Is it morally wrong to burn the Qur'an?

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I would argue that under the threat of violent response, that burning a symbol such as the Quran is a morally good act. It is a statement of freedom from oppression, and shows that you are not willing to be cowed by the irresponsible and morally corrupt actions of others.

Burn them, I say. And burn them all the more when it threatens you the most. Do not be obedient, do not bow before tyranny.

How is burning paper a terrible act? That is ludicrous.

It is a book. If I own the book, and choose to destroy the book, I have done nothing immoral, wrong, despicable or terrible. I burnt some damn paper...

But if a group of people threaten you or others with tyranny, the ONLY morally justifiable thing to do it defy them. They threaten to injury me if I burn a book, I burn the book. They threaten to injury me if I draw pictures of some long dead “prophet” guy? I draw pictures. They threaten to injure me for any reason that gives them the power of oppression, I will do it. They can go #^@% themselves.

To do otherwise is to bow to them, cow to them, accept them as your inevitable masters.

I am no slave …are you?

Since the threat of violence is considered violence under the law (it puts the threatened person in fear of his life or fear of injury) there is not such thing as non-violent Muslim protest. All Mulim protest are either outright violent or threaten violence and call for killing or injury. Look what happened when the Danish newspaper carried lampoon cartoons of the Prophet (pus and blisters upon him).

ruveyn

It’s not really much of a straw man… a book is primarily made of paper. It usually has some ink, and some sort of binding of the paper.

If you owned my flesh then you in fact could cook me…but unfortunately for your cannibalistic tastes I am not for sale at your local grocer.



I didn’t really change the terms, so much as clarified the case. The legal status of ownership was not something I had previously mentioned, as that wasn’t really even a part of the question. But I figured since you decided to enter into a formal style challenge to my not so formally written initial post that I would be very concise and specific for your benefit. Much to your distaste, it seems. The point of establishing legal ownership was to remove destruction of another person’s property from the equation, since as far as I can tell, that is not the point of the question. The terms are the same, just clarified for preciseness.

Philistine? really? I don’t live circa 1500 BC. (But seriously, I have 3 degrees...and highly value scientific method, sciences in general, reason, logic, and quite a few lines of programming code) And I recognize no book as holy. A book is a book. Ad hominem much?



Ad hominem again. Don’t get angry friend. We are allowed to disagree respectably. But this isn’t about book burning. This is about whether it is morally wrong to burn the Quran. I think you are missing the subtle difference…But even in general, burning books is not morally wrong, it is as morally wrong as burning paper. (That’s not a straw man, I’ll explain…) The ONLY argument about it is burning of a wood product, depletion/waste of a finite resource and pollution. Burn a pile of paper, burn the Quran, same moral impact. I think the statement that this particular book’s fire makes is worth the cost, however.

Besides, I AM fighting for freedom. You don’t know what I do with my time. And that random accusation is just laughable considering I gave up years for my country, the USA, land of the free, defending the constitution. I have bled for this country. Don’t even begin to tell me what I am or am not fighting for. I will lay down my life to defend freedom. I’ve come close to doing just that more than once…and when I see the reaction of Islamic people, regardless of nation, to the burning of a Quran. I am incited. Threaten death for the burning of a book? That IS terrorism. It is the use of fear as a weapon to get you to do as they want. It is the very definition of tyranny. NO. It must be fought at every level with every power we have. Even if that power is a bit of lighter fluid, a “holy” text, and a match.

And the specific nature of burning a Quran, the only reason to do it besides heat generation that comes to mind is for the symbolic nature of it. It is the symbolic nature of the act I am arguing is a morally just act in the circumstance that it incites a would be oppressor/tyrant/dictator. Mock them for their intolerance and violent nature, mock them for their childish outburst and lack of respect for the sanctity of life.


Not really…if you cow to intimidation you are meek and will be ruled by tyranny. The ONLY reason you might be spared is because your neighbors and countrymen take the burden of standing up against it so you don’t have to. If no one does, oppression will dominate.

It is overused because the full discourse is long. I’ll elaborate briefly, for your benefit, in hope that you are not simply trying to win some points and are talking with me to the effort of reaching a mutual level of understanding.

When someone or a group of some ones uses a threat of violence to coerce you into acting in a way they desire, and you do what they want to avoid that possibility of violence, those people have started to control your actions. The more you give in to these demands, the further compromised you become and the further under their command you become. They tell you to obey, and you obey, you are theirs. You are a slave to those who command your actions.

It is not a very hard to imagine transition, and in this particular case, the threat of violence is being directed at our freedom of speech/expression/recreational paper burning…

I don’t feel that is something that is acceptable to compromise. Ever. (Ever)

The ONLY way to truly fight against this type of oppression is to be emboldened to act in opposition to it. If there is another way that you find effective, by all means, share it with the class.

I think it's not morally wrong to burn the Qur'an if it's not morally wrong to burn the Bible or any other religious scripture.

But personally, I thought it was very dangerous. Because burning the Qur'an makes me think of other events that have happened in the past. It sends out the wrong signals, I guess. It's that whole debate about islamic terrorism.

Burning the Qur'an, to me, is like restricting someone's freedom to speak. They didn't just burn it to have some fun.

Well, it depends on who burns what books.

Oh wait, there is even a quote on this. "Wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen.” - "Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings."

Starry-eyed naivete aside,
has it occurred to you that those who would commit murder over the burning of paper aren't by nature susceptible to attempts at reason?

I do not agree with the burning of the Quran and besides burning religious texts books can create other problems as well remmber the nazis burned the torah and everything that was jewish literature so not its not right those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

It seems odd to me that anyone would even question whether it is wrong to burn the book or not.

It's not even about whether it is "morally wrong". I don't care about moral. What I care about is what effect does the burning of the book have? What signals are they sending out by doing that? And it's definitely not a positive one. To me, this reads as, "Look at us, we've got the Muslim man under control because we can burn their holy scripture". It really just means to me, "We can do even more".

^

I think questions about power underpin this whole debate.

I think people who think it's wrong see power located in the hands of the book burners. To them, it's a case of the majority, or the West, oppressing its Muslim minority.

People like NarcissusSavage see would-be power located in the hands of Islam as a whole. To him the act of book burning is a swipe at a faith that sees itself as having a mandate to react with violence towards those who oppose it. If only the act was obviously an attack on the whole ideology of Islam and people didn't personalise this matter, then I would agree with NarcissusSavage.

The problem is that the act is perceived by the majority of people as being an attack on a less powerful minority. Tbh, most people burning the Qur'an mean it that way, particularly, I suspect, the EDL.

Dunno about morally wrong. But doing it in afghanistan is a dick move.

So in other words, "civilize them with a Krag"?

What is a Krag?

ruveyn

The Krag-Jørgensen rifle, cal. .30-40 Krag. It was the standard infantry rifle for the U.S. Army during the Spanish-American and Phillipine American wars. The quote was taken from a period song that described "civilizing" the Moro insurgents (who were mostly Muslim) with a bullet.

In other words, were you hinting that Muslims can only be dealt with through violence?

I thought that Colt Inc invented the .45 automatic to do that. It sort of worked. A .45 slug takes care of a Crazy Warrior high on hashish and the expectation of 72 virgins in paradise.

Aren't bullets wonderful? They are so much more effective than arguments and fancy principles.

ruveyn

You're thinking of the Colt Single Action Army. The M1911 never saw service in the Phillipines, despite apocryphal statements to the contrary.



Maybe so, but I prefer to make an attempt at diplomacy first. Shooting someone just for threatening you is considered insufficient grounds for self defense under many jurisdictions.