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Time for an old fashioned book burnin'

I know its only Bibles but there's something about book burning that repulses me.
 
Hux said:
I know its only Bibles but there's something about book burning that repulses me.
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Unfortunately, not just bibles. Even works by various christians they disagree with, like Mother Teresa. Book burning is a pretty fundamentally repulsive act.

A
 
Wow. Intolerance.

Remember folks, as intolerant as these people are to other "religions", they're probably the first to scream if their rights are infringed upon.

Religion is SCARY.

Monster
 
Andrew Wiggin said:
Book burning is a pretty fundamentally repulsive act.
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I agree. Although it does no real harm, I've always been viscerally opposed to book burning or banning. It shows a disrespect for ideas and education, and for the market of ideas that I so love in America.
To me, book burning feels much the same as flag burning.
 
maddog said:
Seriously - if these were magazines, we would all say "so what?" - the binding into books shouldn't make any difference.
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You're totally right of course. My feelings toward the humble book are entirely irrational. Sure there's good reason to venerate the knowledge and culture preserved within its pages but my love of the book itself is far far more than that. For me a book is like how I imagine the crucifix is to a Christian or the star of David to a Jew. It's not about what it is, paper bound and covered, or even what it symbolizes but what it becomes by acting as that symbol.

Perhaps a Christian can explain if I'm right. Is a crucifix simply jewellery or even just a declaration of your faith, or does it become something more? Is it a metaphor for your deity choosing to walk a mile in your shoes and then make the ultimate sacrifice for you? Is it more than just a symbol or representation of that concept? Does it in fact embody it? Because that's how I feel about books. It's not rational, it's a feeling.

For me a book even one as lowly as a Dan Brown sequel-by-numbers embodies more than it actually is. First it represents one of the greatest achievements of mankind: the ability to preserve our cultural inheritance in written language. Then it transcends representation and becomes the embodiment. It's not just the tale of a handsome-professor-dashing-between-historical-monuments-in-wide-eyed-amazement-at-the-world's-occult-machinations-revealed-by-a-series of clues-only-he-can-resolve-to-save-the-world-from-evil-and-get-the-girl. It is every tale: the awful and the inspirational; every discovery and theory: the revolutionary and the duds. It is the very ability of mankind to record this information and hand it down to the hundreds of generations as yet unimagined and unborn. It's not just a book, it's a single expression of the book. The book is what allowed Newton to "Stand on the Shoulders of Giants." The book is why there are now almost enough doctors and why they're getting better at what they do. The Book is arguably the greatest accomplishment of mankind. It is, for the person who considers mankind to be represented by the sum of our knowledge and experience no less than the afterlife itself.

I know that's stupid and irrational really. When I find that my wife has steamed her Stephen King novel from reading in the bath, when she folds the spine back on itself or folds the corner of a page down to mark her place, I wince. I really do and we get into the daftest rows about it. I know that as an individual book it's not a unique and irreplaceable cultural expression. It's a best-seller for goodness sake. There are hundreds of thousands if not millions of extant copies in hardback, paperback and probably digital too. One of the great properties of information as represented by the book is its abiding nature beyond any individual expression. That's what made the printing press such a treasured invention. In the case of a Stephen King novel it'd be one of the most difficult pieces of information to lose from the tree of human knowledge that there is. Yet the way I was brought up was with reverence for all books. That means care for each and every one. When you harm one book, you're disrespecting the book.

The doozy of it is, the missus has just as much love for books as I have, perhaps more: the weight in her hand, that tactile progression through the pages that won't let you abandon a book when there's too little left in your right hand, book smell, all of those wondrous sensuous things that us bibliophiles will wax lyrical about. Yet she looks to a books history rather than its future. She was brought up just slightly differently. To her, a well thumbed tome that falls open at treasured chapters does far more to warm her heart than a pristine book that shows no sign of having left the shelf. Perhaps she's right and I do books a disservice by wrapping them in cotton wool, perhaps I ignore and insult their treasured qualities of endurance. But that's a rational argument and the way I feel about books is not rational, it's emotional. It's love and only emotional arguments apply. Here books lose out not because my wife is right but simply because I love her more.

There can't be logic or rationale behind such feelings. Why are bound volumes the subject of such bibliophilic ardour when in truth the most profound advances in human knowledge appear first in periodicals? I've honestly no idea. It can only be for some irrational aesthetic. I'm sure many of you will cherish the same concept: valuing our ability to record information. Some will even see how a solitary book can be representational of that concept but won't feel the same passionate hurt that I feel when someone desecrates the embodiment of what I hold to be sacred. After all when these individual books are gone, the knowledge they contain still exists elsewhere. If they were burning unique items like the last copy or the original manuscript then we'd see some more outrage from the rationalists. Actual information would be lost. But even though that's not what's happening, this book burning is indeed intended to be a metaphor for exactly that. The harm done isn't real, the book, is still the book and I can still love and enjoy it every bit as much. It's a metaphorical harm: just a construct of the mind. In Pastor Grizzard's mind and in my mind he's metaphorically destroying information that challenges his beliefs. That he wants to do that rather than respond to the challenge; that he wants the world to know his intent hurts me emotionally. No rational real world harm, just the emotions associated with knowing someone despises your feelings and wants you to know it.

The same can be said of desecrating a holy symbol. Even if a crucifix is the embodiment of the life and sacrifice of Jesus, that life, that sacrifice is unchanged by the desecration of the symbol.

These are, after all irrational feelings. If we chose to take offence at someone sticking a rusty nail through a communion wafer (which has magically become the body of our deity) or emptying their coffee grounds over the Koran, (divine guidance expressed in the most beautiful form of words ever to grace our language) or burning books (the embodiment of humankind's ability to preserve our cultural inheritance) then perhaps we deserve to be insulted for believing such a pretentious load of claptrap about simple mundane arrangements of carbohydrates. When someone desecrates a holy symbol, perhaps in truth, it's just a fracking cracker, or it's just a statuette or piece of wood. But that desecration is also an act conceived and carried out as an insult to those who hold these things to be sacred. We are emotionally hurt by these affronts as the perpetrator fully intends.

Perhaps the fact that my feelings on this matter are not rational opinions means they deserve no respect. Perhaps the only arguments that would convince you otherwise are emotional rather than rational and would be equally disregarded. I can only hope not.

And yeah at the end of the day I'm a rationalist too. I blink and I see the rational argument and it dominates my decisions as and actions. I think, so what, another person on the other side of the world who hates and disrespects the honest upstanding life I wish to bring my children into. Big hairy deal! There's plenty more where he came from and there always will be. No real harm done. Ignore him. Deprive him of the attention he craves. Pity him. Get on with your life.

But those emotions do not then become unfelt. Whilst they may be ultimately disregarded I did feel them. They exist, they are real.

And it's not just that Pastor Grizzard's flock are oblivious to the fact that some of us feel books in general to be a sacred embodiment of the book: one of mankind's greatest achievements. They know full well at the very least that the bibles they're burning are held to be sacred by billions more Christians than the few romantic bibliophile humanists who feel the way I do. They know full well that they're offending people's cherished feelings. They know and they just don't care.

The lesson here is not that religious faith can blind us to the insult we cause our fellow man, it's that free BBQ chicken and the support of a peer group as small as fifteen people is usually enough to do that on its own. Perhaps they just need a few more books...
 
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[FONT=&quot]I find these book burning events to be such a reprehensible, ignorant, narrow-minded, sickening, and… wait... a free chicken bar-b-que?? Oh, I am SO there!!! :p
[/FONT]
 
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I don't think those bibles are gonna stay alight, perhaps we should kindle them with some Dan Brown.
 
AvalonXQ said:
I agree. Although it does no real harm, I've always been viscerally opposed to book burning or banning. It shows a disrespect for ideas and education, and for the market of ideas that I so love in America.
To me, book burning feels much the same as flag burning.
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Heh. The last Cub Scout camping trip my son and I went on, two weeks ago, there was a flag burning ceremony. It was actually kinda cool. And, I couldn't wait to get back to my far right friends to see the expressions on their faces when I told them I attended a flag burning over the weekend.

Good times.
 
madurobob said:
Heh. The last Cub Scout camping trip my son and I went on, two weeks ago, there was a flag burning ceremony. It was actually kinda cool. And, I couldn't wait to get back to my far right friends to see the expressions on their faces when I told them I attended a flag burning over the weekend.

Good times.
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Yeah, the use of cremation or burial to retire a flag is exactly the opposite of what we're talking about. But I think you knew that. :)
 
ponderingturtle said:
BUt would cremation be an apropriate end for worn out books?
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I've never thought of that. I'd expect it would be possible to "retire" old and honored books respectfully in the same way we do flags.
But, honestly, it seems over-the-top. We (for some value of "we" that includes me and other patriots I know) treat the American flag with far greater care and respect than books in general. I toss my books on the floor, for instance.
 
AvalonXQ said:
Yeah, the use of cremation or burial to retire a flag is exactly the opposite of what we're talking about. But I think you knew that. :)
Click to expand...

Of course I did, but you might be surprised how many people have no idea that a flag burning ceremony like that even exists.

But, underlying that, there is an interesting point to make. I'm against burning books on the grounds that reading and having something to read are wonderful things. Those books could be of use to somebody!

The same can be said for flags. Some of them are HUGE and made out of very durable material that could be put to many good uses. Why burn them or otherwise destroy them?

I know the reason for burning them is quite different. Burning books is so people won't be able to access those words; its stifling of ideas. Burning of flags is intended as a reverent way to dispose of those flags that become too worn to be used as flags anymore. But, the (perhaps not too well thought out) reason I have for opposing book burning might just as well be applied to flags.
 
madurobob said:
I know the reason for burning them is quite different. Burning books is so people won't be able to access those words; its stifling of ideas.
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I don't really think that's what it's about, not anymore. I don't think these people actually think that putting a few copies of the NIV on the fire are going to restrict knowledge of the NIV. This is a symbolic gesture, not a practical one.
 
Ocelot said:
You're totally right of course. My feelings toward the humble book are entirely irrational. Sure there's good reason to venerate the knowledge and culture preserved within its pages but my love of the book itself is far far more than that. For me a book is like how I imagine the crucifix is to a Christian or the star of David to a Jew. It's not about what it is, paper bound and covered, or even what it symbolizes but what it becomes by acting as that symbol.

Perhaps a Christian can explain if I'm right. Is a crucifix simply jewellery or even just a declaration of your faith, or does it become something more? Is it a metaphor for your deity choosing to walk a mile in your shoes and then make the ultimate sacrifice for you? Is it more than just a symbol or representation of that concept? Does it in fact embody it? Because that's how I feel about books. It's not rational, it's a feeling.

For me a book even one as lowly as a Dan Brown sequel-by-numbers embodies more than it actually is. First it represents one of the greatest achievements of mankind: the ability to preserve our cultural inheritance in written language. Then it transcends representation and becomes the embodiment. It's not just the tale of a handsome-professor-dashing-between-historical-monuments-in-wide-eyed-amazement-at-the-world's-occult-machinations-revealed-by-a-series of clues-only-he-can-resolve-to-save-the-world-from-evil-and-get-the-girl. It is every tale: the awful and the inspirational; every discovery and theory: the revolutionary and the duds. It is the very ability of mankind to record this information and hand it down to the hundreds of generations as yet unimagined and unborn. It's not just a book, it's a single expression of the book. The book is what allowed Newton to "Stand on the Shoulders of Giants." The book is why there are now almost enough doctors and why they're getting better at what they do. The Book is arguably the greatest accomplishment of mankind. It is, for the person who considers mankind to be represented by the sum of our knowledge and experience no less than the afterlife itself.

I know that's stupid and irrational really. When I find that my wife has steamed her Stephen King novel from reading in the bath, when she folds the spine back on itself or folds the corner of a page down to mark her place, I wince. I really do and we get into the daftest rows about it. I know that as an individual book it's not a unique and irreplaceable cultural expression. It's a best-seller for goodness sake. There are hundreds of thousands if not millions of extant copies in hardback, paperback and probably digital too. One of the great properties of information as represented by the book is its abiding nature beyond any individual expression. That's what made the printing press such a treasured invention. In the case of a Stephen King novel it'd be one of the most difficult pieces of information to lose from the tree of human knowledge that there is. Yet the way I was brought up was with reverence for all books. That means care for each and every one. When you harm one book, you're disrespecting the book.

The doozy of it is, the missus has just as much love for books as I have, perhaps more: the weight in her hand, that tactile progression through the pages that won't let you abandon a book when there's too little left in your right hand, book smell, all of those wondrous sensuous things that us bibliophiles will wax lyrical about. Yet she looks to a books history rather than its future. She was brought up just slightly differently. To her, a well thumbed tome that falls open at treasured chapters does far more to warm her heart than a pristine book that shows no sign of having left the shelf. Perhaps she's right and I do books a disservice by wrapping them in cotton wool, perhaps I ignore and insult their treasured qualities of endurance. But that's a rational argument and the way I feel about books is not rational, it's emotional. It's love and only emotional arguments apply. Here books lose out not because my wife is right but simply because I love her more.

There can't be logic or rationale behind such feelings. Why are bound volumes the subject of such bibliophilic ardour when in truth the most profound advances in human knowledge appear first in periodicals? I've honestly no idea. It can only be for some irrational aesthetic. I'm sure many of you will cherish the same concept: valuing our ability to record information. Some will even see how a solitary book can be representational of that concept but won't feel the same passionate hurt that I feel when someone desecrates the embodiment of what I hold to be sacred. After all when these individual books are gone, the knowledge they contain still exists elsewhere. If they were burning unique items like the last copy or the original manuscript then we'd see some more outrage from the rationalists. Actual information would be lost. But even though that's not what's happening, this book burning is indeed intended to be a metaphor for exactly that. The harm done isn't real, the book, is still the book and I can still love and enjoy it every bit as much. It's a metaphorical harm: just a construct of the mind. In Pastor Grizzard's mind and in my mind he's metaphorically destroying information that challenges his beliefs. That he wants to do that rather than respond to the challenge; that he wants the world to know his intent hurts me emotionally. No rational real world harm, just the emotions associated with knowing someone despises your feelings and wants you to know it.

The same can be said of desecrating a holy symbol. Even if a crucifix is the embodiment of the life and sacrifice of Jesus, that life, that sacrifice is unchanged by the desecration of the symbol.

These are, after all irrational feelings. If we chose to take offence at someone sticking a rusty nail through a communion wafer (which has magically become the body of our deity) or emptying their coffee grounds over the Koran, (divine guidance expressed in the most beautiful form of words ever to grace our language) or burning books (the embodiment of humankind's ability to preserve our cultural inheritance) then perhaps we deserve to be insulted for believing such a pretentious load of claptrap about simple mundane arrangements of carbohydrates. When someone desecrates a holy symbol, perhaps in truth, it's just a fracking cracker, or it's just a statuette or piece of wood. But that desecration is also an act conceived and carried out as an insult to those who hold these things to be sacred. We are emotionally hurt by these affronts as the perpetrator fully intends.

Perhaps the fact that my feelings on this matter are not rational opinions means they deserve no respect. Perhaps the only arguments that would convince you otherwise are emotional rather than rational and would be equally disregarded. I can only hope not.

And yeah at the end of the day I'm a rationalist too. I blink and I see the rational argument and it dominates my decisions as and actions. I think, so what, another person on the other side of the world who hates and disrespects the honest upstanding life I wish to bring my children into. Big hairy deal! There's plenty more where he came from and there always will be. No real harm done. Ignore him. Deprive him of the attention he craves. Pity him. Get on with your life.

But those emotions do not then become unfelt. Whilst they may be ultimately disregarded I did feel them. They exist, they are real.

And it's not just that Pastor Grizzard's flock are oblivious to the fact that some of us feel books in general to be a sacred embodiment of the book: one of mankind's greatest achievements. They know full well at the very least that the bibles they're burning are held to be sacred by billions more Christians than the few romantic bibliophile humanists who feel the way I do. They know full well that they're offending people's cherished feelings. They know and they just don't care.

The lesson here is not that religious faith can blind us to the insult we cause our fellow man, it's that free BBQ chicken and the support of a peer group as small as fifteen people is usually enough to do that on its own. Perhaps they just need a few more books...
Click to expand...

This.
 
AvalonXQ said:
I don't really think that's what it's about, not anymore. I don't think these people actually think that putting a few copies of the NIV on the fire are going to restrict knowledge of the NIV. This is a symbolic gesture, not a practical one.
Click to expand...

Right, but its symbolic of the stifling of ideas. These words are dirty and no-one should read them. That's exactly what the preacher in the OP has in mind - the words are the work of the devil and should be destroyed.
 
Gah. I keep trying to sell the idea that the southern U.S. (where I grew up, and a part of the country that I truly love) is not really the stronghold of crazies, creeps and kooks, and people like this keep turning up.

All I can say is, thank God for Idaho and Montana! :p
 
I remember when I was in Kindergarten and the School Librarian showed us one of those filmstrips that were de riguer back in the pre-VCR days, where the teacher puts on a record and gets one of the students to advance the filmstrip frame-by-frame when they hear the BOOP. It was all about how books are your friends, they take you places and teach you things and expand your world. It was narrated by a book with a friendly voice.

Ever since then I cringe at seeing anyone damage a book, even a crappy book or one with horrific ideas. It's like they are hurting my friend. My dad once got me a second copy of some kids biography of Harriet Tubman so I could cut out the illustrations of the first one to use as the cover of the book report. I sobbed when I saw him cutting the pages. And Ocelot's reaction to his wife's mistreatment of books is so familiar to me. Finding books propped open face down on the floor has been the source of more than one screaming fight in our relationship, and believe me, it has nothing to do with the tidiness factor.

"Use a bookmark!"
"It's my damn book, I'll do what I want with it."

Sigh.
 
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