Lawyer Smokes Pages From the Koran and Bible 138
Daehenoc writes "Thanks to a lawyer in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, we now know that the Bible makes a better smoke than the Koran. From the article: 'In the clip, titled "Bible or Koran - which burns best?", the professed atheist says burning religious books is no big deal and people need to get over it. "It's just a f---ing book," he says. "Who cares? It's your beliefs that matter. Quite frankly, if you are going to get upset about a book, you're taking life way too seriously."'
Doesn't understand (Score:5, Insightful)
"He defended the stunt, saying basic freedoms, such as freedom of speech, should not be threatened simply because someone might be offended."
Yet another person doesn't understand freedom of speech.
He's perfectly free to say it. But he has to deal with the consequences. The government isn't saying a word about it. It's his peers and employer that are upset. And he'll face their wrath, as it should be.
Do I think he should be fired? No. What he did was thoughtless and inconsiderate, but it wasn't illegal and it wasn't on behalf of the school.
Never about the books (Score:3, Insightful)
The thing is, if people are willing to believe in the whacked out nonsense contained in either book, why would anyone ever believe people wouldn't get pissed about burning them?
Similar example (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It's just a f---ing book (Score:3, Insightful)
Freedoms (Score:5, Insightful)
He bought it, it's his book, so he's free to burn it. I personally would never burn a Bible, and I don't like even the idea of Bibles being burned, but as long as he's doing it to his own property, he's free to. To me, it's the words that matter, not the paper. As long as I have the words, he can burn as much paper as he's willing to buy. I can disagree with him, but that's all I can do. No more.
He's right in that "it's just a book.. get over it". However, I do hope he's not doing it with the purpose of taunting, because I would view that as malicious. If he wants to burn books because it makes him feel good, that's fine. It's doing it with the sole purpose of mocking others that creates an issue. I wouldn't do that to a Muslim's Koran, despite how much I disagree with them.
Re:Similar example (Score:2, Insightful)
You are turning things upside down. People are upset, that he is burning his own personal copy of the Bible/Koran and that is just silly. If he burned another persons copy of the Koran/Bible, then by all means get upset.
If you decide to burn your own money, it would not make me upset. Not the slightest. Money are just I-Owe-Yours from the government. When you burn money, you resolve the government of it's obligation. So go burn all your own money, it will just mean I have to pay a tiny bit less in taxes.
Re:Freedoms (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sorry, pal (Score:5, Insightful)
There's no way to be "christian" and be "logical" at the same time. Christianity (and most other religions) by definition requires you to suspend logic and believe in the outdated mythology written by unwashed, barely literate savages approximately 1900 years ago (50 years _after_ the death of Christ), and since then creatively rewritten a few times to suit head honchos of the various sects. You believe in something you, again by definition, can't observe or confirm the existence of. That pretty much destroys your claim at possessing "logic".
Thou Shall Not Make False Idols (Score:5, Insightful)
The ten commandments, and similar passages in the koran, specifically prohibit the worship of material things via the "Thou Shall Not Make False Idols" commandment. Worshiping the bible, or the crucifix or the koran is not only stupid, its hypocritical by its own standards.
Re:Similar example (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I'm sorry, pal (Score:3, Insightful)
Um, no. It is a fundamental rule of science to not take unobservable events and entities as truth. Religion is, at best, an unsupported hypothesis, with VERY long odds against it. And odds are getting slimmer by the day as science explains the world in greater detail, and uncovers the facts that directly contradict religious doctrines.