STUDENTS at Edinburgh University are being given a fabulous opportunity to inflict a humiliating defeat on the Christian Union, which is tabling a motion at the upcoming Student Association’s AGM to place Bibles in each of the bedrooms at Pollock Halls.
I learned of this cheeky motion last night from Mike Williamson, who runs the Not So Friendly Humanist blog. In his campaign to have the motion trounced, he points out that Edinburgh University students in the past have shown great reluctance to be treated as Christian fodder.
A few years ago the Student Representatives Council passed a motion banning Gideon or any other religious organisation from putting Bibles in the rooms at Pollock Halls, the student halls. Following that, the CU proposed a motion to the general meeting lifting this ban, which got a majority of the vote, but not enough votes for it to pass …
This all happened before I was at uni and before the Humanist Society existed, but there are legends that when Gideon were allowed to place their Bibles in the rooms, it resulted in them being thrown out the window, torn to pieces or even in some cases burnt. I’m not exactly in favour of that but it demonstrates how a lot of students feel about evangelising on campus.
The motion has also attracted the attention of Prof P Z Myers, over at Pharyngula, who, in typical Myers style, commented thus:
So why is the University of Edinburgh Christian Union pushing to have Bibles put in the students’ rooms? It seems like a slippery slope to me – before you know it, they’ll have verses emblazoned on the caber, you won’t be able to dive into your haggis without reciting a prayer, and they’ll be replacing the whiskey with wine.
Coincidentally, the email I received from Williamson was followed minutes later by one from Bob Hutton, the Broadstairs butthead, informing me that he had managed to squeeze another one out on his failed Gospel Truth blog.
After reading the message “Hey Barry, I’ve done another article on my blog – you’ll like this one!” I rolled my eyes, sighed, and clicked on the link.
Well, you could have knocked my down with Jeep Cherokee! Spookily, it was all about Bibles in bedrooms – hotel bedrooms, that is.
In his latest turgid piece he tells the story of a bunch of Christians who went to an hotel to ask permission to leave Bibles for guests to read.
‘Over my dead body!’ said the manager; no way was he allowing Bibles in his hotel. A short while later one of the Christians had a phone call from the deputy manager begging him to come to the hotel and leave Bibles as the manager had had a heart attack!
No matter how much the servants of the devil seek to stop evangelism God always has a way of getting His word out. What is sobering, however, is that God will bring down those who attempt to stop the spreading of that word.
One acknowledges that even devout and godly Christians may have heart attacks but this incident was surely not just a random event. Needless to say the Bibles were taken along and God’s word got through!
Hutton, not surprisingly, breaks the first rule of blogging by failing to provide a link verifying the hotel-manager-smote-by-God anecdote. So we have to conclude that it is an urban myth, or that this insufferable troll made the whole thing up.
In the unlikely event of the Christian Union winning its motion, students should then seriously consider placing this warning label on every Bible they encounter:
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
November 7th, 2009 at 10:35 am
The story about the hotel manager is true but it is not on the internet. I picked it up in a magazine so couldn’t provide a link.
November 7th, 2009 at 10:46 am
Instead of pushing bibles I suggest they publicise the dead hand of missionary and biblical activity. I was checking on some facts from “the rise and fall of the third champanzee: how our animal heritage affects the way we live” by Jared Diamond this morning. I had not read the book for many years but I came across a few sentences which affected me when I first read them and they still do. The are these (p 209 Vintage Books, paperback):
“When I visited an isolated triblet of 578 people at Bomai in 1965, the missionary controlling the only store had just manipulated the people into burning all their art. Centuries of unique cultural development (‘heathen artifacts’as the missionary put it) had been destroyed in one morning.”
This destruction is typical; this sad certainly based on their bible has spread disease and cultural devastation across vast areas including the South Seas, and with never a backward glass of regret.
Publicise these few sentences, and the pathetic consequences, instead of pushing their bibles.
November 7th, 2009 at 10:59 am
Easy Bob, just cite the name of the magazine, when and by whom it was published. That should make it fairly accessible.
November 7th, 2009 at 11:43 am
It is possible to amend the motion to put the warning sticker in. If you are a student you are simply able to collect 50 signatures to support your amendment and hand it in to the EUSA offices by 5pm on Tuesday.
All the best,
Thomas Graham
President, Edinburgh University Students’ Association
November 7th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
Nobody reads them anyway.
November 7th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
I once read in a magazine that the destiny of humankind was controlled by a giant purple cow living in a crater on Uranus. Can’t name the magazine or the date on which it was published, but I am convinced the story is true!
By the way check out this Top Ten Uses for a Bible link:
http://www.skepticfiles.org/atheist/bible11d.htm
The list omits my favourite use for the Bible: using the paper to roll ciggies (it used to be spliffs but I’ve outgrown my weed days.) I find that Leviticus,in combination with menthol tips, makes for a pretty good smoke.
I’d be interested to know what other uses readers have for the Bible. In fact, let’s turn this into a competition, with a year’s subscription to the Freethinker as first prize.
November 7th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
Ellis: I won’t cite the magazine’s name (though I know it is a reliable source) because you people are so nasty you will cause trouble for them.
November 7th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
Care to point out how we could ’cause trouble’ for them?
You really are a disingenuous lying little turd, aren’t you, Bob?
November 7th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
Anyway Bob, even it has been published in some magazine it still isn’t evidence it is true. You shouldn’t believe everything your read. (Especially not in the Bible btw).
November 7th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
Bob. Surprise, surprise. You won’t cite the magazine’s name because “you people are so nasty…” I cite my source, from the book I quoted earlier as does any honest atheist. Over the years I have learned that as an atheist I am held to a far high standard than the shifty, lying and contemptiple christians of whom you appear a prime exemplar. I also know that if I offer a fact or quote, even without a source, then I had better be able to back it up because you, and sleaze merchants like you, will insist that I am lying.
Name the magazine, Bob. If you back up your statement then I will apologise and withdraw what I said. If you do not my comments stand and you are exposed as a liar.
November 7th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
Tim: Like you I loved that “cause trouble for them.” If only. What kind of trouble? Cancel my subscription? Letter to the editor? Bob, a sad creature, is being left to twist in the wind, exposed to the chill winds of honest debate and he knows it.
He, and those like him, are so used to calling the shots with no rebuttal that they become reckless when they venture here.
November 7th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
The spiteful comments I have received prove the wisdom of not naming the source of my information – which I know to be true. These unkind comments are a form of persecution.
November 7th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
Let’s assume, for one moment that this story is true, and imagine this scenario: A bunch of Christian busybodies discover that an hotel has no Bibles in its rooms.
They set up a campaign to intimidate the manager to accept the bloody things. The hotel boss, stressed as only a manager in the hospitality and catering industry can be, needs this extra hassle like the pope needs an erection. He becomes apoplectic, and keels over with heart failure.
Is this evidence of divine intervention by the mean-minded, petulant tyrant Christians call “God”? Of course not. All the incident tells us is that encounters with pushy fundies may lead to a burst blood vessel or worse.
November 7th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
Bob. You say in your blog: “Jesus was gentle and pure, mo was violent and a paedophile; Jesus was/is the Son of God and worthy of worship, mo was just a man. There really is no comparison”.
Read a Bible Bob and stop making a fool of yourself.
Matthew 13: 38-42
The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one; The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels.
As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world.
The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Did you read that Bob? GNASHING OF TEETH!!
YOU ARE A FALSE CHRISTIAN.
2nd Peter 2:1 But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.
I wonder who is being that false Teacher Bob?
You don’t just pick out the bits of the Bible to suit your own Sinful lifestyle, you follow the whole of The Bible.
Yes, you may be persecuted along the way, but isn’t that also a part of the teachings of Jesus?
You wannabee True Christians™ disgust me.
November 7th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
Talitha: Clearly you are not saved, you are using the Bible for your own ends. Even a cursory glance at your church’s web site will show that your “congregation” are misusing the Bible.
November 7th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
Eureka! I think I’ve identified the magazine Bob’s been so coy about. I couldn’t find the story in question, but this report leads me to believe it’s the one Bob the Nob was referring to:
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/.....911052201/
November 7th, 2009 at 4:55 pm
No, Barry, that is not it! Try again.
November 7th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
Bob, please tell me where we at Landover Baptist are not entirely Biblically correct.
As far as me not being Saved, please give me Chapter and Verse where you think I have gone wrong.
1st Corinthians 1:17-20 For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect.
For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.
For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.
Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?
November 7th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
Just as a matter of clarification: On the Brit side of the Big Pond, “tabling a motion” means to bring it up for discussion. On the Yank side of the Big Pond, it means to put it aside for later or never.
November 7th, 2009 at 5:27 pm
Well, good luck getting Bob’s source. As a believer he doesn’t need to provide any proof to justify his thought processes. God is good, rice is rain, and brains are pudding. What more proof could you need?
But Bob, if you aren’t kind enough to provide us with the source for your story, we can only assume you made it up. What choice do you give us? We don’t have to believe you, but it would be easier to believe you if didn’t insist we just take you at your word. Your “word” isn’t enough. Your faith in its truth isn’t enough.
November 7th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
No, I did not make it up.
November 7th, 2009 at 6:00 pm
Talitha: Landover Baptist Church is a fictional parody of Evangelical Baptist Churches. If one googles the name and looks up wikipaedia the truth is shown there.
November 7th, 2009 at 6:03 pm
You are looking at the wrong version Bob. That was hijacked by evil Atheists. Here is the original:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/inde.....=173387351
November 7th, 2009 at 6:23 pm
In all fairness to the turd of tapeworm shit who is asking us to believe his lie about a coincidence that theoretically could have happened, it is not as if he was asking us to take his word that something definitively impossible happened, such as a dead man coming back to life. Wait a minute. Come to think of it …
One question for all godphuqt Jesusites: Was Matthew lying about Jesus being born during the lifetime of Herod the Great, or was Luke lying about Jesus being in utero at the time of the first Judaean census ten years after Herod’s death? Or are both gospel tales true, and therefore Jesus was born ten years before he was conceived? That would be a miracle indeed.
ONLY persons with relevant academic qualifications are invited to respond. Persons who think that a book endorsing a flat earth (in 14 places) is literal truth, do not qualify.
November 7th, 2009 at 8:49 pm
Wow, I have a lot more respect for you knowing you’re a freethinker reader, Thomas. I’m a 2nd year ordinary member of the SRC, I shall have to actually go to a meeting and ensure this joke of a motion doesn’t pass!
November 7th, 2009 at 9:35 pm
Giving away free bibles is a comparatively new phenomenon. Prior to the Protestant Reformation, the Catholic hierarchy banned the translation of its bible into languages people could actually read, for fear that its absurdities would be so self-evident that religion would disappear. Isaac Asimov observed that, “Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.” The reason bible religion continues to exist is that CURABLE believers have never read a bible and have no idea what it really says–other than carefully selected passages read to them from pulpits.
November 7th, 2009 at 10:36 pm
Thanks for the link Barry.
But, on a wider point, what does it matter if the story about the hotel is true? People have heart attacks all the time, just because one time it happened after a group of Christians had been in, and someone took it to be a divine message, doesn’t mean it was!
November 7th, 2009 at 10:49 pm
Bob. You lie! First you said you did not identify the magazine because there was no link. No mention of the supposed harm we might do to it. Then when asked for name and date, with a shifty and typical defence, you change to atheists harming the magazine.
Confess you liar. You made it up. You are so typical of your kind. Who is spiteful? All I want is an honest answer. Do liars go to hell? What would your Jesus think of your behaviour so shamefully exposed here? Or, as I suspect, your beliefs and convictions when put to the test are fraudulent. You have as much belief in a God or divine retribution as I have: nil. What you want is a witless, dishonest means of demonstrating your sanctity. It comes cheap and it is proven to be phony by your gutless lack of readiness to own up.
Confess or go to the hell you claim you believe in.
November 7th, 2009 at 10:54 pm
I have not lied. The article was written by a group that I know to be truthful.
November 8th, 2009 at 12:33 am
I don’t know why anybody thinks people should feel compelled to accept Bibles for hotels, dormitories or any other establishment. The asshats who disagree should consider if they’d accept “gifts” of pornography, guns, sex toys, poisons or other such items in their establishments. If not, then why should others take their twaddle (which many of us consider just as objectionable as the items I listed).
November 8th, 2009 at 9:56 am
If Bob didn’t readily believe bullshit stories of dubious provenance, he wouldn’t be a Christian, would he?
November 8th, 2009 at 11:34 am
As a frequent patron of hotels I could happily use a supply of those stickers!
November 8th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
Bob: Own up. You are caught and all you have left is this miserable, “Please believe me. I am telling the truth.”
I will quote a magazine to you. This is about a vicar who jailed for sex offences against young boys. Page 5, The Freethinker, November, 2009. Now Bob, I hope you are not so spiteful that you do nasty things to that nice Mr Barry Duke with whom you correspondend.
November 8th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
Well, Bob, that went well, huh? Do email me again the next time you feel the need to have scorn and abuse heaped upon you.
Twat!
November 8th, 2009 at 8:14 pm
Bob’s comments have me creased up with laughter here. Even HE couldn’t differentiaite between Landover Baptists and “real” evangelicals – doh!!!
And as for the apocryphal story – what a load of tosh! When I was a “Bile-believing Christian” (sic), I had loads of books full of stories just like this. In one of them an African missionary was supposedly just about to be eaten by a crocodile, on the banks of the Nile, when a tiger leapt at him, overshot, and landed in the jaws of the crocodile, thus saving his life!! Yes, folks, due to the intervention of his loving Heavenly Father, that tiger had jumped all the way from India into the mouth of a crocodile in Africa, just to save that “poor servant of the Lord” from a grisly death!!!
November 8th, 2009 at 8:58 pm
What a great idea of Buffy’s, by the way! I’d be over the moon if I got to my hotel room and found the latest copy of Black Inches on the bedside cabinet!! (Might not get much shuteye, though, eh Barry?!!)
And I ought to point out, re the missionary story, that the “name” of the person concerned was given – just to add “authenticity” to the whole fabrication!
November 10th, 2009 at 4:28 am
Bob….how can you expect people to take you seriously when you believe in “horse shit” ?
Many on this site have tried to reason with you and your cocked up story that attempts to somehow reveal that if you don’t behave your god will do nasty things to you.
Sounds like you need a good night out with the boys ….better still a long night out with a tall blonde with high heels and a smokin little black dress….see how how you feel about god after that.