As the dust settles (a little) regarding the intellectually challenged preacher in Florida who planned to burn a stack of Korans on 9-11, it is time for a little honesty on the issue.
First off, he has every right to burn copies of the Koran if he wants to. There's no doubt about it. The First Amendment covers it explicitly. The fact that it was turned into such a big ordeal by both the mainstream media and everyone from the Pope to the President tells us more about the world we live in than the preacher himself. He's a dumbass. Let's leave it at that.
We live in a world of viral imagery. Videos go around the globe in scant seconds. Image is, apparently, everything. Substance is of very little importance. And this particular image, which in fact would cause no actual harm to anyone, was deemed so volatile that seemingly every leader on the planet chimed in with their opposition. And the preacher, apparently, has caved in to this onslaught of pressure, having decided not to burn, baby, burn in exchange for what he thought was negotiating with the New York imam who is building the mosque and trying to get said imam to move the mosque elsewhere. Something that is much easier said than done. Basically, he was b.s.'d into giving up his position by an imam who was much craftier than he. And, of course, the weight of virtually every known political leader on the planet leaning on him to change his evil ways.
You know and I know that somebody, somewhere in America is going to burn a Koran on 9-11, and that image will go out into the world. And the people who wish to get all upset about it will. The real question is why are people even thinking in those terms... and why are others so damn upset about it. It is, after all, a case of Americans exercising their First Amendment rights. Nothing more, nothing less. My opinion might be offensive to you... but I still have the right to express it.
The idea floated by Hillary Clinton that this Koran burning mindset is an absolute aberration to the way Americans think is an absolute aberration in itself. She knows, you know, I know... there is a certain percentage of people who hold the Islamic religion directly accountable for the attacks of 9-11. And, they actually have a case. Personally, I always thought bin Laden and Co. should have been treated like criminals, and not elevated to the level of being leaders of a military movement. People using box cutters and other peoples' airplanes don't qualify as an actual military. We should have hunted him down, without a whole lot of fanfare, and stuck his severed head on a pike for all the world to see. But, alas, instead we got all mired in the muck of nation building in Iraq and Afghanistan, hunted down and executed the wrong man in Saddam Hussein, and have managed to run up an incredible amount of national debt in the process, thus greatly enriching the movers and shakers of the military industrial complex.
Do I hate the Islamic religion? Not at all. I certainly don't distrust it more than most other organized religions.
But one of the other illusions being bandied about is that Islam is a peaceful religion. It's not. Any more than Judaism is a peaceful religion. Mohammed was, quite simply, a warlord. I've read the Koran. There is nothing pacifist about the philosophy, nor the leader of it. Absolutely, irrefutably the followers of Islam are exhorted to spread the religion, by violent means if necessary. Mohammed spread his religion by military invasion. We can pretend that's not the case, but in fact, unless my English version of the Koran was just totally incorrect, it is the case. So in the name of realism, we shouldn't pretend that Islam is like Christianity in its teachings. It isn't. Jesus preached turn the other cheek. Mohammed didn't even come close to that.
That's not to say all Muslims are violent. Of course they're not. Most people are not inherently violent, and want to go about their daily lives in a peaceful and relatively orderly fashion. And there are lots of good things in the Koran. I think. Heck, basically it's the Old Testament with Mohammed tacked on the end, just like Christianity is the Old Testament with Jesus tacked on the end. But when Moslems of a fundamentalist bent read the Koran, they will see in it an admonition to spread the religion of Islam, by violent means if necessary. Why are we expected to pretend it says anything different?
Personally, I don't like any organized religion. They all lead to trouble. But lots of people do. And sometimes the tenets of those religions clash. That's what is happening now. Historically, Christians and Muslims have gone at it on the battlefield. They're still doing it. Being a believer in neither, it all seems kind of silly to me. But burning a stack of Korans, or not burning of a stack of Korans, is not going to change the fact that there are fundamental differences in the religions. And as long as we believe ourselves to be a Christian nation, and other nations believe themselves to be Moslem, those differences are going to exist.
The real problem is not some preacher in Florida. The real problem is American troops in the heart of Islam. That's what is fueling the fires of anti-American hatred in Islamic countries, and has been fueling them all along. Until that reality changes, whether or not some yahoo burns a stack of Korans is irrelevant.
I know that I'm probably going to get crucified for this (there's a religious image if ever there was one), but I agree with you. It IS an issue of free speech--and he does have the right to burn the Koran, just like people have the right to burn the Bible, burn the flag, etc. As long as it doesn't create a larger danger (such as setting fire to the Koran in an area in which there are drought warnings that could lead to a greater conflagration), I don't think we legally can stop him. The one thing that struck me about all of this is that the pastor was going to burn the Koran because it doesn't include Jesus (which, if I recall correctly, it actually does--he is a prophet, but not as high on the food chain as Mohammed). If that were the case, does he also intend to burn the Old Testament, since Jesus definitely is not mentioned in those books? And then do we complain about him being anti-Semitic for burning the holy books of the Jewish faith?
ReplyDeleteThe other question, though, is whether it is morally right to allow this to happen. And that is where we get into the proverbial "slippery slope"--by whose morals do we decide that this is right or wrong? I agree that we should have targeted Osama bin Laden from the start and that the toppling of Saddam Hussein in essence was Bush 43 punishing the person who caused a war under Bush 41's watch (and supposedly had a bounty on Bush 41's head). In some ways, we're heading back 1,000 years to the Crusades, when the "infidels" had to be driven out of Jerusalem (which is also a holy city for Islam). We're trying to turn this into another crusade with the nation-building...and I know that European "invaders" and "colonizers" did not have much success with Afghanistan in the past few centuries, so I have no clue why the U.S. government thinks it can do any better, because they are in effect following the same failed policies of the British, etc.
By the way, your comment about not liking any organized religion--one of my fields of study is religious history, and, if there is anything I learned from that, it is that we occasionally have to treat organized religion with a bit of skepticism. I don't belong to any one denomination now--I haven't for years--although I do still occasionally attend worship services. I've seen too many people who call themselves "good Christians" not behave in a very Christian-like manner to be able to fully trust organized religion any more. It's like they pick and choose which Bible verses they like when they live their lives, and ignore the ones that contradict what they are doing. This instance is a good example of that. How can he rationally call himself a pastor--a religious leader--when he wants to destroy the holy book of another faith?
You certainly won't get crucified by me.
ReplyDeleteIt's a cut and dried First Amendment issue. What seems odd to me is that our foreign policy is in such a precarious position that it can apparently be jeopardized by some made for YouTube stunt. That's pretty pathetic.
There are all kinds of moral issues that spring up. But I think that the biggest smoke screen is being put up by the U.S. Government. It is government policy that is putting our troops in danger. Period. It has been government policy that put them in danger all along. And to pretend there are no religious overtones/undercurrents to our policies is duplicitous at best. They're trying to paint a rosy picture out of a nation building exercise with heavy religious overtones.
It bothers me that each president has to prove (sometimes over and over) how piously Christian they are. I would love it if we could elect a president who was openly atheist, or, God forbid... Muslim. Who cares? Yet every national politician makes a big parade of their church going activities.
I call myself a non-affiliated Taoist, if anybody asks. Just because it throws most people off. And basically, that's what my beliefs are.
It shouldn't make a particle of difference if Barack Obama were Muslim. Which of course he's not. But we can't have it both ways. We can't make a big deal of religion, and then pretend religion isn't an issue in our governmental policies. Religion is a huge issue in the war in Afghanistan. The people of Afghanistan know that. They're not stupid. And a lot of Americans really don't like Muslims specifically because of the events of 9-11. Why pretend different. They have the right to express it if they want. I don't agree with them. But they have that right. I kind of lean toward the idea that rights, like muscles, should be exercised regularly, or they will dissipate.
Morality is a whole other can of worms. Sometimes one person's vice is another person's virtue. Being a nation of laws, we should be applying those laws to circumstances, and not necessarily making moral judgments on people outside of those laws.
If I was a terrorist sympathizer (Dear FBI... I'm not), I would make a video with people in it who look like Americans burning Korans. How hard is that? You know that's what they're gonna do. By exposing our extreme fear of this simple acting out of First Amendment rights, we have left ourselves vulnerable to all kinds of viral internet propaganda and spin. These people make death threats against cartoonists. Many of them are not particularly emotionally stable. That's not to put down the entire religion, except that it is a religion, and therefor should be taken with a huge grain of salt. There seem to be a significant number of wack jobs in all religions. Maybe we should just have a giant wack job rumble and let 'em get rid of each other...
loving this new blog thus far! Great comments guys. I agree the nut jobs should unit and duke it out. It would be awesome. The bottom line is there is anger because there is a war. It is a 1st amendent right. He can do whatever he wants, but it don't seem right to me either for him to call himself a peaceful man, leader, or pastor and do something anger motivated. My opinion of course. taoist, pretty cool. peaceful, which is one of the main problems i have with religions. we need tolerance and unity to promote peace. religions seems to me to promote tribilism or indifference. And that kinda pulls us away from peace. But if you look at your local high school, skaters, jocks, stoners, nerds, etc. People are just socialy wired that way ya know. Maybe there is just no way to have peace because "all" people can't have unity and tolerance. There will always be that strong leader in some crowd with ideas. Plus, we sometimes emotion just gets the best of us. that is where religion help by coming into play. idk. Plus, wack jobs. lol
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