Full title: "Danish government to put forward law making burning Quran and other religious texts illegal "
Hmpf. In my opinion this is not as great a threat to atheism as it may seem. As far as I understand it is still allowed to defame Islamic text in other ways e.g. by shredding or exposure to extreme kinetic forces.
Anybody who publicly mocks or insults the religious doctrine or worship of any religious community lawfully existing in this country will be punished by fine or imprisonment for up to 4 months
So Denmark got this Blashemy Law off of the books in 2017, and they’re ready to bring it back.
Can they still draw Mohammed though?
While I’m sure most people doing this are just irl trolls looking for outrage rather than making any deeper political point, the return of blasphemy laws to Europe after we spent so long removing them and lowering religions influcance seems like a backwards step.
Blasphemy laws being expanded in 2023. Not what I think people would have predicted in, say, 1990.
How about banning public book burning in general? Not a lot of good memories related to that.
Want to keep burning books? Have waste collection services provide a pickup point. Then they can do it in some industrial incinerator so you’ll have your book burned but without providing media with an easy outrage (unless you wanted outrage?).
Book burning seems to be a tool of right wing extremism, even when it’s used against right wing extremists of some other kind, there’s very little benefit to the society.
Also obligatory, fuck organized religion.
I’ve seen left wing people burn books too. Most notably Harry Potter books in the last few years.
Obviously there’s a philosophical question about whether the Quaran should have more protections as a “holy book”, but it’s something that runs the gamut these days.
are Potterheads a persecuted minority that face violence up to systematic murder in Europe? I dont think so. Meanwhile muslim people or people being deemed as muslims or “brown” are subject to extensive discrimination, hatred and violence.
I don’t believe critique of JK Rowling is left wing extremism although book burning as a form of consumer boycott seems to be rather counterproductive.
Governments should not be allowed to burn books.
Private citizens should be allowed to burn any books they own.
Neither governments nor private citizens should be allowed to harm or threaten people who burn their own damn books.
Example: you can purchase a dozen copies of “On The Origin of Species”, burn them, and I will very happily not threaten to behead you. Easy.
“The bill will make it punishable, for example, to burn the Quran or the Bible in public. It will only aim at actions in a public place or with the intention of spreading in a wider circle,” Hummelgaard said
Hummelgaard told a news conference that the recent protests were “senseless taunts that have no other purpose than to create discord and hatred.”
I agree with Hummelgaard. Those “protests” are used to create hatred. Even though it is also for me not comprehensible how people can be so sensitive about this, we all know the reaction it provokes. And even though we don’t agree and comprehend those feelings, we can still respect those feelings and just not senselessly create disruption. And hey… You can still burn as many Qurans in your private oven as you want.
We can not have a modern society where people feel strongly about religion. And there is really no point in appeasement of fundamentalists - they don’t want a compromise they allays want it all.
I agree with that statement. However - the world is not a modern society in most places yet and we can´t expect the rest of the world to simply adopt our values because we would like them to. They have to get there by themselves, in a long painful process of social evolution - just as we did. We need to make sure to not allow any of our hard earned freedoms to be taken away, which are under constant attack from multiple sides, not just religious forces but also authoritarians of different political directions, capitalists and so on. At the same time we have to respect other cultures and their individual development. It´s a challenge and sometimes there might have to be compromise but I think not burning books in public is really acceptable and nobody will suffer from not doing it. Full expression of thought is perfectly possible just by speaking, no book burning required for that.
Imo it also should be considered that western colonialism often had a devastating effect on the social evolution of eastern countries. Just think of the history of Iran for example. Iran was on the way to become a lighthouse of democracy in the region by it´s own development and would now probably have been a democracy for decades if the west would not have intervened and prevented that (Operation Ajax). This caused Iran to become one of the worst theocratic dictatorships instead. That does not make the fundamentalists any better of course but it can also not be ignored in the context of this discussion.
Again there is no point in appeasing fundamentalist. They don’t want the finger or the hand, they want the whole state to run by their rules - they are not searching for a compromise. Sure, nobody sane is really in favor for burning books - but what is the point, they won’t be any happier with that and will work on the next thing that is offending their archaic views of the world.
Full expression of thought is perfectly possible just by speaking, no book burning required for that.
Where do you draw the line of what is considered acceptable form of expression?
It’s not that I like, I would say - I even despise people burning books. But in my opinion, everyone has the right to do so - since in the end no direct harm is caused to anyone.
One important point is imo that publicly burning the Quran as a provocation does not just offend the few fundamentalists but all believing Muslims in the world, also the moderate ones. That they don´t get angry and violent like the fundamentalists does not mean it´s not offensive to them. Because of this I consider not burning the Quran publicly simply as normal and polite behavior towards all Muslims -especially the moderate ones- and not at all as a form of appeasement to fundamentalists.
but all believing Muslims in the world,
Than all believing Muslims are fundamentalists. But we both know that that’s not the case. Moderate Muslims per definition don’t give shit. Like moderate Christians don’t care if you burn a bible. Or I don’t care if you burn a biography of Darwin. Sure I will think you are a dumb person to avoid. But ultimately it’s up to you, not my business.
Also where do you draw the line? Homosexuality and modern view of women rights is offensive to conservative Muslims. Therefore, I prefer to draw a line at actual direkt harm to other people. Burning books, dumb and provocative - but so is a good portion of art.
It´s not that simple. There is a wide spectrum between feeling offended and reacting with terrorism, don´t you agree?
Denmark over here negotiating with terrorists.
