Burning of Books 

Since the time writing was invented an awful lot of documents and books have been destroyed by various Religions in an attempt to eliminate any Knowledge that was seen as being potentially harmful to the power of that particular Religion.  By far the greatest damage was done by either the Christians or by the Muslims, most likely the Christians, since they have been around longer than the Muslims.  Not all Religions are guilty of this atrocity.  To the best of my Knowledge the so-called Pagans did not participate in this sinful Destruction of Knowledge. 

Fortunately not all ancient texts were destroyed by the various Religions.  The different Religions did more than enough damage with their fires.  The modern printing press and the Internet will probably help in the future to save both new, and old Knowledge that by luck survived the destruction, from being eliminated by Religion, or by government.

How much damage did these asinine morons do?  The damage caused by these flaming idiots is unknown.  We have no way of knowing what they destroyed by their arsons.  May they burn in Hell for their actions, just like the books they destroyed on Earth.

Perhaps the cure for cancer was destroyed by a Religion or by a government in the past.

Perhaps a great scientific idea that could have produced a near unlimited supply of energy was also destroyed.

Since in the future Religions and others will probably not be able to prevent Knowledge they do not like from spreading they will work harder at discrediting it and/or ruining the reputation of the author or publisher.  Perhaps they will just kill the authors of the offending text.  

Recently at least one author has had a death sentence imposed upon him for his book that this time ticked of the Muslim Religion.  I think the name of his book was something like "The Satanic Verses" and I seem to recall that his name was something like Rushke.  I am not sure of the spelling.

Perhaps the destruction of Knowledge by the Church was the reason for the Secrets of Freemasonry.  It may also explain the tradition in Freemasonry of memorization.  It is hard for someone to get and/or destroy Knowledge if the information is only stored in ones head, or Bone Box which opens and closes with Ivory Keys.  Of course at least one Religion, Christianity, had no problem of Burning People at the Stake who had the Knowledge if they could not just destroy the information by burning the books.  They could even use the books to feed the fire to burn the heathens! (They therefore effectively killed two birds with one stone!)

In addition to Religions some governments attempted to destroy written information by the burning of books.  I have read that in some Muslim countries they still burn copies of the Holy Bible.  Wonder what happens to the owners of these books!  They may be beheaded, flogged or blown up by a terrorist bomb.

This is probably why the Founding Fathers of America insisted on having freedom of speech and no state religion.  I hope and pray that we will never lose the right to speak and publish whatever we wish to publish and that we as Americans will never have a state sponsored Religion, and that no Religion will ever gain control of the world.

Some examples of Book Burning by Churches:

     Christians burned the Library of Alexandria

     Muslims burned the new Library of Alexandria

1242 Christians burnt 24 cart loads of Jewish books in Paris

1462 King James of Aragon ordered burning of all Jewish Books.

1562 Catholic Church (Christians) burned almost all documents of the Mayans.  To see the Catholic version of this event see: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10082b.htm 

Sometimes I have to wonder if organized religions have done more harm than good.

The Burning of Books has resulted in the massive destruction of knowledge, which you should see for additional information.

Hopefully those who destroyed the ancient knowledge will suffer forever in the afterlife.

We should pray to God that no religion will ever again get strong enough to cause such willful destruction of knowledge.

If the Supreme Being does not wish for man to have the knowledge He, being all powerful, is powerful enough to prevent us from learning it in the first place.  If He lets us learn He must want us to know.

Also you should read the book, "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury.