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I have conflicting thoughts on Preacher SFB burning the Quran.
Has he said what it is he is trying to accomplish? Seems past silly.
If a nonreligious person did it, it would be silly. But a religious person should be able to imagine how it would feel to insult his holy things.
Then on the other hand. If you get offended by somebody half way around the world and your response is to go and kill somebody who had nothing to do with it, then ... .
Religion, really does make some folks crazy doesn't it.
The Guardian took a poll. Here are the results:
44.7% Yes, it is a provocative blasphemy against others' beliefs
55.3% No, it should be considered a legitimate free speech act
You've got to love the wording and the fact that they don't seem to recognize that it could be (and is) "both of these."
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Monday, April 4, 2011
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Agreed.
ReplyDeleteI always thought that provocation was the point of free speech.
I mean, if you don't want something to change, why mention it? (Of course, I don't condone provocation of violence or anything, but free speech should be used to promote change).
If you're just regurgitating a generally accepted position, then then I'm not quite sure what the modifier "free" is doing for the phrase "free speech."
It is somewhat disturbing that apparently 0% of the respondents recognized that it is "both of these."
Did the original poll have a "both of the above" choice? I could not find the actual poll, only the results.
ReplyDeleteI suppose not or someone whould have taken it.
ReplyDeleteThey said that it was closed.
This brings up a question from this blog about a previous event similar to this.
Someone asked whether it was sacrilegious to delete the Quran from a computer.
At Ellis Island there was once a plaque for new citizens coming into the US which explained the first amendment's freedom of speech like this: "You can say anything you want as long as it doesn't hurt anybody."
ReplyDeleteIs it sacrilegious to delete a Quran from a computer? Very interesting question.
ReplyDeleteI suppose the answer to that question would be whether a digital document is really a Quran. Even though we think of computer documents as completely virtual they do have a physical attribute either magnetic alignment on a hard drive or pits on a DVD which is every bit the equivalent of writing. Unless being reduced to paper is a requirement I would think it really is a Quran.
Still the question was deleting. To be technical when you hit the delete button you only remove the entry from the volume table of contents. The document is still there until you write over that part of the disk with another document. That of course would corrupt the Quran. Oh no!
Sacrilegious – What if I stored a Quran and Bible on the same hard drive, downloaded porn, stored a picture of a pig, or threw the whole thing in the dump. My head hurts.