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Indecent Bible?

Indecent Bible?

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A recent column in the Chinese University’s Student Press magazine (Hong Kong) was deemed “indecent” by the Obscene Article Tribunal because it asked readers about whether they had ever fantasized about incest or bestiality.

A storm of debate followed – on freedom of speech, the right to open sexual discussion, and the obligations and limits of social morality.

Seemingly in response (although I’m not sure how they would know that), someone launched an anonymous web site (truthbible.net ) that said the holy book “made one tremble” because of its violent and sexual (including rape and incest) content.

By noon Wednesday, Hong Kong’s Television and Entertainment Licensing authority (TELA) had received more than 800 complaints about the Bible. TELA now has to decide whether the Bible violates Hong Kong’s obscene and indecent articles laws.

If they decide that it does, then the bible could be sold only in a sealed wrapper, with a statutory warning notice. You’d have to be over 18 to buy it.

Ok, generalization time: Here in sanctimonious America it is common for people simply not to read the bible (really read, as you would read another book). Those who notice little issues tend, for whatever reasons, to keep critical thoughts to themselves. Many people on all sides feel ignore the parts that might make them at all uncomfortable, or that contradict one another, or that aren’t really comparable from one book to another. Many people don’t realize how much violence and censorship was involved in the selection and canonization of the scattered texts called the Bible, or that ideas about “inspiration” came along rather late.

“I think the Good Book is missing some pages….” – from “Icicle,” Under the Pink, Tori Amos

There are plenty of odd bits in these texts. Ancient peoples lived a bit closer to life’s edges than we do, and their cultures and perspectives varied. Ever wonder about how things looked from the Canaanites’ point of view? Or why God would order someone to impregnate his brother’s wife? Where did Cain’s wife come from? And what was that whole thing about grabbing “thigh” to make a vow?

I won’t list more examples here. Hey, it’s a PG-rated blog, and some of these are too… tooo… toooo…. unreflective of American “family values.”

But I’ll link ’em! Here are a couple of lists – I’m pretty sure that at least one example may startle you.

Books are better. Reputable biblical scholarship is best, but some of the others are interesting too:

“It ain’t the parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me, it’s the parts that I do understand.” – Mark Twain

Synchronicity Humor

Synchronicity Humor

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Speaking of Jung (see last post), have you ever paid attention to those odd groups of coincidences, the ones that cluster together in uncanny ways? If you were prone to magical thinking, you might think that the universe was trying to send you a message. Given quantum realities, maybe that’s not so far-fetched after all.

I stumbled upon this humorous piece just after going through my job search file. Doubly funny because I am almost tempted…

The Ultimate Rejection Letter

Herbert A. Millington
Chair – Search Committee
412A Clarkson Hall, Whitson University
College Hill, MA 34109

Dear Professor Millington,

Thank you for your letter of March 16. After careful consideration, I regret to inform you that I am unable to accept your refusal to offer me an assistant professor position in your department.

This year I have been particularly fortunate in receiving an unusually large number of rejection letters. With such a varied and promising field of candidates, it is impossible for me to accept all refusals.

Despite Whitson’s outstanding qualifications and previous experience in rejecting applicants, I find that your rejection does not meet my needs at this time. Therefore, I will assume the position of assistant professor in your department this August. I look forward to seeing you then.

Best of luck in rejecting future applicants.

Sincerely,
Chris L. Jensen

Birds Love the Voice of Charlotte Church

Birds Love the Voice of Charlotte Church

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I am too disheartened by recent events to be able to respond to the news in any kind of responsible way today. I’m taking a break.

And I have been rewarded. I have just witnessed the Snow White/Sleeping Beauty effect. Keep reading.

One of the nicer aspects about not having found a full-time job yet is that I have a couple of days off during the week. I was feeling rather down and, having completed most of my mundane chores, I threw on Charlotte Church’s Enchantment CD and went out on the deck to have a cup of coffee outside on this gloriously beautiful day.

Even knowing that hearing some of the songs would make me cry, I knew it would (paradoxically) cheer me up to hear some of this music. Yes, I have a very corny, sentimental side. Songs from West Side Story will still get me every time. On top of that, the contrast between my own performance of “If I Loved You” and hers (I played the part of Julie Jordan in a high school production of Carousel ; ) is really quite enough to drive me to tears all by itself. Of course, her orchestra doesn’t drag everything out like a dirge, but still… I couldn’t even match the performance of the Shirley Jones version.

Charlotte Church has such a beautiful voice. How I wish that I could sing like that. I used to practice singing along with the tracks of “ghost” Marni Nixon, but I never produced the sound I wanted with the songs I most enjoy. I sing a lot less now. I don’t have as much time alone as I used to, and it’s really not fair to torture my family with my version of “Glitter and Be Gay” – no matter how cathartic it may be.

So, anyway, the Disneyesque bird phenomenon began about halfway through “Habanera.” At that point, I noticed that there were a couple of little chickadees or something flitting around the back yard. During “Bali Ha’i“ these were joined by a stunning cardinal pair, and by the time it got to “The Little Horses,” there were about a dozen birds flying all around. They hopped around and tipped their little heads, and started singing with her!

A gigantic white cumulus cloud, swirling with fractal curls around its edges, drifted over the house. The new leaves whispered gently. I smelled a whiff of lavender.

And for a moment, everything was magical. Truly enchanting. I was transported.

Lovely, my dear Charlotte. Thank you.

But the moment moves on, and then I’m thinking of the genre: Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Lily Tomlin in Nine to Five, and the ethereal voice of Charlotte Church. There is something almost uncanny about birds and women’s voices and love and spirit and… somehow …wait a minute…housecleaning? Sigh… I always though the villains were more interesting anyway. To paraphrase Margaret Atwood, they’re the plot, baby.

The first time I heard La Habanera, it was sung by an orange in an animation on Sesame Street. Heh-heh.

Nobody does this one better than Maria Callas, though, not even Charlotte Church. For this aria, you need the voice of experience. Look at her face. Stunning.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BysvxpzzxtM[/youtube]

L’amour est un oiseau rebelle
que nul ne peut apprivoiser,
et c’est bien en vain qu’on l’appelle,
s’il lui convient de refuser.
Rien n’y fait, menace ou prière,
l’un parle bien, l’autre se tait:
Et c’est l’autre que je préfère,
Il n’a rien dit mais il me plaît.
L’amour! L’amour! L’amour! L’amour!

L’amour est enfant de Bohême,
il n’a jamais, jamais connu de loi;
si tu ne m’aimes pas, je t’aime:
si je t’aime, prends garde à toi! etc.

L’oiseau que tu croyais surprendre
battit de l’aile et s’envola …
l’amour est loin, tu peux l’attendre;
tu ne l’attends plus, il est là!
Tout autour de toi, vite, vite,
il vient, s’en va, puis il revient …
tu crois le tenir, il t’évite,
tu crois l’éviter, il te tient.
L’amour! L’amour! L’amour! L’amour!

Vonnegut – so he goes

Vonnegut – so he goes

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So it goes, and he is gone. Good-bye, dear Kurt Vonnegut. I (for one) will miss you.

“When a Tralfamadorian sees a corpse, all he thinks is that the dead person is in a bad condition in that particular moment, but that same person is just fine in plenty of other moments. Now, when I myself hear that somebody is dead, I simply shrug and say what the Tralfamadorians say about dead people, which is ‘So it goes.’” – , Slaughterhouse-Five Kurt Vonnegut

“My parents and grandparents were humanists, what used to be called Free Thinkers. So as humanist I am honoring my ancestors, which the Bible says is a good thing to do. We humanists try to behave as decently, as fairly, and as honorably as we can without any expectation of rewards or punishments in an afterlife. My brother and sister didn’t think there was one, my parents and grandparents didn’t think there was one. It was enough that they were alive. We humanists serve as best we can the only abstraction with which we have any real familiarity, which is our community.

I am, incidentally, Honorary President of the American Humanist Association, having succeeded the late, great science fiction writer Isaac Asimov in that totally functionless capacity. We had a memorial service for Isaac a few years back, and I spoke and said at one point, “Isaac is up in heaven now.” It was the funniest thing I could have said to an audience of humanists. I rolled them in the aisles. It was several minutes before order could be restored. And if I should ever die, God forbid, I hope you will say, “Kurt is up in heaven now.” That’s my favorite joke.

How do humanists feel about Jesus? I say of Jesus, as all humanists do, “If what he said is good, and so much of it is absolutely beautiful, what does it matter if he was God or not?”

But if Christ hadn’t delivered the Sermon on the Mount, with its message of mercy and pity, I wouldn’t want to be a human being.

I’d just as soon be a rattlesnake.”
— From A Man Without a Country (2005) by Kurt Vonnegut

But I know now that there is not a chance in hell of America’s becoming humane and reasonable. Because power corrupts us, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Human beings are chimpanzees who get crazy drunk on power. By saying that our leaders are power-drunk chimpanzees, am I in danger of wrecking the morale of our soldiers fighting and dying in the Middle East? Their morale, like so many bodies, is already shot to pieces. They are being treated, as I never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas. — from “Cold Turkey,” In These Times, May 10, 2004

The sermon was based on what he claimed was a well-known fact, that there were no Atheists in foxholes. I asked Jack what he thought of the sermon afterwards, and he said, ‘There’s a Chaplain who never visited the front.’ Hocus Pocus, Kurt Vonnegut

Once again, Terry Jones

Once again, Terry Jones

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Wouldn’t you love to see him perform this? Can’t you hear the words as you read?

Call that humiliation?

No hoods. No electric shocks. No beatings. These Iranians clearly are a very uncivilised bunch.

Terry Jones, Saturday March 31, 2007, The Guardian

And what’s all this about allowing the captives to write letters home saying they are all right? It’s time the Iranians fell into line with the rest of the civilised world: they should allow their captives the privacy of solitary confinement. That’s one of the many privileges the US grants to its captives in Guantánamo Bay.

The true mark of a civilised country is that it doesn’t rush into charging people whom it has arbitrarily arrested in places it’s just invaded. The inmates of Guantánamo, for example, have been enjoying all the privacy they want for almost five years, and the first inmate has only just been charged. What a contrast to the disgraceful Iranian rush to parade their captives before the cameras!

Go on and read the whole thing.