I ran across an article about a 17 year old student in a Wisconsin High School English class that used a bible as a visual aid. During the course of the presentation he ripped a few pages out. Needless to say all hell broke loose. Follow the link to a local news story that features a taped interview of one the unnamed student's class mates. What I find very interesting is that she was not incensed by the desecration of the Christian holy book, she was upset because she felt threatened. Frankly I'm at a loss. Was this her bible? Did the unnamed student break into her house and steal a family heirloom? I could under stand her comments in that context, but why feel threatened? Is the bible in and of itself sacred? Muslims have very strict rules about the treatment of the Koran, but this is the first I've heard of this taboo in regard to christian scripture.
Now I can understand the comments of the father, if you are a devoutly religious, thinking of the young man's actions as disgusting would be a understandable. Frankly I feel that most of the vitriol spewed forth by a lot of hardcore Christians is disgusting, but I have yet to feel threatened. A few years ago in my home town of Dayton Ohio, a local pastor organized annual book burnings. Once a year he and his congregation would get together in his church parking lot and build a big bonfire of books and magazines that he and narrow minded brethren considered to be anti-christian. There was another similar campaign to rid the Montgomery County Library of "demonic" books. Fundamentalist Christians would check out the offending literature and "conveniently" loose them. So destroying books to make a statement is nothing new.
Last I heard the bible was one of the most published book in history, I have at least three copies laying around the house and I'm an agnostic. Let the poor boy have his say. What ever happened to turn the other cheek? I'll admit that at best his actions were insensitive and at worst provocative. But he was with in his rights. Lets give him an"A" for strength of conviction and a "D" for having bad taste. After all it's not the book, it's the words in the book. Do you think god will go away if a 12th grader from Wisconsin tears out a couple of pages from the bible?
Okay fundies out there repeat after me: IT'S ONLY A BOOK!
Now say that 100 times.
Don't you feel better now?
I know I do.
Emoose out
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