re: #6 Gus

She’s coming to this conclusion based on a literal reading — ironically — of the bible based in Samuel 15:3:

This is found even in the New Testament. So, we equate said group with “strong adherence” to their ethos plus this feature of Samuel 15:3 and we come to the conclusion that Good News Clubs’ is creating future “child zomebie” that will commit genocide on people?

What about the other church organizations that require strong adherence? They too will have to read Samuel 15.3.

The bible isn’t an owners manual. Even the most devout I’ve know are not literalists. There are many awful things in the bible and most people don’t see it as a cause to order.

Highly inconclusive.

I know something about how the passage is interpreted and understood by Jews. I’m not surprised that it’s interpreted as a passage about unquestioning obedience by some Christian fundamentalists. (For those of you who haven’t read it recently, Saul, then king of Israel, screws up not by failing to wipe out the tribe, but by sparing the Amalekite king, as an act of professional courtesy, and trying to keep the cattle. I would like Saul better if he’d spared the kids and killed the king.)

But teaching the Book of Samuel to kids is not incitement to genocide, any more than teaching kids Pam’s Favorite Verses means they will all become suicide bombers. There’s a lot more to religious education than just the text, or even how the text is interpreted.