Bible passages serve as negative commentary, not titillation

It is a gross distortion to claim, as does the website reported in your article 'Is the Bible indecent?' (May 16), that passages in the Bible 'advocate incest', 'rationalise incest and present it as normal'.

Such acts as they occur are either included because they were abhorrent to the religious mind and therefore serve as a negative commentary upon the perpetrators, or else they reflect prevailing marriage customs within societies at the time. Either way, the trajectory of the scriptures overall is clearly away from such practices towards morally correct, monogamous and lifelong marriage.

None of which can be said for the Chinese University Student Press sex survey to which the website in question refers in order to claim biblical indecency.

Under the banner of academic freedom and so called 'openness', this survey is nothing but titillation and bravado that is an encouragement in the opposite direction, towards moral degeneration.

As such, it is right for the Obscene Articles Tribunal to draw a line through it.

David Eason, Tai Po

I am responding to the article in your newspaper which reported [2,307] complaints against the Bible. When did we become slaves to twisted morality? On the surface, the whole incident is like a hoax, but there are deeper, hidden implications, too.

I am not trying to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but I would like to point out three things:

Who is backing the website this appeared on? It looks like too much work for an individual. The forces behind this should not be underestimated.

How could a website encourage so many complaints to the authority? The fact that [2,307] individuals actually went to the effort of logging a complaint is a wonder. Hongkongers are well known for not caring much about anything not related to their personal interest.

I foresee some sort of moral dialogue arising from this, just like the long-winded one we had about a university newspaper. However, let's not lose focus on more important issues ahead of us, such as universal suffrage.

I hope we don't get sidetracked.

Inde Au, Wan Chai