Anyone seen this delightful little image?

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http://img253.imageshack.us/my.php?image=biblewarninglabel5vc.jpg

Now, I knew about most of that, but the bestiality and voyeurism are news to me. The reason this is in the AoDA is to settle the "descriptive or advocating" part, as to what is advocated and what is described. (Actual passages would help, for those with a Bible handy.)

AFAIK...

• Suicide - described. IIRC, suicide is looked on as a sin, so I don't think it'd be advocated.
• Incest - unsure. Perhaps the NT has something forbidding it, but then again there might be something about preserving lineage.
• Bestiality - unsure. Animal husbandry? (Yes, I know what that term really means.)
• Sadomasochism - advocated. Self-flaggelation as repentance for sins.
• Sexual activity in a violent context - questionable advocacy. Some can consider those "spoils of war" marriages rape.
• Murder - described. "Thou shalt not kill" is pretty damn clear.
• Morbid violence - described. Well, not 100% sure about this, but I'd be a little shocked if the Bible advocated it.
• Use of drugs or alcohol - described/advocated. It's probably not broad-spectrum "do everything", but at least wine (Blood of Christ) is advocated.
• Homosexuality - described. If it was outright advocated, it definitely wouldn't be such a hot topic. Whether it's forbidden or not is a matter for another thread.
• Voyeurism - unsure. Surprised it's even in there.
• Revenge - decribed/advocated. "An eye for an eye" is pretty clear, but even the Bible seems to differ with itself on this one, IIRC.
• Undermining of authority figures - advocated. Starting up a new religion under the nose of the old one? Check.
• Lawlessness - described. This is probably referring to Sodom and Gomorrah, or something like that.
• Human rights violations and atrocities - advocated. What are human rights now weren't then.

So, anyone with light to shed on the subject(s) is welcomed, barring the one that already has its very own thread.

 

Definitely described - King David watching Bathsheba?

He later broke Commandment #7 with her, felt guilty about cuckolding one of his own soldiers, called him back from the front (as a messenger) tried to give him leave (but Uriah wouldn't let himself relax whilst his brothers-in-arms were still away fighting) and so forth until David finally gave up, sent Uriah back to the front and told his general Joab to 'abandon Uriah to the enemy' and ended up marrying Bathsheba.

EDIT: When it comes right down to it; fictional or factual (and that's not the issue at hand), it's a pretty racy read and most, if not all, of that warning sticker is appropriate. Mind you, having such material in the text that is a foundation of one's belief system might not be a bad thing - one has to know what a sin is to be able to reject it - but then, most people would think I'm a rather 'bent nail'.

 

I can help out with some of this, though I can't quote chapter and verse for you as I don't have my Bible with me atm.

Suicide: described as a sin, check

Incest: described a number of times, most notably with Lot and his daughters, though it is HORRIBLY condemed. The only thing close to advocating it is a law in the OT saying that, if a man marries and dies without any children, it is his brothers' (his brothers) responsability to then marry the wife and have children, which isn't really incest because the man and woman are still from different families, just the man is from the same family as the woman's previous husband.

Bestiality: described a few times, condemned

Sadomasochism: NOT DESCRIBED, as sadomasochism requires that you take pleasure from the act and thus it isn't punishment but reward. Punishing yourself for something, even physically, isn't sadomasochism.

Sexual activity in a violent context: Meh, arguable. Most of the time, the women were 'married' only symbolically, so they would have a family and people to provide for them. These relationships were not usually consumated, though I suppose some may have been forcefully so. Still, not really described or advocated as such.

Murder: again, check, though the actual meaning is "You will not commit murder(unprovoked or unjustified killing)"

Morbid violence: What exactly does this mean? Violence leading to death? Violence with the intent to kill? Violence against the dead? The first two are described and can be advocated under certain conditions, but I don't think the last one is in there at all.

Use of drugs or alcohol: Proverbs even tells people mourning the recent death of a loved one to get drunk and 'remember your sorrows no more'. Though it clearly condemns abuse of alcohol and other drugs.

Homosexuality: Condemned in the Bible, the topic for another forum is if the Bible is still applicable today/if we should use it as the basis for our society. (sorry, I had to say it, it's in both old and new testaments and condemned in both)

Voyeurism: I think it may mention someone stumbling onto couples in congress, though the intentional act of watching to get sexual pleasure would fall under "I tell you if you even look at another woman lustfully, you have committed adultry with her in your heart."

Revenge: Again, debatable. The OT laws were very recompence based, not exactly revenge, but not far from it, but God said "Vengence is mine" so...

Undermining of authority figures: Again, questionable. Advocated rejection of authority figures that abuse their station, but undermining suggests something done in secret. Jesus acted out in the open, and frequently while the religious leaders were RIGHT THERE. I think the clearer example here would be David and Saul (king before David). Saul finds out David has been annointed by God as the next king and tries to kill him. Instead of David undermining Saul, he flees, intentionally not killing Saul, even when he had a clear chance, because Saul's life was not his to take.

Lawlessness: Hmm, Sodom, Gomorah, Ninevah, the whole Earth before the Great Flood, Israel more than once, every time punished.

Human rights violations and atrocities: Depends on if you consider human rights variable with time. I.E. did humans have the same 'rights' back then and they were just constantly violated by everyone, and sometimes the conditions of the world iteself, or did humans actually have fewer/different rights back then?

On top of that, the 'This is a work of fiction' is constantly being shown wrong by archeology and history. Also, the 'cause' issue is improperly used, as not even a stable correlative relationship has been established. In other words, it's more likely that the things listed under it simply expressed themselves through Christianity in a dominantly Christian society, just like they do through Islam in dominantly Islamic societies, and Atheism in dominantly Atheistic societies (see U.S.S.R.), but were caused by unrelated factors.

 

Actually, now that I think of it; "an eye for an eye" isn't actually a call for hot-blooded vengance, but an attempt for the opposite, cold, calculated justice. The 'laws' at the time were "a life for an eye" (i.e. you blind someone, and you're put to death), but this rule advocated 'let the punishment fit the crime'.

But there's plenty of description of vengeful behaviour in the OT...

 

That's definitely not incest, by either the definition or the stigma. But thanks for the info on Lot; I didn't know about that.

Passages, please?

Punishing yourself and believing it brings you salvation...I'd count that as pleasure. There are probably better examples, as well, though I don't expect you to look them up.

Morbid is defined in the dictionary as "not natural or healthy, unwholesome", and has much more of an emphasis on disease than death. It also lists gruesome as a synonym. So, basically, unnecessarily explicit or 'wrong' violence.

Aye, that's a key word there. 'Use' rather than 'abuse'. Figuring that distinction in might even push it all the way toward advocated, unless there are some forms of drugs or alcohol that are forbidden. (And remember, this is basic Bible, not additions from specific faiths.)

Well then sorry, but I have to say "Bullsh!t." You CHOSE to say that, you did not HAVE to. Not to mention that the 'condemnation' is highly debated by Biblical scholars. The last word on this that I'm fairly sure we can all agree on is this: it is described (Sodom & Gomorrah, possibly among others) but not advocated. Now, I don't want to hear anything else in this thread on this subject, unless it is to do with either DESCRIPTION or ADVOCACY, NOT condemnation (yea OR nay) or anything similar. The rest is for another thread, and I will bring the mods down as hard as I am able if it is mentioned again, because I do NOT want this to turn into Homosexuality Thread #875,872,376, especially when we already have a current thread specifically devoted to that! Do I make myself clear?

Again, can we have some passages or something? Well, you've already covered the 'lust is bad' part, but perhaps something like what jaded mentioned?

Hmm, good point. Though undermining doesn't really have anything to do with secrecy; it's more a measure of lessening someone else's power deliberately, which I don't think Jesus did. Any other guesses?

No surprises there (though I've never heard of Ninevah). Naturally any organization would want laws/rules, because that's how they exist.

Yeah, that's rather variable. But erring on the side of caution, since it is a warning label, let's assume current stuff is all applicable. For a broader perspective than quoting from the Constitution or something like that, let's take the Geneva Conventions as our guide. What pops up now?

[ October 02, 2006, 22:55: Message edited by: Felinoid ]

 

Yeah, I think most people at the fora here get it. Religion can be -- even is -- destructive, backwards, based on lies, silly. Pretty much preaching to the choir here.

What I'm generally not seeing in most places is a dialogue or discourse, but hey, this is the internet.

 

First of all, your mixing two things. Sadism and masochism. They're two distinct behaviors. Sadism is to take pleasure in giving pain to others, whereas masochism is taking pleasure in receiving pain. It's like the famous joke :

"There's two guys. One is a sadist, the other a masochist. The second says to the first : 'Hurt me!'. The second one answers 'no.'"

Both are used in one word to represent a relationship or behavior where you take pleasure in giving ou receiving pain. But self-flaggelation is not masochist. The idea behind flaggelation is to hurt your body to excuse a sin, so God will forgive you. You don't take pleasure from the pain you receive per se.

Oh, so you've never been to Texas?

 

It's a fairly accurate label in my opinion. All those acts are mentioned or take place in the events of the bible, some are advocated such as the destruction of various cities by the Isralies comparable to mass-genocide.

I'd figure the Eposure Warning would be the thing that pisses christians off the most.

 

Hmm - I'm not sure if all of those accusations are fair - but I'll get to work with the Skeptic's Annotated Bible and see what I can dig up

Suicide

IIRC this isn't actually supported or condemned in the Bible explicitly (I remember some article on Religiouostolerance.org on the subject ... hmm, will see if I can dig it up ... aha: http://www.religioustolerance.org/sui_bibl.htm )
http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/says_about/suicide.html

So, whether the Bible is against suicide seems to be a matter of interpretation - however it seems to be condoned in other parts...

Incest

This one's rather schizophrenic IIRC. I'm pretty sure it's condemned heavily in parts but in others pretty good things come out of it...
http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/says_about/incest.html

There's one case where it doesn't seem like such a bad thing - but I could swear that there's some condemning going on in Leviticus...
Here we go:
http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/incest.html

Bestiality

Don't remember much in the way of supporting this one ...

All I can find on it...

Sadomasochism

Errr ... can't find anything on it...

Sexual activity in a violent context

Um - yeah - as far as I can see the writers of the Bible didn't really mind rape that much.
http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/says_about/rape.html

Murder

http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/kill.html

Pretty clear contradiction there ... it also seems to be quite fine for God to murder whoever he damn well pleases. Random acts of genocide and all...

Morbid violence

Umm ... not sure about that one either...

Use of drugs or alcohol

Can't really think of not find anything for this either...

Homosexuality

See other thread...

Voyeurism

Yeah - King David was all for it. On the other hand nothing good really came out of that IIRC, so...

Revenge

Pslam 58:10 is the only thing I can find to back this one up (except the eye for an eye thing - which is either revenge or justice depending on how you look at it):

Undermining of authority figures

Pretty sure that it's strongly against this - I used it as a point in an assignment I did.

- Romans 13

- 1 Peter 2:13-14

The basic idea I get from this is that you should never undermine authority figures no matter what. I see this as a bad idea

On the other hand, Jesus could be seen as undermining a lot of authority figures...

Lawlessness

Um ... not that I can think of...

Human rights violations and atrocities

Um ... yeah, by modern standards the Bible is really really bad when it comes to human rights. Do I really need to provide references for this one...?

... eh, guess I should, or someone won't believe me...

1 Samuel 15:3:

There is so much more than this - mountains and mountains of it ... but I don't really feel like quoting it all right now. If you want more where that came from just ask though...

 

Just to put this in some kind of context, guys...

Reading this 'label' I was struck with a strong sense of wry, cynical humour. Is there any evidence to the authenticity of this photo?
It's just a hunch, but I've never heard of people being 'exposed for extended periods of time' when used in the context of literature. And *no-one* is brave enough to be so politically incorrect as to seriously label a *religious text* a possible dangerous source of 'delusions and hallucinations'
And what with the proliferation of photo-editing these days....

It appealed to me, but then, more than one person has called me a black-hearted cynicist

Just a Thought.

 

As stated, this was with Lot and his daughters, but there's a lot more to it than that. IIRC, this happened right after the destruction of Sodom and Gommorah. After fleeing the city, Lot's daughters get Lot drunk to lower his inhibitions and have sex with him. Supposedly he got both of them pregnant as well.

OK, I'm a little unsure on this, but I think that this also refers to the Sodom and Gommorah passages. While not explicitly stated in the bible, other historical records indicate that there were actually five cities in close vicinity to each other all of which were destroyed, of which Sodom and Gommorah were two of them. These cities were referred to as the "Cities of the Plain" based on their being located on a plain near the Dead Sea. I don't remember what the names of all five were, but Nineveh does sound very familiar. I'm thinking maybe Moab was another one, and the fifth may have also started with a "G".

One thing I do have a problem with is the label describing the Bible as fiction. I don't think that's entirely acurate, as time and again archeology has shown that some of the events described in the Bible actually happened. Now obviously, you can point out certain miracles being performed and be very skeptical about the accuracy of that information, but some of the events were large enough that they made it into history books. In the Old Testament, many of the battles depicted were real, and the Cities of the Plain were very real as well - you can debate whether they were destroyed in a hail of fire from God - but those cities DID exist.

As to the New Testament, the existence of a historical Jesus is not debated AFAIK. Again, you can debate the miracles, but not the man. I can't describe the Bible as fiction, and I think you'd be stretching it if you go beyond historical fiction.

 

That's a fantastic image. Love it

 

As always, it is deemed appropriate to ridicule and revile people of faith.

To tie this into the religion and homosexuality thread, can you imagine the outrage if there was a parental advisory sticker placed on a gay pride book? Would it be as funny?

 

After I heard a teacher was fired because of a complaint by the parents when she took school kids on a museum trip (agreed to by the school by the way), where they saw naked Greek statues, I wonder. I'd say a "parental advisory" label on a gay pride book would be funny, certainly, but just that. Seeing the label on the Bible tends to provoke a little more thought.

 

Actually, Snook, even as I think little of some people who follow this book blindly (blindly being the key word, describing a smaller group), I find this a bit offensive. Though I suppose it might have been hard to tell, the "delightful" in the topic was meant sarcastically. That's actually why I started this thread, to debunk the implication of half-advocation (via "decriptive or advocating") of everything in that list. And I didn't even touch the 'exposure warning' because I find it a rather distasteful blanket statement, no matter how technically accurate it may be with that well-placed "may".

 

As for the fiction/non-fiction part, you said it yourself

Much like fiction novels are based on some truth such as the mafia in the 1950s or they allude to true historical happenings.

End of the day, when a book has SOME fiction in it then it's a fictional book, otherwise one could call the story of Troy non-fictional because there apparently was a city built where Troy supposedly stood.

 

I'd agree with abomination here... if a book has both fictional and historical parts, it should still be called fiction. I myself don't really believe everything in the Bible... and some parts in the Old Testament are such that I can't, in all honesty, accept them as the end-all morality imperative that I should follow. Stoning of unvirgin brides, for one thing, but also the several times when slaughter is noticed without any stigma attached. If that was a historical book, I could accept it, but as a moral compass it leaves something to be desired imo.

 

Ok, first off I'd like to appologize to Fel, I hadn't seen the other thread yet and thought he was talking in general.

Now for Ninevah, as a few people have asked about it. Ninevah was the city that Jonah was sent to. Jonah the reluctant prophet that got swallowed by a 'giant fish' and stayed in it's belly for 3 days. That's where he got spit up.

Voyeurism: King David is a good example, in which case the general set of his actions is heavily condemned, but not watching her in specific.

Ab: actually, I'm betting the 'fictional content' part would be the most offensive, though its a close call.

Incest: Yes, Lot slept with his daughters, and they all get struck pretty heavily for it. On top of that, one of Jacob's son's sleeps with one of his (Jacob's) wives. I don't think it was the kid's mother, but he gets entirely cut out of the will for it anyway, and he was the first born, so that was a big blow. When Jacob is dying, he actually curses the kid.

If morbid violence is unneccesary violence, then it's present, just read the end of Revelation. It gets rather bloody, literally.

 

Hmm, something's actually coming back to me on this. Wasn't Lot the one who was beloved by God, and had all that stuff inflicted on him because of some bet with the Devil? So wouldn't all those punishments really be just to prove a point that he'd keep praising God despite hardship, and not really for the incest that happened while he was 'beloved'?

EDIT: Ah, thanks Oaz. Job does sound about right. Nevermind this post...

[ October 03, 2006, 20:15: Message edited by: Felinoid ]

 

Felinoid:

Perhaps you're confusing Lot with Job?