…and this is a 
Talking animals with more sense
Category: Religion
Posted on: February 22, 2008 5:39 PM, by PZ Myers
The German Family Ministry (does anyone know if inclusion of the word "family" in an organization title is as ominous auf Deutsch as it is in English?) wants to ban a children's book. The book is about two little animals on a pilgrimage to find god, and in the end they don't find him anywhere, and conclude that they haven't been missing anything. There's a good reason to ban it, I'm sure…
"The three large religions of the world, Christianity, Islam and Judaism, are slurred in the book," the ministry wrote in a December memo. "The distinctive characteristics of each religion are made ridiculous."
You've got to be kidding me. If that were grounds for banning, the Bible has to be the next book on their hit list.
A little further on, they do hit on a more legitimate reason, if it were true: the argument that the illustrations of the book are hateful stereotypes, of the sort that Germany has good reason to be sensitive about: you know, the old anti-semitic caricatures of Jews as hook-nosed and greedy. If they'd taken that ugly shortcut, yeah, I'd agree — it would be just more hate literature. However, they include several images from the book, and they don't look like that: the rabbi looks like any of the ordinary orthodox Jews you'd see walking around New York, so it's a bit of a stretch.
Maybe it's badly written. Maybe other illustrations are more overtly hateful. Just don't try to tell me it's a bad book because it makes ridiculous religions look ridiculous.
I have my suspicions about the source of the problem, though. The book is titled "How Do I Get to God, Asked the Small Piglet" — Ken Ham must be trying to suppress it.
Comments
You can read the whole thing in English at www.ferkelbuch.de (which means piglet book). On the left side you'll find "Read the book" which leads you to a pdf version.
The German ministries are usually rather reasonable when it comes to those things - I have no idea what's gotten into them this time. But I'd bet my left butt cheek that the ban won't get through.
Posted by: Yenzo | February 22, 2008 5:51 PM
A wholesome story from the OT to read to kids. Lots of good moral lessons in this one. ""Mommy, what's a concubine?"
Judges 19
16 That evening an old man from the hill country of Ephraim, who was living in Gibeah (the men of the place were Benjamites), came in from his work in the fields. 17 When he looked and saw the traveler in the city square, the old man asked, "Where are you going? Where did you come from?"
18 He answered, "We are on our way from Bethlehem in Judah to a remote area in the hill country of Ephraim where I live. I have been to Bethlehem in Judah and now I am going to the house of the LORD. No one has taken me into his house. 19 We have both straw and fodder for our donkeys and bread and wine for ourselves your servants--me, your maidservant, and the young man with us. We don't need anything."
20 "You are welcome at my house," the old man said. "Let me supply whatever you need. Only don't spend the night in the square." 21 So he took him into his house and fed his donkeys. After they had washed their feet, they had something to eat and drink.
22 While they were enjoying themselves, some of the wicked men of the city surrounded the house. Pounding on the door, they shouted to the old man who owned the house, "Bring out the man who came to your house so we can have sex with him."
23 The owner of the house went outside and said to them, "No, my friends, don't be so vile. Since this man is my guest, don't do this disgraceful thing. 24 Look, here is my virgin daughter, and his concubine. I will bring them out to you now, and you can use them and do to them whatever you wish. But to this man, don't do such a disgraceful thing."
25 But the men would not listen to him. So the man took his concubine and sent her outside to them, and they raped her and abused her throughout the night, and at dawn they let her go. 26 At daybreak the woman went back to the house where her master was staying, fell down at the door and lay there until daylight.
27 When her master got up in the morning and opened the door of the house and stepped out to continue on his way, there lay his concubine, fallen in the doorway of the house, with her hands on the threshold. 28 He said to her, "Get up; let's go." But there was no answer. Then the man put her on his donkey and set out for home.
29 When he reached home, he took a knife and cut up his concubine, limb by limb, into twelve parts and sent them into all the areas of Israel. 30 Everyone who saw it said, "Such a thing has never been seen or done, not since the day the Israelites came up out of Egypt. Think about it! Consider it! Tell us what to do!"
Posted by: jeh | February 22, 2008 5:57 PM
"How Do I Get to God, Asked the Small Piglet" -- Ken Ham must be trying to suppress it.
I'm sure Ken knows exactly the directions to give the little piglet on how to "reach God", and be happy to show the little feller personally.
Posted by: Ichthyic | February 22, 2008 6:04 PM
Not ominous, except when the conservatives run it. As, I bet, they are doing at the moment.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | February 22, 2008 6:07 PM
Well, I don't see any reason why the Real True Christians of A-Muhrica should get upset about it: the "Christian" in the book is a Catholic.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | February 22, 2008 6:09 PM
Okay, I just read the book at the site. It's fantastic. the author is right, no one religion is singled out. Christianity, Judaism and Islam are all portrayed as equally weird. Pictures are good too. The rabbi doesn't look anything like a Sturmer stereotype, he just looks Hassidic.
Posted by: Stephen Wells | February 22, 2008 6:10 PM
Thanks for the link -- I read the story and looked at the pictures. What makes the religious look ridiculous isn't ethnic stereotyping, it's that the rabbi tells them the horrific story of Noah's Ark, the priest makes a big deal of the crucifixion, and the mufti tells them they'll go to hell if they don't pray every day.
This is a non-argument. This is simply a children's book that tells it like it is.
Posted by: PZ Myers | February 22, 2008 6:10 PM
Yes, yes it is: Bundesmisterium für Familie, Senioren, Frauen und Jugen.
Posted by: Shirakawasuna | February 22, 2008 6:11 PM
If I'm reading the German right, it's the Ministry for Families, Seniors, Women, and Young People. Hell, why not just call it the Ministry for Everyone Who Isn't A Middle-Aged, Single Man?
Posted by: Elin | February 22, 2008 6:14 PM
I found it interesting that the story uses the pronoun "it" to refer to the protagonists.
accurate, but not something I often see in a children's book.
Posted by: Ichthyic | February 22, 2008 6:21 PM
#3
Ah, you beat me to it! You were pretty fast posting that. You were fast like Ken Ham when he heard the supermarket was giving away two year old bacon.
Posted by: October Mermaid | February 22, 2008 6:23 PM
they usually are -rather- reasonable, although some fundies seem to try get a hold of lately
as for the obscure name, Bundesministerium für Familie, Senioren, Frauen und Jugend, certain topics get shifted to diferent ministries from time to time, for example it included health at one point
Posted by: X. Wolp | February 22, 2008 6:26 PM
Maybe it's badly written.
well, I'm not sure if it's just a quick translation job, but it sure does seem trite and poorly written to me, as well as rather obviously not being a children's book.
I sure wouldn't compare it to something Maurice Sendak or Roald Dahl wrote, for example.
ban it though?
that's laughable.
I'm guessing it might have been written specifically to ferret out those that indeed might want to ban such a thing.
Posted by: Ichthyic | February 22, 2008 6:29 PM
PZ, you stated that the German Family Ministry wants to ban the book; the story talks about labeling the book as "dangerous for children." Certainly, both determinations are ridiculous, and practically speaking they may amount to the same thing, but they are also not the same thing. How powerful is this German Family Ministry? Can it actually ban books in a supposedly free country?
____________________________________________
Posted by: Aris | February 22, 2008 6:31 PM
I propose we argue back with: "We should teach the controversy."
Posted by: Tom Fulton | February 22, 2008 6:31 PM
Jenzo's link got me started but these can save a few seconds:
Illustrations: http://www.ferkelbuch.de/buch/
Story PDF file (English): http://www.ferkelbuch.de/ferkelbuch.pdf
Marvelous, abso-frickin-lutely marvelous:
"Oh", said little Piglet. It thought for a while. "If humans can imagine gods", it spoke slowly, "how do we know that you don't imagine your god, too?"
*** Spoiler Alert! ***
From the end of the story, for our Cuttlefish (and fans):
Just in case someone might follow:
"Who knows not god, must be quite hollow!"
A secret I will break to you
(And you may tell others about it, too)
The faith in god around our globe
Is just bad magic, just a joke
Rabbis, priests and muftis too
Are "naked apes" like me and you
Only, they see floating "ghosts"
And wear quite funny hats and clothes
They couldn't fool our Piglet, when:
It laughed at all of them...
Posted by: WRMartin | February 22, 2008 6:33 PM
Not only triple blasphemy, but pictures of nekid aipzes!!11!!
Posted by: mark | February 22, 2008 6:33 PM
question:
when speaking to the rabbi, the rabbi mentions other gods as just imaginations of humans, then says:
"Actually, these gods exist just as little ghosts striped blue and green..."
anybody have a clue what that is referring to?
Posted by: Ichthyic | February 22, 2008 6:34 PM
I don't see any "clearly insinuated predilection for child abuse" in the bishop's depiction at all...
Posted by: Ian | February 22, 2008 6:35 PM
#15
"I propose we argue back with: 'We should teach the controversy.'"
It's at times like these I wish there was an internet equivalent to the high-five.
Posted by: October Mermaid | February 22, 2008 6:40 PM
...the bishop's depiction...
hmm.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UieDo4GoRPE
Posted by: Ichthyic | February 22, 2008 6:40 PM
#14: The German ministries can't ban any books, but they can ask a federal court to put it on an index that makes it inaccessible to minors. While this has happened with magazines, movies and CDs on the grounds of alleged sexism or excessive violence and stuff, I've never heard of a book being put on this index because of religious controversy. If it goes through (which I don't expect), I think it would be a first.
Germany's current parliament resembles the Muppet Show. Don't get me started on their regulations on violent video games.
Posted by: Yenzo | February 22, 2008 6:42 PM
#14 + #22 technically speaking, a book can be outright banned, but this only ever happens to "constitution threatening" material (neo nazis and the like) and blatant copyright violations
worst they could do is index it so it can only be sold in 18+ compartments of bookstores, but as said, I'm not aware of this ever happening on religious grounds
Posted by: X. Wolp | February 22, 2008 6:47 PM
Are you sure it's not a near-plagiarization of Freddy [the Pig] Goes to Florida?
Posted by: mark | February 22, 2008 6:49 PM
Is the Family Ministry a religious ministry or a government ministry? I had thought the latter but now I'm getting confused.
Posted by: Brachychiton | February 22, 2008 7:07 PM
This action is unlikely to succeed. They (in this case the minister who is a member of the German right-of-center "German Christian Democratic Party") are merely pandering to a part of their conservative base.
But maybe its time someone brought the bible in for a review. According to German youth protection standards it should definitely not be freely available to minors.
Posted by: Michael | February 22, 2008 7:09 PM
Ooo! They solicit comments! Here's what I submitted:
Wow! What version of this book did your reviewer read? Nothing at all like the English translation and pictures on ferkelbuch.de.
"... they encounter a rabbi, a bishop and a mufti who are portrayed as insane, violent and continually at each other's throats." Not in any of the pictures at the ferkelbuch website. The only time they are together, they are arguing, not physically fighting. Care to publish the one your reviewer saw?
"The rabbi is drawn in the same way as the caricatures from the propaganda of 1930's Germany; corkscrew curls, fanatical lights in his eyes, a set of predator's flashing teeth and hands like claws." Sorry, no predator's teeth or hands like claws in any of the pictures. And I've seen German anti-semite pictures - the book has nothing like them (on the ferkelbuch webpage). Again, care to show the pictures that the reviewer saw?
"He reacts to the animals by flying into a rage, yelling at them that God had set out to destroy all life on Earth at the time of Noah and chases them away." He flies into a rage when the animals mourn all the dead, drowned babies, grannies, piglets, hedgehogs, and guinea pigs.
As for the mufti: "... he soon changes into a ranting fanatic..." - again, because the animals question the grounds for the religious claims. "He assembles a baying Islamic mob..." - when does this occur? In the website illustrations, the Muslims are already in the mosque; no need of "assembling" them. "... and holds the animals up in a clenched fist..." - not in the website illustrations. "... while condemning them to everlasting damnation through bared teeth and an unruly-looking beard." - rather well-groomed beard, actually; and anyone who is shouting exhibits bared teeth.
"The insinuation here is that all visitors to mosques are extremists and every imam who appears reasonable is, in truth, nevertheless, a preacher of hate." - That wasn't the impression I got. But then, I probably am not looking for excuses to condemn the book.
And the good bishop is outraged when the animals express disgust at being washed in human blood, and at accidentally eating human-crackers. And no hint of any "clearly insinuated predilection for child abuse."
So, unless the English translation is very different from the German, and the illustrations on the website are completely different, your reviewer has done a outrageous hatchet job on a book that dares to question the claims of the Big Three religions. I can't help but think that your reviewer had his feelings hurt by such candor.
Posted by: CortxVortx | February 22, 2008 7:14 PM
I'll spot them the curls, but the eyes, teeth and hands of all three are pretty much the same. I just don't see it. I mean, "hands like claws"? I keep looking at the pictures and the only conclusion I can come to is that they are full of it.
Posted by: Sophist, FCD | February 22, 2008 7:24 PM
quote:
"Is the Family Ministry a religious ministry or a government ministry? I had thought the latter but now I'm getting confused."
It´s a government department,
german: "Ministerium",
has nothing to do with religious organisations, well, unless some christian politicians aren´t running it.
"But maybe its time someone brought the bible in for a review. According to German youth protection standards it should definitely not be freely available to minors."
This has been tried in germany by a sect called "universal life", but the proposition for banning the bible never went through!;)
Funny: "universal life" is actually a christian sect, claiming the gospels are wrong and violent and that their prophetess got new instruction from heavens about Jesus and so on, usual insanity.
Posted by: Cypher | February 22, 2008 7:28 PM
Ursula von der Leyen, the minister of family, is a christian nutbag.
Not only is she patron of several christian organisations, she actually encourages (you could say demands) parents to regularly pray (aka brainwash) with their kids, because (and I quote) "it is beneficial for everyday life."
Oh, and she also has seven kids... 'nuff said.
Posted by: Chris | February 22, 2008 7:35 PM
http://www.ferkelbuch.de/buch/
Picture 16/17.
Could anybody else see a resemblance, for the guy laying down in the first row, to PZ?
Posted by: bt | February 22, 2008 7:38 PM
The main accusation being made, by the ministry is that of Antisemitism.
According to this article, which asks the question "how anti-jewish may a children atheist book be ?", http://debatte.welt.de/weblogs/148/apocalypso/59178
the ministry complains that
"Das Judentum, werde als besonders Angst einflößend und grausam dargestellt"
(Judaïsm is depicted as being particularly atrocious and scary)
the journalist writes :
"what is so anoying with the ministry's argument, is that, unfortunately, they are right."
So I guess that the issue is antisemitism. In Germany, you can write anti-christian or anti-islamic books for children, but not anti-jewish. Especially, if the book is as bad as they claim...
Posted by: negentropyeater | February 22, 2008 7:40 PM
Re@18:
You missed a word in your quote:
"Actually, these gods exist just as little AS ghosts striped blue and green..."
In other words, no more than.
I for one thought it was a cute little book. I'd give it to a kid.
Posted by: Brian | February 22, 2008 7:42 PM
still not helping.
what's with the blue and green stripes? it sounds like an expression I am not familiar with.
I for one thought it was a cute little book. I'd give it to a kid.
oh, think it will win an award, do you?
seriously, I understand the message, but it's only 5 pages long. Hardly qualifies as a book, let alone a children's book.
c'mon now, you don't really think it a well written piece, do you?
you must have very low standards if so.
Posted by: Ichthyic | February 22, 2008 7:53 PM
Posted by: SEF | February 22, 2008 7:56 PM
Honestly, the book doesn't look nearly as bad as the article made it out to be. For example, I simply don't see this "insinuated predilection for child abuse" in the bishop. However, I do wonder about what age group this is intended for.
I still disagree with the idea of this book though. While I don't oppose making ridiculous things look ridiculous, I would rather that they are made so honestly, and without caricature. For example, while many of the beliefs were technically accurate, the short temper of each of the figures rings false IMO.
I don't think it's the truth that's so important, but how we get there. Ridiculing their funny costumes and portraying them as short-tempered is the wrong way to get there.
Posted by: miller | February 22, 2008 7:59 PM
It might be interesting to note the fundamental error the author makes, while intention and purpose of the booklet can be left open for debate -- a mufti and/or a rabbi would not talk to a pig(let), let alone have it anywhere inside the mosque or synagogue...
The whole discussion whether to ban this book based on it being anti-semitic (or not), is obviously bogus.
The ministery is simply trying to push their minister's christian belief.
Posted by: Chris | February 22, 2008 8:08 PM
the German Family Ministry (does anyone know if inclusion of the word "family" in an organization title is as ominous auf Deutsch as it is in English?)
It isn't, really. As some have noted upthread, there's nothing wrong with this ministry per se, but there's always the danger the minister of the day might be a whackjob. (Actually, there is a danger in the ministry per se, but not what one might think. It's often used as a convenient place for male politicians to shunt off a female, lest she get an important portfolio.)
WRT the particular minister of the day, Chris @30 is right. For the benefit of American readers, though, it should be pointed out that v.d. Leyen is on the left wing of her right-wing party. In US terms, this means she is not especially right-wing at all; she is like Hillary with six more kids.
BTW, I'm not sure her enthusiastic fecundity is a matter of her religion. (She is notionally Christian, but makes so little point of it that I do not know which of the two main churches she belongs to -- her surfeit of sprogs suggests popery, but her northern heritage suggests Lutheranism.) Though Germany is staring nervously at a ticking demographic time-bomb, the vast majority of Germans who bother to have children -- even the religious right-wingers among them -- cleave to the heir-and-a-spare model. Large families are usually found only at the very lowest and very highest ends of the social spectrum. And v.d. Leyen is emphatically at the highest end (her husband is a minor aristocrat; her father, though a commoner, is a far more important sort of aristocrat: he was CDU governor of Lower Saxony).
I have no time for v.d. Leyen or for her party. But given that her party is (in coalition) in government at the moment and that hers is one of the portfolios her party would be expected to claim even in coalition, things could be a lot worse. She pretty regularly pisses off the rest of her party, especially the cave-dwelling Bavarian element.
Oh, and yes: Germans are hypersensitive about anything that might be even remotely construed as an anti-Semitic stereotype. I'm not sure that's a bad thing.
Posted by: Mrs Tilton | February 22, 2008 8:18 PM
Actually, there is one page where they are physically fighting, but they do it in real life, so no dishonesty there...
I would think there would be a huge outcry over the "naked apes" page...what with the drawings of naked people. That will not play well in America!
Posted by: Cindy | February 22, 2008 8:19 PM
You were saying?
Posted by: Azkyroth | February 22, 2008 8:34 PM
BTW, anyone know if they have plans to publish this book professionally in English?
Posted by: Azkyroth | February 22, 2008 8:47 PM
BPjM are no ministry though , more a collection of reality detached holier-than-thou advocates (hopefully I do not have to reprise what happens after people like that find a few nude pixels in the US )
Posted by: X. Wolp | February 22, 2008 8:51 PM
"How Do I Get to God, Asked the Small Piglet."
That's easy, Small Piglet!
Look in the sky. Locate the nearest spire. Walk toward it. Note time of next service on board out front. Return at designated time. Enter. Sit. Turn brain off (very important).
Repeat often.
You'll be god-intoxicated in no time!
Posted by: CalGeorge | February 22, 2008 8:58 PM
"...about labeling the book as "dangerous for children."
Hmmm... a sticker we could plaster onto Bibles...
Posted by: CalGeorge | February 22, 2008 9:08 PM
Oooh, this makes a perfect trifecta!
I think I just had an intellectual orgasm ... I'm such a swine.
Posted by: Torbjörn Larsson, OM | February 22, 2008 10:04 PM
Did they have their senses of humor amputated or were they behind the door when the humor gene was handed out? Those illustrations are no more vicious than the images of scientists in Graham Oakley's 1960s book "The Church Mice and the Moon" (sorry, no pictures of inner pages) and less so than the original "Shrek" ("And they lived ugly ever after") or Dennis Lee's children's poetry about slobs.
Obviously, religion is a sore spot for "der Authorities."
Posted by: Monado, FCD | February 22, 2008 10:08 PM
#34 - You must have been looking at the text only section. If you check out the illustrations, you will see that they cover 16 double pages (they are the actual pages of the book - you can see the text there). This is completely normal size for a picture book. As to the text - remember this is a translation; any fault you may find in the quality may be due to that. However, the quality seems about average to me. I have seen better books for kids and I have seen way worse. (I'm a former elementary school teacher, parent of a youngster, and owner of an enormous collection of kids' books)
As to the review itself: I agree - no claws, ferocious teeth, signs of child abuse, unruly beards, etc. This just seems to be made up stuff to elicit a reaction against the book. The one thing this is guaranteed to do is draw lots of attention to the book and probably improve it's sales.
My big problem with the illustrations is that rabbi seems to have his glasses on upside down in every picture - its driving me crazy!
There is one weird thing about one picture though. In the part where they are flying the paper airplanes, there is a figure in the clouds. This is usually meant to represent god, but here, who knows?
PZ - love your blog. Longtime lurker but I had to speak out on this topic.
Posted by: Bumper | February 22, 2008 10:22 PM
I guess child abuse (and claws) are in the eye of the beholder.
I recall a commenter somewhere bemoaning that he'd have to explain masturbation to his young son because someone published a silhouette of a guitarist playing his guitar with enthusiasm, which to him was someone symbolically masturbating the guitar. It would never have occurred to me.
Grammar note: You are LYING down. You LIE down. You LAY down s book.
Yesterday, you lay down on the bed. Yesterday, you laid down a book.
I red in a book about childbirth practices that the training of East German women for childbirth was lovely exercises like having hoses of cold water played on them so they'd learn not to scream during childbirth. Who'd want more than one, if that?
Posted by: Monado, FCD | February 22, 2008 10:24 PM
If you find reading the bible as tedious as I do, you may prefer the version of Judges 19 at The Brick Testament.
The religious' view of this little horror story seems to be: this is the bible telling us the awful things that happen when people fall away from god (1100BC version). It's just an everyday 'Ain't it awful!'
Posted by: hexatron | February 22, 2008 10:50 PM
It's particularly amusing that the Author is called an Anti-Semite, while at the same time has been called a Zionist agent of Israel in the Iranian press.
"SAVE THE LITTLE PIGLETS!"
Posted by: Euripedes | February 22, 2008 10:53 PM
@ Bumper (#47): You're right, the rabbi definitely has his glasses on upside down. Not sure what the deep atheistic meaning of this is, but surely there is one . . .
Posted by: Physicalist | February 22, 2008 11:08 PM
More on Judges 19:
(as an atheist Levite who never came across this story, I delved)
The following chapters (20 & 21, to the end of Judges) tell what happened next: The other 11 tribes stomped on the rapists and their neighbors--they wiped out the whole city. They nearly wiped out the entire tribe of Benjamin, but relented? (read the HOLY BIBLE for their incredible solution!!!)
Anyway, this whole creepy story is just a literary device to motivate the events of Samuel I (the next chapter of this exciting serial).
Xtians may differ, but Rashi (the definitive jewish annotater) leaves no doubt--the concubine left the Levite because she had been screwing around, and the Benjaminites wanted to ass-pump the Levite guest. Rashi also wisely omits any moralizing judgement of this creepy narrative, confining his comments to details.
Posted by: hexatron | February 22, 2008 11:32 PM
#25 and #29:
Yes, the ministry is technically a government organization, but one of the wonders of life in Germany is that the government will garnish your wages to support the church. Separation of church and state really does not exist in Germany. Nor does freedom of speech, though the government is relatively light handed.
Posted by: tom | February 23, 2008 12:09 AM
Everybody knows little piglets can't go to Jewish or Islamic heaven, because both are a 'pork-free zone'. Honestly, if the Rabbi didn't know his Kashrutand the Mufti didn't know his Halal, the book must clearly be depicting religious elders as ignorant of their own moral teachings.
Ban it!
Posted by: Josh | February 23, 2008 1:26 AM
#53:
"Separation of church and state really does not exist in Germany. Nor does freedom of speech, ..."
???! Nonsense! What are you talking about? True, a small percentage of a German's paycheck goes to the churches, but only if the person is a member of that church. And everybody can opt out at any time and stops paying to a church immediately. The church tries at times to influence politicians (especially the right of center, Christian Democratic Party), but the populace usually does not appreciate this too much (remember, churches in Germany are just sparsely filled with older people). I never heard a German chancellor (sort of the equivalent of the US president; in Germany the president has just a representing function, he signs bills formally into law. Theoretically, he can refuse to sign a bill the German parliament has passed, but this hardly ever happens.) opine that his actions are inspired by god or propose to fund religious organizations with tax-payer money, especially when their actions (like indoctrinating children with no-sex-before-marriage baloney) can be shown to be ineffective. I also never heard of German government institutions trying to influence the findings of scientific studies whose outcome did not quite fit some religious agenda. Stuff like this seems to happen on a regular basis under the current US administration.
No freedom of speech? Where do you have this nonsense from?
During the build-up for the Iraq war one could hardly find any criticism in US media even though a lot of information which flatly contradicted official US claims was easily accessible in German media. Also, criticizing the government does not result in immediate insinuations that the critic is not a patriot. If government officials were caught lying or trivializing torture, German media would not stop until this official is out of office. The media in Germany is still the 4th power. Of course, there's always something that can be improved, but your claims have no basis in fact.
Regarding the topic of this thread, it's somewhat odd that the German ministry for Family, etc. is making this claim about a children's book, but I have no doubt that this will fizzle out soon without leaving a trace.
Posted by: Futility | February 23, 2008 2:19 AM
#53: That is simply wrong. The government will not "garnish your wages to support the church". If, and only if, you are a member of either the protestant or the catholic church, your church tax is collected along with your regular taxes. Not a church member? No church tax. Yes, the fact that this arrangement exists at all is a problem (I don't want my government to have such arrangements with religious organisations at all, period), but it's not as insiduous as you make it out.
Also, I object to the "no free speech" statement.
As PZ said: Germany is a little tetchy about hate speech for obvious reasons. The limits that do exist are very clearly defined by the constitution and are no more restrictive than they are in most other European countries. Labelling this as "there is no right to free speech" is absurd.
As to the book: That issue has been all over the papers lately, and I doubt there will be any "banning" going on. The complaint is indeed based on the claim that the illustration depicting the Rabbi is antisemitic (again, veeeery touchy subject); if you've ever seen children's books from the Nazi era, you'll see why the whole practice of stereotyping is the problem. That is why the claim that "the illustrations of the Imam and the Priest aren't any kinder" will not help the cause. The issue is not that it's an atheist book.
Public opinion in general seems to be in favour of the book. If the illustrations were painfully stereotypical, I would, as an atheist, object to them as much as I would object to a religiously-motivated children's book stereotyping the Jews as the evil nasty people who murdered Jeebus, or atheists as amoral, joyless beasts (and trust me -- there would be a legal complaint about those, too). As the complaint is probably overblown (as they so often are when someone shouts "OMG antisemitism!"), banning the book would be an outrage. There will be protests if it happens, and various secular organisations are campaigning already.
Posted by: catta | February 23, 2008 2:55 AM
Germany still does, like many european countries, have remnants of an "established church", but it's far better separated from politics than U.S. churches, so please don't go throwing stones.
In this case, it's just a particular politician (who happens to be a cabinet minister, sigh) fulminating in public to pander to a particular constituency. Nobody, including him, expects anything to come of it.
It's still a terrible shame that people who are pleased by this sort of statement are a constituency powerful enough to be worth pandering to, but it's not that huge a deal.
It's the "Kinder, Küche, Kirche" ministry, so this isn't all that surprising.
Posted by: kleine Ferkel | February 23, 2008 3:12 AM
"Nor does freedom of speech"
The only thing I can think of that really goes counter to 'freedom of speech' in Germany that I know of is that annoying habit of trying to discourage nazism. Like banning books that deny the holocaust, or promote hate.
On the other hand, the US has in parts banned 1984 and the Lorax, so there's about an equal amount of free speechin'.
Posted by: Talen Lee | February 23, 2008 3:48 AM
#47: Thank you. #34's comments made no sense to me at first, but I suspect you're right; they must have just read the text.
#34:
what's with the blue and green stripes? it sounds like an expression I am not familiar with.
Maybe, but I doubt it. I think the author just thought that a child would find the novel simile more engaging that a familiar idiom.
c'mon now, you don't really think it a well written piece, do you?
It's a picture book. No, it's not literature, but that's not the point of a picture book. It's meant to be a bedtime story. For the age range it's aimed at, I think it's fine.
In my experience, for most kids that age, "adults acting foolish" == comedy gold. It's good when a book can use that by showing adults when they truly are acting foolish. We can hope that the next generation may be incrementally less like to grow up to be fools.
Posted by: Brian | February 23, 2008 4:13 AM
So I've read a few more articles in German papers (Sueddeutsche Zeitung and DIE ZEIT). Here's some additional information:
1. The Ministry for Family Affairs is not the authority that started this mess, nor does it have any final decision-making powers in the issue. What happened is that the (roman catholic) diocese of Stuttgart has filed a lawsuit against the publishers for "sedition", citing the portrayal of the Rabbi as the sort of antisemitic caricature that you would find in "Der Stürmer" (a Nazi propaganda paper).
2. In addition to the lawsuit, the diocese has apparently submitted a complaint to the Ministry for Family Affairs, which on its own has no say in this, but which can submit such requests to the Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons.
3. The "Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons" is the authority that will be dealing with this. Whether or not the Ministry for Family Affairs. Here is their own definition of what they do: http://www.bundespruefstelle.de/bpjm/information-in-english.html
The book cannot legally be "banned"; its distribution could, however, be severely limited -- far too close to censorship in my opinion, but not quite at the level of completely banning something. Nobody will turn up at your door and take it away from you if you possess it, nobody will force you to burn it. That is what happens to child or animal pornography, for example. Everything else is simply kept away from minors if it's put on the "index". Whether or not the Ministry that passed on the complaint agrees with the complaint or not has no bearing on what they decide.
So the whole thing was started by the Catholics, using the "antisemitism" argument, and is going through the same legal process every similar complaint will go through. Anyone can submit such a complaint about anything. It's pretty sad that the Ministry for Family Affairs agrees with the complaint in this case and has decided to let the complaint go further, but they're not the ones making the decision. For the record, the people who decide on what goes on the index have made stupid decisions before, and the claim of antisemitism is a serious one around here, but I still suspect that this thing will be buried pretty soon.
Posted by: catta | February 23, 2008 4:29 AM
#53 & #55: I think you're pretty much both right: On the one hand, a German politician would never end a speech with "God bless us" like in the US, while on the other hand the Americans could never have a governing party calling themselves Christian Democratic Union. The concept of religion is apprehended very differently in the two countries. It's true that people are way more outspoken about religion in the US and therefore it plays a smaller role in everyday life in Germany (heck, even Julia Robert's "I know that Jesus saved me" in Charlie Wilson's War sounds totally ridiculous in the German translation because no one ever says that). So I think it would need much more space and time to compare the two cultures in this aspect.
But one thing that I do have to comment is on the mandatory church tax: Yes, you only have to pay it if you're a member of a Christian church, but German kids are still usually baptized shortly after birth, so most people are born into it. And leaving church is in many areas still regarded as something strange and embarrassing, and it's also unusual to do it for any other reason than the church tax. Also they charge you money if you want to leave church and you have to keep the certificate you get because theoretically the church can just pretend you never left them and demand taxes.
However, the trend is good: You find more and more people leaving the church, for whatever reason.
Posted by: Yenzo | February 23, 2008 5:29 AM
Please don't misinterpret my last sentence. I didn't mean the "for whatever reason" to say that I don't understand why people might leave church. I wanted to say that I don't care if they leave because the money or not, as long as they do it.
Posted by: Yenzo | February 23, 2008 5:33 AM
Since when is Judaism one of "the three large religions"? It has to have fewer people than Hinduism or Buddhism. I think there are even more Sikhs than there are Jews. I guess they were getting "Abrahamic" confused with "large".
In many ways it seems that it's the smaller religions that need to worry about being slandered anyway, so it even detracts from their already silly point to emphasize their largeness.
Posted by: Escuerd | February 23, 2008 5:40 AM
I read the (English translation of the) text and I checked out the illustrations. I think it's delightful! And I'd like to see it translated into many more languages! More kids need to question the teachings of religion while they are still capable of seeing them for the nonsense they are.
No one religion is being shown any more unfavourably than the others: the rabbi, the priest and the mufti are all portrayed as equally obnoxious, and all this is done using only material taken from their own holy scriptures!
The book holds up a mirror to organised religion, and judging by the reaction of the German family ministry, religion isn't exactly overjoyed with what it sees .....
Posted by: AJS | February 23, 2008 5:47 AM
As could be expected, all the talk about banning the book works beautifully. It's currently sold out on the German amazon.de and the best selling childrens book there.
Posted by: ospalh | February 23, 2008 5:59 AM
Just some statistics on the evolution of religious affiliation in Germany :
1950
Reformed churches (protestant, or EKD) : 50%
Roman Catholics : 46%
Others and non religious : 4%
1970
Reformed : 49%
Catholics : 45%
Others : 2%
No religion : 4%
1990 (incl. former DDR)
Reformed : 37%
Catholics : 35%
Others : 6%
No religion : 22%
2005
Reformed : 31%
Catholics : 31%
Others : 6%
No religion : 32%
Yes, people who do not belong to any organised religion (incl. mainly Atheists, Agnostics, Deists, and people who don't care) grew from litterally nothing to becoming the largest group (one third) in about two generations.
If these trends continue (and there is no reason to believe that they won't), this is what it is going to look like within the next 20 years :
Religion : 50% (Cath = Refor = 20% Others = 10%)
No religion : 50%
So I'd say if similar trends were at all observable in the USA, it'd be quite nice...
Posted by: negentropyeater | February 23, 2008 6:05 AM
@64
Last year, out of curiosity I checked back with the local register office (aka "civil registry office") -- according to the lady working there, there's 10 people per week leaving their respective church.
OTOH, there is an increasing number of ID-iots ...
Why,even the (soon to be former) minister of education in Hessen, Karin Wolff, suggested teaching ID-iocity in biology classes -- because of the "huge similarities" between Darwin's Evolution and the Book of Genesis...
Posted by: Chris | February 23, 2008 8:34 AM
Ah, so von der Leyen is still in that ministry, and -- typical for times when conservatives run it -- it's responsible for both families and women. Socialists always keep these functions apart. Guess why.
It's just an ad-hoc way of making up an obviously silly notion. Comment 59 says it best.
That has more a theological reason, though -- God alone knows if you're saved. Even for Protestants (who are famously saved sola fide), God alone knows if your faith is sincere enough and correct enough. Thus, to proclaim that you know you are saved is considered arrogance all the way to blasphemy.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | February 23, 2008 9:06 AM
"Yes, you only have to pay it if you're a member of a Christian church, but German kids are still usually baptized shortly after birth, so most people are born into it. And leaving church is in many areas still regarded as something strange and embarrassing, and it's also unusual to do it for any other reason than the church tax."
But you have to take into account that religiosity in the population various quite a bit between different parts of Germany. I live in northern Germany and the Church really doesn't play a big role out here. I am a medical student and had to work in a hospital. The hospital i chose was owned by the Church, but only three nurses on the ward i worked on were members of a church and two of the three weren't religous.
Maybe its embarrasing down in the catholic south.
Posted by: Dagor | February 23, 2008 9:20 AM
*varies
Posted by: Dagor | February 23, 2008 9:26 AM
It's fantastic. the author is right, no one religion is singled out. Christianity, Judaism and Islam are all portrayed as equally weird.
Aren't they all pretty much the same religion? If you were going for inclusive you'd have to poke the Hindus, Shintoists, Animists, Wiccans, Sikhs...
Yes, I'm an equal opportunity scoffer.
Posted by: Graculus | February 23, 2008 9:31 AM
"A little further on, they do hit on a more legitimate reason, if it were true: the argument that the illustrations of the book are hateful stereotypes, of the sort that Germany has good reason to be sensitive about: you know, the old anti-semitic caricatures of Jews as hook-nosed and greedy."
The German government has always been a bit overzealous when it comes to stamping out antisemitism and Nazism. Things like doing the Sieg Heil and drawing swastika are treason. Swastikas are even censored on things like model kits and in videogames. We're not "free" like you Americans, you see.
I understand that racist caricatures have no place in a children's book. But the author caricatured all of the religious figures. Still, if the German government reacts strongly to this, it will probably be more over the Jewish one, the only one, by the way, that you mentioned in your post. Germany and antisemitism go hand in hand in some of your minds. And the German government can't have people thinking that some Germans might be are antisemetic, you know. If one looks closer, one might find more antisemites in the U.S. than in Germany.
Posted by: Gordon Freeman | February 23, 2008 10:12 AM
I'd hate to think what they'd do to "The Wind in the Willows".
Posted by: Dave Wisker | February 23, 2008 10:36 AM
#67: You're right, I was a bit egocentric there: I don't live in the catholic south per se, but still in the south; I don't know about other areas.
Isn't the overall regional distribution of religiosity quite similar in the States? What is it about the north that makes people lose their faith? ;->
Posted by: Yenzo | February 23, 2008 10:37 AM
I think the Giordano Bruno Stiftung is behind this book. It's a humanist/atheist organization.
The "Familienministerin" (Webpage of the ministry: http://www.bmfsfj.de/ and the wikipedia entry about her: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursula_von_der_Leyen) is very close to Opus Dei, a hardcore conservative catholic group (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opus_Dei).
I've just seen some pages of the book. But I think it's fantastic. Similar to the Pullman books, some people are afraid that kids are exposed to common sense.
If you like to support the little piglett, sign here:
http://giordano-bruno-stiftung.org/p_ferkel/petitionbook.php
Posted by: Axel Muller | February 23, 2008 11:18 AM
I prefer the Dinosaur Comics version of looking for God:
http://www.qwantz.com/archive/000128.html
Posted by: Lethe | February 23, 2008 11:35 AM
From what I've read in the various German blogs, the key issue under discussion is not the fact that the book is being a very negative anti religious pamphlet (which seems to bother nobody apart from the religious fundies, which actually nobody gives a damn), but that Judaïsm is caricatured as being worse than the other ones;
The sentence used by the minister is :
"Das Judentum, werde als besonders Angst einflößend und grausam dargestellt"
(Judaïsm is depicted as being particularly atrocious an