Insane Guest

I doubt anyone will stop him, and he'll go through with it, he has the right to do it, not saying it's right, but we just have to wait and see what happens.

Odyshape

Within the christian religion there is nothing that says people of the christian faith must be tolerant of other religions. The way it looks to me is its a superstitious person getting angry at other people for holding superstitions and endangering others in the process.

mr dave

the faith may not say it has to be tolerant of other religions but the LAW of the land most certainly does.

it's not a matter of superstitions, it's a matter of gross ignorance and disrespect.

@ xEMGx - it is NOT within his rights to spread hate, to condemn others based on belief, or to incite hate towards a particular group. what would have this proposed action have served besides that?

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RVCA

Erm, "law of the land"? It's most certainly within his rights as an American citizen to burn whatever book he wants to. It would be disgusting, yes, but for us to prevent him from doing so would violate the first amendment.

Zaqarbal

Exactly. That's the point. It's about a blatant lack of rationalism. Someone has to say the obvious once and for all:

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right-track

Can't the first amendment be changed? It's not written in stone.
Obviously, I'm not an American citizen so forgive me this opinion.
Yours is a tolerant society which includes people of all religion, why then can't the amendment be amended to include measures against incitement to religious hatred?
Freedom of speech is one thing, after all it's not illegal to criticise someone about their religion, or their beliefs, but allowing physical acts like desecrating holy scriptures encourages religious hatred and in this case, could also be deemed as racial hatred.
What he was going to do (in my opinion) was to commit an aggravated act (crime) with prejudice, while inciting religious and racial hatred.

Zaqarbal...I think we both know the difference between saying "I hate Islam so much" and burning the Koran.
Good luck convincing the nutters.

Stone Birds

obama even told this guy what would happen the war would escalate over this, muslim-terrorist groups are probably already using the fact that this guy said he wants to do it as a recruitment tool

i think this guy is doing this just so he can have his 15 minutes of fame

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Zaqarbal

I guess the point is the divine nature of the holy paper. That changes it all. However, if you burn a Noam Chomsky's book, it wouldn't be an incitement to political hate. Since religion is above everything, only religious books are made of divine paper. Right? It seems that a physical action fuse together with a moral action, but only in regard to religion.

In addition: I don't know which is the difference between this possible ritual burning and all the already-existing videos on YouTube showing the same action. Here you are a list.

Shocked? I'm not. As the famous movie says, "I've seen things some of you wouldn't believe": Bishops thrown out the window, satires of ridiculous cardinals, irreverent and obscene depictions of the Last Supper...

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right-track

The point I'm making is you wouldn't be prepared to kill over such an insult.
Unfortunately, it's a fact that there are those who will.
And no amount of jibberish is going to change that fact.
Common sense should dictate here.

VEGANGELICA

Exactly. Free speech...one of the most important rights within any free society...means that people can express themselves non-violently however they choose (as long as environmental law and property rights etc. aren't violated).

Supporting free speech means supporting the right of people to express themselves even if you find their message or how they portray it (non-violently) to be offensive.

Sometimes the philosophy of Utilitarianism (seeking the greatest good for the greatest number of people) is used as a rationale for violating people's free speech. For example, it is against the law to shout "fire!" in a theater, because people tend to die trying to escape.

So, I can see how people can argue that no one should burn the Quran, as many have in this thread, because doing so incites certain people to be violent...the very violent behavior the book burning is condemning.

However, not expressing your views for fear that someone in response will hurt you or others is EXACTLY why we need protection of free speech. The U.S. *should* protect and support a person's freedom of speech and expression, including destroying religious books in protest...any religion, any book. Not supporting freedom of expression is giving into fear and cowering before people who are violent. Worse, it supports those who perpetrate violence to try to enforce their views.

Yes. Freedom of speech and freedom of religion do not mean we have to like or follow religious views of others, or act as if their holy paper is truly holy.

The U.S. occasionally has groups wanting to make it illegal and against the constitution to burn the U.S. flag, and though it is certainly within their rights to try this, I feel a law against burning a flag violates freedom of expression. Thankfully, the U.S. supreme court agrees with me:

Rules about books should be the same: as long as you own the book, you can shred it, burn it, use it as toilet-paper, spit on it...etc. Similarly, if I have a flag, I can turn it into underwear, make a bear-suit out of it, whatever I want. Isn't that great? I think so.

The minister would not be the one responsible for reacting violently to his actions: the perpetrators would be, right-track.

The U.S. government should NOT do anything to stop a person from following his rights. If you have a right, and your action is within that right, then this is not abusing your rights.

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