Rep. Chris Smith: ‘Our Students Must Find The God Of The Bible And Biblical Values In The Classroom’

At a reception in St. Paul on Wednesday for Catholic Republicans, Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) — a fierce opponent of abortion — said that he is “very concerned that many of our schools and universities have lost their way.” They have become “bastions of moral relativism and moral compromise with the culture of death.”

As a solution, Smith suggested that “students must find the God of the Bible and Biblical values in the classroom”:

SMITH: Our schools need to become oases of goodness, sound moral teaching and, they must become agents of change in the culture. Our students must find the God of the Bible and Biblical values in the classroom, on the campus. I believe we need to do more to find effective ways to educate and inform policy makers and hold them to account.

Watch it:

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/09/06/smith-bible-classroom/

He's been spewing his "pro-life" crap all over the USHR for decades now ---

he'd be someone worthwhile targeting for ousting from the House.

Only lamer

full-on now with the McCain-Palin ticket. They are even more empowered and emboldened than they were in 2000 with Bush's rhetoric; it's no longer pandering now, the VP candidate is ONE OF THEM and that needs to be clearly exposed, IMHO.

He thinks the Repubs will help Israel more than the Dems, but what about the Jewish kids having to listen to the Bible in the classroom and say prayers that end with "In Jesus's name,"? In other words, what about the Jewish kids living in the good ole USA? Does he think that the Repubs will do away with public education and all the Jewish kids will go to Jewish schools with vouchers?

which is way scarier than Jesus.

But on the Lieberman thing I don't think it really just comes down to Israel, though he may indeed believe that. He's a scumbag sack of crap, but believe it or not Jews can and do care about more than just Israel. Even scumbags like Lieberman. Saying otherwise is sort of like saying that Obama only cares about black people :eyes:

around him.

it isn't so far fetched to think he'd abandon his religion or, at the very least, join "Jews for Jesus."

Because we don't like "goodness" or "sound moral teaching"?

We don't want "intelligent design" being pimped as if Michael Behe was somehow comparable to or worthy of consideration and class time right up there alongside Darwin,

And in a world where the US in 2004 produced about 500 geology degrees from all universities (according to the National Science Foundation) while China currently has about 50,000 geology students enrolled, and where 15-year olds ranked 15th in science out of 30 OECD countries, and 24th in math in the 2006 Program for International Student Assessment, we don't have time in the school day for Bronze Age creation myths bumping what kids need out of the schedule.

Maybe you think we do. Maybe you think we'd all be better off if kids spent time in class speaking in tongues, or handling snakes, or hurling accusations of witchcraft or (even worse!) atheism at teachers whom they didn't like.

Maybe you think it's a good idea for them to learn to divide their worlds - friends, family, classmates, neighbors - into "saved" and "unsaved" and then following through on what they've "learned".

If so, then you have my condolences.

"To do so, the task of education would be, first and foremost, the transmission of ideas of value, of what to do with our lives. There is no doubt the need to transmit know-how but this must take second place, for it is obviously somewhat foolhardy to put great powers into the hands of people without making sure that they have a reasonable idea of what to do with them. At present, there can be little doubt that the whole of mankind is in mortal danger, not because we are short of scientific and technological know-how, but because we tend to use it destructively, without wisdom. More education can help us only if it produces more wisdom." "Small is Beautiful" 1973 p. 82

As far as geology degrees. Color me unimpressed. Is there a shortage? Or are we just hiring a bunch of Chinese geologists? I have a BA majoring in math from a state university. I scored 1590 out of 1600 on the math/logic portion of the GRE. I have an MA in economics.

I work as a janitor. 23 years out of college, and American society has clearly demonstrated that my college education is useless. Neither Michael Behe nor Darwin have any more relevance to me than they do to the majority of Americans. Three of the four janitors where I work have college degrees but don't have college degree work. But Newton forbid every young child not be indoctrinated into scientology. The great God of Competition will smite us unless we obey.

But hey, if you want to inhabit a world in which these sorts of "leaders" will bring the kinds of "values" they espouse into public education, filling a society already filled with people who don't know, can't think and have no idea as to just What Went Wrong (but who will be filled with self-righteous anger and Holy Surety as to the solutions), then party on!

If it's the inculcation and transmission of values, inquiry, thought, exploration, curiosity that you're concerned about, I couldn't agree more. But it's not just that these aren't being perpetuated - it's also things like basic mathematical ability, the know-how it takes to locate the United States on a globe and knowledge of how things are and the skills needed to grow a garden or build a house that doesn't fall down that are also thin on the ground these days.

Oh, and "scientology"? Nice cheap rhetorical rapier there, dude! Kicking rationality, empiricism and the only semi-successful sustained attempt to date to escape the fog of mystical bullshit that's surrounded the species since the days of A. Afaransis down the stairs for the sake of proving how in touch with "real" values you are? Whatthefuckever.

Don't let whatever's left of rational thought stand in the way of you pulling your economist-trained mathematical thumb out of your ass and sticking it in your mouth for a good sustained sulk/suck.

They both liked apples :evilgrin:

And yes, that's implied by Establishment Clause of The First Amendment to The Constitution of The United States.

If you continue to demonstrate willful ignorance on this topic (we both know this sort of thing has been patiently explained to you here, time... and time... and time... again.) I will shout again, yes I will.

Really, if you're going to poke your head into these discussions and float what must seem to you to be these innocuous sounding "but.. what's the problem?" queries, you should engage in full disclosure of yourself as one of DU's few open supporters of organized/mandatory prayer in public schools.

Long enough for memories to be faulty. I am pretty sure I never supported prayer in public schools.

I said the same thing as I am saying now. That once upon a time, for 150+ years after the Constitution was ratified it was not considered unconstitutional. It was not a violation of the first Amendment. This was decided in 1833. Barron vs. Baltimore 7-0. Then the 14th Amendment was passed in 1868. But Bible teaching and prayer in schools was still constitutional. It was Constitutional in 1869, in 1889, in 1909. In 1919. In 1929. In 1939.

Then suddenly in 1947, by a 5-4 vote in Everson vs. Board of Education, a SCOTUS decided, "oh yeah, by the way, the 79 year old 14th Amendment means you can't have religion in public schools". That's pretty clearly not what people thought when they passed it in the 1860s.

Regardless of how I feel about religion in the public schools, these seem to be historically accurate
1. It was not unconstitutional immediately after the constitution was ratified
2. It was not unconstitutional immediately after the 14th Amendment was ratified.

Therefore, if we uphold the Constitution, even if I am on the side of change, I think it should remain Constitutional until the Constitution is amended. That is rule of law and keeps the power with the people.

I must be a bad liberal, eh, if I think the people should get to decided, instead of SCOTUS changing established practice by judicial fiat.

1) just because something is "considered" constitutional doesn't mean it IS constitutional. This country's history is replete with examples of a wide chasm between the fundamental ideals and the reality. Just because it took until the 1950s for judges to figure out WHY school prayer wasn't constitutional doesn't mean that somehow it WAS constitutional until then. Was school segregation fundamentally "constitutional" until Brown v. Board of Education? No, it just took that decision for the SCOTUS to go "Whoa- this isn't constitutional".

2) "The people" deciding is a bugaboo for all sorts of bad tyrannies by the majority. "The people" (and at what level? By town? County? State? Federally?) may want to say that, for instance, black people shouldn't have civil rights or gays should be put to death or women who use birth control should go to prison, but the fundamental civil rights of individuals are not up for vote by "the People". And yes, the right of people to not have the state indoctrinate their kids with someone else's religion in public schools is a civil right.

3) IS THERE A FUCKING CHURCH SHORTAGE IN THIS COUNTRY, WHEREBY THE ONLY PLACE PEOPLE CAN GET RELIGIOUS INDOCTRINATION FOR THEIR KIDS IS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS?

Or is this about indoctrinating OTHER peoples' kids?

4) I can't speak to whether you're a "good" or "bad" "liberal", but on this issue you are clearly and consistently wrong.

If you said, for example, that slavery was never Constitutional, you would be wrong. Because we had slavery when the Constitution was ratified and for about 75 years afterwards. The Constitution is not about the fundamental ideals of this country, it is about the established laws. Slavery is no longer Constitutional because my ancestors and relatives and others fought, and sometimes died, to help change the Constitution.

Argument #2 falls down because we are not talking about something new. We are talking about something that was practiced in our society for hundreds of years before the Constitution was ratified and for over a hundred years afterwards. If any of the horrible practices you can think up have that same history, then they would be constitutional too, no matter how intelligent, sensible and decent people are horrified about those practices.

Prior to 1920 it was not unconstitutional to deny women the right to vote. But in 1920, SCOTUS didn't suddenly decide "oh yeah, it really is unconstitutional to deny women's suffrage." Instead, 52 years after it was originally proposed in Congress the 19th Amendment was finally passed. If, OTOH, SCOTUS had decided U.S. vs. Anthony in Susan's favor in 1873, I would still be arguing in 1895, if not today, that their action was illegitimate. It is not SCOTUS's job to over-turn established precedent.

Now you seem to argue that nine educated elites should have the power to rule the idiot masses but that does not seem in accord with our fundamental ideals. Also, since SCOTUS decided in 1925 Pierce vs. Society of Sisters that the "state of Oregon could not constitutionally require all parents of school age children to send their offspring to public schools", if public schools were indoctrinating children with religion, it would not be forced on anybody. People would always have the expensive option of sending their children to a private secular school and teaching their satanic beliefs at home or at their local black masses. At least until the firemen come for my copy of "The Origin of Species" ("If a different case had been taken, and it had been asked how an insectivorous quadruped could possibly have been converted into a flying bat, the question would have been far more difficult, and I could have given no answer. Yet I think such difficulties have little weight." 1996 p. 212)

#3 is not an argument about constitutionality, but yes, proponents would certainly argue that there is a social good the comes from proper teaching. Curse them for not just thinking about themselves.

As for having gone through this before. Doubtless true, but it's kinda like a verbal game of chess. Perhaps one side wants a rematch or just another good game because he's been practing on the Capablanca variation of Bird's opening. It'd be just my luck if my opponent has studied hezzagrippa.

I believe in the separation of church and state. When was the last time this idiot read the Constitution?

I have no children, but if I did, I sure as hell wouldn't want them getting bible study at school.

It was a fundie suckfest. The GOOP needs their church busses and checks to stay afloat this year. The party trotted around some of the biggest vermin to spin and make noise. I was laughing at who they were sending around "radio row"...Gingrich, George Maccaca, Gym Teach Denny, Felon DeLay...the usual suspects who screwed this country big time working the hate radio circuit to try to buck up the shrinking base. On religious radio, Dobson was orgasming as I'm sure were many other dollar-a-hollar hooters. Be assured there'll be a lot of Sunday Sermons that pray for Palin where no one gave a shit until last week.

first place?

There are many places in the US where "Biblical values" are taught in the classroom. They are called parochial schools and no one is stopping anyone from enrolling their kids.

Some of us choose public schools for our kids in part because there is a little thing called separation of church and state and we like that concept.

What a moron this guy is.

America has a clear establishment clause maintaining that no religion shall be foisted on it's people. We are free to choose. Why do they hate America so much?

America's establishment clause prevented a NATIONAL religion, but considering that 5 of the 13 states had official STATE religions, it must not have prevented that. Also since the Bible was general taught in schools up until the 1950s, it must not have prevented that either.

"The evidence is controverted concerning precisely what the First Congress intended the two religion provisions to mean. At a minimum, the Establishment clause prevented the newly created Federal government from granting to any denomination the official privileges and status that the Anglican church had in England. On the other hand, clearly the clause was not intended to eliminate religious establishments then existing in several states. And the new federal government gave various supports to religion such as legislative prayers, presidential Thanksgiving proclamations, and religious missions to Native Americans...

Accordingly, church state relations into the 1900s reflected what the legal historian Mark DeWolfe Howe called the 'de facto Protestant establishment'. Public schools had a Protestant flavor, with teachers leading prayers and reading passages from the King James Bible without clerical comment. Legislative prayers became widespread; Thanksgiving, Good Friday, and Christmas became official holidays and political rhetoric made frequent references to the Almighty. States prohibited blasphemy, enforced the Christian Sabbath, and forbade atheists and sometimes non-Christians to hold public offices. Protestant evangelicals rallied to pass laws prohibiting Mormon polygamy, enforcing temperance, and forbidding the teaching of evolution. Protestant activism also fueled movements to abolish slavery, give women the vote, and ameliorate conditions for industrial workers." Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States, pp 836-37

It is WE of the left who hate America of the past, looking down on it as a primitive, genocidal, imperialist terrorist slave state. We will only love America if it elects Obama, and sometimes not even then since Obama too is in thrall to the corporate fascists.

Does not mean that we hate the old America. Only that we are disappointed in it because we know it can to better. America has fallen on many moral levels. Slavery, the lack of women's suffrage, religious persecution, and a host of other issues are found in our past. It is that we rose above them and found the strength of the words of our founding fathers. They were there all along.

Unfortunately our rights are only as strong as the will to enforce them. It was wisdom that provided us with the establishment clause. It takes strength sometimes to stand up to popular demand to defend a wise right.

The point of my post was that the religious right does in fact hate a very important part of our founding documents. It hates the establishment clause. It hates the idea of secular government. And it desires to overcome the first amendment. Despite the lefts displeasure at the failings of the past we do not wish to rewrite the constitution. We want the people to live up to it. That is love for the very core of the country. The right exhibits hatred for that core.

until Everson vs. Board of Education in 1947, that the first Amendment did not mean what you think it means. The letter of the law is often one thing while the purpose, intent or meaning of those letters is another.

The Constitution is open to revision. That is the whole point of Amendments, but you want the First Amendment to mean what you think it means now, not what it actually meant within the first twenty years of its writing. That is clearing changing the meaning of the words.

into EXACTLY the kind of nation that the founding fathers warned us against. Either we do something now, or we're lost.

like it did until the 1950s? Since it is our government though, and the Founding Fathers are long dead, the more relevant question is what kind of nation do we want this country to be? We could talk about that instead of trying to invest our own POV with the AUTHORITY of the Holy Founding Fathers.

they must become agents of change in the culture. Our students must find the God of the Bible and Biblical values in the classroom, on the campus.

oxymoron . . .

God knows those AoG churches have failed miserably as well. :shrug:

I've always wondered that, shouldn't finding God be your own journey and discovery, not some authoritarian wet dream?

When navigating the swamp of life it's nice to have a guide and a map.

Why do we have to bring religion into schools? Just because it was done in the past, doesn't mean its appropriate now.

We don't have to do anything, but
In the first place, there is a significant portion of the electorate that wants it, and in the second place, why exactly are we against religious values? There seems to be little rational discussion of this, just a contempt for religion and a cultlike devotion to secularism and the sacred separation of church and state interpreted as widely and strictly as possible.

Many of those parents feel that the secular worldview combined with peer influence can all too easily wipe out what is done at the church.

By mentioning the past, I only point out the fact that it was not considered unconstitutional to do so for 166 years after the Constitution was ratified. Also, that doing so apparently did not destroy our country.

If you want religious values, you get them in church or religious schools. Not in public school. And who decides what religion the religious values come from? Not everyone in the US is a Christian.

with a quote from the "Matrix"?

It's provenance as a source of wisdom is slightly less impressive than the bible, but the film's creed is certainly clearer in composition. I don't wish either fiction to be forced on our children, though.

Your convoluted and circuitous meanderings do not obfuscate one simple fact: the founders saw the need to separate church and state.

Just because the law has been bent, ignored, and disobeyed does not render it invalid. If you try to pull your head out of the steamed pudding of excessive and conceited verbiage, one thing will become very clear:

The founders feared religious charletons invading our government enough to seek to prevent them. All the peeling, dicing and chowdering of language, all the "Yes, buts.." that christian fanatics try to camouflage their intent with will not alter the simple fact that certain christians seek to overthrow our government in favor of THEIR superstition, and the founders anticipated that very possibility. Hence, the exclusionary clause.


Please explain why certain christian sects are the only religious group that want a theocracy in this country.

The buddhists don't insist on koans in our schools.

The Jews don't demand the torah be taught to all as a "moral guide".

Voudon has not demanded peristyles and veves on school grounds.

What makes fucking christians so arrogant that they feel they have the mandate on morality? Why are they so determined to force their fears and failures on the rest of us?

And, most importantly:

WHY do you feel the need to lie, steal and cheat to get YOUR way?

In the good old days, one's parents took one to church and that was where you learned about God.

It's weird how they act as if their religion will die out if the schools don't take it up.

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OK, whose turn was it to keep up with God again? I swear, you turn your eyes away for a second, and he's out the door and down the street.

...I did.

That's one of the great things about Jesuit education.

And in a free, pluralistic country, anybody can start a confessional school and teach their faith.

But not on the taxpayer's nickel, and not in the public schools..

Where do these fools come from?

Luckily, he's in the vast minority.

And of course, you wouldn't want just anyone inculcating our nation's youth with the values of the God of the Bible. May I suggest my pastor, a well-educated graduate of a respected seminary, who's been in the ministry for nearly 40 years? Did I mention he's gay? That's not going to be a problem, is it?

We believe in Jesus but will pull all the quotes we need from the Old Testament because even though Jesus was talking to his followers about a new Covenant, peace and loving your enemy and rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar's, it's really al about violence and fear of the unknown.

And even though Jesus was breaking with the Old Testament, witness the temple eruption and his throwing the old rules out along with the money changers, the Republicans and right wingers can't quite get a hold of the concept of peace and loving people and fall back on all the exclusionary aspects of the OT...

Jesus converted by example, not by coercion.

If that isn't moral relativism, I have no idea what is...

I don't think he's in any classroom; surely he would have turned up by now. Unless he's very small.

But until someone finds him, I can't really fault people for not believing in him.

No, they shouldn't find God in the classroom. They should find Shakespeare and foreign languages, the laws of thermodynamics and proofs, Beethoven and Monet in the classroom.

Students who want to find the God of the Bible and Biblical values can do so at home, at church, on their own, and if they're at Catholic schools, at Mass and in their religion classes. If you put God into the public classroom, everyone's going to fight over which God it is.

I have that sticker on the back of my car and my friends are amazed that no one has busted the back glass out of my car during the past 7 yrs.

Focus on it at home and in churches, but don't try to drag that into public schools.

Josh Zeitz is running against him.

http://joshzeitz.com/

Unfortunately, he seems to think it's government's role to force religious views onto the public.

" Our students must find the God of the Bible "

I have already found a god and his name is Hal Sparks.






So cute!!!!!!

this is why people fled England so they could practice religion the way they wanted too. Sickening, imposing their thoughts of religion on us.