American Bible Society to close its $60 million museum after 3 years

jeffw@lemmy.worldmod to News@lemmy.world – 199 points – American Bible Society to close its $60 million Center City 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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While I wouldn't have wanted to support the place,

a collection of historic Bibles, including William Penn’s own

would have actually been interesting to see. For all the harm done in the name of Christianity, there is also a lot of amazing artwork and historic significance tied up with it. It's just better done in an actual museum and not a religious nutjob propaganda space.

Right? I was telling my wife the other day that I want to see a gallery of all the Jesus pictures that get donated to a Goodwill when a grandma dies.

This jerk kisses the ass of hate religious groups because they forced artists to paint pictures only of their bullshit religion for a thousand years. Screw this jerk, and screw that religion.

"But the crucifix has such pretty blood running down the side of the dead guy impaled onto it! So pretty!". What a nutjob.

We already have a Holocaust museum, which means we already have a museum dedicated to Christianity, just stick that old Bible in there.

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.

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.

Sure, specific intellectuals did pursue advancement in science and technology under the wing of religion, but it was often that or be silenced.

Like Copernicus, Galileo, Descartes? Silenced/censured by the church, often with threats. Or Bruno, burned alive...

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.

were funded by churches of practically all the major religions.

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.

"Museum"

If it isn't history, it is still art that illicits an emotional reaction from both supporters and detractors. In this case it's like an art museum full of those avant garde shapes that no one understands but some say it speaks to them.

...illicits an emotional reaction from both supporters and detractors...

A bonfire would also accomplish this.

I still get unreasonably annoyed about that damn toilet. Because even the guy who sent it in was just being that pretentious art student who has to turn it into a debate when the layperson says "that's not art, that's a toilet."

Literally the guy submitted it originally to purity test the gallery curators on if they would be "anything can be art" enough for his liking.

It was a literal shit post to start drama with his colleagues and art students are still worshipping the piss he probably christened it the water fountain with decades later.

Because these people can never seem to accept that "this doesn't move me at all, what's eliciting an emotional response is you trying to start a fight with me over it like I'm stupid for not being moved by this." is an entirely valid response to their art.

It's like the baby philosophy students who will go out of their way to verbally assault you for suggesting looking for something to throw on the trolley track instead of agreeing that there is any real moral character to be teased out from the completely realistic and grounded in the real world which animates our real world moral values scenario which involves an infinitely long train track extending into a blank featureless void and a random number of civilians tied to a fork in the track by an unknown force and absolutely nothing in the scenario is present to interact with but a lever which despite all other featurelessness of the scene is somehow able to switch the direction of the fork.

You may have noticed by now that I reserve a special level of ire for wannabe intellectuals who throw a fit when their pop-smart-people references either don't land or turn out to not hold as much intellectual water as they want it to for ego inflating purposes.

These people just don't get it. Very few religious people actually care about the religion. They care about using it to feel better about themselves. They don't read the holy books. To make a place they would want to go to, it would have to have VIP access if you have a letter from your pastor, and be all about how great you are for believing and much better than nonbelievers you are. But I guess the optics on that aren't the same.

Actually reading the damn book for real produces either atheists or screwballs who either abandon church based worship altogether for personal worship or who end up founding a whole new denomination that will go on to be dominated by the people who use religion to feel better about themselves.

Was anyone else hoping it was the Hobby Lobby funded one that bought fake antiquities?

I was hoping it was that batshit insane creation museum in Kentucky run by equally batshit Ken "there were velociraptors and t-rexes on the ark" Hamm

Is that dude still alive?! Man, that name brings back memories, he's a... character

In a statement to The Inquirer on Saturday, the Faith and Liberty Discovery Center cited the pandemic and “structural limitations” as some of the reasons for the closing. A spokesperson for the American Bible Society would not elaborate on the closing beyond that statement.

Or just, yknow, the ineffable will of God.

It's all part of God's plan.

I'm not sure how my schadenfreude helps God, but I guess that's why I'm down here, and he's up there.

Hahahahahahahahahah

And another one

And another one

And another one bites the dust

Meh, they're tax exempt and still own the land, so investment wise it was likely not a bad move.

They shouldn't allow hate museums about hate books that teach people it's OK to hate, because of religion.

What a waste of time, effort, and money. That's what religion is. Just a waste.

The problem isn't that someone can start a museum about something stupid. It's a private endeavor and they can do what they want. The problem is that, as a religious organization, we're essentially helping fund them through tax exemption.

But what about the Holocaust Museum? And that Hitler book? Should we ban them too?

Edit: 14 year old Lemmings with a single brain cell- "No, we should only ban the evil things! The solution is so obvious, and has not been discussed before in history."

Coulda got a pretty fly G6 and some cocaine for that money, what were they thinking?

That was just seed money. They were shooting for several G6's - one for each founder - and a metric shitton of cocaine.

You'll never be a real grifter unless you set your sights higher. Play the long game; stop thinking rookie numbers.

Oh no! Now where are people going to go to get their Disneyfied understanding of the most translated and published book in history?

But more to the point, what is the NEXT religious-themed grift coming round the mountain?

They think the Bible hasn't already been translated into every language?

It’s definitely been translated into the most used languages, but there are a bunch more that are being worked on still.

Here’s an infographic on it from another org: https://www.wycliffe.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/2023_Infographic-Large_EN.pdf

Looks like the way they calculate it, 80% of people in the world have access to a full translation of the Bible in their language.

There's also new original translations being done every year or two anyway. To say nothing of the dozens of smaller translation projects like Schlafly's Conservative Bible.

It's also hard to know how many languages in that chart are only spoken by multilingual people, in which case, a Bible in their language is not really necessary.

“Structural limitations”? What were they trying to do?