Burning the Koran

[Catrinm]

Here

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/7988980/911-Koran-burning-congregation-threaten-violence.html

Should they be banned from burning the Koran, or is it a legitimate protest?

Not sure what to think..... hateful racists obviously but perhaps they have the right to protest?

attention seeking idiot, but there's been plenty of them before all over the world and in many different religions. While their minds are focused on burning, Pakistan might like to focus on stopping people burning christians in their own country, for instance. bit worse than burning books, to be fair

yes I can't see them backing down to intimidation by a loon. He has just dragged the mosque into it and therefore poured more oil on the fire. I see the media is still giving it full air time. This is almost scripted.

I don't get it. One man in some podunk town in Florida declares a book burning session and suddenly there's talk in the media by middle eastern heads of state of a "threat to worldwide peace" and nutters all over the place burning flags and declaring war on Christendom as a whole! Did I miss something??? Did the leaders of the Western world join in and pledge to chuck a Koran or two on the fire themselves??? Did the peoples of Europe and America, welcome his idea with open arms and announce their intention to join in.
I know burning the Koran must offend some people a great deal, but this is ONE guy, for goodness sake. Can't they just write him a protest letter or something? Talk about blowing something out of all proportion!!! Shows how little excuse some people need to peddle hatred. If anything, he's further exposed how much many people in the Middle Eastern nations really hate the West. Besides, there's plenty of Christians being burned to death in Pakistan for their faith, but I suppose that's ok, because they're only people, whereas the Koran is a book. Why aren't we being outraged about that???

This story is the tip of the US fundamentalist christian iceberg. A country where a sizeable percentage think that the biblical version of creation is the absolute truth, that science is the work of the devil and where to confess to atheistic or non-christian tendencies can affect job prospects.

To the secular European eye this is just one isolated nutter. But I suspect we'd be truly horrified if we knew how many of his countrymen are nodding in agreement and thinking he's completely right

Well, it's been done. Not by him, but by a few others obviously inspired by him. Just watching the news now (russia today)

I think it is a terrible thing to do. It's just going to increase bad feeling, which is not what we all need.

"To the secular European eye this is just one isolated nutter. But I suspect we'd be truly horrified if we knew how many of his countrymen are nodding in agreement and thinking he's completely right"

I'm much more horrified by the large number of Muslims who think that violence and protests with flag burning is an appropriate response.

It's an absolute farce that this story has been covered in the press at all - why they are covering it at all is a mystery.

However, I do not believe in banning any kind of protest really - if that man owns the books then he can do what he likes with them including burning them.

I would have thought that to religious people, it is the message that is holy and sacred, not the paper and ink.

If anybody sees one man in Florida torch a book and then thinks 'ok I'll hurt or try to kill somebody in retaliation for this' then they are vastly worse then he is.

Burning a book may be utterly wrong and a stupid way to make a point, but it hardly compares with death threats etc on actual people does it. And it is legal.

Even the darling poster girl of the Creationaist fundies, Sarah Palin, has condemned Terry Jones' plan to burn the Koran. Plenty of fundies condemn this sort of thing, actually.

The media cover it to make money, MorrisZ, shit-stirring is their bread and butter! :(

"The media cover it to make money, MorrisZ, shit-stirring is their bread and butter!"

It's their "bread and butter" because people want to read about it.

If everyone said "I'm disgusted about such stories and I'll never read them or buy a paper that prints such things" then the media would stop it in a heartbeat.

The media only give us what we want.

I am really torn on this issue. At the end of the day it is just dead trees and ink that are going up in flames. I am sure that millions of Q'rans have been pulped due to errors.

I would hope that this misguided man is doing it for the right reasons and not just for the publicity so that he can earn money to repair the cross over the front door.

When it comes to it, who has done some burning? Well at the mearest hint of something. the Muslims were burning effigies of the Pastor along with flags (See Bill Hicks about this), so it would seem that in the burning stakes, that side are really hot to trot.

Will there ever be some reasoned thought? I doubt it.

It's not just dead trees etc., it's a powerful and emotional symbol. Americans, I'm sure, are very offended when they see the usual hastily organised little bunch of grinning idiots, fists aloft, burning a Stars & Stripes and shouting 'death to America' on a news report in response to ... well anything really. But christianity, let's not forget, gives us a big line on 'turning the other cheek'. Two wrongs don't make a right etc.

Why is it in the headlines? Because we have global 24/7 news and the internet to spread the good word. And if a US President is asked directly 'what do you think of Joe Soap in Hicksville Wyoming's book-burning stunt?' then he has to - primarily to send a message to political allies in the arab world - condemn it in the strongest possible terms.

I'm not convinced about that Badgers, I'm really not. I don't want to know about shit-stirrers, why does anyone else? But people get conned into thinking they should know and should want to know about these things, I reckon.

There's near famine about to break out in Africa, some fantastically good science news out lately, and instead I get these shit-stirring updates every news bulletin. It sucks. :(

The media saw fit to obsess about it the way they did precisely because they like to shit-stir in the most blatant and irresponsible fashion if it earns them an exclusive or sells papers. Just think of all the mileage they knew they were going to get : a God'n'guns preacher sounding a bit crazed, followed by reels of outraged US flag burning and chanting in dusty streets all over the Middle East...media gold.In this case, they reminded me of the kid at school who catches you doing something naughty and says, "Ohmmm!!! I'm TELLING!!!" Only whereas the kid that grasses you up at school, generally just drops you in the pooh, in this case, the whole of the western world could've paid a heavy price and didn't someone actually lose their life over it?