Global Christianity and the Rise of the Cellphone 559
Hugh Pickens writes "Alan Jacobs writes in the Atlantic about Every Tribe Every Nation, an organization whose mission is to produce and disseminate Bibles in readable mobile-ready texts for hundreds of languages including Norsk, Potawatomie, Bahasa Indonesia, and Hawai'i Pidgin as the old missionary impulse is being turned towards some extremely difficult technical challenges. The Bible is a large, complicated text containing three quarters of a million words and the typesetting is quite complex because of the wide range of literature types found in scripture and the need for several types of note. 'For all the issues that are still to be solved, ETEN is trying to do things that the world's biggest tech companies haven't cracked yet, such as rendering minority languages correctly on mobile devices,' says Mark Howe. 'There's a unity among Bible translators and publishers that stands in stark contrast to the fractured, fratricidal smartphone industry.' But once these technical challenges are met, it won't be only Bibles only that people can get on their mobile devices, but whole new textual worlds."
Re:New technology, old mindsets (Score:5, Interesting)
3/4 million words. tl;dr (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder how short a religious text could theoretically be, while still sustainably self-replicating between hosts. (i.e. religious believers). Much of the bible is akin to junk DNA.
Look we are all the same, expect for them and .... (Score:4, Interesting)
"There's a unity among Bible translators and publishers that stands in stark contrast to the fractured, fratricidal smartphone industry."
Which is really and odd statement considering how many different versions their are, sure one might be able to say what 60-80% are version X, but still major fractions happen over the translations.
Re:they actually pushed as far north as Spain (Score:3, Interesting)
And the Caliphate armies pushed into central France before being pushed back by Charles Martel.
Anyway, of course it justifies the Crusades. What powerful civilization doesn't try to conquer back what was taken from it?
Just don't think there was anything Christ-like about the Christians.
Re:New technology, old mindsets (Score:3, Interesting)
Their only concern is how to be the best human being possible to ensure a pleasureable eternity after death.
I've met a lot of "Christians" over they years whose only concern was being seen to be conforming to their social group's (church friends) idea of "good" (i.e. dogmatic, small-minded, selfish and ignorant) in order to be accepted by that social group, many of whom were labouring under the misapprehension that what they were doing was Christian.
You won't catch me spending eternity in the company of these people.
Re:New technology, old mindsets (Score:4, Interesting)
As opposed to the Muslims who conquered Palestine, North Africa, Iberia, Persia, Mesopotamia and southeastern Europe?
The Muslim Empire was successful in part because they were more tolerant than the rulers they replaced. The Jews in Spain had more rights under Muslim rule than under the Visigoths.
Re:New technology, old mindsets (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm sure you'll dismiss this charge as "not what the overall organization is about", but before you do so, I encourage you to consider that a movement is no more than the sum of its parts, regardless of its stated objectives. There's a larger percentage than you're apparently comfortable with acknowledging who would gladly trade someone else's freedom for preservation of their own moral comfort and/or superiority.
This is nothing more than self-righteous fanaticism. Anyone working to perpetuate the organization without understanding that this is what it enables and produces is dangerously naive. That includes you.
Re:New technology, old mindsets (Score:5, Interesting)
For example, the crusades required a lot of drive but are among the most evil human undertakings ever.
You must be smoking some serious stuff. The Crusades? That amateurish, badly organized and to a significant degree self-destructive (Constantinople, 1204) movement that in 200 years managed to pull of a few years total of violent fighting (if at all) and a few conquered cities (many of them just bought off rather then won by siege)?
After learning a bit about crusades, I came to the conclusion that the only dark spot in the crusading movement was the sack of Jerusalem with the concomitant bloodshed; the rest of the crusading event being little more than a farce.
Now, had you mentioned the Muslim conquest of India, that would have been a different thing. With a single expedition, Mahmoud of Ghazni enclaved half a million Indians, leaving tens of thousands dead. That was just a single incident during the centuries of the conflict at the western borders of India. As far as I know, the total death toll during the 1400 years of Muslims attacking Hindus from the west is not far from reaching the insane mark of 100,000,000 deaths. And you talk about the Crusades? Wow. Just...wow.
"Among the most evil undertakings?" No, not even close. Regarding the number of lives destroyed, the crusades pale in comparison even when compared to such seemingly mundane things as car accidents caused by drunks, lenient subprime mortgage policies and IRS tax forms.
Re:3/4 million words. tl;dr (Score:5, Interesting)
That's the Old Testement. Chrisitianity is based of the New Testament. It's where Christ tought the church leaders to not be stupid when it comes to religion. For example, they brought a man with a crippled hand before Christ on a Saturday. See, it was illegal to work on a Saturday, and healing this guy would be against the law. Here is what followed:
Well, until Christianity decides to excise the Old Testament from their book, it's a perfectly valid example. You can't proclaim to believe the words in a book and then just pretend they're not there.
"Is it right to heal anyone on the Sabbath day?" they asked him - hoping to bring a charge against him.
"If any of you had a sheep which fell into a ditch on the Sabbath day, would he not take hold of it and pull it out?" replied Jesus. "How much more valuable is a man than a sheep? You see, it is right to do good on the Sabbath day."
Then Jesus said to the man, "Stretch out your hand!" He did stretch it out, and it was restored as sound as the other.
--Matthew 12:9-14
The point is for you know the difference between the Old and New Testaments and which ones various groups follow. For example, your point may have made sense if this were an article about religion. But since it was an article about Christianity specifically, you just showed your ignorance. You don't have to believe the story I just quoted above, but you should understand that Christianity is not about what you seem to think it is. It's called the NEW Testament for a reason.
I'm well aware, but see my previous point. P.S., the GP said "The whole bible", hence the joke. I can find New Testament examples of shit behavior just as easily.
Re:New technology, old mindsets (Score:3, Interesting)
The only true christians are the fundementals as they follow the bible to the letter and don't try to spin out the "shit". The "true christians you want are the ones that are on their way to being secular as they've dismissed the bad stuff of the old testament
Re:So Ashamed of Slashdot (Score:4, Interesting)
There is no such thing as Christianity-the-religion. There are many sects that form a family, but they are as far apart theologically as, say, Judaism and Catholicism.
"Christians" and devout people of any faith do not get much love, because either they believe only those bits of their holy books which they personally deem moral, and therefore show themselves capable on the one hand of figuring out what is moral by themselves, and on the other hand compelled to justify it in the most ridiculous way, this is harmless but silly. Or they believe their holy books wholesale, and that makes them pretty horrible people.
And then, they claim (like you just did) that other people, without beliefs, are somehow incapable of being good, or moral, or at peace with themselves. This is insulting. Of course you will get mocked: you just insulted people for no reason at all.
As for life being more than science? yes. Every day comfort come from conversations, friendship and love of other humans. But for the mystical and the awe, science is so much more beautiful, profound and inspiring than any myth that no, I don't need any fairy tales to make my life more interesting.
This is the creation as science tells us it happened:
15 000 000 000 years ago, the universe started expanding and cooling down. Hydrogen formed, and lumps of hydrogen condensed to form stars. In the stars, all the elements up to iron were formed. This first generation of stars died, and some of them went nova, thus filling the universe with all the elements we see today. We are made of the stuff of dead stars, 10 000 000 000 years in the making.
From these elements and leftover hydrogen and helium, the sun and the solar system formed 5 000 000 000 years ago. Some 4 000 000 000 years ago, the first self-replicating life-form/bunch of molecules appeared. You are the result of an uninterrupted line going back four billion years ago of organisms, not one of which failed to reproduce.
In four billion years, the sun will die. And the organisms still there to see us will be as far from us as we are from the first self-replicating molecules.
How's that for awesome? And no supernatural needs to be invoked to explain it.
Re:So Ashamed of Slashdot (Score:2, Interesting)
Sure, a lot of the Bible is a historical record of the Jewish and Christian people living in the Middle East for a period of a few thousand years, and not every law in Leviticus applies to us today.
Which laws still apply?
If my daughter is raped, do I still sell her to her rapist [biblegateway.com]?
If my kid is rebellious, do I still get to kill him [biblegateway.com]?
If I wife doesn't bleed like a virgin on our wedding night, do I still get to kill her [biblegateway.com]?
If my kid turns out gay, and I catch him with his boyfriend, am I still obligated to kill both of them [biblegateway.com]?
Shall I keep going? This is your bible, not mine. This is codified barbarism. It is institutionalized hatred and murder. This is the foundation stone that the rest of your religion is built directly upon. The god in those books is a bloodthirsty monster. The New Testament builds on that, adding infinite punishments for those who don't believe. It's all infantile prattling, and I have a hard time taking anyone who finds deep meaning in it seriously. Grow up, and quit your whining. If you are right, you will be even more exalted in your childish "heaven" due to our criticism while we burn forever, so what are you whining about anyway?