Seriously? Is the 21st or the 16th Century?
I was driving to work this morning when I heard a Triple J news story about a pastor in Florida preparing to burn copies of the Koran on September 11 (this Saturday).
I couldn't believe it, I was absolutely gobsmacked by the idiocy of this guy. You can read the story here on the Sydney Morning Herald website.
In the midst of huge criticism and condemnation from US political, military and religious figures, here's what Pastor Terry Jones says about his decision -
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| Pastor Terry Jones Source: SMH & AP Photos |
"Instead of us being blamed for what other people will do or might do, why don't we send a warning to them? Why don't we send a warning to radical Islam and say, don't do it. If you attack us, if you attack us, we will attack you," he said.
What I want to know is, how does he figure burning books is any kind of attack on radical fundamentalist Muslims? All it does is reinforce their views on Christians and Christianity and offends all other peace-loving Muslims.
Many military and political people in the US are concerned that the move to burn the Koran is going to cause more unrest, retaliatory attacks and will compromise the safety of troops in places such as Afghanistan and Iraq.
Protests are already happening and this exercise will do nothing but incite even more hatred of the US amongst fanatical Islamists.
Despite how you feel about Islam, 99% of Muslims are peaceful people who condemn the actions of the 1% who just take it to the extreme.
The burning of the Koran by this Pastor and his church is not only unbelievably hypocritical but extremely disrespectful to those hundreds of thousands of Muslims who practice their faith in peace and would never dream of committing an act of terrorism against anyone.
This is hardly an exercise in Christian love and compassion. I'm pretty sure that most Christians would be hanging their heads in shame at the actions of these radical fundamentalist Christians.
Burning the holy book of another religion is religious intolerance, the same kind of intolerance that those radical fundamentalist Islamists have for Christianity.
Traditionally the burning of books has been emblematic of a harsh and oppressive regime* and not something that someone who purports to practice a faith based primarily on loving one another and having compassion for their fellow man should be performing.
Even if those original book burnings were done in the name of religion and carried out by members of the Church, do today's Christians really want to be reminding everyone of their Church's past and do something that would reinforce in the radicals minds just how horrible Christians, and by extension the West, really are?
Why give them any more ammunition than they already have?
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I also think this pastor is a hypocrite ( as i find many religious people to be - though not all ) and just a goose in general. All he'll succeed in doing is pissing people off - Muslims or otherwise.
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