(Sept. 7) — The Rev. Terry Jones said today he is “praying” about his decision to burn copies of the Quran on the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, but made his comments in front of a sign suggesting that he would move forward with it despite warnings from top military officials that doing so would endanger U.S. troops.
“We realize that this action will indeed offend people, offend the Muslims,” he told CNN today. But, he said, “we cannot back off the truth of the dangers of radical Islam just because people are going to be offended.”
Speaking in front of a sign that read, “International Burn a Koran Day,” the pastor told CNN, “We are definitely praying about it.” But he stopped short of vowing to go through with the plan.
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Before we start this discussion, which is likely to generate some emotion, let’s start with a premise with which most of us agree — all religions are wrong, all gods are false, and all holy books are lies. The Torah, the New Testament, the Koran, are all made to subjugate masses, all cause harm, and all are primitive and useless (yes, Eastern religions too, but they are not involved here).
Why then, do we shudder when some preacher threatens to burn Korans, yet we giggle to ourselves when we deface a Bible or a Book of Mormon in a hotel room? Why is it OK, if not a good thing, to draw a picture of a Muslim prophet, but not OK to burn their holy books? It’s all about reason and context.
If you stay in a hotel, you pay for a room, not a Bible. They GIVE you a Bible — it’s yours, for free, to do with what you will. Usually, you don’t even get the option to say “no thank you” — it’s there for you, irrelevant of your wishes or theology. It is rude and crude for hotels to do this. One would never think of going to a grocery store or gas station and having the manager hand you a Bible, but we strangely accept this practice in hotels. This is wrong, and this is why I say to trash these Bibles. They are yours, and you have every right to do it. Nobody, and certainly not American Atheists, suggested you buy a mass of bibles and burn them, because that would be a vulgar attack on Christianity. Hotels should not be in the religion business, and trashing the one bible they foist on you is a reasonable and peaceful act of protest.
Another kind of peaceful protest involves drawing a picture. In America, we have freedoms that are under constant threat, and one very real threat is that of the criminalization of blasphemy. Many countries, including civilized nations like Ireland, have blasphemy laws. The proponents of those laws, militant Muslims who can’t stand the thought of anyone making fun of their precious prophet, want it to be worldwide (they are even going through the UN). When the Danish newspaper published a cartoon, innocent people died from the riots, and as a result of this terrorism, Comedy Central began to censor South Park. Draw Muhammad Day was a reaction to this censorship, which sent a clear message around the world that we would not be squelched. Pakistan banned Facebook and Youtube — the message was heard loud and clear. Nobody destroyed anything, and this was a completely reasonable reaction to terrorism and the censorship that resulted. It will happen again, because this is speech, and nobody is immune from insult and ridicule.
But buying loads of Korans and burning them is a totally different activity. This is not a single person in peaceful protest against hotels foisting bibles in your hand, nor is it a reaction to preserve legitimately-threatened Constitutional rights. Burning volumes of Korans is an action, not a reaction, and it is a vulgar attack. It is intolerant and hateful, and serves no purpose other than to instigate hate and violence, at which it will unfortunately succeed. It will have no positive outcome — and it will push the terrorists to riot. Some people may die, and they will die for nothing, except the publicity for some rinky-dink church nobody ever cared about until they escalated a war.
Drawing pictures to protest censorship and trashing Bibles placed in your room against your will is not the same as buying loads of ‘holy’ books to burn on TV, and we should not allow anyone to forget that huge distinction.
I have said before that the last words you hear before a holy war is “my god can beat up your god.” This is proving true, and we should all be prepared for the nutty Christians to start a war with the nutty Muslims (or vice versa), who will fight God’s fight with us normal people in the middle. Things are about to get messy.
I am against burning books, period. Its the message that it sends,the memories it evokes. Nazis throwing the works of the great minds of their time into bonfires. Christian missionaries burning the priceless Myan works, Christians burning books in general, following their gospel charge from the book of acts.
I do not equate a difference between the burning of a Koran and the burning of Valley of the dolls, its censorship and its wrong.
I would wager that not one of the idiots involved in this lunacy have even read the book that they hate so much. I have not read it and have no desire to, but I believe that anyone that wants to destroy something should have an understanding of it first, and even then they should question their motives. Burning the Koran, or any book, is asenine and pointless. We already know that they hate Islam and the Koran, so what is the message that they hope to disenminate? A book is just words on paper, nothing more, nothing less (OK, except for E-books). You can’t destroy an idea or change a belief by burning paper.
Dave…has AA ever filed suit against a Muslim cause?
Off hand, I am not sure. I know we went toe-to-toe about Muslim footbaths some time ago in Michigan, but I am not sure it resulted in a suit. This link you sent me a few days ago looks interesting.
Dave…toe to toe? Really? Can you give us a link or direct us to an article you wrote representing AA concerning the Muslim foot bath?
Censorship is wrong. Wholesale burning of the bible or the quran is censorship only if all the copies everywhere are burned. The freedom to burn the flag of the U.S. has been established. The freedom to burn the holy books has been established. If the man went into the homes of muslims and snatched the Quran from the hands of those inside and rushed outside, added them to a burning bonfire, then that would be censorship. Will this planned burning upset muslims, sure it would, just as a planned burning of bibles would upset Christians everywhere. Why do we give muslims such an easy way to go when no matter what we do they will still want to extinguish the U.S. way of life?
The reason Muslims are “given a pass” so to speak is because their entire culture is still trapped in the dark ages. They’ve yet to reach their equivalent of the Renaissance. Christians are in no real position to “start a holy war” because they live rather exclusively in civilized, free thought countries, and would need to suck up or shut up regarding any similar styled protest. Muslims, however, we’re still technically in Iraq and we’re very much embedded within Afghanistan, having just finished one war in a Muslim country and still in one in another. We have every reason to want to keep those few who’d be on our side from the risk of snapping out against us. It’s now a matter of national security and the well being of our troops and mission than a matter of protest (especially one in which that fucktard pastor’s own religion is to blame for Islam’s being “of the Devil”)
There also is the blatant irony in that we are in one war and JUST got out of another that have essentially been fought FOR MUSLIMS. We went to Iraq to save them from Saddam Hussein. We went to Afghanistan for Al Qaeda and bin Laden but he escaped months into our assault. But this is all somewhat besides the point and just proving the stupid irony of these xenophobic protests.
“THE HEAVENS SHOULD BE SIMPLE…THEY ARE NOT!”
Burning things can be fun! People burn books, governments burn books, and nature burns books! Some People Burn People! YES! 9/11! Books are mostly cellulose with symbols printed on them. Little Bo Beep books get burned. Copies of the US Constitution get burned, and effigies of Kings and petty paupers get burned. Hey! Maybe another preacher hates Winnie the Poo for worshipping Satan in a youtube video and want’s to burn Winnie the Pooh books!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TErIFY0T9Ts
So, Muslims are Children of the Devil! Who cares! So, Jews believe in a God that killed Egyptians because they had too many statues! Who cares. The preacher is just another Ayotalloh. No big deal!
Let’s all pick a most hated book of our own and join the enthusiatic preacher! But instead of limiting to one particular genre of book, lets widen the emotional field! Let’s burn three dozen copies of Miguel de Cervantes, 150 copies of a Tolstoy text, 2000 copies of Robert Frost’s The Road the Taken.
Let us then Chant in religious fervor, and in unison!
Oh, Fires Cleansing, Purifying and Cathartics
Oh Sun, Doomed to Extinguishment, Burn Bright
While Your Light Shineth, Heat, and Regenerate!
Bookish Atoms, We Set The Free
To Fly in Atmosphere Unfettered
The limitation to the frenzy is a simple one:
DO NOT BURN MY COPY!
AND…LEAVE MY LIBRARY ALONE!
TOWNS ACROSs this US of A censure the books that could have been place on shelves for public consumption…Some for the overindulgence of sexually exiting material, other for what ever reason.. “that’s tasteless and should be destroyed” kind of thinking.
Atheism at it most fundamental should also be ideational iconoclasts. Destroy ideas to build better one, not to return to slip into a cognitive void!
So go ahead and hate Little Bo Beep Who Lost Her Sheep. What a horrific and satanic literatry work that was!
I am sure that Mr. Mohammed was convinced at the veracity of his new religion, as was Guru Nanak, and Paul of Tarsus. They were all writers. So, I’ve burned a few bibles myself because my mother made me read it and then beat me with abandon! I don’t care about Korans or Bibles but they do have some interesting stories in them!
Now when the burning gets really intense, like the Christians at the Library of Alexandria! We would have a problem!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbuEhwselE0
OH DEFENDER OF HELIOCENTRISM!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9wfGGfGs2w
I hope all you had a nice labor day.
Dave you say holy books are used to subjugate the masses and that is true.My question is how else would you try to control them?.The great mass of humanity need some kind of control or they will degenerate into savages.
So you would expect the freest societies to feature more savagery than command-and-control systems, right? North Korea and Burma… the peaceful, human rights respecting paradigms of the world. Didn’t Stalin kill more of his own people than Hitler?
Over 30 million babies aborted since roe v wade some call that murder.Over 2 million currently in US prisons/jails many for drug crimes which 100 years ago were not crimes.Growing number of americans tied to their job if they have one- – call it serfdom.? are we free are we savage.
I don’t know Chris, by the way not attacking you, it just seems we have a self destruct button built in us.We have tried religion,communism to control that with uneven results.I hate the thought we have to use BS or brute force to prevent ‘lord of the flies’ but then you look at someplace like the congo,mexico or even new orleans after katrina.
The U.S. manages to hold together despite its diversity because most people see it as being in their self interest to be unified. It is in their self interest because the U.S.’s unified, diverse society offers them more freedom of thought and action than most of the world’s small, ethnically homogeneous enclaves. Burma, North Korea, Russia, miscellaneous African tribal countries are homogeneous and miserable places to live, with tight controls over individuals’ rights to do what will make them happy. So, when somebody claims that life could be better if all the hispanics, mormons, whites, texans, etc. (pick your group) seceded into their own little enclave, the idea never gains traction here. Mutual self-interest, not oppression, is a powerful force holding the more successful societies together.
KA
There is a conference on 9/11 in new york city this weekend.Google mossad/9/11.
Wait…you can’t seriously think that the Mossad was behind 9/11, can you? You must be smarter than that.
I don’t know KA, they have the capacity and the motive as well as a track record of false flag operations including against US.I’m not pointing finger at state of israel though, i think it is more a question of are israeli leaders in control of their intel agency.I think we also have a similiar problem we have a huge intel community and no one including the agencies involved seem certain about extent of waste,fraud,rogue operators.I don’t dispute muslims terrorists carried out the attack but were they useful idiots for other non muslim players.
Keep in mind back in the sixties a plan was presented to highest level of US gov’t for CIA to stage terror attacks in USA. To justify an invasion of cuba but the president shot it down.I don’t like islam but that doesn’t mean i buy the official line on every bad thing that happens.
I disagree. It’s not different. This is America and you can protest however you want as long as you don’t physically harm others or destroy their property (hurt feelings have no validity under our law).
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You can deface another country’s flag.
You can deface your own country’s flag.
You can deface any book you own.
You can deface your Bible.
And you can deface your Koran.
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When the Muslims riot and commit terrorist acts, they will be responsible. The root cause of that problem will be a subculture of violent extremism, not the fact that one yahoo religious nutjob somewhere in the world did something to set them off. There will always be that one nutjob. Blame him and you miss the point.
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Whether it’s wise or not wise for atheists to discard bibles or Christians to burn Korans is an irrelevant question, unless one thinks free speech should be vetted by some kind of committee. North Korea, for instance, has never offended the Muslims.
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If Gideons started committing terrorist acts in response to us discarding bibles, would it suddenly become wrong to put that trash in the trash?
I really disagree with this stance that burning the Qu’ran is some how different from any of the protests described in your conversation. You say that the burning of the Qu’ran is an “action” not a “reaction” like defacing the bible is or drawing Mohammed, but these people did not pick the ninth anniversary of the September eleventh attacks randomly. This is a protest in response to what they view as a conflict with Islam and is a reaction to this conflict.
This makes me believe that there is a double standard going on here. The burning of the Qu’ran I would imagine will be just as slanderous to the American reputation in the Middle East and offensive to the people there as the drawing of Mohammed was. To say that it was okay for me to offend people because of my personal views but not you because I do not share your viewpoint is simply hypocritical.
Do I agree with what these people are doing and will I participate in it? No I do not and I will not.
But I will not try to draw some arbitrary distinction about their protest and your protest. I do not understand why people feel the need to have their protests take on this passive aggressive, offensive air. Maybe it is an attempt to spark a violent reaction and gain a victims portrayal. Whatever it is, it is stupid.
I constantly wonder what would happen in the world if people stopped trying to have these non-violent passive aggressive protests and just simply stated how they feel about something and explain why they felt that way?
Why can’t these people instead of burning Qu’rans get together on September 11th and produce and release a statement explaining what they view Islam as and why they view it that way? Then instead of throwing their money into the flames, pooling it together and getting their statement published either as an editorial comment or an advertisement in a verity of media outlets? Wouldn’t that be more effective, wouldn’t that contribute to the debate instead of detracting from it?
As a red herring in regard to the defacement of the bible, it is just childish. When you make reservations at hotels have you expressed your disdain for having a bible in your room and ask that it not be there?
When I go to the middle east in countries that are majority muslim I do not have a Bible in my room but a Qu’ran. Maybe the hotel you are staying at is trying to perform a wanted service by a majority of their customers and not to insult and offend you.
I don’t like certain types of paintings, does that give me the right to destroy the painting that is in my hotel room, if it does not fit my taste? (Not all hotels provide the Bible as a gift, if you take with you from the room after check out, you are charged)
Been tried, never works. Otherwise the terrorists would’ve written angry letters to the editors, been on Oprah, & taken out adverts on the telly instead of flying 2 planes into the WTC.
These taboo protests are intended to get attention. The media doesn’t care about well-articulated opinions, so they ignore almost all press releases. Viewers want to watch stunts and conflicts, not podium statements or intellectual debates.
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We atheists should consider whether the paradigm of 1960′s picket-sign protests and civil disobedience are effective anymore (I suspect not when the method is mocked by pizza joints hiring unfortunate fat men to hold signs). We should also consider whether the 2000′s paradigm of mockery has produced results (anyone give up religion in response to it?).
I realize that these protests are built to get attention but it just kind of makes me sick that an intellectual discussion is not what people look for. I understand that it brings attention to the situation and in drastic situations I appreciate the use of the tactic; like during the civil rights movement of the 1960′s. But it just seems that now if people are going to protest something they instantly go to this sort of offensive attacks. It’s how can I give them a shot instead of how can I demonstrate my point so others understand.
I am glad to hear that the actual burning has been called off but still it is just obnoxious.
Ground zero mosque Imam says there will be a violent backlash if proposed mosque location is changed.Sounds like a veiled threat to me.
That crazy preacher jones is right-no more backing down.
So Jones shouldn’t back down but the Muslims should?
http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/condemn_terry_jones/?rc=hlinko_20100909_Koran_ad4
This petition makes an excellent point!
The petition reads:
“I am writing today to condemn in the strongest possible terms your plan to mark September 11th by burning Korans. Your plan not only insults more than one billion Muslims who had nothing to do with 9/11, it puts the lives of Americans at risk. I condemn your plan, and in the process, I am sending a message to the world that you don’t speak for me, and you sure don’t speak for America.”
The thing of it is that religious extremists are winning. Extremists flew into the World Trade Center and we changed our rights to privacy. Now this Florida extremist threatens to burn a “holly book” unless we force Muslims to move their building, which they own. We can’t change our principles every time some extremist behaves irrationally. We only have one life but we can’t alter our values every time religious radicals threaten us. What kind of life would our children and grandchildren be left with?
The root problem is that most people care more about preventing the next terrorist attack than standing up for – or at least tolerating – freedom. We are a nation of wusses, recommending that the mosque be moved so it doesn’t offend evangelical Christians or recommending that pastor Jones not protest so it doesn’t offend the Muslims. Yes, I think they’re both wackjobs contributing to the ruin of our world, but if I care about freedom, I have to allow them to practice their religions or peacefully protest as they please. In an environment of freedom, the best ideas will win in the long run.
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Our job is to make sure the extremists don’t win. If they’re winning, it’s because we aren’t doing enough, not because they’re being allowed to protest or build mosques.
I happen to be in total favor of Korans being burned. The following are a mix of posts that I wrote on another message forum:
* Muslims are hypocrites. They want and demand freedom to burn American flags, chant, “Death To America”, stone people to death, commit other acts of violence, set up their mosques all over the place like near Ground Zero in New York, etc. But yet they deny their own people and other people THEIR freedom. They deny their own women their freedom by forbidding them to wear make-up. By forbidding them to read and educate themselves. By ordering them to dress a certain way. And if their women fail to abide by any of those sick strict Islamic laws, they are put to death.
And it’s not just their own women they deny freedom to, it’s ALL women everywhere. Case in point is non-Muslim news reporter Rachel Maddow from MSNBC who was ordered to wear a head scarf while she did a news report in Muslim terrority.
The Muslims censor and ban material (books, music, movies, television,etc).
Where’s the freedom there?
It’s nowhere to be found.
And here we have, Dr. Terry Jones just saying – (it hasn’t even happened yet) – that he is going to burn some Korans and there is worldwide outrage from the Muslims and all of their apologists.
Where is the outrage when the Muslims burn American flags? When they chant, “Death To America”? Stone people to death and other acts of violence? When they treat women like sub-human garbage? When they censor and ban materials?
Very interesting how the media and all the other Muslim apologists turn a blind eye to those things.
* As I posted in another thread, I sent Dr. Jones an email of support. Here is what I wrote to him:
Dr. Terry Jones, I support your plans to burn the Koran on September 11. I think it is a wonderful idea. I happen to be an Atheist. I don’t believe in a god and I am against religion. But I fully support your efforts to burn the Koran. Burn them all to a crisp. I am strongly against violence in religion. And these Muslims are absolute savages with them cutting peoples heads off and stoning people to death, among other brutal acts of terror that they commit. And I find it really interesting that they and their apologists claim to be “peaceful” and about “peace”, meanwhile, General Petraues is worried about the safety of his troops when you burn the Koran. Well, isn’t that interesting. He’s worried about what so-called “peaceful” people are going to do when their korans are burned. That should tell the entire world right there that the Muslims are NOT peaceful. Islam is NOT about peace, because if it was, then the General wouldn’t have anything to worry about. (It doesn’t make sense to worry about something that is supposed to be peaceful). I just wish that the media would see my point here and talk about it.
Well, anyway, burn them all.
* Hypocrisy within the media: the Muslims and all of their other apologists claim that Muslims, Islam and the Koran are all about “peace”;
They claim that ONLY the Taliban commit acts of violence and that they have absolutely nothing at all to do with “real Islam”;
But then they say that the Taliban will respond with VIOLENCE if Korans are burned.
Okay. Here it comes. Hypocrisy alert: If the Taliban “are not real Muslims who don’t follow the Koran”, then why would the Taliban commit acts of violence over the burning of a book that they supposedly “don’t” follow?
And if Islam is supposed to be about peace, then how is it that the non-Taliban, so-called “moderate Muslims” stone people to death, chant ,”Death To America”, burn American flags, commit other acts of random violence and treat women like sub-human garbage?…sure doesn’t sound peaceful to me.
* On Terry Jones backing down: Terry Jones has gone soft. He won’t burn the Koran if the mosque isn’t built near Ground Zero.
Well, here’s a news flash for Mr. Jones: not building a mosque near Ground Zero isn’t going to solve a single damn thing. Because the bottom line is that the violent Muslims are going to continue doing acts of violence no matter what. You can go all the way up to Mars and build the mosque, and the Muslins will STILL commit acts of violence.
Terry Jones has completely lost sight of his original intention to want to burn the Koran in the first place: and that is to send a message that we are against Muslims taking over, forcing their Sharia law upon us and doing their acts of violence.
I used to have respect for Terry Jones until he exposed himself for being a total sell-out. Backing down from sending that message all for the re-location of a mosque away from Ground Zero.
Fair enough. Any criticism of Christian violence against Muslims though? The U.S. military has killed literally hundreds of thousands since 9/11. That makes millions of people who have lost a family member or friend.
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I’m all for freedom of speech on both sides, but your statement makes it sound like you think Christianity is the peaceful religion.
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My perspective is that we atheists are caught in the middle and, because we tend to live in cities in both the U.S. and Middle East, we are more likely to be the victims. Both sides are advocating for limits on what we know as the 1st Amendment and the establishment of religious national identity. That only hurts our cause.
Indeed! I can’t believe I read this entire thread, and only one comment on sharia law. I think sharia law should be a focal point in this entire discussion. Pastor Jones said he’s not protesting islam, but sharia law. Then why not burn the Ha’dith (Spelling?). I’m not a scholar of islam, but aren’t their barbaric laws espousd in the Ha’dith? Pastor Jones could’ve hit the nail on the head, and educated Americans with one bonfire. It was a missed opportunity if you ask me.
None of the religions are peaceful. They are all violent.
Burning a book is not censorship if the book being burned was paid for and that book is still available to buy by others. If this nutty preacher was also demanding copies of the koran be removed from libraries and store shelves, THAT would be censorship.