In this segment, we travel to Oklahoma, where, like Louisiana, new
laws favor in Christianity, threatened classrooms and challenge constitutionality. Kelly Laughlin will introduce
what is happening here, Thanks Jimmy. Oklahoma school Superintendent Ryan Walters wants to
turn the state's classrooms into a Bible study and is implementing procedures to do so
immediately. That's correct, you heard me write immediately. In a statement last
week, Ryan called the Bible an indispensable historical and cultural touchtone, and he
seems to think that students are unable to grasp the foundation of the United States
without understanding the Bible first. Now, that's going to be harsh news for
all the Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, atheists, and other non Christian students
in Oklahoma. Are they going to be able to pass American history classes now
because they don't understand it? Of course, there has been state and even
nationwide opposition to this administration change, and even the Interfaith Alliance has stood up
against it, saying true religious freedom means ensuring that no one religious religious group
is allowed to impose its viewpoint on all Americans. This story is from the
BBC News by Burnt the Busman Junior on June twenty ninth, twenty twenty four.
Unbelievable. And you know, with what's going on in Louisia, Louisiana
right now, excuse me, Like we talked about earlier this week, it's
going to be hard for me to figure out who I'm talking about. I
think it's just also confusing and more of the same nonsense no matter where you
look in some of these red states, if you will. But Kelly,
you are our resident geologist. And he called Ryan Walters called the Bible a
touchstone? Is he correct? Well, I don't know if that is correct.
Now a lot of people won't actually know what a touchstone is. But
it was actually a blackstone fountain rivers, an Asia minor that they would use
to test the purity of gold. You would scrape your goal door on it,
and the color that the streak on the black stone would tell you how
pure the gold is. So I think what he's saying here is that we
have to test for the purity of the students, which to me is really
gross. And or he doesn't know what a touchstone does or is, and
he's just the oxygen stealer that he appears to be so. Yeah, and
in saying touchstone, I think that's just a misnomer for what he's actually trying.
Yeah, I don't know, Like I say, I don't know if
he actually knows what it means, because what he's saying is we need to
purify this do we need to make sure that our students are pure and only
Christian? I think he probably means like keystone, like a foundation or something
that holds things together, which I would disagree as well. I don't believe
that America the United States in particular, right, we're not talking about America
the Americas. We're talking about the United States. And I don't think our
constitution is necessarily held together by the Bible. I don't think that the Bible
is necessary to understand our government. That doesn't seem right to me. But
you know, there are organizations and there are efforts live and in color today
that are trying to intermingle the two. And so, Eli, I wanted
to go to you and ask you about your concerns that you have with this
agenda. Being representative of the Infamous Project twenty twenty five, can you explain
to our viewers a little bit about them. Yeah, So Project twenty twenty
five is essentially this plan for transition to another Republican presidency in the event of
a victory in the victory this year for Republican parties. So it involves things
like, you know, christian Like I mentioned in the last segment, you're
pushing religion into schools, Christianity specifically into schools. I would not, like
I mentioned, be surprised to see it Christianity become the state sponsored religion.
What Russell Russell Vault is the He founded the Center for Renewing America and in
twenty twenty one he wrote that christian nationalism recognize America, recognizes America as a
Christian nation, but makes a commitment to an institutional separation between the church and
state, but not the separation of Christianity from its influence on government and society.
And those two things sound so similar to me that if they are not
the exact same, all my face off and stabilit on Jungle Cat for the
rest of the year, because it just seems so crazy to me to think
that there's a distinction between those two things. And that's sort of what concerns
me about this is because we sort of have like a majority of Republican majority
Scotus right now, things like this could be allowed to fly. Like I
kind of expressed some certainty before about you know, this is either going to
get shut down or it's going to go this way. But we to be
realistic, we have to consider the fact that a Republican majority Supreme Court might
allow things like this to go on, especially you know, if they're expecting
that victory this year. Yeah, and that's a great point. You know,
expecting the victory in the Supreme Court is just one reason why we might
see things pop up like this pretty routinely. Like I mentioned earlier, like
we all talked about two nights ago, because today's what Friday, so Wednesday
night segment. You know, we mentioned how the Supreme Court could have an
influence in Louisiana. This is just one of those other fights that poses the
threat. But you know, let's say that the goal here is to really
educate chilled Okay, which I don't think any of us actually believe that,
but let's just say that, Rob could there be some positives in children being
forced to read the Bible. Yeah, it'll make more atheists, for one,
So yes, again, going backwards a little bit. I do actually
enjoy the idea of like his philosophy of religion or a history of religion in
courses like that. But we know that's not what they want. They want
to be taught as truth. So let's just start with what they actually want,
which is taught is truth. So I saw a TikTok recently that was
like, there's a book in schools libraries that has two daughters get their uh
their father drunk and have sex with him, hoping to become incestuously impregnated.
Should that be in schools? And of course they say no? And so
it is telling how often people Christians don't know their own Bible. Uh.
And I don't know who said it, but it's a very famous quote.
Uh. The surest way of making an atheistis having someone read the Bible.
So if they actually taught the Bible, and presumably they taught it factual or
taught it they taught it fat as if it is factually correct or inerrorble Uh,
then yeah, I suspect more people realize that it's completely insane. Yeah,
and you know, we we I'm going to keep prketing back. So
there's So there's so many similarities to our earlier segment Louisiana and the one here.
And Kelly, you talked about a religion wall. Right, So in
Luis Siata, Uh, there was a law that the Ten Commandments have to
be posted. Uh. And what we say, how about the other religions?
How about how about these religions get put up? Kelly? Is there
a negative to having maybe all of the religions together being displayed in these classrooms?
Well? It now we're talking about teaching it, actually teaching the Bible.
So if we want to keep right excuse me right, Yes, if
we want to keep this constitutionally correct, that means that we have to be
able to teach, to teach all the other religions. So anytime devoted to
the Bible has to get equal time by everybody else. So if we do
a whole class, as they say, a semester long class on the Bible,
then we're going to have to have one for every other religion. Now,
how many religions are there? When are the kids going to be able
to learn how to do arithmetic? How? When? When when is algebra
class going to happen? Right? When are they going to learn remember that
American history they were talking about, We're not going to have time for American
history because we're going to be too busy learning about religion. So yeah,
they're definitely negative to this. And again, I don't think this is going
to hold up in court at all. I mean, it's just such a
ridiculous idea. But but it's also again going to take up all these resources
to fight it in court. And he is implementing this immediately, which is
a problem. You think, well, that's not a problem because we're in
the middle of summer. Yeah, but there is summer school, and we
have teachers that are not going to want to do this in their classroom.
They're going to lose their license to teach. That's what he said. You're
going to have your license to teach revoke. Now, when this is found
to be unconstitutional, are these people going to get their jobs back? Are
they going to have be able to get their licenses reinstated? Right? And
if not, isn't this just a way to weed out those teachers to begin
with? You know, we don't We just fire them all and we don't
have to rehire them, so we don't have to worry about those those teachers
coming back and not wanting to teach the Bible like they should be. So
yeah, yeah, there's a big problem here. Yeah, and we've talked
about Oklahoma before in lately other episodes. Yeah, they have really depleted their
stock, if you will, of qualified teachers by lessening the uh, the
qualifications necessary to teach, attracting people into these jobs that are actually not qualified.
And now they're even giving them more content that is going to take away
from the kids' education. You know, Eli, Well, we talked about
the problems that we're facing in Louisiana, and you said, well, if
if they have to post the tech commandments there and they have to post all
other religions to be constitutional. And now we look at Rob's point to where
well, maybe now if we teach these kids the Bible will have more atheists
and then and Kelly says, well, we have to teach them all the
religions, you know, maybe that'll have some kind of impact. Where do
you how do you see you know, the teaching of the Bible and potentially
making it consistent, making it constitutional affecting Oklahoma. So I remember in Oklahoma?
Yeah, yeah, so I remember specifically the last time you and I
toldked about Oklahoma. Sidney Davis Junior Junior is with us as well, and
she mentioned how Oklahoma is forty ninth in the country in education, and that
was on the topic of allowing students to skip some classes some some hours each
week, like three hours a week to go to optional Bible classes. Now
we're talking about mandating some time out of the day to take away from learning
like real true things that are going to help you in the world, to
now devote that to you know, Bible, to Christianity. And I think
we're going to really quickly see you know, whatever whatever number is in fifty,
they're getting ready to move up a spot because they're going to because Louisiana
or sorry, Oklahoma is going to drop down that that extra spot because they're
taking resources away from what is really important and putting it into you know,
Ryan Walter's you know preferred brand of magic. Rob you have a comment,
please, It's so close to being okay, because one of the best classes
and most enlightening classes that I have ever had was philosophy or religion history of
religion. So if they actually taught it as a thing, because because if
we back up a little bit, and we talk about like the whole touchstone
and historical significance of America. I don't think I don't think anyone thinks he
thinks touchdone. I didn't know what a touchdoone was. I am not in
his mind, but I assume he means the book's important. But you can't.
He hasn't said or establish any reason to go from the books important to
the book is truthful. So I agree with him as long as we take
out the truthful portion and that it is important. We're literally here Tony talking
about this because of this. Thus we are proving the point that this is
important. So yeah, teach it and then actually teach what it's about and
what's in it, and then put it up against all the other ones,
and then god forbid, they'll discover pluralism. Oh you mean, there's lots
of different gods and stuff like that. So that's why I'm frustrated, because
it is so close to being good, because it's almost like it's actually could
by actually teaching it, lead to discussions of many other religions, but it's
not going to happen. Like we know. I know that we're going to
do Monger and say ah, it's going to be taught as a truthful and
errable piece of fact, and that's sad. Well, I agree with you.
I think that it is really close to being okay because for the same
reason, when I was a college student, the best class that I ever
took was called Literature of the Bible. And on day one, our professor
said, who told Adam and Eve it was okay? Or Eve it was
okay to eat the apple? And everybody said satan? And they She said,
you might want to look again? Do you want to take a look?
And so there is some comfort in a way to teach the Bible as
a literary device, right, to teach the Bible as a compilation of human
history, as a philosophy book, perhaps, but certainly as a work of
literature, and maybe as a work of history. But teaching the Bible as
truth is not something that anybody can get on board on, and it just
makes it a problem. Now, Kelly, I want to ask you,
keeping on that point, what if we had And by the way, my
second favorite class was called the Nature and Experience of Religion, where not only
did I study Christianity, but I learned about Hinduism and Mormonism, and Islam,
and I learned about all the crazy stuff scientology and Mormons and things like
that. I think I might have said that. But in any case,
Kelly, do we have an opportunity to beat Ryan Walters at his own game?
I almost said Landry because we talked Aboutiana. Do we have an opportunity
to beat Walters at his own game? By saying? Sure? You know
what, let's create a whole course out of this, and let's teach all
these great things. Even if we say and we'll tell them why Christianities,
I don't know the best one or the most sensical. Is there a way
to open children's minds? Is there a loophole here? Yeah? I think
you know. If he want us to do this and keep it constitutionally legal,
let's not have a class that teaches just the Bible. Let's have one
that teaches comparative religions and take all the major religions of the world and put
them next to each other and show what they all believe in, why they
believe it, show the major tenets of those religions, and teach kids about
these things. Because the more kids learn, the better off they're going to
be. Let's face it, I mean, all of us have benefited from
learning more from a better education, and it's true of everybody. So if
we can take this, if we can take this teaching of the Bible and
use it to teach these other religions as well, we probably aren't going to
make a lot of people understand that maybe these religions are all made up.
Yeah, maybe the one religion I'm following isn't the one true religion. Maybe
one of these other religions has the title to being the one true religion.
So yeah, I think I think there's a lot of ways to defeat Ryan
Walter's on this at all completely, just by teaching what he wants to have
taught, but extending it and teaching about all religions. Did you raise your
hand like a good student just now? I did? Good? Good,
I'm a predictional student, thank you. Yeah, but no, because like
you're right, and I agree with you, and I'm not as up on
Project twenty five as I should be. But one of the things that I
did not know and is horrifying is ELI explaining that the way that they define
Christianity is a separate entity from religion. And I did not know that.
So yeah, I agree with you, man, like put in all the
texts, read all the books, learn all the things. But holy crap,
they're like literally saying that it is not a religion as described as Eli.
So they're divorcing the idea of it being from a religion because religion doesn't
necessarily need to be true. There's lots of religions and look, I have
the right one, but you know why, because mine's not a religion.
And so this is just going back to redefining and they are drawing, redrawing
the lines in the sand. So I would love that to happen, Kelly,
and I'm not sure that it will based on their literal definition of what
is a religion at this point. That's wild to me. Eli. I
want to posit something on you and get your thoughts on it. So well,
Rob made a quote today that he couldn't accurately attribute to anybody, and
I'm gonna do the same thing. So I heard, I heard a quote
that I love is, you know, religion is what happens when someone reads
the Bible for you, and atheism is what happens when you read the Bible
yourself. And on that note, I think, I think that the worst
thing that ever happened to religion was education. I think the invention of the
printing press coincides, if not sparked, the Enlightenment and the Reformation. And
now I think we're in a point where we just can't avoid education anymore.
And I almost wonder do we just roll with the punches and say, hey,
kids, go ahead read it and tell what you think. You like,
what are your thoughts on that? When you phrase it that way,
Yeah, that kind of does like it almost sounds like it would work,
you know, Yeah, go ahead, Yeah, this is fine, let's
do this. I was thinking, as you said it, the the way
that the printing present, the way that like how how you know religion was
taught, how Christianity was taught when it first started being taught, up until
the point where everybody was able to read, and everybody had a copy of
it, they could read it. And that's when, like you start to
see people start to I don't know about all of this. So yeah,
and I've said before on the show that and I guess I'm being a little
bit hypocritical. I might change my stance here a little bit because hiding information
from kids, because you don't think is true, isn't, or because you
don't think it's true, that's censorship. What would be the appropriate thing would
be to give them all of the information, teach them reliable methods for determining
what is true and what is not, and then set them loose on the
Bible and say what do you think? And yeah, I think if we
do it that way that we could see, as Rob said, it makes
some more atheists. And that way. I was just thinking, probably the
best way to get teenagers to read it is to tell them they can't.
Yeah, yeah, that's true. That's true. If I were the teacher
in the classroom and I didn't care about getting fired, I might assign them
the stories like Rob talked about, where people are having sex and getting drunk
and you know, doing all kinds of things. We all know the famous
and probably all of our favorites. Ezekiel I don't remember which one it was,
but she longed for the days of her lovers where to make sure their
parents are seeing that homework too, that's right. She longed for the days
where she lusted after her lovers who had discharges like horses and members like that
of donkeys, following I cut you off on. Oh no, that's fine,
that's fine. No, you had a good point. Though. Parents
might think they're on board with this until the kids are bringing home homework that
I would bet you the parents don't even know. Yea, go ahead,
Rob, well like okay, So religion in Christianity has existed for a while,
and the printing press it existed since the fourteen hundreds. So something that
has changed my mind recently is the way that people interact with what is reading.
And so you start to get like when we the idea of people reading
a book by looking at the squiggles on the page and it makes you internally
hallucinate silently is super new. Most people have engaged in reading audibly. There's
a person who reads it and then you listen to it. That's reading for
the vast majority of human history. So it is only after people learned how
to read themselves that you get the explosion of different sex of Christianity and all
the other ideas of wait, I don't read it this way. So yes,
giving people information is the surest way of making them critical. However,
here's the problem. I don't know if this is intentional, but it is
an effect as you said that they are reducing the quality of the teachers.
Therefore, it's actually in their benefit to have people who don't know how to
teach, because then they're going to teach what they believe the Bible says,
rather than what we're all talking about, which would be a really lovely thing
to have happened. Yeah, I think that would be a horrible thing for
students, not only having unqualified teachers, but having unqualified teachers teach incorrect or
incomplete information. You know, Oklahoma is not in a good place, and
honestly, where has religion thrived the most among the uneducated classes, among the
people that can't think for themselves. Kelly, you're laughing, I think because
Oklahoma is not in a good place. It's right next to Texas. Oh
that's true, Missouri. Yeah. So so these these systems, these systems
that exist, the educational systems, excuse me? Are this? This turmoil
is almost self perpetuating. The more the government gets involved, the more there
seems to be a problem, And the more the government gets involved with religion,
right, and that's why the separation of religion and government is the central
tenet of the atheist community of Austin. And you know, we've talked a
lot tonight about reading the Bible or having people read it for you. And
I can tell you, folks, if you keep viewing the nonprofits, keep
tuning in, we will definitely read the hot articles for you so you don't
have to go find them themselves. Find them themselves