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

Great Debates
1161

Hold on a moment; i’m confused. Was the Bible rewritten between then and now? I’m aware that of course there have been changes in language since then, but I didn’t realise that it had been comprehensively altered in such a fashion. After all, such a massive change in overall religious theory - from one in which going to war and murdering pretty much guaranteed you heavenwards bound on your death - can only be the result of a change in what prophets said. If not, why, that would be proof that the entirety of a religion could change without the words and actions of a prophet changing.

You mistake my point, I think. I suspect that, were I to ask those Islamic fanatics whether they were following the will of Mohammed, they’d say yes. But if I asked those Christian fanatics if they were following the will of Jesus, they, too, would say yes. If I asked both groups whether they were following their respective religious texts, they would both say yes.

If we presuppose that the Bible is much more peaceful and nice (which I would disagree with, but let’s accept it for the sake of argument), then the answer to your question is that clearly neither book is the worse of the two, given that fanatics will happily ignore or twist the precepts of those books in order to do what they want to. Logically I suppose the alternative is that Christians are inherently more bloodthirsty and unpleasant, since Christian fanatics are able to do all sorts of nasty things which supposedly aren’t Bible- or Jesus-based; or, perhaps, that Christians are inherently more dishonest and aren’t actually Christians at all. I don’t think i’d agree with either of those two last options.

1162

Jesus didn’t write the bible. When someone fanatically follows his actions and whatever writings associated with him they are left with a fairly simple message. It is a different message for the followers of Mohammad.

You choose to ignore the proportionality of violence in this discussion as if it has no bearing. It has everything to do with the argument. If only X number of one religion espouses violence and 1000X of another religion does then it is logical to look at the differences between them for clues as to why the numbers are radically different.

To start with, We know it’s a religious connection (and not someone belonging to the religion) when someone invokes God in the process. From there, we look at the codification that justifies such actions. Here we have a system of laws, written by Mohammad, that dictate a harsh response to blasphemy. This is followed by a prophet who acted on his own words.

It is logical that someone fanatically following Mohammad would emulate his rather severe view of non-believers.

1163

What they say isn’t relevant. What is true is. You could say that Dr. Seuss teaches people that killing is a good thing, but would that be true? Of course not. Anyone who supposes that it is and acts upon it would be wrong. Does Jesus say to kill people? Nope. Does Muhammad? Yep. Is a person who follows Jesus and kills people a hypocrite? Yep. Someone who follows Muhammad? Depends.

The OT is pretty bloodthirsty, but all three Judaic religions follow that book in its somewhat different forms. So, for the difference between Islam and Christianity, the only books to compare are the latter ones, the NT and the Quran (and their supporting documentation eg. the Hadiths for Islam). You’re telling me honestly that you can’t see the difference between them?

‘The cat is black’. A simple statement that means the color of the cat is most likely black. Now you, and everyone else, can believe it means anything you want it to mean, but it doesn’t make the cat any other color than black, now does it? And guys like Osama and the Islamic theocracies of the world are interpreting their religion as written and probably closer than those who gloss over the bad parts to get through their daily lives. Because the majority have (mis)interpreted (or more likely just ignored) the objectionable sayings in their book doesn’t make them none existent, or mean other than what they actually do mean.

Their book and prophet says to kill guys like me because I don’t believe in their delusion. I’m not a person of the book. That they mostly ignore those parts of their ‘holy’ book, I’m eternally grateful for. I feel sorry for those innocents who have to die because of those that don’t ignore it.

I already have previously. Which means that you haven’t read my cite then and I’m not bothering to post it again. Frankly, I’ve backed up my argument with citations and I’ve seen very little from the other side backing up their claims that both books are equal in the fluffy bunny department or even that people aren’t influenced by their religions for good or bad. I’m not entirely sure why I should spend anymore time on the matter.

1164

You haven’t quantified this, you don’t have numbers. You’re giving us an “everybody knows” data point, with nothing more behind it but your insistence that it is so.

1165

And Christianity also has a long history of conversion by the sword and the extermination of unbelievers. I live in a country that was founded on genocide and slavery in the name of Christ, by people who constantly used the Bible to justify their atrocities.

Does Islam encourage aggression against outsiders? Of course, that’s what monotheisms are like. But there’s nothing special about it; if you fear someone just because they have a religion that calls for the persecution of unbelievers and justifies their slaughter, you should be just as scared of Christians and Jews as you are of Muslims.

1166

Yes, because acts of violence are prevalent enough to make such an assertion. We can extrapolate what will happen if someone publicly blasphemes any given religion based on what has already transpired.

1167

Meaning, as a rule, nothing. People blaspheme Islam all the time outside of Islamic theocracies, and nothing happens. Cherry picking a few oddball cases or pretending that every time some nominally Islamic guy* gets angry it’s because of his alleged religion won’t change that. Meanwhile you ignore all the attempts by Christian and other non-Islamic fanatics to persecute unbelievers and write their religion into law, apparently because they don’t yell “Allah” while they do so.

  • Whose Islamicness may consist of having an “Islamic-sounding” name and saying “Allah” when he stubs his toe.
1168

That is statistically not true. Cartoonists are hiding for fear of their lives. Movie directors have been murdered and book writers threatened over their work. 10 doctors were recently murdered in Afghanistan because people thought they were trying to convert Muslims and 6 people were burned to death over the mere idea of burning a Koran. We spend billions on airport security. All of this is due to Islamic extremists.

1169

Why don’t you test your theory and make a public sculpture of Mohammad out of manure.

1170

It’s true - before 9/11 people could just swan onto airplanes carrying shotguns and chainsaws if they wanted.

1171

And doctors are murdered in America, gays are assaulted and murdered in America, Uganda is set to start an anti-homosexual genocide in the name of Christianity, AIDS is spreading in the name of the Christian war against condoms, and so on. And the entire American side of the Cold War with all its atrocities had a strong Christian holy war aspect; we were fighting godless Communism, which meant any evil we committed was automatically forgiven. The Iraq war also had a strong Christian crusader tinge.

And Christian extremists are just as brutal when they can get away with it. And airport security is more about security theater and harassing people the Bush Administration didn’t like than a serious effort against terrorism, Islamic or otherwise.

1172

If I did, I’d be more likely to be attacked by a Christian because of it than some Islamic guy.

1173

:rolleyes:

They are spending more money now than before BECAUSE of Islamic nutbars. Whether it is useful or not is another matter entirely. Stop being obtuse it doesn’t help your other arguments.

1174

Sure, because you live in a primarily Christian country. The bozo who wanted to burn the Quran was more likely to be hurt by Christians, too. And yet the only people hurt in this whole fiasco were ones by Muslims on the other side of the planet as indicated by Magiver.

1175

That statement makes no sense at all.

1176

My guess is that he trying to make the point that since before 9/11 people could not go on to airplanes carrying shotguns and chainsaws, we must have been spending something to prevent that. So you can’t attribute every dollar of the “billions” you mentioned, “all”, to Islamic extremists.

Either that or the cat was playing on his keyboard.

I did like his use of “swan” as a verb, though. Very nice.

1177

Really? Then you would be a believer of the alternatives I suggested; that Christian fanatics are either inherently more bloodthirsty or inherently more deceitful. Because there do seem to be Christian fanatics who espouse rather unpleasant views; if the message is so simple, how else would you explain the number of Christians who do not follow it and yet claim to?

To the contrary, i’d argue you’ve missed a trick as regards proportionality. It’s not simply proportionality of violence, but a lack of proportionality of tone of violence. That is to say, your argument as I understand it is that the Bible is generally a much more peaceful and pleasant text than the Koran; likewise from them our understanding of respective prophets. But that would only explain actual proportionality of tone of violence; that is to say, when the degree of violence espoused is different, we should expect that difference to reflect in their followers, but a difference in followers doesn’t follow when it’s not a degree of violence that’s different, but acts in and of themselves that are different.

To try and put it quantitatively, let’s imagine Jesus says that murder is ok under a strict set of circumstances. Mohammed says that murder is ok under half as stringent circumstances. Let’s presume followers are logical people, that the message is understood and agreed on by all concerned as that. We would expect that followers of Jesus would, generally speaking, commit half as many murders as followers of Mohammed; this, as I understand it, is bascially the point you’re making; proportionally speaking, Christian fanatics are generally less violent than Muslim fanatics, hence we can work backwards and guess that this is a result of the words and actions of their respective prophets. But - and you may have already noted the problem here - this requires that Jesus says murder is ok. But if we change the situation - to Jesus no longer saying murder is ok at all - we now have an inexplicable situation of there being Christian murderers. Where have they come from? Difference in tone doesn’t explain difference in acts. And if we are to accept that we cannot judge the actions of followers by actions of prophets, then the entire system comes into question - what if we’re talking correlation and not causation?

That’s actually incorrect. All we know from someone invoking a deity is that that person believes there to be a religious connection.

Alright, let’s do this. Fred Phelps invokes God. Let’s look at the codification that justifies such actions. Please, point out the sections of the Bible and/or Jesus’ words which condone, let’s say, the murder of gays, and acted on those words.

It is logical that someone fanatically following Jesus would emulate him, after all.

Only if they agree with your understanding. And, beyond that, i’m not sure i’d hold up your average fanatic as being particularly logical.

1178

You’re partially correct. What is relevant, in the end, is not what they say or what is true, but what they believe is true. And that belief is grounded in their understanding of their respective religions. Which, suprisingly enough, is not immutable nor objective. Look at us, disagreeing on this subject; doesn’t the fact that we’re having a debate at all prove that people have different interpretations of the world? Of course, you will say that what your understanding is accurate and true, but so would I. So where is the important part of interpretation - is it the world, or is it us?

Nonsense. Anything can teach anything. That’s the miracle of interpretation. You have someone who desperately believes something, as fanatics are wont to do, and they will see support for that in the most innocuous sources.

Only based on your interpretations. Some people apparently disagree. Whose word should I, as a non-reader of most of the Bible and Koran, take? Because I imagine fanatics claim they follow their religious texts and leaders pretty well, and would declare you to be wrong. Who do I trust has their interpretations right?

I haven’t read much of the Koran, in all honesty. I have read more of the Bible, but still a minor amount of the entirety of it. Generally what parts of the Koran I have read have taken the form of “Hey, look at these quotes that show how bad it is!” lists, of which I don’t see much difference between parts of the Bible and it, no.

1179

Really? How would you know that? I can certainly see bullying, both of Muslims and Christians, being performed as a result of that event.

1180

We are talking about the 6 people (Magiver’s statement) who were killed because of the Quran burning that never happened. I wonder how many would have been killed if it had actually occurred?