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Delirium's Brother
Joined: 08 May 2006
Location: Out in that field with Rumi, waiting for you to join us!
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 Posted: Sat Sep 30, 2006 2:27 am Post subject: Stupidity knows no religion! |
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Both Wikipedia and the American Library Association have detailed pages devoted to cataloguing the heinous crime of book burning. I have no other comment except to say: stupidity knows no religion, race, or political ideology.
| Wikipedia: `Book burning' wrote: |
Notable book burning incidents:
* Following the advice of Li Si, Qin Shi Huang ordered all philosophy books and history books from states other than Qin�except copies in the imperial library for official uses�to be burned 213 BC. This is accompanied by the live burial of a large number of intellectuals, who did not comply with the state dogma (To burn the classics and to bury the scholars).
* According to the New Testament book of Acts, early converts to Christianity in Ephesus who had previously practiced sorcery burned their scrolls: "A number who had practised sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to fifty thousand drachmas." (Acts 19:19, NIV) The term sorcery refers to magical practices. [2]
* Established beliefs of Epicurus was burned in a Paphlagonian marketplace by order of the charlatan Alexander, supposed prophet of Ascapius ca 160 (Lucian, Alexander the false prophet)
* The Egyptian alchemical books of Alexandria were burnt by the emperor Diocletian in 292.
* Christian books by a decree of emperor Diocletian in 303, calling for an increased persecution of Christians.
* The books of Arius and his followers, after the first Council of Nicaea (325), for heresy.
* The Sibylline Books were burnt by Flavius Stilicho (died 408).
* In 367 Athanasius called in all non-conformist texts from the monasteries of Egypt.
* The library of the Serapeum in Alexandria was trashed, burned and looted, 392, at the decree of Theophilus of Alexandria, who was ordered so by Theodosius I. Around the same time, Hypatia was murdered. One of the largest destruction of books occurred at the Library of Alexandria, traditionally held to be in 640, however the precise years are unknown as are whether the fires were intentional or accidental.
* Etrusca Disciplina, the Etruscan books of cult and divination, collected and burned in the 5th century.
* The books of Nestorius, after an edict of Theodosius II, for heresy (435).
* The Royal Library of the Samanid Dynasty was burned at the turn of the 11th century during the Turkic invasion from the east. Avicenna was said to have tried to save the precious manuscripts from the fire as the flames engulfed the collection. (n.b. The Turks were still mostly animists at the time, not Moslems-- Delirium's Brother)
* In 1233 Maimonides' "Guide for the Perplexed" was burnt at Montpellier, Southern France.
* In 1242, French crown has burned all Talmud copies in Paris, after it was found guilty in Paris trial(sometimes called "the Paris debate").
* In 1410 John Wycliffe's books were burnt by the illiterate Prague archbishop Zbyněk Zajic z H�zmburka in the court of his palace in Lesser Town of Prague to hinder the spread of Jan Hus' teaching
* In the 1480s Tomas Torquemada promoted the burning of non-Catholic literature, especially Jewish Talmuds and, after the final defeat of the Moors at Granada in 1492, Arabic books also.
* In 1497 the Bonfire of the Vanities, preached by Girolamo Savonarola, consumed pornography, lewd pictures, pagan books, gaming tables, cosmetics, copies of Boccaccio's Decameron, and all the works of Ovid which could be found in Florence.
* In 1499 or 1500, in Andalucia, Spain, over a million Arabic and Hebrew books from one of the richest collections in history were burned on the orders of Cisneros, Archbishop of Granada(See: Henry Kamen, The Spanish Inquisition, London: White Lion, 1965, p. 98.) Many of the poetic works were allegedly destroyed on account of their symbolized homoeroticism. (See: Erskine Lane, tr. "In Praise of Boys: Moorish Poems from Al-Andalus," 1975).
* In 1525 & 1526 William Tyndale's English translation of the New Testament were burned wherever the authorities could find them.
* In 1553, Servetius was burned as an heretic at the order of the city council of Geneva, without being defended by John Calvin, on a remark in his translation of Ptolemy's Geography. "Around his waist were tied a large bundle of manuscript and a thick octavo printed book", his Christianismi Restitutio, three copies of which have survived [3].
* 1562 Fray Diego de Landa, acting bishop of the Yucatan, threw into the fires the sacred books of the Maya[4].
* Martin Luther's German translation of the Bible was burned in Germany in 1624 by order of the Pope.
* In 1683 several books by Thomas Hobbes and other authors were burnt in Oxford University.
* In 1793 Robespierre ordered the destruction by fire of religious libraries, as well as the burning of those books defending or glorifying royalism or the French Kings. The books were considered "inimical towards reformed France".
* In 1842, officials at the school for the blind in Paris France, were ordered by its new director, Armand Dufau, to burn books written in the new braille code. After every braille book at the institute that could be found was burned, supporters of the code's inventor, Louis Braille, rebelled against Dufau by continuing to use the code, and braille was eventually restored at the school.
* In 1917 in Russia the Bolsheviks ordered the destructions of all books contrary to Communism, including many religious works, works in favour of the Czarist history, works on nationalism, works on freedom and economic profit.[citation needed]
* In 1918 the Valley of the Squinting Windows in Delvin, Ireland. The book criticised the village's inhabitants for being overly concerned with their image towards neighbours.
* The works of Jewish authors and other "degenerate" books were burnt by the Nazis in the 1930s and 1940s.
o May 10, 1933 on the Opernplatz in Berlin, S.A. and Nazi youth groups burned around 20,000 books from the Institut f�r Sexualwissenschaft and the Humboldt University; including works by Thomas Mann, Erich Maria Remarque, Heinrich Heine, Karl Marx and H.G. Wells. Student groups throughout Germany also carried out their own book burnings on that day and in the following weeks. Erich Kastner wrote a self-ironic account (published only after the fall of Nazism) of having witnessed the burning of his own books, on that occasion.
* 1935 the library trustees of Warsaw, Indiana ordered the burning of all the library's works by Theodore Dreiser [5].
* In 1948, at Binghamton, New York children - overseen by priests, teachers, and parents - publicly burned around 2000 comic books.
* In 1954�55 by order of the Justice Department, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) burned several tons of Wilhelm Reich's publications that mentioned "orgone energy"
* in 1966 as part of the Destruction in Art Symposium held by Fluxus in London, John Latham constructed three large 'skoob towers' (towering piles of books) named 'the laws of England' which he set fire to outside the British Museum
* In May 1981 Sinhalese police officers on rampage burned the public library of Jaffna, northern Sri Lanka; a huge library collection, which was the second largest library in Asia, was destroyed: 97,000 books and very rare collection of ancient palm leaf volumes were among them [6].
* In February 1987 the Chilean Interior Ministry admitted that 15,000 copies of the Spanish edition of Clandestine in Chile:The Adventures of Miguel Littin were impounded and burned on November 28, 1986, in Valparaiso following direct orders from Augusto Pinochet.
* The novel The Satanic Verses has been the subject of bookburnings by Muslims, for instance at Bolton and Bradford in 1989.
* In 1992 the Oriental Institute (Orijentalni institut) in Sarajevo was attacked by Serb nationalist forces with incendiary grenades and the whole collection was burned, the largest single act of book-burning in modern history. [7].
* In the 1990s congregants of the Full Gospel Assembly in Grande Cache, Alberta, Canada burned books with ideas in them that they did not agree with, or that they deemed to contain ideas contrary to the teachings of God.
* In September 2000, students at the University of California, Berkeley seized copies of Cop Killer: How Mumia-Abu Jamal Conned Millions Into Believing He Was Framed by Dan Flynn during a protest of his speaking engagement promoting the book.
* In January 2001 the Egyptian Ministry of Culture burned 6,000 books of homoerotic poetry by Abu Nuwas, after pressure from Islamic fundamentalists.
* There have been several incidents of Harry Potter books being burned, including those directed by churches at Alamogordo, New Mexico, Charleston, South Carolina, and Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
Medieval burning of Jewish Literature
The burnings of Hebrew books were initiated by Pope Gregory IX. He persuaded French King Louis IX to burn some 12,000 copies of the Talmud in Paris in 1243. He was followed by subsequent Popes. The most ferocious haters of Judaism and Jewish books among them were Innocent IV (1243-1254), Clement IV (1256-1268), John XXII (1316-1334), Paul IV (1555-1559), Pius V (1566-1572) and Clement VIII (1592-1605). They almost succeeded in stamping out Jewish books entirely. Yet Jews continued to pen their holy books without cease, and once the printing press was invented, the Church found it impossible to destroy entire printed editions of the Talmud and other sacred books. Johann Gutenberg, the German who invented the printing press around 1450, certainly helped stamp out the effectiveness of further book burnings.
source |
Actually, I do have a couple more things to say! The Wikipedia page left off one really crucial incident. What was it again? I forgot. Ah, now I remember. I almost missed it (nah, actually I didn't, I'm just kidding you, but it helps to have geeky hobbies like medieval Middle-Eastern history  ). After a little more digging I found what I was looking for: the Mongol invasion of Baghdad. This one's especially for Junior:
| Wikipedia: `The Battle of Baghdad, 1258' wrote: |
Many historical accounts detailed the cruelties of the Mongol conquerors.
* The Grand Library of Baghdad, containing countless precious historical documents and books on subjects ranging from medicine to astronomy, was destroyed. Survivors said that the waters of the Tigris ran black with ink from the enormous quantities of books flung into the river.
Comments on the destruction
* "Iraq in 1258 was very different from present day Iraq. Its agriculture was supported by a canal network thousands of years old. Baghdad was one of the most brilliant intellectual centers in the world. The Mongol destruction of Baghdad was a psychological blow from which Islam never recovered. Already Islam was turning inward, becoming more suspicious of conflicts between faith and reason and more conservative. With the sack of Baghdad, the intellectual flowering of Islam was snuffed out. Imagining the Athens of Pericles and Aristotle obliterated by a nuclear weapon begins to suggest the enormity of the blow. The Mongols filled in the irrigation canals and left Iraq too depopulated to restore them." (Steven Dutch)
Source |
And just in case you were wondering, Junior, at this time in their history the Mongols were animists, worshiping things like the spirit of the wind, and horses and the like. Here's another description of the Mongol sacking of Baghdad:
| Another Source wrote: |
The Mongol Invasion
After Chinggis's death, the area enjoyed a brief respite that ended with the arrival of Hulagu Khan (1217-65), Chinggis's grandson. In 1258 he seized Baghdad and killed the last Abbasid caliph. While in Baghdad, Hulagu made a pyramid of the skulls of Baghdad's scholars, religious leaders, and poets, and he deliberately destroyed what remained of Iraq's canal headworks. The material and artistic production of centuries was swept away. Iraq became a neglected frontier province ruled from the Mongol capital of Tabriz in Iran.
Source: U.S. Library of Congress
Source |
| Yet Another Source wrote: |
It has been propagated by western historians that the Arabs destroyed the famous Alexandrian library. The latest historical researches have established beyond doubt that the said library was destroyed by the Romans themselves long before the advent of Islam. Writing in the Glimpses of World History, Pt. Jawahar Lal Nehru says: "There is a story that the Arabs burnt the famous library of Alexandria, but this is now believed to be false. The Arabs were too fond of books to behave in this barbarious manner. It is probable, however, that Emperor Theodosius of Constantinople was guilty of this destruction or part of it. A part of the library had been destroyed long before, during a siege at the time of Julius Caesar. Theodosius did not approve of the old pagan Greek books dealing with the Greek mythologies and philosophies.
He was too devout a Christian. it is said that he used books as fuel with which to heat his bath".
On the contrary, it was the Christian crusaders who burnt the great Muslim library of Tripolis (Syria) containing more than three million books.
Source |
So the story about the bath, seems to be apocryphal depending on who tells it. I don't know what else to say about this except to quote my current signature:
| Quote: |
| For people who want their straight lines to be straight, life itself is the problem. -- Natalia Ilyin |
Sorry that was so long, everybody.
Last edited by Delirium's Brother on Sat Sep 30, 2006 3:17 am; edited 2 times in total |
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Junior
Joined: 18 Nov 2005
Location: the eye
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| Posted: Sat Sep 30, 2006 2:53 am Post subject: |
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| thats nice, delirious, but they forgot to add "by muslims" to half of the entries on the list. |
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Delirium's Brother
Joined: 08 May 2006
Location: Out in that field with Rumi, waiting for you to join us!
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| Posted: Sat Sep 30, 2006 3:20 am Post subject: |
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| Junior wrote: |
| thats nice, delirious, but they forgot to add "by muslims" to half of the entries on the list. |
You must have trouble with math. |
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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sat Sep 30, 2006 6:54 am Post subject: |
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| Delirium's Brother wrote: |
| Junior wrote: |
| thats nice, delirious, but they forgot to add "by muslims" to half of the entries on the list. |
You must have trouble with math. |
and that's being kind. |
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Manner of Speaking
Joined: 09 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sat Sep 30, 2006 5:24 pm Post subject: |
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| It's because he's a biggot and a hypocrite. |
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Junior
Joined: 18 Nov 2005
Location: the eye
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| Posted: Sun Oct 01, 2006 2:41 am Post subject: |
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| Manner of Speaking wrote: |
| It's because he's a biggot and a hypocrite. |
I'm shocked, M.O.SS!.
Such extreme hatred.
Wash your mouth out with soap and water. |
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Boodleheimer
Joined: 10 Mar 2006
Location: working undercover for the Man
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| Posted: Sun Oct 01, 2006 2:57 am Post subject: Re: Stupidity knows no religion! |
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| Delirium's Brother wrote: |
| stupidity knows no religion, race, or political ideology. |
so true. i really dislike how anti-Muslim this board is. when christianity was 1500 years old, people were being burned as heretics because they thought horrible things-- like the world was round! and they were witches. and they didn't convert (Torquemada liked doing that stuff). Jews acted as what we would now define as "terrorists" when they were revolting from Roman dominion (see: Josephus). can't we just agree that adherents to all three have done some crazy stuff and leave it at that? |
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ChuckECheese
Joined: 20 Jul 2006
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| Posted: Sun Oct 01, 2006 3:15 am Post subject: Re: Stupidity knows no religion! |
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| KWhitehead wrote: |
| Delirium's Brother wrote: |
| stupidity knows no religion, race, or political ideology. |
so true. i really dislike how anti-Muslim this board is. when christianity was 1500 years old, people were being burned as heretics because they thought horrible things-- like the world was round! and they were witches. and they didn't convert (Torquemada liked doing that stuff). Jews acted as what we would now define as "terrorists" when they were revolting from Roman dominion (see: Josephus). can't we just agree that adherents to all three have done some crazy stuff and leave it at that? |
So what *beep* happens in the history (ancient). The big difference is that Christians were and are progressive and they learned from their mistakes and created society of freedom.
Have muslims learned from their history? They are non-progressive doing the same *beep* they were doing thousands of years ago. God forbid if you were ever a muslim and decide to ditch the Islam, you are punishable by death. And non-muslims like me are infadels.
With that said, I can careless what they do to their own people as long as they stay on their side and don't threaten to kill me, my families, and friends which they are not good at. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Sun Oct 01, 2006 3:24 am Post subject: |
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The big difference is that Christians were and are progressive and they learned from their mistakes and created society of freedom.
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You are skipping over the 150 years of religious wars (1500-1648) it took for Westerners to learn to stop talking about religion in public. (And another couple of centuries to before they stopped being such religious bigots that they began to allow non-Christians to vote.)
Religious toleration is a fairly new concept even in the west. Those spouting off about getting rid of the Moslems in the West are demonstrating just how shallow the roots of toleration and freedom of conscience are.
I'm just waiting for one of the anti-Moslem crowd to suggest a St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, where the French Catholics massacred thousands of Protestants and kidnapped the kids that they hadn't killed and brought them up as good Catholics. Solved the cultural diversity problem pretty effectively for the French. (Well, the problem was really solved when Louis issued the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes and drove the remaining Huguenots out. |
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ChuckECheese
Joined: 20 Jul 2006
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| Posted: Sun Oct 01, 2006 3:49 am Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
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The big difference is that Christians were and are progressive and they learned from their mistakes and created society of freedom.
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You are skipping over the 150 years of religious wars (1500-1648) it took for Westerners to learn to stop talking about religion in public. (And another couple of centuries to before they stopped being such religious bigots that they began to allow non-Christians to vote.)
Religious toleration is a fairly new concept even in the west. Those spouting off about getting rid of the Moslems in the West are demonstrating just how shallow the roots of toleration and freedom of conscience are.
I'm just waiting for one of the anti-Moslem crowd to suggest a St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, where the French Catholics massacred thousands of Protestants and kidnapped the kids that they hadn't killed and brought them up as good Catholics. Solved the cultural diversity problem pretty effectively for the French. (Well, the problem was really solved when Louis issued the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes and drove the remaining Huguenots out. |
So what? Would that happen again with Christians in the modern world? Maybe... but most unlikely. Wouldn't you agree?
And again, as long as fanatic people don't bother me I can careless what they do with their own people and free will. I am very tolerant. But when they step over my fence, I have no mercy. |
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Manner of Speaking
Joined: 09 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sun Oct 01, 2006 4:05 am Post subject: |
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| Nope. Northern Ireland and Serbia are the two most recent examples that come to mind. |
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ChuckECheese
Joined: 20 Jul 2006
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| Posted: Sun Oct 01, 2006 4:36 am Post subject: |
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| Manner of Speaking wrote: |
| Nope. Northern Ireland and Serbia are the two most recent examples that come to mind. |
Once again, so what? I'm not going to lose my lunch over it. Let them do what ever they want to on their own time.
As I said, I don't care what they do to each other as long as they don't step over my fence. Fvckem if they can't get alone. And let strong survive. |
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Boodleheimer
Joined: 10 Mar 2006
Location: working undercover for the Man
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| Posted: Sun Oct 01, 2006 7:26 am Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| Quote: |
The big difference is that Christians were and are progressive and they learned from their mistakes and created society of freedom.
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You are skipping over the 150 years of religious wars (1500-1648) it took for Westerners to learn to stop talking about religion in public. (And another couple of centuries to before they stopped being such religious bigots that they began to allow non-Christians to vote.)
Religious toleration is a fairly new concept even in the west. Those spouting off about getting rid of the Moslems in the West are demonstrating just how shallow the roots of toleration and freedom of conscience are. |
that's exactly why i said "when Christianity was 1500 years old", which is approximately how old Islam is. |
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Manner of Speaking
Joined: 09 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sun Oct 01, 2006 7:34 am Post subject: |
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| ChuckECheese wrote: |
| Manner of Speaking wrote: |
| Nope. Northern Ireland and Serbia are the two most recent examples that come to mind. |
Once again, so what? I'm not going to lose my lunch over it. Let them do what ever they want to on their own time. |
So, it did happen again, with Christians in the modern world. That's what. |
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Hater Depot
Joined: 29 Mar 2005
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