Texas school libraries temporarily removed some books

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So Texas school libraries temporarily removed some books that were "challenged" by some parents, for the review (see here https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/17/us/texas ... index.html ) So, there are no final decisions yet: if the review says they are fine, they would be brought back in. But we don't yet know what the review will say.

So the point of the poll is: if it was up to you, what book would you want back and what book would you want to be banned?

By the way, even though I am a Christian, I say its a good sign that Bible was among the "challenged books" because it shows that they are not biased. After all its Texas. So they are mostly Christian. Yet they had no issues putting Bible on the list of challenged books. Which means they are objective when it comes to following that policy.

I would have similarly liked it if in California they were to put someone like Darwin or King on the challenged list. Wonder if they would ever do that.

But, needless to say, I am hoping that Bible would be returned to the libraries, which we are yet to see.

The other challenged book is Anne Frank. Again, we are yet to see whether it would be returned or not.

What for, exactly? They would need a reason after all.

The bible has content that would be considered questionable if it wasn't a religious text (sex and violence, for starters).
What content would cause works by those two you named to be challenged?

Well, just like Bible offends religious sensitivities of atheists, similarly Darwin offends religious sensitivities of Christians. And just like some people claim that Anne Frank leads to unfair political advantage of Jews, other people claim that King leads to unfair political advantage of blacks.

And remember: they don't have to actually agree with any of those claims in order to temporarily put books for the review. That is what said review is for. But as long as there were some parents that made those claims, they have to review those books before letting them back in.

Now, since public school is large, and a school district consisting of several schools is even larger, surely there are some parents that would find any of the aforementioned books offensive. And as long as they file a complaint, they have to pull them out for a review -- regardless of whether they agree with that complaint or not (and then after review they will decide one way or the other).

All except for the bible doesn't offend the (nonexistent) religious sensitivities of atheists, but even if atheists had religious sensitivities to offend that wouldn't be a valid reason on it's own to remove a book.

It really seems like you're reaching to compare two dissimilar things as though they were equal.

On one hand, libraries only have so much space. The vast majority are forced to be selective. Those selections will inevitably include consideration of the book's content. And I would expect responsible librarians to not be ordering sexually explicit children's picture books, or instruction manuals for making nail bombs from common household objects, even if lots of people request them.

On the other hand, I generally have very low regard for the sorts of people who try to get books that don't appeal to their personal sensibilities suppressed. With bookshops, the prominence of a book can vary wildly, and the decision about which books to give prominence is not a neutral one. Choosing which books to have on your shelf for the person who wants it and which books you order ten copies of and actively try to get people to buy by putting them on tables, displays, in windows, etc. is an area that is too complex to really get into, but I do think the bookseller has some responsibility to not push stuff that's actively harmful to society (of course, my idea of "harmful to society" is not universal). But librarians don't generally "push" books the same way. In my experience, libraries do not have the sorts of displays that bookshops do, and so the choice is merely to stock or not to stock, with some questions about appropriate categorisation.

On the third hand, "cancelling" a book is usually counter-productive. When I was seven, my teacher was told that she could no longer read us a certain book because it was "promoting witchcraft". This motivated me to read it in my own time, despite it being much longer than any book I had read before. I went on to read the whole series, and subsequently many more deviant books that would make the Christian mothers who complained scream. Our teacher switched to reading a different book about magic in a school setting.

I dont want any taxpayer dollars going towards buying copies of the Bible to put into Texas public school libraries. Separation of church and state.

I think that Anne Frank should be returned to Texas libraries.

Teaching a bible course at the HS level in public schools is a breach of the seperation of church and state. But having a copy of the King James in the school library- so if a kid wants to crack it to cite it in a term paper in a secular course in either literature, or history- is perfectly fine.

I dont see what the problem would be.

Why would you ban the Diary of Anne Frank? Because you're afraid it will cause your kid to become a slave to modern American Jewish lobby? WTF are you talking about?

Darwin's Origin of Species and the Bible are peaches to pears. If Evolution bothers you that much then you need to ban every biology, and every geology, and every astronomy textbook, ever published since 1800 AD. Because even fifty years BEFORE Darwin scientists had already abandoned the chronology of Earth history outlined in Genisis. Darwin himself would be the least of your problems. And science books and theology books are peaches to pears anyway because they are from two different realms.

It's fine by me to keep both those books in a school library, as long as the school teaches the kids a healthy skepticism about what they read. If everybody understood how propaganda works, no book could fool anybody. Funding is another matter.

I think both should be returned.

Anne Frank's Diary shows important things about history, and is good for demonstrating what happened during WWII. However, it's better to make sure that too young children don't get their hands on it, or at least, don't end up studying about the subject on their own because then they might wonder what happened to the writer, look it up and the findings could be really disturbing. So, either keep the diary out of the hands of children too young or teach about it safely in a way where the adults will be ready to answer children's questions in age appropriate ways.

Bible is a bit more complicated, but it should be returned. It shouldn't be taught as a truth, but since so much of human civilization's history has been and still is affected by it, people should know what it's about. But again, it should be kept out of the hands of children that are too young and be taught about by someone who knows that the things in it aren't something that happened for sure but only stories that have been passed down from person to person for centuries among people of specific religions. Bible should be allowed, but it should be taught of as fiction and kind of a rule book for some religions. If some people want the bible to be taught to be the truth, they should teach those things to their children themselves or take them to some extra religion classes to church or something. No public school should teach any religion as a truth, but they should teach about religions.

The board is "considering" banning these books to prove a point. They are saying you want to ban books you don't like, we might just ban books you like, see how you like that.

Actually, this makes me think that it would be in the interest of devote Christian parents NOT TO allow the Bible in schools. Imagine two scenarios, and think of them from the perspective of Christian parents:

Scenario 1: The Bible is taught in public schools, as fiction. Then kids go to their Sunday classes where they are told its not fiction. Are they going to believe their public schools or are they going to believe their Sunday school teachers? Will this cast into a fiction light everything else they will learn in Sunday school?

Scenario 2: The Bible isn't there in schools. In this case it doesn't make it look like a fiction. After all, Clifford Algebras are not part of the school program either, but that doesn't mean Clifford Algebras are fiction: they are simply too hard for students to learn. So Bible is "too hard" in some other way. So its left out. And then its totally up to the parents to present it however they want. If they want to present it as historical reality, they can. And then their kids would believe it is a historical reality since they have not heard any message to the contrary from their schools.

Well, I guess one should be a little careful with this. If at schools the teachers were to get mad at kids for talking about the Bible then it "might" send some kind of message against the Bible too. But then again it doesn't have to be presented that way. For example when you mentioned not to expose too young kids to Anne Frank, you didn't say Anne Frank is a fiction; instead, you said Anne Frank might be psychologically damaging to some kids. So schools could also say that Bible talk is psychologically damaging to some people, without saying its a fiction. And then they can go home and be told by their parents its a historic reality, and fully believe it.

That would be the case if you assume that Bible is symbolic rather than literal. Since liberal Christians tend to view Bible as symbolic while conservative Christians tend to view it as literal, the Darwin's work might still be offensive to conservative Christians.



I see your point. But here is an idea. What if you take all the time that you have freed from studying biology/geology, and use it to study more math. So what is now a university math program will become a high school math program. Looks like a total win/win. One excellent thing about mathematics is that it is the one thing that everyone with all political or religious persuasions agrees upon.

So...no one in the next generation will know anything about geology, biology, or astronomy? And we will have to stop drilling for oil, stop the space program, get rid of GPS satellites, and ditch all medicine?

Yeah...sounds like a real "win" to me!

Well, they can study "some" biology/geology, just not the one that touches on the distant history. In particular,

1) Its okay to study structures and functions of alive organisms today, but its not okay to study how they originated in the distant past

2) Its okay to study the processes inside the earth today but its not okay to study how the earth came about

3) Its okay to study quantum mechanics and particle physics, but its not okay to study cosmology

I guess its possible that the depth of the studies might end up being sacrificed "somewhat" since, if one studies "safe" areas of biology/geology hard enough one might run into connections with "unsafe" areas. But then again, do American schools study anything that hard anyway?

Of course we shouldn't try to keep it this way: education has to improve. But thats where my advice comes in. If you want to improve education, improve it in math instead of the other fields. So I guess

A. Remove the history aspects of biology/geology/physics

B. Keep other parts of said fields, but don't go deep enough to run into the history aspects (unless you find ways of doing so that don't generate complaints)

C. Whatever time has been freed, fill it with more advanced math

D. And then of course parents are free to teach biology/geology themselves and/or send kids to extra-curricular biology/geology classes (just like they are free to teach religion themselves and/or send kids to sunday school)

Doesn't sound ideal, but at least a direction to think about.

I think we need to preserve geology because I need top notch geologists to help me find me oil fields.Industrial Civilization would end without sciences like geology.Petroleum geology would not work at all without the rock dating system.

Last edited by Texasmoneyman300 on 22 Aug 2022, 10:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.