Let's get this out of the way right off the bat: no, this is not satire. It's absolutely true.
The good folks at Conservapedia ("The Trustworthy Encyclopedia") have embarked on The Conservative Bible Project to remove all traces of "liberal bias" from the Good Book.
More, if you can stand it...
Since the facts have a well-known liberal bias, a bunch of wingnuts decided in 2006 to create an alternative to Wikipedia, a liberal cesspool of fact-checking, sources and citations. They called their new venture Conservapedia, whose chief mission was "to educate advanced, college-bound homeschoolers". No longer would young, impressionable minds be corrupted by empirical evidence and so-called "facts". With that mission apparently accomplished, they have now turned their attention toward the Bible.
Declaring that "Liberal bias has become the single biggest distortion in modern Bible translations", they have embarked on an ambitious project to strip all Christian principles from the Christian Bible.
Step 1--get rid of Luke 23:34:[7]:
Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."
This quotation is a favorite of liberals but should not appear in a conservative Bible.
Jesus is talking about the Christian principle of forgiveness? Cut His mic! Cut His mic!
Step 2--Reaffirm the well-known fact that Jesus was a capitalist:
Socialistic terminology permeates English translations of the Bible, without justification. This improperly encourages the "social justice" movement among Christians.
Yes, because if there's one thing that made Jesus puke, it was social justice!
There's lots more that's appallingly stupid, but I think I'll just present their entire set of guidelines for your enjoyment (btw, #3 is my favorite):
- Framework against Liberal Bias: providing a strong framework that enables a thought-for-thought translation without corruption by liberal bias
2. Not Emasculated: avoiding unisex, "gender inclusive" language, and other modern emasculation of Christianity
3. Not Dumbed Down: not dumbing down the reading level, or diluting the intellectual force and logic of Christianity; the NIV is written at only the 7th grade level[3]
4. Utilize Powerful Conservative Terms: using powerful new conservative terms as they develop;[4] defective translations use the word "comrade" three times as often as "volunteer"; similarly, updating words which have a change in meaning, such as "word", "peace", and "miracle".
5. Combat Harmful Addiction: combating addiction by using modern terms for it, such as "gamble" rather than "cast lots";[5] using modern political terms, such as "register" rather than "enroll" for the census
6. Accept the Logic of Hell: applying logic with its full force and effect, as in not denying or downplaying the very real existence of Hell or the Devil.
7. Express Free Market Parables; explaining the numerous economic parables with their full free-market meaning
8. Exclude Later-Inserted Liberal Passages: excluding the later-inserted liberal passages that are not authentic, such as the adulteress story
9. Credit Open-Mindedness of Disciples: crediting open-mindedness, often found in youngsters like the eyewitnesses Mark and John, the authors of two of the Gospels
10. Prefer Conciseness over Liberal Wordiness: preferring conciseness to the liberal style of high word-to-substance ratio; avoid compound negatives and unnecessary ambiguities; prefer concise, consistent use of the word "Lord" rather than "Jehovah" or "Yahweh" or "Lord God."
A big h/t to Sadly, No! for bringing this to my attention.
