There was an article on Fox about this. Many of the comments were "Well, the bible doesn't encourage any of those things." Obvious they haven't read it.
The hell of it is, we as atheists have known about the less than palatable portions of the bible for ages. It is entirely likely that those who sponsored, voted on, and passed the bill allowing for the banning of books have almost certainly never read the bible cover to cover, nor are they even remotely aware of the numerous verses which, if these people ever read them out of context, would immediately demand the censure of said book!
Sadly, this brand of ignorance may be entertaining in the short term. In the long term, it's beyond problematic and into dangerous territory.
Books are about IDEAS, and you can ban or burn them all you want. The ideas will still be out there, and no amount of 𝑠𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑚 𝑢𝑛𝑑 𝑑𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑔 will evict them from the field of play. This is a fact that needs to be rubbed into the noses of the fools who pass laws like this, until they understand that knowledge IS better than ignorance and understanding better than cluelessness.
I, for one, would like transcripts of the hearings on this. I want to compare their stated reasons for not banning the bible and compare them to their stated reasons for banning the books that got the ax.
Their hypocrisy needs to be called out in full, everywhere, and at all times.
It is amazing to me, that despite thousands of years of evidence to the contrary, they still believe if no one talks about LGBT people, there won't *be* any LGBT people.
How about ethnic cleansing? Abraham offering to give his wife to a leader of an enemy city if all the men were circumcised and then killing them all and most of the women and children while the men were all too sore to fight? How about date rape (Samson and Delilah, and Judith who decapitated an enemy king) as well as the cited stories. Song of Solomon? Favorite book of adolescent males.
It's an good response. But the courts in Utah and Florida will be perfectly happy to enforce an obvious and biased double standard. Consistency is not one of conservativism's hobgoblins.
I remember very clearly something that came up in one of my undergraduate Shakespeare courses. One scholar, decrying the overwhelming glut of Shakespeare "scholarship"*, suggested that all 37 plays and all of the poems be buried in a time capsule for 100 years, then dug up so they could be evaluated afresh.
I'd suggest that would be even more appropriate for the Bible. Imagine people who had never been indoctrinated to think of the Bible as "the word of God" reading it from a fresh, unbiased point of view. The derisive laughter, alternating with expressions of horrified disbelief, would be absolutely deafening. "People used to believe THIS?!"
Time to get out the shovels!
*Our prof told us there had been an article- or book-length study of Hamlet alone published an average of every eight minutes for nearly a century.
Iowa Trumpublicans are currently pushing a bill that would cause any book banned by any school district to be banned in all school districts throughout the state.
As soon as it's enacted I'll be submitting a ban request for the Bible in my district.
As an ordained minister - ULC, Takian¹ Humanist - I'll declare *all* books currently in our libraries to be sacred, just in case they go that route. 😁
(¹ Tak doesn't require that we think of him, only that we think.)
Remember when Jezebel was thrown from a tower and her remains were eaten by dogs?
Is that really something you want your kiddies exposed to?
(I was, but I was a weird kid who read all the "good stuff" in the bible for fun. Like David killing Goliath with a rock. Excellent role model material, that! Yet when I bonked my brother in the head with a rock, I got in trouble. Go figure, I was just doing as the bible teaches by example.)
There was an article on Fox about this. Many of the comments were "Well, the bible doesn't encourage any of those things." Obvious they haven't read it.
"But, but, we can't ban the 𝘉𝘪𝘣𝘭𝘦!" Special pleading is, along with cherry picking and goalpost moving, a favorite sport of conservative Christians.
The hell of it is, we as atheists have known about the less than palatable portions of the bible for ages. It is entirely likely that those who sponsored, voted on, and passed the bill allowing for the banning of books have almost certainly never read the bible cover to cover, nor are they even remotely aware of the numerous verses which, if these people ever read them out of context, would immediately demand the censure of said book!
Sadly, this brand of ignorance may be entertaining in the short term. In the long term, it's beyond problematic and into dangerous territory.
And while I think about it:
…𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑜𝑛𝑙𝑦 𝑤𝑎𝑦 𝑡𝑜 𝑓𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑎𝑛 𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑎 𝑖𝑠 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑎 𝑏𝑒𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑎, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑟𝑒𝑔𝑎𝑟𝑑𝑙𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑜𝑢𝑡𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑠𝑡, 𝐵𝑂𝑇𝐻 𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑎𝑠 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑟𝑒𝑚𝑎𝑖𝑛 𝑒𝑥𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑡. “𝐾𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑎𝑛 𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑎” 𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑘𝑒𝑠 𝑚𝑒 𝑎𝑠 𝑎 𝑣𝑖𝑟𝑡𝑢𝑎𝑙 𝑖𝑚𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑏𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦. 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑜𝑠𝑡 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑑𝑜 𝑖𝑠 𝑑𝑒𝑚𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑎𝑛 𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑎’𝑠 𝑖𝑙𝑙-𝑠𝑢𝑖𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑛𝑎𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑖𝑛𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑝𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑏𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑎𝑑𝑣𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑙𝑖𝑓𝑒 𝑜𝑟 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑔𝑜𝑎𝑙 𝑖𝑠 𝑜𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑡𝑎𝑏𝑙𝑒.
-- me
Books are about IDEAS, and you can ban or burn them all you want. The ideas will still be out there, and no amount of 𝑠𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑚 𝑢𝑛𝑑 𝑑𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑔 will evict them from the field of play. This is a fact that needs to be rubbed into the noses of the fools who pass laws like this, until they understand that knowledge IS better than ignorance and understanding better than cluelessness.
Yeah, it's a big ask. Still needs to be done.
I, for one, would like transcripts of the hearings on this. I want to compare their stated reasons for not banning the bible and compare them to their stated reasons for banning the books that got the ax.
Their hypocrisy needs to be called out in full, everywhere, and at all times.
It is amazing to me, that despite thousands of years of evidence to the contrary, they still believe if no one talks about LGBT people, there won't *be* any LGBT people.
How about ethnic cleansing? Abraham offering to give his wife to a leader of an enemy city if all the men were circumcised and then killing them all and most of the women and children while the men were all too sore to fight? How about date rape (Samson and Delilah, and Judith who decapitated an enemy king) as well as the cited stories. Song of Solomon? Favorite book of adolescent males.
I don't know about banning the bible. It should, however, be shelved in the proper place, as far away from the non-fiction books as possible.
It's an good response. But the courts in Utah and Florida will be perfectly happy to enforce an obvious and biased double standard. Consistency is not one of conservativism's hobgoblins.
And then there was Mohammed raping his 9-year-old "consensual" bride in the Koran.
Oh, wait, no way in hell was that book ever going to appear in a Utah school library in the first place.
I remember very clearly something that came up in one of my undergraduate Shakespeare courses. One scholar, decrying the overwhelming glut of Shakespeare "scholarship"*, suggested that all 37 plays and all of the poems be buried in a time capsule for 100 years, then dug up so they could be evaluated afresh.
I'd suggest that would be even more appropriate for the Bible. Imagine people who had never been indoctrinated to think of the Bible as "the word of God" reading it from a fresh, unbiased point of view. The derisive laughter, alternating with expressions of horrified disbelief, would be absolutely deafening. "People used to believe THIS?!"
Time to get out the shovels!
*Our prof told us there had been an article- or book-length study of Hamlet alone published an average of every eight minutes for nearly a century.
Iowa Trumpublicans are currently pushing a bill that would cause any book banned by any school district to be banned in all school districts throughout the state.
As soon as it's enacted I'll be submitting a ban request for the Bible in my district.
As an ordained minister - ULC, Takian¹ Humanist - I'll declare *all* books currently in our libraries to be sacred, just in case they go that route. 😁
(¹ Tak doesn't require that we think of him, only that we think.)
𝐂𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐡𝐚𝐭𝐞-𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐆𝐫𝐞𝐠 𝐋𝐨𝐜𝐤𝐞 𝐬𝐮𝐞𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐫𝐞𝐩𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐳𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬
https://friendlyatheist.substack.com/p/christian-hate-preacher-greg-locke
I really can't wait to see for Utah lawmakers' howling and whining.
You know, it probably wouldn't be a bad idea to ban the bible from schools. Look at what it does to the people who read it.
Remember when Jezebel was thrown from a tower and her remains were eaten by dogs?
Is that really something you want your kiddies exposed to?
(I was, but I was a weird kid who read all the "good stuff" in the bible for fun. Like David killing Goliath with a rock. Excellent role model material, that! Yet when I bonked my brother in the head with a rock, I got in trouble. Go figure, I was just doing as the bible teaches by example.)