Fuck religion. Time and time again eroding our rights. Shame on the Danish government who is bending down to violence and superstition.
Democracy means letting people with other world views exist in peace.
Please consider how you want to be treated by this world and how you can make your own positive impact on humans around you.
I am an atheist myself and will vehemently defend secularism but your comment boils down to hate and demanding others have the exact same beliefs as you do.
You cannot honestly say you support both secularism and this law at the same time. Either you do, or you dont.
And this law does exactly what you said: impose a belief upon others
No, it stops you from burning a religious symbol in public. Secularity means that state and church are separate, which is a different matter. A lack of secularity would mean you can go on trial for not following the word of some god e.g. for loving someone from the same sex.
These are terrible and should be fought.
Bu this particular law is stopping assholes from being assholes.
Book-burnings also had a severely terrible history in the 3rd reich and are nothing but demonstrations of power, hate and close-mindedness.
I don’t think that applies here. Why would you ever burn a Quran IN PUBLIC? If you are not religious, or subscribe to other religions, why would you even own a quran? Quran burning in public has only one purpose, to provoke hate. Same as burning flags in public. Or hating certain groups of people in public. None of it is allowed or ok to do.
If you burn that thing at home or throw it in the trash, nobody will care. Otherwise it just falls into the “incite violence” category of things, because that is exactly the thing you are doing.
If moslems then go into a rage and be violent themselves, that isn’t ok either, that should be clear.
You should be allowed to display your beliefs in public, regardless of how enraged they might make others. You shouldn’t be allowed to make direct threats, but anything else should be fair game.
I completely agree with you and @pizzazz@lemmy.world. Keep in mind though that in most European countries some harmless displays of belief are already banned, for example burning the national flag.
Then in Germany and Austria you can be arrested just for looking at a swastika on your phone.
Then in Germany and Austria you can be arrested just for looking at a swastika on your phone.
You absolutely cannot.
This is simply false. In Germany, the swastika may be used in the context of education, art and some other places.
You are simply not allowed to march up and down the street with a swastika flag, which seems very reasonable.
Fucking Assholes, Apologists and Democracy Enemies.
Fuck that and them.
- it has to be passed in a democratically elected parlament. It may not get passed.
- it is an extension of an existing law that forbid burning of flags (except the Danish flag Dannebrog)
- book burnings are for morons
- fuck you
- fuck you
- fuck you
- fuck you
- fuck you
- burning the fucking Quoran is the right way to dispose of it according to itself
- a democratically elected government can do undemocratic things (and they often do)
- the existing law is idiotic
burning the fucking Quoran is the right way to dispose of it according to itself
Please link to the verse of the Quran you refer to. I don’t believe you.
Why is the existing law idiotic? What problems do you have with it?
https://www.learnreligions.com/disposal-of-quran-2004546
Not a link to a Quran quote, but it mentions the 3 main ways Islamic teachings state to dispose of old/broken Qurans.
1.burying 2.placing in flowing water 3.burning
Also a fun fact, these only pertain to The Quran in Arabic. Any other language is not considered to be literally Allah’s words and does not have to be discarded in those ways.
old/broken
that is a very important differentiator here.
Sooo… other countries burning flags of other nations in public is okay, but this is not?
Even if this has whataboutism-character and I appreciate the take of “making it better, even if others don’t”, I can’t deny there is some irony to that.
iirc burning flags of other nations is also not ok
And yet such non-EU countries don’t deliver consequences.
No, burning other countries flags is prohibited in denmark, burning the danish flag is ok
I’ve explicitly excluded denmark.
other countries burning flags of other nations in public
It’s an exceptionally bad idea to get the state involved in picking which interpretations of a religion are going to be defended.
Cyprus pretty much has this kind of law, and the Chruch loves tormenting even dissenting Christian theologians or prominent people of faith who disagree with the Church with it, let alone critics who aren’t part of the religion at all.
I think it’s a good idea. No one gets anything from publicly burning a book other than maybe demonstrate some kind of opinion?
And it’s a good and easy way to prevent terrorists bombing themselves into heaven in some danish city.
Of course there’s nothing wrong with burning the quran but if it helps to reduce terrorism I am all for it.
Isn’t this just surrendering to terrorism? Isn’t it bad that forms of free speech get banned because others threatens to kill?
Yes if it’s about the principle then you’re absolutely right we’re surrendering. But in practice I think this is more like a hostage negotiation. If someone threatens to kill someone because it doesn’t go their way you don’t just ignore them, you try to negotiate with them, comprise and find a solution. I think that’s exactly what the government does here and what anyone should be doing.
So governments should negotiate the demands of terrorists? What?
I wanted to say that this is a hot take but it seems a lot of people in this comment section agree, It doesn’t matter what kind of book it is. Destroying books is and should very much be a big no no.
I feel bad every time I have to throw out a book. Because it’s not only a Symbol of wisdom and knowledge, it is also a testament to a world view, a thought process and identity.
Burning books is the very antithesis of what we consider a modern Society. It directly attacks fundamental rights, if only Symbolically. The right to think freely, to have a different opinion, the pursuit of knowledge to better ourselves and our Surroundings in pursuit of these world views.
To quote Heinrich Heine: “dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen” (Where one begins by burning books, one will end up burning people. )
PS: In search of the correct Quote I stumbled upon this quote by Arnold Zweig: “Wer Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt auch Bibliotheken, bombardiert offene Städte, schießt mit Ferngeschützen oder Fliegerbomben Gotteshäuser ein. Die Drohung, mit der die Fackel in den Bücherstapel fliegt, gilt nicht dem Juden Freud, Marx oder Einstein, sie gilt der europäischen Kultur, sie gilt den Werten, die die Menschheit mühsam hervorgebracht und die der Barbar anhaßt, weil er halt barbarisch ist, unterlegen, roh, infantil”
Roughly translated: “Whoever burns books also burns libraries, bombs open cities, shoots down places of worship with long-range guns or aerial bombs. The threat with which the torch flies into the pile of books is not aimed at the Jew Freud, Marx or Einstein, it is aimed at European culture, it is aimed at the values that humanity has laboriously created and which the barbarian hates because he is just barbaric, inferior, raw, infantile”
It depends on intent, context and scale.
Burning books to eradicate their content is bad, yes.
Burning a book which you just made yourself is completely harmless. Or single, mass-produced copies.
Some Muslims will take offense when you destroy a hard drive on which you copied the Quran.
This has nothing to do with the book burnings done by the Nazis. Their intent, context and scale was all about eradicating the books’ content.
Or if you want, the totalitarians this time are those who play victim. They seek to oppose their value system and rules onto others, if necessary by deadly force. You better obey Islamic rule and respect the Quran as holy, or else.
yes it has very much to do with the book burnings of the Nazis.
If one person is murdered in a hate crime it is not less of a hate crime because it lacked the scale.
The intent and the targeted escalation is the same. Also it is no coincidence that there is a islamic terrorist group called Boko Haram - books are sin. It is the same idea and the same motivitation and it is always outside of democratic discourse, where criticism of a religion or its institutions is of course permitted. But burning books is not motivated to be part of the democratic discourse, but to harm democracy.
It’s just a fucking book. In todays day and age a printed book means shit. Burn as many as you want. You wouldn’t change anything.
is this the same for flags?
Can they still draw Mohammed though?
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.
The intent is secondary to the effect. If certain muslim people cannot put their religious sensibilities BELOW the secular human rights of their fellow country men, they LITERALLY need to leave. They are literally bad for us, and our social, secular order. EXACTLY like the hardcore christians are bad for human rights in the USA.
“The bill will make it punishable, for example, for people of the same sex to kiss in public. It will only aim at actions in a public place or with the intention of spreading in a wider circle,” Hummelgaard said
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 kiss as many people of the same sex in private as you want.
This isn’t an exaggeration: a few weeks ago in Ottawa we had anti-LGBT protests where rainbow flags were burned down – guess who was there? And while many of us were offended and appalled, nobody was threatened or beheaded in response, and we didn’t have politicians trying to pass a new law forbidding the burning of rainbow flags either.
The whole point of this is that in Europe we have fought for centuries in order to establish liberal democracies where freedom of speech and the separation of church and state are enshrined. We must not appease extremists who achieve change with threats of violence. There is a name for that.
In a democracy the act of burning a book, or a flag, is a canary in the coal mine: you know there is trouble when it dies.
The message is simple: we don’t threaten people who have different ideas.
you do realize that the people burning lgbt flags now, will burn lgbt people, or whoever they think to be lgbt, if they get the chance to?
Destroying symbols of a group is a step in the escalation to killing people of that group. Source: two millenia of antisemitism in europe. First you attack the symbols, then the places and finally the people.
The common thread between both is religious extremism.
How is this blasphemy law different from the draconian anti-LGBT or anti-abortion laws in the USA? BOTH ARE JUSTIFIED with purely with religious feelings/opinions.
Burning books is not compareable with having the right to life your sexuality. You can life a happy and fullfilled life without ever burning a religious book. Having to closet your sexuality does not allow for that.
Also it is wrong to speak about blasphemy laws, implying the state would try to enforce its religion by forbidding criticism against it, you know like the actual blasphemy laws were about. This here is about preventing public hate speech, which serves nothing except to incite violence.
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.
yeah, clearly the compromise needs to be burning symbols of a group in public to stir hatred and violence against that group. That is totally the reasonable compromise. Clearly the people wanting the right to burn things in public are not fundamentalist, after all basically everyone burns a Quran, or Torah or Bible for breakfast amirite?
Look at the real-world consequences of mocking Islam, of drawing prophet Muhamed, or burning the Qur’an.
Compare them with the real-world consequences of mocking any other religion (or atheism), or burning their “sacred” books.
Are they comparable? Who is then the oppressor, and who is the oppressed?
The US conservatives and Hillary Clinton were calling for war against Iran because the people there burnt US flags. Trump then bombed a person invited on a diplomatic talk with the US, which is one of the worst crimes against diplomacy imaginable.
Or look at footbal fans hostile to each other, where symbols of the enemy team are burnt vice versa until it escalates to violence.
Attacking symbols of groups in hate causes escalations all the time.
Or look at footbal fans hostile to each other, where symbols of the enemy team are burnt vice versa until it escalates to violence.
Indeed, football fans are famously known for their acts of violence, such as flying airliners into skyscrapers, countless suicide bombings, etc. All in the name of football.
I have no interest in Muslims being harmed in any way. They are literally my neighbors. At the same time, one must recognize that among them there are people with a a willingness to support and commit atrocities that is unparalleled today.
People who deny this are blind to reality. All sides are not equal.
and among us civilised western europeans there are many fascists murdering muslims or people assumed to be such or deemed as supporters of them. Anders Breivik murdered over 70 teenagers because of his ideology of fearing a muslim takeover of europe. When you measure muslims by their worst, then you need to measure yourself by people like Breivik too.
I hope you see why that doesnt make sense in either case and is certainly no justification for allowing hate speech in the form of burning symbols of a group subject to discrimination.
I personally really do not like religion. And if you buy a quran and burn it at home, nothing will happen. Nobody will care.
But what is your desired outcome, if you take the book that is holy to some, and burn it infront of their eyes? There is only one answer to this and that answer is the reason for these laws. You cannot go to a pride parade and burn rainbow flags in front of their eyes either. It is rather obvious why.
There seems to be deep misunderstanding why this is troublesome.
The Government burning any book is bad.
A private citizen should be allowed to burn any book he/she wants.
You can still burn the Quran at home according to the law.
You just can’t do it as a form of protest, which should be protected under free speech
Hate speech is not protected speech and people advocating for hate speech as “freeze peaches” usually want to abolish the actual freedom of speech
Is it “hate speech” when people are protesting against an oppressive, evil ideology? Would it still be hate speech if someone burned a Bible?
it depends on the form of protest and yes burning the bible in public is hate speech and not a constructive criticism of christianity or the churches, were i’d be happy to join in as there is a lot to criticise. But that criticism can and should be voiced without burning bibles.
Should criticism be able to be voiced without burning literature? Yes. Do I think climate activists should be able to be heard without disrupting people’s commutes by blocking traffic? Yes.
Unfortunately, sometimes activists are ignored without an unusual act of protest, and protests should not be considered hate speech unless they’re directly calling for violence towards a group. I don’t think burning a book falls under that category.
With all that being said, the government should not be responsible for deciding what a person can or cannot do unless they’re actively hurting another person.
Climate protests have a specific goal in changing policies and economic practicises.
Burning a Quran has no specific target. It targets muslims as a group entirely. And there is also no goal, no transformation, nothing better to strife for, in it. It is just hate of islam and muslim people. The only target could be to abolish the religion as a whole and ban people from practicising it. that is nothing but persecution. And you cannot argue that the people behind it would want anything less, as they are attacking the key symbol of that religion. Or as a methaphor, you don’t slap someone on the wrist by stabbing their heart.
Thats a very thin defence. The point is that private citizens should be allowed to burn their own belongings as a form of protest/expression. That’s effectively been banned now.
You’re not allowed to be naked in public. Doesn’t matter if you want to protest jeans. You can’t be naked.
You’re not allowed to take a shit on the curb outside of whatever you want to protest either.
You’re not allowed to burn flags of forgein nations.
plenty of expressions that can be used to protest are banned. What’s so different here? You can still burn as many books as you want in your own backyard. You just can’t do it at the town square.
And as a final note. It’s a proposition. It hasn’t been voted on. How about you save your outrage until they’ve actually decided on what to do?
Noone is talking about indecent exposure or defecating in public, we’re taking about burning your own possession.
I’d also argue a private citizen should be allowed to burn any flag they want. It’s the same thing as with books.
you know in most places it is illegal to start any fire in public? You are not allowed to start a campfire on a public plaza or barbeque in most parks already. Why should there be a specific exception for burning things to incite hatred and violence against people?
All of that is fine. Limit where you can burn something, limit the toxicity of the item burned, but do not limit burning things based on “offense”.
You need to see the difference between limiting something because it’s dangerous vs causing offense. That is a dangerous road no democratic government should go down.
Inciting violence in public by burning symbols of a minority group is a threat to democracy and should be prohibited. Take it from a German, we have experience with escalating hatred and because of that we also have proper laws against hate speech now.
Burning a religious book is a form of hate speech and serves only to incite hate.
Point is. There are plenty of things we can’t do.
What purpose does a public book burning serve beyond provoking and insulting?
That’s why it’s not allowed to burn forgein flags. It’s just a means to insult a group of people in public.
Now, I’m not for a ban on book burning, religious or otherwise. If you have the permit go nuts. But the arguments people present are just really really bad.
The point is, you brining up things we can’t do outside of the burning symbols discussion is irrelevant. We’re not allowed to slap people, therefore we should not be allowed to criticize the government simply does not follow.
We’re talking about having the right to burn your OWN possessions. The government should not be in the business of deciding what is offensive or isn’t. It’s a slippery slope that can’t end well.
You can burn your own things in private, just as much as you can be naked in private, jack off to furry porn, do drugs or worship a Hitler statue in private. But you cannot and shouldn’t do so in public.
A private citizen will still be allowed and protected to burn any book he or she wishes, in private.
Like you can be gay in muslim country, just in private.
Sending clear message that violence is an acceptable and working political tool. Climate protesters need to up their game.
