Various religions denounce Koran burning. No one showed.

[Bill Mattocks]

Isn't this like saying "Christianity is a peaceful religion. But don't allow abortions because people will die." ?

Do we shut down abortion clinics because of the odd fundienut?

Do we "shut down" this nutty preacher and his Koran bonfire?

I don't think many people here are saying "right on preacher!!!" I'm just saying what do you suggest?

I don't suggest 'shutting down' this preacher or his book-burning. I believe I said earlier that he has the right to do it, and I always back civil rights, even when the person or their exercise of their rights personally offends me.

I'm stating that this fellow and those who support him are effectively giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Their choice, but they're morons for so doing.

As to the people on this thread supporting this preacher, no, I don't see that either. I do see a lot of folks declaiming 'bending over backwards' for Muslims as a 'bad thing'. I presume these folks have a different understanding of 'bending over backwards' than I do. I didn't think that stabbing Muslim taxi drivers, burning Mosques, running Muslims off the road and side-swiping them with cars, firing shotguns near their Mosques and shouting anti-Muslim names, burning their holy books, or protesting Mosques near Ground Zero was 'bending over backwards for them'.

 

[Archangel M]

Ah but you have a comfortable life in America, I think that most of these arguments are academic for you, you haven't the experience most countries have in fascism, communism, dictators, wars, being bombed, (70th anniversdary of the Blitz this week), resistance etc. Easy for you to pass judgement on the rest of us when it's a academic for you.

Oh well would love to stay and chat but car and bags packed for time away in sunny Cornwall. Don't do all the controversial stuff while I'm away!

Pass judgement on YOU??

What?

We are discussing an American doing something in America. When did this become about you? What judgement was passed. I was talking about the Constitutional right of this American to do what he's doing...as distasteful as it is.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

I think that they should be mature enough to deal with criticism and derision of their faith, Don. But 'they', speaking of the faith in broad generic terms, are not yet at that stage. Maybe they will get there, maybe they wont.

I absolutely agree. A secular nation allows blasphemous speech, and a member of a secular society must accept that it exists. That even includes drawing caricatures of revered figures, casting aspersions on a given religion, even burning sacred texts. This is a necessary component of freedom. In the West, Christians, Jews, and others have learned to accept this and to ignore it.

There are many Muslims living in the West who have also learned to accept this. We have a huge Islamic population here in the Detroit area; there are no riots over this proposed book-burning, although many people clearly are not happy about it.

The damage, and the danger, are not really inside our own borders (although I have no doubt that there are some extremists living here too). The danger is in countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan and Iraq, where the notion of separating speech from religion is not considered acceptable.

It is these people, which are in direct contact with our own troops, who are likely to be stirred to a frenzy by militants who will use images of this book-burning to whip up anger.

It is very sad that the pastor in question doesn't see that or does not care about putting our own troops' lives in danger. It is nearly as sad that people (even in this thread) see this as some sort of gleeful 'proof' that Muslims are all this way and thus not to be allowed in our societies.

Sad to say, what ever we think about it, I think there is a major conflagration coming and an awful lot of decent people are going to die for no good reason along with the hot-heads and downright evil twisters of doctrine.

I think both the terrorist Islamist and the ultra-right wing Christian want this fight very much. They will do everything they can to stir the common Muslim in lands where blasphemous speech is still seen as unacceptable to rise up and commit violence so that we are all engulfed in it.

The Islamists want war with the West, and the ultra-right Christians want all Muslims destroyed. But this is a fight that cannot happen without the active collusion of both sides. It's like a gang of school kids who surround two unlucky kids and push them at each other until one finally punches the other so that the crowd can see a fight.

 

[Sukerkin]

I dunno Suk..that smacks of the "Wookie effect". Do we change our ways out of fear that they "rip off arms when they loose?" Or do we do it because it's the right thing?

I agree entirely with the background sentiment to that i.e. a society that has itself constitutionally organised to allow individual freedom (without that freedom causing harm to others) should not allow itself to be coerced by fear into restricting those freedoms.

If we think that we are doing the right thing by allowing "crazy preacher" to burn some paper (as symbolic as that paper is) because its Constitutionaly protected...do we cave in and stop him because of the "Wookie effect"?

I stand with you on this principle, as does Bill and others here too I am sure, when I concurr that trying to stop this unfortunate man from committing the act of book burning would be as wrong as trying to stop other fundamentalist christians from burning copies of Harry Potter (small "C" as I don't think they are representative of the church at large).

The caveat for me in this is if he was going to burn the Mona Lisa or maybe the last and only Koran then I would think differently.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

I stand with you on this principle, as does Bill and others here too I am sure, when I concurr that trying to stop this unfortunate man from committing the act of book burning would be as wrong as trying to stop other fundamentalist christians from burning copies of Harry Potter (small "C" as I don't think they are representative of the church at large).

Yes, I agree completely. I read this news item this morning:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...ld-pressures-Obama-to-stop-Koran-burning.html

I understand that the Muslim world is pressuring President Obama to 'stop' the book-burning. He cannot, and I would sincerely hope that he not try to stop it by legal means. By argument and persuasion, yes, but by fiat, no. This hateful 'speech' is constitutionally protected.

This is the cost of freedom. That a small, hateful, leader of 50 damaged souls can put soldier's lives in danger around the world so that he can demonstrate his ugly soul. So be it. I would not stop him by legal means, let him do what he will.

I will buy a Koran on 9/11. I would urge others to do the same. A small symbolic gesture, but that's about all I can think of.

 

[crushing]

Where have we heard the whole "yes they have a right to do it, but we question the wisdom in doing it" thing before?

Maybe they aren't really going to burn the books, but just want to grab attention to make a point? And, by not burning the books, they may think they will be seen as taking a higher road than another "they" have taken.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

Where have we heard the whole "yes they have a right to do it, but we question the wisdom in doing it" thing before?

I presume you mean the so-called 'Ground Zero Mosque'. I do see the similarities.

However, I note that several in this thread have equated not burning the Koran with 'bending over backwards for Islam' and others have likewise called allowed the Mosque to be built 'bending over backward for Islam'. Now which is it? They can't have it both ways.

Personally, I feel that building the Mosque is not unwise, but that burning the Koran is unwise. Two different subjects, two different opinions.

I also note that no one is protesting Dove Outreach Center with picket signs, burning Jones in effigy, or threatening to erect Mosques next door in order to offend him. So it seems the outcry has a less threatening tone. Similar levels of anger and disapproval, but those doing the disapproving seem to be (from where I'm sitting) to be somewhat less violent or encouraging of violence.

Maybe they aren't really going to burn the books, but just want to grab attention to make a point? And, by not burning the books, they may think they will be seen as taking a higher road than another "they" have taken.

My suspicion is that the pastor is just a whack-job. I think he's filled with hatred and that's what drives him.

In other news, it appears that he is being criticized by none other than the Westboro Baptist Church! Oh yeah! But not for the reasons one might think.

http://www.military.com/news/articl...gry-on-quran-burning.html?ESRC=topstories.RSS

Her irritation Wednesday was not that the Rev. Terry Jones and his Dove World Outreach Center's planned bonfire would offend Muslims worldwide and probably increase the danger to American troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.
It's that in 2008 she and her father's Topeka flock set fire to a Quran in plain view on a Washington, D.C., street and nobody seemed to care.

"We did it a long time before this guy," Phelps-Roper said by telephone from a street corner in downtown Chicago, scene of the latest Westboro picket -- against Jews this time, not gays. The difference could be that in 2008 many news media outlets had decided to ignore the group's routine of spewing hatred at funerals of fallen American troops.
So when Fred Phelps, calling Muhammad a "pedophilic gigolo," went online and invited people to attend the burning, most stayed away.

 

[terryl965]

NO goddamnit NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
You're doing it too!

'They' didn't start this mess. A group of ****tards started this mess, using Islam simply as a vehicle for their hatred. I've said it before and I will say it again: Islam is not any more to blame for 9/11 than Christianity for the crusades.

What he does would be like someone saying 'I learned everything I need to know about the US when I saw the Rodney King video'. He is an idiot. Fair enough. But by saying things like your 6th point, you are validating him and implying that Islam really IS to blame for this when it is not true.

I see your point and well taken. I guess what needs to be done is this he has the right to buy and do what he pleases to the book, whether it is morally right or wrong is between him and God. I am in no way going to give this guy any props he is a simple idiot and the media is making him a bigger person in the eye's of alot of people. I would say he will not burn anything let alone the books. He is looking for something no matter what road he takes it is soley a path he will have to bare in the eyes of the Lord one day.

 

[Cirdan]

As much as I`d like to sock that idiot in the jaw and air drop him over Afgahnistan, dealing with the fallout of his actions (not to mention that of politicians) is an occopational hazard for the troops over there.

The media should ignore him just like they did Phelps.

 

[Blade96]

Well, almost no one.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Electi...aith-call-to-oppose-Koran-burning.-Who-didn-t


This is why people say "If Muslims are against terrorism, why don't they denounce it?" They do, but Fox News isn't interested in covering that (Nor is ABC, CBS, etc, etc). It doesn't make hot-heads angrier, so it's not news. Get it?

When something like this muppet burning the koran is all over the radio and news (and it is here too all over the place) yet nothing is mentioned about the us government and all the religious organizations condeming it (which would give the extremists a perfectly logical reason to believe the us is really a threat to Islam) something is definitely wrong with the media or the system or both here.

 

[Big Don]

To repeat, this jack *** is a friend of PHELPS!!!
That said, there is no right not to be offended. Free speech means some of it WILL piss you off. Being civilized means knowing "sticks and stones..."

 

[Eazy]

Gidday Bill, good topic.
I think its an outragiously stupid thing to do, It can only promote trouble.
After the goverments have spent so much tax payers money training Islamic country's with uniforms and weapons and putting our soldiers out there, on dangerous soil. Why give them even greater risk than they have now. This may well extend the peace effort put in by all theose great soldiers that miss there familys and risk there lives. These Thugs need to be prosecuted for such actions. To burn the book is not burning the soul or spirit of the believer. It sends a message of hate. This was never and should never be a religous War. Yes there was Muslims and others cheering or maybe just Terrorists hiding behind the Muslim faith to add fear into the Amerricans. Its real KKK style they are complete bloody idiots. Looking for trouble, We should send them to Iraq for a month given a Koran to take if they really want to burn it they burn it over there. Then see what happens, I bet they don't because they will be the ones on the front line. swap everyone of them out with a troop and call it give a troop a month off. I bet some troops are over there sweating on this.

 

[Big Don]

Another great point

 

[Eazy]

Tez3, This is the best punishment to fit the crime well thought out and well said.
Thanks from me to you and all the soldiers over there. My deepest condolences for all those that gave their lives and i wish you all the best and hope that you all come home in full tact. I would be over there to But i failed the test on two occasions Not smart enough But i can Rig Scaffold and drive Cranes Just because i wasn't the best at school my IQ is 115 not real high but not that low Just stuffed up under test pressure on the day i guess. Alot of the Spatural stuff got me because its new ive never done that stuff before. Its not just carring a gun and digging a trench any more so maybe it wasn't for me. Probably more disaplin than i can tolerate and my spellings up the creek, (spell check aint working).

 

[Big Don]

Yet another great point

 

[Eazy]

Maybe they could meet those who lost family members over there.

 

[Big Don]

What if media had ignored Terry Jones?

Mike Thomas The ORLANDO SENTINEL EXCERPT (EMPHASIS MINE):

COMMENTARY
8:00 PM EDT, September 8, 2010

​

The Rev. Terry Jones was a sad-sack preacher, lucky to draw 50 people to his steel-shed house of prayer<<<SNIP>>> Bigger than his friend Phelps...
<<<>>>
, when the words "burn" and "Quran" had an unfortunate collision in his limited brain.

That he has become an international phenomenon as a result must be a sign the apocalypse is near.

We actually have Gen. David Petraeus, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the White House and even the pope pleading with a hick pastor not to burn books. This is a guy who looks like Jed Clampett wearing a Hulk Hogan mustache, who uses words like "tragical," who earlier this year launched a "No homo mayor'' campaign against a candidate in Gainesville.
<<<SNIP>>>
We could help head off such future nonsense if we folded up the circus tent and left Jones alone with his blowtorch and 30 followers.

Maybe if Gen. Petraeus told the media that it isn't Rev. Jones who is endangering troops. That it is our coverage of Rev. Jones. That without us, this book burning would be little more than a grainy video on YouTube.

Put the onus on a responsible party and hope it acts responsibly.
END EXCERPT
As if...

 

[Eazy]

Im on your side in this debate hands down, This is action is only to promote trouble if not why do it?.
I will give the terrorists another reason to promote Anti Islam to there countrymen and recrute in turm putting peice efforts back years in turn extending the stay of the troops and the longer they are there the more chance of being hurt. No one want's that. We need to finfish what we set out to do without more hurdles than there are and get the hell out of there and hand back their country.

 

[Archangel M]

Why the **** should someone overseas CARE if some hick pastor in the US is burning a Koran?

 

[Big Don]

Why the **** should someone overseas CARE if some hick pastor in the US is burning a Koran?

Because of all the Hate Crimes against Muslims every time there is a flag burnt or IED in Crackpotistan...
Oh, wait...
FBI files, 10 TIMES as many hate crimes against Jews as against Muslims...