World Religions

When we were talking about women in Christianity, I had what you could call an epiphany of sorts. I realized that if Jesus, the founder of the whole religion Christianity, held “radical” beliefs that women were equal to men, then how did the religion revert back to the traditional belief that women were worse? Mr. Smart explained this with since it was the norm in Roman society to be patriarchal, then when Chritianity became Roman, it was became more Roman in itself. I thought this was ironic, in that they betrayed their messiah’s beliefs in certain aspects, simply to keep on living their lives the way they did. It would have been difficult, so I think they played a fun little trick on people. Most likely women still could not read, due to lack of education, so the rulers, not wanting to be usurped by some woman, interpreted the bible for them. They made the women trust them, and said Jesus kept with basic Roman Traditions. This allowed them to keep them down indefinitely, by not teaching them to read, and earning their trust. I guess their is truth to the saying knowledge is power. Its amazing to what length people will go to stop someone else from achieving sucess.

Today’s conversation was oddly surreal to me. I could not believe the odd assortment of Bible’s there were, ranging from the Cockney Bible to the “Porn Bible”. This in turn made me start to think about censorship in re printed versions of books. Obviously, some of these re-prints do nothing to censor the Bible, but what about others? If you take away the more graphic visuals of a the Bible, or any book for that matter, does it lose its meaning? I think it does. Without these, the visual of what may have happened would not be as strongly imprinted on the mind of those who read it. For example, in 1984, when they are interviewing the protagonist. Would the book effectively convey its meaning without it? Regardless of the torture, the scene oozed of satirical references to other governments. I think while some scenes are unpleasant, and make others squeamish are a necessary evil. And besides, what is the point? You would not hand a five year old a copy of 1984, nor would you show a fourteen year old A Clockwork Orange. Things should not be censored, cutting out parts of the story, they simply should not be given to those who its innappropriate for. And if its for the simple fact that it is offensive, don’t look at it, or exercise your right to be just as rude and offensive bakc at the makers of said offense