Journal Timex's Journal: Book Burning 17
Admit it. You knew I was going to write about it eventually.
If you didn't know it, then you don't know me. You must be new here.
Unless you have been hiding under a rock, you've heard about that preacher in Florida that planned to burn copies of the Koran. You heard about it because the adherents of this so-called "religion of peace" around the world have been threatening violence against Americans. It's bad enough that an American general felt the need to speak out against the plan, for fear of the reprisals against men and women in uniform.[1]
To be honest, I am at a lurch on where to stand on this. I don't think that Jones is (was?) thinking straight when he decided to burn the Koran. He is well within his rights to do so as an expression of free speech, but his motives are wrong. As a Christian preacher, he should be aware that in the book of Acts, those that burnt heretical work were not doing so to spite those that practiced those things, but were in fact doing so as an act of seperating themselves from that which they themselves practiced in their past. For Jones to be Biblically justified[2] in burning the Korans, he would have had to have been a muslim in his past. If Jones would stop and think first, he might recall James 3:17 and act accordingly. Inciting riots around the world is hardly "peaceable".
Then there are the muslims in New York City who want to build a mosque near Ground Zero. They too are well within their rights to do so, but as with Jones, to exercise their right in this particular place would be as crass. Forging ahead with these plans demonstrates a complete lack of compassion for the people that live in that area, most of whom were there when the disasterous events unfurled nine years ago. These residents remember the horror they felt as they witnessed aircraft doing what they were never intended to do, ramming into the Twin Towers, killing more than three thousand people. The dust and smoke that filled the air for days afterward, the screams of people jumping to their deaths from the collapsing buildings, the fear of what might happen next, all haunt their dreams still. Rightfully or not, many still associate the terrorist actions of September 11, 2001 with Islam, and for muslims to ignore this fact may be construed to be an act of pride in those horrible actions, a "planting of the flag", if you will.
Of course, there are those that argue that Christians wouldn't understand, because they don't have people burning their Bible. To those people I say, "Crawl out of your ignorance and look." In different parts of the world, there have been occasions where Christian Bibles are burned or destroyed[3][4][5][6], and who says anything about it? Certainly not the Mainstream Press, who seem to be predominantly anti-Christian, whatever they may say.
Islam and the Koran should be respected, but that doesn't mean one has to agree with them. There are severe doctrinal differences between Christianity and Islam. Only a fool can think that they are both "right". There is no middle ground here.
It is complicated, from both sides. I won't pretend it is anything less. The "simple" answer is that both sides need to stop whatever they're doing and examine themselves and their faith. They need to make their action match their faith, not the other way around.
"We didn't boot out King George to settle for Rodney King..."
----
If you didn't know it, then you don't know me. You must be new here.
Unless you have been hiding under a rock, you've heard about that preacher in Florida that planned to burn copies of the Koran. You heard about it because the adherents of this so-called "religion of peace" around the world have been threatening violence against Americans. It's bad enough that an American general felt the need to speak out against the plan, for fear of the reprisals against men and women in uniform.[1]
To be honest, I am at a lurch on where to stand on this. I don't think that Jones is (was?) thinking straight when he decided to burn the Koran. He is well within his rights to do so as an expression of free speech, but his motives are wrong. As a Christian preacher, he should be aware that in the book of Acts, those that burnt heretical work were not doing so to spite those that practiced those things, but were in fact doing so as an act of seperating themselves from that which they themselves practiced in their past. For Jones to be Biblically justified[2] in burning the Korans, he would have had to have been a muslim in his past. If Jones would stop and think first, he might recall James 3:17 and act accordingly. Inciting riots around the world is hardly "peaceable".
Then there are the muslims in New York City who want to build a mosque near Ground Zero. They too are well within their rights to do so, but as with Jones, to exercise their right in this particular place would be as crass. Forging ahead with these plans demonstrates a complete lack of compassion for the people that live in that area, most of whom were there when the disasterous events unfurled nine years ago. These residents remember the horror they felt as they witnessed aircraft doing what they were never intended to do, ramming into the Twin Towers, killing more than three thousand people. The dust and smoke that filled the air for days afterward, the screams of people jumping to their deaths from the collapsing buildings, the fear of what might happen next, all haunt their dreams still. Rightfully or not, many still associate the terrorist actions of September 11, 2001 with Islam, and for muslims to ignore this fact may be construed to be an act of pride in those horrible actions, a "planting of the flag", if you will.
Of course, there are those that argue that Christians wouldn't understand, because they don't have people burning their Bible. To those people I say, "Crawl out of your ignorance and look." In different parts of the world, there have been occasions where Christian Bibles are burned or destroyed[3][4][5][6], and who says anything about it? Certainly not the Mainstream Press, who seem to be predominantly anti-Christian, whatever they may say.
Islam and the Koran should be respected, but that doesn't mean one has to agree with them. There are severe doctrinal differences between Christianity and Islam. Only a fool can think that they are both "right". There is no middle ground here.
It is complicated, from both sides. I won't pretend it is anything less. The "simple" answer is that both sides need to stop whatever they're doing and examine themselves and their faith. They need to make their action match their faith, not the other way around.
"We didn't boot out King George to settle for Rodney King..."
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- I think Obama had something to say about it too, but he's really a non-factor. He apparently can't string a coherent paragraph together without a teleprompter, and I'm not convinced he's the one that forged the words he's reading on them.
- I use the term "Biblically justified" to mean that one is justified in doing something (or refraining from doing something) because one is following the precedent set in the Bible. This requires understanding the passage in question, in meaning and in scope.
- http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/muslim-boys-urinated-on-bible/story-e6frg6nf-1111112640400
In this case, the East Preston Islamic College acted to quell an uprising by bringing in a senior imam to tell the student body that the Christian Bible and Christianity must be respected. Similarly, there are many Christian leaders on record saying the same thing regarding Jones and people that agree with him. - http://www.speroforum.com/a/17283/Muslims-burn-Bible-in-Pakistan
Here, the law in Pakistan condemns to death those who offend the Koran. However, nothing is done against blasphemous acts toward the books of other religions. Many of the predominantly muslim villagers attempted to make a statement against the sacriledge by going to the church with the Christians, which I find interesting. Before you start to think that Pakistan's stand is an isolated incident, remember that almost all of the Middle-Eastern nations have something in their laws, either in their nation's constitutions or in the actual laws, making Islam the State Religion at the exclusion of all else. Attempting to convert someone away from Islam to another religion is often punishable by death. Practicing another religion is barely tolerated, if at all. - http://mobile.associatedcontent.com/article/285123/christians_in_gaza_fear_for_their_lives.html
Christians living in Gaza are dealing with persecution at the hand of the likes of Hamas. One doesn't "accidentally" use rocket-propelled grenades to break into buildings. It was an intentional act. - http://www.assistnews.net/Stories/2010/s10060047.htm
The Iranian government is burning Bibles. This is hardly a surprise.
Distractions! All of it... (Score:2, Insightful)
The only thing notable, and very disappointing about any of this is the massive amount of attention it drew away from real news and events. You know, things like how prohibition, and the resulting corruption on all sides is killing more people in Mexico than are dying in Afghanistan, or Iraq. Or that the renditions and torture, or the fact that the US now deals openly with corrupt warlords to sustain the war effort, continue with wide public approval. At least that's what the media will have you believe wit
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The simple fact is that the right to verbally offend anybody, for any, or no reason at all should be held sacrosanct. That's what the first amendment says. You can't legislate respect.
Where does it say that? The 1st Amendment says that Congress cannot legally stifle the American Citizen. It doesn't give people the right to offend other people.
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Well, first off, it doesn't specify "American Citizens". Second there's nothing anywhere in the constitution that permits the government to classify speech in any fashion, including what some may consider "offensive". In fact, it states precisely the opposite. ...Congress shall make no law... full stop.
Ground Zero Mosque has a BASKETBALL COURT (Score:2)
It's a cultural center. It's expected to have a basketball court, a swimming pools, and oh yeah, a small prayer space.
This is not a "mosque"... it's something that anyone from any denomination can come and use. And the board of directors for this cultural center also includes a number of Christians!
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And the board of directors for this cultural center also includes a number of Christians!
So what? Saddam Hussein's Deputy Prime Minister [wikipedia.org] was a "Christian." There are countless examples of nominal adherents (often leaders) exploiting their religious affiliation (whether by pedigree or congregational membership) to battle the interests, doctrines, and followers of their supposed faith.
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Our issue with Saddam Hussein was never that he was Muslim, or advancing Islamic goals though. He and Aziz, as well, were running a murderous, and at times genocidal government.
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The point is that Aziz the "Christian" was helping to advance very anti-Christian goals (pro-Islamic or not), as is the case with the Ground Zero Mosque.
So, your argument is that Iman Rauf is advancing anti-Muslim goals?
And again... it's not a fucking mosque.
Your opinion of what is a "Christian goal" and what is an "anti-Christian goal" is just that: your opinion.
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Our issue with Saddam Hussein was never that he was Muslim, or advancing Islamic goals though. He and Aziz, as well, were running a murderous, and at times genocidal government.
You mean we were actually justified in invading Iraq?!?
I'm glad I was sitting down for that.
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Timex, there was a great deal of justification for the invasion of Iraq. None of it was what George Bush sold the war as.
Furthermore, if the US was to deal with every two bit genocidal dictator, it would never stop being at war. America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy.
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Timex, there was a great deal of justification for the invasion of Iraq. None of it was what George Bush sold the war as.
You're preaching to the choir here, Stargoat... The best reason for the United States going into Iraq was one that was never presented (that I've seen): The terms of the cease-fire from the "first" Gulf War (that is, the one that pushed Iraq back out of Kuwait) was that Iraq not fly in certain areas and that they allow inspections by U.N. officials for nuclear and biological weapons. When Saddam Hussein refused access to sites for the inspectors, he violated the terms of the cease-fire. Despite several w
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You mean we were actually justified in invading Iraq?!?
You seem to be reading an inference that I hadn't intended. What I said is what our issue with Saddam Hussein was. We have had the same issues with various other countries at various points in time.
If Bush had presented THIS as the justification for invading, then perhaps we could have evaluated this justification against the cost of invasion prior to taking action. He however, did not.
The justifications he presented prior to the invasion of Iraq were bogus. (I won't say that they were "lies", because I
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You seem to be reading an inference that I hadn't intended.
:D I know you didn't mean it that way, and that's why I said what I did...
The justifications he presented prior to the invasion of Iraq were bogus. (I won't say that they were "lies", because I think Saddam himself thought he had WMDs... like a month before we invaded he destroyed a bunch of VX rockets... it's far more likely that his advisors and officers were lying to him, much like Hitler in Berlin.)
Thus, the justifications made to attack Iraq turned out to be wrong, and it appears like we should have known better. Thus, I don't think we had valid justification to invade Iraq at the time that we invaded.
The trick is that we (allegedly) acted on the best information we had at the time. It isn't fair to take what we know now and use it to judge what decision(s) were made before that information was available. Many people that are against the United States taking Saddam Hussein down don't seem to understand that.
Any other post hoc reasoning is after the fact, and cannot be used to justify the action retroactively.
Exactly. I've already gone into what was a justification [slashdot.org]. Most of what we know now about Iraq's military strength was not
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I've never been a big fan of the United Nations, but this whole escapade was the final nail in the coffin. When the Security Council would do nothing but talk (rather than enforce their own resolutions that carried clear consequences for violations), they proved to me that they were nothing better than a lump on a log.
As much as you think that a thief should be prosecuted for stealing from me, it's not your place to enforce that prosecution. It's mine. Any justification of: "Iraq had a cease-fire with the UN, and they violated it." and "The UN wouldn't do anything about it." Does not justify our vigilante actions of moving without the UN's consent.
The United States plays "world cop" because nobody else is willing to do it...
You're assuming that a "world cop" is necessary. The UN managed to move on Kuwait. That the UN acting as "world cop" isn't acting soon enough is not justification for vigi
Five vs Six (Score:2)
I do still believe *some* sects of Islam are the religion of peace- those who hold to the Five Pillars. But those who add a Sixth Pillar (under Ottoman and Wahabbist influences this became extremely popular starting in the 1700s, first in keeping with traditional schools where only a legitimate authority could declare Jihad, now under this new twisted al Qaida version vaguely equivalent to Terry Jones' Doves, where every man decides for himself what Jihad means and how far to take it) are extremely dangero
Mosque (Score:2)
I would not run wires in that mosque, nor donate money, nor otherwise do anything to help its construction. I would encourage all to follow this. That mosque should not be there. But that stupid moronic theocratic anti-American sunuvabitch idiot has the right to build it and I will defend that right.