good News Club: The Christian Right’s Stealth Assault on America’s Children reveals that next Fall over 100,000 elementary school students in American public schools will receive explicit coaching on the scriptural justification for killing unbelievers, every last one – drawing on Old Testament scripture that, according to Pennsylvania State professor Philip Jenkins, author of Laying Down the Sword: Why We Can’t Ignore the Bible’s Violent Verses, has historically been used by the Pilgrims to justify slaughtering Native Americans, by Catholics and Protestants to justify slaughtering each other, and during the early 1990s in Rwanda, to justify killing Tutsis. The genocide lessons – which emphasize that divinely-mandated instructions to kill unbelievers must be carried out thoroughly and without reservation, will be taught next year in “Good News” clubs in over 3200 public schools across America, by the Christian fundamentalist ministry Child Evangelism Fellowship. As Stewart describes, the CEF’s new curriculum is quite direct – there’s nothing “spiritualized” or metaphorical about its use of scripture.

This is F-ed up. Why the hell do they think this would be in anyway ok. I implore you to read the whole thing and tell me what you think

What do I think?

I think organized religion holds far too much influence over weak minds, and they should be barred from existence on this rock.

Too much insane indoctrination, and outright abuse in these institutions. It's one of the last remnants from the dark ages.

reply to post by lobotomizemecapin

So even if a few of those kids take this thing personally, there will be serial killers being created. Not too good of an idea to give a cause to some impressionable person.

An Alternet article about an article in The Guardian.

That's a lot like a FoxNews article about an article on Breitbart.

Don't get so excited. Legions of Hitler youth aren't going to go in droves killing non-believers.

/TOA

Our church runs a good news club at the local elementry. I know the director and I will see what's up with this.

Typically the "good news" club lessons are pretty tame when it comes to theology and the lessons's they teach.

My first thought is someone has an agenda to discredit the fact that a "christian group" is in a public school.
The club is an afterschool program and entirely voluntary.

Force should not be applied to religious worship, for the view points of those forcing may be objective to what is subjective. This in turns makes a flawed force based off of hatred and misguidance.

Ah the same author is also writing a book comapring right wing christians to islamic radicals.

I've got news for everyone. I am a Christian and i have no inate desire to kill non believers. it's not taught in local churches, it wasn't esposed by Christ. It's not going to happen. Some of the more fundamentalists do and teach some wacky things. There are an extreme few that some would consider fanatical (the idiots in KS come to mind). Those are repudiated by mainstream (and even most evangelical churches).

But there isn't going to be any large Christian jihad,,,,start worrying about those that are calling for jihad, on ALL Americans.

This is an after school program sponsored by: Child Evangelism Fellowship / Good News Club

There are now over 3,200 clubs in public elementary schools, up more than sevenfold since the 2001 supreme court decision, Good News Club v Milford Central School, effectively required schools to include such clubs in their after-school programing.

GOOD NEWS CLUB v. MILFORD CENTRAL SCHOOL

This fall, more than 100,000 American public school children, ranging in age from four to 12, are scheduled to receive instruction in the lessons of Saul and the Amalekites in the comfort of their own public school classrooms. The instruction, which features in the second week of a weekly "Bible study" course, will come from the Good News Club, an after-school program sponsored by a group called the Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF). The aim of the CEF is to convert young children to a fundamentalist form of the Christian faith and recruit their peers to the club.

Source

This isn't Christianity. This is mental illness if true. I want to see this manual.

The instruction manual goes on to champion obedience in all things. In fact, pretty much every lesson that the Good News Club gives involves reminding children that they must, at all costs, obey. If God tells you to kill nonbelievers, he really wants you to kill them all. No questions asked, no exceptions allowed.

Originally posted by lobotomizemecapin
blogs.alternet.org...

a May 30, 2012 story in The Guardian, journalist Katherine Stewart, author of The Good News Club: The Christian Right’s Stealth Assault on America’s Children reveals that next Fall over 100,000 elementary school students in American public schools will receive explicit coaching on the scriptural justification for killing unbelievers, every last one – drawing on Old Testament scripture that, according to Pennsylvania State professor Philip Jenkins, author of Laying Down the Sword: Why We Can’t Ignore the Bible’s Violent Verses, has historically been used by the Pilgrims to justify slaughtering Native Americans, by Catholics and Protestants to justify slaughtering each other, and during the early 1990s in Rwanda, to justify killing Tutsis. The genocide lessons – which emphasize that divinely-mandated instructions to kill unbelievers must be carried out thoroughly and without reservation, will be taught next year in “Good News” clubs in over 3200 public schools across America, by the Christian fundamentalist ministry Child Evangelism Fellowship. As Stewart describes, the CEF’s new curriculum is quite direct – there’s nothing “spiritualized” or metaphorical about its use of scripture.

This is F-ed up. Why the hell do they think this would be in anyway ok. I implore you to read the whole thing and tell me what you think

I don't believe it.

reply to post by lobotomizemecapin


Hmmph and they call us Pagans Heathens? What a bunch of tards.

I wish to withdraw my child from public education right now!

That Old Testament God is pretty brutal. "Believe or Die!" so sayeth The Lord. That seems real fair. Is that how you cultivate belief? Threaten and carry out genocide followed by eternal damnation? No place better than elementary school to instill your cult's absurd values.

Originally posted by Urantia1111
That Old Testament God is pretty brutal. "Believe or Die!" so sayeth The Lord. That seems real fair. Is that how you cultivate belief? Threaten and carry out genocide followed by eternal damnation? No place better than elementary school to instill your cult's absurd values.

No, it's not. Not me, although it probably motivates some pretty well.

However; just out of curiosity and for the pure fun of discussion, and I am just pullling this kind of out of thin air here for a second:

What if there was a "secular" reason for Saul to wipe out the Amalekites? There have been some thoughts amongst Christians, some clergy, and even some seminaries on "WHY?" does God appear to be so harsh in the Old Testament, and yet "as gentle as a Lamb" when it comes to His personification of Jesus. No one really knows, and I'll throw you a bone, perhaps it really is all made up.

But humor me for a minute. If there is/was an "all knowing omnipitant being", and he told you to "wipe out" a people group. one would like to think He would have a pretty good reason (other then maybe EGO, but if He cared enough about humanity to sacrifice Himself in the personification of Christ, that doesn't make much sense). Let's flip the coin. What if this "God" is actually an alien force. That's a pretty popular thought on ATS, "ancient aliens" and all that. I don't beleive that. BUT if said alien force tells you to "wipe out those over there", and this entity appears all powerful, you might be enclined to do it.

In fact on a side note, if the Aliens land and tell you to kill all those Christians' I would gather some here on ATS and would volunteer gladly, and then teach it to your children for generations on.........unyil someone says, "that never happened"........

Anyways....it would appear that SOMEOME, told the Hebrews to wipe out everyone. Why? They were a pretty small band of people. Not likely they would have struck out on their own to do this, the same group of people who codefied in ROCK, "thou shall not kill" would then go on to kill a whole race of people. Just a thought.............


So what could be the "reasons".

Perhaps they were carrying a virus or desesae. Maybe they needed to be wiped out to prevent it's spread.
Perhaps they were covorting with "other" super natural beings. Bad Aliens, Satan, or whatever. Perhaps their DNA was now corrupted, perhaps wiping them out was a GOOD THING????
Maybe they were on the cusp of developing a super weapon. Best to wipe them out now.
Maybe it was just a "Hatfield/McCoy" thing.The fact is, who knows???

I am just throwing this out to you under, you know, "deny ignorance", because just because you don't beleive in God, doesn't mean he isn't there, and in the event He is, maybe His actions do in fact, make sense, beyond our temporal understanding.

reply to post by SrWingCommander


Is that an attempt to justify teaching the murder of nonbelievers is ok? I dont care whether someone believes the bible is 100% real or not any murder being justified is messed up. We teach that sex is bad and murder is good... What about that makes any sense?

reply to post by Urantia1111


Yeah I think that they need to keep religion in church and not in places our children go to learn about real things. Fairy tales need to stay away from school teachings.

wow! I cannot believe so many here believe this is going to be taught.
What a bunch of sensationalist hokey.
Really? You guys bought this hook line and sinker?
This is the biggest strawman ever made and wow, lol, you guys bought into this? Really?
I guess if the lie is big enough and outrageous enough that some people feel a need to believe it.

lol, that would actually leave alot of empty pews...lol...really? You guys believe this? lol
wow....really? gullible much?

emoticons are needed here but they need some that denote gullibility.

wow, really?

reply to post by manna2


Source?

Do you have anything productive to the thread rather than than moronic dribble you just posted?

reply to post by lobotomizemecapin


What can be added to such vitriolic fanfare?
Are you really, REALLY selling the b.s. that kids are going to be taught to murder non believers?
Really? You are either lying or being uber gullible and selling it as fact. What can be added to such fanciful hate monguering?
I mean, you CANNOT be serious here, can you?
It's like saying that teaching evolution is teaching kids to murder the weak in support of survival of the fittest.
I mean, really? are you being serious?

reply to post by lobotomizemecapin


No, and you completely avoided anything else I postulated. Let me make a better point. We teach that the Germans slaughtered the Hebrews.....it's called history. The old testement is mainly Hebrew.history.

Frankly, if this is all correct I think it's a stupid idea to put in the good news cirriculm. It's to0 deep, It's too questionable for the age, and it can be way misinterprieted.

Incidently I asked our childrens' minister tonight about this. She has not yet seen next years "good news" cirriculum so she couldn't comment. When I told her the gist of what the online site said her first response was she would be a bit surprised if that was in this years cirriculm, based on what she knows and on the last cirriculum (it's mostly new testement). Her second response was that probably it's been taken out of context.

I need to go read the story again and get the crux of it. I am a little rusty on old testement. I beleive there is more to it then just, "go murder the unbeleivers".

reply to post by lobotomizemecapin


As with anything, politics, history, science, religion, media, technology, sports, fashion, produce, pharmaceuticals, education, work and a gamut of other worldly tools.....................there to capture the weak minded who have zero ability to think and have insight on their own. What does that say about a world who is inhabited by such easily manipulated minds? Perhaps this is an area where parents have gone wrong creating little automotans who will simply believe without thinking for themselves.

No wonder Hitler had such an easy time, it's clearly no different today. The enemy uses everything at his disposal children especially because they are the future world.

All of it is sickening and very agenda driven all the way around.

reply to post by SrWingCommander


Well, you'll be surprised when you start reading the old testament. There are a lot of people killing others in it. I do not consider it bad, just a learning tool to find out why all the people were killed if they did not comply in our history. The New Testament is much more civil throughout and that is what Christianity should have been structured on in the past. Jesus was trying to teach good and a lot of meekness and not shoving of things down others throats. He led by example not what Christianity became. Thank goodness that most of Modern Christianity is not like it was a couple hundred years ago.