Remember my post about iPads substituting for books at the altar? Go read and look at the WDTPRS poll.
The problem with the shifting of texts to screen rather than books, is that you can’t as easily burn the heretical texts.
I found this at Happy Catholic, from xkcd.
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on Antonio Socci on the recent Corriere piece with and about Benedict XVI: “Supercooper with respect I feel the opposite, I can’t see how the text of Benedict’s resignation, the text of his…”
on Daily Rome Shot 93: “There you are! We’ve been looking everywhere for you since the windstorm…look we know you aren’t happy ’bout no plans…”
on Antonio Socci on the recent Corriere piece with and about Benedict XVI: “I for one think Francis has the legal claim to the Papacy. But what always made me eye roll was…”
on Daily Rome Shot 93: “Yes, thanks to the Papal Count. And here is a transcription and a translation: Marinus Joannes F Torlonia Dux locatitiae…”
on Daily Rome Shot 93: “Thanks to The Papal Count. That dog is probably thinking “Non ducor, duco.””
on Antonio Socci on the recent Corriere piece with and about Benedict XVI: “My husband read the “interview” and he said that what they wrote that Benedict said didn’t sound at all like…”
on Antonio Socci on the recent Corriere piece with and about Benedict XVI: “It seems to me the analogy doesn’t quite fit. Neither Queen Mary nor Queen Mother Elizabeth were ever Queens regnant.…”
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on NEW COMPENDIUM BOOK: Defending the Faith against Present Heresies….: “IMO we have long passed the due date for a new, serious condemnation of “ambiguity” itself as it has become…”
on @BishopBarron on Barron. @EricSammons on Barron. Wherein @FatherZ rants.: “I think all of you have it all wrong. Including Bishop Barron, Fr. Z, Eric Sammons… You are all stuck…”
on Antonio Socci on the recent Corriere piece with and about Benedict XVI: “I don’t understand how anyone can read the text of the resignation, the text of his “final” audience, and the…”
on Antonio Socci on the recent Corriere piece with and about Benedict XVI: “I wish Benedict had set aside all the trappings of the papacy upon his abdication. But that he hasn’t probably…”
on Antonio Socci on the recent Corriere piece with and about Benedict XVI: “Is this like a Jekyll and Hyde situation? Was the Petrine ministry split into two parts – a contemplative part…”
on Antonio Socci on the recent Corriere piece with and about Benedict XVI: “A supposed suggestion on Benedict’s part that he is still pope seems incongruous to the fact that he has defended…”
on Antonio Socci on the recent Corriere piece with and about Benedict XVI: “Benedict is pope emeritus. That is the title he chose for himself and emeritus is used to described anyone who…”
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since Sat., 25 Nov. 2006:
Technology is so wonderful! iPads as Altar Missals, and old school book burnings with Kindles!
I actually know of book burnings, but not kindle…
Kindling.
I plan to run off to the South of France and live happily ever after with my Kindle. Spare it!
Good one, Vincenzo!
But this bears some investigation — how does one “burn” ebooks? Corrupt the files on the server? Hack into Amazon so it keeps recalling all the copies from everyone’s Kindle as in the 1984 incident?
In any book burning, the people have to bring the books they already have that have been declared heretical or otherwise worthy of burning (I could see burning some non-heretical but really, truly crappy manuals — the sort that make the problem harder to solve rather than telling you how to go about solving it). If you pay the maker for more of his books, even in order to burn them rather than let them fall into hands that might be misled, you’re shooting your cause in the foot by rewarding the author. Of course, it’s another matter when copies are being handed out for free — everybody take a dozen, which just looks like you want to pass it on to friends, but then you go burn them.
As for how to burn electronic trash — you can corrupt any data you already have (or delete it, but that’s usually telling your computer to forget where it is, not actually eliminate it — unless you run nearly out of storage space, in which case almost everything deleted will have been overwritten by all that non-deleted stuff taking up the memory), but there’s not much legally to be done about other people having it — just as there isn’t with regard to other people having an evil book.
I’ll grant it’s less dramatic to destroy the evil from your computer, but as was pointed out by some commenters the computer doesn’t store the data particularly permanently to begin with (not compared to books anyway, and as far as showing up on the screen it’s absolutely transitory). If you have dvds of bad stuff you can break ’em, though. And there are plenty of ways, if you want to show your friends that you’re rejecting something ill you once held as a guilty pleasure (death metal? porn? your stash of filthy cigarettes? whatever?), of making a semi-public show of the destruction of the material. To an extent, the practice of standing up in some sort of share group and witnessing to how you repented and got rid of all your bad stuff is the modern equivalent of book burnings.
The bigger question I have with regard to book burning is what criteria go into the judgement that a thing is without redeeming value, not to even be engaged in order to bring understanding to those not hardened against the Truth, etc. Or how to handle the fact that sometimes heresy-hunters get ahead of themselves and read heresy into things.
Worse than a book burning – non-existence. All data that are stored by computers exists only in binary form, (yes,no; 1,0; |,-; on,off) EVERYTHING.From the latest YouTube posting, to Fr. Z’s blog. It does not exist in the real world in the same manner as a book, or scribbles on a piece of paper, or statues of stone.
How something like a text document is stored on your home computer, laptop or iPad, only varies in the slightest of degrees. It may be durable, long lasting but that is measured only in months and years.
Who needs a match, or even a fire when everything could be erased in a second, and stored data modified to show “the missing data never existed.” (Do a search using the term “Disappearing e-books” interesting reading.)
There are a thousand different ways it could be done, and really, some of them are simple and clumsy and others, you might never know for weeks.
We humans have barely touched upon how evil can flourish and destroy in cyberspace.
Store our treasures in heaven and make mindful use of our abilities to memorize. Books can be burned, teachings suppressed, and data made to disappear. What is written on our hearts and souls remains.
“If you pay the maker for more of his books, even in order to burn them rather than let them fall into hands that might be misled, you’re shooting your cause in the foot by rewarding the author.”
I think that was the point. The people in the cartoon were so stupid that they bought more books to burn, then ended up buying ebooks, then burned a kindle and died. The joke was basically “wow, these people are really dim.”
I’ve been following xkcd for a long time. Its one of the things I look forward to on Monday,Wednesday,Friday. It is unfortunate though, that the “alt” text didn’t transfer. Visit the site and hover of the comic for additional commentary. “Of course, their cautionary tale was in a print newspaper, so no one read it”