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.
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...
What's wrong with his claim? Just because 70+% of the population isn't modern doesn't mean the rest of us aren't holding them in contempt.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Modern man holds religion in contempt? Seriously? You need to get out more.
If you actually believe in the magic man in the sky that sees all, knows all, and needs money, you need to start using your head.
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.
What is this doing on Slashdot? Let's see...
Has all the hallmarks of a Slashdot story.
What would be modern about holding religion in contempt?
Nope, don't believe anything like that.
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.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/modern
I'd say it's a relatively recent phenomenon for people to hold all religions, rather than a specific subset in contempt.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Your awesome commen.... priceless! :)
Actually, Slashdot has lots of great stuff... which is why I read it. It just seems to collect a super high concentration of overly ignorant atheists.
Yes. But "modern man" is a minority in this country. Eventually you are going to have to step out of your house and deal with the masses.
On the other hand, "modern man" doesn't do much shopping at Sam's Club or WalMart.
Have gnu, will travel.
Don't parents know how to manage kids' use of computers & the internet?
Let me guess. A liberal, tolerant of the beliefs of others? Oh wait.
Om, nomnomnom...
"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.
I know that AC is entitled to take statements, sentences, and even phrases out of context. The phrase he quotes was part of "I remember that Noah's ark was found on top of a mountain, then I remember that story being "debunked", "
Link? Some of us were around for decades before links were available. I'll explain once more, for you young puppies, that I'm more than twice as old as the intartubez. "I remember" means exactly that - I remember. It does not mean "I read on the internet".
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
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?
Let me guess. A liberal, tolerant of the beliefs of others? Oh wait.
I'm very tolerant of other peoples beliefs as long as those beliefs do not adversely affect me.
I guess my question was more in regard to why. Is there something in the modern era that would make religion any less credible? The only actual trend I see which might do so is post-modernism, which is self-contradictory (so, should be ignored).
I'd say it's the advancement of science in explaining our world. 5000 years ago, you needed a diety to explain fire. 2000 years ago you needed a diety to explain someone surviving a near-death experience. Today everything around us is familiar science.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
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
Antireligious movements started in revolutionary France. Not my idea of modern.
Atheism is older than Christianity; some Hindu sects about 6th century BCE were atheistic. There were several other such movements in India.
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..
the bible doesn't have a chapter on that
When you say things like that... it makes baby Jesus cry :(
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
Atheism is older than any sentient being - you don't need to be able to believe at all in order to not believe in anything.
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.
But, what does that have to do with being anti-religious? That we can better explain our world will only confirm or refute some segment of religious claims. If a religion is true, the advancement of science will strengthen it (as, I'd argue, is the case with Christianity).
Not really. Compare Epicurus' writings on religion. He basically wrote the boilerplate text around 300 BCE.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
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.
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.
I'm definitely aware that there have been those who criticize all religions in the past. I was thinking more in terms of it becoming a broad social movement. I don't think it has ever reached more than a miniscule fraction (maybe 1-2%) before.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
The problem is that science, generally, suggests that most of the claims of most religions are untrue, and has been a better guide to people's lives. Your claim that the advancement of science has strengthened Christianity is an interesting one, I would certainly have claimed the opposite to be true, but it probably depends upon the metric. Christianity these days seems mostly reserved to the poorly educated. The more science creeps in, the less room there seems in the brain for religion.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Ok. I agree. Just wanted to point to Epicurus as one of the first to lay down the structure of 'modern' atheism. He surely didn't become seriously popular by it, though.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
I prefer the "Elite or it didn't happen" version of that old saying; you get 20% more ppi (proof per inch) that way.
How so?
I was being humorous at the expense of all the churchy people, by mimicking one of the lies they tell their children.