Difference between revisions of "Book burning"

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(→‎Examples: Somebody has to show me how to do this properly someday)
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*The Amazing Grace Baptist Church, a small [[King James Only]] believing [[Independent Baptist]] church in [[North Carolina]] gained international media attention in 2009 for announcing a [[Halloween]] book burning of all versions of the [[Bible]] other than the King James, plus "Satanic" books by Christian authors like [[Rick Warren]], [[Billy Graham]], [[Oral Roberts]], [[Jimmy Swaggart]], and [[Mother Teresa]]. This brought the idea of book burning into the popular consciousness after a long absence - most people were unaware that burnings ''still'' happened, and the shock of the content to be burned was too much.<ref>[http://www.stltoday.com/blogzone/civil-religion/general/2009/10/halloween-book-burning-at-baptist-church-to-include-copies-of-the-bible/ STLtoday.com - Halloween Book Burning at Baptist Church to Include Copies of the Bible]</ref>
 
*The Amazing Grace Baptist Church, a small [[King James Only]] believing [[Independent Baptist]] church in [[North Carolina]] gained international media attention in 2009 for announcing a [[Halloween]] book burning of all versions of the [[Bible]] other than the King James, plus "Satanic" books by Christian authors like [[Rick Warren]], [[Billy Graham]], [[Oral Roberts]], [[Jimmy Swaggart]], and [[Mother Teresa]]. This brought the idea of book burning into the popular consciousness after a long absence - most people were unaware that burnings ''still'' happened, and the shock of the content to be burned was too much.<ref>[http://www.stltoday.com/blogzone/civil-religion/general/2009/10/halloween-book-burning-at-baptist-church-to-include-copies-of-the-bible/ STLtoday.com - Halloween Book Burning at Baptist Church to Include Copies of the Bible]</ref>
  
*The first emperor of [[China]], Qin Shihuangdi, is said to have gathered all of the books (and their authors) that didn't have practical application (literature, history, philosophy, etc.) and had them burned and buried. [http://www.thenagain.info/webchron/china/bookburn.html The Burning of Books 213 BC]
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*The first emperor of [[China]], Qin Shihuangdi, is said to have gathered all of the books (and their authors) that didn't have practical application (literature, history, philosophy, etc.) and had them burned and buried.<ref>[http://www.thenagain.info/webchron/china/bookburn.html The Burning of Books 213 BC]</ref>
  
 
*The [[Nazi]]s held large-scale book burnings to destroy all "un-German" or "degenerate" works.{{fact}}
 
*The [[Nazi]]s held large-scale book burnings to destroy all "un-German" or "degenerate" works.{{fact}}

Revision as of 20:05, 30 May 2010

A good old fashioned book burning. Nazi style

Book burning is done to express condemnation of the content of certain books (and often also music) by piling up the books in question and starting a bonfire with them. It is a symbolic expression of censorship by those who would rather those books be banned outright, but can only do so in a symbolic way. Sometimes book burning is not merely symbolic but a real attempt by a government to remove all copies of books opposed by the government from circulation by destroying them.

The irony is that while burning books is an act of freedom of expression, it is done in opposition to others' use of the same freedoms, and such events are usually viewed as noxious by the general public. The end result is usually negative publicity for those holding the book burning, although publicity of any sort and getting people riled up is probably what they had in mind in the first place.

Examples

Lookee ma! We're havin' us a good ol' fashion'd buk burnin'!!
  • The first emperor of China, Qin Shihuangdi, is said to have gathered all of the books (and their authors) that didn't have practical application (literature, history, philosophy, etc.) and had them burned and buried.[2]
  • The Nazis held large-scale book burnings to destroy all "un-German" or "degenerate" works.[citation needed]
  • The ancient Romans burned the entire library of Alexandria, although there are varying accounts of the date and intent of this destruction.[3]
  • Various fundamentalist churches in the USA have held burnings of Harry Potter novels.[4]

In popular media

  • In the disaster movie The Day After Tomorrow, several survivors are camping in the New York Public Library and use the books as fuel for a campfire to keep from freezing to death. One of the survivors, a librarian, protests this decision, while another survivor suggests that they burn all of the tax books.
  • Ray Bradbury's novel Fahrenheit 451 is about a future dystopia of hedonism and anti-intellectualism in which books are forbidden. The job title of "fireman" no longer means a firefighter, but somebody employed to seek out and burn books (with the 451 in the title being the temperature at which book paper catches fire).
  • Bloom County's Otis Oracle, head of the local chapter of the Moral Majority, held a book burning which the ever-mischevious Milo Bloom sabotaged by bringing some foul and vile Pat Boone records to burn.

In the Bible

  • Acts 19:18-20: "And many that believed, came and confessed and shewed their deeds. 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."

What to Bring

  • The offensive materials
  • Matches and lighter fluid, or other fun pyromaniac instruments
  • Fire extinguisher (for when the priest stands too close)
  • Chocolate, marshmallows, graham crackers, hot dogs, etc.
  • Bible (however, burning the Bible is looked down upon unless it's a non-KJV version)
  • Hymn Book
  • Fundamentalist, closed-minded attitude

In the Sikh Tradition

The Sikh religion sometimes burns its own holy book, the Guru Granth Sahib (simply the Granth). Sikhs believe the Granth to be an incarnation of their final Guru, hence treating it similarly to a living person. In their religion, when a person dies cremation is the preferred funeral method is cremation. Hence, when a copy of the Granth becomes unreadable it is considered to have died. Hence, the Granth is burned in a special ceremony.[5] In this case it is more like book cremation rather than book burning.

See also

Footnotes