BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.

Evening Star, Issue 19582, 14 June 1927, Page 2

BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —Your praiseworthy opposition to the above proposal deserves more support than it receives. Perhaps it is because the average man or woman is unable to detect the flaws in or reply to tho plausible reasoning of _ Bible-in-school advocates, but certain it is that if they do not wake up and oppose the measure they will find thrust on them — or, what is worse—on their helpless children a thing which has always made for discord, strife, and division. It is admitted that excellent precepts are to be found in the Bible, but it should be remembered that contradictory and opposite commands and encouragement are given almost side by side. The commandment “ Thou shalt not till may have been uttered or given by God to Moses, but we also find that “The Lord is a man of war, the Lord is His name.” The Bible may say “ Forgive your enemies,” etc.-, but it also preaches fiendish everlasting torture and punishment _to unbelievers —its enemies. Our civilisation compels a care of the future, and we all must take heed of the days to come, and must build both for their prosperity and their set backs. The Bible teaches “ Take no thought of the morrow.” At a time when we all hope for and endeavor to promote movements tending to abolish war, of what use is it to put in the hands of our children a book which preaches vengeance, and relates the horrors of barbarous war in page after page? Fancy children who have been taught to hate the German for alleged atrocities during the last war reading that God commanded that “ Their children also shall be < dashed to pieces before their eyes, their house spoiled, and their wives ravished.” Labor people who are dissatisfied with our present social state and ardently hope for a change will not be pleased to find that the Bible cpmmands all to “ Submit yourselves to' every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake. . . .

For there is no power but of God; the powers that be are ordained by God.” It is immaterial which wav one takes it, the Bible has absolutely no place whatever in our school rooms. The plea that on the Bible rests our educational system is either borne of ignorance of history or of deliberate falsehood. In the supremacy of the Bible Europe had no education whatever, and our progress since then has been in inverse ratio to the influence and authority allowed this Book, Education as such was fought tooth and nail by leading divines whose authority was the Bible, while at the same time the most horrible tortures were inflicted by the same authority. No; the Bible is an aid neither to education nor good citizenship. The astronomy, geography, and miracles related throughout the Bible are in direct opposition to what science and common sense teach us daily, while the stories of vice related are anything but calculated to improve the morals of our future citizens. The adult population of this and other lands have plainly indicated their antagonism, or, at least, indifference, to revealed religion, and it is this which concerns the Bibliolaters. Finding themselves at a disadvantage or helpless before mature, critical adults, they conceive the insidious and hope that doctrines implanted in the chi I ' l mind will resist the experience am onslaught of later years. They have good grounds for their hopes, since the firm hold which early impressions gain on our minds is patent to us all. The measure calls for energetic and unceasing opposition. No opposition of doctrines and ideas which an educated and enlightened generation have renounced should be forced on the children’s minds. If, when they attain maturity, they examine tho evidence for and against the doctrines of the Bible and decide to espouse the cause of Christianity, they have a perfect right to do so; but no_ one, be it father and mother, or be it State, has a shadow of right to force or teach the infant intelligence that which it is unable to judge, examine, or criticise properly.—l am, etc., E.W.F. [We have already made it plain that our reasons for opposing Mr Isitt’s Bill —which provides tor selected passages of Scripture being read—are poles apart from those of our correspondent.—Ed., E.S.]