Leave Brittany the books alone!

Not like good Catholics would ever do this. Especially not in the Americas.

Especially not for profit in what's now Mexico.

I wonder what people in Timbuktu reference when they want to describe something as being incredibly remote and distant?

kid_icarus: I wonder what people in Timbuktu reference when they want to describe something as being incredibly remote and distant?

Probably Bumf*ck.

kid_icarus: I wonder what people in Timbuktu reference when they want to describe something as being incredibly remote and distant?

Joisy.

farking religion poisons everything it touches.

FlashHarry: farking religion poisons torches everything it touches.

doglover: Not like good Catholics would ever do this. Especially not in the Americas.

Well that didn't take long.

doglover: Not like good Catholics would ever do this. Especially not in the Americas.

Dude, I know we all have to be politically correct and everything but don't try to equate the two, you end up looking like an asshole.

This is why we can't have nice old things.

They're just doing it out of spite at this point, aren't they.

Diogenes: FlashHarry: farking religion poisons torches everything it touches.

I might point out that the gatherers and caretakers of these documents over the last 500 years or so are Muslims, and that the torchers also destroyed over 300 Sufi Muslim shrines in Timbuktu.  Extremists are extreme.

sno man: Diogenes: FlashHarry: farking religion poisons torches everything it touches.

I might point out that the gatherers and caretakers of these documents over the last 500 years or so are Muslims, and that the torchers also destroyed over 300 Sufi Muslim shrines in Timbuktu.  Extremists are extreme.

I was just joining the dog pile.  Not helpful, I know.

If Africa is lucky, the got all the copies of 50 Shades of Gray.

ethics-gradient: Take a big pinch of ignorance, a bucket load of arrogance and stir togther with lashings of bigotry, leave to fester for centuries and voila you have fundamentalism!
Garnish with ugly beards and serve.

just for kicks:  Take a big pinch of ignorance, a bucket load of arrogance and stir togther with lashings of bigotry, leave to fester for decades and voila you have fundamentalism!
Garnish with red necks and serve.

Hunh, imagine that.

halB: doglover: Not like good Catholics would ever do this. Especially not in the Americas.

What the hell are you talking about? None of them aside from the Aztecs had a written language. And the Aztec's use of that writing was always limited.

Disagrees:  http://www.omniglot.com/writing/mayan.htm

ethics-gradient: Take a big pinch of ignorance, a bucket load of arrogance and stir togther with lashings of bigotry, leave to fester for centuries and voila you have fundamentalism!
Garnish with ugly beards and serve.

Ugly NECK beards.

kid_icarus: I wonder what people in Timbuktu reference when they want to describe something as being incredibly remote and distant?

I haven't got an answer on that question yet, but I have read that in Finland, people say "from here to Halifax". I expect this originally refered to Halifax, England, but the story I heard was that it refered to Halifax, Nova Scotia, which is definitely far away from Finland.

However, this may be an English language expression as well, as I ran across "from here to Halifax" and "from Hell to Halifax" in a glossary of English words and expressions from the 1940s. No doubt this expression was used during World War II when Halifax, Nova Scotia was a major military staging area for North Atlantic patrols and other wartime activity..

Hell to Halifax: a variation of the phrase "from here to Halifax," meaning everywhere, in all places no matter how far from here. "Halifax" is a county in eastern Canada, on the Atlantic Ocean.
http://www.goldenagestories.com/glossary/orders-is-orders-glossary"> http://www.goldenagestories.com/glossary/orders-is-orders-glossary

Given the layout of North Africa, I would expect the people of Timbuktu to regard Cairo, Egypt as a very distant place, although Mecca is even further and a very strong candidate. The point of these expressions is that they name the most distant place that the user can think of, some place not merely exotic but at the limits of geographical knowledge. The user may be aware of more distant places but the place named is at the limits of the "world" in which they live.

Timbuktu was a fabled city of wealth, power and extreme hostility to the Christian world. It traded in valuable luxury goods across the Sahara and thus its trade goods were known in Europe, but there was little chance of anybody going there (although a number of foreigners have, by ostensibly adopting the Muslim religion and by disguising themselves heavily, managed to visit the city and live to tell the tale).

I wouldn't be surprised if China has been used as such a extreme limit, or India. Canada is at the limits of the world for Australians and New Zealanders, and some Americans. I seem to recall "Canaday" being used as the type of a very distant, foreign and hostile place. I am told that Southerners have used "Canadian" as a euphemism or synonym for "gay" because Canadians are non-Southerners and an invisible minority, so to speak, the way gays are. This is typical. Like VD, easy women, and the place where meat pies grow on trees, the next country over is often regarded as gay or the source of the "gay disease".

This can be seen in the name of VD, which is "the French disease" in England, the "Italian disease" in France, the "Spanish disease" (IIRC) in Italy, and so forth, all the way across Europe.

We may regard Greeks as the inventors of anal sodomy, but the Greeks blame the Turks, and the Bulgarians gave sodomites their name (bugger, from Bulgar) as the Bohemians gave their name to wandering social outsiders.

Mental geography is often quite different from real geography. Medieval Russians regarded Roman Catholic Europe as part of the East because it was full of heretics and a threat to the Fatherland. They weren't too clear on the distinction between liberals, Roman Catholics and Jews, not unlike some Southerners.

amoral: liam76: doglover: Not like good Catholics would ever do this. Especially not in the Americas.

Any particular reason you feel the need to bring up Catholics on a story about muslims torching a Library?

Any reason you feel the need to bring up islam in a story about extremists torching a library?

psst, it wasn't atheist extremists

atomicmask: mrlewish: atomicmask: Islam is a wonderful religion and I hope it spreads all over the world so we can all get a sample of this peaceful, enlightened, and prosperous culture that has lead the middle east to a thousand years of peace and a liberal utopia of human rights and education.

I don't think your ironic sarcasm worked. Your statement implies opposites so when you say "liberal" you are actually implying "conservative" which I don't think was your intent. Of course you can not use the word conservative in your statement since by its very nature Islamic fundamentalism like all fundamentalist is conservative and of course implying the opposite of that would not work.

I really think you need to refine your troll statement a bit more or maybe to back to some gun/abortion thread where you may feel more comfortable.

Actually it was my intent, it is ultra conservatism in its full glory. The jab at liberals, is that the irresponsible twats (like yourself) think our culture should be an open door because brown people are incapable of doing any harm, when in truth islam is a plague we should ban and halt the spread of for the good of all humanity.

You guys should start reading up on how conquest was achieved historically. You start by ridding the culture of its older artifacts - books, shrines, people/communities...

Sun Tsu wrote about how to do it, as did Machiavelli. It's been practiced by just about every culture that has ever invaded/engulfed another. The Christians did it to Jews (and Muslims, and Romans, and pretty much everyone else), the Romans did it to basically everyone, the English sure as shiat did it (and tried to with many others), the French did it, Muslims do it, the Chinese did it (and still do), the US does it to varying degrees (depending on the culture we're trying to replace)...

What a library destroyed by extremists may look like

/Sarajevo 1992
//the Serbs destroyed an extensive collection of Ottoman manuscripts and other rare books

ajt167: liam76: doglover: Not like good Catholics would ever do this. Especially not in the Americas.

Any particular reason you feel the need to bring up Catholics on a story about muslims torching a Library?

Nowadays, organized groups of extremist Catholics might protest an abortion clinic. Not saying the Church leaders don't do lousy things, but you have to really stretch to compare like doglover did.

Here's the thing...religious belief demands faith, which is the antithesis of reason. When your decisions are based on the irrationality of faith instead of the rationality of reason, and you add just a bit of righteous belief in your actions, anything is possible.

Now, most religious adherents just go about their day, doing their thing, not giving it a second thought. But there are those few who feel compelled to act. And those are the ones who are most dangerous.