The Canceled-Koran-Burning Aftermath

I agree that burning a book is just burning some paper, paper made of wood, the same wood we burn in fireplaces all the time. A book is just a book, so putting it to the match is really quite trivial.

Of course, the reason for burning a book is what people can should be getting upset about, but there has been so much hyperbole being thrown about (such as calling them “religious artefacts”, of all things) that the issue has been obfuscated. I think it’s in order for the media to create the news rather than simple report on it.

Anyway …

Was the Pastor burning the book out of hate for Islam? Probably. But then I hate Islam. Not as much as I hate Christianity, but it’s up there. It’s okay to hate a religion, just so long as you understand that the people in it aren’t necessarily deserving of that hatred. Some of them, yes, especially much of the hierarchy, but not most of the lowly parishioners.

So, burning a book because you despise what it represents? Fine. Burning it because you hate the people? Not so much.

Careful there Hemant, you continue on this path and you might soon lose the ‘Friendly’ moniker. 🙂

I may be a vegetarian, but I love it when sacred cows are slaughtered.

Tempting the trolls again? You know someone is going to take that out of context. 8)

My thought on this has been, “better to burn the holy books of believers than to burn believers.”

There does need to be more effort to hold the MSM to account for the frenzy that gets whipped up with the 24/7 coverage of such stories.

I’ve heard of Canadians here that have talked about flying to NYC to be human barricades as a protest against the mosque, based solely on their viewing of the media and the resulting emotional outbursts. It’s simply foolish.

We can hope that someday reason will play a greater role in public discourse and such “events” will be bad memories.

Wow! Well put. I agree wholeheartedly.

I’ve been thinking there should be a “throw a holy book in the trash day” along the lines of “draw mohammed day”. You could pick the book of your choice and toss it, possibly publicly. I’ve never liked the idea of book burnings either.

I think the larger issue with this was the irresponsible media. There have always been and always will be mean little people like this preacher in Florida who can’t see the absurdity of favoring one ‘holy’ book over another. What irritates me is that this was considered news and spread the world over. He should have been ignored completely. We live in a world where the psychotic ‘muslim street’ erupts into calculated fury over cartoons (an the so called offensive ones were not ever even run in the Danish newpaper) and they tell the world someone plans to publicly burn a koran. People die and property is destroyed every time these insane mobs erupt, quit feeding there stupidity when it isn’t necessary. Sometimes the messenger needs to just ignore the fool. I know it will never happen, the 24 hour news cycle demands feeding and responsibility never enters anyone’s mind.

I have to wonder though in this atmosphere of madness, when a publishing company prints thousands of korans for American book shops and large numbers don’t sell and they get remaindered back to the producer, what do they do with them? Do they get pulped and recycled like other paperback fiction? If so, do they have to do this under a cloak of secrecy?

I have to agree with you Hemant.

Actually, I’ve been left a bit conflicted by this whole thing. When it started I was utterly opposed to it for a few reasons. However, as the reaction to it has gathered steam, I’ve been starting to want it to take place.

You have people – including the president of Indonesia – claiming it is a huge threat to ‘world peace’, you have ‘protests’ which involve burning American flags and effigies of Terry Jones. That last one is a pre-emptive act which symbolically is far worse than burning any book could ever be.

Where are the people vehemently criticising those burnings? Just why is burning a book – one which for years the Muslims themselves would not allow to be translated from its native language* – so much more unacceptable than burning an effigy of a person? A person, who at the time, had not actually done anything!

But back to the ‘threat to world peace’ claim. If people truly believe that, then I hope they are diverting considerable efforts to ensure that if it were to happen again, there would be no threat to world peace. I suspect, however, that they aren’t, which is at best basically saying that they insist that other people control their loonies, whilst they won’t control their own. (And that is even granting that burning copies of a Koran could possibly justify that sort of explosive reaction.)

I do fear that Islam is fast becoming something which is treated differently to anything else – you just have to look at how eager a certain group of people is to call others bigots if they so much as criticise Islam. In the sacred herd that is religion, Islam seems to be the most sacred cow of all.

* I’m assuming here that the Koran’s Terry Jones was going to burn were English copies, here, which me not be true, I grant, but I suspect is a safe assumption.

The best selling book of all time in “The Bible” with over 6 billion copies sold. I heard the other day that crate loads are sent to third world countries along with medical supplies, food and water and other aid.

Apparently they are routinely used as fuel for fires. Basic needs trump even the best selling literature.

TychaBrahe,

Question for you. Are you trying to say that being offended is real hurt? You cannot, not offend anyone ever and live. People take offence at all sorts of things. Mostly, they need to just grow up and if that applies to several billion religious people so be it. No real harm is don’t to you when your beliefs are ‘symbolically destroyed’. In fact, it might just do you good to realize the world keeps turning even if someone disagrees with you.

@toomanytribbles

You got it right. Book burning has been associated with suppressing information and trying to promote ignorance.

It’s stupid. Yeah, you’ve got the right, and people should support your right. However, it’s still stupid.

If Obama personally decides to just be a one-term president, he should do the following:

After the mid-terms, he should go on national television and say that by executive order he is declaring America to be a Muslim country. Then remain silent for one week. Let the media circus begin. Then after one week, go back on national television and say upon reconsideration, perhaps the separation of church and state is a good idea after all.

I have no problem with individuals burning books. That’s fine.
When the government, a business, etc. start demanding people burn a certain book THEN we have a problem.

I didn’t have a problem with this guy burning the Koran in a free speech sense BUT I did have a problem with all the media attention Terry Jones was receiving.
I disagree vehemently with the current U.S. wars; his actions, I believe, would have put U.S. troops in even more danger.

The way to destroy _the_ Constitution is to react so poorly to the burning of copies of books and flags that you work to eliminate those freedoms.

The people who cry so loudly about the destruction of what America stands for are the very people working hardest for its destruction!

Book burning makes people uncomfortable because it immediately calls to mind some of the worst impulses of the totalitarian state. It is the notion that ideas which you reject must be destroyed. Burning books is the antecedent of burning people. But that only matters when the power of the state is behind the burning. When a individual burns a book, it is symbolic, but only symbolic. It is hollow. Pastor Jones can not possibly hope to remove the Koran from American society. It falls within the bounds of free expression, so the right to do so must be protected. But the commission itself should not be praised or rewarded; its content is evil. The first amendment means the state cannot make that distinction, but we can and must.

As to TychaBrahe, the simple fact is, you do in fact have the right to free expression, but not the right to commit acts of terror, vandalize, commit larceny, burglary, or rape. People have the right to the sanctity of their persons and property; they do not have the right and power to control public discourse by complaining about hurt feelings.

Furthermore, it is completely unacceptable to accuse either Pastor Jones or anyone who supports the burning of being “morally complicit in murder”. Murder and violence is not an acceptable or proportionate response to any form of public discourse, not matter how inappropriate. This really should be obvious. Only the murderer is complicit for his murder. Anything otherwise would be to give irrational fear and hatred complete check over our society.

It comes down to this. The rational response to someone burning a book is not violence. Terry Jones has achieved his goal, without even burning a single book. He pointed out that the real fear is not the fear of Sharia law, but the fear of Muslim reprisals. In that sense, the real Islamophobes are not the people threatening to burn Qur’ans or chanting in front of Mosques, but the people who are so afraid of Muslim reprisal that they are willing to throw away our constitutionally protected freedom of expression.

It’s the “soft bigotry of low expectations.” By claiming that we can’t expect Muslims to act rationally, they are implying that Muslims are unable to control their collective impulses; that they are somehow inferior to the more “civilized” religions.

Book burning is a form of oppression, but as Descartes once noted, it is the characteristic of the most stringent censorships that they lend credence to the very ideas they seek to suppress.

Burn a Quran, and you have to wonder what it is that makes it such a threat. Set aside the video of the angry mobs burning American flags in retaliation.

It comes down to fear, perhaps one of the greatest enemies of rational thought.

The Quran is a target because what – it’s believed that there’s some kind of secret conspiracy, that you’ll wake up one morning and find the country is under Shari’a Law? That Saddam would pull ICBM’s out of his arse? That al-Qaeda would hop into rowboats, cross the Atlantic, and systematically conquer every last city, town, and parish in America, then make their way to Hawaii and Alaska?

IMHO, 9/11 is one of those sacred cows that needs to be drowned in a tub. Yes, it was a significant event; yes, people died.

But when you were a child and afraid of monsters under the bed, did your parents come and tell you, yes, the monsters are gonna feast on little kiddie bits tonight! Or did they reassure you and even, perhaps, take a flashlight and lift up the bedspread to show that it was safe? They used reason to overcome fear.

And, again from childhood – if you were ever bullied or picked on, as long as you remained afraid of said bully, they had a definitive influence on your life. It’s only as you grow up and set aside fear – by enlisting friends/adults as allies – that you were finally able to move on, right?

So when people rail about how they’re gonna torch the Quran, or shout themselves blue in the face about the Park51 Center, all it’s really doing is validating the power of the (perceived) Islamic fundamentalist army. Even if they’re like Jones’ church, just a collection of 50 some-odd nutballs.

Ultimately, our strongest defense *and* offense is in investing in our infrastructure and our economic base. A strong infrastructure is less vulnerable to threats (even movie-plot humdingers); a well-educated populace drives much growth than the masses eager to embrace some kind of neo-feudalistic peasantry; and a strong economy and attention paid to our essential freedoms makes us stronger and freer both at home and abroad.

/soapbox

To Jason Baur,
” Murder and violence is not an acceptable or proportionate response to any form of public discourse, not matter how inappropriate. This really should be obvious. Only the murderer is complicit for his murder. Anything otherwise would be to give irrational fear and hatred complete check over our society.”

Better let Sharon Angle know.

@martymankins:

And, that, in a nutshell, is a large part of the problem – the devolution of the once-proud network news from daily record to a pass-the-bucket weepfest.

I used to think the industry could be saved. I like to still think so, but then I look at the changes coming at work, and I realize the days of Murrow and Cronkite are gone. Ain’t coming back.

@pmsrhino

The US Interstates automatically make me think of the Nazi party, as they are modeled after the Autobahn, one of the Nazi’s largest public works projects.

Associating an action with a seriously misguided group of people doesn’t necessarily imply that the action is evil.

I’m not sure what Jones originally had planned for the Book Burning — Apart from a bonfire. But yes one could destroy copies of ‘The Koran’ (or any other holy book) to symbolize what one finds offensive of that religion. –

Ex: Tear up pages for every point offensive of Islam. — Treatment of Women, Low Education Standards, Intolerance etc.

Trouble is: At the same time you are not Critically examining your own religion. –

Ex: Catholic: anti-abortion, anti-divorce, sex scandals, Indulgences, etc.

Ex: Orthodox Jews: Silly Kosher Laws , Homophobia.. Whatever.

We’re talking morality and some people keep interjecting legality.

Yes, of course it’s illegal to damage other people’s property. However, it would be wrong even if it weren’t. It’s legal in this country for Phelps and his followers to protest outsides the funerals of soldiers. It’s still wrong of him to do so.

It was legal of the Taliban to destroy the Buddhas of Bamyan. It is legal in Saudi Arabia to stone an adulterer; in fact it is the law that this should be done. It is apparently legal in Indiana to bully a high school student until he hangs himself, so long as you are bullying based on his sexual orientation and not something “bad” like racism. The fact that these are legal doesn’t make them right. Hemant didn’t ask when it was legal to burn a Koran. Burning a Koran may be illegal for a number of reasons. In the Los Angeles National Forest, it is often illegal to burn anything, from cigarettes to holy books, for fear of the fire danger. He asked when it was OK, and I’m saying that it never is.

Viggo, there are always people who will take offense at anything. There are Blacks who are offended at the use of the word “picnic,” inventing a false history involving a pastoral day in the countryside accompanying a lynching. I refuse to stop using that word because it offends idiots.

But offense is like bumping into someone on the street. I sometimes bump into someone on the street, and when I do so, I apologize, but this sort of thing is an accident, and there is no moral wrong in doing it, even if it results in the other person falling, breaking a bone, or otherwise being truly injured. True accidents are without blame. On the other hand, if I made a practice of barreling into people with the express purpose of knocking them over, that would be wrong.

Pastor Jones set out to burn the Koran with the express intention of angering and hurting Muslims, and doing with with the intent of harming someone is wrong.

My gut reaction is to oppose the burning of any book. Book burning used to be a way of preventing access to information, or suppressing an idea. I think ideas can be evaluated and dismissed, but never they should never be suppressed.

Lately I’ve come to realize that my gut hasn’t caught up with modern technology. No amount of book burning is going to eliminate access to the contents of that book, so my major objection to it is gone. However, I still think that instead of destroying the book, people should read it and then publicly discuss/criticize the contents. Really reading the Bible is what started me on the road to atheism.

@TychaBrahe; sorry, you’ve completely lost me. To recap – you will continue to use the word ‘picnic’ even though you KNOW that it will cause certain people offence and hurt feelings because they’re idiots, so that makes it morally acceptable. You will not purposefully walk into anyone on the street because you also know that that would similarly cause certain people offence and hurt feelings (btw, if you could come up with relatable analogies it would help) because this time, that would be morally unacceptable. Is this because everyone on the street is of an acceptable intellectual level?

You also used a cross burning, assualt, theft and rape analogies above. Notwithstanding Olive Oil’s explanation of why this was incomparable, you must have been aware that these would have caused offence and hurt feelings to at least a large minority of people, yet one presumes you found this morally acceptable to do so.

At the very least, could you please explain why you think your moral inconsistencies are acceptable and (as you seem to be commenting that other people are being similarly inconsistent although you have yet to demonstrate this) why other people’s moral inconsistencies are not?

Tycha, you’ve lost me as well.

Say I want to burn a book; it doesn’t have to be the Quran, it could be Harry Potter. It’s understood that the act is meant to be offensive and inflame those who hold the book to be of value.

But what has actually been burned/lost? Does burning the physical object remove the idea? Isn’t this the essence of the Law of Similarity (Fraser’s The Golden Bough) – that is, a physical object reprsents another object, and by working harm upon one, you harm the other, as with the stereotypical voodoo doll, or even the idea of a love philter/charm.

You add the factor of harmful intent, comparing murder and rape – but in the instance of murder, what is lost is measurable and tangible; rape, too, is a combined physical and psychological assault.

But the burning of the Quran? Hardly. Burning a copy of a widely-published and studied holy text does nothing to the idea itself.

The burning of a Quran would only have inherent value if it were rare/collectible – say, the copy owned by Thomas Jefferson. Or, it might have sentimental value to an individual, being a volume passed from a grandfather. But neither of these were likely to be the targets of Jones’ ‘protest.’

In the end, the reactions tell me about the people involved; it demonstrates Jones’ intolerance and religious views, but it also shows me that Islam has the same problem as contemporary Christianity – its adherents are deathly afraid that it will be disproven, laid bare, taken away, or diminished by the merest contradictory act.

Burning your own copy of a book to make a well-reasoned, specific point is always OK. But like I said on another of PZ’s posts on the topic, for an angry mob to burn as many Korans as they could get their hands on is something quite different. Considering the unfortunate history of such massive book-burnings, it’s not that far-fetched to see it as a veiled threat (I don’t think it would be a real Godwin if I’d point to Nazi Germany in this context). And threats are not generally considered part of free speech.

After all, burning someone in effigy is also generally considered to be more than harmlessly setting fire to your privately owned puppet.

Of course, since the protests started before Jones did anything objectionable, we’ll never know for sure if this event would have been a thoughtful protest, or whether it would just have been an angry mob around a bonfire.

Regardless of whether he is crazy or not or if you agree or disagree with what he planned to do, its pathetic that we as a country have become hostage to the reactions of extreme radicals and what their response would be to us exercising our constitutional rights. Since when did we become so scared?

@Scott:

Hence my use of the word “probably.”

This parody of Jones deciding to burn The God Delusion instead is very funny, and offers some rye truth. It’s definitely worth a read.

Not really in favor of burning any books, regardless of whether I agree with them or not. I’d love to say that by keeping them around, folks will hopefully get to read them and find out the truth inside… that they’re just books. 😀

Ignore the man is what should have happened. He should have been totally blown off as the wackadoodle he is. Instead the media did as they always do for ratings: blew it up out of all proportion and made it large so they could have a “controversary” for the sake of huge ratings and ad revenue.

I don’t know who disgusts me more: Jones or the media.

Other than that, burning books — or the flag for that matter — is totally pointless. No one would bother if it wasn’t for the way the media exploit it and give them free freaking advertising. There’s no surer way to get your voice heard than that — using something you know the media will use and run with for ratings.

I’m very proud to currently be reading the entire Harry Potter series to/with my grandson. Ban this Xian over-reactors. It’s just a fanciful children’s story so good that it’s actually enjoyable for grown-ups too. Can’t wait for the next movie to come out.

Book burning is a symbolic act, plain and simple. What it means is entirely dependent on the person doing the burning, but it ranges from “fuck you” to “you’re next.” In Pastor Jones’ case, it was nothing more than a HUGE insult to a group of people who are already marginalized in the United States, many of whom are not involved in this dirt-kicking contest and the rest of whom will take his words as indicative of America’s attitude and use it to justify further violence.

So to recap: it’s pointless, it’s discriminatory (religionist?), and it’s dangerous for the entire country. All of which are perfectly good reasons for the rest of us to speak up and say “We are not with this guy.”

Offensive? Psh. You should see what I’ve done to my copy of Twilight.