Wrong. That LoC poll was non-scientific. Any number of people could have voted any number of ways. It was not a Library of Congress poll, but was commissioned by the LoC through The Modern Library (Book of the Month Club) - and the editors chose different books than the putative "readers". (See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Shrug... and here http://www.nytimes.com/1991/11/20/books/...)

Moreover, you cannot ban an idea - not truly and effectively. Christians endure. Atlas Shrugged also endures. If you go here - http://aynrandnovels.org/essay-contests.... - you can see that kids in CATHOLIC schools enter and win these Ayn Rand Essay contests.

You have no idea how OLD this is. Back in 1958, we had a Catholic teacher in public school who thought that the Lord's Prayer was harmless. He stopped. The Protestants kept going: "... for Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory for ever. Amen." In Catholic church, the priest says that. I kept going. That was a surprise. He did not expect that I learned my Christianity in an Evangelical Lutheran Bible school. (Better than nothing, my mother figured...) Catholic Bibles, the ORIGINAL Christian Bibles, have books deleted by Protestants as "apocryphal" i.e., not the Word of God. There is absolutely no way to have a Bible class what will not be slanted to one side or another, except in a SECULAR context that views ALL sides as ignorant primitives.

"If a public school wants to include an elective class about the Bible, that class needs to refrain from presenting the specific interpretations of just one denomination"
I just wish we could all send our kids to schools of our choice, even if they demean humanist/atheists (i.e. me). I am confident that a rational scientific view of the world delivers the goods, i.e. predicts the results of experiments, lets people make iPhones and jet planes and so on, so I don't need to tax people's money and then offer them free secular education.

"God is giving Moses the law that the nation of Israel is to live by God orders that any who engage in homosexual behavior be put to death."
I am completely fine with that as long as you don't state is like that as if God were particularly focused on that one rule. You'd have to teach the dietary restrictions, the binding of Issac, Lot and his daughters, and so on.

"I wish there was a way to offer this class that wasn't considered controversial."
I agree. Historically people learned to read and write in public schools with Biblical tracts. I think that was approaching establishing a religion b/c they focused on one religion. Now it's easier just to ignore it, even though it's a big part of history.

If the gov't handed people vouchers to purchase education, or if people just paid with their own money, we wouldn't have to have this debate. If they paid with their own money, I bet churches would step up to teach poor kids religious stuff. I hope my UU congregation would finally open a school to promote reason, humanism, pluralism, and the Seven Principles.

We would have less reason to be angry with our neighbors over religion.

Which is wrong as well.

Let me be certain I understand this, because it might, just might be a break through. In Exodus as God is giving Moses the law that the nation of Israel is to live by God orders that any who engage in homosexual behavior be put to death. As long as it's not being taught as some denominational teaching, you have no problem with that being taught as historical fact?

I'm amazed!

Actually, if you were to attempt to strip out any passages that are important to one denomination or another, there would not be much left. However it simply must be taught as historical fact at some level or you are cutting out a lot of the history of western civilization.

A few years ago I was fortunate to attend a class on the history of western civ taught by a professor who did not make it his life's mission to cut any reference to religion out of these courses. A class I suffered through in the 70's was one such and I heard that this professor taught history as it was. I found it incredibly educating.

This subject is really supposed to be a class that opens the history of our civilization and unifies it with political history. This professor was successful.

Stripping the religious relevance had removed all the meaning of the subject for me for years. It was so enlightening that I taught the class, in a compressed format at our church a few years back. Reviewing my notes and his textbook (authored by him and self published through the university) rekindled the love of history I've had my entire life.

Now back to your suggestion that the class book, The Bible, be taught as it's written, without interpretation. Actually, that's exactly as our church uses the bible. What the words say is what they mean. We use the King James Bible and without hours of one on one, I can't go into here, so just allow me to choose one so that we eliminate interpretation. As for not being allowed to condemn atheism - do you just not teach those verses? Isn't that censorship?

Honestly, and this is going to surprise you, I don't encourage teaching the bible at public schools at lower than a college level. It can far too easily turn into something that neither you or I want. But the exclusion of the history that intersects with the bible is wrong. Pretending that religion does not exist by the schools is wrong. Teaching that the earth can and should be worshiped as some holy relic as you proclaim that you will not mention God or allow a bible in the library is fundamentally wrong and intellectually dishonest.

We may not agree but we don't have to be enemies just because I'm a Christian and you elect to not be. It's a choice.

Sadly the reason for this failure is exactly the same for both books. Fear that a persons present values, ideals and moral conceptions may be wrong. Both books require the reader to accept what they are reading with a open mind - and historically the most difficult construct to force open is a human mind by a new or different idea.

I wish there was a way to offer this class that wasn't considered controversial. According to the Library of Congress The Bible is the most influential book in history and Atlas Shrugged is second. Neither is discussed or debated in high school. That seems wrong.

Christians really get under your hide, don't they?