[Guest]

I don't suppose I need to introduce anybody to the news item about the Dove World Outreach Center and its much publicised planned burning of the Qur'an, and the predictable outrage from the Islamic world. On the face of it, there's no moral dilemma here. The Rev Terry Jones is a media ***** stirring up trouble, most of which will not land on his doorstep. If he goes ahead and burns the Qur'an, there will be riots and other repercussions. The efforts to stabilise Afghanistan and Iraq may be adversely affected. People will die as a result, probably quite a lot of people, and probably quite a lot of them will be innocent bystanders.

However, I can't help but feel that there is something of a dilemma in this. Freedom of speech can not be an absolute right, for sure. If you are in a crowded cinema and shout "FIRE!" (without cause), you are responsible for the resulting stampede and any lives lost in it. If the Rev Jones burns the Qur'an, you may say he is responsible for the lives which will be lost as a result, but also you might say that those lives will be lost because of religious people believing that they can dictate to the rest of the world what we can and cannot do, and responding with violence when their demands are not met. Should the world allow itself to be held hostage by Islam, forced to comply with what Islam wants? Of course the burning of the Qur'an is an unnecessary, provocative and insulting gesture, but so what? Are we to live in the sort of world where such gestures cannot be made?

[Quag]

Chuck Norris kicks... well everything actually

hmm more thoughts on the experiment. what if afterwards we just expose the subject to 1 religion. try it several times with different religions. or inverse it expose religion only then bring in science. or bring them up with all religions and see what happens (I think i heard Bradd Pitt and Angelina Joli were doing this with theirs but the celebrity factor i think will be a stonger influence on their kids lives)

[Guest]

So this experiment, if done properly, could prove or disprove concepts such as cultural and environmental determinism. Sounds interesting, but that would require a rather large number of subjects, varied in every possible way, to provide any relevant result. And it sounds almost impossible to do this experiment with only one person... I guess it will have to stay in our minds, at least for the time being