A school district in Utah that last week banned the Bible from school libraries is now being asked to consider a further title for removal: the Book of Mormon.
The Davis school district, which serves Davis county, north of Salt Lake City, said it was considering a new complaint demanding the removal of the foundational text of the Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
CALS is expected to sue over the new Arkansas law that goes into effect on Aug. 1 that could impose criminal penalties on librarians who knowingly provide “harmful” materials to minors. The law also would establish a process for the public to challenge materials and ask they be relocated to a section minors can’t access.
The latest potential removal comes just a week after the Bible was taken off the shelves of libraries in elementary and middle schools after being deemed by a committee to be inappropriate because it contained “vulgarity or violence”. The Bible will remain in high school libraries.
The school district said it would assess the Book of Mormon for “all elements of the definitions of pornographic or indecent materials” as defined under a Utah law concerning sensitive materials.
The request to remove the book referenced violence including battles, beheadings and kidnappings.
A national furore has arisen over the removal of books from public schools in several states, often driven by conservatives targeting material that contains references to gender identity or sexuality.
The debate in Utah has centered upon a law passed last year that allows parents to request the removal of books containing pornographic or indecent material.
One parent in the Davis school district decided to demand the removal of the Bible, claiming it to be “one of the most sex-ridden books around”.
The district decided that while the Bible did not violate the Utah law, it was not suitable for younger students.
The Book of Mormon could be next to be banished. Joseph Smith, the church founder who published the book in 1830, claimed it was translated from inscriptions of prophets on golden plates.
The book is presented as a historically authentic depiction of God’s dealings with people in the Americas, although this is disputed by historians and scientists.
Smith was killed by a mob in 1844.
The Book of Mormon is a lynchpin text for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who typically study it alongside the Bible.
Maksutov:
That's the problem with this supernatural stuff, it doesn't really solve anything. It's a placeholder for ignorance.
Mayan Elephant:
Not only have I denounced the Big Lie, I have denounced the Big lie big lie.
It's nowhere near as graphical as the Bible. The Book of Mormon does not have stories of beheadings, incest, nudity, rape, parents killing children, divine genocide, etc.
I'm sure the evangelicals will think it's a big Mormon plot though.
It's nowhere near as graphical as the Bible. The Book of Mormon does not have stories of beheadings, incest, nudity, rape, parents killing children, divine genocide, etc.
I'm sure the evangelicals will think it's a big Mormon plot though.
IKR?
How dare they omit all of these types of faith-promoting and didactic stories from the Book of Mormon‽‽‽
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Oh wait, I forgot the Laban murder. That one describes a man being beheaded but not in any real detail. And the fact that Nephi puts on the clothes of a guy whose head he just chopped off would seem to indicate that it must not have been all that bloody.
Take the case of Jeroboam. "I will cut off from Jeroboam him that pisseth against the wall." It was done. And not only was the man that did it cut off, but everybody else.
The same with the house of Baasha: everybody was exterminated, kinsfolks, friends, and all, leaving "not one that pisseth against a wall."
In the case of Jeroboam you have a striking instance of the Deity's custom of not limiting his punishments to the guilty; the innocent are included. Even the "remnant" of that unhappy house was removed, even "as a man taketh away dung, till it be all gone." That includes the women, the young maids, and the little girls. All innocent, for they couldn't piss against a wall. Nobody of that sex can. None but members of the other sex can achieve that feat.
A curious prejudice. And it still exists. Protestant parents still keep the Bible handy in the house, so that the children can study it, and one of the first things the little boys and girls learn is to be righteous and holy and not piss against the wall. They study those passages more than they study any others, except those which incite to masturbation. Those they hunt out and study in private. No Protestant child exists who does not masturbate. That art is the earliest accomplishment his religion confers upon him. Also the earliest her religion confers upon her.
Mr Twain expressed no opinion on whether the Book of Mormon was, without the aid of the Bible, able to confer similar accomplishments on humanity. And he had read at least some of it.
Maksutov:
That's the problem with this supernatural stuff, it doesn't really solve anything. It's a placeholder for ignorance.
Mayan Elephant:
Not only have I denounced the Big Lie, I have denounced the Big lie big lie.
Shiz? That one is a little more graphic than the beheading of Laban or, say, Goliath.
The rape of the Lamanite women by the priests of Noah is more blatantly implied than graphically described but there is certainly rape in the Book of Mormon beyond the generic conquest of war language. Women and children being burned alive as the missionary prophets in Alma look on, assured their deaths will condemn their murderers to everlasting anguish as part of God's infinite wisdom? Theodicy is not the Book of Mormon's strong point.
Don't know. It's not the main point of the book but I knew a few missionaries even skipped over parts of it because it seemed difficult to understand why they were included.
Didn't Ammon cut off the arms of his enemies, bundle them up, and deliver them to King Lamoni? Don't Mormon apologists claim this as evidence for the historical truth of the book? Think of all the people who name their kids Ammon after the faith-promoting arm-severer in the Book of Mormon.
Then there's all the death and destruction that Jesus inflicted with earthquakes and fires to make his grand flamboyant entrance to the New World after he ditched the people of Palestine following his resurrection. Sure seems this material is a lot less child-appropriate than, say, the inaugural poem that got banned from a Florida district's elementary school.
Does anyone know the bit about, what was it, soldiers or someone, tearing the flesh from their enemy or whatever with their teeth? It’s been so long since I’ve thought about it I can’t recall the scriptural context.
