Why Should We Burn the Koran?

Surely you’d need to download and delete the Arabic version for it to be considered the actual Qur’an.

I can’t help seeing a sinister aura about book-burnings, whatever the book. The fanatic Catholic church did it during the Renaissance. The Nazis did it too. Can’t escape these associations.

I had concerns about book burnings as well, when Terry Jones first announced it. It’s Thunderf00t that changed my mind regarding it. We should examine why it is we believe what we believe: Book burnings are offensive, because, in a time and place, when you burnt books you destroyed knowledge.

In today’s modern, printing press and internet-enabled society, that’s no longer true. The only remaining objection is the symbolism in the public mind of a murderous historical regime. However, I think it’s possible that burning books could be a reasonable expression of free speech: Provided it can be used in such a way that the divorce can be made in the public mind between burning books and burning people.

In the late 60s and early 70s, burning flags came into vogue as a way of a strong public objection to national policy. There’s no reason I think that burning books can’t serve as a similar rejection of a particular idea.

I agree with Christophe that I find it sinister, whether you’re burning a Qu’ran or a copy of Farenheit 451.

Yes, it’s legal and no, murder of someone who does it is never justified in any way, but…I think I would avoid it just for the distasteful connotations.

I loved Draw Muhammad Day, though!

Slightly OT, I have a (free) Book of Mormon & (free) Holy Bible on my iPhone but there weren’t any free (English) Koran apps…be nice if the Skeptics Annotated Bible, etc, did a mobile app…maybe they have by now…

Free Koran app (in English translation) would be a handy reference, too; especially a skeptics annotated version.

Paul, you might as well say that burning a church is no different an act of arson than burning a warehouse, because of televangelism, and can’t we all just conduct worship services online via GoToMeeting or streaming video?

Man is a symbolizing animal, and burning a book is a symbolic act of destruction of ideas. You can’t get rid of thousands of years of meaning by declaring the feelings moot.

It would be interesting to see a Christian pastor publicly burn a Bible, as a way of demonstrating that it is essentially a harmless act, destroying only a single paper copy. Such a pastor could even turn it into a statement of faith, as in “God’s word is stronger than any small act of book destroying I might perform.” (I guess freethinkers could burn a copy of Darwin or Dawkins, but, since we have no sacred texts, it wouldn’t be the same at all. And we’d probably just laugh at others who did so.) Anyhow, it would be nice to send a signal to the Muslim community that, hey, one book burned? It does nothing to your own beliefs or traditions at all. surely you’re stronger than that.

Nope, sorry; I still can’t buy into it.

A person who burns a book is someone who cannot argue rationally against the ideas contained within it. Like an ad hominem attack, it is an implicit acknowledgement that one has run out of valid arguments; an admission that “since I cannot counter the ideas in this book, I will simply destroy it instead.”

Or, if the burner can argue effectively against those ideas – I’m sure people like PZ Myers, Thunderf00t, et alia are perfectly capable of doing so – they place more value in shocking and outraging those who subscribe to the ideas contained within the book than in actually addressing the content.

It is an ignorant, barbaric and deliberately provocative act, and I’m sad to see Thunderf00t advocating for it; I thought he was better than that. Heretofore he has always been a shining example of the fact that one doesn’t need to be either an accommodationist or a gleefully antagonistic asshole when combating the ridiculous ideas of religion, but can in calm, measured tones utterly demolish those ideas by holding them up to the light of reason.

John Small Berries wrote:

one doesn’t need to be either an accommodationist or a gleefully antagonistic asshole when combating the ridiculous ideas of religion, but can in calm, measured tones utterly demolish those ideas by holding them up to the light of reason.

Beautifully said.

I am with John Small Berries.

I think burning book is an irrational, religious, symbolic act. If atheism is not a religion, then why do you act like a religious person?

I also do not support DMD. However, burning book is even worse than DMD. At least, DMD has a sense of humor, maybe. Burning book, on the other hand, is totally a violent symbol.

As I look out my home office window this very moment, a woodpecker is being bullied out of the home he just finished this morning by two blackbirds. Instead of putting up any real resistance, the male woodpecker has just stood by and squawked in protest while the others have their way. This is what some in this thread would have us do.
Reasoning only works if the other party is receptive to it. To be effective, you must send a message that the recipient will understand. To those who are whining about how barbaric it is to burn the Koran, I can only say that they have no concept or clue of what they are up against. This isn’t something new, of course. In fact it’s a hallmark of the extreme left and right.
Nobody here is saying that reasoning, logic and peaceful methods should be dispensed with wholesale. It is silly and dangerous, however, to assume that the other side is going to be open to pleasant discussion over cookies and tea. With certain opponents, there are times when it is necessary to roll up a newspaper, smack them squarely on the nose and tell them “NO!”

Yeah, gotta jump on this bandwagon of anti book burning… but then I feel that all books burned should be met with that kind of fervor… especially any that get under the skins of people for one reason or another. I think the burning of Hustler should be met with the same fervor that the Qu’ran is.

hahaha, your comment on downloading the koran made me think of this comic: http://xkcd.com/750/
PS: I am strictly against burning books.

“They don’t burn the book to create associations with Nazi book burnings. They do it because treating the Koran badly is a taboo in Islam.”

Exactly, Steve. Kudos to you for being one of the few who actually “gets it”.

John Small Berries wrote:

one doesn’t need to be either an accommodationist or a gleefully antagonistic asshole when combating the ridiculous ideas of religion, but can in calm, measured tones utterly demolish those ideas by holding them up to the light of reason.

I agree with Axe Grrl, this was beautifully said, and I agree completely.

I also don’t think it’s necessary to

roll up a newspaper, smack them squarely on the nose and tell them “NO!”

These are people, not misbehaving pets, and I don’t think burning their holy book accomplishes anything at all. It’s petty, taunting, and disrespectful, and I see absolutely no reason for it.
Now obviously you have the right to burn a book if you want to, as long as it’s your property, and no one should be threatening to kill you for it. But the only thing I see happening as a result is making people mad, and if your only reason for doing something is to piss someone off, I think you’re extremely childish.

And one last thing…

A bully tells me that if I cross a line, I get punched. I tell him “NO” and I cross that line. It’s rather simplistic as an analogy, but more than sufficient to explain what is going on here.

This is a flawed analogy, at least the way I’m understanding it. If a bully tells you to give him your lunch money or he’ll punch you, then you have good reason to tell him “No” and cross that line. But if a bully says “Hey, if you insult my mother, I’ll punch you” what reason would you have to stand up to him? Insulting his mother would be rude and you have no reason to do it, if you’re trying to be the bigger person. Once again, it’s doing something just to piss the other person off, and all it brings about is anger and bloody noses.

@The Godless Monster

The point I was trying to make in my analogy is this: Someone telling you not to do something is not a good reason to do it. I completely agree that not doing something for fear of pissing someone of is cowardice, and you shouldn’t let fear of making someone angry keep you from standing up for what you believe. I’m not saying “You shouldn’t do this because it’ll piss people off.” I’m saying, “You shouldn’t do this JUST to piss people off.”
If you have some reason to burn a Qu’ran, go for it. I just don’t agree with the reasoning people have put forth on this site so far. I don’t think burning religous books is going to make religious people react any less violently to it – I think it’ll just make it worse. I think we should respect that it’s important to them while arguing rationally that not respecting that isn’t a crime punishable by murder.

And as far as the misbehaving pets thing goes, other animals are treated with less respect than humans in most societies. Maybe we should increase the respect we give to other animals, but I don’t think we should decrease the respect we give to fellow humans. And my inclination to think humans are better than other animals is certainly a societal bias and not a religious one. Trust me, I’m just as godless as you are.

“Reasoning only works if the other party is receptive to it. To be effective, you must send a message that the recipient will understand”

I think it important to consider if the message sent by book burning as discussed in this post and in the video is being understood AS INTENDED. As evidenced by the horrific recent killings of innocent and absolutely unassociated persons in response to the book burning by Terry Jones, I would argue that it is clearly NOT being understood, which completely negates the purpose of doing so. With the knowledge that a response to book burning is not likely to be rational, and is likely to result in the deaths of innocent people, how can one possibly argue that this act (of book burning) is justifiable? Does disregard for this not also make the book burner culpable in addition to the murderers?

I think this isn’t doing something because someone told you not to do it. I think it’s more, having so many people do something that the crazy zealots will find it difficult if not impossible to react to or quell any longer. As long as people only do it occasionally when they would have on their own accord, death threats can keep them “in line.”

Now on the topic of the actual burning of books. I’m something of a book lover. I love to read and learn, I love knowledge, and I’m all for protecting the past. I’d be pissed off to all hell if someone, say, burned a 100-year-old copy of the Koran, because something significant would be lost. However, that’s just not happening here. In fact, if anything, a better argument against the book burning is that it’s funding money to print more of the damn things. But that said, the point being made and the actual symbolism here isn’t “Destroy Islam, destroy all Islamic knowledge and history.” It’s “we will NOT let you have power over us.”

As for the message being sent being received as intended, I’m not sure it’s as much about sending a message (though that’s part of it) as it is about making it hard to react to any single incident when so many have happened. As tf00t says, it’s a lot harder to get worked up over the 7293516th Koran being burned than it is to get worked up over the first (publicly heard of) one in months/years.

No, I am absolutely not in a position of deference to those using violence. I am simply looking at this from the perspective of those subjected to the violence, from which most of us writing are largely isolated from. (Are any of you posters out there living where these killings occur? Would this be your argument if you had to talk to the families of those most recently killed?)

How many innocents have to die in response to irrational killings because of Korans being burned? Do we need to wait until the 7293516th Koran is ashes before the murderers give up? I would suggest that we have an obligation to the innocent victims and that this is NOT out of a deference to the murderers.

I’m honestly opposed to burning books as a rule, because it has a fairly firm historical connotation with the destruction of knowledge.

I am not, however, opposed to criticizing Islam. It needs much criticism. We should be allowed to depict Mohammad exactly as much as we like.

since no idea is inherently deserving of respect, no attack on any idea can be provocative

No idea is inherently deserving of respect*, but since people do believe that their ideas deserve respect (because they tend to identify deeply with some of their ideas), any attack on any idea can be provocative.

*except for those adequately supported by science and mathematics

Radical Islamists aren’t going to care whether it’s the first Koran or the 7293516th Koran. Their level of outrage will be the same, and they’ll likely continue to kill people.

(Warning: TL:DR candidate to follow)

The Godless Monster and the Captain already covered a lot of the points I wanted to write about (damn you, wage-earning job) , so I will likely be redundant at places.
I see a few different issues raised by people regarding this situation but I don’t think any of them are good enough to support their position.

As it has been rightly said humans are symbolic creatures, and our symbols matter to us. Muslims will defend their own symbolism, in extreme cases to the point of murder.

Symbolism however matters to everone. It seems to me that some of the commenters are saying that the Muslim symbolism of the holiness of the Koran supercedes the symbolism of a secular westerner to proclaim his values of religious freedom, which is exactly what stepping on religious taboos is done for. Why is that I should respct their symbols, when they manifestly don’t respect mine?

On the other hand, some people are objecting to book burning precisely because of the symbolism it has for them, because book burning has always been an allegory for intellectual suppression and censorship. Indeed this was my first visceral reaction to the idea of burning a book. I am personally loathe to destroy a book (At one point I owned more bookcases than I did chairs). This instinct however is misplaced in this case. The point is not to destroy the content of the Koran. That is a practical impossibility to begin with, with the millions of extant physical copies, never mind the electronic ones on- and offline. The point is to offer a response to the threat of violence from Islamists that we acquiesce to their demands.

I was having a conversation regarding this and the following point was made: One doesn’t even need to actually burn a Koran to make the point. I can burn a million Korans in my back yard and noone’s the wiser, and I can start a bonfire with a phonebook and just lie that it is a Koran in arabic, and have a destructive effect. (In fact I will try something similar at the end of my comment). The point here is its not about the book, its about the public ‘repudiation’ of Islam.

It has come to the point that it’s normalized in our minds that destroying a Koran will result to violence and death, with blame being laid to the people doing the former and not those doing the latter. When X is being laid out as verboten, on the threat of intimidation, of violence, or death it is an act of freedom to do X, no matter what X is. Don’t try to draw parallels to Nazi book burnings, as they simply don’t apply. The Nazis weren”t burning Darwin’s books because early German Darwinists threatened to kill anyone who even tore a page out of them.

Furthermore, I will also note that for those who are philosophically against book burning to note that the current equivalent of book burning are modern means of censorship, from false takedown notices on media sites, to shutting down the internet on Draw Mohammed Day, to getting the RDF site and the God Delusion banned from publication and its local publisher and translator prosecuted (as was attempted and partly succeeded by Adnan Oktar in Turkey). These are closer to the spirit of book burning than Thunderf00t’s actions ever were. That is where we should focus our ire, where actual censorship is taking place and not on our visceral reactions and superficial comparisons to other book burnings.

Some people say that burning the Koran is disrespectful to all Muslims, and that as an action it will only alienate further, both the extreme and the moderate Muslim. I disagree. The extreme believer is already alienated from the mainstream and this is a message to the moderate, to compare one action (the burning of a book, even a Holy Book) and the violence and slaughter caused by his fellow believers and judge the actions. I think that those who would side with the murderers over the book burners are in no way moderate, and I include in this a specific type of Muslim, one I have seen online several times. In the wake of some confrontation of this sort or other, they make a terse claim of “oh, of course killing and violence is not the answer but…” and then spend paragraphs describing the stridency of those who maligned the Koran, or Mohammed (or the Eucharist. despite Islam being topical, this is not solely a Muslim issue) as the primary issue. It is an other instance of the normalization of violence in service to religion.

What won’t make the moderates stand up and think however, is if we stand down, accept that the Koran and the insane demand of the extremists is beyond criticism.

It has also been mentioned that it is all well and good to do this, but it is not us who will feel the brunt of the punishment. I disagree there as well. There are Muslims in Canada and in the US that have killed their children for becoming too “westernized” or secularized. These are our neighbors and possibly our friends, and the friends and neighbors of the moderate Muslims we need to reach who need to actively condemn the violence.

There are in fact many moderate muslims that do so. Im not denying this, or that their actions require more courage than my own, but they are objectively not enough to stem the tide.

As it is, the people living in fundamentalist theocracies and in such communities in secular countries, are already in danger of dying. If its not a Koran burning, its the French hijab ban, or some Danish cartoons, or someone throwing a business card that happened to have the name ‘Mohammed’ on it in the trash, or some books being printed, or even some expedient incendiary commentary by some “Koran-thumping” corrupt politician is enough to get the rage started. Shining a light on this needs to be done. And this is the reason we can’t only respond in a measured and calm demeanor, because there are some elements in religion that are beyond reason, and we need to expose these to the moderates as crazy and insane, and the only way to do so is to confront them.

Back when I was a (albeit lukewarm) believer, I would have been annoyed at anyone that who tossed a bible in the trash, but I would never had placed even a stack of bibles over a single human life. This is the idea I would like to go through every moderate muslim: “Is a physical copy of the Koran worth more than a human life?”

And so, in conclusion, as I am placing my own copy of the Koran in my grill on my balcony and striking a match, I do so because it matters, and I think if you’ve read this, you understand why.

Hemmant Mehta wrote : “There’s nothing inherently wrong with… ….burning a copy of the Muslim holy book”

Excuse me?

Atheists who burn books put themselves in the same category of brute ignorance as the Taliban and the Nazis.

What is rational or enlightened about that? Still, I suppose a fundamentalist well meaning atheist might feel that the end justifies the means.

I had to laugh when I read about little street kids in Afghanistan* warming themselves near the piles of burning books set alight by the Taliban. A powerful image to illustrate the meaning of what was going on but on two completely different levels.

*(See Asne Seierstad‘s- “The Bookseller of Kabul”. Loved it!)

And Christians who burn the quran are burning a book which includes Jesus, (whom the quran reveres more highly than even Moses) it includes Noah, Abraham, Mary the mother of Jesus, it includes many teachings which amplify Isaiah, Jeremiah and other Old Testament scriptures. It includes suras about righteous God-fearing people/prophets such as David, Solomon, Job, Lot, Jacob, Aaron, etc

So what they are burning is, in part, the Word of God.

What Christian can do that even if they dont agree with other parts of the same book or even if they dismiss it as entirely non-canonical

This entire response makes no sense what so ever. I don’t even know if I disagree with you because it is sounds like an 11 year old child is writing it, very pedestrian.