That’s not me saying it, but “Sam’s Club customers”. This is a really interesting story. Brendan Powell Smith has been publishing funny little books containing “straightforward illustrations of Bible stories using direct quotes from scripture”. They are really entertaining books, of which you can get a sample on Brendan’s web site: http://www.bricktestament.com/index.html. There really couldn’t be any outrage about the contents, right? It is, after all, quotes from the “Good Book”. Well, apparently there can.
Some people astoundingly had enough clueless stupidity to attack the book on its contents and call it “vulgar and violent”. That means, quite directly, that the Bible itself would have to be “vulgar and violent”. Cause the photos, you know, really are literal illustrations of the text, and the text is, well, the Text.
They didn’t stop there. They also resented “that the author is an atheist”. So what exactly is the problem with an atheist writing a book? Does the first amendment somehow not apply to people who don’t believe in God? Are we not allowed to quote Scripture?
Of course we are. In fact, critics of the book, having no rational grounds for their attempts at censorship, went for hypocrisy, as usual. They counted on corporate cowardice, which always works. They pretexted that the book was not appropriate for children. I would agree, the Bible is not for children. I would only really recommend it to Christians, who would do good actually reading the whole damn thing.
OK, it’s not child appropriate, so just move the book out of the children book section, into humor or religion. Problem solved. Those guys probably also think that South Park, Beavis and Butthead and Family Guy are child programs because they are animated.
Well, no. Sam’s Club actually caved in to the pressure and censored the book.
So what can we do? Well, let’s give them the Streisand Effect. Let’s use the idiots as amplifiers of their own stupidity. Let’s publicize this outrage of theirs, and ours. They have nothing.
And let’s buy The Brick Bible, because it’s hilarious. But not from Sam’s Club.