The good news about the Bible!

[Jason]

Noah is released soon starring Russel Crowe. You don't get better genocide than what's in that one.

[Robert_S]

Animals on a boat? Bah!

What good is a religion if it ain't got blood and titties? I say we need a NC17 miniseries about David!

[mistermack]

I think it's better to keep the kiddies away from the bible. The bible is a propeganda and recruiting document. It's stories aren't told as stories, they claim to be true.

Christianity has survived by each new generation getting indoctrinated by the previous one.
I think it's better to break that cycle.

What would the Bishops want? They would want your kids to read the babble. That's certain.

[Animavore]

It's simply getting replaced by better stories and story telling in books, but also in movies, TV and computer games. It's no wonder the more fundy religious types try keep their children away from these modern devils.
As a kid I couldn't wait to get away from mass because it was so bloody boring. Why would I want to be at church when I could be at home watching M.A.S.K. or Thundercats which have much better adventure, adventure that I could relate to, and more coherent stories?
Without indoctrination, or some serious reworking of the Bible, what honest chance does it genuinely have in today's market place of ideas and entertainment?

[Robert_S]

Without indoctrination, or some serious reworking of the Bible, what honest chance does it genuinely have in today's market place of ideas and entertainment?

It definitely needs reworking. Maybe we should incorporate some of the works of Shakespeare into a Third Testament.

On a related note: Here's a brief history of east end of the Mediterranean.

[JimC]

^^^^^^^^^^

Fucking brilliant!

[Hermit]

Sure is.

[Robert_S]

^^^^^^^^^^

Fucking brilliant!

Sure is.

Who's Killing Who? A Viewer's Guide
Because you can't tell the players without a pogrom!

Early Man
This generic "cave man" represents the first human settlers in Israel/Canaan/the Levant. Whoever they were.

Canaanite
What did ancient Canaanites look like? I don't know, so this is based on ancient Sumerian art.

Egyptian
Canaan was located between two huge empires. Egypt controlled it sometimes, and...

Assyrian
....Assyria controlled it other times.

Israelite
The "Children of Israel" conquered the shit out of the region, according to bloody and violent Old Testament accounts.

Babylonian
Then the Baylonians destroyed their temple and took the Hebrews into exile.

Macedonian/Greek
Here comes Alexander the Great, conquering everything!

Greek/Macedonian
No sooner did Alexander conquer everything, than his generals divided it up and fought with each other.

Ptolemaic
Greek descendants of Ptolemy, another of Alexander's competing generals, ruled Egypt dressed like Egyptian god-kings. (The famous Cleopatra of western mythology and Hollywood was a Ptolemy.)

Seleucid
More Greek-Macedonian legacies of Alexander.

Hebrew Priest
This guy didn't fight, he just ran the Second Temple re-established by Hebrews in Jerusalem after the Babylonian Exile.

Maccabee
Led by Judah "The Hammer" Maccabee, who fought the Seleucids, saved the Temple, and invented Channukah. Until...

Roman
....the Romans destroyed the Second Temple and absorbed the region into the Roman Empire...

Byzantine
....which split into Eastern and Western Empires. The eastern part was called the Byzantine Empire. I don't know if "Romans" ever fought "Byzantines" (Eastern Romans) but this is a cartoon.

Arab Caliph
Speaking of cartoon, what did an Arab Caliph look like? This was my best guess.

Crusader
After Crusaders went a-killin' in the name of Jesus Christ, they established Crusader states, most notably the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

Mamluk of Egypt
Wikipedia sez, "Over time, mamluks became a powerful military caste in various Muslim societies...In places such as Egypt from the Ayyubid dynasty to the time of Muhammad Ali of Egypt, mamluks were considered to be "true lords", with social status above freeborn Muslims.[7]" And apparently they controlled Palestine for a while.

Ottoman Turk
Did I mention this is a cartoon? Probably no one went to battle looking like this. But big turbans, rich clothing and jewelry seemed to be in vogue among Ottoman Turkish elites, according to paintings I found on the Internet.

Arab
A gross generalization of a generic 19-century "Arab".

British
The British formed alliances with Arabs, then occupied Palestine. This cartoon is an oversimplification, and uses this British caricature as a stand-in for Europeans in general.

Palestinian
The British occupied this guy's land, only to leave it to a vast influx of....

European Jew/Zionist
Desperate and traumatized survivors of European pogroms and death camps, Jewish Zionist settlers were ready to fight to the death for a place to call home, but...

PLO/Hamas/Hezbollah
....so were the people that lived there. Various militarized resistance movements arose in response to Israel: The Palestinian Liberation Organization, Hamas, and Hezbollah.

Guerrilla/Freedom Fighter/TerroristState of Israel
Backed by "the West," especially the US, they got lots of weapons and the only sanctioned nukes in the region.

Guerrilla/Freedom Fighter/Terrorist
Sometimes people fight in military uniforms, sometimes they don't. Creeping up alongside are illicit nukes possibly from Iran or elsewhere in the region. Who's Next?

and finally...

The Angel of Death
The real hero of the Old Testament, and right now too

[Hermit]

Maccabee

Scottish

[JimC]

Maccabee

Scottish

Och fuckin' aye, the noo...

[Robert_S]

The same woman did a full length film. I made a thread about it here: http://rationalia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=47107

[Blind groper]

Mistermack nailed it when he said the problem is that the bible stories are taught as true stories.

I have no problem with bible stories being taught, as long they are correctly identified as myths and legends.

[Lion IRC]

Widespread ignorance exists among children and parents about the contents of the Bible books in general.

Literacy rates in the UK are declining generally, along with a few other social indicators.

An international survey by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development has found standards of literacy and numeracy among school-leavers in England and Northern Ireland to be among the lowest in the developed world. Shockingly, older people leaving the workforce were better educated than those joining it. This may be the first time in recorded history that such a phenomenon has occurred, with the young worse educated than their parents.

Meanwhile....atheism is on the rise among young people in the UK right??

[MrFungus420]

Widespread ignorance exists among children and parents about the contents of the Bible books in general.

Literacy rates in the UK are declining generally, along with a few other social indicators.

That's nice.

It doesn't change the fact that increased religiosity in a country generally is associated with more societal ills.

An international survey by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development has found standards of literacy and numeracy among school-leavers in England and Northern Ireland to be among the lowest in the developed world. Shockingly, older people leaving the workforce were better educated than those joining it. This may be the first time in recorded history that such a phenomenon has occurred, with the young worse educated than their parents.

You might want to try to read the article.

It does not support your claim.

There is nothing in it about religion as a cause in any way.

Meanwhile....atheism is on the rise among young people in the UK right??

That's nice.

Creationism is also on the rise in the UK.

Substitute bad education for good education and the children are less well educated.

ETA: And, then there is religion increasingly usurping education in the UK: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... ?CMP=fb_ot

[Hermit]

Literacy rates in the UK are declining generally, along with a few other social indicators.

An international survey by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development has found standards of literacy and numeracy among school-leavers in England and Northern Ireland to be among the lowest in the developed world. Shockingly, older people leaving the workforce were better educated than those joining it. This may be the first time in recorded history that such a phenomenon has occurred, with the young worse educated than their parents.

Meanwhile....atheism is on the rise among young people in the UK right??

What are you implying? That theism rises as educational levels do? I have news for you: As the level of education rises, belief in a god drops.