The Turkish creationist sunk a whole lot of money sending an elaborate creationist book to thousands of biologists. I’m sure he felt he was doing us a favor in sending us the light, but most of the recipients were feeling something less pleasant — it’s like receiving a gilded dead rat in the mail. Now the conservative Christians are going to get in the act, and in a low-rent version of the game are going to send a few hundred thousand cheap bibles to newspaper subscribers.
A Christian ministry wants to deliver custom-designed New Testaments to newspaper subscribers around the country as part of an effort to find innovative ways to spread a Christian message. But even in the Bible Belt, not everyone thinks that’s a good idea.
It’s no surprise that blinkered Christians think that handing out their bad ol’ book is doing Good Works — that’s been one of their major wasted efforts for centuries — but it’s wonderful that people are actually complaining. What they don’t seem to appreciate is that getting a Bible is like getting an invitation to join a wacky cult — thanks for thinking of me, but I’m sorry, this is crazy stuff and I want no part of it. Oh, and I wish you would go away, as you’re an embarrassment to an enlightened community.
But of course the organizer of this campaign doesn’t get it.
“It’s disappointing that anyone would object to getting a Bible, which is the best read book in the whole world and has been for hundreds of years. They have the right to do with it what they want to,” he said. “Do they object to getting a bag of Quaker oatmeal or Tide detergent or an AOL disc?”
Why, yes, we do! I really dislike those mass mailings of plastic and pulp that I have to throw away, and that end up in a landfill somewhere. Which is exactly what will happen to their chintzy little testaments. And the reason it is the best read book for so long is because of clueless fanatical organizations like Send The Light that inundate regions with copies of the book and tell everyone they must read it or go to hell. It’s a cheesy way to jack up your rankings in the best-seller lists.
By the way, the group doing the deed is the International Bible Society-Send the Light, which is a British organization. I know America is a religiously primitive nation, it’s people prone to accept the most ludicrously foolish religious ideas, but could you Europeans please stop inflicting your cultural imperialism on us in this way? Stop sending Bibles, send more Eddie Izzard, please.
The sad thing is think about how much money (even if they are cheap) they wasted on making those Bibles. All of that money could, oh, be used to feed the poor, as I’m sure their donors were expecting. Disgusting.
I second the sentiment of more Eddie Izzard!
Whoa! Who started this? Cultural imperialism? Must be the Americans. “Send the Light” according to Wikipedia started in Chicago sometime around 1957. The operation moved (invaded?) the UK later.
What about the Gideons? Surely the most (in)famous bible pushers – they even came to my school! What do you know: founded 1899 in Wisconsin – again according to Wikipedia.
And now we’re even getting The Simpsons spoiling our rolling hillsides and phallic tourist hot spots!
The defense rests.
PZ,
I can only apologise on behalf of my fellow Brits. What can I say ? With a population of some 60 million we will always have some loons but for them to be so intent on showing the rest of the world how loony they are in just embaressing.
It appears to be a British based organisation, but according to Wikipedia the founder is from New Jersey. So perhaps it’s as much a case of American cultural imperialism…
MWhahahahaha…haha..ha…
Our plan to destroy America by drowning you in religious fanatics is right on track.
In all seriousness, they will probably do the same thing here, and I will throw mine away with all the other junk mail.
I love this talk about American cultural imperialism because the British would never engage in such a practice.
We can send you some tea instead: I hear you no longer organise tea parties over there. We’ll have a whip-round to see if we can send you any cream buns as well.
Bob
Peterte: Don’t worry about Homer, I don’t think he lasted that long.
After he appeared on our hills, the Pagans announced they’d perform rain magic. But perhaps they’re now wondering if they prayed too hard. Or whatever it is that pagans do.
How about a bit of both?
And yeah, I was handed a Gideons New Testament in an assembly back when I was maybe 9/10. Of course, this was long after the sign language version of the old testament drilled into us by Pastor Salid.
MAJeff: Of course the British are cultural imperialists, we have a lot more culture to be imperial about.
That’s a joke, by the way.
Oh great, here we go again, more clogged toilets…
For they so loved the b.s. that they could not resist annoying everyone else in the world with their fucked-up crap nonsense.
Leave people alone, you fucktards!
I dunno about sending them tea, perhaps we should ask for all our Lipton’s Iced Tea back and maybe all those spoons that American ladies of a certain age seem to take back when they leave London? They’re clearly not grateful ;*)
Errr… I believe Christians were engaging in a form of imperialism long before either The States or The Kingdom were United.
Now, about the Bible being “the best read book in the whole world.” Does this mean that the Bible itself has read more books than any other book? And that the Bible is consequently comprised of a loosely-connected collection of smaller books?
I also wonder if this best-seller has more buyers than readers.
The bible pushers used to position themselves in front of the entrances of our geology building – I guess they felt like they were giving all our poor damned souls a chance.
Aside from the waste, I don’t really have anything against bible distribution. Sending it to people who have billing accounts somewhere at least means they’re out for adults. What irks me most is the idea of forcing it on their kids. We need that generation to be educated and help the rest of us save their sorry souls.
Hey xians, don’t go away mad…
Just go away…
If someone wants to send me a Bible, it ought at least to be a decent Bible, with the Old Testament and Catholic apocrypha, in a decent translation. And I’m getting to the age where my eyes prefer larger print.
A cheap NT is just going in the trash.
I knew Bob was too common a name for me.
I am hoping I get one of these babbles, so I can leave pages of it laying about. In public restrooms (that’s a loo, for you Brits).
(And so you know I am not an Anglophobe, I must say there have been some awesome bands, musicians, TV shows from Mother England, along with all the crap.
Why do the British drink warm beer? They have Lucas refrigerators.)
I love the way they think the only reason we haven’t joined their cult is because we don’t know about it. Somehow, the idea that we’ve heard about it and rejected it as nonsense can’t seem to find its way into their heads.
Why would their donors expect that?
I think distributing bibles this way is stupid and offensive, but I also hate the mindless “that money could be used to feed the poor” argument. You might as well argue that we should stop doing, say, cephalopod research because the money could better be spent feeding the poor. Whatever.
Kseniya asks:
From personal experience I would say yes, many of these are handed out or distributed to people that will never read them.
A second observation also from personal experience is that the majority of those who do claim to read the book only read a small fraction of it – the fraction that supports their church’s theology. They carefully avoid any part that may be troublesome to their teachings and carefully avoid juxtaposing certain verses that are clearly contradictory.
Hmm, sounds like good material for altered book art.
In fact as I think about it, the reason for distributing the New Testament only could be seen as to avoid some of the obviously distasteful stuff in the Old Testament.
True Bob, I see you’re well-versed in the ways of Lucas.
I’ve got a Lucas: Prince of Darkness t-shirt
“A gentleman does not motor about after dark – Joseph Lucas“
The linked article is very confusing. It refers constantly to “Bibles”, but if you read carefully, what is planned for distribution is the New Testament only, with “local Christian testimony.”
If it doesn’t include the Old Testament, they ought not to call it a “Bible.” What immense disrespect for the author.
It could be to avoid some of the OT horrors, but there are still some right shockers left in.
Hellfire is a New Testament invention and Paul demands that women listen in church in ‘silence and subjection’, to name two off the top of my head.
Kseniya:
Oh yeah, I hear it’s of intelligent design. And it’s got ‘Numbers’ on its side.
(Now I’ve got an image of a studious bible, wearing glasses and smoking a pipe and sitting an easy chair, reading cheap Harlequin Romances by the boxful.
Bibles have their uses, at school we all got given one at one point – they ended up being great to “fix” the old wobbly desks in some of the classrooms. It’s the thickness of the paper I think, bible paper is really thin so you can vary the amount you use to just the right amount to get rid of the wobblyness. Brilliant stuff. ;)
King Aa, that’s brilliant! I used to drive an Austin Healey Sprite, Mk IV. It steered like a go kart, and could beat ANYONE. Across an intersection. But those Lucas electrical things….sigh.
#21, you’re incorrect here. While the argument is -usually- vapid, when we’re discussing money donated to a CHARITABLE ORGANIZATION, one probably expects it to be put to use in a CHARITABLE way.
In this particular instance, the “you could have better spent it feeding the poor” is perfectly apropos.
#21
Feed to poor to what? cthulhu?
King Aardvark,
Back in the day, I was the proud owner of both a 1960 bug-eyed Sprite and an Austin Healey 3000 roadster. I thought Joseph Lucas invented darkness.
True Bob,
My right hand drive Sprite was SCCA modified: clocked 130 mph at Watkins Glen — a real Q Car on the road, but too uncomfortable for long trips.
Kseniya:
“Now, about the Bible being “the best read book in the whole world.” Does this mean that the Bible itself has read more books than any other book?”
Oh yeah, I hear it’s of intelligent design. And it’s got ‘Numbers’ on its side.
(Now I’ve got an image of a studious bible, wearing glasses and smoking a pipe and sitting an easy chair, reading cheap Harlequin Romances by the boxful.
Posted by: RamblinDude
Would not the bible be reading the “Left Behind” series? Would it not want to check on it’s offsprings?
Jon Eccles:
I don’t think Luke 14:26 is very pleasant: “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.” File that one alongside 1 Peter 2:18, “Slaves, accept the authority of your masters with all deference, not only those who are kind and gentle but also those who are harsh.”
Quoting Hector Avalos,
ancientTechied
Just a little modified? I don’t think mine went more than about 85. And I must say, those Big Healeys were so beautiful. I wish I could afford one now…
@ #21. The point of the argument went soaring by you. Cephalopod development (as with most university research) is an investment in the future. Monies spent on bibledy trash are merely wasted, i.e. opportunity cost- virtually any charitable organization that puts people ahead of ideology is better than yet another bible ‘diaspora.’
We were given one at the beginning of school as a gift from the school governors. Since it was a legitimate school book this meant that time at the back of the classroom could be spent looking up the porn and violence.
Also – still an atheist. Still have the bible I was given too.
“Would not the bible be reading the “Left Behind” series? Would it not want to check on it’s offsprings?”
Nah, it’s a sucker for self sacrificing heroes with long hair.
Hey TrueBob, our taste buds are highly influenced by the temperature of the what we’re tasting and some things such as beer may taste better at higher temps. Of course given that most American beer has absolutely no taste, it is pretty much irrelevant if it’s boiling hot or frozen.
Look-ee here:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/35142.php
I think this is a great idea…for Rupert Murdoch to emulate. Now that the Wall Street Journal is practically his, he should send out a Bible with each issue to make his subscribers cancel all the more quickly.
One reader wondered if he could halt other newspaper ads he doesn’t like. “Please note on my account that I want to receive the New Testament and ‘opt out’ of all other forms of unwanted solicitation and advertising. I want no toxic hair cream, no aspartame-filled gum or any other form of unwanted advertising and solicitation,” he wrote.
Bwa ha ha! The beginning of the end?
agreed. we shall send more Izzard by post. he may be slightly disgruntled, but he’ll still be funny.
just don’t let the Bible-bashers get their fundie paws on him, he’s a transvestite and you know what they do with transvestites.
Lepht
Hey, I’D like a gilded dead rat, assuming it was totally covered in gold so the smell wouldn’t leak out. If just the tips were frosted, not so much…
Umilik, it’s a trick. You’ll never get me to defend mass produced, rice “enhanced” ‘Murkan beer. Lowest.Common. Denominator.
Neat study and results. Now I wonder what the effects of pizza scaldings on taste arrrrrrgh. And how about some capsaicins in there as well. Mmmmm, it burns, it burns!
Athiests should chip in. There’s nothing like actually reading the New Testament to engender doubt, if not outright disbelief. Of course, we might have to include a little sheet that exposes some of the many lies told about the NT over the years–point out the phony, interpolated ended to Mark, the insertion of the “woman caught in adultery” story at a much later time, the fact that we have no idea who actually wrote the Gospels, show the many points of contradiction and disagreement, explain the bitter division in the early church between those who insisted that Christians had to be (or become–snip!) Jews first (the James gang) and those who said you didn’t (Paul)…and on and on. Mark Twain had it right: “[The Bible has]…some good morals; and a wealth of obscenity; and upwards of a thousand lies.” Fully a third of the lies are in the NT, and the morals are available to any human with a functioning mind without any revelation whatsoever.
just don’t let the Bible-bashers get their fundie paws on him, he’s a transvestite and you know what they do with transvestites.
Lepht
What, emulate his style?
Bring on the Izzard! We want Eddie!
The Bible isn’t the most read book in the world. It’s the most owned book. If more people actually read the damned thing, fewer would own it.
The relationship has been a bit strained since the Bible discovered the kids weren’t really his.
Have sex with them, then enter a rehab center to be “cured” of their devil inspired perversion?
On a different note, Shades of Haryun would make a great title for a book of poetry.
I have to take a stand against the American beer bashing. It’s not all terrible. There are some good beers here.
Like Widmer’s. Or Summit. Or Red Hook. Or, heck, anything from Rogue. Goose Island and Boulevard are pretty good, too.
Look, the point of this is, it’s not all the Bud/Miller crap.
not true — cellar temp is not warm – except in comparison to the popsicle-inspired temperature at which generic american beer is served… (I had a neighbor in PA who would pop his cans of miller lite in the garage freezer for ten minutes before drinking – they were already cold from being stored in the refridgerator)
The thing about chilling things to within an inch of their life is that it kills the flavour. Now in the case of much American beer this would be no bad thing but for beers that actually have flavour it is not a good idea. About 10C is a good temp for decent beer.
It’s Harun Yahya, not “Haryun”.
Okay, look, it was a slam (and an old one at that) on Lucas electrical products and their unreliability.
And as for watery rice beer, I blame prohibition. Since then, it has mainly been gigantic monolithic beer industry shipping swill from here to there.
As long as we’re derailing the topic onto beer, as a liberal, a free-thinker, and a multiculturalist, I think we need to put to rest the idea that there’s just One True Temperature to serve beer at.
A pint of bitters may be best just barely short of room temperature, but your average lager, especially pilsners, should be served in the mid-to-low 40s, to maximize the crisp, clean flavor and minimize unwanted sourness. Most American beers are lagers, whereas the British lean more towards ales, so it’s perfectly appropriate that one would be served colder than the other.
Don’t even get me started on Belgian beers, though.
Make it the Skeptic’s Annotated Bible, and I’ll gladly accept it and read it!
Yes, keep the Bibles and send more Eddie Izzard specials!
“Blaspheme, blasphe-you, blasphe- everybody in the room!”
And yes, please on the lovely offer of the cream buns, too, always wanted to try those, me!
As he’s doing “The Riches” (a cable TV series), I think he’s over here a good bit of the time anyway, nowadays.
Yes, but he’s an executive transvestite and that should confound the fundie hoards long enough for him to make a quick getaway. Even in heels.
(oops, twincats, that should be “hordes” instead of “hoards”)
Yeh, I guess they would be doing more swarming or crowding (per the Miriam Webster site) more than hoarding!
Maybe there’s a way to compromise: they’re already apparently trying to cut down on costs by sending out only the New Testament, not the whole Bible.
Maybe they could save even more by sending out a leaflet that says, “Magic man done it!” Would everyone be okay with that?
As if being the “best read book” in the world is any kind of recommendation. I mean, look at The Da Vinci Code.
Perhaps because of the Radio 4 connection a couple of posts back, this brings to mind Desert Island Discs, in which, as well as their 8 favourite records, guests are asked to nominate a single book to keep them going through their long solitary years as a castaway — but are preemptively provided with the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare in addition, clearly on the grounds of maintaining audience interest rather than anything else. (Sigh. Another pompous twit taking the Bible. Tune in next week!) The programme has been going since the 1940s and a lot has changed in that time; it would be distantly interesting to discover how many interviewees would nowadays insist on taking a scripture along were it not a given.
is there no way of sending these back at the expense of the sender?
Pooltable,
I somehow got on the Virginia Right To Life mailing list. Every time they send me something, I take it apart, put it in their prepaid self addressed envelope, sans anything that might finger the culprit, and send it back. It makes me feel better than asking them to remove me from their list
Tom@Thoughtsic.com wrote:
“The sad thing is think about how much money (even if they are cheap) they wasted on making those Bibles. All of that money could, oh, be used to feed the poor…”
Infidel! have you not read the scriptures?, which state…
Matt.18:8
Harken to my words oh ye poor and malnourished,
If you have the choice between buying Bibes or food, then choose Bibles; for yeah verily, it is better for you to enter life anorexic and starving than to be thrown into the eternal fire.
Here endeth the lesson.
Matt: I have long wanted to do something to be invited on Desert Island Disks so I could say, ‘Actually Kirsty could I swap the Bible for something useful, like a blow-up anatomically correct sheep?’
In defence of British beer – a lot of it is live. It comes from the brewery with yeast in the barrel, and finishes its conditioning in the cellar of the pub, where the landlord must first bash the barrel to loosen the yeast residue from the barrel sides and let it settle before serving. In the north we like our live cask beer slightly chilled and with a creamy head. Only slightly chilled. A cold pint is an abomination – the hop aromas and flavours are lost. Southerners, OTOH like their beer warmer and flat – no head.
This being Yorkshire Day, and me commenting from Yorkshire in the North of England, from where Darwin posted his first copies of the Origin to America, I was going to make a load of north vs. south nonsensical points but it would be hypocritical. I have been thoroughly bent on good flat warm southern beer, too.
Meh. I wouldn’t turn down a decent free bible. Even if you totally reject its claims of truth and morality, it’s still a fundamental part of western culture, and has some amusingly odd stories, too. I’m with Dawkins in suggesting that it be treated as some part of the literary canon in any western education system.
Man, P. Zed, why are you so pissed off at old books lately? It’s the people that make the problems.
For the record, I would also eat the free oatmeal and use the free detergent. But the free AOL goes in the garbage.
You know, it occurred to me that giving the castaways an obligatory Bible isn’t such a bad idea after all. You’re going to need something to sit on while reading all that Shakespeare…
I’m not going to get involved in the Brit vs. USA debate, except to say that we don’t drink beer, we drink ale.
—
Anyway, a point about the Bible being a best-seller, as so many Xians claim: If so, how come it’s never on Amazon’s Top 20 list?
Hey stogoe: Tried Widmer with supper–very nice, thanks!
I find it rather appropriate that religion is being flogged like soap or oatmeal. It’s a commodity, after all, and one that relies on need creation and brand loyalty, just like anything else.
Now if we could just tax it like a business.
In public restrooms (that’s a loo, for you Brits) #19
Nay sir, that is a “bog”. A loo is what you have at home.
In public restrooms (that’s a loo, for you Brits) #19
Nay sir, that is a “bog”. A loo is what you have at home.
Oooh, I sit corrected, sir.
About a year ago I took a history of science course on Darwinism, and my final paper was on the Evolution/Intelligent Design/Creationism debate in the modern Muslim world, and a good chunk of that paper ended up being about Harun Yahya. He has a bunch of sites. There’s this gem, for example:
http://www.jesuswillreturn.com/
I was struck by how much his sites have in common with Christian sites, only exchange “verse” with “sura,” and “Bible” with “Qur’an.” The guy’s a real nutjob. I’m glad someone else has come across his name.