Ten Reasons to Ban the Bible from Schools
Why ban it? We will let it speak for itself
Thanks to Chaz Stevens and the news reports of him petitioning school boards to ban the Bible for sparking my interest to take his good thinking a little further. It is a response to those who advocate that certain literature be banned from schools and libraries on the grounds that they discuss topics such as sex, race, violence, rape, genocide, and slavery. They claim young children should not be exposed to such topics.
The overwhelming evidence to ban the Bible are the very words from the Bible itself. The New American Standard Bible (NASB) translation is quoted exclusively throughout this article as most scholars agree it is one of the best English translations. All biblical quotes are in italics. Using the same translation also prevents me from any possible “cherry picking” between multiple translations. Either the book banning will be honest and consistent and will add the Bible to their list on the same exact grounds as they demand other books to be, or their hypocrisy, racism, and dishonesty will be evident for all to see.
I. The Bible describes marriage for young girls as something awful and that wives are far from being an equal:
If a man marries a girl and claims after the wedding night that she was not a virgin, and the girl’s parents are not able to produce evidence of her virginity, she is to be stoned to death. See Deuteronomy 22:13–21 for the full account of this law. God’s law mandated that she be stoned to death if her husband even suspected that she was not a virgin, even if the “evidence” used to convict her was medically and scientifically unsound and even absurd. Deuteronomy 22:20–21 “But if this charge is true, that the girl was not found a virgin, then they shall bring out the girl to the doorway of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death because she has committed an act of folly in Israel by playing the harlot in her father’s house; thus you shall purge the evil from among you.”
2 Samuel 12:11 Thus says the Lord, (this is God Himself speaking. Listen carefully to what He has to say. Note how He punishes King David for adultery and murder.) “Behold, I will raise up evil against you from your own household; I will even take your wives before your eyes and give them to your companion, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight.”
Jeremiah 8:9–10 The wise men are put to shame, they are dismayed and caught; behold, they have rejected the word of the Lord, so what kind of wisdom do they have? Therefore I will give their wives to others, their fields to new owners; because from the least even to the greatest everyone is greedy for gain; from the prophet even to the priest, everyone practices deceit. God obviously views wives as property belonging to men, thus when men are punished, God removes or harms the man’s property.
If your husband dies before you have a son, hopefully you like his brother a lot. Deuteronomy 25:5 “When brothers live together and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the deceased shall not be married outside the family to a strange man. Her husband’s brother shall go in to her and take her to himself as wife and perform the duty of a husband’s brother to her.”
The Bible gives many examples of God’s favorite men having multiple wives. Solomon, the wisest man on earth had seven hundred wives and three hundred sex slaves (concubines), but if a woman married, her husband better not suspect that she was not a virgin. Abraham: Two wives plus a concubine. Jacob: His two wives and two concubines gave birth to the leaders of the twelve tribes. Moses: Two. David: Eight of them, plus God told him he could have had more if he only asked. The Bible quotes God as saying that David was a man after His own heart. Gideon: Yes, even Gideon had many wives and sex slaves. Judges 8:30–31 Now Gideon had seventy sons who were his direct descendants, for he had many wives. And his concubine who was in Shechem also bore him a son, and he named him Abimelech.
Proverbs 31 teaches what qualities a good wife will have. While many of the tasks she was to perform are not relevant in today’s western culture, nevertheless, it appears to be all one-sided. No such list for the husband.
Ephesians 5:22–24 advises the following: Wives, subject yourselves to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything.
What are children to think when they read all that…especially when they were taught that the Bible is a good book inspired by their God?
II. The Bible does not value babies and often caused them to be eaten as food. Note how God executes His punishments:
Leviticus 26:27–29 “Yet if in spite of this you do not obey Me, but act with hostility against Me, then I will act with wrathful hostility against you, and I, even I, will punish you seven times for your sins. Further, you will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters you will eat.” These are punishments direct from God.
Hosea 13:16 Samaria will be held guilty, for she has rebelled against her God. They will fall by the sword, their little ones will be dashed in pieces, and their pregnant women will be ripped open.
Lamentations 4:9–11 Better are those slain with the sword than those slain with hunger; for they pine away, being stricken for lack of the fruits of the field. The hands of compassionate women boiled their own children; they became food for them because of the destruction of the daughter of my people.
The Lord has accomplished His wrath; He has poured out His fierce anger; and He has kindled a fire in Zion which has consumed its foundations. How did God satisfy His anger?
Psalms 137:8–9 Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction, happy is the one who repays you according to what you have done to us. Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.
1Samuel 15:3: “Now go and strike Amalek and completely destroy everything that he has, and do not spare him; but put to death both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.”
III. The Bible promotes racism, genocide, and mass murder:
Joshua 6:21 They utterly destroyed everything in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, sheep, and donkey, with the edge of the sword.
Deuteronomy 7:1–6 “When the Lord your God brings you into the land where you are entering to possess it, and clears away many nations before you, (genocide by any definition) the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and stronger than you, and when the Lord your God delivers them before you and you defeat them, then you shall utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them and show no favor to them. Furthermore, you shall not intermarry with them; you shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor shall you take their daughters for your sons. For they will turn your sons away from following Me to serve other gods; then the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you and He will quickly destroy you. But thus, you shall do to them: you shall tear down their altars, and smash their sacred pillars, and hew down their Asherim, and burn their graven images with fire. For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for His own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.
Numbers 31:15–18 And Moses said to them, “Have you spared all the women? Behold, these caused the sons of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to trespass against the Lord in the matter of Peor, so the plague was among the congregation of the Lord. Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man intimately. But all the girls who have not known man intimately, spare for yourselves. Babies were killed because their parents “caused” God’s chosen people to sin. Why not just punish those that sinned rather than innocent babies? Notice however, that God instructed them to keep the young virgin girls for themselves. Two questions that children may ask: Did the girls have any say in the matter, and how was their virginity determined?
IV. The Bible teaches young boys that God sees nothing wrong with raping young girls as long as they are virgins:
Deuteronomy 22:28–29: “If a man finds a girl who is a virgin, who is not engaged, and SEIZES her and lies with her and they are discovered, then the man who lay with her shall give to the girl’s father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall become his wife because he has violated her; he cannot divorce her all his days.”
Deuteronomy 21:10–13: ”When you go out to battle against your enemies, and the Lord your God delivers them into your hands and you take them away captive, and see among the captives a beautiful woman, and have a desire for her and would take her as a wife for yourself, then you shall bring her home to your house, and she shall shave her head and trim her nails. She shall also remove the clothes of her captivity and shall remain in your house and mourn her father and mother a full month; and after that you may go in to her (that means to rape her) and be her husband and she shall be your wife.” (Rape and kidnapping were not only approved by the Bible, but they were expressly authorized as part of God’s Law)
Genesis 19:8: “Now behold, I have two daughters who have not had relations with man; please let me bring them out to you and do to them whatever you like; only do nothing to these men, inasmuch as they have come under the shelter of my roof.” Who would ever honor a father who freely offered their daughters to be raped and who told the crowd of men that they could do whatever they wished to them? The answer is the New Testament, which incredibly honors Lot by calling him “righteous Lot” in 2 Peter 2:7. A little later, Lot impregnated both daughters yet the New Testament still calls him “righteous” without a word of rebuke. In fact, the Bible protects men so much that it accused the daughters of raping their father when he was drunk and asleep.
V. The Bible causes millions of children (and adults) to have nightmares, depression, and mental anguish:
While it is true that many Christians no longer believe in an eternal hell, nevertheless, it clearly teaches that one exists. Millions of children believe that parents, grandparents, siblings, and/or friends are right now and for billions and billions of years to come are suffering with the most severe pain possible. Pain that is 24/7 forever and forever. Many parents suffer the same harm who had children die without faith.
Religious Trauma Syndrome is a real psychological and serious problem for millions of children and even adults.
Untold thousands of children suffer nightmares and/or depression believing that their dead alcoholic father or best friend who’s loving parents taught them another religion is burning in hell.
Parents do not own their children. They have a duty to help their children grow and to think and make good decisions by using critical thinking skills. Sadly, many parents and Christian organizations promote instruction and indoctrination that is absolutely the same as brain washing…the same way they would build a robot; to program it to think and act only in the way the “builder” decides. Many politicians who only seek power are manipulating parents by slandering and demonizing those people who really want what’s best and healthy for all children. They manipulate many parents who themselves were indoctrinated as children.
To believe the Bible literally, is the same as concluding most of human history, science discoveries, biology, physics, geology, astrophysics, and others are all frauds. Such blind faith stunts their intellectual and social growth and prevents the necessary skill of critical thinking to develop. That is why many cult members and followers of absurd and debunked conspiracy theories are those who were indoctrinated to accept things on blind faith. In essence, they were taught that obtaining and weighing evidence was not important. Many were taught that that was downright dangerous…that it could destroy their faith. It is no coincidence that the majority of climate deniers, flat-earthers, and QAnon followers also espouse strong religious views. Sadly, they lack the skill to critically think.
For a deeper understanding of this neglected problem, please explore the many resources at Recovering from Religion and Journey Free. Qualified therapists can be found at the Secular Therapist Project.
VI. The Bible does not only tolerate slavery; God endorses it:
Exodus 21:20–21: “If a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod and he dies at his hand, he shall be punished. If, however, he survives a day or two, no vengeance shall be taken; for he is his property.” (Despite this clear language, many apologists and preachers will lie and teach that Biblical slavery was nothing more than indentured service. We see that that assertion is just not true)
Exodus 21:1–6: ”Now these are the ordinances which you are to set before them: If you buy a Hebrew slave, (this law applies to Hebrew slaves only) he shall serve for six years; but on the seventh he shall go out as a free man without payment. If he comes alone, he shall go out alone; if he is the husband of a wife, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master gives him a wife, and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall belong to her master, and he shall go out alone. But if the slave plainly says, ‘I love my master, my wife and my children; I will not go out as a free man,’ then his master shall bring him to God, and then he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost. And his master shall pierce his ear with an awl; and he shall serve him permanently.” (Hebrew slaves can keep his wife and children only if he agrees to become the masters’ slave for life. Foreign slaves were slaves for life regardless and were property that the master passed on to his heirs. They had no way to keep their wife or children. Period!)
This was the same for the slaves in America for hundreds of years that many school boards try to prevent their students from learning about.
Leviticus 25:44–46: As for your male and female slaves whom you may have — you may acquire male and female slaves from the pagan nations that are around you. You may also acquire them from the sons of the foreign residents who reside among you, and from their families who are with you, whom they will have produced in your land; they also may become your possession. You may also pass them on as an inheritance to your sons after you, to receive as a possession; you can use them as permanent slaves. But in respect to your countrymen, the sons of Israel, you shall not rule with severity over one another.
Exodus 20:17: “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male slave, or his female slave, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” (Note how the Ten Commandments protected the man’s ownership of slaves and his wife as mere property.)
Exodus 21:7 “Now if a man sells his daughter as a female slave, she is not to go free as the male slaves do.”
VII. The Bible teaches that there is absolutely nothing wrong with being cruel to animals:
Not only are your children taught in Genesis chapters 6–9 that God drowned millions of animals including puppies, kittens, and bunny rabbits. Also included were all the little children, babies, pregnant women, the elderly, and disabled. Every single human being, except for eight, and all the animals in the entire world except for the few that were able to board a boat were just left to drown.
He also demanded the daily slaughter of animals because He loves the smell of them being roasted. Leviticus 8:21 After he had washed the entrails and the legs with water, Moses offered up the whole ram in smoke on the altar. It was a burnt offering for a soothing aroma; it was an offering by fire to the Lord, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.
Leviticus 1:17 Then he shall tear it by its wings but shall not sever it. And the priest shall offer it up in smoke on the altar, on the wood which is on the fire; it is a burnt offering, an offering by fire of a soothing aroma to the Lord.
Numbers 18:17: But the firstborn of an ox, the firstborn of a sheep, or the firstborn of a goat, you shall not redeem; they are holy. You shall sprinkle their blood on the altar and offer up their fat in smoke as an offering by fire, for a soothing aroma to the Lord.
More to the point…would a good and loving god ever create a food chain whereby the vast majority of his creatures would be required to kill and eat each other if they desired to live and/or feed their babies? Would it not have been a simple thing for a kind and smart god to just place solar panels in their ears to provide the necessary energy each animal and insect would need? And, if He really enjoyed the smell of the smoke, could he not have made it from a different source? After all, smell is basically nothing more than an arrangement of molecules in gas form.
VIII. The Bible gives children many obscene examples for how to speak with colorful and vulgar language used by their God:
Ezekiel 23:19–21: Yet she multiplied her obscene practices, remembering the days of her youth, when she prostituted herself in the land of Egypt. She lusted after their lovers, whose flesh is like the flesh of donkeys and whose discharge is like the discharge of horses. So, you longed for the outrageous sin of your youth when the Egyptians handled your breasts because of the breasts of your youth.
Jeremiah 13:26: “So I Myself have also stripped your skirts off over your face, that your shame may be seen.” You read that right. God was the one who raised their skirts.
Malachi 2:3: “Behold, I am going to rebuke your descendants, and I will spread dung on your faces, the dung of your feasts; and you will be taken away with it”
IX. The Bible requires the death penalty for over thirty “crimes,” some of which violates the U.S. Constitution:
The Bible by any definition is blood thirsty, violent, misogynistic, racist, immoral, and shows very little mercy or compassion. It is not what we want children to practice. It requires the death penalty for over thirty “crimes” by stoning, burning or by the sword. Besides murder, kidnapping and perjury, here are a few other ones. Do you really want your children to know what their God demands? Since the Bible teaches that God is the same yesterday, today and forever and that Jesus and the Father are one, is it honest to tell them that the New Testament did away with the bad stuff contained in the Old Testament?
Adultery: See Leviticus 20:10 and Deuteronomy 22:22
Worshiping other gods: violates the U.S. Constitution by denying freedom of religion and separation of church and state. See Deuteronomy 17:2–5
Witchcraft and divination: violates the U.S. Constitution by denying freedom of religion and separation of church and state. See Exodus 22:18 and Leviticus 20:7
Doing any work on the sabbath: violates the U.S. Constitution by denying freedom of religion and separation of church and state. See Exodus 31:15 and 35:2–3
Homosexuality: See Leviticus 20:13
False prophecy: violates the U.S. Constitution by denying freedom of religion, separation of church and state, and freedom of speech. See Deuteronomy 13:5 and 18:20–22
Blaspheming the name of God: violates the U.S. Constitution by denying freedom of religion, separation of church and state, and freedom of speech. See Leviticus 24:16
Promoting the worship of other gods: if an entire town is swayed by such people, the entire town is to be put to death and destroyed. violates the U.S. Constitution by denying freedom of religion, separation of church and state, and freedom of speech. See Deuteronomy 13:12–18
Cursing ones parents: See Exodus 21:17
A foreigner (outsider) who gets too close to the tabernacle, violates the U.S. Constitution by denying freedom of religion and separation of church and state. See Numbers 1:51, 3:10, and 3:38
If a man marries a girl and claims that she is not a virgin, and the girl’s parents cannot produce evidence of her virginity, she is to be stoned to death: See Deuteronomy 22:13–21
It gets no better in the New Testament. Romans 1:28–32 gives a large list of things that are worthy of death, although it does not demand death like the ones above does.
Even In Matthew 15:4 Jesus says, “He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him surely die.”
X. The Bible makes your children ignorant about science and stunts their ability to critically think, thus putting their future at great risk. Critical thinking skills are necessary to make good decisions based on facts and not on rumor or myth:
A few of the absurd things that the Bible will wrongly teach them are true, follows:
Demons cause blindness and epilepsy.
That creating man before the animals (Genesis 2:15–19) does not contradict animals being created before man (Genesis 1:24–27).
Angels have the same DNA as humans, as they can and did have sexual intercourse with humans to make baby giants. (See Genesis 6:4)
The sun stood still for an entire day so that Joshua could finish one of his genocides.
There is no need to wash their hands before eating. In fact, Jesus himself mocked those that did.
That the earth was created in seven days, less than 10,000 years ago.
They should cut off their hand or pluck out their eyes if they cause temptation. See Matthew 5:27–30 and 18:8–9.
In order to cure and remove leprosy, Leviticus 14:49–53 says “to cleanse the house then, he shall take two birds, cedar wood, a scarlet string, and hyssop, and he shall slaughter the one bird in an earthenware vessel over running water. Then he shall take the cedar wood, the hyssop, and the scarlet string, with the live bird, and dip them in the blood of the slaughtered bird as well as in the running water and sprinkle the house seven times. So he shall cleanse the house with the blood of the bird and with the running water, along with the live bird, the cedar wood, the hyssop, and the scarlet string. However, he shall let the live bird go free outside the city into the open field. So he shall make atonement for the house, and it will be clean.”
That two and a half million slaves were able to outrun the entire Egyptian military in one day and live forty years in a wilderness without leaving a single trace of evidence.
It teaches your children that they should live in poverty if they wish to avoid hell fire for an eternity. Jesus said in Mark 10:21, Luke 18:22 and other places to sell everything you own and give it to the poor. He warned in Matthew 19:23 that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter heaven. Matthew 25:34–46 teaches that heaven is obtained only by helping the poor and needy, and without doing those things, one is eternally condemned.
Finally, the conclusion to this article, even though there are other horrors and inhumane things your children can learn that their God is ok with, if you allow them to read the Bible.
Christians are taught that Jesus came and changed everything bad that was in the Old Testament. Yet, the Bible actually teaches that Jesus and God the Father are one and that He never changes; that He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
If a man says he loves his wife but then kills her because she tried to leave him, did he really love her? If a god says he loves you but will torture you for an endless eternity if you do not love him back, is that really love? Yet, most “Christians” claim that their faith is based on love.
Sadly, just like most other religions, it is really based on childhood indoctrination with little or no desire to study and research to determine if there is really a sound basis for believing it. In other words, by definition, it is nothing but “blind faith.” Blind faith will allow you to believe absolutely anything, as it requires no evidence or even a logical basis.
Is believing in Jesus any different than the billions of other people who believed in one of the other thousands of gods that history informs us of? Almost all believers of any religion simply believe that what their parents and culture taught them was true. Pure and simple.
Dan Barker published a book in 2016 titled “GOD, The Most Unpleasant Character in all Fiction” The book contains twenty-seven attributes that the Bible itself teaches belong to God. Here are a few links to the various attributes taking you straight to the passages where you can read about them word for word directly from the Bible.
jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving, control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”
Here is a YouTube video regarding that book: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crn1T3Ynx2U&t=69s
To those who want to shelter their children from books about sex, racism, and violence, the Bible is the last book you should want them to read, bar none; especially since it affirms the worse of those things.
