American Bible Society to close its $60 million museum after 3 years
inquirer.com
The museum created by the American Bible Society in July 2021 said it would be open to visitors until March 28. The Christian ministry nonprofit that translates Bibles and sends them around the world has recently been besieged with challenges including layoffs, funding troubles, and five CEO changes within two years.
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I'm a deist but even I get weirded out by how selective ppl are with the evils of religion on lemmy. Before there were universities institutions of learning were funded by churches of practically all the major religions. A museum based on famous religious academics, artists, musicians, and writers would be very interesting and would hold major historical significance.
You don't get why people would get worked up about the evils of religion...?
I suspect when I hear people defend religion who aren't religious themselves that most of them have had a life that religion couldn't/wouldn't hurt them.
Don't have the equipment to get pregnant, live in some secular western country where religion is weak, wasn't raped as a kid by a man of the cloth, parents were boring and thought religion was go to some place for an hour once a year.
Literal didn't say that but ok
A lot of people don't get is that the churches didn't want knowledge for knowledge's sake. It was about power. Copy their unholy book, spread it to the masses, teach it to them and hold them as a weapon against the rulers of the countries they were in.
They had the wealth and the manpower from all the gullible fools they conned.
Sure, specific intellectuals did pursue advancement in science and technology under the wing of religion, but it was often that or be silenced.
Same as with the witch trials. It wasn't the Church that did that and even advised against it, it was their rabid followers who misunderstood the texts.
Remind you of any current group in particular?
I feel pity for the Renaissance. All that hubbub about enlightenment and yet we're still stuck in the ages before it.
Like Copernicus, Galileo, Descartes? Silenced/censured by the church, often with threats. Or Bruno, burned alive...
We don’t talk about Bruno.
Does religion having a monopolization on learning (in Europe) make up for all of the murder, torture, oppression, etc.?
Maybe if we didn't have all the learning but none of the queer people or the "witches" or the Jews or the Muslims or anyone else that Christians ended up massacring never got tortured and murdered, the world would be a better place.
Things can be relearned. People can't relive their lives.
I wrestle with this one because let's not pretend life was peaceful before religion - religion gave the structure that grew into us understanding those things are wrong. It's now obsolete but for s time I think it was a net positive
A net positive for whom? The wealthy and powerful?
Because so far your argument seems to be that Christian tradition in Europe kept knowledge alive... knowledge that had mostly been destroyed due to the Christianization and then collapse of the Western Roman Empire.
Stop being a deist. You are already an atheist who just needs to rip the band-aid off already.
And? If I did something nice 800 years ago do I get off the hook for every bad thing I have ever done forever? Good doesn't wash away bad. A doctor isn't allowed to just over people in the hospital parking lot to make it balanced.
That's not really what they were talking about though. Museums are interesting. That's why they exist. This particular museum was not at all an accurate representation, so I agree it shouldn't exist. That doesn't mean we should ignore the historical value of some of the things they did have.
Nope. Museums don't exist to be interesting. Museums literally exist to promote historical FACTS. They are a testament to things that actually happened. Religious "museums" are the opposite of this. They selectively use facts to push a false agenda.
They are not the same.
Yes...which is why this particular museum doesn't need to exist. But the artifacts that they do have are interesting and should be shown in a real museum.