a very very bad example *A Wal-Mart worker died early Friday after an "out-of-control" mob of frenzied shoppers smashed through the Long Island store's front doors and trampled him, police said. *Nineteen people have been killed in Germany during the country’s annual “Love Parade”, held this year in the former industrial Ruhr city of Duisburg. Officials and eyewitnesses spoke of a mass stampede in which people were trampled under foot. At least 342 others were injured, some seriously, and many police and ambulance personnel were seen giving the kiss of life to victims. What should have been a celebration of techno-music and dance turned into horror near the field where hundreds of thousands gathered during the afternoon. Many continued to party even as the air was filled the noise of police sirens, unaware of the tragedy taking place behind them. The Science of People: Crowds as Systems Watching crowds from a height is a lot like looking down onto a colony of ants. Aerial videos of crowd disasters typically exhibit recurring patterns in the minutes leading up to deadly surges, says Johansson, who has published studies on the 2006 stampede that killed at least 345 hajj pilgrims near Mecca in Saudi Arabia. What begins as a smooth flow of people can quickly turn into stop-and-go movements characteristic of highway traffic jams. This is the first warning sign. Like any orderly system, once you see an disruption or impediment on the flow, turbulence (science-speak for chaos) is not far away. In the case of a crowd, this is where panicked people begin to thrust away from each other in all directions, leaving some with no place to go and, in the worst case, vulnerable to being trampled. Dr. Paul M. Torrens at Arizona State University uses sophisticated computer models to predict crowd behavior and spot problem spots in a given landscape. The agents in Torrens' computer models have a realistic field of vision that can change according to personal attributes such as speed, height, age and even personality traits and predilections (the meanderer versus the goal-line oriented). People are able to scan subconsciously for collisions, says Torrens. His models are a bit more rudimentary--the avatars in them avoid physical collisions at all cost. Still, their myopic viewpoint gives insight into how a person will act in a panicked crowd. With the right barriers in the right places, a panicked crowd is given nowhere to go. Officials on the ground take insight from experts such as Torrens in order to implement careful urban planning. It is the preplanned area, after all, that will save a crowd from its inability to see the whole situation. google
Anyone can publish and sell a Quran, Bible, etc, in the US - or in the Netherlands, AFAIK. No one owns the rights to those scriptures. They are in the public domain.
Welcome to the new Dark Ages. This idiot represents the same spark of unbelievable ignorance that led to the burning of the Library of Alexandria. Nothing to do with spiritual revelation, everything to do with ignorance, human depravity and self righteousness. :m:
When the US invaded Iraq, they allowed local criminals to loot and wreck some of the finest museums on earth. This dimwitted Granpaw is only burning paper. Civilisation. Pft.
True but there was a well armed guard around the oil ministry building in less than three hours - sort of tells why Iraq was invaded.
Bingo. You sir, have hit the nail right on the head. I think if you look back in history, those who have called for book burnings have been the most ignorant, depraved and self-righteous individuals. Thank ye kindly Strawdog!Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
2010 Annual Book Burning The annual Book Burning for 2010 will be upon us very soon. This year is going to be much bigger and better. We already have collected more perversions of God’s Holy Word than we had last year, as well as many books by heretics and movies. Many churches and individual Christians last year contacted us in support of what we were doing. Many comments were made about how they could help or participate in 2010. So we believe that God is using us to help encourage other believers to do what God’s Word says in Acts 19 about burning satanic books. We are not starting a movement, association, denomination, brotherhood, or anything else for that matter. We are not in charge of anything or over anything except our local church. We are just a “voice crying in the wilderness” trying to encourage others to “earnestly contend for the faith.” We are burning Satan's bibles like the NIV, RSV, NLT, HCSB, CEV, NCV, NIRV, TNIV, NKJV, TLB, NASB, ESV, NEV, NRSV, ASV, NWT (Jehovah Witness Bible), Amplified Bible, God's Word Translation, 21st Century King James, Young's Literal Translation, Reina-Valera 1960, Darby, Good News for Modern Man, The Evidence Bible, Book of Mormons, The Message Bible, The Green Bible, Quran (Koran), Bible in Rhyme, Boomer Bible, and ect. As well as Greek New Testaments by Westcott & Hort, Metzger, Scrivener, Berry, Ginsburg, and Green. Also Herbrew-English Dictionaries by Brown, Driver, and Briggs. Also Greek-English Lexicons by Moulton, Thayer, Danker, and Liddell. http://www.paganism-today.com/archives/18
This line of argumentation is extremely problematic. Clearly burning one's OWN property is nothing similar to burning someone else's property (arson) or some body of authority ordering/coercing people to burn property (books in this case). Pastor Terry Jones was not out to break any laws or trample on the rights of others. Huge difference here. There was no coercion. No display of force. No taking something away from someone else. All extremely important factors to consider. This isn't anything similar to the Qur'an book burning situation. Not in any way. There is only one Mt. Uluru, and I don't own it.
The only difference there being that many of the works in Alexandria were undoubtedly the only of their kind in existence, from my understanding. Burning a few copies of something of which there are millions still in print and now days in electronic form is not quite the same. The modern Library of Alexandria.
Obviously, it's an issue of ownership. If you build your own Washington Monument and then smash it, more power to you. If you can persuade the US government to sell you the original, without making you sign any agreements to look after it, then you could smash that too. You want to burn a Bible, a Torah, the complete works of Shakespeare, The Origin of Species, The Satanic Verses, the American flag, or the American constitution? Buy a copy and do it. It's completely legal in America. The only entity you're sinning against is nature by creating unnecessary greenhouse gases. At least America is consistent in its protection of free expression. In Pakistan, they will happily burn American flags and ban books like the Satanic Verses, but then throw a fit when somebody burns a Qur'an. Hypocrisy must be their national pastime. It's a little more complicated than that - recent translations may be under copyright. You can always publish the original text or older translations, but a modern translation of the Bible or Qur'an is a new work legally belonging to the translator. However, copyright only prevents you from copying the book. No restrictions on burning it.
So "ownership" is a sacred symbol which all and sundry must respect? Why? How about we do away with that symbol? Let everything be "public domain" - after all you cannot take it with you. If you don't believe in property rights, is there anything called ownership? Think of it like the 1500 year old "sacred" site which was erased for a municipal complex. Or Saladins grave being bulldozed for the museum of "tolerance". Whats sacred? All you need is for people to not view the Washington monument as anything but a pile of bricks which when it is reduced to rubble will reduce the tendency of people to attach symbolism to it. Bring down a "national monument" every year and soon people will not have any emotions embroiled in sticks and stones. Come on, dump all that sacrosanct stuff!
Well, for a religion that says it's basis is submission, there's plenty of examples in recent years where its adherents simply do not submit. Multiple Hajj stampedes resulting in thousands of deaths and injuries, the embarrassing desecration of Ayatollah Khomeini's corpse for the whole world to see, Muslim protesters who kill and injure each other, etc. A very long list of Islam run rampant. And they are currently failing to submit in Kashmir, with the resulting death, injury and shame. On the other hand, the Christian Bible says to submit. Check their copyright pages, and the copyrights and legal terms of websites.
That would imply that those following you have no investment or interest in such monuments. I think your blase stance is compromised by succession. Yes, trite, I know: but then, so was the original argument.
SAM, I often can support you, but you are being silly here. There was no need of "ownership" when there were no assets to manage, but even back in the tribal hunting days, there was still need of a leader who accted as if he had right of control - where they would hunt that day, how the kill, if any, would be shared out. Effectively he own the meat the group caught, and it was their main asset. Others owned the stone tipped spear they had made (or traded for). SUMMARY: Even the most primative social organizations NEEDED ownership / control of assets / to survive. Ownership makes who controls an asset defintite. They may not use it as wisely as is possible but even inept management is better than the chaos of no one in charge. Once the assets become large (Many months of labor stored in the asset) the sociey controls more accumulated wealth and is much more productive. Large assets are the result of man-years of accumulated labor. - For example an office building. Without ownership there would be no large assets or any significant wealth accumulated. - Ownwership may not be fair (according to some who have little) but without it all would be very poor and live much like the primative hunter / gathers did and even they required some ownership concepts to survive.
We live in the internet age Billy. Ownership is fast becoming a thing of the past. Besides, Americans are the last people in the world to beat their chests about ownership, since they do not respect the sovereignty of any peoples. Witness the erasure of thousand year old grave sites for yet another Sam's club. Or the tanks over the thousand year streets of Babylon. The value of any "property" is only in the eyes of the owner. What would the value be if no one else recognised it? Do you disagree?
I remember the scandal over this photograph from 1987, called Piss Christ. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! A crucifix submerged in urine. Is this blasphemy or is it art? The art critic Lucy Lippard has presented a constructive case for the formal value of Serrano's Piss Christ, which she characterizes as mysterious and beautiful. She writes that the work is "a darkly beautiful photographic image… the small wood and plastic crucifix becomes virtually monumental as it floats, photographically enlarged, in a deep rosy glow that is both ominous and glorious." Lippard suggests that the formal values of the image can be regarded separately from other meanings. Wiki, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piss_Christ Lucy Lippard's review reminds me of the Monty Python sketch: His Majesty is like a stream of bat's piss ...... etc
