What goes on in the religious mind?
This trifecta of interesting stories really has me wondering, what goes on in the mind of religious people?
Mark Frauenfelder points out some interesting statistics regarding their online reading habits:
Wikipedia is “The Free Encyclopedia.” What’s on the mind of Wikipedia its readers? Here are the top ten most viewed pages on Wikipedia:
1. Main Page [30,090,900]
2. Wiki [904,800]
3. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows [413,400]
4. Naruto [401,400]
5. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock [396,000]
6. United States [330,000]
7. Wikipedia [329,400]
8. Deaths in 2007 [321,300]
9. Heroes (TV series) [307,500]
10. Transformers (film) [303,600]Conservapedia is “The Trustworthy Encyclopedia.” What’s on the mind of its readers? Here are the top ten most viewed pages on Conservapedia:
1. Main Page [1,906,729]
2. Homosexuality [1,572,713]
3. Homosexuality and Hepatitis [517,086]
4. Homosexuality and Promiscuity [420,687]
5. Gay Bowel Syndrome [389,052]
6. Homosexuality and Parasites [388,123]
7. Homosexuality and Domestic Violence [365,888]
8. Homosexuality and Gonorrhea [331,553]
9. Homosexuality and Mental Health [291,179]
10. Homosexuality and Syphilis [265,322]
That’s interesting. Certainly explains a lot.
Then there’s this collaboration by David Wong and Owen Bell to identify the 9 most bad-ass bible verses, such as:
This is a man’s law, right here. When Conan became king at the end of Conan the Destroyer, you can bet he made sure there was a rule just like this his first day in office. “Ladies, we respect your right to resolve disputes in whatever manner you feel necessary for the situation. But, DO NOT GRAB THE JUNK.”The words in the Bible are actually those of God, speaking to the Hebrews and taking time to add the junk-grab rule into the supplemental commandments that didn’t make it into the original 10. This had to be right after God realized his plan for a male-dominated society had a fatal flaw, which is that the women could prevail in any conflict simply by grabbing the men’s junk.
Now, you nervous, liberal types are complaining that this is barbaric and misogynistic. Perhaps, a little context helps. Just a couple of pages earlier, in Deuteronomy 23:1, we get this:
“Emasculated by crushing?” Gah! Everything in the Bible has to be understood in context of the times these people were living in. And, apparently, these people lived in a time when “crushing” the nuts was so common that the crushed-nuts victims were an entire demographic that had to be accounted for in the law. Call these commandments savage if you want, but if you were God, how many nuts would you have to see “crushed” before you overreacted? We’re thinking the answer is two.Of course, if you’re not a believer and don’t think this “grab the nuts, lose a hand” commandment is from the almighty at all, then it becomes obvious what happened: The rule was handed down by some angry clergyman within the first minute or so of having his junk crushed. All perspective tends to go out the window at that moment.
That bible certainly seems to be filled to the brim with acts of violence and descriptions of sex, and from time to time you get gems like this, which combine the two. Geesh, and they say Hollywood is bad.
So what would happen if someone was to suggest that perhaps the bible isn’t all it’s cracked up to be? Well, if that someone happened to be Richard Dawkins, author of The Selfish Gene, perhaps the most influential advance in this century for the theory of evolution, it might lead to the wrath of an entire country:
Richard Dawkins’ best-selling atheist manifesto The God Delusion was at the centre of a growing row over religious tolerance yesterday after the Turkish publishers of his book were threatened with legal action by prosecutors who accuse it of ‘insulting believers’.
Erol Karaaslan, the founder of the small publishing house Kuzey Publications, could face between six months and a year in jail for “inciting hatred and enmity” if Istanbul prosecutors decide to press charges over the book, which has sold 6000 copies in Turkey since it was published this summer.
Doesn’t sound all that bad, compared to what they did in the bible, does it? Well, that depends. Consider what’s happened in past cases:
Mr Karaaslan is by no means the first publisher to face investigation in Turkey, a country that has become notorious over the past two years for a slew of cases based on laws restricting freedom of expression. Nobel prize-winning novelist Orhan Pamuk and Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink were two of dozens of writers to be charged last year under a controversial law that makes it a crime to “insult Turkishness.” Pamuk was acquitted. Dink – who was murdered this January by a 17-year ultra-nationalist - was convicted.
Holy crap! They murdered a journalist for being insulting? If that happened here, the body count would rival any major land war.
