On Book Burning and a World Gone Mad

The on-off plan to burn a bunch of copies of the Koran on 9/11 by members of the misnamed "Dove World Outreach Center" led by pastor Terry Jones has sparked almost universal condemnation.

The act is provocative, arrogant and naive and I have little respect for the right wing, religious fanatics behind this. Various responses have been proposed for dealing with this act and the inevitable backlash including; banning it, stopping media coverage of it and protesting against it.

What I don't understand is this medieval belief that burning any book can somehow threaten any religion. Books contains ideas and a narrative that cannot be destroyed by burning a copy. Burning copies of the Koran, the Bible, the Talmud or Darwin's Origin of the Species can only have a impact when people are denied or prevented from studying these texts for themselves. Clearly this is not the case here.

Imagine a very different response to the current crisis, one occurring in a parallel universe. One in which Bibles, the Talmud and other "sacred" texts are all burnt alongside the Koran. The burning ceases to be a sectarian act and becomes as impotent as the burning of the catholic Guy Fawkes on the 5th November each year. The burning of a book is so much less a sanction than the Fatwā issued against Salman Rushdie and others and should thus be preferable.

So while tolerance should be encouraged let's not lose sight of what matters and what should not matter. Material possessions, including books, can be replaced. Religious hatred, a willingness and eagerness to take offence and spoiling for a fight do no favours to society. These small minded people must have a god or many gods with very insecure egos. They must lack faith that the ideas and ideals contained within the pages of these books are strong enough to survive not just modern scrutiny but even the incineration of a minuscule number of books.

We don't view it as a national outrage when a copy of the Oxford dictionary or a French dictionary are burnt. In fact I can't recall a public case of such dictionary burning occurring because such an act is futile. If it were not then Al-Qaeda would be focused on the printing and subsequent burning of copies of the American Heritage Dictionary as the easiest way to bring about the collapse of the Great Satan.

Live and let live, read as much as possible, as widely as possible but don't be offended if someone, somewhere burns a copy of your favourite book.

Now where is my copy of the iPhone developers guide and a box of matches ....

Subway madness

I occasionally walk down the high street at lunch time from work to the Subway where I purchase a 6" veggie delight sub for £2.00. Today I was dismayed to discover I had left my wallet at home and was reduced to scraping change from the bottom of my bag.

They know me because I always ask for olives and jalapenos and jalapenos and jalapenos with a few extra jalapenos. Only I say "Halepenos" and they say "Jalapenos". It is a constant sparing struggle and neither I nor this otherwise fine institution are prepared to concede defeat.

Well today, being of limited means, after purchasing a 80p Guardian newspaper instead of a 90p Times I noticed a limited period "Meal Deal" at Subway. This is a 6" sub (the picture shows meat on it) with a cookie and drink for £2.49. This suits me as I only had £2.55 and could get a drink and cookie for only 49p more than I usually pay.

I order this deal but decline the ham and just have the cheese and olives and jalapenos and jalapenos and jalapenos with a few extra jalapenos, as is my want. But when I come to pay they don't want to give me the drink and cookie because I didn't order the ham. When I point out the I did NOT order my usual "Veggie Delight" but the "Special limited time only Meal Deal" and just declined the ham they were incredulous. It would have been no problem it they had put ham on my sandwich and I had scrapped it off and tossed it away but ......

I prevailed but "only this once because i am a regular customer". To bad that tomorrow I will be at my other office and won't be able to try this again - nothing like a crusade against stupidity!

The monologues

So Annalise is going to see the Vagina Monologues tomorrow night with some friends. I am gutted and hurt that I am not invited.

It's a one night showing so no chance of going to see it on another night and the idea of going by myself just cries out "desperate and looking to meet women".

So the best I can hope for is a second hand account, and one filtered through a woman's perspective. No scope for intelligent, open minded discussion there then!

Would I have interpreted the collective work as a "blast of hatred against men and heterosexuality" or something more revealing of the what is means to be a woman?

Will they censor the line "Is was a good rape"?

Will those monologues dealing with violence and oppression outweigh those dealing with loving relationships (both heterosexual and lesbian).

But no it seems the absence of a vagina means that I'll never know the answers to these questions.

Oh did I mention that I am gutted and hurt ......

Genesis

I have finished Genesis, my intention is to read a chapter a month in the hope that I'll gain an better understanding, of what exactly I am not sure.

I couldn't find a review of this on amazon nor establish conclusive authorship.

Some observations

1. Genesis is poorly written, includes repetition, some very poor characterisation, muddled plot and in need of some major editing. Are the lists of family trees really needed for instance ?

2. People start off living 900 plus years, enough time to have several children. Later off they are living to a mere 120 years during which time they are able to have the same number of children. Is this a translation mistake or have medical advances taken us backwards and given us shorter life spans.

3. Punishing entire families or clans, for generations sometimes, because of an individual isn't fair.

4. These are not nice people. The good guys indulge in rape, plunder, murder and incest. Abraham twice passes his wife off as his sister so that she is taken by another man and offers his own virgin daughters up for sex to protect two visiting angels (can't they protect themselves ?)

I would rate this 18 for violence, Sex and content.

The God Delusion

I recently completed the "God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins

He writes brilliantly and he has inspired me to read the entire Bible, not just the familiar bits, - I wonder how long it will take ?

Three issues have been on my mind today -

1. The knighting of Salman Rushdie by the queen and the subsequent protests from Pakistan, Iran and Iraq.
2. The 100th day in captivity of BBC journalist Alan Johnston
3. George Bush's latest stem cell research veto

People with a strong faith, Christian, Islamic, Jewish or any other should be able and willing to defend their ideas, in deed and in debate, without bannings, death threats or other forms of intimidation. An Omnipotent God doesn't need any earthly protection from competing ideas.

Apart from the obvious attack on creationism and the literal interpretation of the bible Dawkings makes the following points

• We don't get our morals from religion - What is morally acceptable today has changed so much in the last 2000 years while the Bible and Koran and remained the same. We just pick and choose those parts of the Bible and/or Koran that are convenient.

• It is problematic to defend the belief that science governs the physical world while God governs the spiritual world and that there is NO interaction. The problem stems from the belief that God responds to prayer and intervenes in physical matters. Science should be able to detect such interventions yet it has not found any such evidence even when it has tried.
  

I would be interested to know what other people make of the book.