Burn the Koran

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I cannot believe that there hasn't been a thread started on this. For anyone who hasn't heard, there's this pastor in Florida who got into his head that a good way to commemorate those who died in the 9/11 attacks would be to burn a few hundred Korans.

Now I understand that what this guy is doing is perfectly legal, and covered under freedom of speech and expression by the Constitution, provided he takes some proper safety precautions.

I just think it's phenomenally stupid. They have TVs in Iraq and Afghanistan, and this could potentially stoke further violence against US troops. Also, way to piss off the billion or so Muslims around the world that had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks to begin with. They pastor, unsurpisingly, has started carrying a .40 cal pistol on him, as he's received numerous death threats. Anyone else think this guy ranks pretty high for the "Idiot of the Year" Award?

 

This pastor is a collossal douchebag. I've heard some rumors that his church is in receivership or some other sort of financial trouble and he's doing this for publicity, but not matter what his motivations, he's a complete donkey.

I don't think that we shouldn't burn copies of the Koran because it might piss off Muslim extremists. No matter what we do, they'll be pissed about it. Appeasement in that sense is a bad road to walk down -- soon we'll not be allowing our women to walk the streets without burkas because otherwise it'll offend the extremists.

I think we shouldn't burn copies of the Koran because it is a despicable act in and of itself. It cheapens us as supposedly tolerant and multicultural people. It goes against what Christ taught (Golden Rule, anyone?) and even if you are not a Christian or even religious in any way shape or form, deliberately showing such disrespect to something that someone holds dear is beyond low class -- it's into the basement and still digging. There are ways to express your disapproval of someone or an institution without being <air>holes about it. I disapprove of Islam theologically, and Islamism in almost every way, but I believe that the path to goodness and decency in this world lies in mutual respect for the positions and opinions of others*. IIHO, that's been the hallmark of many of the great, respected leaders of history.

*Unless those positions and opinions involve vileness, such as pedophiles, rapists, etc. I have a difficult time respecting the positions and viewpoints of criminals, though I believe that we should endeavor to help them mend their ways while at the same time protecting society.

 

I didn't even think of that. Yeah - if a bunch of Muslims decided to hold a public burning of a few hundred Bibles, would this pastor be cool with that?

 

Of course he wouldn't be cool with them burning Bibles -- the whole Golden Rule thing comes into play. I can see the argument that they burn American Flags over there (and there are American citizens who do the same) so we should be able to do the same, but in these sorts of cases 2 wrongs don't make a right.

I understand his frustration and desire to make a statement against Islam, but this is just a dumb, self demeaning way to go about making that statement.

One other thing I want to mention, though. When non-religious protestors want to burn the American flag, there's always a negative reaction and then a backlash saying that they have every right, Constitutionally, to burn the flag, or make it into underwear, or defecate on it, or whatever. They are often portrayed as "freedom fighters" or "courageous" or some other romantic image.

But when a religious group does something similar, the usual suspects come out with the whole "religions are the source of all evil" BS. To those who are getting high on the anti-religion wagon, a couple of things:

1: Many religious groups have come out and strongly condemned the Koran burning.

2: As I mentioned before, plenty of non-religious groups do similarly disrespectful things to revered icons, so trying to pass this off as a religious phenomenon is beyond intellectual dishonesty and all the way to Glenn Beck-ish smearing.

 

Oh, I completely agree with your sentiments there. Just because this particular crackpot considers himself an evangelical Christian, I do not - for a minute - believe his actions are representative of all evangelicals.

Further, I'm not arguing against what this guy is doing for any religious reason. I would find it just as stupid if this guy wasn't a pastor, and was just anti-Muslim. The fact that he's a pastor places his action in an even poorer light IMO, but that is at most an ancillary point to why this is so stupid.

 

I seem to remember the nazis organizing book-burnings as well, back in the day. They thought they were doing the right thing as well. I guess being a brainwashed nutcase gives you some unhealthy hatred towards books you don`t like.

 

Funny you should mention the Nazis: I was reminded of this classic quote belivered by Sean Connery in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade:


. . . goose-stepping morons like yourself should try reading books instead of burning them!

Or some such like that -- I'll search it and be more accurate in a second.

OK, I visited IMDB and got a more accurate quote.

 

Crackpots do stuff all over the place all the time, imo the major problem here is that there are thousands of people eager to make turn it into a huge deal and an international issue. Kinda like that "hate fags" church, it is tiny basically just one family. Do not like to blame "the media" but they are more or less behind so much **** by lifting up and giving exposure to the nut jobs all over the world and turning hte nutjobs into representatives for their country/religion/culture/whatever.

Oh and religion is bad and all religious people are like these bookburners and if you are going to burn a book there are few who more deserve a burning than the Koran or the Bible. (This just had to be said cause well, I am who I am).

 

Wow. Just... Wow.

If he wants to anger the whole of the muslim world even more, he could piss on them first. This is truly incredible. Aren't there laws about inciting racial/religious hatred?

 

Well, his church was in Germany for a while. But seriously, his church ran a furniture business in Germany and was accused of worker abuse (making the "good followers" work in the business for free). Obviously, the guy knows that he will get a financial bump out of all this, and that is why he is doing all this nonsense. Evangelism generally pays well, which is why there are so many former salesmen in the evangelism business.

 

He was kicked out of his congregation of (imo not so tolerant, strange) people for being over the top, in my town? What shall I say more? Cologne is a liberal city, in the sense of being quite tolerant, and he was beyond acceptable (for not so tolerant, strange people)? Telling in itself.

A more sober (literally), somber reply tomorrow.

PS: From the German weekly Der Spiegel, too strange to pass up:

It is certainly reassuring that for Jones "Da Islamiacs" and "Da Jews" are equally 'of the Devil'.

More telling that all of that previous insanity is that Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-CA) called the event "unwise." Why not 'unhelpful'? That is the maximum condemnation this frivolous, utter insanity yielded from the leading R politico? Oh really. Unwise?

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I don't think there's much more I can say to condemn him. He's just an ignoramus of the highest order. I did like one report's listing of him rejecting pleas from David Petraeus, Hillary Clinton, the Vatican and Angelina Jolie. I'm not quite sure where the last fits in with the rest.

 

Verbal Bomb Throwers

That stupid crank is trying to draw like-minded cranks into his church.

A quote from Heinrich Heine's 'Toleranzstück' (tolerance play), from a passage where the Muslim Almansor ben Abdullah talks with Hassan, who is desperately fighting against the Christian occupation (i.e. re-conquest) in Spain:

My translation, in particular here *.

I think that, since books contain ideas, it is far from far fetched to say that, since the attitude that makes people burn books is born out of revulsion against ideas, real or imagined, contained in those books, it has a tendency to carry over into burning (metaphorically speaking) the people carrying those ideas. History is replace with examples that testify to that link.

I think that the publicity that loon gets and the at best lukewarm condemnation from people like Boehner (he called it 'unwise'; Sarah Palin called it not wrong or crazy or insane but 'unnecessary'; Haley Barbour, Chair of the Republican Governors Association, called it 'a distraction') has a lot to do with the current unscrupulous instrumentalisation of Islam for political purposes in the US domestic political debate - in the 'Obama is a secret Muslim' theme, the Mosque debate (prominently sporting Republican stalwart Newt Gingrich), and Islam bashing in general.

Never mind the dire consequences of such inflammatory politics for US politics domestically (as in: fanning the flames of passion in the ignorant and bigoted) from a foreign policy perspective this is an unmitigated disaster: It is water on the mills of cranks like Osama Bin Laden who has always claimed that the US is at war with all Muslims. He now only needs to point at the US as proof for his claims. Perception counts a lot here.

Theologically, for Muslims, the Koran is the word of God as dictated to the Prophet Mohammed. The insult of publicly burning it could not possibly be greater. During the incident about Korans being flushed down the toilet people were killed in riots all over the world. From a recent article by Arnaud de Borchgrave:

I find his phrase 'verbal bomb thrower' exceedingly apt. The US right has a lot of those nowadays.

 

They should let him go through with it, but give him no media coverage on it at all. Let it go by without anyone noticing. He is probably only doing it to try and get a violent reactions, so that he can go 'See, told you they were evil'.

 

Agreed. This is a non-story and should never have even made it onto the news. There is nothing important about giving this nobody even 15 second of fame.

 

That preacher is firmly from the 'Fire and Brimstone' school. He said about my town, Cologne, that it is 'the Gates of Hell'. It's not that bad, really.

 

There are laws called hate crimes on the books, but they only apply to acts against specific individuals. There have been SC cases over the years on things like this, and the SC has repeatedly ruled that burning something, be it a book, or the flag, or just about any object, is covered by freedom of expression, if you're doing it do show dislike for some social/political/societal greivance that you have.

That burning of the Koran is considered blasphemous by Muslims is not central to the issue. Nor is the fact that the greviances he has are more imagined than real. Nor is his inability to articulate precisely how these events could possibly come to pass given our judicial system. What this guy is doing is legal. I will agree with Boehner on one thing that he said: "Just because you have a right to do something, doesn't mean it's the right thing to do."