Bible, Meet Smartphone


I read this Slashdot trail  about this organization, Every Tribe Every Nation, (ETEN) whose aim is to produce and distribute Bibles in readable, mobile-ready formats in hundreds of languages including Norsk, Potawatomie, Bahasa Indonesia, and Hawai'i Pidgin. Never heard of most of these languages? Well, that’s the point: the aim is to spread the Bible among tribes, aka the old missionary impulse.

Like most Slashdot discussions, it’s the comments below the article that are hilarious. An old wine in new bottles comment was “You would think that people would be able to do away with these historic and completely ridiculous ideas by now. Instead they are still stuck in the dark ages, but now with shiny new technology”.

Others commended the effort, not for the missionary aspect, but for the fact the effort might result in some progress in rendering minority languages correctly on phones. Another guy responded to that saying “Well, yes. But I do not think that is actually a good thing, all things considered. For example, the crusades required a lot of drive but are among the most evil human undertakings ever”. To which another guy asked, “As opposed to the Muslims who conquered Palestine, North Africa, Iberia, Persia, Mesopotamia and southeastern Europe?”. Which in turn invoked the two-wrongs-don’t-make-a-right response, “Just because there are more morons out there with a different Book does not excuse these here at all”.

Another trail of comments was on the spirituality v/s religion lines: “We should all act like a compassionate person instead of worrying about how others believe and if they believe "correctly" - which is lost on pretty much every practitioner of the religions of Abraham: Judaism, Christianity, Islam”. To which a response was on the evolution-and-memes line: “Indeed. And understandable. After all if people focus on compassion, then religion dies as it has become superfluous. And don't forget that each religion is a meme and such subject to evolution: Only those religions that propagate themselves well survive. Those that have allowed their followers to see morality without the crutch of some religious framework have quietly faded away”.

And once you bring in evolution, can DNA comments be far behind? Like this one: “I wonder how short a religious text could theoretically be, while still sustainably self-replicating between hosts. (i.e. religious believers). Much of the bible is akin to junk DNA”.

A précis writing expert wrote, “The whole bible translates to: treat other people the way you'd like them to treat you”. Which brought the sarcastic rejoinder, “With the occasional interludes into: but if they don't fit your world view throw rocks at them till they're dead”. Another guy pointed out the absurdity of the treat-others-as-you-want-to-be-treated line by asking, “So for some reason I want to be raped, killed with the skull of an animal wielded like a club, and then turned into a pillar of salt?”

A very practical guy reminded everyone of the pain in reading on (even the biggest) phone, “I really want to read a million-word document on my cell phone screen!”.

The best comment though, in my opinion, was, “What, no Klingon version? How will we ever conquer those mindless savages from across the galaxy?”

That’s Slashdot for you: bring up any topic and the comments will inevitably bring in some or all of these topics: evolution, DNA, Star Trek, Star Wars and Matrix into the conversation!

Comments

  1. KumarFebruary 14, 2012 at 10:27 AM

    Interesting!

    By the way, more or less every religion seems to desire the demise of every other religion and appear committed in working out strategies for their annihilation. Also, increasingly self appointed goons of different religions are bent upon enforcing morality through vandalism, threat and harassment.

    Though I myself believe in the spiritual essence of all religions, I am no longer able to defend religions against an young person's innocent question, "Are religions pure dogmas and religious morality very nearly amounts to endorsement of bad ideas?"

    Fortunately, since God is very much there, He is not deceived by the religions!! We better look up to Him directly, instead of through religions, since normally they come in the way of our getting closer to God!!!

    ReplyDelete

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