The Bible should be taught in school

[SeattleUte]

The controversy over teaching the Bible in school really reveals profound ignorance on both right and left. In another incarnation I'd love to teach the Bible in school. The Bible should be taught in schools as much as the Iliad, the Aeneid, Beowulf and Gilgamesh should be taught in schools. It's a tragedy that it is not.

My courses on the Bible would bring it to life in the truest sense as the well spring of what we are, even our very language. I can even imagine (God forbid!) a course in which creationism and evolution are taught side by side--the Adam and Eve story and its significance and Darwin's lifelong journey and discoveries and the ultimate progress and mainstreaming of evolution.

What are secularists scared of?

The stupidity of both the Christian right and the secularists on this issue was brought home to me when I read a liberal's short hand list of bad things about Sarah Palin. One item was, "Favors teaching creationsim and evolution side by side in the schools." I thought, "Oh no! Not that! Please, someone take her out, that would be terrible!" (I try to be funny and snarky even when talking to myself, it's a bad habit.)

I tell you what, those kids wouldn't leave my class believing all Arabs are descended from Ishmael. Yes, my record of persuasion is pretty dismal here, but I figure kids are more impressionable. Anyway, my classes would be very popular with smart kids.