Burning books in the US...'Burn Quran Day'

Great Debates
901

Like this? Direct Action Day. Looks to be a pretty mutual exchange of unpleasantries through the time period.
It is interesting that equal numbers of people crossed the borders after the partition.
Afterwords, India became the largest democracy in the world while Pakistan went through a bunch of military dictatorships.
The Hindu population decreased in Pakistan from 22% in 1951 to 1.7% in 1998. Quite a bit due to forced conversions and outright murder.
Islam is the second largest religion in India at 13.4% or 138M as of 2001 census and is growing quickly. Almost matching the population of Pakistan at 170M+.
Over time more Muslims continue to cross the border to India than to Pakistan. I wonder why?

An understatement if there ever was one. I’d suggest that both countries would have been better off staying together with the people of Pakistan benefiting the most from such an arrangement and saving millions of dead directly caused because of religion.

Just because you can’t find much on the net doesn’t mean that the forced conversions and discrimination wasn’t happening.

It is amazing how under duress people fall back on fundamentalism as the solution. I wonder where they get these ideas from? Could it be a book? But, no. People aren’t influenced by their religion or what their religious icons tell them to do. Too bad they didn’t believe in Fluffy Magic Bunny and his commandment of a hug a day makes everyone happy instead, huh?

902

Which pretty much argues against your claims that the Muslims just wanted out because they wanted to be able to impose their will on others. And I had already noted that both sides engaged in violence in my post just previous to this, so it is hardly some shocking revelation.

Actually, people under duress tend to move in extreme directions, regardless of their scriptures. Sometimes they move toward revolution and sometimes they move toward retrenchment, (and some societies have swung in both directions as the variety of the duress changed). Christian Germany, France, and Spain certainly displayed no particular sign that they had embraced the Beatitudes in their upheavals and Cambodia displayed neither the peaceful Buddhist actions nor the brotherhood of the proletariat when they went through their traumas.

903

Cheese Louise, Uzi, you sling that book stuff around like you have discovered the axis on which the whole universe spins. That people have holy texts is not news. What is news is the extremity of importance you place on that fact.

Most all of the lawgivers gave very similar laws, and they have been studied very closely. First, to determine what the laws are, and secondly to look for loopholes.

Islam strictly forbids loans for interest. So does the Jewish and Christian traditions, under some interpretations. But once people got to a point where commerce was an everyday, routine thing, that proved to be very inconvenient. And a way was found.

Usually a variation like its ok to loan money at interest to an infidel/goyim/pagan. just not ok to lend money at interest to one of your own. Or, you could give some money to one of your own, from the kindness of your heart, and if they should return that money and reward your generosity with a gift of 7 percent interest compounded yearly, well, whats the sin in that?

Human beings simply do not adhere to their holy texts with the fanaticism you attribute to Muslims in general. If you are going to insist that these people adhere more strictly to their holy texts than do others, how do you explain why? Its not because their holy text is the real deal. Its not because Islamists represent a different genetic strain of humanity.

Well, then, what is it? Why should we believe that holy texts written in Arabic are more effective than very similar texts in Hebrew, Latin or Greek? I don’t see many Christians selling all they own to give to the poor. I don’t see any Jews combing the deserts to be sure that no Elamites or Midianites got away from them.

If you are going to insist that Islamic texts are more powerful, more effective, than others, you’re going to have to explain why. And if you can’t, then its nothing more than an assertion made up from whole cloth.

904

We’re coming back around to the domain of an asked and unanswered question of mine awhile back…

905

I seem to recall that Step 1 was one of the first things Obama did. Remember the Cairo speech? You don’t win the war against radical islam by radicalizing more Muslims. Obama seems to understand how this war works better than you do.

906

Now you’re not even reading. I said they wanted out because they were afraid of being treated like they treat others, as their prophet dictates. And if you look at how Hindus are treated in Pakistan you’d see that it would be a concern to them to be treated that way.

When these texts have the ability to be interpreted to permit the killing of others not following said texts then, yeah, I think it is important.
I’m sure you’d agree that if there was an old law that allowed for the public caning of gays or blacks, even though people only followed it occasionally, that it should be removed from the books?

907

No more so than declaring war on an idea.

908

Sure. But at that point, it becomes more of a gesture than a fact. Every so often, someone comes out with a compilation of current silly laws that have not been repealed, and they are amusing, but not important.

All over the world, Catholics practice birth control, even though their church insists they will burn in hell for it. They simply don’t believe it, but remain Catholic due to bonds of affection and custom. Martin Luther was very harsh in his opinion of Jews, “anti-Semite” would be a wholly justified epithet. Are Lutherans profoundly anti-Semitic? Not that I’ve noticed, and theres oodles and gobs of them around here.

The holy text of the Jewish faith, as I’ve noted before, contains more than one act of naked genocide, the utter annhilation of a group of people, under the direct orders of God Almighty. I don’t see you insisting that Jews are more prone to violence and terror because their holy texts says so. Which is sensible, because they are not.

For your premise to work, you have to offer us a reason why Muslims, as a discrete entity, are different from the rest of us humans. Most of us navel-bearing creatures are perfectly content to ignore the repugnant parts of our religious traditions. Is this a form of hypocrisy? Sure, but that’s people for you.

Unless you can offer solid evidence that Muslims are a fundamentally different variety of human being from the rest of us, your case fails. Is it the language, perhaps? Is a holy text written in Arabic somehow more effective than one written in Greek or Hebrew? Surely you won’t advance the notion that the Koran is more effective because it is, in fact, supernaturally inspired? You can’t even advance a racially/genetically based theory, because most Muslims are not of the same ethnic derivation, not even close.

So what have you got, outside of stamping your foot and insisting that it must be true? Nobody else seems to follow thier holy text to the extremes that you insist Muslims do, so Muslims must be fundamentally different. OK, in what way?

909

You do realize that the texts are inanimate objects, do you not? Anything can be interpreted. People over the ages have interpreted rocks and even animal entrails. You wouldn’t blame the sheep for the person’s actions so why are you blaming a book?

910

You mean like nazism?

911

Amusing like same sex marriage being voted down in California? We’re all laughing. At least they have a chance to change it.

Is this part of their holy book, or a dictate from the pope that they are ignoring? And how about the people affected because of the condom issue in Africa?

Did you not look at the link in post 858?

Next time a sheep tells you what rules to live your life by then you’d have an argument.
In my last job I was tasked with working on SOX protocols. They were written down on a webpage. My employees could choose to follow them, or not. If not, they could go find work somewhere else. Some chose to follow them to greater or lesser degrees. Guess which ones got better performance reviews and raises?
The point is that people followed what was written down while when the only penalty was termination. My book wasn’t a guide on how to live their lives or get into heaven. I didn’t threaten them with eternal damnation in a pit of fire.
If they don’t believe in the book then it shouldn’t be an issue to remove the text that is offensive. Because I’d change my SOX protocol if it wasn’t relevant anymore in an instant.

912

Those are some very interesting answers, I only regret that they are not answers to any questions I asked of you. And I am struck by your suggestion that Muslims ought to modify the Koran to meet your standards and reap the rewards of your approval. This is wholly original thinking. Your opinion is unique, and will almost certainly remain so.

913

Because the author had a habit of killing people who didn’t submit and his followers interpret his words based on his actions?

914

Yeah, I not sure that you are the best person to suggest others are being obtuse. I have yet to hear a response to the post I made quite a while ago and asked if you had read it two times afterwords. I don’t know why you think I should march to your drum while you ignore mine.
In any case, I answered your questions quite clearly eg. People follow what is written down all the time.

If they don’t believe in it or follow it, like you have suggested, then why not remove the sections that the fanatics use to justify their actions? Seems like a win win for everyone. Why don’t they do it if the words are ignored anyways (well, at least according to you)?

Puhlease! The only time religion is responsible is when people do the good things in its name. Like helping the poor, etc. When they do bad things, even when they quote the damned book directly, it is because of other factors. We’ve been through 19 or so pages now and you haven’t figure that out yet?!

915

We didn’t declare war on Nazism. We didn’t even declare war on Nazis, per se. We declared war on Germany.

But you knew that.

916

And this distinguishes Islam from Christianity how?

917

Moses and the Apostles* weren’t big on killing. God mostly did His own killing in Moses’ day (and **lots **of it - the Egyptian firstborn, worshippers of the Golden Calf, etc), and the Apostles mostly got themselves killed. There were of course these guys but I seem to recall that Jesus shut Simon down pretty quickly. Once Christians actually got into power and had armies at their disposal (thank you, Constantine) things kind of got out of hand. I blame Jesus for not coming back when he said he was going to.

*NOT a band name

918

You are exaggerating what I said to an absurdity, and then pretending I offered the absurdity. As a rhetorical tactic, its just about the only thing weaker than a strawman. My point was that people of all persuasions seldom follow every jot and tittle of their respective traditions. This is perfectly ordinary human type behavior, as common as navels.

If your comic book understanding of Islamic thought and Muslim piety were correct, then the streets of Hamburg and Dearborn would run red with blood every day. Since clearly they do not, you are most likely wrong.

As to your referenced link above, it conclusively proves that there are people who agree with you, can read and write, and have access to the internet. With all due awe, that is pretty much all that it proves. This does not surprise, it does not inform, how can it convince?

You are astonished that after all these pages of your crystalline logic, no one throws themselves at your feet blubbering praise for your insight and brilliance. There is a quite siimple reason for that, its because you are wrong.

919

Yeah, a real pacifist Moses was; taking offense because the genocide of the Midianites wasn’t complete enough for his tastes. But hey, at least he decided to let them keep the virgin girls to rape after they finished killing off the rest of the women.

920

But he only did it because God told him to, so really it’s God’s fault.

As much fun as this “Both religions have a long history of violent conquest but Islam is somehow worse because Mohammed himself did it” argument is, it’s getting a bit tired and remains totally irrelevant. Followers of any religion or cause have never had any problem using it as an excuse to do bad things (or indeed good things). Saying that “Yeah, but Mohammed did it and therefore his followers are more likely to do it too” has no basis in any form of reality.