Observations and inanities by a second-shift assistant supervisor in the Puppy-Grinding division of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy® (our motto: "Sure it's cruel, but think of the jobs!"), your host, Brent Rasmussen.
The Abimelech Society
Maybe you're like me. You go to a hotel while on business or vacation and you find another one of those damn Gideon's Bibles. What to do with it?? Well, as a newly minted member of the Abimelech Society, I replace it with a nice novel (usually classical literature) from my local paper back exchange store.
I learned about the Society from this link:
http://www.positiveatheism.org/writ/abimelec.htm
The article reads in part -
The Abimelechs are an association of Atheist commercial, business, and professional men and women who have as one of their objects: The removal from circulation of the so-called Word of God or Holy Bible, from hotels, motels, hospitals, school classrooms, university dormitories, penal institutions, and many other places, and by the confiscation of New Testaments from school children, service personnel, and nurses.
The Association was founded in Canada 29 years ago by a couple of Freethinkers who, in a hotel room, found the only reading material to be a Gideon Bible, and were angered by this overt propaganda by the Christians and decided to do something about it. There are now adherents in many countries around the world, and thousands of Bibles and New Testaments have been withdrawn from circulation, confiscated, destroyed, or put to some useful purpose.
The Abimelechs named themselves after the bastard son of Gideon and his followers who, in the story related in ninth Chapter of the Book of Judges, were inspired to usurp the work of the Judge Gideon and his associates, who had wrought havoc upon the many peoples whose religious beliefs differed from their own conviction that Yahweh was the Only True God.
The above 'mission statement' of the Abimelech Society describes the purpose and the work. It is not a formal organization: there are no dues or elected officers, no annual meetings, and anyone who supports the aims of the society as described in the mission statement is welcome to consider themselves a member. We do encourage discussions among members of topics relevant to the Society such as: what to do with specimens once confiscated. The Society maintains a Book Depository in Winnipeg, Manitoba for temporary storage of specimens.
You're not limited to just Bibles from hotels. You can find and remove religious materials everywhere. The only rule is: No stealing or anything else that would get yourself into trouble. If you're not sure, the safest recourse is to just leave it. But, if the material is being put out there for people to take, take it ALL!
Won't you join today?
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Oh, never mind.
Well, I was thinking about an ethical discussion of taking items donated for pubulic use and then destroying them. However, I noticed that Dirk Diggler was chanting, "Run Al, run!" This tells me two things abut Dirk: 1)He doesn't care about the truth (Al is a liar) and 2)His photo on the blog well depicts his position on the evolutionary chart.
So, I'll not waste my time with a rational appeal to civility.
Hope you people have fun stealing Bibles and literature which are always replaced at the cost of another tree. So, who is most stupid...the person who places the Bible or the one who takes it.
Yep, that's a tough one
I'm torn by this too. I realize it costs more in resources but I also like to think it does more good than harm. But I honestly don't know which way things balance out.
Along these lines, we have a number of local groups that put out free "newspapers" that clutter up the place I work (it's a fairly open public place) or get loose outside and blown around. I take all of these too and put them in the trash right away. Usually an arm-load. It's a waste but I'm not the one doing the printing.
In my angrier moments, I'll put the free "newspapers" in the pay box for the legitimate local news and let the local newspaper deal with them. Come to think of it, that particular free paper I haven't seen around much since I've started doing this.
Careful where you take that bible...
News item caught my eye:
Now, granted, it wasn't from a hotel room. But still, if you're on vacation in Singapore, you might want to rethink your Abimelech Society activities...
Jim Downey
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Like Science Fiction? Read my novel, Communion of Dreams, for free.
I declare Scott M. Grand Puba of Abimelech Society
Great idea! I have written some funny stuff in hotel bibles before, but it never occured to me to take it. The Gideon's even say it's okay to take it. And now that I am a little older and bolder, I can see myself just taking the whole stack of "free" religious material wherever I see it, and circular filing it.
If I remember correctly, Hank Fox posted something a while back about requesting a stack of free religious material and dvd's to be sent. Hank, if you read this, did they ever send you the stuff you asked for?
I was gung ho to sign up, but couldn't find a website or much of anything on the google. I did find this "The Founder and Dominion Director of the Society, Mr. E. Van Beetfield, may be contacted at: Box 31107, 211 Main Street, Whitehorse, Yukon Territory Y1A 5P7."
Oh well, I guess we here at UTI will just have to start an unofficial chapter. I declare Scott Mange is now the Grand Puba of the UTI chapter of the Abimelech Society and I declare myself the first official member.
Don't Forget...
Thanks Dirk. I would gladly accept the position except I'm already President of my local chapter. I would suggest we all start a local chapter and if anyone needs added incentives, remember that post I did about hospitals spreading the "superbug" MRSA? We've had an outbreak here in southwest Virginia among high school students, so it's a very real problem. It has never, to my knowledge, been shown to reside on the bibles left in hospital rooms but I still say we get rid of them because there is no way to properly clean them. And we all know the magic man in the sky isn't going to sterilize them for us.
Also, when you remove them, remember to replace them with something inexpensive but good. It doesn't have to be the hard back edition of The God Delusion.
If you'd care to join the Abimelech Group at Yahoo to share stories and adventures, the link can be found here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Abimelech/
So far my best is 4 bibles from one hotel!
No, no, no.
Dirk, that's going about it entirely wrong. You should recycle that material, not throw it out.
Sheesh. ;)
Jim Downey
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Like Science Fiction? Read my novel, Communion of Dreams, for free.
Run Al, run!
Sorry. That's what I meant, junk mail and bibles should be recycled of course. And speaking of environmentalism, congrats to Mr. Gore on the Nobel. Please Al, jump into the race! I'm begging you.