[HN Gopher] Show HN: I made a new kind of Bible app
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Show HN: I made a new kind of Bible app
Author : theoblank
Score : 204 points
Date : 2021-06-22 14:57 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (sparkbible.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (sparkbible.com)
| nfoz wrote:
| What is the business model here? It's a registered LLC that
| collects tracking data etc... so like, what are your plans for
| this app?
| theoblank wrote:
| That's a good question that I'm still exploring. I'm still
| debating the non-profit vs for-profit route. At the moment this
| is bootstrapped and self-funded, but if I can gain enough
| traction I may attempt a freemium business model where people
| can pay for more advanced study tools (e.g., original
| languages) and potentially for in-house produced video content.
| nfoz wrote:
| Thanks for clarifying -- makes sense. Good luck with the
| project.
|
| Maybe I'm weird about it but reading the Bible for me is
| personal enough that I don't want to use an app that collects
| my identifier and tracks usage data. I'd rather pay for
| something I can use offline or anonymously. Non-profits seem
| preferable for this sort of thing as well imo.
| Syonyk wrote:
| I'm reminded of this (rather well done) comic about social
| credit systems, and your concerns are reflected in it:
| https://www.hummingfluff.com/lovelypeoplecomic.html
|
| I don't mind the occasional online Bible app, but in
| general, I'd far rather read offline with something that
| doesn't track my reading/information/etc. I understand that
| the gamification can be useful, but it also is a wealth of
| "big data" that can be aggregated and I'm not sure that's
| healthy for anyone.
| imilk wrote:
| Identify potential priests before they are ordained, then send
| the info over to law enforcement and childcare services.
| lalaland1125 wrote:
| My main question for this app is how they are going to deal with
| the many conflicting interpretations of the Bible. Who decides
| which interpretation is shown by default or the order?
|
| For example, the pro-LGBT and anti-LGBT churches have drastically
| different views of many verses.
| deanmen wrote:
| There is only one holy Catholic and apostolic church. Repent
| and submit to the Pope!
| x3iv130f wrote:
| Heresy!
|
| Speaking more seriously, most churches these days are very
| ecumenical since they have realized they have much more in
| common with each other than secular culture.
| akudha wrote:
| Your example is an interesting one. I wonder if majority of
| people make up a belief first and then follow a church that
| reaffirms their (already made up) belief or they follow a
| church first and let the church shape their beliefs?
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| "I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus
| Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions
| among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same
| judgment."
|
| -1 Corinthians 1:10 (ESV)
|
| "I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause
| divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that
| you have been taught; avoid them."
|
| -Romans 16:17 (ESV)
|
| "I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who
| called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a
| different gospel-- not that there is another one, but there are
| some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.
| But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a
| gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be
| accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone
| is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received,
| let him be accursed. For am I now seeking the approval of man,
| or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying
| to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ."
|
| -Galatians 1:6-10 (ESV)
| lalaland1125 wrote:
| Could you explain what you mean by those Bible verses? It's a
| bit hard to understand what you are trying to say/argue?
| treeman79 wrote:
| Do not bear false witness vs don't lie is a classic one.
| One is an item in the set of all lies, the other is the
| entire set of lies.
| brightball wrote:
| Context matters so much.
|
| Paul was writing each letter to different churches based on
| things he knew were happening at that particular church.
|
| A verse without context is popular but has very little
| meaning.
|
| You need look no further than Philippians 4:13, in which Paul
| is talking about being able to be content in prison. Context
| matters.
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| The letters to the churches are relevant today. They aren't
| cannon to point out the church at Corinth has this
| particular issue and it doesn't apply to anyone else.
|
| You're pointing out that scriptural context is important,
| and you're right. These verses, in full context, are about
| divisions in the church.
| brightball wrote:
| That's true, but the context of what was going on still
| matters. You're better off referencing the entire book
| and what it's saying and why, than covering a single
| verse out of context as instruction.
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| Yes, that's true. But, it's not out of context. It's
| explicitly about being "divided."
|
| > Divisions in the Church
|
| 10 I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord
| Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no
| divisions among you, but that you be united in the same
| mind and the same judgment. 11 For it has been reported
| to me by Chloe's people that there is quarreling among
| you, my brothers. 12 What I mean is that each one of you
| says, "I follow Paul," or "I follow Apollos," or "I
| follow Cephas," or "I follow Christ." 13 Is Christ
| divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized
| in the name of Paul? 14 I thank God that I baptized none
| of you except Crispus and Gaius, 15 so that no one may
| say that you were baptized in my name. 16 (I did baptize
| also the household of Stephanas. Beyond that, I do not
| know whether I baptized anyone else.) 17 For Christ did
| not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not
| with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ
| be emptied of its power.
|
| Do you follow the LGBT church? Or the anti-LGBT church?
| Or do you follow X? Or do you follow Y?
| lalaland1125 wrote:
| > I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord
| Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no
| divisions among you, but that you be united in the same
| mind and the same judgment.
|
| But how would you actually implement that in this app?
| People fundamentally disagree about the meanings of many
| verses.
| treeman79 wrote:
| List different translations and links to evidence for
| each. Order by some metric of "this has best evidence, or
| this is most common understanding
| aaron-santos wrote:
| Upvoting and monetization come to mind. They are really the go-
| tos when it comes to engagement and growth.
| theoblank wrote:
| Definitely an important question. In an ideal world, I believe
| people would want to explore and learn from viewpoints that
| differ from their own (after all, how else can you learn?).
| But, of course people tend to be very embattled on issues like
| these and shy away from anything that sounds different than
| what they already believe.
|
| One idea I have is to use a ML recommendation model that would
| use theological preferences as inputs. The trick would be how
| to personalize that model for a given user before knowing what
| content they want or would be put off by. Perhaps that could be
| part of the onboarding process though.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| My advice? Don't filter bubble. Instead, just write
| "disputed", with a link that goes into detail as to what
| various people think, and why.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| Showing people only a small view of a bigger complex issue is
| def not the way to go - especially when things like human
| rights are involved.
| Syonyk wrote:
| > _One idea I have is to use a ML recommendation model that
| would use theological preferences as inputs._
|
| Please don't.
|
| If I want machine learning based AI augmented
| recommendations, that's literally the entire internet at this
| point outside a few niche circles.
|
| A Bible app does not need to go down that path.
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| This is pretty blatantly against what disciples taught.
| brightball wrote:
| 2 Timothy 4:3-4 pretty much covers this head on.
|
| Teaching that you want to hear essentially.
| lalaland1125 wrote:
| There is no need for ML here. The app can simply ask for the
| name of the person's church.
| microtherion wrote:
| I'm sure Emo Philips could design an UX for that.
| jtbayly wrote:
| And if the name is "Johnsonville Presbyterian Church" then
| what?
| amerine wrote:
| Seems pretty easy, https://www.hrc.org/resources/stances-
| of-faiths-on-lgbt-issu..., most major denominations are
| open about their stances on LGBTQ things.
| jtbayly wrote:
| Church name doesn't tell you the denomination. Do you
| know how many presbyterian denominations there are in the
| US alone? Most of them are probably completely the
| opposite of the PC(USA) on _those particular issues_ the
| HRC cares to discuss at all.
| goldemerald wrote:
| They will have no free will but to accept the
| recommendations given to them. But seriously, most
| churches belong to a denomination. And practically all
| denominations have a specific alignment on every
| theological issue you can imagine. In any case, you could
| simply go with reformed theology beliefs and that'll work
| for most users.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > And practically all denominations have a specific
| alignment on every theological issue you can imagine.
|
| That's...not particularly true, especially for the
| denominations that are both large and institutionally
| old, or are newer but less centrally authoritarian. The
| Roman Catholic Church (for an example in the former
| category) for instance, has a small number of declared-
| as-infallible dogmas, a larger number of doctrines that
| arr understood to be certain or argued to have been
| infallibly declared, a wide space of broadly accepted
| doctrine about which there is still debate which is
| recognized as legitimate and not dissent, and plenty of
| open theological questions, more of which are added all
| the time, because changing circumstances raise new
| questions not previously considered, and change the
| factual context of previous considerations so that, even
| for doctrines that are solid, what piece of the prior
| articulation is the actual doctrine and what piece
| reflects the limitations of the context considered at the
| earlier time must be discerned, and is often actively
| debated.
| brightball wrote:
| I hope other people got the chuckle out of your comment
| that I did.
| ngngngng wrote:
| Does this app include teachings from Latter-day Saint
| theologians? While I'm interested in this, typically my faith
| is excluded from these sorts of projects, and often it
| doesn't take long when I dive into "mainstream" christian
| communities to come across hostility towards my faith or non
| trinitarian views.
| scottndecker wrote:
| Did this get flagged? It went from front page on HN to completely
| disappearing for me.
| asjdflakjsdf wrote:
| same.
| scottndecker wrote:
| I don't see how this violates the guidelines of HN.
| wilsonfiifi wrote:
| It appears to have been flagged. I wonder what infractions have
| been caused...
| theoblank wrote:
| Hmm, that's a bummer. I thought I followed all the rules?
| TameAntelope wrote:
| I flagged this submission because I think it has a high
| potential for not-interesting and unproductive discussion.
| Others can vouch if I'm wrong, but I don't see a place for an
| app like this on HN. Product Hunt seems more appropriate.
|
| This is a very loosely held opinion, though I'm not willing to
| go back and forth on it, and I doubt my flag will change
| anything one way or another.
| asjdflakjsdf wrote:
| You serious? The guy/girl is taking on the task of trying to
| help with understanding of one of the most complex, and well
| known, books we have as a species! And he/she is trying to do
| so using technology that most here are familiar with. How in
| hell (pardon the pun) is this not relevant? Its a super
| interesting challenge
| theoblank wrote:
| Can you clarify? Why would Product Hunt be more appropriate?
| unknown_error wrote:
| Even as someone dismayed by the outsized influence of ancient
| religion on modern society, I don't think it's fair to flag
| this. Like it or not, this impacts a lot of people, and
| developing an app for that audience comes with its own set of
| interesting UX, curation, funding, etc. considerations.
|
| Even if I don't like the product, it's certainly worth a
| discussion at least.
| happytoexplain wrote:
| >Others can vouch if I'm wrong
|
| The problem is, unless I'm misunderstanding something about
| HN, they _can not vouch until the submission is already
| dead_.
|
| You're not out of bounds to suppose this will have some bad
| comments, but I do think it's presumptuous to bet there will
| be no interesting discussion. There in fact has already been
| both - a lot of interesting discussion, and a little bit of
| bad comments. I encourage you to flag bad comments while they
| are still the minority, and only resort to flagging the
| submission if they take over, since, again, nobody can vouch
| for the submission until it's dead, at which point there will
| be fewer people to vouch for it, as it will be hidden.
|
| Edit: Actually, maybe vouch is only for comments, and not for
| submissions? I'm not sure exactly how it works, but I think
| my suggestion still makes sense.
| dang wrote:
| Your flag would have contributed, along with others, to
| lowering the rank of the story and also to the [flagged]
| marker getting put on it. I don't think flagging was
| appropriate in this case--the app seems as on-topic as any
| other, and the fact that the material is religious shouldn't
| make a difference, although religion is of course a divisive
| topic and most religious-themed submissions tend to get this
| treatment from some users.
|
| From an HN moderation point of view, religious tolerance
| follows from the value of intellectual curiosity, which is
| what we're optimizing for (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=
| all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...). Not all religious posts are
| on topic, of course (most aren't), but they are when there's
| overlap with intellectual curiosity, the same as with other
| divisive themes (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0
| &prefix=false&so...), and when that's the case, tolerance is
| paramount.
|
| Religious tolerance has been a prime principle of
| intellectual culture for many centuries. If you zoom out to a
| historical perspective, it's clear that it's in all our
| interests to practice it, regardless of what our religious or
| irreligious views may be. We don't have to hold the same
| views to respect each other, and the art of interesting
| discourse with people who hold different views is something
| we should all cultivate, assuming that we have the
| intellectual curiosity that the HN guidelines speak of.
|
| From a different angle: the problem with mobile apps as Show
| HNs is that they're not easy to try out
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html) without going
| through the rigamarole of installing them. But that's a
| problem with the entire category, and as long as we haven't
| disallowed them (which we're not going to), this submission
| seems as valid as any other.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| Was I wrong to rely on the system to prevent my view from
| having an outsized or misrepresented amount of control
| here? I figured my vote, along with many others, would
| decide the fate of the submission, ultimately moderated by
| you.
|
| I can adjust my behavior if this wasn't the right way to
| think about it, but I just want to make sure I'm acting as
| intended with this point of view.
| dang wrote:
| No, in the sense that other users had to do the same
| thing in order for flags to 'win' over upvotes. Yes, in
| the sense that your flag probably had more effect than
| you assumed it would.
|
| I wouldn't say you were super wrong about how the system
| works or is intended to work! I'd say you and the other
| flaggers misapplied the site guidelines in this case.
| You're right that it's moderation's job to correct for
| such failure modes.
| scottndecker wrote:
| Did you read the HN guidelines? I can vouch that you're
| wrong. Someone spent time working on an app they care about
| and has proven by the conversation here to be interesting to
| the community. If someone wrote an app on a topic you'd be
| interested in, would you have flagged it?
|
| Please consider that there are varying perspectives on HN
| beyond your own and that sharing an app which allows people
| to study the Bible isn't forcing a worldview on anyone.
| ElijahLynn wrote:
| I flagged it too. If we take it to the extreme... and I see
| tons of bible app discussions on Hacker News then I will
| quickly lose interest in HN. The bible isn't based on facts
| and contradicts itself many times over.
| dang wrote:
| It did. I've turned the flags off now. More here:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27594949
| theoblank wrote:
| Hey HN!
|
| Spark Bible is a free app I built for iOS & Android. The idea is
| that many millions of people read the Bible regularly and want it
| to impact their lives for good. However, the Bible is also quite
| difficult to understand.
|
| There is a lot of foundational knowledge people only get through
| graduate education in theology or biblical studies (e.g.,
| understanding the differences between ancient near eastern
| cultures vs today's cultures). My goal is for Spark Bible to make
| that type of knowledge and learning more accessible to the
| average Bible reader.
| nwsm wrote:
| > By connecting you with video from top Bible teachers, Spark
| Bible enables you to find answers and to become a smarter, more
| confident Bible reader.
|
| > Solid Bible education is now just a tap away for every chapter
| of the Bible.
|
| It seems like you're not vetting the content at all. I'm not sure
| this will really consistently lead to being "smarter" or "more
| educated". You can find a wealth of manipulative, toxic
| "religious leaders" on YouTube.
|
| Edit:
|
| I see this comment [0] from OP:
|
| > Currently there's an admin back-end where videos are manually
| reviewed and given applicable Bible references before they show
| up within the app.
|
| [0]
| https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=27595782&goto=item%3Fi...
| user3939382 wrote:
| My preference is the Haydock commentary. It would be great if I
| could get that next to the Douay Rheims. I'll give this a shot.
| jgrauman wrote:
| Cool! I made a Bible program myself (scrolltag.com) a while back.
| I have also made a series of explanatory videos on the entire Old
| Testament (~280 videos) I made for a Bible College. Maybe you can
| include them. theapprenticeship.org/otvideos.html
| theoblank wrote:
| Very cool! I'll check it out.
| thearn4 wrote:
| Congrats on launching. I'm not Christian, but this does remind me
| a bit of the Sefaria project, which aims to bring together a
| library of Jewish texts for scholarship, and has a great mobile
| app. This project also seems to have a deep scholarly focus, so
| it might be worth having a look at as well for some ideas.
|
| https://www.sefaria.org/
| theoblank wrote:
| Thanks! I'll definitely check it out.
| analyte123 wrote:
| This looks like a Protestant version of Catena, a similar app
| where the annotations are exclusively from Orthodox and/or
| Catholic sources over the millennia.
| aj_icracked wrote:
| This is great, keep it up!
| vmception wrote:
| I hadn't thought about it, a pastor and scholar aggregator by
| passage
|
| How do you curate, is this an automated process?
| theoblank wrote:
| Currently there's an admin back-end where videos are manually
| reviewed and given applicable Bible references before they show
| up within the app.
| esel2k wrote:
| Regulat you-version bible app user here: I really like your app
| as it is not bothering me everytime I accidentally select a verse
| (instead of scrolling) when using the you-version. The changes of
| the top and bottom bar could be less distracting in my opinion,
| though...
|
| I however still miss a german Bible version (Elberfelder or
| Luther) - or it was not clear how to find the other languages
| versions.
|
| Just one other idea: I regularly need to do live translations and
| like the history if a side by side view is optionally viewable
| that would be great. Thanks
| kleiba wrote:
| Great idea, and good luck with your app!
|
| Could you talk a little bit about technical challenges that you
| may have encountered during development?
| theoblank wrote:
| The tech stack is pretty straightforward (Rails back-end, using
| Expo/React Native for the mobile apps).
|
| The biblical texts are actually rendered in a WebView and the
| native code communicates back/forth to the WebView with a basic
| javascript bridge. I wasn't sure this approach would work at
| first, but it's actually worked out quite nicely.
|
| Handling theological bias has actually been one of the bigger
| challenges (not technical of course). People have such
| drastically different views and prejudices of the Bible that
| I'm always walking a careful line of what resources are
| approved vs not.
| bradgranath wrote:
| What is your specific approach to handling content approval?
| theoblank wrote:
| My approach will likely improve over time, but for now it
| is based on a few main factors. 1) Is the content primarily
| concerned with teaching the Bible? 2) Does the teaching
| fall within what is broadly considered orthodox? 3) Is it a
| good "fit" for the UX of the app?
|
| By "fit" I mostly mean duration. If there is a good sermon,
| but it's 45 min long, then it may not be approved. Since
| people are actively reading the Bible, ideally a video will
| say something meaningful and specific about a Bible passage
| without taking too long (<5 mins).
| Barrin92 wrote:
| Just took a cursory glance at the list of speakers but if I'm not
| mistaken this is exclusively Protestant commentary? Is the app
| particularly aimed at Protestants or is it just availability?
| theoblank wrote:
| It is currently mostly resources from Protestant teachers (iirc
| Yale has some good videos on there that include back & forth
| discussion from both Protestant and Catholic scholars). This is
| driven mostly by my familiarity with Protestant resources, but
| I believe it's also true there's less video content available
| for Catholic or Orthodox teaching that focuses particularly on
| the Bible (correct me if I'm wrong). I think it would be great
| for people to have resources from a variety of faith traditions
| though.
| gnicholas wrote:
| > _New resources added weekly_
|
| How do you add the resources? I assume this isn't via weekly iOS
| app updates?
| theoblank wrote:
| I have an admin back-end that allows for reviewing, editing
| metadata, and then approving resources. Once approved new
| videos get pulled into the app via an API without requiring an
| app update.
| dvt wrote:
| Congrats on the launch! I installed it and messed around with it
| a little bit, it's quite polished. However, I honestly find tools
| like this in kind of a weird place. I don't think I'd use this as
| a Bible study tool (a pen/paper and physical Bible seem to be
| more productive), and when I'm on my phone reading the Bible or a
| devotional it's early in the morning or before bed -- not really
| in the mindspace for a deep exegetical dive.
|
| Either way, seems like a cool app!
| wilsonfiifi wrote:
| Quick question, are the videos curated? Is there a specific
| source or do they go through some sort of vetting process?
| theoblank wrote:
| Good question. I have a basic admin back-end that lets me
| review them before they show up in the app.
| pryelluw wrote:
| I really like the UX. Makes navigating the content easy and
| provides lots of extra value.
|
| How is your taxonomy handled ? Could you break it down for us?
| theoblank wrote:
| Thanks! Can you clarify what type of taxonomy you're asking
| about?
| jan_Inkepa wrote:
| The iOS app store link takes me to a page that doesn't fully load
| for some reason?
|
| https://imgur.com/a/e78nPvc
|
| Other pages load ok in it, and I tried some other links. But
| maybe it's just me?
|
| (using safari on ipad)
|
| (similarly, searching for "spark bible" brings up nothing)
|
| Is it region-restricted? I'm not in the USA.
|
| EDIT: ah by using the _footer_ App Store link I get a page in the
| App Store with a dialog saying that the app isn 't available in
| my region. I tried using both links again, and yeah for some
| reason the floating footer link shows the informative error, but
| not the upper one. Spooksies...
| theoblank wrote:
| Yes, sorry about that! I haven't yet opened it up to all
| countries.
| theoblank wrote:
| UPDATE: I just made the app available to all countries. Not
| sure how long until that change is propagated by the App
| Stores, but you can try soon.
| rognjen wrote:
| Possibly not as interesting for you personally but I would guess
| that this concept would work very well for Qur'an and the Hadith.
|
| Potentially even more so since verses often require additional
| historical context besides the interpretation.
| binaryblitz wrote:
| It's sad that Christians don't use historical context when
| interpreting verses.
| theoblank wrote:
| Thanks--cool idea! I could definitely see it used as a platform
| for other texts.
| Minor49er wrote:
| I just gave this a quick try. I really like how easy the
| interface is to use and navigate. Parts like the bottom panel can
| be turned off if they get in the way.
|
| One big thing that I noticed that would keep me from switching
| from my current Bible app, KJV Bible Lite, is that there's no
| offline mode. I can't load any chapters without a connection. I
| like that there are several translations available, but
| generally, the text isn't so big that it couldn't simply be
| stored locally.
|
| Also, while I really like the idea of videos being available,
| there are tons of textual commentaries available for each book
| and chapter of the Bible. I have a few physical copies from
| various authors and publishers that I like to reference while
| studying. I'm not sure how viable it would be to include in an
| app like this due to various factors (eg: I'm not sure if a lot
| of the known commentaries in print are available online,
| especially for free from their publishers), but it would be an
| excellent addition. Especially too, I'm already reading the
| Bible. I think that switching to watching a video could take me
| out of the flow of reading once the video was over.
|
| I'm going to keep using this and see if it can give me a better
| experience than KJV Bible Lite
| theoblank wrote:
| Thanks for the great feedback! I do really like the idea of
| offline mode and integrating text-based commentary (there's
| definitely some great stuff out there). The main hurdle at this
| point is the licensing fees associated with both these items.
| gred wrote:
| There are roughly 1,900 years of freely-usable commentaries,
| going by the rule of thumb that anything published in the US
| before 1923 is in the public domain. (The translations would
| have had to have been done before that year as well, I
| guess.) This could be an accessible way to get into e.g. St.
| Augustine's commentaries.
| easton wrote:
| I think the way YouVersion got around it was having the
| public domain versions downloadable (so KJV and ASV I think).
| Maybe that would be enough for now?
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| You might look at how And Bible does it -
| https://github.com/andbible/and-bible/wiki/FAQ#please-add-
| mo...
| jtbayly wrote:
| If you want modern commentaries, you often have to pay. For
| example, check out Logos.
|
| But there are Bible apps that include a number of public domain
| commentaries.
|
| I'm definitely not a fan of the idea of the distraction of
| video within a Bible app, so I think I'll pass on checking out
| the app, personally.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| What translations do you use?
| theoblank wrote:
| Currently I've added ESV, NIV, NRSV, KJV, and a few other
| public domain translations. Getting access to translations has
| been a challenge due to licensing costs.
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| One thing to keep in mind if you're selling or distributing
| your app in the UK: the KJV is still under copyright there.
| While copyrights held by mere mortals expire in the UK the
| same as they do elsewhere, copyrights held by the monarchy
| ("Crown copyright") are perpetual.
|
| https://www.cambridge.org/bibles/about/rights-and-
| permission...
|
| It's good to be the King. Or Queen.
| michaelsbradley wrote:
| Nice work!
|
| Any possibility for an option to list/read/explore the
| deuterocanonical books, i.e. for translations that have them,
| e.g. the RSV[1]?
|
| Also, there are freely accessible texts of the Knox
| translation[2] and Douay-Rheims (Challoner revision of
| 1752)[3] online, the latter from multiple sources:
|
| https://www.newadvent.org/bible/
|
| https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1581/1581-h/1581-h.htm
|
| The Douay-Rheims (Challoner) text is certainly in the public
| domain.
|
| As for the Knox translation, I'm aware newadvent.org arranged
| permissions with the Westminster Diocese who hold the
| copyright; maybe they'd be open to giving similar permissions
| for your app?
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revised_Standard_Version#Po
| st-...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knox_Bible
|
| [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douay%E2%80%93Rheims_Bible#
| Cha...
| theoblank wrote:
| Thanks for pointing those out! I'll add to the todo list.
|
| Yes, I definitely plan to add deuterocanonical books at
| some point, although I think it's low priority for the
| average Bible reader. It does add a good bit of technical
| complexity since there's conditional logic involved if you
| expand outside the Protestant canon.
| michaelsbradley wrote:
| > It does add a good bit of technical complexity since
| there's conditional logic involved if you expand outside
| the Protestant canon
|
| Indeed, and best wishes in figuring out a good approach
| if you go down that route! It's very understandable that
| tackling such complexity is not at the top of your todo
| list.
|
| > I think it's low priority for the average Bible reader.
|
| I'm not looking to debate the point, or anything like
| that, but wanted to suggest that "average Bible reader"
| might have a broader scope, depending on one's
| perspective.
|
| At any given time there are millions of Catholics and
| Orthodox Christians around the world who are reading the
| Bible; consider also that there are readings (and other
| spoken/sung elements) in the liturgies of both East and
| West that originate from the deuterocanon, so it would be
| quite natural for someone to want to "read at home" and
| explore a text they heard read/sung aloud during Holy
| Mass or the Divine Liturgy.
| theoblank wrote:
| That's a good point; I appreciate that perspective.
| zzo38computer wrote:
| In addition to the Catholic deuterocanonical books, some
| Orthodox denominations include many more books.
|
| Also, another public domain translation is World English
| Bible.
|
| And, if you do not have footnotes, perhaps to add it,
| since things can be lost in translation, or be due to the
| culture of the time and place, or units of measurement
| which are no longer common, political boundaries change,
| etc, you might want to know whatever notes there are of
| it.
| leandrod wrote:
| Is it compatible with the Crosswire Bible Society Sword library?
| allyourhorses wrote:
| Came here to ask this. Most obvious guess as to where the app's
| bible texts come from.
|
| Would much prefer to see this as a new UI for Crosswire than an
| independent effort. I know tons of people using Crosswire
| theoblank wrote:
| It's actually all built from scratch. I'm not very familiar
| with Crosswire but will look into it some more.
| whalesalad wrote:
| I wonder what percentage of HN users would consider themselves
| religious.
| asjdflakjsdf wrote:
| regardless of being "religious" or not, the bible is
| fascinating!
| asadlionpk wrote:
| This might butthurt this crowd but: Atheism is usually a life
| phase young people follow in FOMO or because it's cool (like
| crypto). Most revert to a religion (and traditional
| investments) once they realize the reality and gain wisdom.
|
| Edit: as predicted :)
| hunta2097 wrote:
| Anecdotally (but just as valid as your comment) i've found
| the polar opposite. I know loads of people who have left
| religion later in life and plenty of old atheists who never
| did.
| xupybd wrote:
| I'm trying not to come off as argumentative so please don't
| see this as disagreement only curiosity.
|
| My naive hypothesis would be that people tend more agnostic
| as they get older, not more atheistic. Is that a trend
| you've noticed?
| lalaland1125 wrote:
| I'm pretty sure most people who identify as "atheist" and
| "agnostic" have pretty similar views about God and the
| possibility / improbability of its existence.
|
| The main difference is simply a difference in opinion of
| what words mean.
|
| People who use the term "agnostic" are usually going by
| the formal philosophical definitions of atheism (where
| atheism requires evidence against God).
|
| People who use the term "atheist" are usually using the
| more informal definition of atheism (where atheism is
| simply a lack of belief).
| hunta2097 wrote:
| Yeah I consider myself atheist but if Jesus came down
| from heaven and started performing (scientifically
| tested) miracles then I guess I'd change my mind.
|
| That makes me, in the strictest sense, agnostic.
|
| Seeing as no miracle has ever been proven I'd say the
| difference will remain academic.
| terrorOf wrote:
| Wrong. It is f*king 21st century. come on.
| [deleted]
| lalaland1125 wrote:
| This might have been true in the past, but it doesn't appear
| to be true any longer. Millennials are not going back to the
| pews at all.
|
| https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/millennials-are-
| leaving...
| asadlionpk wrote:
| Give it time, those "unaffiliated" ones are the low-hanging
| fruits in the next wave of converts.
|
| Religion is growing overall:
| https://www.pewforum.org/2015/04/02/religious-
| projections-20...
| hunta2097 wrote:
| Religious people tend to have more children, it's got
| nothing to do with enlightenment.
|
| In the developed world religiosity is falling but so are
| birth rates.
| asadlionpk wrote:
| Natural selection? Looks like religion is key to human
| survival.
|
| Without it, human becomes alone, depressed, savage, has
| shorter life-span. And less likely to generate
| offsprings.
| hunta2097 wrote:
| There is a really good scientific research presentation
| on the matter...
|
| https://youtu.be/sP2tUW0HDHA
| vineyardmike wrote:
| So, obviously not how natural selection works. You'd have
| to be more likely to die without having kids due to lack
| of religion for that to make sense.
|
| Religion is not key.
|
| Without it, people don't become alone/depressed/etc.
|
| The offspring thing is that wealthy
| people/nations/communities tend to have less kids since
| its more expensive per kid and seen as more burdensome to
| their lives.
| asadlionpk wrote:
| If a group:
|
| - is becoming less religious
|
| - most in that group are becoming alone/depressed/etc.
|
| - It's expensive and burdensome for that group to have
| offsprings
|
| Then that group is essentially a dead-end and those
| practices will not expand to more groups. Them being rich
| isn't helping them.
|
| How is that not a form of natural selection?
| hunta2097 wrote:
| This is a bit of a leap.
|
| There is no link between belief and loneliness.
|
| I live in a largely secular country, people are choosing
| to not have kids due to the environment and the general
| satisfaction in their lives without kids.
|
| The same reasons (education and social security) which
| counter dogma also allow people to make educated choices
| for their lives.
| lalaland1125 wrote:
| Religion is only really growing in poor countries where
| religion is often the only option for a lot of services.
|
| It seems like when you give people education, wealth, and
| other opportunities, they don't go back to religion.
|
| It's declining reasonably quickly in rich countries like
| Europe and the United States. Also, note that your
| article is outdated, the decline of religion in the US
| has accelerated quite a bit since 2015.
|
| From your article:
|
| > Europe is the only region where the total population is
| projected to decline. Europe's Christian population is
| expected to shrink by about 100 million people in the
| coming decades, dropping from 553 million to 454 million.
| While Christians will remain the largest religious group
| in Europe, they are projected to drop from three-quarters
| of the population to less than two-thirds. By 2050,
| nearly a quarter of Europeans (23%) are expected to have
| no religious affiliation, and Muslims will make up about
| 10% of the region's population, up from 5.9% in 2010.
| Over the same period, the number of Hindus in Europe is
| expected to roughly double, from a little under 1.4
| million (0.2% of Europe's population) to nearly 2.7
| million (o.4%), mainly as a result of immigration.
| Buddhists appear headed for similarly rapid growth in
| Europe - a projected rise from 1.4 million to 2.5
| million.
|
| > Christians are projected to decline from 78% of the
| U.S. population in 2010 to 66% in 2050, while the
| unaffiliated are expected to rise from 16% to 26%.
| asadlionpk wrote:
| Valid points. It makes sense though that "poor countries"
| are going more religious as generally life is difficult
| there and religion provides inner peace, useful in those
| times. Along with services and community support.
|
| Also, note that those same countries are growing in
| population %age and are skyrocketing economically (and
| joining us online, on HN) while also being religious.
|
| People tend to selfishly forget religion (and their loved
| ones) in good times, but good times don't stay forever :)
| imilk wrote:
| That is a hilariously insecure statement.
| LinAGKar wrote:
| Realizing the reality would make them leave religion though.
| unknown_error wrote:
| Depends. As followers or deities?
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| More than you think. But I think more would call themselves
| "spiritual" or "unaffiliated religious" than be members of
| organized religion. I have no peer-reviewed evidence for that
| though, it's just a personal observation.
| alxjsn wrote:
| Bible Project (https://bibleproject.com) also has a lot of great
| content they are creating along with mobile/web apps
| (https://www.readscripture.org).
| theoblank wrote:
| Yes, I'm a huge fan! A lot of their stuff is integrated into
| Spark Bible.
| sharikous wrote:
| Why is it not available in Israel?
| theoblank wrote:
| Sorry about that. I'm still working to expand it to more
| countries.
| theoblank wrote:
| UPDATE: I just made the app available to all countries.
| tibbydudeza wrote:
| I am in South Africa and can't find it in our app store listing
| or install it via your link - the green install button is greyed
| out.
| theoblank wrote:
| Sorry about that. I'm working to make it available in more
| countries ASAP.
| theoblank wrote:
| UPDATE: I just made the app available to all countries.
| 3pt14159 wrote:
| Small bit of feedback for the landing page Theo: On a MacBook Pro
| the image of the app looks a bit shoddy. The font doesn't look as
| crisp as it could. It would be better if you could serve a retina
| option. These days it's pretty easy with srcset. Good luck!
| theoblank wrote:
| Thanks for the feedback! Added to the todo list ;-)
| nicoburns wrote:
| This isn't specific to the Bible (although it's prevalent in that
| community), but I've never understood why it's seen as so
| important to understand what the original authors of literature
| meant or intended. They're fallible like everyone else, and
| therefore might be wrong. To me it seems like it would make far
| more sense to focus on seeking the best conclusions using the
| source material as inspiration, rather than treating the source
| material as an authority and seeking to understand exactly what
| they meant.
|
| In terms of impacting people's lives for good, I definitely feel
| like religions are at their best when they are inspiratory, and
| at their worst when they try to impose authority.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| "If Christians Read Their Bible, They'd Vote for X": A Primer
| For the Non-Religious
|
| https://residentcontrarian.substack.com/p/if-christians-read...
|
| Written by Resident Contrarian (https://news.ycombinator.com/fr
| om?site=residentcontrarian.su...)
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| > They're fallible like everyone else, and therefore might be
| wrong.
|
| I think this is the misunderstanding. The Christian position is
| that God is infallible, therefore the Bible is infallible,
| since God is its ultimate author.
|
| Since that's the case, we want to understand it as well as we
| can. Any position I hold that contradicts Scripture is by
| definition wrong, therefore I want my views to match what is
| taught in Scripture exactly. I'll never get there perfectly
| because I'm a fallible sinner, but the closer the better.
| theoblank wrote:
| Understanding the original context/culture in which the
| literature was produced can be very helpful (although I'm not
| saying it's 100% necessary).
|
| One illustration is that of a traveler. If someone was
| traveling to another country with a drastically different
| culture than their own, they would be expected to make the
| effort to learn the customs and differences in that culture
| before they went. This would help them understand and
| experience things in a whole new way, gaining a broader
| perspective of the world than just their own ways of thinking.
| Essentially, taking the time to understand this other culture
| will be the difference between a "good" vs "bad" travel
| experience for them.
|
| I believe it's similar with reading and trying to understand
| ancient texts. It's the difference between learning something
| new that can grow your perspective on the world, versus reading
| your own perspective into the text and simply reinforcing the
| ideas you already had.
| arnoooooo wrote:
| I'm not sure any literature can be compared to the Bible (and
| Qur'an) in terms of being so carefully put together and
| preserved, in terms of impact.
| pksebben wrote:
| when it comes to historically significant texts, I like having
| the ability to cross reference editions, esp. with translated
| works. translator annotations and marginal information are
| usually where I derive the most value. would love to see an
| "annotated king James" that contains information about
| potential linguistic issues migrating to English, as well as
| notes about translational ambiguities etc
| programmarchy wrote:
| Imagine Eeyore telling you, "You're a real friend." If you
| _heard_ him say that, it 'd be obvious from his intonation and
| mannerisms that he was being sarcastic. However, simply reading
| the quote, the meaning is unclear, or seems opposite of what
| was intended. How do you seek the "best conclusions" without
| understanding intention, or the _illocutionary force_ , of the
| speech act?
|
| The necessity of interpretation to understand written texts is
| what led to the Protestant Reformation. Later, Francis Bacon
| applied interpretation beyond religious texts to the "Book of
| Nature", which was the precursor to the Scientific Revolution.
| The cognitive effect of written language is fascinating and
| completely frames modern ways of thinking. If you find this
| interesting, check out The World on Paper by David Olson.
| unknown_error wrote:
| Usually originalism is used to defend some desired status quo,
| justifying persecution of some "other". Whether it's the Bible
| or the Constitution is largely irrelevant; the interpreters are
| the real gods here, not some bearded zombie carpenter skydaddy.
| dang wrote:
| Please don't take HN threads into religious flamewar,
| regardless of which side you're flaming or defending. It
| leads to extremely poor quality internet discussion (not to
| mention some of the nastiest) and that's what we're trying to
| avoid here.
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.
| ..
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| [deleted]
| karaterobot wrote:
| > To me it seems like it would make far more sense to focus on
| seeking the best conclusions using the source material as
| inspiration, rather than treating the source material as an
| authority and seeking to understand exactly what they meant.
|
| But then why would you need the source material at all? You can
| just come to conclusions about things without relying on any
| source text, if grounding interpretation in the source text is
| not critical.
|
| In that case, literature (and criticism in general) become
| about the cleverness of the interpreter rather than anything
| about the art itself: the effect is to first devalue the art,
| then to devalue the study of art. To the extent that
| appreciating and studying art is useful to a society,
| ultimately this diminishes the culture. This is more or less
| what we've seen happen in the post-Deconstruction era.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| I find this position understandable, but I can't imagine
| holding it myself.
|
| I think reducing the consideration of the author's intention is
| tempting, but in fact it is a mistake to forget the human (or
| supernatural, for religious texts) element. This type of
| information is inherently relevant to understanding most any
| conclusions based on the work.
|
| I need to pay more attention to a meeting, but your response is
| genuinely appreciated. I'll note that I agree with you on works
| of fiction, but what about religious texts (which claim to be
| pure/divine) or non-fiction (which usually claims to represent
| the truth).
| lalaland1125 wrote:
| The biggest issue with the Bible compared to similar ethics
| oriented literature is that it doesn't do a good job of
| providing explanations for why things are immoral. This makes
| it very difficult to correct the mistakes that the authors made
| and update them to the modern era.
|
| The best example of this is probably the kosher rules in the
| Old Testament that banned shellfish. Those rules might have
| made a lot of sense back when they were first written (back
| when seafood was very risky due to poor refrigeration), but are
| probably not very useful now. The issue is that because the
| Bible doesn't explain that reasoning, it's not possible to
| easily update those rules to adapt to modern food safety
| techniques.
| spike021 wrote:
| Personally I don't see how this comment is at all relevant. I
| assume OP posted the project here to show it off as a technical
| project, it just happens to be about a religious topic.
|
| We should be discussing that part of it, IMO.
| xupybd wrote:
| For many (not all) their holy books are not seen as inspiration
| but devine instructions. Not as fallible words authored by men
| but as devine revelation transcribed my men.
|
| I totally understand that many would argue against that but if
| you are trying to understand the motivations for understanding
| the authors intent this explains why some do it.
| mbg721 wrote:
| Annotations add great value for works where the reader would
| otherwise miss cultural context (or can even reveal inside-
| jokes, as with The Annotated Alice). I wouldn't try to read
| James Joyce or Shakespeare without them. In the case of the
| Bible, there are books that rely heavily on well-known
| allegories, Aramaic puns, or just features of everyday daily
| life in the ancient middle-east that a modern reader wouldn't
| have internalized.
| bobthechef wrote:
| > I've never understood why it's seen as so important to
| understand what the original authors of literature meant or
| intended.
|
| How could you even begin to understand the text without knowing
| what they meant? Surely not by free association! Recall those
| ancient epics you've likely read in school. What were they?
| _Translations._ Someone rendered the original text into your
| language for you. To do that, they had to first understand the
| original text. To do that requires understanding the
| language(s) of the original text. To understand the language(s)
| of the original text, you need an adequate familiarity of the
| culture at the time. This is extraordinarily difficult to
| accomplish competently because of the breadth and depth of
| background knowledge required. It is incidentally why there are
| multiple competing translations of ancient texts (it is said
| that translations aren 't truly possible).
|
| Now consider again the knowledge you need to interpret text in
| its historical context. If you've just unearthed some text from
| an ancient civilization no one knows much of anything about,
| this is going to be damn near impossible and full of
| speculation even when you manage to produce a plausible
| translation. There's also the question of the status of the
| text: what is it supposed to be? In the case of the Bible, you
| need the continuous Tradition through which to interpret it.
| You need to interpret it synoptically or run the risk of making
| ad hoc judgements unhedged by other parts. (This is why Sola
| Scriptura fails; not only is it self-refuting, as in, nowhere
| in the Bible is this principle declared, not that this would
| lend any credence to the claim, but you lack the interpretive
| apparatus to interpret the text in the first place, leading to
| all sorts of weird claims and inferences. Not only that, but
| the Bible itself was compiled in the fourth century in light of
| this Tradition. How else would you establish the canon if not
| by drawing on the Tradition?)
|
| > They're fallible like everyone else, and therefore might be
| wrong.
|
| Yeah? Check out the doctrine of biblical inerrancy. The
| Catholic Church states that Holy Scripture is free from
| error[0]. So your view is not universally shared.
|
| > In terms of impacting people's lives for good, I definitely
| feel like religions are at their best when they are inspiratory
|
| What is your view of religion, of Christianity? Its purpose?
| What is this "inspiration" and what is it for? What does it
| inspire? If your answer is "to become a better person" or
| something of that sort, then we must ask: how so? Either some
| truth is being communicated which makes you better by virtue of
| knowing it as well as the change it effects in you, or whatever
| is being said is fraudulent and useless and ought to be
| discarded (put aside partial truths for the moment). And
| because Christianity concerns the ultimate things, it means
| that all of your life is oriented by it, and it means that it
| must help you with respect to your ultimate end, something you
| can fail at attaining.
|
| As I have written elsewhere, everyone has a religion, so the
| question is "is it any good?", which is to say "is it true?",
| and not "do you live by one?". Man cannot do without religion
| because he cannot live without an orientation or a direction in
| life, he cannot live without an Ultimate, so much so that he
| will fill that void with all sorts of garbage. He needs to know
| at least the necessary part of the big picture and a way of
| living in accordance with it. You may find bits of pieces of
| truth scattered among the religions, valuable insofar as they
| contain the truth especially about ultimate things, but Man
| does not subsist on religious dabbling. And here the Catholic
| Church asserts clearly its claim to the fullness of truth.
|
| > and at their worst when they try to impose authority.
|
| This seems to misunderstand the purpose of authority. The
| purpose of authority is to safeguard teachings from corruption
| and manipulation and make them available over the centuries so
| you don't end up with a proliferation of confusion and error.
| Don't let the centuries of caricatures of the Big Ol' Mean
| Church fool you!
|
| [0]
| https://www.catholicherald.com/faith/what_is_biblical_inerra...
| HelloNurse wrote:
| Does the actual app have an animated carousel of video thumbnails
| like the screenshot on the site? Moving graphics are very
| distracting when one wants to read text; after a lifetime of
| videogames, I'm almost unable to read because unknown fast
| objects entering the screen require an immediate reaction.
|
| The value of thumbnails for videos that are all "talking heads",
| even if shown fixed in place (like e.g. in YouTube playlists) is
| also doubtful; text with duration, name of the speaker, title of
| the video and possibly date etc. would be more compact, more
| information-rich and more elegant.
| theoblank wrote:
| That's a good point. I'm still trying out different ideas for
| the homepage. The actual app does have a side-scrolling
| carousel like that for people to access the videos (not auto-
| scrolling though, people have to scroll it manually).
| el_don_almighty wrote:
| This is a VERY crowded market. What are you bringing that makes
| your product unique and valuable? Videos?
|
| Is the video content curated? By whom and how?
|
| Are you charging the video suppliers? What's the model for you
| and for them?
|
| If not, do you have copyright coverage for the videos?
|
| This seems like a challenging app space for an independent
| developer
| theoblank wrote:
| Most of the apps in this space that are doing really well
| (Youversion, Abide, etc.) are geared more towards making the
| Bible quick and easy. This is great, but I believe people also
| need an easy way to learn on a deeper level. Videos are the
| starting point, but I hope to add more ways to accomplish this.
| My vision is to help "bridge the gap" between academia and the
| everyday Bible reader.
|
| The video content is reviewed (currently by me via an admin
| portal). All the videos are publicly available (Youtube and
| Vimeo).
|
| A real business model is TBD. It's currently more of a "passion
| project" but if I can gain enough traction I think there's some
| interesting ideas for monetization and partnerships.
| decafninja wrote:
| As a (fellow?) Christian I'm curious how you imagine curation
| of videos would scale, especially like you mentioned
| somewhere, different viewpoints can be highly controversial
| even amongst the Christian community.
| theoblank wrote:
| Ideally, Spark Bible would help overcome the embattlement
| that divides Christians by providing education that's more
| academic and explores differing viewpoints. But, I know
| that is probably over-idealistic thinking.
|
| One idea I have is to build an ML model that could be used
| to personalize what content is presented to a given user.
| It should be pretty trivial to build & train.
| TheFreim wrote:
| Full disclosure, i haven't had a chance to look at your app
| yet, but I have a question. How does it compare to apps like
| Logos (Aka Verbum)? Specifically, can it compete with the
| logos PC and mobile integration and libraries?
|
| Thanks, very interested to learn about your product.
| theoblank wrote:
| While this could very well change as the app evolves, my
| current vision is that Spark Bible bridges the gap between
| a normal Bible app and more academic tools like Logos. I
| would like for people to experience the same ideas that a
| biblical scholar has via studying commentaries and
| Greek/Hebrew using Logos, but without having to go to
| seminary. Organizations like BibleProject and many
| seminaries are making some great educational content freely
| available online, which in large part gave birth to this
| idea.
| TheFreim wrote:
| Thank you for the info, I will download your app at some
| point.
| unknown_error wrote:
| I want to see the section on Sodom and Gomorrah. How long before
| the app gets hijacked by ultra-conservative, hateful,
| televangelists? Charisma is so much more dangerous, and potent,
| than any degree of religious study. For every MLK there's ten
| cult leaders and Trump-wannabes.
|
| Something something Bible direct connection to personal God
| something something interpreted by fallible men something.
|
| I just can't see this turning out well for society.
| meibo wrote:
| If it's Christian and made in the US it's very likely already
| hijacked by hateful ultra-conservatives with a lot of money by
| the get-go.
| dang wrote:
| Please don't take HN threads further into religious flamewar
| and certainly please don't add political and ideological
| flamewar on top.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| unknown_error wrote:
| It's actually kinda interesting/terrifying to imagine
| religious technology... like those "safe driving" apps for
| insurance, but instead monitoring your whereabouts to comply
| by some arbitrary mythology and inflicting social punishment
| whenever you stray. But, of course, the preachers themselves
| wouldn't be forced to use it. What would a polygamous Tinder
| look like? Or a Hadithpedia? Bible camp MMOs? Whereas China
| tries to steer technology towards secular collective
| capitalism, I could see religious states using it to
| identify, track, and segregate populations by religion.
| Israel, looking at you.
|
| Some of the world's most enduring sci-fi/fantasy worlds are
| religious works, and to see them brought into the modern
| secular existence is both sort of jarring and fascinating.
|
| Profit-wise, this has all the same potential as the echo-
| cesspool of Twitter/YouTube, but under guise of God. That
| potent combination of money, God, guns... yeah, goodbye civil
| US society.
| nicoburns wrote:
| Something akin to this actually exists in Saudi Arabia.
| Specifically there is an app that allows man to keep track
| of their wives, who must get approval from their husbands
| to do things.
| unknown_error wrote:
| Seriously? Do they swipe right for "allow"? Why would
| anyone get married there?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Why would anyone get married there?
|
| Given the legal and practical social status of women in
| Saudi Arabia, that's kind of like looking at labor
| conditions in an antebellum Southern plantation and
| asking "why would anyone work there?" Perhaos not quite
| as extreme, but in the same direction.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| Well you're not exactly allowed to be single either, if
| it's not a husband it's a brother.
| zzo38computer wrote:
| What is doing if the man does not want it?
| dang wrote:
| Please don't take HN threads into religious flamewar. We're
| trying to avoid that here.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
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