Is it morally wrong to burn the Qur'an?

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14 Mar 2012, 3:51 pm

puddingmouse wrote:

However, I wouldn't burn it myself, because I care too much about Muslims as people to go about needlessly upsetting them.

What is the best way to diminish the power of this tome, then?

puddingmouse
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14 Mar 2012, 3:53 pm

^ I don't know, but burning it doesn't work.

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14 Mar 2012, 3:55 pm

puddingmouse wrote:

^ I don't know, but burning it doesn't work.

I suppose neither will using it as bog paper then.

TM
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14 Mar 2012, 4:42 pm

Tequila wrote:

puddingmouse wrote:

However, I wouldn't burn it myself, because I care too much about Muslims as people to go about needlessly upsetting them.

What is the best way to diminish the power of this tome, then?

The core problem is that the Religion of Peace has a tendency to become very un-peaceful very quickly when it's not groveled before. The problem is that the people who hold the tome very highly also have America by the balls in that America is addicted to their oil. What should be done is that the Politicians of the non-Muslim world got together with their Muslim brethren and had a discussion entitled "THIS IS NOT AN APPROPRIATE RESPONSE!!"

Chevand
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14 Mar 2012, 5:30 pm

TM wrote:

The problem is that the people who hold the tome very highly also have America by the balls in that America is addicted to their oil. What should be done is that the Politicians of the non-Muslim world got together with their Muslim brethren and had a discussion entitled "THIS IS NOT AN APPROPRIATE RESPONSE!!"

Or, you know, Western politicians could try seriously investing in alternative energy technologies, rather than deriding the concept of algae as a renewable source of fuel as crazy talk during political rallies.

So far as burning the Qu'ran is concerned, I don't see anything more immoral about it than burning a Bible or a copy of the Bhagavad Gita-- which is to say, it is a symbol, and it's important to recognize that sometimes people get so attached to their symbols that they react rather adversely to them being desecrated. It wouldn't be nice, but at least no one would get hurt if the focus of anger stayed in the symbols; burning an American flag, for example, doesn't really actually hurt anyone. But with a symbolic desecration like that, the anger often turns into violence. It would be prudent for anyone thinking about desecrating a religious text to really understand that before proceeding. It is, after all, an act meant to provoke, so it's only logical to factor the potential outcomes of such an action before taking it.

Just because you have the right to do something, doesn't mean it's a necessarily good thing to do.

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TM
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14 Mar 2012, 5:59 pm

Chevand wrote:

TM wrote:

Even if they go for alternate energy the very special "Just because Timmy set fire to your book you are not allowed to bomb the houses of people who look like him" episode of "World Politics" will have to air.

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14 Mar 2012, 6:07 pm

I don't like the idea of burning any book. And it is disrespectful to burn someone's religious book. That said, it isn't evil to burn a Qu'ran. But it is ill advised. That sort of antagonism is going to do nothing to diminish the fundamentalism. And it is fundamentalism which is dangerous, not any specific religion. We could do far more good, I think, by reaching out to the liberal Islamic groups (they do exist, they're just small at present).

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14 Mar 2012, 11:21 pm

AstroGeek wrote:

It's still dangerous because we won't take the kid gloves off while dealing with them. If we treated fundamenatalist muslims like we do fundamentalist christians in the USA, they would either start acting civilized or get a deserved beat down.

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14 Mar 2012, 11:22 pm

noname_ever wrote:

AstroGeek wrote:

Oh fundamentalists. A bunch of idiots who need to stage a mass suicide.

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14 Mar 2012, 11:34 pm

I find burning books to be morally wrong period, but I also accept that that's a personal moral choice, rather than a universal law.

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15 Mar 2012, 10:02 am

Tequila wrote:

Is it immoral? No.
Is it not a particularly educated way of making a point? Yes.
Is it chavvy? Yes.
Should it be illegal? NEVER!

Tequila and I are precisely ad idem on this topic.

In other news, Satan's building a snow fort.

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15 Mar 2012, 6:31 pm

I look at it this way: Whether or not the burning of a religious text is moral depends on the motivation of the person burning it.

For example, burning a Qur'an you own because you've parted ways with your former religion and wanted it to symbolize your new beginning? Moral.

Buying a Qur'an to put bacon bookmarks in it and burn it for the purpose of riling up Muslims? Immoral, not to mention a rather boorish means of self expression.

Should it be illegal? No. Should the people doing it have immunity from non-violent public criticism of the act? No.

The end.