Friday, May 18, 2007

A Holy Book of Violence and Indecency

When I first saw the headline on this article, I thought, “This must be a joke. The writer is setting us up with bitter irony, and will then go on to discuss the Koran.”

But no, the story is straight up. As reported in the May 18th edition of Christian Today:

Bible Under Fire in Hong Kong for Sexual, Violent Content

Hundreds of residents have flooded Hong Kong’s media decency watchdog group with complaints against the Bible for its sexual and violent contents.

Protestors call on authorities to reclassify the Bible as “indecent,” which would make it illegal for minors under 18 years of age to purchase and would cause the Bible to be wrapped with a statutory warning notice.

As of noon on Wednesday, Hong Kong’s Television and Entertainment Licensing Authority (TELA) said it had received 838 complaints about the Bible, according to Reuters.

“I can confirm that the complaints were received,” said a TELA spokeswoman to Agence France-Presse. “The thrust of the complaints was that the Bible was obscene, that different parts of the Bible were offensive to readers.”

TELA refused to give details of the complaints but local media say they refer to acts of violence, rape, incest and cannibalism.

The complaints are thought to have sparked from an anonymous website, www.truthbible.net, which said the Bible “made one tremble” from its sexual and violent content and had urged readers to press TELA to reclassify the Bible as an indecent publication.

As far as I know, Hong Kong has no problems with a Muslim minority. If and when the day comes, we’ll give TELA the benefit of the doubt and assume that the Koran will receive the same level of regulatory scrutiny.


[Nothing follows.]

5 comments:

Dr.D said...

It is certainly true that the Bible contains violence, rape, and incest. I cannot for the life of me recall any incidence of cannibalism in the Bible, however. The Bible presentations of all of these matters are without glamor, gore, or any of the devices that are used to make them attractive to audiences today. They are simply a part of the story of humankind, as in fact they are. Perhaps the Chinese are different and don't do any of these things!

Anonymous said...

This stinks of a setup. The Chinese State doesn't want a challenge to its commie oppression (just ask the Falun Gong boys and girls) so they've engineered a social backlash against 'biblical immorality'. Clever little bastards, I'll give them that.

Always On Watch said...

Surreal! Cue the music from The Twilight Zone.

A Free Man said...

There is canabilism in the bible, can't recall which book, but during a seige, 2 women both with one child each make a pack to eat one child on one day and another child on the second day.

Anyway, there are horrid stories in the Bible, but as far as I can tell, they are told as fact, not as some awesome thing that happened, God's people have recorded the history of Israel, the good and the bad for posterity, it is an historical record.

Profitsbeard said...

China is afraid of conversion to Christianity more than Islam.

The cases of Bible and Koran would be reversed if the fears were.

The Chinese people are not charmed by Mohammad, a Mao-esque braggart, bully and crass sensualist.

Jesus, however, is ethereal, noble, heroic and subtle.

Far more interesting to the Chinese character.