Laying them to rest

[theboss314159]

If you burned them a little first it would make better fertilizer

[freshteh661]

no! muslims never ever burn old copies of Qoran, to discard it. they usually drop them in rivers or streams , springs. we never burn it.

[tfleming]

Wait... 74 comments since September and not a single one condemning the act? It's a miracle!

[KNessJM]

Ok, I'm sure it was just a watering can or something, but it looked for all the world like you peed on the plant at the end. Cracked me up.

[TheHerrSven]

Well, there's at least one good thing to do with Bibles and Qur'ans.

[Coldchaos]

As a side note to the video, Judiasm does the same thing with anything that has the name of god(YHWH, etc) on it. Torah, legal document, anything.

If something with the name of god on it has to be disposed of it will be burried, at least is most Conservative and Orthodox branches.

Not sure what the official word from Christian/Islam community is on doing something similar.

[ZergAteu]

@Coldchaos Muslims say that burning old copies of the quran is the only way it can be discadred. Taking this into account it follows that the ones outraged do it intentionally to impose their religion on others.

[caseyrainer]

Watching this gives me an idea for a thought experiment.

I know worms can and do eat paper well. If I start 2 wormfarms, one with pages from koran and another with bible (along with water, some rotten veggies, and garden lime), which one make a better compost?

[randall2020]

And I just thought that GM was bad for plants. Are these flowers now Roundup Ready?

[malisatrudeau]

Cool vid

[weberbeat]

I haven't seen anything as peaceful and uplifting in a long time. It will make me smile for at least a week.

[RememberTheTime99]

A beautiful and important act for a Sunday.  Well done.

[IHS7]

Wouldn't it be funny if you woke up the next morning and found a tree sprouting full of Science Fiction Novels attached to the stems.

[IHS7]

You forgot to put a Tanakh in there.

[ThinkingManNeil]

You should have peed on them too, PZ; urine makes great fertilizer.

N.

[bobrussell1957]

PZ - you will have to spend more time weeding this one plant...

[bobrussell1957]

What a waste....the pages of these books are soft, strong ands thoroughly; absorbent - just the thing when your caught short in the woods and have to pinch off a loaf.

[koini11]

This might sound odd, but just listening to this video made me come over all relaxed and peaceful.

Maybe I should take up gardening.

[valhar2000]

It seems that the kooks, cranks, liars and would-be murderers have not yet got a hold of this video. In preparation for their onslaught of violent petulant idiocy I add my voice of approval to those already joined, in the confident expectation that the talentless , spineless hacks that run Youtube will ignore it and instead lay their bare necks on the ground so that the fundamentalists and their apologists may better step on them.

[Beneficent5]

You've inspired me to clean off my shelves. Make room for good books. :)

[TehRavage]

You should include the last bit of your post with this video in they video description. It really hit the spot for me.

[Balstrome1]

Of course if the plant dies, then Hitch is proven correct, no ?

[nekedemus]

R.I.P.

[mrmathi]

loved that the video only had ambient noises!

cohen brothers would have been proud!

[BaylaRose]

For anyone offended by this video

They are YOUR books

They are YOUR rules

You go to hell !!!!!!

[Holammer]

Oh man, I hit the subscribe button with such force the time space continuum warped.

[starguts]

@Holammer

Hahahaha!!

Thanks for that.

[SkepticalMinded]

Since they were little more than "pulp" fiction to begin with this seems like a fitting end (certainly better than releasing the carbon into the atmosphere via combustion).

[TheProphetNabob]

Well, that was just silly.

Pretty good looking soil, though.

[a9461]

I think you may have put the plant in a little too deeply, isn't there another book you could have put in as well ?

[InTheImageOfDNA]

@a9461 Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. I hear that the Book of Mormon makes good hole-fill.

[lhscodered]

That's the best use I've ever seen for those books.

[QuatroDiablo]

We must now update the Gentlemen's Code to read that religious icons are best desecrated while wearing a herringbone jacket. I am going to ignore the shoes...

[chuckgoecke]

Mum's the Word!

[FetchUnadvise]

That is some really nice topsoil.

[DiabolicalGenius39]

Yay! Now these books are finally being put to good use. And sorry, but do you always wear a professional sports jacket when gardening?

[fishnchimps]

It would have been more apt to bury them upright with only the top third showing, and then to chuck rocks at them.

[Kargoneth]

Rest in pieces.

[renemartien]

When I finished reading my Koran a few years ago, I felt a strong urge to thow it away, it really felt bad to have a copy of that book in my house. Back then it seemed to be a good idea to have it rot in the garbage, but now I see this was the wrong way.

Instead of fighting hatred with hatred, use love and flowers. Brilliant!

PS your blogpost was a real beauty.

[CataractBob]

My Precious, they composted it!

[hznfrst]

Beautiful idea, to turn evil into good by the 'magic' of biology. Much better than burning, too, as the plants that grow will absorb carbon rather than release it into the atmosphere. A triple win: burying evil, helping plants grow and removing CO2!

[Skaryon]

I doubt they will help the plants grow... there is too few substance within these books.

[ohce123]

Bravo

[alexjohnc3]

I wonder if someone is going to dig them up? haha

[leventdenord]

Very well done, PZ. Perhaps I will finish my copies by springtime and will be able to do the same. I feel it is very important to read them in order to understand where much of the world is coming from, but it will surely be liberating to lay them and their pages full of fear and hatred to rest. I do not want my home to harbor such evil.

[Malithion2001]

Should have thrown a cookie in for good measure.

[MegaAnitoon]

Now its a race to see which one resurrects the fastest.

[Folkloreo]

For anyone who didn't come here from Pharyngula:

"...that we hold these awful, terrible, ridiculous books aloft as the guiding ancient wisdom of our civilization doesn't so much exalt the books as it demeans our culture... We should not forget the barbarous past (and barbarous present), but these horrors belong in libraries and museums, they should be taught as vile mistakes in our schools, but we should not be expected to honor them. The proper perspective is to repudiate them." - PZ Myers

[ScentedNectar]

Beautiful. I think they are now resting so that people can finally be in peace.

You might want to water more evenly in a circle just around the plant though. Top watering can promote fungus (or so I read somewhere), and I find it washes too much soil away from where the stem and soil meet after a while.

I'm going to shut up though. It was actually prettier, more video worthy watered from the top like that. :)

RIP: Rest In-there Permanently

[MultigamerLygre]

This is my favorite game at the moment: Plants vs Religion.

[zero7990]

What a tremendously beautiful idea, I will no doubt be borrowing that for my no longer needed book of mormon. So kudos to you good sir (and stay classy with the tweed jacket there)

[Ravemecaptain]

You really do have fantastic soil there. I wish my garden was like that. Poor choice of literature though. Those flowers need some Dostoevsky if they're going to grow big and strange.

[redsaint182]

Subscribed. :)

[finallyfreethinking]

You have excellent dirt.

[duce7999]

What is this? The prequel to Little Shop of Horrors?

[rg0057]

The vegetable kingdom has already given enough for these books. Now the ones who aren't BECOMING them have to GROW in them? Have some mercy, PZ... It ain't easy being green...

[TehAnomaly666]

You are either fool or bastard!

This type of flowers needs Behe's book as fertilizer!

[inajeep]

With a tweed jacket on? Really?

[GeneticsFTW]

Why did you fill them with dirt, so that they decompose faster?

Also, lol @ the flowers.

[boosterz]

I got 5 bucks that says some religious crazy digs up your whole flower bed trying to save his magic book.

[mistereveready]

You have condemned generations of plants to stupidity. I hope you're proud of yourself.

[jjdecani]

Excellent. I'd happily burn or otherwise destroy my copies of the bible and the koran but I still do use them sometimes when needing to throw something back at the enemy from their own stupid book.

Then again, we have online bibles and korans now, don't we? Hmm...

[rotcafarg]

I take it that's water? :-)

[Dewkeeper]

@rotcafarg

Win!

[dreadpiratedan]

i'd like to believe you used a watering can at the end. i really would.

[DevonHartigan]

So that's where the Triffids came from!

[CataractBob]

@DevonHartigan

They'll blind you if you're not careful.

[lectricist]

A beautiful sight and an uplifting video PZ.

[123PWNT]

How cruel! You are a bad person!

Who knows what the poison expelled by those books will do to those poor plants?

[boingsquared]

@123PWNT No harm done as long as the books use lead-free ink. 

[willbxtn]

Nice, and a good use for the books!

Sadly, I give it a good hour at best before the death threats start.

[V3125]

Seems risky, but hey you haven't been assassinated yet right?

[TheModestAgnostic]

right?

[KyoufuKawa]

Nice flowers, Doc.