MEMBERS of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) this week voted in favour of a resolution for the “deliberately and publicly” burning of the Quran or “any other holy book” to b…
As one who has never burned a book to the best of my recollection, I’m flummoxed by the pleading for respect of dogma.
It’s one thing to be respectful of other human beings, in adherence to the social contract. It’s quite another to demand respect for an arbitrary thing, such as a point of view.
For example, I refuse to knowingly use Apple products in my house and, by extension of the same principle, my family chooses to use products on offer by companies who respect the rights conferred by ownership rather than effectively leasing a device to me with provisions. If I am vocal about my distaste for the way Apple does business, and you happen to be an Apple user, I expect that you understand that I mean no disrespect to you, the individual. I don’t care one whit what you use privately, provided it doesn’t perturb my rights to act differently from you. Anyone who has had this conversation from either perspective knows that being an Apple user is practically a religion on its own, so I think the comparison is apt.
And yet, nobody is going to put up a serious problem if I smash an iPhone. People understand that destroying a physical object in protest is not meant as a personal affront.
Meanwhile, religions throughout history have committed no small number of human rights violations and atrocities that pale in comparison to burning a book. Nobody has ever caused harm to another human being by setting fire to a book in protest, unless they then threw that book at someone wearing flammable pajamas.
As one who has never burned a book to the best of my recollection, I’m flummoxed by the pleading for respect of dogma.
It’s one thing to be respectful of other human beings, in adherence to the social contract. It’s quite another to demand respect for an arbitrary thing, such as a point of view.
For example, I refuse to knowingly use Apple products in my house and, by extension of the same principle, my family chooses to use products on offer by companies who respect the rights conferred by ownership rather than effectively leasing a device to me with provisions. If I am vocal about my distaste for the way Apple does business, and you happen to be an Apple user, I expect that you understand that I mean no disrespect to you, the individual. I don’t care one whit what you use privately, provided it doesn’t perturb my rights to act differently from you. Anyone who has had this conversation from either perspective knows that being an Apple user is practically a religion on its own, so I think the comparison is apt.
And yet, nobody is going to put up a serious problem if I smash an iPhone. People understand that destroying a physical object in protest is not meant as a personal affront.
Meanwhile, religions throughout history have committed no small number of human rights violations and atrocities that pale in comparison to burning a book. Nobody has ever caused harm to another human being by setting fire to a book in protest, unless they then threw that book at someone wearing flammable pajamas.