cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/15908405

Training materials produced by the Florida Department of Education direct middle and high school teachers to indoctrinate students in the tenets of Christian nationalism, a right-wing effort to merge Christian and American identities. Thousands of Florida teachers, lured by cash stipends, have attended trainings featuring these materials.

A three-day training course on civic education, conducted throughout Florida in the summer of 2023, included a presentation on the “Influences of the Judeo-Christian Tradition” on the founding of the United States. According to speaker notes accompanying one slide, teachers were told that “Christianity challenged the notion that religion should be subservient to the goals of the state,” and the same hierarchy is reflected in America’s founding documents. That slide quotes the Bible to assert that “[c]ivil government must be respected, but the state is not God.” Teachers were told the same principle is embedded in the Declaration of Independence.

  • Facebones
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    1 month ago

    Is it time to burn churches yet? I feel like it’s time to pull a Norway.

      • Facebones
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        1 month ago

        Burn the buildings and remove the entities. Rebuild something actually useful.

        Then ban organized religion as a whole, because it isn’t the fucking 1700s.

        • AmidFuror@fedia.io
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          1 month ago

          Hard disagree. There needs to be both freedom from religion and freedom of religion. And that includes organizing around religious beliefs.

          What we don’t need is the use of public money and institutions to promote religious beliefs.

          • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            It’s all about money/power, not about morals/ethics or helping people as they say it is. The easiest way to put a big dent in the money is simple and would be supported by many of them because it is money they care about. Churches should be taxed just like everything else. Property taxes would hit many of the churches right in the expansionism and bring them into how do we shrink our property ownership.

            I don’t know if any line in the Constitution that said religious institutions shouldn’t pay their fair share. It just says that people have the freedom to choose their religion.

            • AmidFuror@fedia.io
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              1 month ago

              I’m not against taxing churches. That’s really not the same thing as burning them down and banning organized religion.

              • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
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                30 days ago

                Yeah, I figured I’d add to the discussion something more reasonable that I figured we may be could agree upon and actually hope to change in our lifetimes. Would be a huge uphill battle, but I can’t see how you couldn’t convince most people that companies buying land pay taxes, so why aren’t they.

          • Facebones
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            30 days ago

            Freedom of religion =/= freedom to amass power and tax free hoarding of resources. Both history AND our current times shows what happens when we let religion organize unchecked. If you want to go pray at your friends house, have fun - but its time to end the corporatization and socialization of faith once and for all.

            Our “freedom of religion” is inherently by definition incompatible with freedom from religion. Anybody who approaches public policy from a religious place should be removed. Any institution with religious undertones should be dismantled. Churches should be deconstructed. Religion should be exclusively private because any other arrangement means that religious people are allowed to exert their religion upon me via media, government, policy, public display, etc, etc.

        • Eheran@lemmy.world
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          30 days ago

          If everyone destroys everything they disagree with, then there is no history left to look at. Old building? Gone. Books? Gone. Etc. so please just leave it alone and deal with the people instead.

          • Facebones
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            30 days ago

            This isn’t about disagreement. They intend to rebuild the country in their image which involves taking out everything and everyone they don’t like. If it’s a choice between my culture, my life, my friends and family being burned or burning them -

            I’m going with them.

      • Got_Bent@lemmy.world
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        30 days ago

        There was a church for sale in my town several years ago. I really wanted to buy it and turn it into a bar I would call something along the lines of, “House of Spirits”

        (I had a better name at the time, but I can’t remember it exactly)

    • Admiral Patrick@dubvee.orgOP
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      1 month ago

      I don’t know if my principles would let me.

      OTOH, standing on principles is fine, but I can reach a little higher if I"m standing on a pile of money. lol

      • HubertManne@kbin.social
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        1 month ago

        yeah and figure if you don’t take it some gullible folk who will buy into it may be taking the slot. your doing the world a service by taking their money.

        • Admiral Patrick@dubvee.orgOP
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          1 month ago

          Ok, that’s solid advice. Kinda like keeping scammers on the phone so they have less time to scam easier targets.