Restoring the Koran

I really don’t understand why the focus is on REPLACING burned Korans. Why not donate that money to Women for Women International or any of a number of charities helping Afghan families?

I don’t really like it when try to define what “American” is either. However, we were a country founded on religious liberty. While they have a right to burn their own books, they’re going against the spirit of our constitution.

Using “un-American” isn’t a technical statement. It’s a figurative one.

It’s definitely a move in the right direction but i say let the bigoted shit for brains kick and scream,let their ture colors show..they can do whatever the hell they want as long as we can mop the floor with them.
this is a free country and they are a minority and they will make complete loons out of themselves if they get on with this.
Sit back and watch the freakshow.

Un-American? Come on, that’s a codeword for True Patriots©®™ (patent pending). That can be safely ignored.

Donating to a charity is certainly more direct and rational way of helping people, but we need to understand that this is a publicity issue. Whether bargaining with rabid islamic extremists is productive is a whole different topic; fundies will be fundies, but we need to maintain good relations with moderates, whether we like it or not: they are the majority, after all. Of course, that doesn’t mean bending over backwards every time we have a disagreement, but in this case MRFF, thankfully, has a productive idea about the situation. I’d like to see some comments from Muslims (the reasonable ones, I know they are out there) about this.

How about if we offer to burn an equal number of Bibles and Torahs to make it even? I’m all for reducing the number of religious books around.

The point seems to be to try to mitigate the direct and immediate danger that our troops will face in Afghanistan (and elsewhere) when that despicable idiot burns those Qur’ans. Replacing them book for book is the only gesture that would make any impression on the people who would be incensed and inflamed by what they will see and hear when the burning begins. It’s a straight repudiation of Jones’ hateful act, saying “We, American soldiers, do not support or condone this.”

The Qur’an is what the people there value. Gestures of giving money to charities that liberal Americans might value but which Middle Easterners might not value would not help. They would not see that as a mending of what was injured.

I hope it helps. Jones may end up with a lot of blood on his hands.

While I appreciate Richard’s pragmatic perspective, and I also appreciate the MRFF’s sentiment… I’m just not sure how to feel about this issue.

Freedom of speech is freedom of speech. If I want to burn a Bible, Qur’an, a copy of The God Delusion, or, hell, a replica of the Constitution– that should be my freedom, and I don’t think it makes me evil to do it. As so many people have said before me, freedom of speech is not supposed to protect only the things we want to hear. Freedom of speech is decidedly American. From the free speech perspective, the FFRF is wrong in calling Jones’ book-burning “un-American.”

It’s difficult, though, because religious intolerance is decidedly un-American, if I’m to use the Constitution as a guide. It’s certainly reprehensible, although I still don’t know if I’d call someone “evil” for burning a holy book.

What’s more, it’s hard to discern whether the FFRF’s reaction is to the action of burning copies of the Qur’an, or the Islamophobic sentiment (presumably) behind it. Blind bigotry is of course despicable, and if their reaction is geared toward that, then I can accept it. But if they’re reacting more to the burning of holy books… again, I can’t get behind that. As PZ once said, “Nothing must be held sacred.”

Clearly, if my rambles have proven anything, it’s that I’m quite confused about this one.

“I wonder if it’d be more useful, though, to donate a certain amount of money to a non-profit/charity organization for each Koran burned instead.”

If you did that it could
a) come across as a gesture endorsing it like a sponsorship (“I’ll donate $5 for every mile X runs”),
b) it may encourage more burnt Qu’rans.

From Jesus & Mo

http://www.jesusandmo.net/2010/09/08/crass/

I wonder if people should just show up with some bibles and torahs and any other religious texts and turn it into a religious text burning day. This would deflect the emphasis on the koran. It will unite them all, they can all cry together about how offended they are. Most importantly it will help to remove this delusional thinking that religion deserves any respect at all.
Which seems to be rather rampant as of late.

The problem is, it’s not about lost books. Books in the public domain are cheap to print. There are plenty of copies of the Koran around. The real issue is the insult of burning God. Burning any other book isn’t an equivalent. For Muslims, the Koran is a little closer to the wafer and wine for Catholics. It is a physical connection to God, as if God himself had touched each one.

Hey, I’m not saying I agree, but that’s how THEY see it. Giving someone a replacement Koran is just proving that you don’t ‘get’ the insult, and may just piss people off even more.

I’m more in favour of International Read a Qu’ran Day and other such movements promoting people educating themselves as to what’s actually in the book, rather than promoting both ignorance and hate by burning.

Richard Wade wrote:

What Jones is doing is extremely and deliberately inflammatory, (please excuse the pun) and he is definitely NOT doing it for any principle of exercising his freedom of expression.

What if an atheist or first amendment rights group decided to host a mass “Holy Book Burn”, where they burned Bibles, Korans, Torahs, etc. etc. – in other words, not singling out Muslims and not a hate act? Nevertheless, the event would inevitably anger Muslims and other religious people.

My point is that one person’s *intention* may be less relevant than the *effect* on the other person. And you seem to recognize this fact of human interaction in many of your advice columns.

On Saturday someone is going to burn a book and the response is going to be an adolescent tantrum by a bunch of readily offended rent-a-crowds. I would suggest a suitable retaliation would be to burn bibles, preferably the KJV. They won’t though. They’ll lynch and bomb and murder and burn buildings and ruin actual real human lives.

It’s just a book people!

Of course in the interests of fairness perhaps they could burn copies of secular writings too. I bet if, say, 100,000 copies of “I Sold My Soul on Ebay” were to be purchased and thrown into a conflagration that Hemant would be thoroughly admonished… and that drinks would be on him once his residual arrived!

The poster says:

For every book burned we buy a new one.

But I read:

They waste money and time so we waste money and time.

I have to sharply disagree with people (and there are plenty) who are already saying that if Americans die because of irate Muslims, this pastor will have blood on his hands.

He’s burning books, not people. He could burn a thousand books and it would still not be anywhere equal to the murder of a single human being. If Islamists use his actions as an excuse to kill more Americans, the responsibility of those deaths can be laid squarely at the feet of those who are outraged by blasphemy but think nothing of killing fellow human beings.

Let’s not forget that we’ve heard this before. The reporters who broke the Abu Gharib scandal would be to blame for American troops dying. The newspapers who printed and reprinted the Danish cartoons could be blamed for violence in response.

I agree intentions matter, and I find these actions despicable, largely because I find book-burning disgusting. It matters that this pastor is doing this to show his god is bigger and badder (though I suspect to get publicity and money is his real aim). It makes the actions less defensible. However he doesn’t get the blame when the fundamentalists from the other team wildly overreact and kill someone in response.

As for the response, I think it would be nice if we could somehow channel rejection of his actions into, say, flood relief for Pakistani civilians.

If the military truly wish to demonstrate American ‘tolerance’ they should instead donate a Christian bible(NT)/a torah/a tipitaka/a vedas and a quoran (plus any I may have missed) for every one burned by Jones.

Then we could all stand back and watch those terribly tolerant muslims burn the bible/torah/ tipitaka/vedas etc. – as they have been doing for many, many years without any western children blowing up their embassies.

Decent idea. Destined to fail.

The US military handing out relgious material? We’re back to a violiation of church/state seperation again.

I think it’s ridiculous that we have to try to counter Jones’ actions. He should be free to burn the Koran, the God Delusion, or any other book.

If he was burning the Bhagavad Gita, I really doubt we would be having this conversation. The only reason this is a big deal is because we fear the reactions of Muslims.

Pastor Jones is an idiot, but I see the real problem is an intolerant group of bronze age people.

Again, Ive seen one person mention it. Thought I’d reiterate.

This is NOT the US military responding. It is the MRFF (http://www.militaryreligiousfreedom.org/), which is in no way affiliated with the US government. They serve military personnel in dealing with violations of the 1st amendment. This is a privately funded organization.

In regards to this response. I like it. You will never make everyone happy, but this is a legal response to a flagrant display of short-sightedness and idiocy.

I dont understand the people that keep pressing OUR culture and OUR values on a group of people living in another part of the world under different values. Not everyone shares the same liberal values of “western” countries. Even other countries have completely different “national values” sets than the US. You cant compare them with the values of the multitude of Muslim nations and then wonder why their actions dont make sense.

Just something to keep in mind.

It’s a waste of money.

If some christian nuts want to burn the holy book of another cult, what should we do? Buy more nutbooks? Call Shrinks4Nuts?

The muslims extremists don’t need this christian-nuts-burning-book-day to get angry, they hate us already (how many korans burnt in the USA before 9/11?).
Buy toys for afghani children, or books (REAL books), or pencils, or food, or clothes. They certainly don’t need more korans.

This was actually pretty much the first thing I thought when I first heard about the event. Or, something to do with protecting/restoring the Koran, anyway. I wasn’t sure how to do it.

I think it’s important, politically as well as morally, for atheists to make it very clear that religious freedom is a priority. The Koran burning event is an open attack against Islam, and anything other than directly contradicting it is insufficient.

Er, sorry about the double-posting, I realize this is terrible form, but my lack of clarity didn’t occur to me until after the timer ran out for edits.

What I meant to express is that, given Burn a Koran day was inspired by Draw Muhammad day, anything other than open opposition to the former will seem to imply approval by those who participated in the latter. Draw Muhammad day was about defending freedom of speech, when it overlaps with freedom of religion. Burn a Koran day is just about attacking Islam.

I’m not saying we should try to stop the people burning the Korans – they have that right – but (and I can’t remember who I’m quoting, but as someone once said,) “The answer to bad speech is more speech.” This is a good response to an event whose implicit goal is for Christians to attack Islam.

Most regrettably, Hitch, it’s too late for that…

I have two issues here.

One is that, like many of you, I think that when some offensive idiot burns books, and then the reaction of the radicals is to burn cities and people, the focus really needs to be on the latter group, no matter what the non violent offense. If we don’t look at it this way, then eventually they will be able to force whatever is Allah’s will on the rest of us by threatening to burn cities and people.

The other issue is that I understand the concept of conciliation that is on display with the offer to replace the books. I am actually having a problem with our military being involved in distributing religious materials, no matter how good the intentions.

I like that the gesture is to benefit people who appreciate the Qur’an. You don’t have to agree with what’s in a book in order to acknowledge that other people can appreciate it. It’s like Holiday Giving… you buy for the person, not for yourself.

If we gave to a charity of OUR interest, it just wouldn’t be the same… the gesture would lack sincerity and be off the point.

So poor murr doesn’t have to do it, I’ll do it for him/her. This is NOT something being done in an official capacity by the military, but by an organization which seeks to defend the 1st ammendment rights of servicemembers. A cursory look into their website appears to show that they are equal-opportunity, just as likely to defend Muslims as Christians as nonbelievers.

Richard Wade

I think there’s a big difference in intention

Agreed. However that’s because reasonable people can distinguish nuance. Ask a fundamentalist(or even a somewhat devout muslim) whats the difference in intent between burning his holy book or drawing the un-drawable prophet. As the latter incident has already shown , intent doesn’t matter.

He’ll say, “See, I told you they are violent.”

Oh yes. The sad part is some of the muslims will fall for it.

I wish people would shutup about how dangerous this is for the troops.

Being a soldier is dangerous. Its also very hard, but there are other hard jobs. Logging, commercial fishing, construction, agriculture, those are all hard jobs that don’t have anywhere the same payoff(pay, benefits, social status, resume, gi bill and things like it).

Soldiers are content to wear the uniforms, take pictures next to machine guns, put it on their resume, get women easily, have something to talk about and get respected for, etc.

Now that some batshit insane fundies are using their right to free speech to disrespect the koran, everybody’s wanting it called off because of the fucking troops? Bullshit. If people die, that’s what they signed up for, and that’s what reservists are for.

I’ve already heard that their website has been taken off the web by their web hosts. This is disgusting, and deserves attention.

Its exactly like the fucking mosque. Is it a good idea? Fuck no. Is it disrespectful? Fuck yes. Do they have every goddamn right to do it? Goddamn straight. Do we have a responsibility as a minority and as Americans to defend their right? You bet your fucking ass.

If you want to make a statement regarding this, I recommend burning the bible and the torah, as well as the koran. They’re all just as evil as islam.

Look we know that MRFF is not a government oraganization but they’re distributing this book through the military which is a church-state violation and should not be done period. Those of you who are accusing those who said it was a church-state violation of read that flyer again. The Korans are being sent to Gen. Petraeus for distribution. I’m frankly disgusted that MRFF, an organization set up to protect the religious freedom of members of the military, would make such a move. They aren’t asking you to send it to some iman in Afghanistan; they’re asking you to send it to the military for distribution when they military has no business distributing any holy book whatsoever. Or “The God Delusion” either, for that matter.

I wish to fuck the news would stop feeding the troll. This is a constitutional right of this nutjob and if not for the flames being fanned would die in obsurity but it’s being fed (MRFF just did their bit to help fan it too) and this dickwad is getting much more attention than he deserves, which will probably help him grow the cult. Stupid, real fucking stupid.

But, hell, yes, he’s within his constitutional rights.

I am seriously wondering if MRFF is going to turn around and defend the soldier that objects to having to distribute korans now. Very, very disturbing that they’re doing this.