US Gen. Petraeus Decries "Burn A Koran Day"

[Darth Yan]

what about muslims who suffer thanks to the foreign dictators we support? Or the fact that when we went into Iraq with no proof we hurt a lot of people?
Our policies definately DO have some effect on foreign muslims? Sort of like how a lot of afghani muslims started to hate us when we funded them with weapons only to abandon them and leave them with a shattered economy and country when they had served their purpose? and many muslims in america have stated that things have gotten harder since 9/11.

You are an intolerant dumbass who fails to take various other aspects into account, and who ignores that other factors (our support of foreign dictators) has helped in making a lot of muslims hate us.

[Cecelia5578]

True. Those are both Christian groups. If I were evaluating Christianity, I would look first to the Bible.

I hate to digress any further from the OP, but you are showing your ignorance about both Catholicism and Orthodoxy. First look to the Bible? Such a Protestant centric approach to evaluating Christianity is bound to run into problems outside the sola scriptura crowd.

Your entire approach of reducing Christianity to the Bible really ignores what the overwhelming majority of Christians look up to (at least officially) for authority, which surely isn't the sole word of the Bible (and I have this sneaking suspicion you know nothing more about the differences between Sunni and Shiites other than a quick glance at Wiki about 10 minutes ago).

[Maj]

Except that all Muslims believe that the Koran is the basis of Islam. Cite Muslims who disagree.

The Qur'an is the basis of Islam, but it's not the only base. The hadith work right alongside the Qur'an and add a lot to the religion that isn't in the Book. For example, the whole Eve was made from Adam's rib thing... That's not in the Qur'an. But it wiggled its way into the hadith.

Then the hadith and various cultural traditions/interpretations both contribute to the Sunnah, which is combined with the Qur'an to get the various interpretations of Shariah law. Once you hit Shariah law, you end up with a government tied directly to religion, creating a people who view the events of their daily lives as being what their religion is all about - regardless of whether their religion is actually about it.

Given the highly variable literacy rate in Muslim countries (you can check out the CIA Factbook's List of countries' literacy rates here) - ranging from 28% - 99% - it's probably a sure bet that there are quite a few Muslims out there who haven't read their own holy book. They know what their leaders have told them.

And I would expect that even in places with a high literacy rate, there are still quite a few people who haven't read the Qur'an, though that may be just the cynical side of me extrapolating the knowledge of the Christians around me to literate Muslims around the world.

So, while Muslims believe that the Qur'an is the basis for Islam, a lot of them wouldn't know the difference between the declared truth on the part of an insane dictator, and what the book actually says. For them, Islam is just what the most prominent/vocal/loud person says it is (a very apt analogy in this thread was to medieval Christianity). And that's precisely how so many Muslims get all pissed off about cartoons.

[Shroom Man 777]

Oh no, so the actions of people are not influenced by just one old musty book filled with stupid religious shit, but several stupid religious books that integrate all sorts of weirdo religious sociocultural shit of variable interpretation? And that this is further complicated by the disparity of socioeconomic shit in Arab/Muslim countries and annoying nuances like literacy rates, forms of governments, levels of corruption, and amount of US government support for pocket dictators prevalent in the area and propped up for oil monies? Say it ain't so! Aw mang, dontcha hate it when reality is far more complicated than what our simplistic broad generalizations imply?

[wautd]

Appearantly, Bible pages make better sigaret papers than Koran pages
(I'd post the youtube link but it's already removed. I guess because it's so terribly offensive )

[mr friendly guy]

Appearantly, Bible pages make better sigaret papers than Koran pages
(I'd post the youtube link but it's already removed. I guess because it's so terribly offensive )

for those who don't know what you are talking about.

[Bakustra]

You shift back and forth between the levels of reaction to the cartoons. Do I think that protest is a valid, appropriate response to hate speech (as the fabricated cartoons would have been under Danish law)? Yes. Do I think that violence or threats of violence are? No.

You are using the declarations of non-representative governments to determine what the attitudes of the people are. This seems a bit premature and foolhardy. Now, other data would be fine, but without a causal link between the people and the political elites, then you cannot ascribe similar motives quite so easily.

Your survey actually says 36%, which is on the verge of a plurality. Meanwhile, the Pew Forum study you cite gives 28% for the number of American Muslims who actively deny that Arabs committed the attacks. In fact, by the Pew study, 40% of American Muslims believe that Arabs carried out the attacks. That would be the only mainstream attitude by the definition we are using (32% did not give an opinion. Hardly a case of Muslims being far more conspiracy-oriented than the average American! Cultural issue was a suggestion that Americans in general may be predisposed to be suspicious about official governmental stories (thank you Oliver Stone), in the case of serious discrepancies between American beliefs and the beliefs of people world-wide about the 9/11 attacks.

Meanwhile, the Pew Forum study also indicates attitudes towards suicide bombings. Guess what? 78% of American Muslims say that suicide bombing is unjustifiable period. Only about 1% of American Muslims think it can be often justified. Even among the most extreme segment of the population, the young, only 15% said it could be sometimes or often justified. Plurality this is not. In fact, the only surveyed nations where a majority did not reject suicide bombings altogether were Lebanon, the Palestinian Territories, and Nigeria.

Your approach is interesting, but fatally flawed. One cannot distinguish between Catholicism and any Protestant groups without recognizing their individual interpretations of the Bible and theology (or indeed their fundamental approach to the Bible), as these are central to the conflict. Your method denies the difference, since it denies the importance of believers' interpretations. Instead, it would have to conclude that the Protestants broke off for the same reason as the Orthodox and Anglicans- political disputes, as there is no way for it to acknowledge the disputes over transubstantiation, or faith versus works versus grace, or any theological dispute. That is why it is a flawed method of analysis: it produces garbage results when applied to differentiating between religious groups.

Now, you say once again that you're only producing a criticism of the Qu'ran, but you are using that criticism as a criticism of Islam as a whole, which is flawed for the reasons that have been outlined by myself and many others.

[Terralthra]

True. Those are both Christian groups. If I were evaluating Christianity, I would look first to the Bible.

I hate to digress any further from the OP, but you are showing your ignorance about both Catholicism and Orthodoxy. First look to the Bible? Such a Protestant centric approach to evaluating Christianity is bound to run into problems outside the sola scriptura crowd.

Your entire approach of reducing Christianity to the Bible really ignores what the overwhelming majority of Christians look up to (at least officially) for authority, which surely isn't the sole word of the Bible (and I have this sneaking suspicion you know nothing more about the differences between Sunni and Shiites other than a quick glance at Wiki about 10 minutes ago).

It's not often someone is willing to post so obviously illiterately. He at no point said he would only look to the bible. He said he would look to the bible first. What, do you have a better suggestion for a first source about Christianity's tenets than the Bible?

[Cecelia5578]

True. Those are both Christian groups. If I were evaluating Christianity, I would look first to the Bible.

I hate to digress any further from the OP, but you are showing your ignorance about both Catholicism and Orthodoxy. First look to the Bible? Such a Protestant centric approach to evaluating Christianity is bound to run into problems outside the sola scriptura crowd.

Your entire approach of reducing Christianity to the Bible really ignores what the overwhelming majority of Christians look up to (at least officially) for authority, which surely isn't the sole word of the Bible (and I have this sneaking suspicion you know nothing more about the differences between Sunni and Shiites other than a quick glance at Wiki about 10 minutes ago).

It's not often someone is willing to post so obviously illiterately. He at no point said he would only look to the bible. He said he would look to the bible first. What, do you have a better suggestion for a first source about Christianity's tenets than the Bible?

I can't believe I'm quoting motherfucking Orthodoxy of all things, but here

http://www.serfes.org/orthodox/scriptur ... church.htm

The Eastern Orthodox Church belief about Holy Scripture that is the Bible of the Old Testament and the New Testament we must be fully aware from within Holy Tradition. Tradition, is a life, a personal encounter with Christ our Lord in the Holy Spirit. Tradition then not only is kept by the Church - it lives in the Church, it is the life of the Holy Spirit in the Church. The Bible is then the supreme expression of God's revelation to man.

The Church is NOT Based on the Bible. Rather, the Bible is a product of the Church. For the first few centuries of the Christian era, no one could have put his hands on a single volume called "The Bible." In fact, there was no one put his hands on a single volume called "The Bible." In fact, there was no agreement regarding which "books" of Scripture were to be considered accurate and correct, or canonical.

To look first to the Bible is a product of a Protestant mindset, or at the least of growing up in a country that has been traditionally dominated by Protestantism. From an Orthodox perspective, to divorce the Bible (you are aware the Bible used by Orthodox is a *tad* different from that used by Protestants) from Holy Tradition, the Liturgy, the Deposit of Faith-is totally alien to the life of the Church.

The point here isn't to regurgitate Orthodox bullshit, but that many religions are much, much more complicated than reducing them to a single book, and that its a product of a Protestant cultural mindset (even among people who are irreligious) who look to the Bible as the sole fount of Christian faith and dogma.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lex_orandi,_lex_credendi

[adam_grif]

Appearantly, Bible pages make better sigaret papers than Koran pages
(I'd post the youtube link but it's already removed. I guess because it's so terribly offensive )

for those who don't know what you are talking about.

How dare this man burn a single copy of a mass produced book in his own possession. He should suffer for this... this outrage.

[LionElJonson]

I'm surprised; I'd have thought there'd be a bit more uproar. Some of the Muslims down in Sydney aren't the brightest of the bunch. Look at the race riots and gangrapes a few years back for evidence of that.

And on a somewhat related topic, the Iranian ayatollahs have issued a fatwa calling for the deaths of those that would burn the Koran.

[wautd]

Link

Book-burning shelved, it's time to commit atheists to the flames

The Texan pastor's moved on from the Koran to a pyre of The God Delusion.

IN SCENES of calm bemusement not seen in the lower United States since John Scopes taught innocent schoolchildren evolution, it was reported yesterday that Pastor Terry Jones had given up on his plans to burn 200 Korans and was instead planning to incite atheists by soaking a gross of Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion in moonshine and putting a match to them.

Atheists, who hadn't been expected to come out in pick-up trucks with gun racks on their rear windows and circle his church with their engines revving like goaded Rottweilers, didn't.

''Well,'' said Billy-Bob Huxley, a leading Texan non-believer, ''look on the bright side; Dawkins will be happy for the royalties. And we figure the book is filled with truths that can't be burnt.'' *

A spokesman for the Atheist Brotherhood in Australia was quoted as saying: ''We feel strangely unaffected and will seek revenge by raising our eyebrows and shrugging our shoulders. I've already sent Pastor Terry a message wishing him good luck with his ecclesiastical grandstanding, and I feel sure he can grab a TV slot on a Baptist network with a weekly conflagration of tomes he hasn't read and doesn't agree with.''

In Britain and France, countries that remember the Enlightenment, and in Russia, with her seven decades of secularism still befuddling her, nobody burnt Uncle Sam in effigy and mobs of unbelievers didn't riot and burn churches, nor were believers flogged or beaten. So far the body count is nil. Atheists have turned the other cheek. Christians have called this a nasty plagiarism.

President Barack Obama, despite objecting to the burning of the Koran, has been burnt in effigy in Kashmir, where the American flag is also being burnt and 15 people have so far been killed in street battles with police.

When asked about Pastor Jones's new plan to torch Dawkins's magnum opus, the President said: ''It's sweet with me. Let reason be fuel for the bonfires of the faithful. As long as atheists aren't going to whomp on us from the ridge tops with AK47s, let the Pastor light up a complete set of Hitchens and Sam Harris as well.''

Across vast areas of the Middle East and in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where people had rioted and been killed at the mere threat to burn the Koran, nobody stirred.

Emboldened by the pastor's book-burning, in a move calculated to make further trouble by a gross act of free speech, Queensland lawyer Alex Stewart tore a page from Darwin's The Descent of Man, saying he could make neither head nor tail of the thing by reading it and thought it might make more sense when smoked.

He lit up on YouTube, claiming it his right in a free and open society to commit this symbolic act and saying: ''Dudes, it's just a book. Get over it.'' Leading atheists called for calm … and atheists everywhere delivered it, showing themselves to be compliant minions. (Though a rumour persists that as the global supply of effigies is being monopolised by Kashmir and Iran, atheists were powerless to smoke the Queensland lawyer in retribution.)

Professor Dawkins himself, when asked about the burning of his book, said: ''It seems a little old-fashioned and pointless to burn a book in the age of the internet. Like knee-capping a town-crier. Still, the burning of a book is as much a freedom as is the reading of one. It is, to be sure, insensitive and provocative and perhaps foolhardy. But if freedom of speech were not, at times, all of these, it wouldn't need protection by law.''

Religious leaders responded by saying Dawkins was a dangerous appeaser whose forgiveness of Pastor Jones could be seen as an apologia for the burning of all books, and while they weren't troubled by the burning of his, there was no need to extend the privilege to authors more divine.

Meanwhile, Effigies 'R' Us in Faisalabad has announced it is making a new Pastor Jones model of yak hair and hypocrisy that gives off an unholy stink when ignited.

Salman Rushdie, from a safe-house in Greenland, has called for calm and offered Pastor Jones a truckload of his novel The Satanic Verses to burn in place of the other texts. He said this should just about satisfy all parties, and if he can't win the Nobel Prize for literature, then he might as well get it for peace.

''My books have been smoked in both hemispheres,'' Salman said, ''so I'm not as easy to upset as some of these one-off authors like Mohammed and God.''

I'd be surprised if we'll see the same media hype about this. None the less, good advertising for the God Delusion.
Classy remarks in the article as well

it's satire

[Mr Bean]

If Dawkins were smart about this he would send someone down there with a crate of God Delusion and set up Lemonade stand just down the street offering to sell "fresh" copies of the God Delusion. "Burn it or read it, that's your right as an American! Only 14.99$ each! get two for 24$!"

I had to check if this was a Onion piece at first, same idea just no the Onion

[Eleas]

If Dawkins were smart about this he would send someone down there with a crate of God Delusion and set up Lemonade stand just down the street offering to sell "fresh" copies of the God Delusion. "Burn it or read it, that's your right as an American! Only 14.99$ each! get two for 24$!"

Yes, if he was that, and had a death wish.

[Temujin]

Fuck, that article is full of great lines!

If Dawkins were smart about this he would send someone down there with a crate of God Delusion and set up Lemonade stand just down the street offering to sell "fresh" copies of the God Delusion. "Burn it or read it, that's your right as an American! Only 14.99$ each! get two for 24$!"

Yes, if he was that, and had a death wish.

Just ask the guys from Top Gear.