Burn a Quran Day?

[Tully Mars]

A church in Gainesville, Fl, the "Dove World Outreach Center" is hosting a “International Burn a Quran Day.”

Accroding to this article

The group’s leader, Terry Jones, has self-published a book entitled “Islam is of the Devil” and his church sells trinkets such as coffee mugs and T-shirts promoting the book’s title.

In which he makes such claims as "all Muslims are unhappy.

Hum, stereotype much?

Now this is a church that has in the past joined with Westboro Baptist Church in protesting homosexuality. So personally I see them as a fringe of the far right leaning churches in the US. But is it just me or are these group gaining power, their voices getting louder or am I just seeing more press reports of this type of activity?

Your thoughts?

[Baraka_Guru]

What's particularly disgusting about this is that the burning of the Qur'an is meant as a memorial of 9/11 victims.

Yeeeah.... that's ...um... classy. And I'm sure no one can think of a better way to memorialize the deaths of Muslims than with burning their holy book.

Fringe right, indeed. According to Google News, this is getting a fair amount of coverage, but not a ton. Though that could change, of course.

As for whether they are gaining power/influence, I don't really see it. I still view the likes of Westboro as their own self-contained joke. I don't see anyone with the ability to reason taking them seriously. And I don't find that those with the inability to reason to have particularly that much power.

As for this group, it's even more disgusting than the Westboro gay bashing. If I'm not mistaken, to Muslims, the destruction of the Qu'ran is essentially a direct attack on the word of God, which is probably the intent. They want to attack Islam. So yeah, fringe right hatemongers: Islam is the devil, blah, blah blah, burn it.

And it's really fucking rich that this group is called the Dove World Outreach Center. Here I thought irony is dead. Maybe that's what's making me so disgusted by this. Fucking hypocritical and insincere.

Worst. Christians. Ever.

Jesus would not approve.

[Tully Mars]

I wonder where this will lead. If a dutch cartoon can create a landslide of furor for portraying Muhammad what the heck will the fringe side of Islam be in response be for burning their holy book? I don't foresee nice things.

[genuinegirly]

For some reason I read this as burn a Quorn a day. An idea that I might be able to get behind, because the foodstuff disgusts me.


But burning the Quran?! These imbiciles should be stopped. They're only going to make people more upset.

[Baraka_Guru]

Originally Posted by Tully Mars

I wonder where this will lead. If a dutch cartoon can create a landslide of furor for portraying Muhammad what the heck will the fringe side of Islam be in response be for burning their holy book? I don't foresee nice things.

Oh, the Lovey Doveys will probably get what they want: their brother fringe right Muslims will respond in kind by lashing out at what Western Christians value, or they will play into fringe right Muslim tactics such as calling for blood and beheadings.

It's all very predictable, which makes it both tiresome and maddening.

I really don't know what the Lovey Doveys hope to accomplish other than to whack at the hornet's nest of hatred.

It's basically an exchange of hate for hate, and as we know these things go in vicious cycles. How can people be so blind? These people don't only hate "the other"; they also must hate themselves to do such things.

It's all very sad.

[Plan9]

Originally Posted by genuinegirly

For some reason I read this as burn a Quorn a day. An idea that I might be able to get behind, because the foodstuff disgusts me.
[IMG]http://www.greenme.vg/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/gruyere.jpg[/IMG

Jesus, I just cackled for like thirty seconds. That's funny. Veggie-person humor.

[FuglyStick]

Wasn't there a thread at one time about a Christian group that was organizing prayer for terrorists? They weren't targeting Islam per se, they wanted to use the power of faith and prayer to sway terrorists to abandon their violence. THAT'S a statement of belief, that your faith is strong enough to facilitate change. I am not a religious person by any means, but if I were inclined to be a person of faith, I'd want to be a person who believed strongly enough that my faith was the Truth that I wouldn't have to resort to hate or intimidation as the means of proselytizing.

[Jetée]

Originally Posted by Tully Mars

I wonder where this will lead. If a dutch cartoon can create a landslide of furor for portraying Muhammad what the heck will the fringe side of Islam be in response be for burning their holy book? I don't foresee nice things.

This will lead to anywhere only if it is picked by outside media, and given that we are here, it has been picked up by outside media, therefore, it will lead to somewhere. And in that intangible sense of 'somewhere', I foresee some very not nice things.

I don't have much of a comment on this because I very rarely allow myself to publicize or acknowledge such brazen, hurtful, and tremendous stupidity.

[snowy]

Originally Posted by Tully Mars

I wonder where this will lead. If a dutch cartoon can create a landslide of furor for portraying Muhammad what the heck will the fringe side of Islam be in response be for burning their holy book? I don't foresee nice things.

It was a Danish cartoon, not a Dutch one. However, newspapers across Europe did publish the drawings.

I think this is pretty disgusting. Christian love is not represented in burning the holy book of another religion. Christian love means having respect for other faiths, and treating others the way we would want to be treated. Would Christians want Muslims to burn the Holy Bible? I think not.

[Baraka_Guru]

Don't they have the same god?

*tsk tsk*

[dlish]

no muslim group in their sane mind would burn the bible.

since islam is an abrahamic religion and confirms many of the events and parables that occured in the bible, it'd be blasphemous to burn the bible for any muslim.

heh...anybody got an effigy instead?

[Willravel]

Burning any book in order to censor or intimidate or insult is just horrible.

[Jetée]

Small-minded individuals, and populations of those same like-minded individuals, have this incessant need to compartmentalize genres and groups of others (read as: foreigners) to some basic, yet mistaken, tenet of what they represent in the eyes of outside observers.

Simplistically: this is defined as bigotry.
(Tutor's tip: A "bigot" (person with intolerant prejudices) can "beget" (cause) anger. - good to know, Word Tutor.)


As such, this is a story, however unheralded I'd wish it to be, but a story regardless, where we have this bigoted (contradictory) church burning Korans for reversal reasoning, in what I can fathom, as a ritualistic effigy for the Muslims that they may view as their current enemy, whereas previously, they might have burned other effigies in regards to their previous enemies (who knows?). So, they go about burning 'Qurans' and blabbing to the news stations that they'll be doing the same thing next week, (bring some freedom fries!) and then burning 'Qurans' some more, (perhaps buying them solely in order to burn them?) in order to stick it their enemies, the Muslims, who have oppressed them for so may years, I'm assuming, in their quaint town in Florida. Or maybe they don't like "terrorists"? Yet they associate them with Muslims, when the overwhelming majority of surviving militant Muslims (the cultural / land grouping, not the faith practioners) have in essence, renounced their religion by violating its basest tenets of moral objectivity. So, again, what is the point? To provoke dim-witted controversy.


I just came across a story where some semi-well-known renounced her religion of "Christianity" on Twitter, for the very basic reasons that she is pro-this, pro-that, and pro-positivity, which leads to the inference that she is fed up with "Christianity" because she narrow-mindly views the group as against all the things which she likes politically, and feels hurt because she no longer wishes to associate with the very vocal minority (however underwhelming it actually is). This is yet another example of dim-witted controversy.

There's many different sects and practices of the branch of Protestant Christianity in North America, and the one that usually is asociated with these sort of controversial dealings, I notice, arise from the South. It amazes me how often I forget that Florida, and many of its counties and residents within, identify primarily with what we see as "the American South", or how others may deem it fit, "rednecks" (there's bigotism coming right back around).

This is just too simple a spiel to debate so profoundly: dumb people will do dumb things just to get undue attention for a cause that is wholly "bass-ackwards" (like posting on a message board where everyone hate you).

[levite]

Originally Posted by Tully Mars

A church in Gainesville, Fl, the "Dove World Outreach Center" is hosting a “International Burn a Quran Day.”

Accroding to this article

Your thoughts?

I hope that, even for the insanity that is US political/religious culture, this is far on the fringe. I really hope so.

I cannot think of many things that would be more repugnant than a Quran-burning. No matter how much one might find a book offensive (and I would doubt how many of these idiots had ever actually read a Quran, much less had any of it taught to them properly, by a qualified imam), only bigots and barbarians burn books. And that goes double for anyone's sacred texts.

Heinrich Heine said, Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen. ("Anywhere they burn books, they will ultimately burn people, also.") And he was not wrong. Bookburners are only one step away from Crusaders, Nazis, Cossacks, Khmer Rouge, or makers of pogroms.

I would not see even a book utterly without redemption, like Mein Kampf, burned; so burning something (to the contrary) so full of wisdom and beautiful poetry as a Quran is infuriating to me.

These people are the scum of the earth. I hope their hatred comes back to bite them in the ass soon, and hard.

[Baraka_Guru]

Great post, levite.

Seeing as I enjoy a good trainwreck as much as the next guy, I was looking at more stuff regarding the Dove World Outreach Center. Wow. Great stuff! They aren't only reaching out to Islam; they're also reaching out to babykillers and homosexuals. How ambitious.

Have a look at this for an idea of the man behind all of this:

YouTube - The Church Must Stand Up!

YouTube - The Church Must Stand Up!

In particular, I like the use of the Braveheart soundtrack in the video. It's a nice touch. Apparently he has a webvideo series entitled the Braveheart Show.

He's the author of the book Islam is of the Devil. That should tell you enough. Apparently, his aim is to encourage people to resist the Islamic invasion of America by taking to the streets and preaching and praying, rather than depending on useless politicians to do anything. He uses the U.K. as an example of how Islam is taking over.

If you can stomach it, there is another video regarding the book here: The Book | Islam Is Of the Devil. I couldn't embed it because it localized and not on YouTube.

There's even T-shirts and coffee mugs!

Oh, and here's more on the Qur'an burning, including a CNN interview:

YouTube- Church Will Burn Koran On 9/11

YouTube- Church Will Burn Koran On 9/11

[Fire]

I tend to think that the world would be better if the people that claim to be religious would READ THEIR FUCKING BOOKS..... forget the assorted commentaries, explanations, and whatnots that various groups have come to accept, Just have everyone read the holy book or books of their religion, and then TRY TO FOLLOW IT.... seriously, is this too fucking hard for people.... none of the religious texts I have read have really been that out there, and most of them are quite reasonable really..... with regard to the "Christians" in the above article, I find a decided lack of deliberate baiting of people of other faiths in the new testament....... but they should really read it for themselves.....

[Willravel]

Originally Posted by Fire

I tend to think that the world would be better if the people that claim to be religious would READ THEIR FUCKING BOOKS.....

That's probably not a good idea. There are a lot of moral lessons in the Torah, Bible, and Qur'an that would be considered morally reprehensible by you or me. Not only that, but there are a ton of contradictions, making following their religious teachings impossible. What you're left with is nothing but selective readings, and that room for interpretation is what gets people into trouble. Two people can read the same passage and one can come away with "god hates fags" and another will come away with "this was written thousands of years ago during different societal circumstances".

It's better to just develop one's own morals based on the social contract, how to interact in order to personally succeed and to help keep the society you're a part of stable and functional.

[Wes Mantooth]

I've come to the conclusion that there are Christians <--- sure they're a little wacky and strangley nervous about nudity but ultimately good people...

...Then there are these people, idiots wearing crosses who obsessivly misqoute bible verses to justify their irrational hatred everything they don't like such as being unamerican (how the fuck that gets all crossed up with christianity is beyond me), different, interesting, capable of independent thought or upsets thier odd view of morality which is largely garnered from misqouted bible verses...

...in other words, dickheads.

[preacher]

Censorship of any kind brings with it the foul stench of the bitch, and must be fought. To know your enemies, you must have knowledge of them. To destroy knowledge is to destroy a weapon. If Islam is their enemy, then they should give a Quran to every member of their congregation and have them read it cover to cover.

That said, the courage and conviction of this group to actually DO something in accordance with the teachings of Jehova while other sects of his long-haired peace-loving bitch of a bastard son fall to the creeping pink tide of Femmunism and pay only lip service to his Father should be commended. Too bad their small efforts will be crushed under a tide of bitchery and whining. . .

Amen

[Fremen]

preacher, you're tryin' too hard.


3/10

[preacher]

Actually, there are brothers who keep telling me I don't try hard enough. . .but I've gotten a bit mellow in my old age, turned into a lazy bastard.

Amen

[levite]

Originally Posted by Fire

I tend to think that the world would be better if the people that claim to be religious would READ THEIR FUCKING BOOKS..... forget the assorted commentaries, explanations, and whatnots that various groups have come to accept, Just have everyone read the holy book or books of their religion, and then TRY TO FOLLOW IT.... seriously, is this too fucking hard for people.... none of the religious texts I have read have really been that out there, and most of them are quite reasonable really..... with regard to the "Christians" in the above article, I find a decided lack of deliberate baiting of people of other faiths in the new testament....... but they should really read it for themselves.....

While I sympathize, I think that it's too easy to either blame lack of reading the books or call religion a failure in general.

Guys like these douchebags can read the Bible all day long and still never comprehend a word they read. Bible is complex, and infinitely nuanced, and, in general, no friend to people looking for simplistic attitudes and lowest-common-denominator platitudes. It is inevitable that people like this-- full of hatred, of fear, of ignorance-- will find the religious position and the textual reading that is the most oversimplified, the most archaic, the best for channeling and sublimating their own fears and ignorance, and the least helpful to an actual search for spiritual advancement and closeness to God.

Religion has power. And like any power, it can be abused. And like nearly all of the most powerful things, it is abused frequently, with horrible results, and usually at the expense of precisely those people its inventors were trying to protect and aid.

[preacher]

Originally Posted by levite

While I sympathize, I think that it's too easy to either blame lack of reading the books or call religion a failure in general.

Guys like these douchebags can read the Bible all day long and still never comprehend a word they read. Bible is complex, and infinitely nuanced, and, in general, no friend to people looking for simplistic attitudes and lowest-common-denominator platitudes. It is inevitable that people like this-- full of hatred, of fear, of ignorance-- will find the religious position and the textual reading that is the most oversimplified, the most archaic, the best for channeling and sublimating their own fears and ignorance, and the least helpful to an actual search for spiritual advancement and closeness to God.

Religion has power. And like any power, it can be abused. And like nearly all of the most powerful things, it is abused frequently, with horrible results, and usually at the expense of precisely those people its inventors were trying to protect and aid.

On the other hand, perhaps it is people like you who say that the Bible is "complex, infinitely nueanced, and in general, no friend to people looking for simplistic attitudes and lowest-common-denominator platitudes" that are reading too much into something that is meant to be simple and easily understood. Have you considered that your position on the bible being a great work of delicate, spiritual art might not be the intended purpose of the scriptures as originally written? They are history and instructions from Jehova, my friend. . .nothing more, at least when speaking of the Old Testament. They are simplicity defined.

The followers of Jehova's peace-loving bastard son are the ones who caused most of the problems by pretty much writing their own rules over the ones that already existed. . .but who are you going to listen to, my friend? The owner of the plantation, or his whiny overseer of a son? When you go to someone's house to borrow their lawn mower, do you ask the man of the house, or the teenager with the iPod? Who owns the lawn mower? Who owns the Earth. . .Jehova or Jesus? Will you let the rules of the son supercede those of the Father?

Amen

[hiredgun]

I'm tempted to say that this simply doesn't deserve much more than our passing scorn. There will always be folks with loony ideas - I doubt very much that engaging these folks (even in the mode of 'investigation' or 'exposé') does any good.

[Tully Mars]

Originally Posted by snowy

It was a Danish cartoon, not a Dutch one. However, newspapers across Europe did publish the drawings.

I think this is pretty disgusting. Christian love is not represented in burning the holy book of another religion. Christian love means having respect for other faiths, and treating others the way we would want to be treated. Would Christians want Muslims to burn the Holy Bible? I think not.

I stand corrected, my bad.

This is and has always been one of my major problems with organized religion. Too many people do not follow the teaching in their own faith or they twist their faith to justify terrible behavior.

[BadNick]

extremists and fanatics are some of my least favorite people ...except the Philly Phanatic.

[roachboy]

even the national association of evangelicals wants these asshats to stop:

Press Release: NAE Urges Cancellation of Planned Qu?ran Burning

[Cimarron29414]

Imagine if they did this and no media showed up...imagine if no one watched the home-grown video on YouTube. Imagine if we all simply turned our back to them. Imagine.

[levite]

Originally Posted by preacher

On the other hand, perhaps it is people like you who say that the Bible is "complex, infinitely nueanced, and in general, no friend to people looking for simplistic attitudes and lowest-common-denominator platitudes" that are reading too much into something that is meant to be simple and easily understood. Have you considered that your position on the bible being a great work of delicate, spiritual art might not be the intended purpose of the scriptures as originally written? They are history and instructions from Jehova, my friend. . .nothing more, at least when speaking of the Old Testament. They are simplicity defined.

The followers of Jehova's peace-loving bastard son are the ones who caused most of the problems by pretty much writing their own rules over the ones that already existed. . .but who are you going to listen to, my friend? The owner of the plantation, or his whiny overseer of a son? When you go to someone's house to borrow their lawn mower, do you ask the man of the house, or the teenager with the iPod? Who owns the lawn mower? Who owns the Earth. . .Jehova or Jesus? Will you let the rules of the son supercede those of the Father?

With all due respect, that is a view of scriptural text that is deeply inconsistent with Jewish thought. Traditional Judaism has always conceived of the Tanakh as deeply, deeply complex, and intended by its authors for use in partnership with interpretive traditions and exegetical techniques. Even the Torah, which Orthodox Judaism does view as of Divine Authorship, is deemed highly complex by the tradition: shiv'im panim l'Torah "The Torah has seventy faces," they say in the Midrash; and in Pirke Avot, we are taught, hafokh v'hafokh bah ki d'kula bah "Examine and re-examine it [Torah], for everything is within it." Written Torah must be understood complexly, through Oral Torah, because it was not designed to be read and understood and followed on its own.

This, according to many traditional Jewish authors, is attributable to the complexity of Divine Authorship/prophetic authorship. God is subtle and complex and nuanced, and expects the same of people.

But in any case, Judaism is usually quite clear on the idea that the Bible is neither simple nor basic. The idea that God is simple and presents simple instructions is foreign to Judaism.

It is also worth noting that the name Jehovah is an error: it represents an attempt by Latin and German Biblicists to vocalize the Tetragrammaton (four letter name of God), which is the Hebrew letters yod, heh, vav, heh (YHVH). Now, this name is actually a deliberate paradox: it is the Hebrew verb “to be,” expressed in all three tenses simultaneously, signifying God’s living eternality. A long, long time ago, this most sacred name of God was used aloud, though never lightly, and some think rarely. However, more than two thousand years ago, we lost or forgot the correct pronunciation. When vowels were first introduced to the written text of the Hebrew Bible, about 1300 years ago, the Masoretes (who were the scholars vowelling the text) vowelled the Tetragrammaton with the vowels for the word Adonai, meaning “My Lord,” which is an addressive of God typically used amongst Jews as a euphemism, spoken aloud when the written text uses the Tetragrammaton. The Masoretes did this to remind readers not to attempt to pronounce the Tetragrammaton, which we are forbidden to do now that the true pronunciation is lost, but to rather say Adonai instead. But the Latin and German Biblicists, who were all Christians, and knew little of Jewish thought and practice, did not know that, and thus took the vowels to be the correct vocalization for the Tetragrammaton. So the Latins translated out the Tetragrammaton as Iahove or Iaouah, and the Germans thought it was to be said as Yahwah or Yahovah; and since in German, the sound “y” is made with a “j,” and the vowel sounds “a” and “e” are close, and often elided, they spelled it Jahweh or Jehovah. But of course any of those spellings and pronunciations are entirely erroneous, stemming purely from faults in translation.

[Tully Mars]

You can ignore the troll, levite, he's gone.

But I must say you seem to put a lot effort in that reply.

[levite]

Originally Posted by Tully Mars

You can ignore the troll, levite, he's gone.

But I must say you seem to put a lot effort in that reply.

Thanks for the troll banishing (saying that makes me want to call you "my lord...")!

Eh...if I can't offer some polite information in the face of annoying ignorance, then I'm not much good to anyone, am I?

[Pearl Trade]

These people aren't true Christians and they give real Christians a bad name.

[dlish]

Originally Posted by Pearl Trade

These people aren't true Christians and they give real Christians a bad name.

you could use this sentence on pretty much any religion/race/nationality/community.

[james t kirk]

That's Freedom of Expession baby.

But I doubt that those who framed the constitution ever had anything like this in mind. I would hope that they would change their minds, but I doubt that will happen.

This is the reason why I think all religious extremism is an awful thing.

[ring]

We should send these folks fourtyfivemillion & one copies of
Farenheit 451.
If one or two find themselves reading the book,
it might spark something.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451

[Baraka_Guru]

I was thinking maybe The Gospel of Matthew, as it doesn't seem they've read it, but whatever.

[Ourcrazymodern?]

I think as long as they burn it where they buy it, it's probably okay. It's not as if their natural resources aren't limited.

[Tully Mars]

Originally Posted by ring

We should send these folks fourtyfivemillion & one copies of
Farenheit 451.
If one or two find themselves reading the book,
it might spark something.

Fahrenheit 451 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Obviously reading comprehension is an issue here. If they read and understood the book they claim to be their Holy book they'd know this is complete nonsense.

[dlish]

if it helps, i can send an english translation of the Quran

[snowy]

Originally Posted by Baraka_Guru

I was thinking maybe The Gospel of Matthew, as it doesn't seem they've read it, but whatever.

Yeah, I think they must've missed it.

Perhaps we can make them all see Godspell so they can hit the highlights at the least.