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Oxford University Press bans mention of pork in books to avoid offending Muslims or Jews

Link here.

The absurdity of this ban is so over the top that I at first was reluctant to post a link, thinking it might be a hoax. It still might be, but I have seen it sourced now in at least two publications.

Even if it is a hoax, that people believe it tells us just how subservient our intellectual elites have become when it comes to freedom of speech. Today’s modern intellectual class does not believe in free speech, it believes in not offending anyone with whom they agree or sympathize. The result is that they insist on dictating to everyone what you can or cannot say.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 

The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

14 comments

  • Cotour

    If this story is true its an indicator of how free speech is being redefined by political correctness. As soon as a group of people get to do such through their protestations and their being “offended” that is the point at which they now control those who are willing to redefine free speech by such.

    Europe and all who are willing to do so is well on the road to the Caliphate.

    As an aside: Isn’t the aversion to pork for the Jews and Muslims actually based in good food and health practices? Wasn’t it likely that if you ate pork in years gone by you were likely to acquire parasites? So in order to ensure good health these particular potential food items were made religiously forbidden?

    If a Jew or Muslim would please comment on this subject I would appreciate it.

  • Garry

    I’m neither Muslim nor Jewish, but my understanding is that this was part of the law handed down through Moses. Although Christians are big on the 10 commandments, according to Exodus there were hundreds of commandments, many of the related to health and religious purity (what made one unclean, etc.). When I read Exodus decades ago (when I was much less agnostic than I am now), I wondered why Christians didn’t follow or even learn about most of these commandments.

    One plausible explanation for this commandment against pork is that Moses issued it out of health concerns, and gave it more authority by attributing it to God.

    I think that most of us don’t have an appreciation for how strongly many Muslims believe in their faith and design their entire existence around it. If we were to suggest to a devout Muslim that the commandment was no longer needed, that would directly threaten the core of their beliefs, and therefore their entire existence. Perhaps that kind of thing is our only hope of getting people out of their narrow-minded views, but it’s much easier to just not go there.

    By the way, I don’t know if Muslims see this as a commandment handed down through Moses, or Mohammed, someone else, or nobody, but I’m fairly certain they see it as coming from Allah.

  • I am no expert on Jewish dietary law, but from what I understand, the sole reason pork is outlawed is because it says so in the Torah, the first five books of the Bible. There might have been health reasons in the past to not eat pork, but that is not the reason why it is not kosher. God declared it wrong to eat, and so you don’t eat it.

  • Cotour

    I have always believed that when “God” declares something to be forbidden it is either driven by man either attempting to protect against a health threat or in order to acquire, retain or manipulate power.

    How’s your eyeball doing?

  • Cotour

    Thank you, I tend to agree with your explanation. I have said here before that in a perfect world people would practice their religion in the privacy of the own home and would be flexible and respectful of others when in the outside world.

    Islam being, IMO, designed as such an absolute religion in order to 1. control the uncontrollable tribes of Arabia (H.A.R. Gibb) and 2. to dominate all others. Islams duality as a religion and a military document is the crack that needs to be exploited specifically by America to stop any and all threats that may come to exist in this context.

  • Improving slowly. Some days better than others.

  • PeterF

    From what I know of the Quran, “God” also directed muslims not to wear pants that reach below their ankles. Useful directive in a land where tracking dung into the tent is a common problem. Everybody knew that people who ate the flesh of pigs died a horrible death. With such sage advise, obviously everything in the quran is true…

  • PeterF

    Perhaps the Oxford press is in competition with the New York Times on who gets shot last?

  • pzatchok

    “Of the “beasts of the earth” (which basically refers to land mammals with the exception of swarming rodents), you may eat any animal that has cloven hooves and chews its cud. Leviticus 11,3; Deuternomy 14,6. Any land mammal that does not have both of these qualities is forbidden. The Torah specifies that the camel, the rock badger, the hare and the pig are not kosher because each lacks one of these two qualifications. Sheep, cattle, goats, and deer are kosher.”

    http://www.mechon-mamre.org/jewfaq/kashrut.htm

    The Jewish dietary law is long and somewhat detailed. Once you know it though its pretty easy to follow.

    Muslin dietary laws are pretty much the same but according to Muslims did not stem from Jewish tradition or Mosaic laws but instead directly from the mouth of Allah to the angel Gabriel then through Mohamed. Thus a purer form of the law.

    Its pretty much that cam attitude with the whole of the Quran. Even if it looks like it came from some place else its actually purer and better because it was spoken by Allah in Arabic and all others are wrong in some way for some reason.

    Both religions allow the eating of wrong foods in a time of need. No use starving.

    By the way my family now eats Kosher sometimes because my brother is in a Jewish nursing home. And thus all things must be Kosher. No more Domino’s pizza.

  • pzatchok

    By the way the reading about pork is in no way offensive to any religion.

    It can not be. Its mentioned in all three religious texts. So if reading about it was offensive it wouldn’t be included. It would have only been hinted at.

    I am sure there is a word for Pig in Arabic. Found it.
    Khanzeer
    خنزير
    There are about 15 variations for context and meaning.

    If it was that bad of a word it would not be in the language. Which they view as the most holy and beautiful of all languages since Allah speaks it and pronounced the Quran in it.

  • Cotour

    Yes, herbivores eat foliage and grasses (cud) and that tends to be not contaminated and more pure and carnivores eat only meat which includes rotting meat which are more likely to include parasites. Pigs and other omnivores who do not strictly “chew their cud” and digest through fermentation, eat both and so can tend to be transmitters of disease and sickness. The cloven hoof and chewing of the cud are the test for safe eating practices.

    To codify such good eating practices in a religious document and make it a rule of that religion to the extent that those potential food items become items that create extreme repulsion and become icons of being unclean or have the power in the minds of the adherents to deny them their just deserved rewards in the after life is both a powerful tool of survival and counter to that are powerful weapons outside of those strictly adhered to religious dietary rules. Hence the Pershing method of Islamic control.

  • Cotour

    Our culture discourages pedophilia with severe penalties for those who choose to indulge in such behavior.

    http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/tutor-25-years-prison-sex-15-year-old-article-1.2078467

    Islam does not, there are actual written rules that instruct the proper way of having sex with the underage. Another example that illustrates the incompatibility of the two cultures. Our culture discourages the abuse of women such as in the case of rape or violence or clitoral mutilation. Islam does not, Islam provides the rules to make it legal. Two cultures from two different times, the oil and water of societies.

    How do feminists justify their support of Islam, for those who do support it? Women don’t even exist in Islam other than as sexual receptors and the mothers that raise their husbands offspring.

  • Edward

    I am a bit surprised that someone is finally concerned about offending Jews. Is this a first? Or maybe they were tacked onto the announcement as an afterthought.

    These comments have been helpful in understanding a little bit more about the pork bans, kosher foods, and Islam. Thanks guys. It seems that the mention of pork is OK, just not the consumption of it. Apparently, the animals are likewise not banned from the earth.

    It is interesting that offense is thought to be so easily taken. It is interesting that to avoid trying to offend is to suggest that the terrorists can be incited to violence. It is interesting that the concept of “fighting words” has been rejected as an excuse for violence, but, it seems, some people accept the concept of fighting words, after all. May we live in interesting times (to paraphrase a curse).

  • pzatchok

    http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070903204822.htm
    http://factsanddetails.com/world/cat57/sub383/item2119.html

    It turns out that swine were first domesticated in the middle east but due to extensive deforestation they had no place to stay out of the sun and they lost most of their food sources.
    Since pigs can’t sweat they can’t easily be farmed in the desert regions of the middle east.
    Their habits of staying cool are possibly one reason for the restrictions.

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