Brendan Power Smith's bible MOCs

[gylman]

I'm sure many on Eurobricks know this man's MOCs. He used to call himself a Reverend, but I think this was a joke.

He does these bible MOCs that are routinely posted on LUGNET. While they are occasionally amusing or show interestin stuff, mostly they are rather disturbing, showing murders, rapes, etc etc.

Yet, no one ever objects on LUGNET, and he gets posted to the main page routinely.

I don't get it. Have a look at one of his current offerings. Does this really have any merit?

http://news.lugnet.com/announce/moc/?n=3028

Am I missing something? My feeling has been that he is trying to get people up in arms and start a controversial discussion, so I have been avoiding expressing my feelings, but frankly, some of his stuff is sick.

http://www.thebricktestament.com/judges/ga...t/jg19_25b.html

http://www.thebricktestament.com/judges/ga...t/jg19_29a.html

I've been around the internet since before it was the "internet", and I've learned to ignore stuff that bugs me, since most of the time people who are doing it are trying to piss you off intentionally. I've ignored his MOCs a while, but they are just not going away. Sigh.

Anyway, wanted some opinion on this stuff. Maybe I'm just showing my age by being bothered by this. Do you people like his work?

Gyl

[Cutty]

First of all: B.P. Smith would be one of my personal favourite builders on the net these days. He is not only creative and funny but also shows a certain degree of well due lowliness concerning his creations. Evidence would be a discussion on Lugnet I read a few days ago, in which it was brought up there might be translation issues with his chapter titles.

As for seconds: The Brick Testament is accordingly one of my favourite websites to visit, although I am neither a religious nor an extraordinary spiritual person myself. I enjoy reading a visual recreation of the book most western peoples' view of the world is based upon.

It his thereby funny to see as to what extent we have brutal violence, gender and racial discrimination, issues of homi- and genocide, mutilation and display of erratic powers that be in that book people keep holding for the cornerstone of all what's good and worthy in this world. Makes me wonder...

On the graphic aspect of TBT: I think Mr. Smith over-exaggerates graphically to achieve a comic aspect. I mean having Jesus and the Holy Ghost wander through the desert like this, only to find a Satan stereotype of the highest order to me is nothing I would interpret too much into. These small examples show how Mr. Smiths knows his way to play with the people's preperceptions of the divine concepts that act and counteract in the bible.

Come on? Red Satan /w trident (btw: he had shown a collection of Satans once on Lugnet, and described on how he "casted" the right one for his project! Hilarious!)? Hippie-Jesus (looks nothing like the common person that would live in judea 2000 years ago) and the generously smiling Holy Ghost? Hey, it's fun!

My favourtite of all the bible's books would be

The Law! A recollection of all things a good jew (and probably christian also) would have to do or not do to go to heaven.

Issues of sexuality, violence, murder, profanity, and you name it ARE IN THE BIBLE. There is no way around it. No matter how many attempts by clericals are made to reinterpret these things differently, it stays what it is. One should never forget about how the bible gives account on how things were in the past. Oppression of the Romans in Galilee in order to milk the province on account of the residing praefect is entirely believable. Eschatologists prophecising the coming end of the world were everyday stuff, pornography (take a look at contemporary roman brothels...), adultery, rape, murder...humanity did not change too much by the time passing.

Portraying this in a comical way, for instance in Lego, to me is a nice attempt at toung in cheek humour. We all now the historical facts (s.above), we all now the bible should (well I don't...) be treated with reverence, and we all now about how bad and sick the world can be, but why should we not laugh about something that was created out of the desire to entertain?

I for my part do not think Mr. Smith wants to stir up controversials, but that rather those that want to pick at him, because he chose a delicate matter, belief and spirituality to name it, as his business of entertainment.

So I will stay here and enjoy my recommended dosage of comic man to man love, comical divine intervention, mass circumcision and inminifigan acts of slavery! ;)

This is so entertaining that I had to cry of laughing hard many times, especially concerning The Law.

On my account I would recommend the lecture of this website to anyone with a good sense of (black) humour. For all the others, especially religious hard-nuts and other redundafundamentalists:

"This is not the website you seek!" *waves hand*

To close this thing I havea question for you that might be as comical and yet as offensive as the material above:

Does the pope defecate with knees bent?

--->Think about it!

Theopilic unholy greetings,

Un-Cutty ;)

p.s.: The guy's name is Brendan Powell Smith.

[Jipay]

The best thing the Revrend did is Brad The Game. I made the highest scorre I've heard about so far :-D

[gylman]

Well, I'm not religious (in fact I regard myself as a militant atheist), but I still find his work repetitive and a bit sick. I laughed a few times at first.... but it just goes on and on and gets more disturbing.

I guess I'm just old.

Thanks for the reply though.

Peace.

Gyl

[Graynar]

I understand this B.P. Smith guy is a violent person. Maybe not in real life, but in the LEGO world he may be. About 90% of his chapters sport violence. And about 60% have a massacre in them. His stories are pretty well done, and the pictures are clear. He's made a few good mocs as well.

Cutty wrote:

I think Mr. Smith over-exaggerates graphically to achieve a comic aspect.

You think so? Perhaps, but that doesn't make it seem any less violent because it's a comic. I agree wh all you said Cutty, but his site still is the most violent LEGO site I've ever seen.

His techniques in killing minifigs never ceases to amaze me.

Graynar

[SuvieD]

It is like any other media outlet, biased. He does what he does to get some sort of reaction out of people. I find his works ranking up with the LEGO nazi death camp, the LEGO torture site, the LEGO pretty daisy stuff, anything bonktron or bonktron inspired, and the entire Megabloks website. It is crap.

He has excellent building techniques. He uses a great camera angles and has good lighting. Yet, for all that I find the "accurate" depictions of the bible twisted, grotesque, and vulgar. Besides all that he can't even paint the picture properly.

The bible is a historical account of what the Jewish nation believed to be true and was recorded to preserve information. Do we really need to see pictures of gang rape? Do we need to see pictures of crucifiction, stonings, or something like genocide? I don't think so. What is worse is that he uses a childrens plastic building toys to do so. How many 7 year-olds have stumbled onto his site and seen this kind of adult stuff. I think we need to see this kind of stuff like we need to walk in on our parents having sex. Point is we don't.

If this is the kind of stuff we need to see why doesn't someone start up a WW2 page and depict the body ovens and the prisons and the trenches with someones ancestor or relative crawling through human waste with only one leg to try and escape his enemies.

Or perhaps a US themed massacre sets where trained military men shoot hundreds of innocent men because they wanted land and goods. Or perhaps a man with spurting blood because he has been scapled, tied up and dragged by a horse.

This guy makes me angry that he takes some sort of joy in showcasing humanities worst behavior and parades it on a website that looks like it was made for children. What makes it better is that he only illustrates parts of each story so he can make some point with it and his points are always the worst humanity has to offer.

So, as to my opinion, Brendan is not funny, witty, thought provoking, or even entertaining for me. I am sorry he was able to sell that book and that he has so much support.

[Cutty]

It is like any other media outlet, biased.  He does what he does to get some sort of reaction out of people.  I find his works ranking up with the LEGO nazi death camp, the LEGO torture site, the LEGO pretty daisy stuff, anything bonktron or bonktron inspired, and the entire Megabloks website.  It is crap.

He has excellent building techniques.  He uses a great camera angles and has good lighting.  Yet, for all that I find the "accurate" depictions of the bible twisted, grotesque, and vulgar.  Besides all that he can't even paint the picture properly.

The bible is a historical account of what the Jewish nation believed to be true and was recorded to preserve information.  Do we really need to see pictures of gang rape?  Do we need to see pictures of crucifiction, stonings, or something like genocide?  I don't think so.  What is worse is that he uses a childrens plastic building toys to do so.  How many 7 year-olds have stumbled onto his site and seen this kind of adult stuff.  I think we need to see this kind of stuff like we need to walk in on our parents having sex.  Point is we don't. 

If this is the kind of stuff we need to see why doesn't someone start up a WW2 page and depict the body ovens and the prisons and the trenches with someones ancestor or relative crawling through human waste with only one leg to try and escape his enemies. 

Or perhaps a US themed massacre sets where trained military men shoot hundreds of innocent men because they wanted land and goods.  Or perhaps a man with spurting blood because he has been scapled, tied up and dragged by a horse.

This guy makes me angry that he takes some sort of joy in showcasing humanities worst behavior and parades it on a website that looks like it was made for children.  What makes it better is that he only illustrates parts of each story so he can make some point with it and his points are always the worst humanity has to offer.

So, as to my opinion, Brendan is not funny, witty, thought provoking, or even entertaining for me.  I am sorry he was able to sell that book and that he has so much support.

@SuvieD:

I think I get your point. But do not forget, the bible is by NO means a historical account of history. And if so it is only up to the end of the Old Testament. It may be escapistically called "word of the lord", but is in its entirety just a product of utterly human, ergo fallible, beings.

Besides that was the bible a collection of stories that were passed down verbally over a period of hundreds of years. The bad side-effects of hearsay and "silent post" apply here I'd say. Or least the rules of fairytale: A true core in a fantasy story.

As for the depictions of violence: What's your recipe against it? Shut down the site, change the means of presentating the biblical stories (no Lego) or rewrite the bible to fit modern political correct moral standards?

I said I think I get your point, so I'm not 100% certain if I got, but on this matter I seem to not get it? What is your gripe with the depicted stories?

Are they too violent per se, wrongly executed in presentation (incomplete e.g.) or just the possibilty that minors could get to this site?

As for you statements concerning nazi-ccs: If you wish material on this matter I could give you a fine account on what is shown at german schools these days. Believe me, it's been done already, for the sheer sake of preserving history and educate the masses. Which I'm thankful of. Closing the eyes on these things is worse than showing them.

Though I agree noone ought to exploit these events comically.

But I fail to see how one can possibly compare biblical stories (full of angels, divination, talking foliage...) to history as historians, and I believe you share their POV SuvieD, deal with it.

Let me give you an example of what I mean. In 490 b.c. the athenians and plataians opposed an invading army of the persians close to the city of marathon. Numbers of combattants are inconsistant (I don't know them off my head right now) but considering the casualties given by the historical sources (192 dead greeks compared to 6.400 slain persians, see Herodot's histories on the matter) you see how very likely these accounts are. The description of strategy employed by the greek phalangites to attack the persian force is another point to look further into: It is said the greek's heavily armoured hoplites (carrying a weight of possibly more than 30kg) ran over a kilometer non stop to avoid being hit by enemy archers. NO consider this: running 1km is possible, but if you are emotionally upset, perhaps in fear, carrying a load of weight, knowing there are more enemies in front of you than companions besides and behind you...no way...

My point is: History does not write itself. It is made by humans the way they want to perceive and believe it. The very same is also true for everything one will find in the bible. I won't possibly try to argue that mass murders etc. become any less wrong that way, but that the bible as a historical source is void or if there are matters of cross examination where other sources approve the accounts it is vague.

In that matter I think TBT has a well deserved place of showing exactly that, what the bible tells people. Even if it is comically exaggerated to be honest. One may not find it witty or thought provoking (the latter being a beaten to death criterium of criticism of art anyway...) but inappropriate to do? And then comparing it to deathcamps? Seems like a moot point to me, notwithstanding that one personally might have issues with the graphic nature of the presentation.

This all makes me think, why there is no real childrens' bible depicting all the "bad" stuff to find in it's works. Perhaps the story in which some israelites are burned alive by king Nebukadnezzar in babylon. The israelites are not harmed by fire because of their belief in god.

What if kids would reenact such things inspired by the biblical stories? Or would one even tell kids such stories?

Makes sense Mr. Smith put warning signs on each chapter. The abundance of warnings on his website illustrate of what nature the biblical works really are. And in which way it is due to portray them. As they were written. And that is a chaining of misanthropic events.

Is tired of typing,

Cutty

p.s.: Mary was no virgin! Parthenogenesis is for megablocks!

[snefroe]

i wasn't going to respond to the topic because theology is not my cup of tea, but here it is.

1) Smith has the right to give his interpretation of the bible. We're living in a democracy, he has the right to write about it what he wants, even when that might shock people. in fact, he clearly states that part of the content is not the right stuff for children. If i had a kid, i wouldn't show him/her pics of a gang rape, even tho i would most defenately want him/her to read the children's bible. I'm not churchgoer, nor a practising catholic, but i do think people should read Bible and Koran, because they're both extremely important, relevant and interesting as RELIGIOUS documents. They are by no means HISTORICAL documents.

2) Smith wants to stimulate people to read the bible, or at least parts of it. This is hardly the way to do it.

[Vader]

To me putting pics based on the bible is one thing, but things like the first link just dont belong in lego form or any other for that matter. To me this guy has either a very sick sense of humor or is just plain sick.

[snefroe]

i wasn't going to respond to the topic because theology is not my cup of tea, but here it is.

1) Smith has the right to give his interpretation of the bible. We're living in a democracy, he has the right to write about it what he wants, even when that might shock people. in fact, he clearly states that part of the content is not the right stuff for children. If i had a kid, i wouldn't show him/her pics of a gang rape, even tho i would most defenately want him/her to read the children's bible. I'm not churchgoer, nor a practising catholic, i'm an atheist, but i do think people should read Bible and Koran, because they're both extremely important, relevant and interesting as RELIGIOUS documents. They are by no means HISTORICAL documents. Mary, if she even existed, wasn't a virgin after having given birth and i'd be very surprised if Jesus was her only son... What it says is that Mary is thru and thru good, she can't be tempted by evil, she is the one person that will always be pure, be there for you,... A "virgin" is a title... Jesus, the hero, always is alone, alone in his fight... he can only be faithful to his father, God, like any priest... Don't read the bible in terms of facts, this is not about history... that's what i hate so much about cnn and other media. they very often try to link history / archeaology with the story of Jesus... that's impossible. it's like trying to prove Superman exists in real life...

2) Smith wants to stimulate people to read the bible, or at least parts of it. This is hardly the way to do it. 1) i find his selection of stories highly questionable. if you want to recruit young and old to read the bible, then it might be wise to select the great classic stories of the old testament. He more or less selected controversial parts... It's like showing only the violent parts of Lord of rings, where elfs fight Orks, men fight men,... The violence isn't the essential part of the film, in fact, it's not even relevant, the essential part of the film is friendship, is living in harmony with people who are different,... I think Tolkien, a WWI veteran, would have been shocked, but most of all sad if some one were to reduce his story to a compilation of violence, sexual abuse,... In my opinion, that's what Smith is doing. 2) he's passing by on the essential element of the bible, which is not a document to take literaly, it's a code of conduct, the essentials aren't written down, it's what is behind what's written. Quoting the bible as such, without explaining what is meant by it, is nonsense. You're not a catholic if you know the bible by heart, you need to accept the meaning of the chapters, quotes just won't do... there's a lack of context that makes those pics meaningless... he uses humor.... Great! but you can also use humor when telling the real stories of the bible...

3) of course there's a lot of violence in the bible. many parts refer to real events (like Nebu burning down Jerusalem,...), most of the stuff is 1500-2500 years old, the position of women, for instance, is quite different these days... it only shows that the bible was written in a different time frame. But again, the violence is not essential, a child doesn't need to see a gang rape to get the meaning of a text, a reference to hurting people, in whatever way, will do... there's lots of violence in our national anthems as well (many 19th century), but nobody cares about that because it's not the essence of the song. the essence of the song is that we love our country, our culture...

4) the bible is by far the most impressive work in our literature. it's a compilation of the best stories of ancient times, like Mozes' escape from Egypt, Noah,... The new testament (life of Jesus) is still the most succesfull story in human history. I'd give a Nobel prize to all writers of the entire masterpiece, even tho that would be very difficult. After all, dozens of people have been involved in writing, rewriting, interpreting, translating texts, paragraphs,... In terms of social influence, it's by far the most important document ever written in western civilisation and it's really a shame that people don't read it anymore. You'd be surprised to see how many elements of the bible are now part of our language, culture,... There's so much depth in this work that focussing on the element of violence is insulting to all people who are trying to use religion in a good way. i think western society doesn't need yet another source associating religion with violence. it should in fact do the opposite...

Cutty tells us that there's lots of violence in the bible and it's an elite that actually controls how books are being interpreted. no doubt about that. However, that's only one side of the story. An interpretation of a document like the bible not only tells us about the writer(s) and the society in which they lived; In this case, it tells more about the time frame of this new interpretation, the time frame we're living in today...

[Cutty]

Thanks Snefroe! You made a valid amendment to my original point. You are perfectly right about the matter, which I have sloppily missed upon, namely that Mr. Smith indeed reinterprets the stories from a modern POV.

Upon the selection of stories on TBT: Why should he not choose the stories of his liking? I came to read more of the less publicised stories because of TBT myself. Stories with reasonable publicity would IMO be the nativity story, noah's ark, the story of abram sacrificing his son, moses leading the israelites out of egypt aso.

Most of these are already covered on TBT.

The New Testament IMO would not translate into graphic form as well as the Old Testament, safe for the gospels and maybe the Revelation of Johannes (John in english, isn't it? ;) ) since it consists more of letters than real stories. So the selection TBT can actually cover is limited in the first place.

And consider there is constant updating on the site, so even the less violent stories may one day appear there (hopefully).

I don't think there is anything taken out of context there. Since everyone could sit down and read any given random chapter of the bible himself, and thereby NOT start with "In the beginning....", everyone who does so would be to blame to rip the story he is about to read out of the greater context. A matter which, frankly, I don't understand, since it is a compilation of separate stories anyway.

Well enough of this now, extensive writing had its due,

Cutty

[SuvieD]

Well as this is a site about LEGO and the people who enjoy such, I will not go into the many varied and often tangled debates that people so often do regarding religion, politics, and sex/love. Those things belong to other websites so i will try to leave them there.

What I will say is that the bible we have today may possibly be corrupted. It is not in whole corrupt but because the two of the three powerful early Christian centers, Alexandria and Jerusalem, were destroyed and only Rome was able withstand the Muslims if anything has corrupted the bible it was those in Rome at a later date. To say the bible is not a historical document it to prove little study of it and of the history of that time and in that region. Numerous locations and names of cultures described in the bible were at one time there and in the very place the bible records. But to avoid be so far off topic I will set this down here and conclude with the religious portion of this message. The bible is historical, was written/translated by men, and is nearly the same as it has been since 300 AD. Whether you believe in angels/demons or the supernatural at all, much of what is recorded is accurate history (as accurate as we have). If only Rome would open up the vaults to historians, then we could see the truth of all of it.

To the point of why I have a problem with TBT. Yes, if I ruled the world his site would be taken down. I don't and it remains. I don't like the site but that is not the problem. You see, I don't go to his site anymore. I don't want to. But of the millions of children with internet access they don't know what it holds. And to say that it is properly labeled with warnings means nothing if not makes it worse. What child does not try and get away with doing things they shouldn't? If they are told no, or you can't this often makes them try all the harder to do something. So by having warnings I can't see how a child wouldn't go and look at the site. The thought of seeing nudity or violence to a child who normally would not be allowed to, can be enough incentive for them to read all of this.

If this was in cartoon I would have the same problem. It is that these mediums are generally for children. LEGO, toys, cartoons these are the tools people use to get a childs attention. They can learn better with the aid of these things. And yet with the false perceptions and exagerated stories depicted as graphically as possible within LEGO this garbage can be spoon feed to children. The fact that he does this without concern of mental development of young children is cruel. There is a reason you don't allow 5 year old children to smoke, drink alcohol, gamble, drive, sword fight, join the military or buy pornography. These things that so many people enjoy are extremely hazardous for children (well most don't enjoy the military). Most of them are hazerdous for adults. Yet, should we also expose these things just so they can know about them. Or use the excuse , they well eventually learn. I think not. These thing can destroy the normal function of young mind and cause severe future consequences. Children who get involved in doing these things before they can understand and handle them is like handing a child a automatic weapon and telling them go have fun.

If Brendan wants to make these type of stories than by all means let him do so. Have him place an age verification page on his site to prevent younger children from looking at this. Or better yet have him illustrate the stories with something non-LEGO/ non-childs toy.

LEGO is for creative building and education.

LEGO is not for promoting death, rape, torture, hate, sex, and low brow humor.

[gylman]

Since I started this......I'll weigh in again.

Actually, I don't advocate shutting down the BT website, and respect his right to put up the MOCs. There are far worse things on the internet, and readily available to kids.

I started out by wondering why he did this, and whether I was the only one bothered by it. Obviously I'm not.

All this stuff about history or not history is irrelevant to me, and I suspect to him too.

What puzzles me is why he does it. It has gotten very repetitive by this point, and the shock value is long gone. Unless he is an evangelist trying to promote the bible, which seemed very unlikely to be the case, why keep it up? It's a lot of work. He made his point, and I suspect most LEGO people have kinda lost interest by this point. Who is still interested? I notice that there were practically no comments on Lugnet.

Wouldn't it be ironic if he started out with this trying to "MOC" the bible, so to speak, but now has been adopted by the religious side as a promoter of their beliefs? I wonder how many church libraries have The Brick Testament book on their shelves, and a suitably age restricted link on their computers.

Cheers

Gyl

[Cutty]

Hmm, lots of points there. But by that rationale even things like "Works and Days", the "Theogony" or the homeric epics "Iliados" and "Odysseia" are accurate history. The latter even more, since they include, in the same way as the bible does, peoples and events that inherited and happened at the time these epics were first conceived.

That there is dealing with actual ethnicities in the bible wasd never doubted at any time, but it does not support the fact that the bible is a credible record of history. What you say about "corrupting" the bible might be true to the extent that clerical officials had their say in the matter, but the canonisation of the collection of books is, to may knowledge, consistent from the 4th century a.d. to the present day.

Historiography at these times and before is a highly delicate thing to deal with, for reasons I am too tired too list up here. Mainly reasons of shortcoming in the analytical and stating sources way....

Note: The presence of actual ethnicities is in no way a hint at credible history.

Besides that was the bible never meant to be a work of history anyway. Rather a work of spirituality, and the selection of material presents this very well IMO.

I utterly fail to see your point concerning the danger for children at all. Do you say Lego is mainly targeted at children so if there is Lego on a random internet website that recreates scenes of questionable content is a threat to children?

Well from my point of view I see no such danger here, at least not for children under the age of 6. I base this opinion on the fact that children up to this point have just little or no understanding of the actual concepts of death, violence and the results of it. For children above that age I'd say they would not get what the stories are about in a way of thinking "this is what actual people could do to each other".

And even daring the danger of beating a dead horse I'd say that the responsibility for the visited websites of children belongs entirely to the care of their parents.

I highly doubt any logic that states the following:

Lego is a toy and toys are for children = scenes of violence depicted in Lego is harmful to children.

The other way round you would have to forbid any mentioning of the bible's contents in public spaces, do not allow religious education based on its content, instruct adults not to talk about it to minors aso.

I smell overprotectiveness in such behaviour for sure.

I can only speculate on the reasons why Mr. Smith further deals with this matter. But I am 100% sure he does not pull a "Marilyn Manson" and does it just for shock-factor. The quality of his work and the sheer stamina in his pursuit would not do such a goal justice.

I believe he stated once he just likes the bible and it is a fun thing for him to combine his fascination with Lego and his interest in the bible. Same as any StarWars-mocer (I am at this point reminded of A.C. Pinlac, who devotes much of his time to recreate scenes and places from the SW-movies), or Gundam-mocer, or Lord Of The Rings-mocer or whatever-mocer does.

Hell if I had the brick collection of my liking, enough time and stamina to do it I would recreate many of the greek epics and hero-tales, which would be even more violent as the bible could be. And I certainly would not do it for the shock factor.

For now a good day to you all,

Cutty

p.s.: What harm nudity could do to children will always be an unsolvable enigma to me...

[snefroe]

i guess the question on violence and children is in the hands of the parents. some friends of mine don't have tv because they don't want their kids to see all the violence on tv. it's their choice. i guess they've got filters on their pc as well... i think it's always a risk to use toys in a certain context, be it violence, sex,... because toys are associated with children and most adults would want to educate their kids about those elelements on their own terms. Lego pics of even harmless sex might not fit their agenda... I would react the same way...

why does smith do this?

1) it seems to me that he's got quite a lot of success with his bible themes. don't forget, lots of communities in Europe but most of all in the US are still very much into religion. Remember the fight that's going on between darwinism and creationism (if that's the right word) in one of the US states... Many relious people don't find this to be cruel or disgusting, so it seems. i think the guy has even written books with this concept, he's been in newspapers...

2) he may just like what he's doing. no particular reason but the fun of creating this...

[SuvieD]

I really like to debate so this thread is hard for me to keep out of. I will say that many things have an effect on life as a person grows older. Each stage of development can and will change how a person grows and the way their mind develops. Many things can and do effect children. I agree completely that it is the parents responsibility to raise their child and teach them the things they need to know. Unfortunately, this is not the case in all houses and with each passing year it becomes a bigger concern.

I merely used the point of people and places to make a point and I understand the stories and myth that do the same. I am sure some of what is in such stories was based on an actual event. The comparing the bible to them though is poor indeed as there are no other "histories" that compare to the complexity or accuacy the bible does. Again I don't want to go to far off on the non-LEGO issue in this forum. Perhaps in chat sometime.

Danger for children is often hard to see until they have grown up. Children who are taught to hunt when young and to properly handle a firearm rarely ever have problems handling such things later in life. Children who are allowed to play with guns in real life or in games does indeed effect life actions in later developments. Television has single handedly introduced children of all ages to the most graphic and brutal humanity has to offer. Does this mean every child will become psycho-murdering-raping-monsters? Of course not but it doesn't help prevent it either.

Violence is an issue. Substance abuse is an issue. Look at the day we live in. Maybe in Europe it is different but in America everything is on the rise, domestic violence, rape, theft, murder. The population continues to rise but this increase is so small compared to the increase in crime. These things have existed since way back (according to the bible since Genesis). Yet, the access to the ideas and images has only in the last 50-60 years recently become widespread and easily available. Pornography of all kinds is available in less than a minute with the internet. And as for the effects of such there are studies to show that violent pretty daisy is linked with murder, torture and rape. Nearly all serial killers have problems with pretty daisy. To say that this wouldn't effect the younger children or even the younger members of this site would be to close an eye and pretend you don't notice. Some people can handle the rougher stuff in life others can get destroyed by it.

As to nudity specifically though, if you mean every day common person non-sexual nudity then I can see (though I don't agree with) your point. Yet I think we can all agree that this is not how nudity is displayed. In advertisements, pornography, sometimes art or on TV, nudity is almost completely based on sexual stimulation of some kind or worse on violence, rape and mutliation.

Why he does this, interest and money. He must obviously like it and he turns this into books and sells them. He has them in 6 or 7 languages and has made a decent amount doing it..

I am not that far removed from adolesence and I remember many of the things I did and the decisions I made. I can say from personal experience that many of the things listed in my previous and current post not only changed the person I was becoming but also effected the decisions I made. These things are not just potentally harmful. They are harmful. It is not until recently that I have discovered the stupidity of some of the things I was doing. Our culture* is saturated with violence, sex, addictions and a me/myself/I attitude.

I want LEGO to be kept out of all that and allow it to be safe for children. A refuge if you will from the video games, television, radio and the world in general. There is enough gabage out there for them to get into, let LEGO be just an imagination/learning toy.

*at least in Germany and the US I can say this first hand, but I suspect elsewhere if not everywhere that a person doesn't have to scrape together enough to eat for the day

[Darkness Falls]

If I could get some damn pics I could understand what you guys are talking about, but the links ain't working.

I'm with Cutty on this one, though.