If I can’t burn your holy book without terrorism there’s a problem.
Why would you want to burn their holy book?
Because I support free speech. That means protecting speech I disagree with. If we only defend the speech we like, we no longer have a democracy.
I support free speech but this guy clearly is using his speech to start violence and I don’t have to pretend to be too dumb to notice that.
What do you mean “clearly… using his speech to start violence”? The only people starting violence are the people starting violence. There’s no restriction on free speech for hurt feelings. If we only allowed people to practise free speech when it could never offend anyone else, we’d all be silent all the time. The entire premise of the concept is that we can express ourselves when it offends others. That’s the whole point. Free speech arose as a central pillar of reason, science, and democracy during the Enlightenment when the Church would hang people for claiming the Earth wasn’t the centre of the universe. Can you see why it’s important that we allow people to dissent, disagree, and even antagonise one another?
A cute sentiment but not one based in reality.
I’m not allowed to visit Auschwitz dressed in Nazi uniform. I will have violence used against me.
I can’t slowly drive around a small town in 'Bama with a gay pride flag and a I VOTED FOR HILARY bumper sticker. I will have violence used against me.
I can’t enjoy a Cider at the Cider House wearing my Make America Great Again hat. I will have violence used against me.
In each instance I’m not hurting anyone, I’m just making those around me uncomfortable and anxious with my (to them) questionable views. Yet everyone can clearly see I’m looking for trouble, that the ‘speech’ has the unsaid addition of ‘I want to hurt you when I’m powerful enough’.
It’s easier to police the one person doing the antagonizing than it is to police the millions of people from the demographic they’re targeting, it’s inevitable that a few loons will take matters into their own hands.
There you go again with weak arguments that don’t compare to this.
Let’s try a different track: I’m asking you to to go to all of those places and do all of those actions. It’ll be more productive than either (good-faith) getting the conversation distracted responding to explain why those aren’t good points or (bad-faith) derailing things just for the fun of being contrarian.
If I can’t walk down the streets of Tel Aviv dressed like Hitler then there is a problem.
If I can’t drive through a small town in 'Bama with a ‘I VOTED FOR HILARY’ bumper sticker then there is a problem.
If I can’t go to a Portland Cider Bar wearing a Make America Great Again hat then there is a problem.
Jessie what the fuck are you talking about
Whataboutism
All around the world there is an issue with others violating some groups value system and then being met with violence. It’s not an issue exclusive to Muslims.
I think burning a book is not comparable to dressing like hitler
Whataboutism
You keep putting yourself into the position where you GO somewhere. Sure, don’t go to Israel if you’re a Nazi.
Don’t go to Alabama at all.
Don’t go to Portland as a supporter of fascism if you don’t want to be labeled as a fascist.
Don’t go to a 1st world country if you want to cut off people’s heads for burning books. Don’t go to places if you don’t support the principles they’ve carved out there. It’s not that hard.
Don’t burn holy books if you don’t want sectarian violence.
But of course the book burners do want violence, that’s the whole point.
Burning books doesn’t cause any physical harm to anyone. Someone that would hurt other people for burning books doesn’t deserve to live in a first world society. Whether it be the Bible, Quran, Torah, whatever. It doesn’t even matter if they’re baiting people into violence. They’re just proving that these individuals have those insane violent tendencies inside of them.
Imagine living in a world where you fear for your citizens because someone could kill them as a revenge for some burnt books.
Some Americans feel the same way about those who burn a flag.
I have just noticed Americans calling for the killing of Democrats because they dare waving a LGBTQ flag. They are literally the same kind of people they hate, extremist Muslims
The same can apply to them then.
I abhor any form of physical violence which I always find unjustifiable.
Emotional and psychological violence is just as bad and can do just as much harm.
You don’t even have to imagine. That’s the sad part.
How about stop letting certain groups have special treatment?
There is zero justification for going into some raging fit if someone burns a book. Yet all these left leaning European countries have tried to turn a blind eye or downplay every time one of these groups have assaulted or threatened someone.
Assimilate to a modern, 1st world culture, or go back to the stone age bullshit where you came from. You left whatever hellhole you came from because those countries are backwards-thinking conservative theocracies. Don’t you dare come to these western countries and try to impose your backwards thinking onto the native folks already there. You Assimilate to their culture, they aren’t going to walk on eggshells to appease your archaic religious nonsense. Fuck religion.
Fuck religion. you can pray to your sky God however you want but you don’t get to decide for others what they can or can’t do on their time
At some point we will just have to burn all the religious text and be done with it.
Burn every science book and eventually they’ll be exactly rewritten. Burn every religious story and they’re gone forever.
I wonder why they are so afraid of the religion of peace?
Yeah, all major religions are known for their very level-headed followers. No need to worry.
That didn’t really answer my question. Whataboutism.
it’s hardly whataboutism if your starting statement already alludes to the comparison.
Muslims allowing islam to be known as ‘the religion of peace’ is one of the biggest doublespeaky manipulations around. They’re technically correct, because they’re referring to this line from the quran: “There will be peace on earth when there is no more al-fitnah”. Al-fitnah means ‘disbelief’ so what they’re saying is, there WILL be peace on earth, once we’ve converted everyone to our religion (forcibly or otherwise).
I’m a bookworm, read voraciously, and as a sad lonely young teen who struggled to understand religious people, decided to read all the books. Hindu vedas; Christian old / new testament; Buddhist dhamapada; quran, and the hadith. Islam is an awful religion when taken literally, and the few islamic sects who are genuinely peaceful (eg ahmadi, sufi) are not even considered ‘real muslims’ by the more popular interpretations (eg sunni / shia / salafi).
Don’t rely on out-of-context quotes from dodgy rightwingers, don’t rely on out-of-context explanations from muslims seeking to proselytise and make excuses, EVERYONE should read it for themselves so you’re debating on solid ground with facts on your side. My absolute favourite line from these particular religious texts is when Mohammed says he wants another wife to his (iirc final wife) Aisha. Aisha says something like, you’ve already had the maximum number of wives; Mo falls into a trance then says, don’t worry, I just spoke to god and he says it’s fine. She replies “Oh, how your god rushes to fulfil your desires”. Even she knew it was a crock of shit.
It’s not the religion they’re worried about, it’s the adherents. And if you’re wondering why that is, there’s two towers in New York that used to be there and aren’t anymore.
Gotcha the ideas are perfect, it is the people who are wrong. Odd how often that is claimed
What? In what way did I claim that?
It’s not the religion they’re worried about, it’s the adherents.
Yes. The religion is abstract. It’s the people that are the problem. Are you worried about Mein Kampf or are you worried about Neo-Nazis?
@FlyingSquid @afraid_of_zombies
Some day soon I imagine the Christo-fascists will jail us all, then the neo-nazis will line us up against a wall.
Yeah and it’s not the gun I’m worried about, it’s the bullets
Same thing man, same thing. Control them both.
Neither guns nor bullets are abstractions. Very poor analogy.
Religious texts are just about the only books I support burning, especially if the intent is to piss off the morons that think the books are true.
How can I make a donation to buy more korans and kerosene for them?
I hope their counter-terror operations are successful and end with a deficit of bullets.
Removed by mod
They go and cry about muslim being intolerant yet they go and burn their sacred book which is considered the holiest thing for them.
Am I the only one seeing the problem here?
Genuinely unsure if satirical or not…
There’s millions of those “sacred books” being printed by machines. Just go buy another one. They’re dirt cheap too.
Its not like burning the quran is part of everyday life in society. More like they deliberate do it because they know its offensive for muslims, so its an obvious provocation disguised as freedom of expression. Im atheist btw and i despise religion in general, but sad to see reason being downvoted. Sorry i can’t back you up on the comment sections, i cant afford to be judged right now.
Thanks for your comment, glad to see some people are still reasonable.
I honestly don’t understand why you’re being downvoted. Book burning is probably one of the worst steps you can take towards being intolerant without directly harming people. There had to be so many more options that could’ve been taken that would’ve de-escalated the situation in a way that didn’t involve destruction.
I think it’s the fact that true tolerance would allow the burning of any book. Not all copies, not banning it from circulation, but the burning of an individual symbol as a means of expressing an idea is perfectly fine in most Americans’ view. I share that view, I understand the nuance of the situation at hand, I’m aware the quaran is a holy book and that it sends a strong message.
But so does burning the American flag, as a symbol, to show that America’s ideals and values are dead or do not apply for the people doing the burning. American flag burning was done with the intent to express that the symbol of freedom and equality that it was pushed as was not at all representative of the America those people were experiencing. America has a problem with nationalism, so much so they tossed “under god” in a “non-mandatory” (socially reinforced) pledge of allegiance you say every day before school starts all the way until you graduate. You can imagine burning the flag pissed those nationalists off too, but their vitriol and frustration is useless and unwarranted.
If you say the culture of Islam, or the culture of the people who see that book as their most holy symbol and use it to justify violence, is unwelcome in your nation, as an individual, that’s completely fine to me. I don’t love the blanket statement, but I do love that you can express it without fear of retaliation from your government and with the knowledge that you are as safe expressing that belief as you are expressing one more widely agreed upon.
If I disagree with you, I should debate you, i should seek to educate you, or be louder than you with my actions and words. That’s not the way of every place in the world, but it is the way of any civilized people. Any who condone violence in response, even provoked violence, are closer to animals than their fellow man.
I want to agree with you but I can’t. The world can’t run by true tolerance; at least not in this day and age. There are too many beliefs, cultures, and ideas that are being eroded away by people that spout hatred. Why? Just because they can? Just because they have the right?
If anything, the closest we can be is intolerant of the intolerant. The people that burned the books were an “anti-Islam activist group”. This sounds exactly like other hate groups like the proud boys, westboro baptist Church, the KKK, the EFF, Islamic extremists… These aren’t people that are celebrating their free speech. They are people that are practicing legal hostility as a tool to oppress others. I’d say hate speech is a good line to draw when allowing people to have public demonstrations.
You don’t believe in freedom of speech.
That’s a pretty broad statement.
You can’t go into an airport and shout “bomb” or use a bullhorn in a residential area at 3 AM without someone calling the cops on you and being detained. You can verbally harass someone to the point of being abusive or lie about someone to defame them but you can face repercussions for it. There’s a lot of lines that intersect with freedom of speech. Just because I’m drawing one at hate speech doesn’t mean I’m against freedom of speech.
Just because there is nuanced on the topic doesn’t mean that you were nuanced.
Is it freedom of speech to deliberately provoke an entire religion just because it is your “right”?
It is my freedom to call you all kind of horrible names and slurs, does it mean I have to do it?
Yes to the first and no to the second.
Is it freedom of speech to deliberately provoke an entire religion just because it is your “right”?
Yes. That is literally the entire premise: the right to say offensive things. The reason this is important is that everything we say is offensive to someone. If we operated under the principle that we may never offend anyone else, we would all have to be silent, all the time. Free speech is the basis for science and democracy, where saying things which offend people is a requirement. We must always be free to challenge the beliefs and values of others, or we’re no better than theocratic dictatorships.
How about we instead respect each other’s beliefs and live happy?
Respecting each other can do great stuff and it won’t prevent your from doing science.
Burning the American flag is a different ordeal. When you invade their country in the name of “freedom” don’t expect love and rose.
Imagine the reverse, Iraq invading the US over fake claims of “chemical weapons” and imposing their political regime and destroying your whole way of life, imposing the Shariah Law (just like the US imposed their view of freedom). Would you still hold the same views? I think not.
