Gideon's Bibles

[Shaker]

Sorry - but you are really talking non-sense. Are you really expecting anyone to take your notion of Gideon as suicide prevention strategy seriously.

If you really think this then hiding it in a drawer is out - must be on show. What about on bridges, cliffs, level crossings etc. In your nonsense notion they should all have prominently displayed bibles - just in case.

Quite a few people hang themselves from trees, so every tree with branches sufficiently high off the ground to suspend a body should have its own Bible.

I think this one's going to take a bit of work ...

[ProfessorDavey]

If having a Bible in a hotel room can be shown to have saved lives, which I understand it can be, to suddenly ditch them, or have them available only on request seems to be pointless.

You do understand that Rocky Racoon is a pop song by the Beatles and not a factual documentary, don't you.

[Shaker]

That's the second genuine laugh out loud moment in about an hour or so. It's fun on here at times 

[ProfessorDavey]

Quite a few people hang themselves from trees, so every tree with branches sufficiently high off the ground to suspend a body should have its own Bible.

I think this one's going to take a bit of work ...

Why just the tree - surely if I buy some rope from the hardware store it must come complete with a bible - just in case.

[Shaker]

... and a free Bhagavad Gita with every set of kitchen knives.

[ProfessorDavey]

I doubt a Bible has a life, more likely someone might take their own if they believe some of the stuff in it to be true!

A mentally ill cousin of mine tried to commit suicide after some Biblical verses were brought to his attention by a misguided born again!

So to take Hope's illogical argument to its extreme - as a bible might also drive some people toward suicide, every bible must also come with another bible - just in case.

[Shaker]

Two Bibles for every tree that someone might hang themselves from now?

But what if we cut down all the trees to provide all the paper for the two Bibles that every tree needs - oh, wait ...

[Rhiannon]

 

[ProfessorDavey]

Given that Hope seems to be so concerned about preventing suicides perhaps we could compare which of these would provide the most effective way to prevent suicide.

Option 1: For an organisation with a reported revenue of $12 billion to spend their time and effort in distributing a billion bibles to hotel rooms, on the off chance that once is a very, very blue moon a person contemplating suicide at a hotel might decide otherwise through the off chance of finding and reading a bible - noting too that there will be others for whom reading that bible might further exacerbate the likelihood of suicide.

Option 2: For an organisation to put the same time and effort into providing counselling services for those at risk of suicide and broader services to address mental health issues.

Hmm - tricky one, isn't it.

Put it this way - who prevents more suicides - the $12 billion Gideon movement or the £13 million Samaritan movement.

[jeremyp]

In the article (link above) one hotel replaced the bible with "40 shades of grey". 

Did they get a 20% discount for a bulk purchase?

There was a window in the bathroom so you could watch your other half on the loo and shower from the bed , fortunately there was a heavy drape .......... 

I once stayed in a hotel where the bathroom had a set of double doors. The toilet was lined up perfectly with the crack in the middle, so if you were sitting on it, you could see everything going on in the room.

[ProfessorDavey]

I think back in the 1800 's ( when this "bibles in hotel rooms "all seems to have started )  travelling far from home was pretty much unknown, the working classes couldn't afford to stay in a hotel and the middle classes probably did read a bible often because religion was perceived as part of that educated  refinement. Heathens were perceived as uncouth and savages.
( or you could argue, the possibility of more travel was just starting out)
I think in those days, the bible in hotels had some purpose.

It was there if those who could afford to travel forgot theirs and was intended to bring comfort and a sense of familiarity to people away from home.

It was a different world.

Most working class families didn't get family holidays where they went away, if they were lucky mum might take them hop picking, but that was work too.

So in those days, leaving and having to be away from home was considered much more traumatic.

We live in different times now, the comfort of the familiarity of the bible no longer applies to the vast majority who hop on a plane to the other end of the planet, almost without thought.

Plus the bible isn't a symbol of familiarity it was years ago, when just a trip in the uk took a lot longer.

They haven't always had cars for example and being away from home was a lot more unusual.


We've outgrown the reason for the custom IMO.

I think a lot of what you say is right - we have certainly outgrown the custom.

But the problem is that the Gideons are phenomenally well organised and well funded so no doubt they simply appear at hotels with further bibles for distribution and it would take a strong hotel manager to simply say 'no' when they have taken them for decades. It is a kind of passive bullying in a way - simply expecting what has always happened (which is let's face it a favour by the hotel to the Gideon's) to always happen.

So hotel chains (just as Travelodge has) need to say 'no - we aren't going to take these bibles and distribute them any more. This isn't appropriate in the 21stC and it does fit with our business model nor with what our customers want as a service'.

But I guess some chains will be scared of the hyperbolic media over-reaction just as we saw for Travelodge. The response beggared belief. Here is a situation where a hotel chain does a favour to an evangelical organisation, without any requirement so to no, nor any requirement that a bible should be in any hotel room. Yet when they decide not to do it any more they are accused of 'banning' things - they never banned anything, because there was never an obligation to provide the bible in the first place.

[Spud]

I will be interested to read this thread. When we were given our Gideon NTs in the first year at secondary school, my new form teacher threw them out to us one by one. A good indicator of the sort of bloke he would turn out to be (a bit sarcastic but quite a good bloke generally); he spotted me reading it and promptly told me not to! I met him years after I'd left the school and amazingly he had married the RE teacher !!!
We were also given a hymn book which was required for assembly each day. How cool was it to see big cocky sixth formers having to sing hymns!

[Shaker]

The toilet was lined up perfectly with the crack in the middle

It's always a more pleasant experience when that happens, Jezza.

[Shaker]

But I guess some chains will be scared of the hyperbolic media over-reaction just as we saw for Travelodge. The response beggared belief. Here is a situation where a hotel chain does a favour to an evangelical organisation, without any requirement so to no, nor any requirement that a bible should be in any hotel room. Yet when they decide not to do it any more they are accused of 'banning' things - they never banned anything, because there was never an obligation to provide the bible in the first place.

Vide the recent 'Christianity banned in cinemas' non-story.

[ProfessorDavey]

Vide the recent 'Christianity banned in cinemas' non-story.

Indeed

[ProfessorDavey]

I will be interested to read this thread. When we were given our Gideon NTs in the first year at secondary school, my new form teacher threw them out to us one by one. A good indicator of the sort of bloke he would turn out to be (a bit sarcastic but quite a good bloke generally); he spotted me reading it and promptly told me not to! I met him years after I'd left the school and amazingly he had married the RE teacher !!!
We were also given a hymn book which was required for assembly each day. How cool was it to see big cocky sixth formers having to sing hymns!

The Gideons handing out bibles to individual school kids is much more problematic in my opinion than their bibles being placed in hotel rooms.

I don't think this happens though in the UK - and certainly any head teacher approached by the Gideons with a few to handing bibles to school kids should be told (politely) where to go.

[Shaker]

The Gideons handing out bibles to individual school kids is much more problematic in my opinion than their bibles being placed in hotel rooms.

I don't think this happens though in the UK

I don't know if it still happens now but it certainly did at my school 1983/4.

[ProfessorDavey]

I don't know if it still happens now but it certainly did at my school 1983/4.

It didn't in mine in the late 1970s and early 80s.

Certainly not happened with any of my kids and I've never heard anyone else mention this as happening recently. Maybe in faith schools, but I'd have thought they would want bible more consistent with their denomination.

[jeremyp]

I
But I guess some chains will be scared of the hyperbolic media over-reaction just as we saw for Travelodge. The response beggared belief. Here is a situation where a hotel chain does a favour to an evangelical organisation, without any requirement so to no, nor any requirement that a bible should be in any hotel room. Yet when they decide not to do it any more they are accused of 'banning' things - they never banned anything, because there was never an obligation to provide the bible in the first place.

I would have thought that, if a hotel chain quietly said no, or even accepted the Bibles but didn't put them in the rooms, nobody would notice.

[Nearly Sane]

Thoughts on the Travelodge stopping having the bibles in rooms from the Provost of St Mary's Cathedral, Glasgow

http://thurible.net/2014/08/16/travelodge-got-right-removing-gideon-bibles/

[ProfessorDavey]

I would have thought that, if a hotel chain quietly said no, or even accepted the Bibles but didn't put them in the rooms, nobody would notice.

Well it didn't work for Travelodge.

I think the problem is that however quietly the hotel says 'no' to the Gideons, they won't be quiet and they will go straight to the media. I can't imagine it was Travelodge who created the media storm, can you?

[Bubbles]

The Gideons handing out bibles to individual school kids is much more problematic in my opinion than their bibles being placed in hotel rooms.

I don't think this happens though in the UK - and certainly any head teacher approached by the Gideons with a few to handing bibles to school kids should be told (politely) where to go.

It used to

When I was given mine I had to go to the front in assembly and promise to read it every day, any child that was brave enough to say no would have been punished ( the cane)

The gideons did there own sermon in the assembly.

[Shaker]

When I was given mine I had to go to the front in assembly and promise to read it every day, any child that was brave enough to say no would have been punished ( the cane)

So no pressure or coercion at all, then.

[ProfessorDavey]

It used to

When I was given mine I had to go to the front in assembly and promise to read it every day, any child that was brave enough to say no would have been punished ( the cane)

The gideons did there own sermon in the assembly.

Appalling, just appalling.

[Hope]

The Gideons handing out bibles to individual school kids is much more problematic in my opinion than their bibles being placed in hotel rooms.

I don't think this happens though in the UK - and certainly any head teacher approached by the Gideons with a few to handing bibles to school kids should be told (politely) where to go.

The Gideons still hand out New Testaments to Yr 7 pupils across the UK.  As for your suggestion that "any head teacher approached by the Gideons with a few to handing bibles to school kids should be told (politely) where to go (sic)" I couldn't agree more!!   

A few years ago, I collected one of as much as I could that the Year 7 and 8 kids were given by various groups over the space of a year - just to get an idea of what they were being bombarded with.  They ranged from condoms to New Testaments, alcohol calculators to advice of budgetting. Nothing wrong with any of those per se but which were actually appropriate for 11 and 12 year olds?