Wake Up: Thanks for your deep insights. If it wasn’t for you, the world would be lost in ignorance. Oh wait, did you actually offer any proof?

I like your “inbred” comment. Reminds me of the evolutionist who believes that a one in a trillion chance mutation happened twice at the same time (one male and one female) and they both mated to have children, which mated with each other….oops, looks like that theory requires us to be a bunch of inbreds too.

This is an interesting case for motivations, though. If you assume that everybody involved is on the up-and-up, and the companies funding the million-dollar efforts to do a translation have the Christian community’s best interests at heart, should they copyright the work? They’ve invested millions of dollars (or donated-time equivalent) in performing a rigorous translation (an excercise which takes a rarified selection of talent and training), but want to as many people as possible to have access to that translation. But they also need to ensure that the bills are paid so they can continue doing good work. It’s a constant tension.

One such group, the New English Translation (or NET bible) has a discussion of their motivations and decisions at http://www.bible.org/netbible/pre.htm They wanted to make sure that anybody could freely use their translation, but not publish it for pure profit. So they (like the FSF) chose to copyright the work but include a very liberal license that basically lets you use it for any purpose, but to publish it, you need their approval.

In this case, it’s copyright doing what it should be. It’s “promot[ing] the progress of science and useful arts” by letting the creators of the work decide how their works should be distributed.

Ha. I love how the minute someone mentions Christianity the length of posts become longer than with any other article on here. The point of the article was that even an industry dealing with an ancient text has found new business models to make it profitable. So why can’t other industries with more flexible media do so?

I also love how everyone feels it’s their responsibility to denounce Christianity. You should be grateful for Christianity. While it has had it’s major problems in the past, it’s matured into a peaceful religion in only 2000 years. Islam is still dealing with not killing people who don’t believe in it. If you didn’t have Christianity running alongside Islam and holding it back, YOU WOULD HAVE NO RIGHT TO SAY WHAT YOU HAVE SAID HERE! In Islamic countries they can legally stone you to DEATH you for not being Islamic.

No offense to civil Islamic people meant, you guys rock, I just speak of your uneducated brethren, which I like about as much as I like my fundamentalist Christian brother…

Infamous Joe. email me, digitalsaint@gmail.com. I like you take on this, I’d like to use your logic for a project.

the church always was, and always will be, a big business. nothing more, nothing less.

I hate it when people talk about Christianity like it’s some evil force in the world. Say something bad about christians and a good christian will pray for blessings on you. Say something bad to a muslim and they’ll cut you, burn you, drag you through the square and hang you upside down with your entrails hanging out. You tell me where the source of evil is?

Yes, centuries ago there were some evil people who did evil things in the NAME of Chrisitanity, but they were not Christians, nowhere in God’s word is there justification for what they’ve done. With Jesus in your heart, you just don’t do those kinds of things. Look, Jesus came to earth with all of the powers of God, but how did he go about changing the world? Not by the sword, but with love, patience, kindness, mercy, etc. You change people’s heart and you change the world.

Re:

Anon Coward bubble said:
” Sorry to burst your bubble, but most translations of the Bible are copyrighted.

JJ bubble said:
UM…. Joe says that in the post… “Of course, these specific versions and spin-offs do have copyright protection, which makes the intellectual property question a bit murkier.”

So, sorry to burst your bubble, but maybe you should read before you comment.”

If you’d actually put the whole thing in context, what Joe said was:

“The Bible is also used as a platform for new products, like a biblically inspired cooking publication (does it have a recipe for Ezekiel 4:9 bread?). Of course, these specific versions and spin-offs do have copyright protection …”

The context provides meaning for the word THESE. THESE referred to biblically-inspired cooking publications and other left-field biblically related products, not bibles themselves. But the first post by an anon. coward was referring to BIBLES when he mentioned that THEY are copyrighted, he’s pointing out something very legitmate that Joe *DOES* seem to have missed, which doesn’t shock me at all because Joe *DOES* seem to miss a lot.

I think JJ you trying to BURST so many bubbles and blowing nothing but bubble crud yourself, it’s very very clear that you have not much more than a bubble brain yourself.

The Case AGAINST The Bible

1) Why worship a Jewish God at a Jewish altar?

2) Why elevate this book above all others? What happened to the Iliad, the Odysseys and the Aeneid, the classics of old?

3) 2/3 of the 6.5 billion people on planet Earth DO NOT share the “The Bible so pervades Western culture” feeling. Why be exclusionists?

4) The roots of Western civilization are Greco-Roman NOT Judeo-Christian. Democracy was invented at the Areopagus in Athens, Greece and rule of law and civil engineering by the Roman Empire. Watch the current travails of the European Constitution.

5) Instead of teaching one distorted point of view, why not teach UNIVERSAL morality and ethics? I am sure lots of other texts would qualify.

6) The bible is not that original.
The Ten Commandments? In the papyrus of Ani.
Noah’s tale? In the epic of Gilgamesh.
Things that came to light only in last hundred years.
Who knows how many “borrowings” (antecedents) from more ancient and preceding civilizations there are in the “divine revelation” of the Jewish Bible.

The fact is all civilizations preceding, contemporary and following the 500-300 BC time frame the bible was fabricated had organized religions with high priests and devoted followers.

You’re ignorant of history, coward. And you give no respect to the men who established the sciences (maybe because of ignorance); and the irony of your condition is dizzying to contemplate.