[Isabella Abbey]

Re: Book burning

Your "theory" that Books can't inspire people to action, whether good or bad, is laughable.

What about the works of Marx? By your logic his books never inspired anyone to act on them.

What about the Koran? By your logic, no one has ever done anything because the Koran told them to.

This is why women should be silent. God told us that in Corinthians for a reason.

But books can't inspire people to manifest character that they don't already possess. It's like the old saying, "If the student is ready, the teacher will come": books can only articulate for people ideas or inspiration that already makes sense to them. In other words, books alone could never make a truly evil person good, or a truly healthy child a demented vagrant -- Marxists, Muslims and even Christians have motivations and sources of inspiration outside of books influencing them, including and especially internal ones; books are only friends to the process. How can we, even people who aren't Communists or even remotely interested in pursuing Communism, understand Marxism without reading Marx?

Reading is never a bad idea; a book can be distasteful, or obnoxious, or universally recognized as poor, but burning books only hurts the burner by devaluing written expression as a priceless source of enrichment.

[Pastor Isaac Peters]

Re: Book burning

If burning books is such a bad thing, why does the Bible present it as a good thing? The relevant Bible passage was cited early on in this thread, but since you evidently missed it, here it is again:

Acts 19:19-20: Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them before all [men]: and they counted the price of them, and found [it] fifty thousand [pieces] of silver. So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed.

[Isabella Abbey]

Re: Book burning

Do you have a source to back up your claim that "They can't make someone feel or do things they aren't already inclined to do, and they can't inspire a person to evil or abuse by themselves."?

People who eschew entire genres of books are more likely to be conformist, and this is a strong argument to maximizing the diversity of books available to everyone.

A person's character is actually fairly fixed -- it's their congenital temperament, their personality, and their inherent resilience all folded together to make them the individual they are. Books can inform, and educate, and entertain, and even enlighten, but they can't possibly alter a person's basic inclinations. If a person reads the Koran and goes on to commit crimes against humanity, they would have done so anyway -- just under different circumstances. If a person reads the New Testament and becomes a missionary, they were indeed inspired by this Book, but they weren't made a missionary when they would otherwise have committed crimes against humanity.

Accordingly, book-burning only limits potential good by narrowing the field of incoming cognitive riches from which to draw, not potential evil by taking away the inspiration.

[Isabella Abbey]

Re: Book burning

If burning books is such a bad thing, why does the Bible present it as a good thing? The relevant Bible passage was cited early on in this thread, but since you evidently missed it, here it is again:

Acts 19:19-20: Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them before all [men]: and they counted the price of them, and found [it] fifty thousand [pieces] of silver. So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed.

Well, a book-burning hoedown does make a symbolic statement of reform, renouncement and revolt against formerly embraced lifestyles or ideas or beliefs, there's no doubt about that; it's just tragic that this is extrapolated into a perception as the books themselves as a threat to anything or anyone, and that a book burning could be contrived as a representation of faith or conviction.

Kids in particular are vulnerable to the message that any book can be bad. There are plenty of books that I wouldn't want my wonderful 11-year-old niece to be reading just yet, but to tell her that some books should be not only shunned for life but destroyed would be doing her a disservice.

[David Goldman]

Re: Book burning

Accordingly, book-burning only limits potential good by narrowing the field of incoming cognitive riches from which to draw, not potential evil by taking away the inspiration.

Exactly opposite. Book burning limits potential evil, while in no way limiting potential good. Why? Because books are of the world. Christians are in the world, but we are not of the world. We do not need the world nor the things of the world. Jesus sums this up perfectly in John 13, as he prays to the Father:

9I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine.
10And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them.
11And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.
12While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled.
13And now come I to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves.
14I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
15I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.
16They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
17Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.
18As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.

Note the BOLD. We are in the world, but we are not to pollute ourselves with the world. Book burning is a symbolic way of acknowledging that we are of Christ. It is also our way of avoiding condemnation per Romans 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

[Pastor Ezekiel]

Re: Book burning

People who eschew entire genres of books are more likely to be conformist, and this is a strong argument to maximizing the diversity of books available to everyone.

A person's character is actually fairly fixed -- it's their congenital temperament, their personality, and their inherent resilience all folded together to make them the individual they are. Books can inform, and educate, and entertain, and even enlighten, but they can't possibly alter a person's basic inclinations. If a person reads the Koran and goes on to commit crimes against humanity, they would have done so anyway -- just under different circumstances. If a person reads the New Testament and becomes a missionary, they were indeed inspired by this Book, but they weren't made a missionary when they would otherwise have committed crimes against humanity.

Accordingly, book-burning only limits potential good by narrowing the field of incoming cognitive riches from which to draw, not potential evil by taking away the inspiration.

You talk funny. Are you a lezbean, or a communist, or both?

[Pastor Billy-Reuben]

Re: Book burning

But books can't inspire people to manifest character that they don't already possess.

Are you saying that a book can't alter someone's world view or cause them to change their mind about something?

Pastor Billy-Reuben

[Mrs. Mary Whitford]

Re: Book burning

People who eschew entire genres of books are more likely to be conformist

You say that like it's a bad thing.

[JennyD]

Re: Book burning

People who eschew entire genres of books are more likely to be conformist

But Isabella, isn't it good to conform to the wishes of God?

Failure to do so results in eternal Hellfire, after all.

[Isabella Abbey]

Re: Book burning

You talk funny. Are you a lezbean, or a communist, or both?

Ah, neither. Definitely not. Not a witch, either. I do like to read, though.



A book can alter a world view, Pastor, and offer up a new idea, but it can't change the fundamental traits of a person. In other words, it's not a threat to a person's character. A book can't make a person "go bad" or be evil or rebel where the inclination to do those things didn't already exist. Deliberate destruction of books or mass censor represses the instinct to enrich oneself, and make informed rather than reactionary decisions and opinions.

Even the Bible expresses this; otherwise it wouldn't be a collection of books, but would just be a list of rules.

[Pastor Ezekiel]

Re: Book burning

That's why we advocate for sticking with God's Holy Word. It's the only book anyone ever really needs.

We Christians burn books precisely because they "alter world views." God wants us to stick with His world view.

Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? - Matthew 6:25

I haven't noticed you advocating for God's Will by the way. You sound like a communist witch to me. And a man hater.

[Isabella Abbey]

Re: Book burning

I haven't noticed you advocating for God's Will by the way. You sound like a communist witch to me. And a man hater.

Not a communist, not a witch, and definitely, absolutely, positively not a man-hater. One of the things that makes me the very happiest is thinking about how much I don't hate men. And those deep tissue massages I was mentioning in another context; those make me happy too. If you put a little bit of olive oil or sesame oil on your hands before you rub, everything moves along much better and it smells nice as well. I love the deep voices on a guy, and when you touch a guy's arm and that bicep muscle is really hard. I definitely don't hate that.

But I digress. No, I'm not a communist.

[Pastor Billy-Reuben]

Re: Book burning

A book can't make a person "go bad" or be evil or rebel where the inclination to do those things didn't already exist.

If a person believes an activity or action is bad, can a book convince that person that the activity or action is actually harmless or maybe even good? Even if it really is bad?

Pastor Billy-Reuben

[Isabella Abbey]

Re: Book burning

If a person believes an activity or action is bad, can a book convince that person that the activity or action is actually harmless or maybe even good? Even if it really is bad?

Pastor Billy-Reuben

Well, I don't know, but I'm having a hard time thinking of an example where it would. For example, three things I think are bad: Drunk driving, child abuse, and cutting oneself. I can't for the life of me imagine ever reading a book persuasive enough to convince me any of those things are OK to any degree.

Can you think of an example, Pastor?

[Pastor Billy-Reuben]

Re: Book burning

Can you think of an example, Pastor?

Can someone who was taught that homosexuality is a sin be convinced, by reading a book that presents homosexuality in a positive light, to change his mind and believe that there is nothing wrong with it? Or possibly be encouraged to experiment with it?

Edited to add: Conversely, could a person who believes there is nothing wrong with homosexuality be convinced, by reading the Bible, that homosexuality is a sin?

Pastor Billy-Reuben