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| quote: | Originally posted by Moral Hazard
You can't hold an idea responsible, even in part. You can't hold a book responsible, even in part. Kapital is not liable for the purging of the generals in the USSR, The White Man's Burden is not responsible for The Residential Schools abuse of Natives in Canada, The Catcher and the Rye did not lead directly to the murder of John Lennon, The Bible is not responsible for the hollocaust. Any attempt to argue to the contrary is absolute folly. Certainly, books can inspire deeds but you cannot credibly argue that a book is responsible for the deeds of a person. |
Such nonsense.
If a person said to another "You must go out and kill a lot of people", and the other person did it, then we would rightfully hold the first person partially responsible for it. Your actually saying, if the person had written it down instead of saying it, then he would suddenly be completely free from responsibility? Nonsense.
We have of course no direct access to the Bible's writers and visualizers, so it's hard to hold them accountable, but that does not change the fact that the Bible actually commands some bad deeds, and that people take it seriously - and that's all i mean. I hope your not thinking that I mean the actual physical book of paper and color is responsible and must be punished.
Its true that descriptive ideas can not be held responsible for anything, but the Bible is not descriptive, its normative. It tells people what they should do, and thus it can - or the instigators of it, which includes churches who propagate it - be kept partially responsible for people doing what they are told.
Last edited by Znack on Jul-21-2011 at 00:14
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