The Bible is too sexual: 1700 complaints over freedom of speach injustice.

This is quite close to the bone! As it were. In Hong Kong a local univercity magazine included a sex survey, which included questions about incest and beastility and all sorts of pervie stuff like loking at your mum and dad in the shower. (eeeeewwwwwwww!)

Now there have been ongoing arguments as to wether it should be distributed as an over 18's only product.

www.iht.com...

The courts decided it should be wrapped in a plastic bag and only sold to those aged 18 or older, the students have hit back by saying the bible is worse. Some government chappie was on the news yesterday saying that they would not look in to complaints against the Bible.

What do you think? Should the Bible be for over 18's only?

Are they barking up the wrong tree?

Is this a freedom of speech issue?

www.truthbible.net...

This is in Chinese, but the banner at the top is bi-lingual and makes quite a statement!

I have also heard that they want to put a warning label on the bible, " This may be hazardous to your health. " It dosen't suprise me none, but I personally think it should be left as is, you know? I don't believe there is no harm done.

God bless

Neither did James Joyce when he wrote Ulysses, but it was banned.

Neither did Walt Whitman when he published Leaves of Grass but it was originally banned because it used new words.

Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn were banned from juvenile libraries.

The Bible itself has been banned in various forms many times:

The Bible and The Quran were both removed from numerous libraries and banned from import in the Soviet Union from 1926 to 1956. Many editions of the Bible have also been banned and burned by civil and religious authorities throughout history. Some recent examples: On July 1, 1996, Singapore convicted a woman for possessing the Jehovah's Witness translation of the Bible. A 2000 US government report reported that Burma (also known as Myanmar) bans all Bible translations into local indigenous languages. (The military dictatorship of that country also required modems to be licensed, so residents of Burma, like NetNanny users, are not likely to see this page.) Distributing Bibles, along with other forms of proselytizing by non-Muslims, is also banned in Saudi Arabia, according to this State Department report. (An email correspondent told me a few years ago that a sign at a Saudi Arabian airport customs stated that arriving travelers should surrender their non-approved religious books to officials before entering the country. A more recent correspondent tells me that the Saudis generally allow western families to bring in their own Bibles, if they do not bring in more copies than expected for personal use.)

Some governments still tightly control religious organizations and their publications. In 1999, the government of China banned the Falun Gong sect and confiscated and destroyed books by their founder and other Falun Gong books. As you can see, the books live on over the Internet-- at least in places that don't censor incoming Net data.

onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu...

Mein Kampf has been banned in some places. Is there any harm banning it?

Is there any harm in any of these books, really? No. But under cover of religion many of them have been banned. Why should the Bible be treated specially? It's more obscene in many ways than any of the books I listed at the top of this post, and more offensive in content.

I'm against censorship of any kind, but I can't help being amused at the Chinese and their abhorrence of the Bible. It's not necessarily a religious text to them so they can see through the "Jesus loves you's" and to the meat of the problem, which is blood, rape, genocide, etc.

And looked at from that perspective I can't blame them for not wanting children to get their hands on it.

Just my own humble opinion as a non-theist.

MM - I think you would be shocked at how many Chinese do really think "Jesus loves you" it has become something of a fashion out here, a kind of convenient badge to wear so to speak. But that's a whole other kettle of conspiricies.

Thanks for the reading list.

The Huckleberry books are fantastic (if me and the wife have another boy it's on the short list for middle name!!) We read Ulysses at school, don't know what all the fuss was about there! I'll suffle down to the library later.

Originally posted by followerofchrist
I have also heard that they want to put a warning label on the bible, " This may be hazardous to your health. " It dosen't suprise me none, but I personally think it should be left as is, you know? I don't believe there is no harm done.

the problem is that the bible is full of things that aren't appropriate for people to read at a certain age.

there is:
rape
incest
murder
strong sexual content
genocide

just to name a bit.

Ok, how many good things are in the Bible?
If we relate this to society how many good things do we have and how many bad things do we have?
For every bad thing do we not have punishments for those bad things?
You know, it is not like your'e telling children, hey look, this tells you to rape so that is good, no. We are saying, hey look for every good thing there is a reward. For every bad thing there is punishment. God gives warnings, it is not like out of the blue he does something.
My opinon is, that the good heavily out weighs the bad.

God Bless

That's not the point the good outweighing the bad, it's about what is bad being obscene. By that standard have many Christian groups banned and/or burned a great many books considered classics by academics and lay people alike.

The reason I'm amused is it seems to me to be a case of what goes around comes around and the irony is just so very delicious.

If your saying it is then, where are the labels on such books like mein kempf?
Where is labels on the koran?
Or any other book?
Why single out just the Bible?
The answer is in the Bible.
People don't like the Bible. In fact, more and more people are growing to hate the Bible because of what it says. Why? because people don't want to live with the understanding that, that is the only way. But, MM you have stressed good points.
You don't have to believe in my God to see that though.
Did you read my whole thought though? Good out weighing bad was not my main point.

God Bless

Of course I read your entire post. But we don't need a book to teach us that bad actions have consequences. Peoples' parents are supposed to instill that concept from birth.

China has warning labels on all kinds of literature, I have been led to understand. The books mentioned were all banned here in the US AT ONE TIME. They weren't given warning labels, they were burned.

Here and now we DO put warning labels and concealing packaging on things our society finds obscene: pornography for sale in convenience stores for example.

I don't believe in censorship, period, so I'm not coming from there.

But I am saying that the Chinese people and their government have a right to decide what is obscene to them, and to censor it if that is what they want to do, Bible included.

If our nation was not Christian, but some other religion, it is entirely possible that the Bible could well be banned here, and for the same reasons.

I understand it is your holy book, and that you find guidance in it, but to those of us not shaped by belief in that book, it is full of horrors. But to people like me, those horrors are allegory and metaphor, if not downright fiction.

On that ground alone, it deserves no special treatment. I know you believe so, but every other belief system on the planet is just as valid as the Christian. Christians and their holy book should not expect special treatment or to be held to a different standard than they hold everyone else on the planet. Otherwise, they are practicing hypocrisy.

And I don't think that Jesus guy liked hypocrites very much.

This is actually a beautiful strategy.

"Hey young people - we absolutely FORBID you to read this book. It's waaaay too sexy. You Absolutely MUST be over 18 to read this."

Yeah that oughta discourage it.

Now I understand China is going to do what China sees fit to do. As I also understand where you're coming from.
To just ask a few questions though, Where did the parents learn that concept to teach to children? They in turn had to be taught it right? Well, where did it originate from?
I know we put labels on things, The word Christianity was a derogotory word back then, much like other words we have used throughout history. The point i'm getting at here is, where are labels on books?
Only magazines, cds, and videos over here have warning labels on them that I can think of off the top of my head.
These warning labels are not in just China alone I believe.
It doesn't have to take our nation to do that, they are already doing it little by ACLU little.
I do understand though.

God Bless


[edit on 24-5-2007 by followerofchrist]

To quote the Bible:

What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
Ecclesiastes 1:9

More specifically this is a repeat thread from a discussion we had last week.

Holy Bible...Sex Publication Controversy!

and the week before...

Reclassify the Bible as indecent because of the sex and violence in it

Thread Closed.