Very recently I came upon a discussion in a Reddit atheist forum in which people talked about what to do with Gideon Bibles in hotel rooms. Suggestions included throwing them in a dumpster, defacing them, and using them as toilet paper. A minority objected, but the dominant sentiment was that it’s fine to do those things. The book-burning mentality is distressingly common in America. A few years ago there was a book-burning campaign against J. K. Rowling, different only in its motivation from many other burnings of Rowling’s works.

Burning books is a confession of intellectual bankruptcy. The burner is saying, in effect, “I can’t answer what this book says, so I’ll destroy it before people can read it.” It has been a favorite tactic of authoritarians for centuries. In The Magic Battery, Gottesmann burns Frieda’s book in public because he can’t bear the thought of people reading it. The New York Society for the Suppression of Vice featured a cop grabbing someone from behind and a man throwing books into a fire on its seal. The Nazis publicly burned books by the thousands. It’s a distressingly common phenomenon in modern society as well.

To be clear, I’m not singling the Bible out for special status. Anyone who reads it carefully ought to conclude that either Biblical Christianity is false or God is a narcissistic, bloodthirsty lunatic. That’s why I want people to read it. It doesn’t matter what the book is; it may need an answer, but destruction and vandalism are never the answer.

 

The Burning Books of the Republic:

Mine eyes have seen the coming of the mighty censor horde.
They are trampling on the bookshelf where “The Grapes of Wrath” is stored.
They have loosed their lightning on Bruce Catton’s “Terrible Swift Sword.”
Their gangs are marching on!

Refrain:
Glory, glory, light the bonfire!
Glory, glory, light the bonfire!
Glory, glory, light the bonfire!
Their gangs are marching on!
 
They are burning Harry Potter and Detective Strike as well.
They’d have “Huckleberry Finn” and “Maus” burn side by side in Hell.
The Bible and Quran are books they’re planning to expel.
Their gangs are marching on!
 
Refrain
 
The only valid thoughts are ones that they have thought, they’re sure,
And disagreement with them is a thing they can’t endure.
They mustn’t be offended and they have to keep you pure.
Their gangs are marching on!
 
Refrain
 
In the beauty of their thoughts they can’t stand any blasphemy.
They don’t want us reading anything that is less than P.C.
They are sure their cause is holy, and they hate a press that’s free.
Their gangs are marching on!
 
Refrain