And We Get in Trouble for Stick Figure Muhammads?

I am tempted to send him a Bible as well, it’s about as good.

Potco,

I am tempted to send him a Bible as well, it’s about as good.

Burning books seems wrong, symbolically you’re burning knowledge. However, sending Bibles with the jackets of Qur’ans would be funny. Take photos and document it, but only post it on the internet after the burning, and then reveal to Terry Jones that he has burnt Bibles.

Wow- just, Wow! I’m ani-islam (and all regligions), but a day dedicated to burning the koran seems a little silly.

I’m gonna make some popcorn. This one should be epic.

I don’t like the way popcorn gets stuck between my teeth. On the other hand, as long as there’s a fire, I plan to bring marshmallows and a stick.
I like the idea of sending bibles in koran dust jackets. It would be way too much trouble, but hollowing out a few korans and filling them with catholic crackers would be amusing. They killed jesus! You bastards!

Maybe I just don’t get it but what’s the problem? It’s just symbolism, like burning the flag. So the hell what? Add the Bible to the fire right along with it.

Now, if they were talking about banning the Koran that’d be different.

Why is burning a book different? It’s not like they’re going to rid the world of Korans. Publishers will be glad to print up more.

BTW, personally, I wouldn’t send them any Bibles. They’ll just keep them and hand them out to people. They don’t need our help in spreading their lies^K^K^K^Kword.

“It’s amazing: I don’t care for the Koran. I think people have the right to burn their own books. Yet you put it all together like this, and I feel disgusted.”

I organizing a burn the Mein Kampf day. Does that make you feel disgusted? I don’t even think Mein Kampf is as open about kill Jews than the Qur’an is about killing polytheists. Certainly Hitler wasn’t nearly as successful in killing Jews as the Muslims were at eradicating polytheism from the middle east. The number of victims of this anti-polytheism in India is ten times the victims of Hitlers anti-semitism.

I think what’s got you feeling disgusted is that churches other activities.

“I organizing a burn the Mein Kampf day. Does that make you feel disgusted?”

Yes! It’s an important piece of 20th Century History! Before you burn them let me have one or two copies for my university’s pitiful library ok?

Oh my god books should be studied, not burned. Especially those which survive that long! It means they’re important historically even if they’re crap. Now I know they’re not burning ALL the Korans in the world, but it’s the attitude towards books what’s scary.

If they were burning burkas or flags that would be different.

How long before Fox news blames atheists drawing Mohammad for this.

Reminds me of when Rev. Lovejoy on The Simpsons was riding around in his “Book Burning Mobile.”

Book burning? No, never. Sorry. “Oh but it’s a very, very bad book, therefore we must destroy…”—NO! The answer to bad books is better books—not matchbooks. The answer to wicked books is righteous books—and lots of them.

Library of Alexandria must never happen again; however, I’m pretty damn sure he is not going to corner the marker on Korans or anything. This seems far more symbolic of his hatred of Islam than it is of his ability to carry off Islamic folk in the middle of the night to gas them.

As bad as Islam is, The Koran is still a work of literature and should not be burned. Drawing Mohammad is much more positive because it’s creative rather than destructive.

“Burning books has a similar quality to burning crosses. It’s not just an act of opposition, it’s a hostile act at that.”

Cross burning has an explicit history that is associated with the KKK and lynching blacks. It is meant to terrorize.

Burning a copy of Mao’s little red book, or Hitler’s garbage, or Lenin’s or Marx’s would not terrorize anyone, because it is clear that it is a protest against the vile contents therein.

Burning the kinds of books the Marxists, and Nazi’s were against was associated with the murder of those who would read such information, and was an attempt as censorship, not protest.

No one is burning Qur’ans and running around in white pointy hats killing Muslims. If anything the Muslims are doing the killing and this is a protest against that.

Brian, some of us have lived different histories. The Reichskristallnacht brought about burning of books and then the Holocaust.

It is not a neutral act to burn books by any means. The Chinese cultural revolution destroyed many libraries with the history of ancient cultures.

While I may agree that I can live with some books being burned, it is like censorship. Who would you want to be the censor? I rather have all books have the right to not be burned, than see any book burn. The most critical books have the most chance to get censored. I’m not going to threaten that by endorsing the burning of Mein Kampf.

Sadly in the end, intent matters, which is almost impossible to filter out. For example if you are freezing and the only thing you have to burn to keep warm is a book, by all means go burn it, or use it as toilet paper etc. Hostility often differentiates itself from perfectly non-hostile actions simply through the intent of it all.

And if just half a page is left after you trim it to your taste, you also made your case. At least there is positive content left.

Nowadays, with the internet and e-books, book burnings seem rather pointless. Symbolic? I suppose.

It does always crack me up how some Christians sling mud at other religions, calling them cults or talking about how they’re wrong and deluded. The irony never seems to register in their brains.

“And if just half a page is left after you trim it to your taste, you also made your case. At least there is positive content left.”

If I trimmed down Mein Kampf I’d end up with some positive content left too. There are reasons why these vile ideologies become popular besides hate. There’s probably quite a few positive things in Marxism too.

These however are instruction manuals and it’s the bad instructions that do the damage, regardless of any good advice. Think about a hair dryer that comes with a manual advising you to use it in the shower. So what if I can cut it down to the parts that tell you all the good uses to which it could be put? Doesn’t alter the fact that it is a defective manual, and leads to death.

Brian, we can agree to disagree. I don’t buy your distinction of involuntary vs voluntary.

Cross burnings usually burned crosses of the owners, ownership does not reflect the symbolism.

But yes, symbols are misappropriates. But I just cannot find a completely neutral reading of book burning as oppositional gesture, that wouldn’t be damaging to free expression if used in reverse.

I’m against burning books, even terrible ones like the Bible and the Koran. It just seems stupid in the extreme. If you don’t like a book, don’t read it. Don’t try to prevent others from reading it, either by banning or burning it.

That church is based in Gainesville Florida if I’m not mistaken. I’ve seen and spoken with their members before( they walk around the University of Florida with “Islam is of the devil” shirts on, so they’re easy to spot.) They usually have women go out to the campus and push their babies around in strollers while wearing those ridiculous shirts; I feel sorry for their children.

Maybe I could go toss a couple bibles in the blaze to even the score a bit 🙂

Hitch,

“we can agree to disagree.”

A nice way of saying shut up. Of course I agree we disagree. Did you think I would deny that?

“I don’t buy your distinction of involuntary vs voluntary.”

So if you were against involuntary communism, Marxist totalitarianism, then you’d also be against the voluntary kind, Amish and Hutterite societies.

“Cross burnings usually burned crosses of the owners, ownership does not reflect the symbolism.”

I already covered that, but you were not paying attention. Cross burning isn’t involuntary on the issue of ownership, but is involuntary on the issue of terrorizing people into doing something they don’t want to. Like moving out of the neighborhood. It’s the terror that is involuntary.

“But I just cannot find a completely neutral reading of book burning as oppositional gesture, that wouldn’t be damaging to free expression if used in reverse.”

Exactly how would a voluntary book burning be damaging to free expression? Sales would only increase, both by the purchases to burn and the great publicity.

Weren’t you paying attention to those Christian movie boycotts. It got to the point where producers were hoping to get a boycott.

How could my burning of a book on my shelf prevent you from reading it any more than my ownership of it wouldn’t already? Were you planning on stealing it?

“Oh my god books should be studied, not burned.”

Now I’m starting to think the rest of you “seem stupid in the extreme”.

Are you oblivious to the fact that we have printing presses, and electronic copying. Did you ever stop to consider that maybe I read the book before I decided to burn it, that it had vile content, and that maybe I have another copy on my shelf for reference, in fact several different translations, and perhaps that there are more in the book store, and even every translation available in print online.

There is nothing valuable about studying Mein Kampf other than to get an idea how vile ignorant people think. Any individual copy has no value. Hell I went to donate some books to the library because I’m moving and thought they would put them on the shelves. They told me, “No we sell them as used books, and if nobody buys them then we throw them out.”

Sounds like fetishism to me. There’s nothing sacred about a book you don’t want, and think is disgusting, just because it has a binder, paper and ink.

It reminds me of how the religious think all religious opinion should be respected. If I don’t respect a book then I’ll burn it and I don’t care if someone else burns a book that I respect, just so long as it’s not mine.

Campaign for Free Expression and remember Blasphemy Day is 30 September.

Instead of just burning the books, how about we use the pages to roll some monster doobs, instead?

To be honest, I don’t believe that they realy intent to burn a q’uran. My guess is that it’s all just for publicity.

@toffa813

haha glad im not the only 1 who thought that at first, seems like a waste of time really, just seems like fanning the flames of hatred (um.. no pun intended but coudlnt think of another way of putting that lol)

Nothing I said would prevent the burning of particular books from becoming associated with the terrorism of particular people, nor the reading of the very same books causing the terrorism of other people. Any act can become associated with that. Even displaying a peace symbol like the swastika.

The nailing of into wafers into qur’ans could become the symbol of some new violent hate group. That doesn’t mean that such a connection exists now.

I’m not interested in actually burning any qur’ans because I’d prefer some other means of protest but those who do are not committing an act similar to cross burning unless the put on white pointy burkas and go around lynching and terrorizing innocent Muslims.

The minute some idiot group breaks in to a library to dump Qur’ans in the Boston harbor I would be against it, because of the violation of property rights. If that group became a locus for terrorizing innocent people then I would also be against dumping Qur’ans in harbors in general because of the connection to terrorism. However, I would be against it only when either happens.

Drawing Muhammad and burning the Koran are equal (both equally good) in my eyes. I don’t see why the “symbolism” inherent in burning a book is an better or worse than the “symbolism” in drawing stick figure Muhammads that get walked on all day by passers-by. As has been said, the world has plenty of copies.

Brian:
I don’t think anyone is saying they dont have the legal right to burn these books. I agree, it is their property, they can do with it whatever they wish.
However, it is not a particularly effective method of protest. If you read a book and disagree with it, you right a review, you tell people why you disagree with it and most of all, you encourage people to read the book to dispel their own ignorance on the topic.
This is not an issue of free speech. This is a group of people who are getting together to protest something without attempting understanding it, and encourages people to share in their ignorance. How many of the book burners do you think actually read the Qur’an?

It’s easy to test something for it’s commentary value.

Just reverse the roles. If a muslim draws a smiling stick figure with the label “atheist” next to it, it is not offensive. It’s the asymmetry of it all that makes it a problem. Something harmless is claimed to be offensive.

However, if someone burns books by Thomas Mann, Hermann Hesse and Charles Darwin it does have a certain meaning.

If Muslims burned books by John Locke and Thomas Jefferson it in fact would mean even more because fire, in Islam is the symbol of hell in a very literal sense. Flag burning is not just disrespect, it’s the ultimate diss. If one wants to critique that, better have some books float in water!

Smiling stick figures are valid commentary. They may be perceived as offensive, but that is exactly the sore point of discussion.

Burning books do not have that quality. Yes they show disrespect but they don’t point to a larger issue. In fact it is the same way violent bigots show disrespect.

Drawing smiling stick figures protects the good, which is valid critique in the face of violence. Burning books is symbolic violence. I do not think these are equal at all.

But I don’t want to be too oppositional. People can choose to burn books, don’t expect me to approve though. I indeed much rather have people read it and understand what the problem is. To me reading any “holy” book cover to cover is the best way to turn atheist. But that’s me.

Same with trampling the CDs of Dixie Chicks. It’s a sign of a lack of discourse culture. Rather engage with the opinion you disagree with and show why. Don’t act violently even if symbolically.

I don’t get the point about voluntary vs. involuntary bookburnings. Burning a book is always an act of somebody’s will at the expense of somebody else’s.

you know the only thing that makes me mad about all this is the hatred Christians seem to have towards other religions. I understand the other religions do to so dont think i’m just trying to be unfair towards the Christians. This makes me mad because of two reasons. First is the supposed persecution that Christians claim to have against them in America (non of which i really see evidence for). Its the idea they have that people are wrong if they insult their beliefs but they can insult others. reasoned debate is one thing but this is just insult. The second reason is that Jesus taught people love so whats with all the hate.

(Addendum – I am against burning books on principle. I like books. I like the way they feel when I turn the pages.I like the smell of a new book. I like the smell of old books. Books are good.)
😛

This. People should have the right to burn the Koran if they want to, but it makes me uncomfortable because I love books of all kinds. Even the ones I disagree with, like Mein Kampf. Also, I think “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day” was essentially netural; nobody was attacking Islam, they were just reminding Muslims that they can’t compel everyone to play by their rules. This stunt seems more aggressive, and thus less defensible. There’s a line between making a valid statement and being a dick, and I think this crosses it.

Roxane,

An involuntary book burning is if someone busts your door down and burns your books against your will. A voluntary one is when you decide you don’t want your books any more and throw them in the incinerator.

What this means is that that particular church and its members haven’t been reading the Bible enough. If they had, they wouldn’t have had time to burn the Koran. Or perhaps it’s because they’ve been reading the Koran, and not the Bible. Either way, they ought to read the Bible enough until they stop thinking about burning the Koran.
More conventional Christians know that Muslims have a way to God, just like Jews. It is known that Muslims don’t worship the Devil, and that they think that heaven is full of seraglios and virgins waiting for them when they pass from this earth. It sounds like Saudi Arabia to me, but I won’t go down the path of Lawrence. Of Arabia. I believe he was actually Muslim.

I think this is really very silly and immature action , if a pastor hates Koran or Muslims then this is his own problem but it is definitely wrong to burn religious books because clearly this action won’t eliminate Islam , as a matter of fact it will make Muslims more attached to their religion and surely more willing to protect it.

I hereby draw the prophet. This is his eyelash. / And this is a hair follicle. . Please come kill me now. My proper abode is hell fire.