Arizona Bible Course Bill To Teach Elective In Public Schools Passes Senate, Goes To Gov. Jan Brewer

[T]herefore education should teach the precepts of religion and the duties of man towards God." Fisher Ames author of the final wording for the First Amendment ...

Fisher Ames author of the final wording for the First Amendment wrote, "[Why] should not the Bible regain the place it once held as a school book? Its morals are pure, its examples captivating and noble. The reverence for the Sacred Book that is thus early impressed lasts long; and probably if not impressed in infancy, never takes firm hold of the mind."

John Jay, Original Chief-Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court , "The Bible is the best of all books, for it is the word of God and teaches us the way to be happy in this world and in the next. Continue therefore to read it and to regulate your life by its precepts."

James Wilson, Signer of the Constitution; U. S. Supreme Court Justice, "Human law must rest its authority ultimately upon the authority of that law which is divine. . . . Far from being rivals or enemies, religion and law are twin sisters, friends, and mutual assistants. Indeed, these two sciences run into each other."

Noah Webster, author of the first American Speller and the first Dictionary stated, "The moral principles and precepts contained in the scriptures ought to form the basis of all our civil constitutions and laws. . . All the miseries and evils which men suffer from vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery, and war, proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible."

Robert Winthrop, Speaker of the U. S. House, "Men, in a word, must necessarily be controlled either by a power within them or by a power without them; either by the Word of God or by the strong arm of man; either by the Bible or by the bayonet."

George Washington, General of the Revolutionary Army, president of the Constitutional Convention, First President of the United States of America, Father of our nation, " Religion and morality are the essential pillars of civil society."

Benjamin Franklin, Signer of the Declaration of Independence "[O]nly a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters."

"Whereas true religion and good morals are the only solid foundations of public liberty and happiness . . . it is hereby earnestly recommended to the several States to take the most effectual measures for the encouragement thereof." Continental Congress, 1778

Note that the above quotes are but a small sample of hundreds of quotes the Founding Fathers made in regards to the importance of a religious and moral people in a successful Republican Democracy.

In our young nation, the Bible was used as a text book for the purpose of teaching children moral principles to live by. As time went on, the Bible was gradually replaced by other text books such as Noah Webster's Primer. Webster's Primer taught children to spell but was also filled with moral Bible verses. In the front of his Primer was his picture with the inscription, "Who taught millions to read but not one to sin."

This is the exact opposite of the school curriculum today. The courts in this country have revised the First Amendment, thus erecting a wall of atheism around every public school in America, where in God is not allowed to be mentioned. This is not the same wall that Thomas Jefferson envisioned.

Has the School Prayer issue affected other Freedoms?

John Adams: Second President of the United States, Signer of the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Ri
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Home ec, band, and sports are all relevant. They're stuff you don't learn at home, and are furthermore not opinion-subjective. Home ec teaches you valuable life skills. Band teaches you music, teamwork, cooperation, dedication. Sports teaches the same thing, athletically. Dance is athletic and an art, often part of drama departments, and experience in it is vital to going to a college to focus on that direction.

If you don't think it's relevant, then I don't know what you expect people to do with their life. I do drama, because I want to work with performing arts, and you have to have experience with that for a college to accept you on those interests.

A Christian college will accept anyone who wants to learn about Christianity or study to be a religious leader, so it's not on the same level of necessity that it be in public school. It's not even a necessity at all. That's why it belongs at home. It's opinion, pure and simple, and not hard fact. Mentioning the hitite people, for example, demonstrates what little value it has-- but I highly doubt that that's the real reason you want it in schools, and that you really want it snuck in under those grounds so that more kids will read and learn about the Bible from a religious rather than objective, historical standpoint.

Religion teaches you what a certain group of people believe supernaturally happened, with no proof or evidence. It's on the same level as a fairy tale, and the only value of such fairy tales-- like Native American ones that we hear-- are to understand the culture of the people who created them, because they're a tangible part of our history.

Yes, we do have to have them.

No, when we have to do cuts, stuff like field trips and science projects get cut. We don't get rid of classes, or the people that teach them. We keep them, because we feel those classes hold intrinsic value, particularly on college applications and scholarship opportunities.

Studying a religious course is likely to cause students to try and take it as an "easy" class to "slack" off on, as opposed to taking something that teaches a measurable life skill. How do you grade such a class? There's a reason my Sunday School classes were never graded. There's simply no objective way to do it. How do you judge how well someone's grasped the material, when any person's interpretation of the material is subjective and variant, and where differences in interpretation are cause for enormous, even volatile disagreements? How do you grade a person on this? Because the only way we passed MY sunday school class was to stand up at the front and prove we could read and sing the hebrew, and carry on traditions. There was no life-impacting grade, because it's simply not feasible nor reasonable.

In short, it's just not an appropriate class to turn into a gradeable elective.

In middle school, I took a class on Goldberg machines. That was measurable. We built rockets, and were judged on our construction of them, as well as our understanding of trajectory and wind direction/speed so that when we set them to fly, we had a prediction of a result, and were graded on the accuracy. We built mousetrap cars. We build mini-catapults. It was an elective, and there was stuff that was easy and clear-cut to be graded on.

I just don't see the same for a class on the Bible. Not when it's focused on it as a religious object and not as a piece of objective history that can be pulled as a source and not the object of a lesson.

A lot of the other people on here also seem to think that if the Bible is being offered, so should other courses. In which case, I would recommend it be changed to a mythology course that explores mythologies from various cultures and countries instead of a singular focus on Christian theology.

I think it's fair to say that in addition to being difficult to grade objectively, it's also a class that can easily be taken to avoid taking classes that have provable and tangible value-- in short, a "slacker" class. I know I was able to learn fluent Hebrew with half-assed effort, and that was once a week on Sundays. I'm sorry, but with all of that, I think it's fair to say that it's not worth bringing in the can of worms that is catering to one specific, religious denomination.

now say again i'm wrong here are examples for you
reading writing math and science and history will soon become the norm if we keep going down sorry.


Funding for the arts and music in schools was thrust back into the limelight last Friday ... The scenario of music and arts facing deeper cuts than sports is common ... district has been working hard to make sure cuts are even across the board.

Cutting music education would, first and foremost, take a dent out of public ... time , travel costs and paychecks for music instructors would all be cut from the budget . ... film making, acting and other arts that are not an option at public schools. .... the school shouldn't have made me lessons in it, so my gpa could have been ...

School budget cuts: careers advice, music and art among first ...

www.guardian.co.uk/education/...

Dec 26, 2011 ... A tightening of school budgets has led to redundancies for music teachers ... arts status, the budget for visual arts has been cut from £120000 to £35000 this year. ... Free music and sport after school pledged for poor pupils ...

If School Budget Is Not Approved April 17, Cuts Will Hit Key ...

www.towntopics.com/wordpress/...

Apr 11, 2012 ... If School Budget Is Not Approved April 17, Cuts Will Hit Key Extras Like Arts, Sports. Written by: Town Topics. To the Editor: On April 17, the ...

School Cuts All Sports To Close Budget Gap - Boston News Story ...




www.thebostonchannel.com/news...
Apr 14, 2010
BOSTON -- The school committee in Mansfield has voted to eliminate all high school sports ...

https://mac.nysut.org/_data/f...

Despite claims that education budget cuts could easily be accommodated through a ... As the school year enters its fourth week, the $1.3 billion in cuts this year has meant ... bones art, music and interscholastic sports programs; and so few psychologists, social ... More than 24000 teaching positions have been lost over the ...

Cuts in Arts Programs Leave Sour Note in Schools | 2003-2004 | ...

www.weac.org/news_and_publica...

Jun 25, 2004 ... Music and art programs were usually among the first to receive severe blows. ... public school budget cuts and rally more people to speak out, Trokan said. ... to write music, drama, dance and art teachers out of the budget.

Jan 13, 2011 ... The first things to go when there are governmental budget cuts are "luxuries" ... If music classes were cut in public schools, this opportunity would be the ...... Music cuts, philanthropy, dancing in the street and more on libraries ...

With budgets tightening, arts education is further squeezed ...

www.thenotebook.org/may-2006/... Similarto With budgets tightening, arts education is further squeezed ...

Dec 7, 2010 ... Already squeezed because of the pressure on schools to focus on raising ... had the least seniority, so when she had to cut positions, they were the first to go. ... The recent cuts mean Meredith's music, art, drama, and dance ...

you school may do it if it gets bad in our economy. cabon dating is not 100% right or accurate what if millions is thousands lest say it is programmed by man.
http://www.angelfire.com/mi/d...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?...

From dinosaurs to DNA to carbon dating, kids of faith have questions these days. They're struggling to put together what their schools teach about science and what their beliefs are.

For evolution to be true, the earth must be billions of years old, with life-forms on it evolving slowly over hundreds of millions of years.

That seems to contradict the biblical version of creation, with God making the earth and its many life-forms rapidly.and probably not all that long ago.

Opposing Viewpoints

I brought my boys Austin and Ryan -- both public school students -- to investigate these opposing viewpoints with the Creation Museum's Dr. Jason Lisle.

Upon seeing the many dinosaurs displayed in the museum, the boys asked if evolutionists are right saying the dinosaurs lived tens of millions of years ago.

Lisle answered, "They like to believe that dinosaurs are millions of years old and that the earth's billions of years old."

But Lisle pointed out material has been found in dinosaur remains that could last at the most thousands of years. "You know, we actually find dinosaur soft tissue -- things like red blood cells -- and can you imagine that lasting millions of years? It even looks fresh."

Ryan asked if creationists have a problem with fossils.

Lisle said creationists love the fossil record because it shows no evolving of species. "What we don't find is a continual sequence of one kind of organism changing into another kind.what they would call 'transitional forms.' You ought to have millions of those things if evolution were true."

Austin wondered about the evolutionists' claim that human and ape DNA are so alike, it proves man and ape evolved from a common ancestor.and thus proves evolution.

Lisle pointed out their DNA does have many similarities, but so what? "We actually have a lot of the same DNA as a banana. But that doesn't mean we evolved from a banana, does it?"

Ryan started to wonder about how the universe began, asking Lisle, "What about the Big Bang?"

Lisle answered, "The Big Bang teaches that the universe popped into existence billions of years ago."

But he went on to say, if that were true, the cosmos would look much different. "You'll see these spiral galaxies. And they'll actually twist themselves up over many billions of years. And if they were really billions of years old, they would already be twisted beyond recognition. You wouldn't see a spiral anymore. They'd be all twisted up. So that's evidence that the universe is much younger than is generally thought."

Does Evidence Prove Creation?

Then the conversation turned philosophical, with Austin saying, "My teachers say there's no scientific evidence to prove creation. Is that true?"

Lisle replied, "Science requires that there's a logical, orderly universe. And that only makes sense if there's a logical, orderly God who created that universe and maintains it in a logical, orderly fashion. You see, if the universe were just an accident, a by-product of a Big Bang, then why would it have any order at all? Why would it obey laws.like the laws of physics that you've heard of? Well, you see, that makes sense if God made the universe, if there's a mind behind it. And that's what the Bible teaches. So science actually requires the Bible to be true in order to work."

And as for evolutionists' contention that earth is billions of years old, Lisle had other interesting examples that seem to contradict that. "Ya know, salt in the ocean? The oceans are actually getting a little bit saltier every year. And if they were really millions of years old, you'd be able to practically walk across them by now."

Then Lisle moved from the oceans to examples in the earth. "For example, we find C-14 -- which is an unstable isotope of carbon -- and it can't last millions of years, and we find it in things like diamonds and even coal, things that evolutionists believe are millions of years old. But they can't be that old because the C-14 would be gone by now."

Lisle also talked about how rocks contain helium, but that's a gas that eventually leaks out. "If the rocks really were many millions of years old there shouldn't really be much helium left. But there's a lot of helium left in those rocks. You see, the helium in the rocks demonstrates that those rocks are not millions of years old. They're much younger -- thousands of years old. It's consistent with the biblical time scale."

A Journey Back in Time to Mount St. Helens

But the boys wondered about all that dating of objects science does that seems to prove they're millions of years old.

Lisle pointed to Mount St. Helens, where scientists radiometrically dated some of the brand-new rocks just created by the volcano's eruptions in the 1980s. "And they came out hundreds of thousands to millions of years old -- on rocks that we know are just a few years old. So you see, Mount St. Helens demonstrated that radiometric dating gives ages that are much older than the true age."

Lisle said the volcano backs creationism in so many ways, my crew and I went to Washington state to check it out.

Lloyd Anderson of the Seven Wonders Creation Museum in nearby Silver Lake told us of the wild fury released by the volcano's monstrous explosion May 18th, 1980. "This blast went sideways. 17 miles out it killed trees. 13 miles out it killed people. Destroyed 240 square miles of forest in three minutes."

While we were there, we decided we had to have a look from the actual 8,400-foot summit of Mount St. Helens, now more than a thousand feet shorter after the volcano's blew its top off in 1980.

It was a long, hard slog to get up to the rim of the volcano, but we made it after an arduous six-hour hike and climb.

From there we could look down on a wild surrealistic scene: a gigantic dome of new smoking rock, ripped up earth gouged out to a depth of hundreds of feet and mowed down forests for as far as the eye could see. It's a whole world of wonders for scientists to study. And one that vindicated many of the theories creation scientists have espoused.

Anderson told us the original May 1980 explosion caused the world's largest landslide. Indeed, it covered the huge valley area below Mount St. Helens with landslide material some 600 feet deep.

Then two years later came another massive eruption blasting right through that 600-foot deep material.

Anderson described what it would have been like that day. "In the afternoon hours as the crater becomes an oven, large amounts of super-heated water pour out of the crater with big pieces of volcanic rock, and gouges out first of all channels, then they deepen to ravines, then they deepen to canyons. By the end of the day, there's an entire enormous canyon system on the valley floor.all in one day."

Before that day, scientists claimed it would take tens of millions of years to gouge out such canyons.

And they stated it took a hundred million years to form the many layers in the walls of Arizona's Grand Canyon.

But a massive eruption in June 1980 laid down 25 feet of many complex layers in just three hours. "Well, when it was all over, it had put down at least 200 layers in 190 minutes. That's better than a layer a minute," Anderson said.

Nature Gone Wild

In fact, Mount St. Helens proved even solid rock can be blasted through in very short order by nature gone wild -- as in the case of 700-foot deep Step Canyon just below the crater. Anderson said, "Within five months this canyon appeared. And in the bottom portions of it, it cuts through at least one hundred feet of solid rock. And this had to have been done by pyroclastic flows as the mountain erupted again and again through the summer months of 1980."

Scientists will sometimes come upon many layers of fossilized forests piled up on top of each other and say it proves the ancient age of the earth.

But what Mount St. Helens' first big blow did to the lake just north of it -- Spirit Lake -- had a big surprise for them.

On that day of May 18th, 1980, the explosion of the mountain was so massive it literally gouged all of Spirit Lake right out of its lakebed and sent its waters right up the sides of all the hills surrounding that lakebed. It probably looked like a miniature of what the entire planet looked like when Noah's flood covered the earth. And as Spirit Lake's waters came roaring back down those surrounding hills, it swept over a million trees into the lakebed.

Many of those trees had heavy, dense material clogged around their roots, so they sank vertically. And they've been sinking in successive layers for 27 years. Now, a surprising thing about these logs in Spirit Lake is that the heavier ones sank to the bottom first -- again, standing vertically -- then lighter ones on top of that and lighter ones on top of those until it looked like thousands of years of growth, forest upon forest, but really created in just several years.

And, as Anderson put it, "If someone came along much later, they might presume that those were actually forests that grew and died one after another."

Now imagine how a violent worldwide flood accompanied by volcanic activity all over the earth would radically and quickly alter everything on the planet. Anderson insisted, "The earth can change quickly with a vast catastrophic event. We immediately go to the biblical Flood because it would have changed every square foot of the face of the earth in a more radical condition."

There's another startling find in Spirit Lake since Mount St. Helens began to blow in 1980 -- the material ripped off all those hundreds of thousands of trees swept into the lake plus all the landslide and eruptive material created a three-foot thick goo at the bottom that's an ideal precursor for coal.

Lab experiments show all it will take now is the right kind of eruption blasting the right amount of heat and pressure into the lake to turn this peat into coal.

Scientists have always said coal came from the rotting corpses of long-ago creatures like dinosaurs plus swamps decaying over many millions of years.

But that perfect precursor for coal that's settled into Spirit Lake gathered almost instantly. In fact, Anderson said most of it landed on the bottom of the lake the day of the eruption. And it could well take just one more eruption to turn it to coal any day now.

Back at the Creation Museum, Doctor Lisle summed up why the volcano has been such a boon to creation scientists. "Mount St. Helens demonstrated that a lot of things creationists claimed can happen in a short period of time, really can."

Lisle went on to point out to Austin and Ryan one thing after another that made the biblical creation seem a lot more realistic to them than the chaotic, evolved universe theorized by the evolutionists.

Now, with all the resources available in such places as the Creation Museum in Kentucky and the 7 Wonders Creation Museum in Washington state, Christian kids can head back into the public schools with their heads held high, knowing that what's in their Bible and what science says don't have to contradict each other.