ScratchMonkey

For those of you who thought it was ok to tear up the bible, would your opinion change had he burned a US flag? (A small one in an ash tray, say, to avoid questions of safety.)

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[tR]Greasy_mullet

As long as it is his property and its not wrapped around a person or a puppy then sure.

MagnaCentipede

Certainly not for me. Burning the flag is the only honorable and legal way to dispose of a flag. Even if he were to choose some other method of destruction, all the act does is make him look like a troll.

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Razcsak

Not at all. I remain firmly of the opinion that destruction of a mere symbol does no harm to anyone.

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Steeler

Is it just me, or are a lot of schools defaulting to suspension/expulsion in cases where detention or administrative discipline would be more appropriate? Kicking the kid out of the community and giving him a few days of vacation seems counterproductive, when you could be engaging with him on a teacher/student level.

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Switch

A bible, koran, dead sea scrolls, etc etc are holy symbols for a religious group -- not to be recognized as holy by the government.

I support the right to burn the flag -- it belongs to every individual -- if a citizen feels that our country is behaving disgracefully it is his or her right to demonstrate this by burning the flag -- we can all raise a flag over our homes or burn them at our feet as we see fit....

A bible can only have less protection, as religious institutions are not to receive special considerations beyond being allowed to exist without facing measures that prevent the followers from worship of their choice.

I wouldn't burn our flag as I feel that our country has merits worth honoring despite its shameful behavior over the last few years. (If there was suddenly a law making it illegal to burn the flag, I would reverse myself and begin every morning with a proud displace of civil disobedience)

But lets avoid derailing this discussion,we've had flag threads before.

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|TG|Switch

Better known as:
That noob who crashed the chopper.
That noob who ran over the mine.
That noob who TK'd me with a sniper rifle.
That noob who hit that APC at 300m with light AT! Our APC...

westyfield

I wouldn't advise burning the Dead Sea Scrolls... for one, the British Museum (I think that's where they are) would have something to say about it. Also, they are the original one-of-a-kind, whereas the Bible and Qu'ran have been translated into different languages and reprinted (at least, the Bible has) in different versions for clarity, or simple language, or whatever.

(Interestingly, I am told that it is only a Qu'ran if it is in Arabic, otherwise it is just a copy of the Qu'ran.)

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MagnaCentipede

"I wouldn't advise burning the Dead Sea Scrolls"

That is destruction of a unique artefact, and different from burning a printed COPY of the text of the Scrolls.

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MasterEditorInChief

Tearing up his copy of the bible is his right as much as it is for me to tear up a copy of Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium. After all, it's not the original document being tampered with. I mean, back in the 8th grade during US History, my teacher handed out copies of the Declaration of Independence, which I promptly shredded at the end of the year when I was cleaning out my locker. Is this treasonous? NO! Is tearing a bible sacrilegious? NO!

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Gillespie

I still maintain that the destruction of the Bible by this student is a red herring that the article is intending you to grab onto.

He was suspended for discriminatory/degrading remarks about the other students' beliefs. Again, had he kept his argument strictly in the "This is why I believe what I believe", he'd have been okay. Controversial, but okay.

There is a difference between saying "I believe that Christianity sucks and there is no God" and "I believe all students that believe the tenets of Christianity are total idiots and you are idiots for not joining me in my atheist beliefs".

Don't fall for the B.S. in that article published by a humanist website. It's like trusting an article that a fundamentalist Christian website would write about atheism.

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<ArmA Information/SOPs> <ArmA Admin Team> <TG Req. Reading>

ScratchMonkey

If he in fact believes the latter, silencing him does not change his opinion. It's as inappropriate in what's supposed to be an institution of learning as a beating. It teaches the students that unpopular opinions should never be voiced, lest one be the next whack-a-mole noticed by the authorities.

It seems to me that the best follow-up would be an analysis of the techniques he used to show why they would be ineffective in changing others' opinions.

I recall in high school that I was very frustrated in such classes that there was no real teaching of technique. Papers and speeches might be assigned, but only content was covered, not how to analyze and present it. There was no teaching of critical thinking. (Has that changed since I went to high school 30 years ago?)

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MagnaCentipede

There is no teaching of thinking at all, anymore.

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Gillespie

Primarily schools are crushed for time to teach students how to take tests, thanks to the No Child Left Behind Act. Critical thinking is no longer necessary, only memorization.

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<ArmA Information/SOPs> <ArmA Admin Team> <TG Req. Reading>

MagnaCentipede

Just think, someday, we'll be as cool as Japan! 頑張って下さいよ！

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Switch

If he said that everyone who thinks X-Men comics are non fiction happen to be total idiots, would his assertion be met with any kind of negative response after tearing up a comic?

Probably not. They would say that his claim was rational -- people who believe in super heros with magic powers are idiots -- and that it was his comic book to be destroyed as he saw fit.

Well in this case he says that he thinks people who believe in a literal interpretation of the bible (including burning bushes, men building boats to collect every species on the planet, an invisible man who rules everything, a woman being created from the rib of a spontaneously generated man, a virgin birth, etc etc etc) are idiots. His criticism is just as rational here as it was for the xmen example. Unfortunately this offends many people since a large portion of the world choses to hold such beliefs.

If some people chose to believe that X-men is non fiction, I would expect no apologies from anyone who calls them idiots. In this same sense, he is making a criticism of people who chose to believe stories of the same type of super human powers. Regardless of what greater truths the bible might hold, many people chose to believe literal interpretations of fairy tails contained within, and its not the governments place to defend people who believe in such things beyond saying that they are entitled to their beliefs and we will not stop them from practicing their faith.

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|TG|Switch

Better known as:
That noob who crashed the chopper.
That noob who ran over the mine.
That noob who TK'd me with a sniper rifle.
That noob who hit that APC at 300m with light AT! Our APC...