Is It Okay For Religious Texts To Be Required Reading?

     At first, I was a little weirded out when my humanities professor told us we had to read "Exodus" in the Bible. But I quickly got off my high horse when my professor explained that we were supposed to think of the Bible as a story, and to think of God as a character in the story, rather than a religious text as the Bible is traditionally taken. My professor said, if anything, reading the Bible was not going to "convert" anybody, but it would just reinforce our own personal beliefs. And that it did.

     I'm actually really glad I took the time to read "Exodus." Even though it was one of the most boring things I've ever been forced to read to this day, I would have never picked up and read a Bible out of curiosity, and I would have never had any sort of background knowledge about what goes on in the Bible. I can't remember one thing from going to CCD when I was younger. I've never really been religious, but now I feel a little bit more justified when I say I don't really believe in God.

     Reading the Bible and Thomas Paine's "The Age of Reason" certainly sparred a lot of interesting discussion in class. It was brought up that National Geographic did some kind of program where they proved ways that the ten plagues could have been naturally occurring. Although a lot of them are a stretch, there's really no way to disprove that the plagues were naturally occurring. "Because the Bible says so" may be enough to convince some people, but that seems pretty irrational to me. If you really think about it, all the way back when the Bible was written, there was no science or knowledge of natural phenomena, so it makes complete sense that the only way to explain the plagues were because of some higher power. Just sayin'.

      I wish the person had specified where in the Bible this happens, but it was also brought up in class that somewhere in the Bible, God commands a sinner to be executed by, not just killing him, but cutting him up into little pieces. Really? This is the big man in the sky that everyone worships?

     Another girl in class today shared that when she was fifteen, her parents made her go to confess her sins to a priest in the Catholic church. She said she was never very religious, but she went anyways to make her parents happy. She told the priest that she had misbehaved and left it at that, and he promptly told her that she "wasn't being honest, therefore, she's going to hell." Once again... Really? If there is a hell, I hope that priest goes there for telling a fifteen year old girl, and probably many others, that she's going to hell.

     While I'm on a huge rant about religion and how telling people they're going to hell for stupid reasons is wrong, I'm going to prolong this by talking about a guest on the Tyra show. (Tyra actually got some pretty interesting guests to come on her show... Haters gonna hate) This devout Christian woman came on the show because she performed an "excorsim" on a teenage boy because he was gay, so that the "demon" inside of him that was making him gay would leave the boy's body. She then promptly told this generally good-natured, Christian boy that God doesn't love him and he was going to hell if he was still gay after the excorcism. No further comment needed.

     So to answer my own question, yes, I think it's more than okay to make religious texts required reading. The way I see it, religion causes people unnecessary stress. I'm not saying that my views are perfect, and that everybody should feel the same. I'm not saying all Christian people are nuts. I'm not declaring myself an atheist. And I'm not saying my professor is the reason that I'm not religious. I have always thought this way, reading "Exodus" and "The Age of Reason" has just given me some background knowledge so I can draw my own informed conclusions about what I believe. If there is a religion for just not caring about religion, that is what I am. Until there's solid proof, I'd rather just enjoy living my life and not worry about what created the earth or what's going to happen to me after I die.

Picture of maniacally laughing God taken from sarcasticindiefucks