Denmark charges man with blasphemy

[laughing dog]

For all those who think this bending to Islam, I have a proposal.

Go to Denmark. Burn a Bible and post the video on youTube. Stay one week in Denmark. If you are not charged with blasphemy, you've proven your point. I will start a crowd-sourcing site with $1,000 promoting your heroic efforts in showing Denmark's cowardice and you get the entire pot. If you are charged, I will start the same site for your legal defense fees.

 

[Malintent]

I think the law is ill-considered, but I do think burning any book is stupid.

In some cultures, it is more than stupid. It is simply ghastly.

I was training a young, Indian girl in IT, and she made reference to an outdated procedure that was printed in a sort of text book. I told her to forget about the book (one that I lended to her because it did contain some good reference material.. but the book belonged to me). To better illustrate the uselessness of the material she was referencing in the book, I dropped the book on the floor and stomped on it comically as I reinforced that the content in that chapter of the book was useless.

she grew silent... and detached. I asked her what was wrong, and she told me that in her culture, it was horrible to treat a book like that. Written knowledge in books is held at a high esteem and treating a book like that was horrific for her to witness. this was an IT Operations text book.. not even some so-called holy book. (well, to the IT Compliance team, maybe it was a holy book, lol)

Well, I did apologize, and expressed my respect for education and knowledge... I picked up the book, gingerly brushed it off, and offered it back to her respectfully... and also expressed my appreciation for that cultural view.

 

[dismal]

Straws, heh.
Could you perhaps point to the place wherein I defend any of this?

By drawing such a reaching inference, dismal risks becoming that which he criticizes. Ironic...

I risk becoming a government that prosecutes speech and/or a person who defends it?

Huh?

 

[Keith&Co.]

By drawing such a reaching inference, dismal risks becoming that which he criticizes. Ironic...

I risk becoming a government that prosecutes speech and/or a person who defends it?

Huh?

Well, if that point went over your head, the chances that you've cunningly intuited the motivations behind Denmark's prosecution seem remote at best.

(And golly, what a cunning rejoinder you offered in private, dismal. Did you think that up all by yourself?)

 

[Tom Sawyer]

I think the law is ill-considered, but I do think burning any book is stupid.

In some cultures, it is more than stupid. It is simply ghastly.

I was training a young, Indian girl in IT, and she made reference to an outdated procedure that was printed in a sort of text book. I told her to forget about the book (one that I lended to her because it did contain some good reference material.. but the book belonged to me). To better illustrate the uselessness of the material she was referencing in the book, I dropped the book on the floor and stomped on it comically as I reinforced that the content in that chapter of the book was useless.

she grew silent... and detached. I asked her what was wrong, and she told me that in her culture, it was horrible to treat a book like that. Written knowledge in books is held at a high esteem and treating a book like that was horrific for her to witness. this was an IT Operations text book.. not even some so-called holy book. (well, to the IT Compliance team, maybe it was a holy book, lol)

Well, I did apologize, and expressed my respect for education and knowledge... I picked up the book, gingerly brushed it off, and offered it back to her respectfully... and also expressed my appreciation for that cultural view.

Wait, how is "high esteem for knowledge", a unique cultural trait which distinguishes them from any other culture on the planet and not a baseline position of almost everyone and so tells you nothing at all about their culture? That's like saying "Well, our culture is distinct and special because we're against stealing other people's stuff".

 

[dismal]

In some cultures, it is more than stupid. It is simply ghastly.

I was training a young, Indian girl in IT, and she made reference to an outdated procedure that was printed in a sort of text book. I told her to forget about the book (one that I lended to her because it did contain some good reference material.. but the book belonged to me). To better illustrate the uselessness of the material she was referencing in the book, I dropped the book on the floor and stomped on it comically as I reinforced that the content in that chapter of the book was useless.

she grew silent... and detached. I asked her what was wrong, and she told me that in her culture, it was horrible to treat a book like that. Written knowledge in books is held at a high esteem and treating a book like that was horrific for her to witness. this was an IT Operations text book.. not even some so-called holy book. (well, to the IT Compliance team, maybe it was a holy book, lol)

Well, I did apologize, and expressed my respect for education and knowledge... I picked up the book, gingerly brushed it off, and offered it back to her respectfully... and also expressed my appreciation for that cultural view.

Wait, how is "high esteem for knowledge", a unique cultural trait which distinguishes them from any other culture on the planet and not a baseline position of almost everyone and so tells you nothing at all about their culture? That's like saying "Well, our culture is distinct and special because we're against stealing other people's stuff".

In the immortal words of Emil Faber: "knowledge is good".

So, presumably knowledge of what a Koran looks like when it burns should not be banned from the public arena.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

In the immortal words of Emil Faber: "knowledge is good".

So, presumably knowledge of what a Koran looks like when it burns should not be banned from the public arena.

But Malintent's post referenced Indian culture and not Danish culture. If people in Denmark started expressing a high esteem for the written word, that would just be another group of fucking white men culturally appropriating someone else's idea.

 

[ronburgundy]

The law is terrible and a direct attack on the most important principles responsible for nearly all moral and political progress in the last couple centuries. So, yes, it is something that anyone who cares about that progress should loudly denounce.

As to the why the law is being enforced for the first time in decades, Derec's explanation is plausible but not the sole plausible one.
Keith offered one of the alternatives which is basically any one of many factors that are case-specific to this particular guy, his history, or a particular grudge by a prosecutor, etc.. That is plausible, but it's less parsimonious. The fact that the last well publicized instance of religious book burning was 20 years ago does not make it irrelevant. While many things could be different now, the most parsimonious explanation uses a single variable to account for the lack of prosecution in that case and the prosecution of this one.

Derec's is basically claiming that leftist Danish society only cares about protecting Islam and not other religions. A more parsimonious alternative is that there has been a broader increase in willingness by the left to use authoritarian suppression of views and speech to fight against right-wing racism and other bigotries. The ability of this segment of the left to advance such an anti-liberal agenda is actually due to the fact that the anti-Islamic right-wing in Denmark has been recently increasing it own authoritarian assault against free speech. Right wing politicians have been trying to pass new laws to criminalize religious speech by (and engage in invasive surveillance of) by Imams or anyone else saying things that challenge Danish values, and a majority of Danes favor these efforts to ban speech by Islamic religious leaders that "undermine Danish law".

IOW, anti-Islamist right wingers and a segment of anti-racism left wingers are unwittingly unifying in pushing the government to criminalize speech, which undermines the principles of free speech and ultimately makes it easier for authoritarians of all stripes to use the force of government to control thought. Thus, this current case is likely a byproduct of a broad cultural shift in devaluing free speech in Denmark and much of Europe that is neither specific to anti-Islamic speech nor limited to the political left which is just adopting the standard strategy of oppression that the right has long embraced.

 

[laughing dog]

Wait, how is "high esteem for knowledge", a unique cultural trait which distinguishes them from any other culture on the planet and not a baseline position of almost everyone and so tells you nothing at all about their culture? That's like saying "Well, our culture is distinct and special because we're against stealing other people's stuff".

In the immortal words of Emil Faber: "knowledge is good".

So, presumably knowledge of what a Koran looks like when it burns should not be banned from the public arena.

Interesting argument. Presumably knowledge of what a person looks like when he or she burns alive should not be banned from the public arena. Hence, it should be legal to burn people alive.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Burning someone alive has a victim. Burning pieces of paper does not.

 

[laughing dog]

Burning someone alive has a victim. Burning pieces of paper does not.

Burning a book has a victim - civilization.

My point was that the argument that
"Knowledge is good. So, presumably what ______ (you fill in the blank) looks like when ____ burns is knowledge should not be banned from the public arena."
requires more many conditions in order for it to resemble a cogent argument.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Danish man charged with blasphemy for burning Quran

Europe is getting more and more submissive to Allah it seems.

As I pointed out in the other identical thread. This law is from 1938. Remember, the last time there was a nationalist, conservative and racist populist wave through Europe. This law was pushed through by those conservatives to protect Christianity, which they felt was under threat.... somehow.

- - - Updated - - -

Burning someone alive has a victim. Burning pieces of paper does not.

Burning a book has a victim - civilization.

My point was that the argument that
"Knowledge is good. So, presumably what ______ (you fill in the blank) looks like when ____ burns is knowledge should not be banned from the public arena."
requires more many conditions in order for it to resemble a cogent argument.

Only if you burn every single copy of an edition. Otherwise, no. And today it's moot since most of it is on the Internet .

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Burning someone alive has a victim. Burning pieces of paper does not.

Burning a book has a victim - civilization.

My point was that the argument that
"Knowledge is good. So, presumably what ______ (you fill in the blank) looks like when ____ burns is knowledge should not be banned from the public arena."
requires more many conditions in order for it to resemble a cogent argument.

In what way is civilization a victim if a book is destroyed? I can see the argument for that if it's some kind of rare book with only one copy and nobody's ever bothered to run a scanner over the pages so that there is some knowledge or information lost when the book is destroyed or if it's a first edition of something or the like and physical book itself has an element of historical value. However, when you're talking about a mass produced paperback which has its entire text publically available for free on the internet, the only actual loss for burning the book is that the world now has a few less pieces of paper.

Burning a book these days isn't like when the Nazis had their mass book burnings because that resulted in a situation where the knowledge and information which was contained in those books was less available to be accessed by the members of German society and therefore allowed the government to have more control over the information available to the German public. That's not the case with burning a Koran these days, which is more comparable to burning an American flag. There's nothing lost beyond a bit of material because you want to make a political point about what that material represents.

 

[Malintent]

In some cultures, it is more than stupid. It is simply ghastly.

I was training a young, Indian girl in IT, and she made reference to an outdated procedure that was printed in a sort of text book. I told her to forget about the book (one that I lended to her because it did contain some good reference material.. but the book belonged to me). To better illustrate the uselessness of the material she was referencing in the book, I dropped the book on the floor and stomped on it comically as I reinforced that the content in that chapter of the book was useless.

she grew silent... and detached. I asked her what was wrong, and she told me that in her culture, it was horrible to treat a book like that. Written knowledge in books is held at a high esteem and treating a book like that was horrific for her to witness. this was an IT Operations text book.. not even some so-called holy book. (well, to the IT Compliance team, maybe it was a holy book, lol)

Well, I did apologize, and expressed my respect for education and knowledge... I picked up the book, gingerly brushed it off, and offered it back to her respectfully... and also expressed my appreciation for that cultural view.

Wait, how is "high esteem for knowledge", a unique cultural trait which distinguishes them from any other culture on the planet and not a baseline position of almost everyone and so tells you nothing at all about their culture? That's like saying "Well, our culture is distinct and special because we're against stealing other people's stuff".

.. because that's what I said.. that only in India do they have books... and how in the US, you would be expelled from school for dropping a book on the ground... /rolleyes

 

[Juma]

Burning someone alive has a victim. Burning pieces of paper does not.

Burning a book has a victim - civilization.

My point was that the argument that
"Knowledge is good. So, presumably what ______ (you fill in the blank) looks like when ____ burns is knowledge should not be banned from the public arena."
requires more many conditions in order for it to resemble a cogent argument.

You realize that thousands of books are burnt each year? Some of them being important books and other being korans and bibles.. that what we do with all books that wasnt selled fast enough.

Burning books isnt wrong.

 

[ronburgundy]

Burning a book has a victim - civilization.

My point was that the argument that
"Knowledge is good. So, presumably what ______ (you fill in the blank) looks like when ____ burns is knowledge should not be banned from the public arena."
requires more many conditions in order for it to resemble a cogent argument.

In what way is civilization a victim if a book is destroyed? I can see the argument for that if it's some kind of rare book with only one copy and nobody's ever bothered to run a scanner over the pages so that there is some knowledge or information lost when the book is destroyed or if it's a first edition of something or the like and physical book itself has an element of historical value. However, when you're talking about a mass produced paperback which has its entire text publically available for free on the internet, the only actual loss for burning the book is that the world now has a few less pieces of paper.

Burning a book these days isn't like when the Nazis had their mass book burnings because that resulted in a situation where the knowledge and information which was contained in those books was less available to be accessed by the members of German society and therefore allowed the government to have more control over the information available to the German public. That's not the case with burning a Koran these days, which is more comparable to burning an American flag. There's nothing lost beyond a bit of material because you want to make a political point about what that material represents.

^^THIS^^.

Buring a few copies of a book that their millions of is nothing but a speech act with no damage to society. Burning all copies of a book in an effort to keep people from ever accessing it is bad for civilization. But its bad because it is the suppression of particular speech. So even that isn't as bad as throwing a person in prison for speaking, which is not only suppression of particular speech, but also an immoral act of forcible violence against a human being simply for speaking, and use of that violence as a threat against all people to suppress countless act of potential future speech.

If every copy of the Koran was burned, it wouldn't be as bad for civilization as if one person was sent to prison for writing something either like the Koran or that was harshly critical of the Koran and its adherents.

 

[dismal]

Burning books isnt wrong.

Yeah, I said this in the last thread where this came up:

The government forcing some book to be burned is tyranny.
The government banning me from burning my own book is also tyranny.

 

[laughing dog]

In what way is civilization a victim if a book is destroyed?...

Uncivilized actions harm civilization.

You realize that thousands of books are burnt each year? Some of them being important books and other being korans and bibles.. that what we do with all books that wasnt selled fast enough.

Burning books isnt wrong.

I said it was stupid in the context of burning books for their content as a political or ideological statement.

 

[ronburgundy]

Uncivilized actions harm civilization.

And the grotesque inhumane brutality of imprisoning a man for his non-violent form of denouncing one of the most immoral, pro-violent, bigoted books ever published is infinitely more uncivilized than that man's method of speech.

 

[laughing dog]

Uncivilized actions harm civilization.

And the grotesque inhumane brutality of imprisoning a man for his non-violent form of denouncing one of the most immoral, pro-violent, bigoted books ever published is infinitely more uncivilized than that man's method of speech.

I never argued that anyone should be charged or tried or imprisoned for blasphemy. But your statement leads me to ask - if he had burned the Origin of the Species would you change your tune at all?