Slashdot Mirror
Lego Bible Too Racy For Sam's Club
localman writes with this excerpt from CNET: "Through his hit Web site and three popular books, [author Brendan] Smith has spread the gospel of 'The Brick Testament.' But now, because of what it says are concerns about 'mature content,' Sam's Club, one of the nation's largest retailers, has banned in-store sales of the fourth book in the series, The Brick Bible.
He was, a bit sadly, exactly what you would expect from a guy who has devoted a significant portion of his adult life reproducing the stories of the bible out of legos. Still, it is pretty impressive work.
If the Bible was judged purely on its contents, in the same way as other books, then it would require quite a warning label.
BUT then I read the article and found out that Brendan Smith SELF-CENSORED his book at the request of Sam's Club in order to make more money.
So... I am supposed to care that a guy who willingly took a dick up his ass got more then he bargained for?
Hell no. Smith approves of censor ship in name of the almighty dollar well, then he has to go all the way. If you want me to care about your lack of freedom you shouldn't have given it away first. This guy has no principles clearly, he only cares about selling less books.
Let this be a warning, you can NOT negotiate with religious extremist. Give them a finger and they rip of your arm then beat you with it. Why do you think Larry Flint the smut peddler was defended by civil rights groups? Not for the sake of porn itself.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Direct quotes from the Old Testament .... Illustrated by Lego characters ... People thought it was a childrens book.
It's the Old Testament! THAT, isn't a childrens story!
Sam's Club is bending to the will of a few ignorant souls. Poor form, Sam's Club. Poor form.
Modern man holds religion in contempt and doesn't care about silly shit like internal superstitionist squabbles.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Umm, no matter what happened (I'm not familiar with the book), a store deciding they don't want to sell a product isn't censorship.
There is rape, incest, homosexuality, torture, as well as murder in the King James Bible. Perhaps they should ban it as well.
The point of TFA is that the book was pulled after one or two complaints based on an unedited preview version of the book and website, NOT the final version that was going to be sold in the stores! The author took out the "objectionable" material for the final version.
It's about as stupid as all the FCC complaints sent in en masse by religious groups who never watch the shows they're supposedly objecting to.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
So he makes this book doing the Old Testament, and makes scenes of minifigs "begatting" (there's a lot of that going on in the OT), and the Sams Club buyer has a problem with it. So the author removes those scenes.
Meanwhile, the parental shitstorm stirring crew goes about spreading info about how there are all these sex scenes, and they astroturf a bunch of complaints without actually looking at the version that is being sold. Then someone else at Sams Club decides that it needs to be pulled because of all the complaints from the idiot busybodies.
(I wonder if how much brick house was in those minifig sex scenes.)
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
"Although Sam's Club no longer sells "The Brick Bible," the book is still available through a number of online retailers."
This sentence from TFA might give people the wrong impression that Sam's Club is the sole, omnipotent Super-Mega shop in the United States. I'm glad to know that I can still get my suggestive Lego books from any one of a couple thousand other retailers.
Kind of ironic that Wal-Mart (a corporation that often makes sales arguments based on religious overtones) would be willing to censor a book that is a direct interpretation of religious literature. I shutter to think what their reaction will be if someone decides to ink an uncensored graphic novel based on the Bible...
Fewer kids get religious propaganda this way. Seems fine to me.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
The woman who posted on Facebook seems to be saying that the content that is inappropriate for children is not in the book, but on the website. The book was edited for kids, but she's saying that kids these days know to look for a website for more content if they like something, and the website contains adult-oriented violent and sexually charged themes that were edited from the book, which is marketed towards kids. I don't know that I totally agree, but I can kinda see her point that if a franchise like this is marketed towards kids, then you kinda expect the entire franchise to be that way. Just because you think the bible is the word of God doesn't necessarily mean you want to teach all of the most violent and sexual parts to your 6-year-old.
Parents pick up what appears to be a children's book, later discover it uses legos to illustrate sex in a few of the images. Sam's gets numerous complaints, pulls the book off the shelves, and tells the author the book sells well, but they won't stock more unless he removes the few sexual images. He does, and his books continue to sell rather well. Honestly, the whole "Bible" detail of this story is simply a confounding factor to make slashdotters say OMG religion so dumb! Censorship! etc. Does the KJV speak in plain terms about sex? Sure, if you speak English euphemisms from the 1600s. This is why parents are a lot more comfortable reading the KJV to their kids, rather than showing them lego people having sex. Let's all go back to our caves now; nothing to see here.
This is religious satire. More kids need to be exposed to religious satire.
There's not really much more to it than that.
Link pls?
Don't parents know how to manage kids' use of computers & the internet?
"But the internets are our babysitters! How dare you imply that plopping the kid in front o' the computer on the internets and then going out to git a drink is irresponsible! Ain't none o' that immoral stuff on the internets 'cept what them dirty-book-makin' people put there! Hang 'em!"
*Note: I don't believe this myself, but was once actually told this by someone who gave every impression of meaning it in a completely non-ironic manner, after asking if doing that might not be a good idea. I don't even live in the Southern U.S. where that accent would make sense. The person in question adopted this accent years previous, when I commented that their claims of being french weren't supported by their very non-french accent.
What is sold in a store should be reflected by what the people request to be sold there.
The book section has recent published material forced into circulation not by what the people want to buy.
On the other hand, the people request their grocery store to be diverse as well as their clothes store to be diverse.
Christmas has been stolen by chinese imports to sell not Christian bibles but the anti-christ religion of merchandize from a fictitious fat man: this proves the mockery of atheism to astroturf all over other religions, but nobody complains because a country of immigrants just does the bogus celebration to "blend-in" with their related immigrants like a few extra linemen on a football field not being called a violation.
It's not for nothing that the brick bible website has this warning:
"The Bible contains material some may consider morally objectionable and/or inappropriate for children. These labels identify stories containing: nudity, sexual content, violence, cursing"
assignment != equality != identity
Christians use magic wine and magic bread in the ritual cannibalism of a man who died 2,000 years ago.
That probably has something to do with the fact that the Bible itself is vulgar and violent: it contains human sacrifice, genocide, infidelity, and incest, much of it actually approved by God!
...film at eleven. Come on, folks. WMT is based deep in the Bible Belt. Their market demographic includes a large chunk of poorly educated, religious fundamentalists who believe that nudity, let alone sex, is "sinful". So a few dozen hypocrites called in and complained of "dirty pictures" in yet another edition of "The Good Book", and WMT nearly falls over itself to "correct" this horrifying assault on Christian children. And this surprises anyone, why?
Look at all the rabid atheists having a go at the bible haha
First off, when you scroll down that same wikiMedia (not wikipedia) page you can find that other map/chart by the same author, which should make you question his/her "unbiased approach to the subject", or at least the precision of his/her data.
Also note that neither of those graphs are currently used - cause, you know... there are better and more precise ones.
Then there is the fact that neither of those maps currently used is of any particular value on its own.
ESPECIALLY those related to the headcounts.
Cause, while it may seem from the map of distribution that "Christians RULE!!111eleven!", from "religiosity" and "irreligion" maps one kinda gets the feeling that there may be a rather large percentage of bollocks in those stats.
Then, back to that graph, besides it being out of date - there is the fact that CIA's "The World Factbook" (which is the source of data for that graph) doesn't list its sources or methods or sample sizes.
Which makes it basically more akin to guesstimates than statistics.
They can't even be bothered to be up to date with readily available data on USA, let alone the rest of the world.
And where they pulled those numbers on protestants from is anyone's guess.
So, I wouldn't really bet the farm on those 55.6% you got from that graph.
Particularly when taken into account the fact that it's mostly the people in "undeveloped countries" who give credence to the stories in ANY of the religious books.
And that's all without going into the whole "it's a packaged deal" thing where you can't pick and choose the bits of God's words you'll believe in - making all of them unbelievers to some extent.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
If they think the lego bible is racy, wait till they see what's in the King James version of The Bible. Specifically, The Book Of Deuteronomy.
Oh...
Wait..
That site was at one time interesting for a unique portrayal of texts shared by several faiths. At some point the creator decided to pander to the anti-theist crowd, or maybe he was just like that all along and held it in check. After that I stopped bothering with the site.
the bible doesn't have a chapter on that
if one reads the bible one will find more disturbing things thats not good for the young.
The written bible is not offensive because the bumpkins who take offense at the adult content are the same people who could never read the book in the first place. BUT the Brick Testament is basically a comic book version of the bible, and anyone can look at the shocking pictures and say "oh my God."
I love the Brick Testament. It is probably the most convincing illustration that the bible is both nonsensical and morally abhorrent. It achieves these ends by quoting the bible and by showing you the story. It is a bit like Tina Fey and her skit about Sara Palin where she quoted Palin word for word. It takes little more than a clear illustration of the stories therein to show you why the last 2000 years have been dominated by war and genocide. The god of the christians, jews, and muslims is a cold blooded genocidal monster. If you don't believe me read Joshua.
I'm not surprised that a bunch of Christian busy bodies were offended by their own holy scriptures, I find them offensive as well.
-- QED
The old testament must be one of the most gratuitously violent and disgusting work of fiction in existence. The God that features in it is the most vengeful and destructive figure one can possibly imagine.
And these folks are worried about the sex bits? Nutcases.
Now in its original context I've no problem with the written version, entirely in keeping with the spirit of the book. That section was never intended to be illustrated, indeed the illustrations go against the moral spirit of book. Its intended as book of rules of conduct not as a spectacle of images to be gawped at. I'm generally in favour of using illustrations to help interpret books making them more accessible. Here its just inappropriate and Sam's Club is entirely right to ban it.
Later in the same section Leviticus 15:28-15:30, the bibles advocating the large scale slaughter of doves. Apparently women should sacrifice two doves or pigeons eight days after the end of her period. So thats 24 doves a year. Its a good thing all christians don't follow this as we would very soon rid the world of doves. I now know what I'll ask the next time the Jehovah Witnesses come knocking on my door.
There are four sorts of people in the world: fools, lunatics, idiots and morons. - Umberto Eco, Foucaut's pendulum.
Yes it does, Moses took their tablets and broke them when he found that the children weren't up to the responsibility to use them correctly.
It's got incest, masturbation, blasphemy, homosexuality and witchcraft.
Only reason I read it actually.
If Sam's Club were lobbying Congress to pass legislation banning the book from being printed or sold, or getting an agreement from all of the other major retailers not to stock the book, then that would be censorship.
I can't find anything on the author's Brick Testament Facebook page calling this "censorship", and the author notes on that page that "The Brick Bible remains available at many other major retailers like Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com, and at many independent bookstores as well." The free PR that this is generating will probably boost sales of the book overall.
It seems Walmart is to stupid to understand that "Bible" means "book".
These 'showy off' efforts purporting to be risque remind me of the strongest guy in the school calling the school wimp names. Right! Everyone knows that nothing will happen though a few girls may make a few remarks sticking up for the bully. There is no bravery there.
Similarly there is no bravery in Smith's effort. A REAL tough guy would be really risque by publishing The Lego Q'uran. Then I'd be impressed by tough guy Smith having the balls to do something truly brave. And showing how really does not care about religion.
comedy = tragedy + time,what do you think of this
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