# Burning books in the US...'Burn Quran Day' **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 20, 2010, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burning-books-in-the-us-burn-quran-day/550891 "2010-08-20T17:58:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 55
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2010, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burning-books-in-the-us-burn-quran-day/550891/1081 "2010-09-28T07:02:07Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > > [@tomndebb](#): > > > > I do not believe that “all religions are the same.” > > Yes you do and the next sentence you wrote spells it out. > > And there it is, every religion is the same. … Astonishing. Its like you took a reading comprehension test, they give you a paragraph all about the marvelous diversity of fish, how they come in all shapes and sizes, colors and forms, truly wondrous variety, etc. And in the course of this, he mentions that all fish have scales. And they ask you what the paragraph was about, what is the author trying to say and you answer: “He’s saying all fish are the same.” ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2010, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burning-books-in-the-us-burn-quran-day/550891/1082 "2010-09-28T07:06:27Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > And there it is, every religion is the same. Are you really going to try to make this argument? Do you really want to tell everyone reading this thread just how poor your logic is? Noting that large supergroups all have factions of smaller groups hardly equates to all the groups are the same. The various smaller groups may, (actually, do), have widely differing beliefs, liteugies, mythologies, etc. By your logic, all animals are “the same” because they are not plants. > [@Magiver](#): > > Logic associates the actions and writings of the progenitor of any religion to the actions of those who follow. You simply ignore the connection. It’s like saying Charles Manson had no influence on Sqeeky Fromme. And, as I have noted, applying simplistic logic to poorly understood phenomema tends to lead to errors. Charles Manson had a direct influence on the person of Squeeky Fromme. You will note that the effects of Jesus on Pope John XXIII and on Ian Paisely or Jack Chick are quite different. I don’t ignore the connection; I pay attention to how each connection is actually handled by the actual people involved rather than blithely assigning a belief to people about whom I know nothing. > [@Magiver](#): > > If they’re all different why would criticism of the religion matter. Do you see Christians or Hindus coming unwound because of Southpark Cartoons? They all have their bad side according to you. Why is Islam the only religion that can’t handle a little urine in their cheerios? Christians and Hindus have both demonstrated just as much unreasoning fury over things that are equally silly. You don’t see it so much in public, in the U.S., because people in developed countries tend to stifle their impulses to riot. The Catholics murdered by Protestants for simply wanting to use a Douai bible instead of a KJV in the 1840s and 1850s would have found your claim ludicrous and Hindus have massacred Muslims over similar nonsense within just the last few years. (I know, to you 1840 was so very long ago. The only difference, however, is that the rioters of that time knew that they could get away with it and they had less to lose if it went bad. There is no “advancement” of Christianity that has changed those attitudes, just more property and better law enforcement that tends to dampen the ardor of those offended.) > [@Magiver](#): > > On one hand you say it is isolated factions that need to be identified but you then turn around and talk as if they are of one mind. You’re mischaracterizing my comments again. Saying that all the people that you insult are insulted when you insult them is not the same as saying that they all think alike–only that when humans are insulted, they tend to respond with anger, regardless of their beliefs. For that matter, you are asserting nonsense. There are a billion Muslims, but those who actually rioted in response to the Mohammed cartoons number in the tens of thousands (at the greatest), and many of them were organized by anti-Western governments as political,m propaganda efforts. Millions of Muslims made no protests and a number of them opposed the rioters. You are again trying to lump different people under a “they’re all the same” umbrella and you are wrong. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2010, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burning-books-in-the-us-burn-quran-day/550891/1083 "2010-09-28T15:58:52Z")
More than anything, this brings to mind Kurt Vonnegut’s marvelous book _Cats Cradle_, and his concept of a _granfalloon_. A _granfalloon_ is a false collection of people, presumed to have some mutual identity, but really not. Like his character, the lady who was from Indiana, and always wanted to know if other people were “Hoosiers”, as if Hoosiers had some distinct identity that unified them as a group. When, of course, people from Indiana no more fit into a distinct group than say, Christians, or Muslim. **TomnDeb** has illustrated this point with all the insight and eloquence we expect from the Luminous Ones (slobber, grovel, kissy kissy…). Muslims have no actual identity, the group has grown and diversified into a massive collection of human beings whose only mutual connection, their only point of common identity, is so abstract as to be meaningless. Only an ignorant person could refer to Christianity as if it were a huge block of like-minded persons without being aware of the vast diversity therein. A Jew was walking through Dublin one night, and confronted with a drunken lout who demanded to know if he were Catholic or Protestant. He answered truthfully, expecting but accepting a whole different variety of ignorant prejudice: “Neither, actually, I’m a Jew.” The lout pondered this for a moment. “Well, are you a Catholic Jew or a Protestant Jew?” And so it goes. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burning-books-in-the-us-burn-quran-day/550891/1084 "2010-09-29T04:57:02Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > You’re mischaracterizing my comments again. Saying that all the people that you insult are insulted when you insult them is not the same as saying that they all think alike–only that when humans are insulted, they tend to respond with anger, regardless of their beliefs. And yet you can’t seem to grasp that followers of all the other cool religions don’t assplode into street riots over a cartoon. It’s not like they aren’t routinely lampooned on a daily basis all over the world. Could it be that the most radical followers of the other religions don’t have a prophet who codified his ability to make people less alive? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burning-books-in-the-us-burn-quran-day/550891/1085 "2010-09-29T05:55:06Z")
Why, yes, that certainly “could be”, it is within the realm of possibility. But you aren’t offering “could be”, you are peddling “damn sure”. And the only evidence you have to offer is your firm insistance that it is so. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burning-books-in-the-us-burn-quran-day/550891/1086 "2010-09-29T06:02:44Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Why, yes, that certainly “could be”, it is within the realm of possibility. But you aren’t offering “could be”, you are peddling “damn sure”. And the only evidence you have to offer is your firm insistance that it is so. It’s logical that the more someone adheres to a religion, the greater the likelihood they will emulate the prophet. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burning-books-in-the-us-burn-quran-day/550891/1087 "2010-09-29T07:07:33Z")
Sure, its logical, just doesn’t happen to be true. Jews don’t go around “emulating” Moses by slaughtering a bunch of folks and selling their kids into slavery. More Christians went around emulating Jesus, be a damned sight better world, but they don’t and that’s that. Its also perfeclty logical that a five pound ball will drop faster than a one pound ball. Logical as hell, just ain’t so. Do they “adhere” to their religion? Well, thats a sticky question, they certainly say they do. And if you are going to define their loyalty to the religion by how much they emulate the prophet thereof, you are buggering the question, you aren’t allowed to use your conclusion as evidence of itself. ---
**Author:** ![Uzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/91b2a8/32.png) [@Uzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uzi)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burning-books-in-the-us-burn-quran-day/550891/1088 "2010-09-29T14:52:25Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Sure, its logical, just doesn’t happen to be true. Jews don’t go around “emulating” Moses by slaughtering a bunch of folks and selling their kids into slavery. More Christians went around emulating Jesus, be a damned sight better world, but they don’t and that’s that. How do you know this? If all those people who were Christians were instead Muslims, what type of world would we have today? How long would a separation of church and state endure? Would we even be able to have this conversation involving Muhammad? ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burning-books-in-the-us-burn-quran-day/550891/1089 "2010-09-29T14:58:37Z")
> [@Uzi](#): > > How do you know this? If all those people who were Christians were instead Muslims, what type of world would we have today? How long would a separation of church and state endure? Would we even be able to have this conversation involving Muhammad? I don’t know and neither do you. All else is wild speculation. ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burning-books-in-the-us-burn-quran-day/550891/1090 "2010-09-29T15:10:47Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > It’s logical that the more someone adheres to a religion, the greater the likelihood they will emulate the prophet. Judging by the amount of Christians who haven’t given the shirt off their back to the poor, or can’t indeed bring themselves to behave in any way whatsoever like Jesus, I’d say - NO. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burning-books-in-the-us-burn-quran-day/550891/1091 "2010-09-29T15:25:28Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > > [@tomndebb](#): > > > > You’re mischaracterizing my comments again. Saying that all the people that you insult are insulted when you insult them is not the same as saying that they all think alike–only that when humans are insulted, they tend to respond with anger, regardless of their beliefs. > > And yet you can’t seem to grasp that followers of all the other cool religions don’t assplode into street riots over a cartoon. It’s not like they aren’t routinely lampooned on a daily basis all over the world. > > Could it be that the most radical followers of the other religions don’t have a prophet who codified his ability to make people less alive? Right. Riots over insulting cartoons organized for political purposes to demonstrate anger at “the West” are simply an expression of the violence inherent in one system while riots over the mere choice of a separate translation of scripture are a demonstration of the inherently peaceful nature of that system. Got it. I doubt that I am the one whose grasp is failing. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burning-books-in-the-us-burn-quran-day/550891/1092 "2010-09-29T17:29:32Z")
> [@tagos](#): > > > [@Magiver](#): > > > > It’s logical that the more someone adheres to a religion, the greater the likelihood they will emulate the prophet. > > Judging by the amount of Christians who haven’t given the shirt off their back to the poor, or can’t indeed bring themselves to behave in any way whatsoever like Jesus, I’d say - NO. Given the number of Christians who DO give the shirt off their backs that is keeping with my statement. Ever heard of missionaries? Do you remember the 10 doctors who were killed in Afghanistan recently for their religion? Remember who killed them and why? ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burning-books-in-the-us-burn-quran-day/550891/1093 "2010-09-29T17:33:53Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > > [@Magiver](#): > > > > And yet you can’t seem to grasp that followers of all the other cool religions don’t assplode into street riots over a cartoon. It’s not like they aren’t routinely lampooned on a daily basis all over the world. > > > > Could it be that the most radical followers of the other religions don’t have a prophet who codified his ability to make people less alive? > > Right. Riots over insulting cartoons organized for political purposes to demonstrate anger at “the West” are simply an expression of the violence inherent in one system while riots over the mere choice of a separate translation of scripture are a demonstration of the inherently peaceful nature of that system. Got it. > > I doubt that I am the one whose grasp is failing. Wow, You actually think 6 women/children burned alive is a political protest? You think a fatwa to kill authors and writers is a political protest? Really? Seriously? This is the part where you run back to focusing on Wahhabism and pretend Mosques that the Ft Hood Shooter went to don’t exist in Western Countries. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burning-books-in-the-us-burn-quran-day/550891/1094 "2010-09-29T17:42:36Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > > [@Uzi](#): > > > > How do you know this? If all those people who were Christians were instead Muslims, what type of world would we have today? How long would a separation of church and state endure? Would we even be able to have this conversation involving Muhammad? > > I don’t know and neither do you. All else is wild speculation. Statistically, the world would look like countries which are predominately Muslim today. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burning-books-in-the-us-burn-quran-day/550891/1095 "2010-09-29T17:56:30Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > Wow, You actually think 6 women/children burned alive is a political protest? You think a fatwa to kill authors and writers is a political protest? Really? Seriously? > > This is the part where you run back to focusing on Wahhabism and pretend Mosques that the Ft Hood Shooter went to don’t exist in Western Countries. Actually, burning people alive is frequently a form of political violence, but I will note that you have completely changed what I actually said. I noted that many of the riots were organized for political purposes. I have also never claimed that there are not mosques in which pro-Muslim violence is not promoted; that is simply a new invention on your part. Beyond that, your point is just nonsense. I have never claimed that Major Hasan did not exist or even that extremist versions of religions do not exist. Your point regarding Wahhabism is closer, but that simply indicates that you enjoy blaming Islam for Wahhabist actions while giving Christianity and other religions a pass when the most extreme members of their groups engage in violent actions. You have gone so far as to pretend that there was no religious conflict in Northern Ireland, casting it as an English/Irish conflict while deliberately ignoring all the violence that occurred among Irish and Irish who happened to be Catholic and Protestant. You seem to circle back, again and again, to the same broad-brush complaints any time you encounter an inconvenient fact against your screed or you cherry-pick an event involving Muslims while carefully ignoring events involving other groups–when, of course, you are not simply mischaracterizing what I have said or attributing things to me that I have never posted. ---
**Author:** ![Mozart1220](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f1d935/32.png) [@Mozart1220](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mozart1220)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burning-books-in-the-us-burn-quran-day/550891/1096 "2010-09-29T18:13:04Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > > [@Uzi](#): > > > > How do you know this? If all those people who were Christians were instead Muslims, what type of world would we have today? How long would a separation of church and state endure? Would we even be able to have this conversation involving Muhammad? > > I don’t know and neither do you. All else is wild speculation. Given the track record of Christianity vs. free speech and expression over the course of history, I think we have a pretty good idea. ---
**Author:** ![Uzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/91b2a8/32.png) [@Uzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uzi)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burning-books-in-the-us-burn-quran-day/550891/1097 "2010-09-29T21:25:47Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > I don’t know and neither do you. All else is wild speculation. Of course we do. Sharia law or a close variant would be the norm. Any criticism of the Muhammad and Allah would be outlawed as it is in many places currently in the Muslim world. The only reason places like Turkey and Indonesia don’t have full on Sharia is because of the influence of the west. Without it the ‘fundamentalists’ would prevail. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burning-books-in-the-us-burn-quran-day/550891/1098 "2010-09-29T23:25:51Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Actually, burning people alive is frequently a form of political violence, but I will note that you have completely changed what I actually said. I noted that many of the riots were organized for political purposes. I have also never claimed that there are not mosques in which pro-Muslim violence is not promoted; that is simply a new invention on your part. More broad brush hand waving generic excuses. > [@tomndebb](#): > > Beyond that, your point is just nonsense. I have never claimed that Major Hasan did not exist or even that extremist versions of religions do not exist. > > You consistently excuse every act of Islamo-terrorism on some other factor. > > Your point regarding Wahhabism is closer, but that simply indicates that you enjoy blaming Islam for Wahhabist actions while giving Christianity and other religions a pass when the most extreme members of their groups engage in violent actions. You have gone so far as to pretend that there was no religious conflict in Northern Ireland, casting it as an English/Irish conflict while deliberately ignoring all the violence that occurred among Irish and Irish who happened to be Catholic and Protestant. The driving force behind the conflict in Ireland was not religion. To say that it is ignores the mixture of Christian religions in both countries. Ireland is a distinct culture on a landmass that gained it’s independence from England (except for the northern portion). It was not an attempt to break away from the Church of England or convert those to Catholicism. There were no religious decrees involved from either side. > [@tomndebb](#): > > You seem to circle back, again and again, to the same broad-brush complaints any time you encounter an inconvenient fact against your screed or you cherry-pick an event involving Muslims while carefully ignoring events involving other groups–when, of course, you are not simply mischaracterizing what I have said or attributing things to me that I have never posted. The only broad brush stroke is the observation that the religion of Islam itself has a core problem of violence that is directly attributable to Mohammad. The closer it’s followers come to this core, the greater the likelihood of violence. That explains the actions of people who riot and kill over criticism of their religion and issue fatwas instructing others to do the same. Islam is more than a religion, it is a political system complete with it’s own laws. Those laws (Sharia) do not suffer criticism of Islam well. It’s not a cultural function of Muslims, it’s the codification of Islamic law. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2010, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burning-books-in-the-us-burn-quran-day/550891/1099 "2010-09-30T00:36:24Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > Islam is more than a religion, it is a political system complete with it’s own laws. Those laws (Sharia) do not suffer criticism of Islam well. It’s not a cultural function of Muslims, it’s the codification of Islamic law. What percent of the world’s Muslims are governed largely by Sharia law? ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2010, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burning-books-in-the-us-burn-quran-day/550891/1100 "2010-09-30T01:12:53Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > More broad brush hand waving generic excuses. Pointing out that you have attributed to me statements I have never made is hardly broad brush handwaving. That is your specialty. > [@Magiver](#): > > The driving force behind the conflict in Ireland was not religion. To say that it is ignores the mixture of Christian religions in both countries. Ireland is a distinct culture on a landmass that gained it’s independence from England (except for the northern portion). It was not an attempt to break away from the Church of England or convert those to Catholicism. There were no religious decrees involved from either side. Which, of course, still resolutely ignores the fact that Irish Protestants and Irish Catholics inflicted a lot of violence on each other as Catholics and Protestants even without English interference. It is also different from what you claimed, earlier, that it was simply a political battle between Irish and English, even going so far as to make the absurd claim that “. . . it was a political conflict between the Irish and the English and did not involve Protestants and Catholics.” (You might want to look into the actual causes of the conflict that began in 1968 with the fairly systematized discrimination against Catholics that was embedded in Northen Ireland.) > [@Magiver](#): > > The only broad brush stroke is the observation that the religion of Islam itself has a core problem of violence that is directly attributable to Mohammad. The closer it’s followers come to this core, the greater the likelihood of violence. That explains the actions of people who riot and kill over criticism of their religion and issue fatwas instructing others to do the same. Ahh, the No True Muslim defense. Any Muslim who is not engaged in barbarity is not a true Muslim. How convenient. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burning-books-in-the-us-burn-quran-day/550891.md?page=54) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burning-books-in-the-us-burn-quran-day/550891.md?page=56)