That was a great story @ajqrtz. But did you learn anything from the Bible? Did you understand what it was saying? The Bible is the Word of God. He spoke to us through it. Jesus said that he is the way. We are under grace now. The Old Law of Moses does not apply. It's only purpose was to show that no man is perfect, except one. He was the sacrifice for all sin, he was the perfect lamb, without blemish, the firstborn. He died, so we may live for eternity. I hope you realized that.
It always bothers me that we classify "religion" as something we can't talk about in the forums. So we can't talk about it. Sigh.
On a related note though, we have to ask "why" we can't talk about, don't we? Not "why do they not allow us to talk about it," because if you've ever tried to do so you have experience enough to answer that question. But, instead, "why is it difficult for some people to avoid displaying disrespect for others when talking about it?" And, in the end, it's the disrespect that hurts all of us.
So I won't talk about it. :>). What I will say, not about "it" -- but about what I think the role of books is in the development of an ability to talk about "it." In our colleges and Universities, where I've spent years and years both as a student and as a teacher, we expose ourselves and our students to many, many divergent views. We, in fact, think it simply unwise, even immoral, to attempt to exclude most views -- unless we perceive them as "exclusionary" of some group or other. "Diversity" we think, is derived from a wide range of cultural experiences and the person who spends their life experiencing a wide range of differing cultures will, we suppose, come to the conclusion that all of them are pretty much the same....thus none should be condemned. This leads to an irony. Students exposed to multiple cultures tend to not be able to praise any culture above another. No evidence is sufficient when you believe all evidence is merely the development of an imaginary 'narrative.'
Books, on the other hand, stand solid. Whatever "story" they are telling remains, like the ink on the page, indelible. Yes, they get re-interpreted, re-evaluated and even re-censored or un-censored but the range of interpretation is narrow because they are a physical thing that does not change without the author's permission. The words remain the same and that, in itself, means they carry their culture as represented. All of which, in my mind, means schools should spend more money and time getting students to READ books rather than to :"party with" some person who may or may not be a good representative (or accurate representative) of his or her culture.
A few years ago I had a man living with me from Africa. Cameroon, to be specific. He has been in the US for about thirty years. He always complained that he thought it strange that when he walked onto campus everybody instantly thought they understood his culture, his religious beliefs, his political stance, etc....because of the color of his skin. Books don't have that problem. One of the best books on apartheid, for instance, is Walter Patton's "Cry, my Beloved Country." If you haven't read it, do. What you will get is a strong sense of the difficulties actually experienced under the apartheid regime and how sometimes the best intended social justice systems fail. The work is much like Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird," both of which should be read at least twice.
Finally, not so related to the subject of why we can't talk about "it" is a thought I have on the physicality of the book. Researchers, or at least some researchers (one can always find counter studies, can't one?), have noted that we read physical books differently than screen ones. Physical books are four dimensonal so the place where it says "x" is "2/3 the way through, on the right page" or "at the beginning just after the first chapter ends" are both an indicator of that third dimension -- "thickness" and the fourth -- time: "after I read the first 2/3's of the book" or "right after I finished chapter 1." The physicality of the book give us markers and whatever is 'in the book" is physically "in" the book. Screen reading is three dimensional but a three dimensionalism which, like all things digital, is limited to a single page "thickness." And without the "thickness" I think we psychologically read a book a bit like we watch a movie...it passes before us and then away. In other words, a physical book has "being" in our time and space, a screen book passes through into some void of which we are aware but cannot travel. Just a thought to ponder I guess.
AJ