Sacred is a state of mind

In regards to the Koran burning, Randall Parker says:

When someone says it sickens them to take some position I figure they are just striking a pose and signaling.

Very few non-Muslim people are truly sickened by the idea of burning Korans.

Polinchello says:

The thing is, in a secular society, there is something upsetting about book-burning. It’s an act of vandalism. True, the pastor in question owns the books, but it’s still a viscerally disturbing act.

As some of you know I jumped on a Koran three times at the age of seven. I was not ever much of a religious believer, and wanted to “test” if God would strike me down. I obviously am not sickened by the burning of a Koran, or any book. What I am sickened by is the loss of genuine knowledge, and the burning of one book is an act of symbolism without a great substance consequence, at least in the age of mass printings. Perhaps it is ironic that I have read more books than 99% of humans, but am less discomfited by the idea of physical destruction of precious books than most humans.

But I don’t extrapolate my own psychology to others. I think there is something somewhat off about people like me, at least in relation to the modal human. The readers of this weblog are mostly nonbelievers in gods, and also of a libertarian bent. The set of these individuals tend to be overwhelmingly male, and often of a technical orientation. We’re not representative humans, and extrapolation after introspection is a dangerous game for the likes of us. Dangerous at least if we want to model how the world of human psychology and sociology is as opposed what we’d want it to be. We are the sort who are not gifted with the full range of powerful visceral emotions that others are.

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14 Responses to Sacred is a state of mind

  1. Florida resident says:

    I have no doubts that Dr. Khan
    “have read more books than 99% of humans”;
    it is objective truth.
    Can he make a statement that he
    “have read more books than 99% of humans”, whom he knows personally ?
    As it is usually said about those cases,
    “he will not die from humility”.

  2. Polichinello says:

    I was not ever much of a religious believer, and wanted to “test” if God would strike me down.

    Ah, an experiment with repeatable results, and they say science and religion can’t mix.

    In the interest of full disclosure, while I’d rather the pastor had found some other means of protest in the first place, I’m more disturbed with his last minute cowardice. We now have the worst situation, where the thuggery of others is rewarded. Justice Breyer’s cowardly retreat from the First Amendment is way more disturbing than Jones’ now cancelled Quran roast.

  3. David Hume says:

    boris, “a. k. a.” florida resident, please stop pushing the conversation into weird directions.

  4. Sully says:

    I can well commiserate with people who are horrified by the idea of burning sacred books; I have great difficulty burning or tossing out plain old excess books that I know I will never read again and which have no value in the marketplace.

  5. panglos says:

    Well, it certainly is not very Christian like.

  6. RandyB says:

    I think many people are frustrated by the lack of ability to express displeasure at the Quran. Without it, Islam would be just another act-morally and-love-your-neighbor religion.

    But how do we express “The fact that you believe God commands you to conquer others, makes that belief no more valid than if any common dictator said it.” We all know that religious beliefs get a respect the same secular opinions would not. How do we say “Your book is NOT God’s word”? Debating it with reason is insufficient if your opponent doesn’t accept that your opinion is just as valid as the book’s author’s.

  7. John says:

    For a lot of people, morality consists of banning what makes them feel offended. I don’t get offended by much, which is probably why I’m a libertarian.

    There is simply nothing in my emotional repertoire that correlates to how a Muslim would feel if someone burnt a Koran. I realize this isn’t normal, but I’m glad I’m not normal in this way.

  8. David Hume says:

    We all know that religious beliefs get a respect the same secular opinions would not.

    alas, this is true. it irks me still that religious silliness gets respect, but secular silliness gets laughs. on the other hand, i’m irreligious myself, so i can’t empathize with “sacred silliness.”

    For a lot of people, morality consists of banning what makes them feel offended

    right. my overall point is the power of emotion for most people. i think most atheists are overloaded with emotionally deficient social retards (i put myself in this category), so we tend to assume that if people are doing X there’s this rational reason to they’re doing Y. robin hanson is a big promoter of the idea of signaling, but he’s a social retard too from what i know (i love the guy, but me makes me feel like a master of men’s subtle minds).

  9. Susan says:

    “The set of these individuals tends to be overwhelmingly male”…Okay, let me screw up your demographic (I often do that) as an official girl. No, I can’t in the least identify with the feelings of a Muslim who claims that he himself would rather burn than see a Koran torched. But I also don’t believe that this was a sincere statement. I put it in the same category as I do rioting and looting as a legitimate form of protest. That is, it’s an excuse to behave badly. “I’ve been historically oppressed…so I’m going to torch fifty city blocks.” Or, “Some Danish guy did a blasphemous cartoon about Mohammed. Therefore, I’m going to burn down an embassy in Greece and kill some people several thousand miles from Demmark.”

    Razib, I performed a similar experiment when I was about eight. I said “damn” and waited for forked lightening to destroy me. Didn’t happen.

  10. Dominic says:

    Florida Resident may not have had any statistical training. He can make that statement; to wit, how much people read probably has a known distribution and determining the 99% percentile is statistically not difficult to do. So, yes, he probably can say that with accuracy. I would only note that there is probably a pretty long tail at the end of that distribution which is populated by the most ambitious bibliophiles.

  11. David Hume says:

    Florida Resident may not have had any statistical training

    he’s a physics professor. whether he has training or not i’m sure he grasps all the concepts necessary.

    re: books read, i know the median from this article:

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/21/AR2007082101045.html

    if you knew that, you should have offered the numbers. if you didn’t, you should look it up if you are interested enough to opine on boris’ weird comment (english is not the first language he learned, so perhaps the weirdness is in translation). ok, you don’t need to look up anything, and that’s the problem we face on the internetz. all talk, no http://lmgtfy.com.

  12. tom says:

    I agree with the sentiment but don’t think it has anything to do with the range of my emotions or any lack thereof. People make a fetish of books, as they make a fetish of so many other things. That so many people believe in the sacredness of certain books is simply ludicrous to me. That other people think that burning these so-called sacred things accomplishes anything is even more pathetic. They show themselves to be believers in the power of the very book they claim to reject as profane!

  13. तथागत) says:

    Idleness is the beginning of all psychology. How can this be? Could psychology be a – vice? F.N.

  14. Billy Bad says:

    Man knows so little about his fellows. In his eyes all men or women act upon what he believes would motivate him if he were mad enough to do what the other man or woman is doing. –Faulkner

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