Via Ed Brayton comes this report that the Pennsylvania House has declared 2012 to be “The Year of the Bible,” on the spurious grounds that “Biblical teachings inspired concepts of civil government that are contained in our Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States” etc, etc. Which of course is why the three branches of American government are the king, the priesthood, and the prophets, just like the governments ordained in the Bible.
Anyway, I was just thinking: what year should 2013 be? The Year of the Koran? The Year of the Book of Mormon? The Year of Dianetics?
Or perhaps we should go with The Year of On Origin of Species? Or perhaps Demon-Haunted World? (One of my favorites.) Or how about Letter to a Christian Nation?
What’s your nomination?
I vote the Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster for e year (2718). And since I don’t want to wait 700 years, some approximation of a mathematical constant I’ll live to see, too.
2009 was already the year of Darwin.
Say, what about a year celebrating free press ?
The Year of “The Lord of the Rings”, As long as they want years of books of fiction…
Did they they find a version that matches the claims? They must mean the Jefferson Bible.
How about “The Year of the Silmarillion”? After all, it even includes a Creation Story!
And it’s a far better creation story than most of the others…
Which bible? Next year could be the New King James Version, then perhaps an older version the following year. Oh, and we could alternate between catholic and Protestant versions too.
If they’re in to nominating fantasy fiction, how about David Eddings’ Elenium trilogy?
Indiana is way ahead of Pennsylvania in ecumenicalism: Indiana Senate Votes to Teach Scientology in Schools
.
Briefly, the Republicans in the state senate were railroading through a Creationism bill. The Dems didn’t have enough votes to stop it, so instead they amended it like this:
Which should be enough to embarrass the Republicans, but if you read it carefully, it is pretty weak. It doesn’t say you need to teach them all, just more than one; and Christianity shares its creation story with Judaism and Islam.
It’s fascinating to know that every single Christian prior to 1776 was reading it wrong.
I would like to nominate Harold and the Purple Crayon. A wonderful story of wonder, fear, and inspired creativity.
Silmarillion is good.
But what about the Edda?
First man licked out of the eternal ice (soon to disappear in Global Warming) by Authumla the cow, and soon to come Ragnarok, the endtime when the fenriswulf eats the sun.
Given the manner in which our Legislature has speeded up our run off the cliff (Philly resident), I’m not sure making it to 2013 is a given.