If one ever wonders why US Christian Fundamentalists don't really get it. Hang on to this.
The denomination in question aint the American $5.00 Bill. It is the Jehovah's Witness. Apparently they are the main financial holders of something called the International Bible Society.
About 30 years ago these hardworking little bees updated the Bible from the antiquated King James virgin. How do I know this?
Well I looked. You see I been doing a bit of volunteering at a Library and furious at work trying to book into a data base all the volumes of that library. Apparently no one did it before. Today I did religion.
One of the books is the new virgin of the New Testament. And it is a credit to my illustrious library predecessors that this time they took the unusual step of putting a book into the right category.
Entering the data into the computer should be easy right. Name of Book God... Author...???? Well its gotta be ...God.
You hear this all the time from all the Christian pulpits and armpits. Hey they hold up "the book" and wave mystically.... "This is..." with all appropriate heavy obscene telephone call kind of breathing... "... the word of God."
So hey... no doubt on the authorship. Ya think.
Well hey. I could be wrong.
One of the past features of this blog realm has been the invigorating discussion about copyright. "That's a copyright and he/she can sue." Says readers to postmaker.
"No he can't." Said I.
"Yes he can." said reader.
"No he can't."
"Yes he can."
"No he can't."
"Yes he can."
"No he can't."
(...and on and on, ad infinitum)
Now you can appreciate the depth and breadth of this conversation. It challenged the intellect in every way.
Back to the Library. So I flipped over to the library data information page. And lo and behold. I see that incredible phrase. "All Rights Reserved."
Yes. I can't believe they can manage this one. The American Jehovah's Witnesses put a very secular copyright on what they say is God's own words.
6 comments:
No, they can't.
I guess the Bible is sort of like Linux, Gord. There's only one true kernel but there are an infinite number of 'distributions'.
No-one really owns the kernel, except possibly Linus Torvalds (i.e. god) and he releases it as Open Source Software (OSS) for the benefit of the entire world.
An almost infinite number of individuals and organizations wrap an interface around it, creating a version of the operating system they happen to like.
Then they all, with good nature, fight each other, arguing which version is the best.
In addition to giving away the buggy pre-release versions for free, some dickheads like Red Hat and SUSE actually sell their release version for filthy lucre but most, like Ubuntu, give it away for free for the benefit of all mankind.
I never thought about the parallels between the bible and Linux. Thanks for the light bulb you turned on above my head!
Yes they can. And did.
No, I'm sure they can't, even if they did.
Yes they did, tis there in black and white. And done.
Colorful declarations leave me utterly monochromatic. T'isn't possible.
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