So apparently the Texas State Board of Education has approved some right wing alterations to their curriculum which will stay in effect for ten years. While this may on the surface not be much of a surprise but one of the changes has seriously annoyed me. The change in question being the removal of Thomas Jefferson as an influential person during American independence and the Enlightenment in favor of people like Thomas Aquinas. The textbooks will also
Eliminating Thomas Jefferson is eliminating the chief author of The Declaration of Independence! That, to me, seems like an important thing to leave out of a history textbook. The problem that the ultraconservatives seem to have with Jefferson is that he was a deist who was very critical of Christianity (its super-naturalism and dogma at least) and even produced his own version of the New Testament which cut out all references to the divinity of Jesus Christ.
He was not alone in this. Benjamin Franklin, another of the Founding Fathers and a co-author of the Declaration, was almost certainly an atheist. Many of the founders were deists. George Washington refused to take communion. The Declaration and the Constitution both omit any mention of any theistic god, never mind mention of Jesus.
The separation of Church and State is something that Jefferson strongly advocated and, as a result, the United States of America was founded upon some of the best principles possible. Some religious apologists like to argue that it only works one way: that the State has no business in the Church. This is flat out wrong. The United States is founded on what Jefferson called a 'wall of separation'.
The founding of the United States is secular. To teach otherwise is quite frankly teaching a lie. I apologize if this entry has not been very well structured but this is an issue that is very close to my heart. The Texas State Board of Education should be ashamed that it has condemned a decade's worth of its schoolchildren to have a fundamental misunderstanding of what really makes their country great.
cover the Judeo-Christian influences of the nation's Founding Fathers, but not highlight the philosophical rationale for the separation of church and state.This infuriates me. Texas is one of the biggest, most populous states in the Union and for the next decade their schoolchildren will be taught things about the founding of the USA that are flat out wrong, and will not be taught things that are vitally important.
Eliminating Thomas Jefferson is eliminating the chief author of The Declaration of Independence! That, to me, seems like an important thing to leave out of a history textbook. The problem that the ultraconservatives seem to have with Jefferson is that he was a deist who was very critical of Christianity (its super-naturalism and dogma at least) and even produced his own version of the New Testament which cut out all references to the divinity of Jesus Christ.
He was not alone in this. Benjamin Franklin, another of the Founding Fathers and a co-author of the Declaration, was almost certainly an atheist. Many of the founders were deists. George Washington refused to take communion. The Declaration and the Constitution both omit any mention of any theistic god, never mind mention of Jesus.
The separation of Church and State is something that Jefferson strongly advocated and, as a result, the United States of America was founded upon some of the best principles possible. Some religious apologists like to argue that it only works one way: that the State has no business in the Church. This is flat out wrong. The United States is founded on what Jefferson called a 'wall of separation'.
The founding of the United States is secular. To teach otherwise is quite frankly teaching a lie. I apologize if this entry has not been very well structured but this is an issue that is very close to my heart. The Texas State Board of Education should be ashamed that it has condemned a decade's worth of its schoolchildren to have a fundamental misunderstanding of what really makes their country great.
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