Koran Needs To Be Flushed

[shecky]

The religion of tolerance has no tolerance for the other religion of tolerance.



If Newsweek reports this story, are they responsible for the violence that ensues?

 

[The idea]

The religion of tolerance has no tolerance for the other religion of tolerance.

I see your point. "Needs" is too strong a word. Perhaps the sign should have promoted freedom of choice to flush or not flush one's copy of the Koran.

If Newsweek reports this story, are they responsible for the violence that ensues?

Newsweek had better be careful. Someone in the Middle East might flush a copy of Newsweek, which would produce unimaginable consequences or something.

 

[Mephisto]

I may just agree . . .

. . . that the Koran needs to be flushed, but only if it's followed by the Bible.

Imagine a world with no religion (and NO, I've never really cared for John Lennon's song), we'd have to fall back on racial and cultural prejudice to kill each other.

 

[BPSCG]

Mrs. BPSCG heard about this on the radio this morning and commented, "This sounds like a 'What would Jesus do?' moment."

 

[athon]

I get pretty damned irritated by the subsequent 'intolerances' people feel are warranted when they see or hear a particular story about religion.

The Koran and the Bible are books. That's all. If somebody read Moby Dick and decided to hunt all whales, would you blame the book or the fool who decides to set out whale-killing? Throughout time, destruction of books in an effort to remove influence from a society has been not only suggested, but practiced. Normally in oppressive cultures and tyrannies.

I'm not religious by any stretch, but know a lot of people who do find various forms of comfort and interest in scriptures. Interpretation varies from purely sociological (like my own interests) to downright literal (woo-woos). Based on the extreme, why should we destroy or dismantle something of cultural (and debatably, intellectual) value?

Athon

 

[The idea]

The Koran and the Bible are books. That's all.

Of course they are books, but what does "that's all" mean? If you want to say what they are not, then you should specify what it is that they are not.

If somebody read Moby Dick and decided to hunt all whales, would you blame the book or the fool who decides to set out whale-killing?

You referred to the person as a fool, so it's a biased question. Question: if someone flushed a copy of Moby Dick down the toilet and a group of people responded by rioting, who would you blame for the riot?

Throughout time, destruction of books in an effort to remove influence from a society has been not only suggested, but practiced. Normally in oppressive cultures and tyrannies.

Are you comparing the symbolic "this belongs with pooh" treatment of one copy of a book with a scheme to remove all copies of a book from circulation?

Based on the extreme, why should we destroy or dismantle something of cultural (and debatably, intellectual) value?

Sometimes automobiles are destroyed in car crashes for movies. Do any of those automobiles have cultural value?

 

[rikzilla]

I get pretty damned irritated by the subsequent 'intolerances' people feel are warranted when they see or hear a particular story about religion.

The Koran and the Bible are books. That's all. If somebody read Moby Dick and decided to hunt all whales, would you blame the book or the fool who decides to set out whale-killing? Throughout time, destruction of books in an effort to remove influence from a society has been not only suggested, but practiced. Normally in oppressive cultures and tyrannies.

I'm not religious by any stretch, but know a lot of people who do find various forms of comfort and interest in scriptures. Interpretation varies from purely sociological (like my own interests) to downright literal (woo-woos). Based on the extreme, why should we destroy or dismantle something of cultural (and debatably, intellectual) value?

Athon

Maybe so Athon, but I've never heard of any nation which sanctioned capital punishment for flushing a copy of Moby Dick.

If religious tomes were "just books" instead of "sacred objects" we'd have gone a long way towards introducing the religious world to critical thought. Sadly we're a long, long way from that lofty goal. Hundreds of years from now the people who pray to inanimate objects will still outnumber rational thinkers by a huge margin.

-z

 

[BPSCG]

The Koran and the Bible are books.

Not exactly, at least not in the minds of Muslims. This is from a May 18 Wall Street Journal op-ed by Kenneth L. Woodward who was the religion editor at Newsweek for 38 years (link not available - requires paid subscription - was on page A14 of the dead tree edition):

The Quran is not "the Bible" of Muslims. It is infinitely more sacred than that. To use a Jewish analogy, it is more like the oral Torah first revealed on Mount Sinai which was later passed on orally through the prophets and eventually written down on scrolls for all to read. Whereas Christians regard the Bible as written by human beings inspired by God, Muslims regard the Quran -- the word means "The Recitation" -- as the very words of God, revealed aurally to the Prophet Muhammed in Arabic. To hear those words recited is, for Muslims, to hear Allah. If, for Christians, Jesus is the logos or eternal Word of God made flesh, the Quran is the Word of God made book, and every Arabic syllable in it lives as the breath of the divine.

In short, what Christ is for Christians the Quran (in Arabic) is for Muslims: the living Word of God made present in this world. Moreover, to recite the suras or verses of the Quran, as devout Muslims do, is to breathe in the very words of Allah. Thus, recitation of the Quran is for Muslims much like what receiving the Eucharist is for Catholics -- a very intimate ingestion of the divine itself. This, then, according to Newsweek's story -- now retracted and "regretted" by the magazine's editor -- is what some interrogators flushed down a toilet at Guantanamo Bay.

 

[Flo]

IThe Koran and the Bible are books. That's all.

To the religiously-minded, the coran, the bible, or any other scriptures or religious artifact is like the flag for a patriot: not just an object, but the embodiment of what they believe in and revere. Defiling the book, like defiling the flag is akin to defiling the subject of their veneration.

 

[The idea]

[...] like the flag for a patriot [...]

I suppose that if one feeds a dog at randomly chosen times and uses a national anthem as a signal that it is feeding time, then the dog becomes patriotic?

 

[Flo]

I suppose that if one feeds a dog at randomly chosen times and uses a national anthem as a signal that it is feeding time, then the dog becomes patriotic?

I've met quite a few patriots in a number of countries who were obviously trained by this method

 

[athon]

I was not very clear. That's what you get when you try to post in between lessons.

Of course they are books, but what does "that's all" mean? If you want to say what they are not, then you should specify what it is that they are not.

The texts themselves are just books. Meaning is ascribed to them, and that meaning varies depending on the person reading it. The meaning ascribed to them is where the values come from, and that itself varies depending on the individual who refers to it; if somebody burns the books, they are attempting to attack the interpretation of the material. And in cases such as these, where people advocate the destruction of a text, it is narrow to think it is simply an attack on the extremists.

Extremists are just one group of people who find a value in it. It would be like burning Mein Kampf because Neo Nazi's use it to justify their violence. The book itself has other values, and burning it offends all of them.

Maybe I just like books too much.

Question: if someone flushed a copy of Moby Dick down the toilet and a group of people responded by rioting, who would you blame for the riot?

The people who riot. Who's responsible for creating an incentive for them to riot (whether justified or not); the person who flushed it. Who do I think is being unreasonable? Both. Those who riot for placing such passionate belief in a text, and the man for flushing it for feeling the text itself is the cause of the extremism, and flushing it is a demonstration of that belief.

Are you comparing the symbolic "this belongs with pooh" treatment of one copy of a book with a scheme to remove all copies of a book from circulation?

Symblically, yes. Burning all books says 'Nobody should believe this stuff, as it is responsible for bad things'. Flushing one book says 'Nobody should believe this stuff, as it is responsible for bad things'. Essentially, the same statement is being made.

Sometimes automobiles are destroyed in car crashes for movies. Do any of those automobiles have cultural value?

Up until now, I thought you had some valid statements. Perhaps I just can't see what you're getting at with this one.

Athon

 

[sackett]

Heap juju long dispella Koran

. . . . [a] religious artifact is like the flag for a patriot: not just an object, but the embodiment of what they believe in and revere. . . . [/B]

Thank you for putting it so pithily, Flo. My bolding for emphasis.

People just can’t keep from pumping mana into their cult objects. Islam is one of the more abstract religions (you can’t say “intellectual”), and yet: the famous Black Stone is such a potent idol that it’s solemnly believed to be suspended in mid-air; any Quran is a magical link to Yehoovau Himself; icons of the Prophet’s ear-pick are included in the costliest of manuscripts (I’m not making that up, goddammit! I saw several of them in a show at the Detroit Institute of Arts some years back); you haven’t completed your haj until you’ve stoned the Devil in Mecca; and so on, depressingly. And Islam isn’t as mojo-laden as most cults.

Bah. You see why I equate religion with superstition? Show me a practical difference between the two.

 

[athon]

Maybe so Athon, but I've never heard of any nation which sanctioned capital punishment for flushing a copy of Moby Dick.

I agree, and maybe my point wasn't clear. The book itself is just a collection of words. The meaning attributed to those words varies, depending on the individual and the culture. Burning it or flushing it is insane, as it makes a judgement on the material in that book. It says 'this book is so bad, it should be destroyed'. I think there is a subtle difference between that and saying 'following this book as if it is infallible is bad'.

Athon

 

[athon]

To the religiously-minded, the coran, the bible, or any other scriptures or religious artifact is like the flag for a patriot: not just an object, but the embodiment of what they believe in and revere. Defiling the book, like defiling the flag is akin to defiling the subject of their veneration.

True. But it's just as infuriating to me when somebody burns a flag because the government upsets them. The flag is a lot of things to a lot of different people. It's just a flag, really. It does not 'make' people follow it, and burning it as a statement against extreme nationalism (the closest I can come to a parallel between that and burning a scripture in protest against extremist religion) is a naive and pointless action. You're not just poking offense at the extremists, but anybody who feels the flag has some value.

Athon

 

[Flo]

Re: Heap juju long dispella Koran

Bah. You see why I equate religion with superstition? Show me a practical difference between the two.

Better costumes ?

 

[CBL4]

If you are a Christian, the Koran is a blasphemous book about a false prophet. It leads millions of people away from the "true" god and dooms them for eternity. As such, it is only worth of being flushed. (This is a paraphrasing of pastor of the church.)

If you are a Muslim, the Bible is a blasphemous book about a false prophet. It leads millions of people away from the "true" god and dooms them for eternity. As such, it is only worth of being flushed.

If you are religious, it seems to me that you should be intolerant of other (blasphemous) religions and their (blasphemous) texts. Otherwise, you are tolerating an evil which dooms souls.

CBL

 

[skepticality]

Imagine a world with no religion (and NO, I've never really cared for John Lennon's song), we'd have to fall back on racial and cultural prejudice to kill each other.

Yea, maybe... But I see that most arguments made to generate racial prejudice are backed using religion, if they are to grow to a large enough base to generate the teeth of war...

 

[Flo]

True. But it's just as infuriating to me when somebody burns a flag because the government upsets them. The flag is a lot of things to a lot of different people. It's just a flag, really. It does not 'make' people follow it, and burning it as a statement against extreme nationalism (the closest I can come to a parallel between that and burning a scripture in protest against extremist religion) is a naive and pointless action. You're not just poking offense at the extremists, but anybody who feels the flag has some value.

The problem is that most of the time, flags and religious books are not destroyed in protest against extremism: it is mostly done as an insult towards one's real or perceived ennemies. This is why the sillyness of the act itself is not recognised for what it is, an empty gesture against a mere object. And this is why it is inexcusable to do it in a situation where you know it will infuriate lots of otherwise "neutral" people, especially when you're preaching righteous, democratic, and respectful values ... *


* and before I'm accused of America-bashing, read my sig.