Gainesville Reverend Plans To Burn Qu'ran

[nismaratwork]

McVeigh recruited himself and Nichols. He was not religiously motivated, which is the point.

If anyone is murdered over this guy burning the Quran, it definitely would be RELIGIOUSLY motivated.

If an imam burned a bible it may hurt some peoples feelings but that's about it.

Well, christians don't believe that the bible is the literal and unadulterated word of their god for one thing. For another, what flavor of christian?... Catholic? Baptist? Episcopalian? Anglican?... you get my drift. Have you traveled in the USA "hick" south, because I find it easy to believe that such an Imam (living in the states) would have to watch his back. Hell, I'll bet this guy who's building the center "near ground zero" has to watch his back.

There's a fallacy in your reasoning too... there are terrorist organizations which send people around the world for radical islam, but christian terrorism seems to be local whether it's in the USA deep south, or Uganda. Remember also that a lot of the anger between the west and the "islamic world" has to do with political issues, and religion is the last straw in any given situation. In countries where the situation is reversed, you see the violence reversed and christians kill muslims.

 

[nismaratwork]

Well, here is a list of terrorist incidents in Great Britain, the vast majority of which were committed by the Irish Republican Army, a non-religious terrorist group.

I don't know of any others, but I'm certain there is. Human nature is to hate what is not like yourself, be that religion, race, and of course nationality (like the IRA).

You have a better point than you know, because the IRA is nationalist and factional in terms of religion. The IRA is CATHOLIC, against the PROTESTANT organizations and GB. There is definitely a religious component there, but it's easy for westerners to understand. There are similar granularities in Muslim-West/Christian/Hindu... relations, but far fewer people who are native English speakers seem to be aware of them.

 

[apeiron]

McVeigh recruited himself and Nichols. He was not religiously motivated, which is the point.

If anyone is murdered over this guy burning the Quran, it definitely would be RELIGIOUSLY motivated.

If an imam burned a bible it may hurt some peoples feelings but that's about it.

Let's keep the debates separate.

Is there an asymmetric war going on here - that was the question I was addressing.

Is this reverend treating it as a war between religions - yes, but he is an idiot redneck.

Is al Qaeda rushing to assemble a hit squad of suicide bombers because a koran burning by some inconsequential nobody matters so much to them and their objectives?

No. They are probably wondering how they can get more such idiots throwing fuel on the fires that feed their cause. They are saying thank you Pastor Jones, you are truly doing the lord's work <snigger>.

 

[Char. Limit]

You have a better point than you know, because the IRA is nationalist and factional in terms of religion. The IRA is CATHOLIC, against the PROTESTANT organizations and GB. There is definitely a religious component there, but it's easy for westerners to understand. There are similar granularities in Muslim-West/Christian/Hindu... relations, but far fewer people who are native English speakers seem to be aware of them.

I don't know about Hinduism, but I assume that you're referencing the Sunni-Shiite divide? That's one of the few examples I know... great history there too.

I knew that the IRA was mostly Catholic, but I just chalked that up to the fact that their source population (Ireland) is mostly Catholic. I didn't know that the religious component was actually important.

 

[drankin]

Let's keep the debates separate.

Is there an asymmetric war going on here - that was the question I was addressing.

Is this reverend treating it as a war between religions - yes, but he is an idiot redneck.

Is al Qaeda rushing to assemble a hit squad of suicide bombers because a koran burning by some inconsequential nobody matters so much to them and their objectives?

No. They are probably wondering how they can get more such idiots throwing fuel on the fires that feed their cause. They are saying thank you Pastor Jones, you are truly doing the lord's work <snigger>.

You are making a few more assumptions than even I am. I am willing to make a friendly wager that there will be chaos just like the Danish cartoon fiasco of 2005 if this guy goes through with it. Rednecks just don't carry out mass protests in the streets over cartoons and bible burnings. There is a distinction that many choose to ignore.

 

[Blue_Jaunte]

I'm continually amazed that this is getting the kind of coverage it is. I just can't imagine why this is somehow extraordinary or even remotely newsworthy. Certainly SOMEone makes a big show of burning a koran every week, somewhere in America.

And I lived in Gainesville for 6 years, so [insert bogus reason why my opinion should matter more than other people's because of my mere proximity to the topic of discussion].

 

[arunma]

We don't know that. In fact, I think that's a dangerous assumption to make. I can think of more than a few people who would react dangerously to an imam burning a bible.

Note that I'm not talking about bible-burning in general. But if an imam were to burn a bible, I think that Pastor Jones for one would be trying to kill him, among many other wackos.

Respectfully, are you sure about this? If you take a look at the shots that people on American TV take at Christianity, it's analogous to Quran-burning. Jesus is at least as respected to Christians as the Quran is to Muslims. People in the American media make all kinds of jokes about Jesus getting drunk, Jesus having sex, etc. This probably ticks off Christians as much as burning the Quran ticks off Muslims. And yet I've never seen Pastor Jones make death threats against American comedians (as evidenced by the fact that I haven't even heard about him until now).

Yes, there does exist a non-zero number of Christians who have the same tendancies as terrorists. But I think this is an example of too low a signal to noise ratio. I almost once got punched in the face by an atheist for saying that Richard Dawkins is a jackass. Does this mean that atheism causes even a mild tendency towards violent behavior? In the Christian American culture, terroristic behavior of almost any kind is denounced. Just today in my university's newspaper, I read an article by an undergraduate student who is an evangelical Christian (this person believes that Muslims are going to hell) who said that burning the Quran is disrespectful and that it's important for Christians to love Muslims. But very rarely, if ever, do we hear from the moderate Islamic community.

And that, I think, is the salient point that needs to be here. Every religion has its share of terrorists. But what separates Islam from all other religions in the world (that I can think of, anyway) is that while other religious communities denounce their terrorists, you don't see that kind of accountability in Islam. Now, someone might rightly point out that in the Islamic world, sharia prohibits the average Muslim from speaking out against the imams and Islamic scholars, and any dissenters will be quickly silenced. That excuse works in the Middle East and maybe even in Africa. But what excuse to American and European Muslims have? We live in a country where it is safe to be anti-semitic, to burn the sacred text of Muslims, or to defame the sacred figure of Christianity, without any fear of government censure. Surely it is even safer to denounce such behavior. Instead we see Comedy Central being threatened by American Muslims, and we see European Muslims assassinating an anti-Islam artist.

For some reason everyone wants to be politically correct when it comes to Islam. But I have to ask: where are these moderate Muslims that everyone is talking about? Why are they conveniently silent while the terrorists defame their allegedly peaceful religion? Maybe they just have bad PR. But I think it's more likely that Islam is distinct from other religions in that it does encourage violence and terrorism. It seems telling, to me, that Muslims are reacting to a Quran-burner with the same indignance that the civilized world is to the proposed execution (by stoning) of the woman in Iran for adultery. Add to that the fact that no one threatened violence against Iranian Muslims if they proceeded with the stoning. Seriously, don't these guys have better things to get offended over?

My point here is that there is a strong assymetry between Islamic and non-Islamic whackos. Fred Phelps, Pastor Jones, Pat Robertson, or whoever else, is not analogous to Islamic terrorists.

 

[D H]

You must be reading the analogy differently than I am... I thought of...

[Pastor Jones] is representative of [Christians] as [the 9-11 terrorists] are representative of [Muslims]

So, if you're willing to accept the idea that the 9-11 terrorists are representative of Muslims, and many Christians are, then you must logically accept the idea that Pastor Jones is representative of Christians.

Using that logic you must also agree with

Mother Theresa : Christians :: 9-11 terrorists : Muslims

 

[apeiron]

I knew that the IRA was mostly Catholic, but I just chalked that up to the fact that their source population (Ireland) is mostly Catholic. I didn't know that the religious component was actually important.

The IRA in fact had some protestant members. But religious persecution was of course a backdrop issue.

In the old days, states were quite closely identified with their official religions and so wars could be "religious". Need we mention the crusades?

This is indeed a distinctive trait of Islam and Christianity that make them so similar - a creed of aggressive conversion that justifies wars of domination. Other religions, such as buddhism in particular, are happy to assimilate ideas. The stress is on submission and co-operation.

Getting back to the IRA, it was an asymmetric war against a colonising, dominating, force. If you feel oppressed as a social group, colonised, then it is only natural to push back.

It is not about hatred. After the heat of battle, we can all sit down together - so long as the conflict had a rational basis and so a rational outcome was possible.

This is the danger of all the fundamentalist thinking being expressed by some here. You cannot negotiate a peace unless it is recognised what the rational basis of the conflict was all about.

You can of course just decide to colonise an area because access to its resources is non negotiable in your eyes. But it is hypocritical to then be surprised that humans have a natural reaction to such attempts at domination.

 

[nismaratwork]

Using that logic you must also agree with

Mother Theresa : Christians :: 9-11 terrorists : Muslims

No, by that logic I'd say that: Mother Theresa : Christians :: Gandhi : Hindus (can't think of a similar muslim figure, but that's probably my error). There's "atypical, nasty-atypical, and nice-atypical".

I don't know about Hinduism, but I assume that you're referencing the Sunni-Shiite divide? That's one of the few examples I know... great history there too.

I knew that the IRA was mostly Catholic, but I just chalked that up to the fact that their source population (Ireland) is mostly Catholic. I didn't know that the religious component was actually important.

Well for Hinduism I'm thinking for one of the issues in India and Pakistan, both between nations and with their own ethnic and religious populations.

For the IRA, AFAIK the IRA is catholic, period. It's always been "the orange and the green", as in the "Protestant/British Orange" and the "Catholic/Irish Green". It's a big deal, probably most like (although I don't believe justifiably so) Al Qaeda's anger about US bases in the middle east. Obviously the latter is hardly an occupation, but in terms of the religious component it's similar.

 

[apeiron]

Rednecks just don't carry out mass protests in the streets over cartoons and bible burnings. There is a distinction that many choose to ignore.

I hear they don't even string negros from the trees for miscegenation anymore. An almost buddhist calm has descended on middle america hasn't it?

Sorry, I shouldn't respond. It is clear you are not interested in the real world of power politics.

 

[nismaratwork]

The IRA in fact had some protestant members. But religious persecution was of course a backdrop issue.

In the old days, states were quite closely identified with their official religions and so wars could be "religious". Need we mention the crusades?

This is indeed a distinctive trait of Islam and Christianity that make them so similar - a creed of aggressive conversion that justifies wars of domination. Other religions, such as buddhism in particular, are happy to assimilate ideas. The stress is on submission and co-operation.

Getting back to the IRA, it was an asymmetric war against a colonising, dominating, force. If you feel oppressed as a social group, colonised, then it is only natural to push back.

It is not about hatred. After the heat of battle, we can all sit down together - so long as the conflict had a rational basis and so a rational outcome was possible.

This is the danger of all the fundamentalist thinking being expressed by some here. You cannot negotiate a peace unless it is recognised what the rational basis of the conflict was all about.

You can of course just decide to colonise an area because access to its resources is non negotiable in your eyes. But it is hypocritical to then be surprised that humans have a natural reaction to such attempts at domination.

re: bolded portion, I'd add that plenty of religions want neither conversion nor new ideas, but to be left alone. Hasidic Jews spring readily to mind there, but many others do as well.

 

[nismaratwork]

I hear they don't even string negros from the trees for miscegenation anymore. An almost buddhist calm has descended on middle america hasn't it?

Sorry, I shouldn't respond. It is clear you are not interested in the real world of power politics.

That's the best post I've read all day.

 

[arunma]

I don't know about Hinduism, but I assume that you're referencing the Sunni-Shiite divide? That's one of the few examples I know... great history there too.

Sunni-Shiite is an Islamic division. If I remember correctly, the Sunnis believe that the son of Mohammad is his successor, and the Shiites believe that the Caliphate is (someone correct me if I'm wrong). That division occurred shortly after the death of Mohammad, and persists until today.

Hinduism doesn't have any such divide, but there are issues with Hindus and Muslims over a variety of issues in India. And then there's the whole India-Pakistan conflict. It's hard to pin that down as either religious or political. The creation of Pakistan was a product of religious division, but for the most part Hindus and Muslims in India seem to get along.

 

[Gokul43201]

Hah! Just heard on NPR that Merkel gave some kind of Press Freedom award to Kurt Westergaard, the Danish cartoonist. What an interesting coincidence!

 

[Gokul43201]

There's "atypical, nasty-atypical, and nice-atypical".

Why differentiate between 'nice' and 'nasty' but not between 'mildly annoying whacko' and 'mass murdering global terrorist outfit'?

 

[nismaratwork]

Hah! Just heard on NPR that Merkel gave some kind of Press Freedom award to Kurt Westergaard, the Danish cartoonist. What an interesting coincidence!

Heh, I'm really glad that I don't live in Gainesville right now... I'd feel like an intra AND international hick now.

 

[apeiron]

We live in a country where it is safe to be anti-semitic, to burn the sacred text of Muslims, or to defame the sacred figure of Christianity, without any fear of government censure. Surely it is even safer to denounce such behavior. Instead we see Comedy Central being threatened by American Muslims, and we see European Muslims assassinating an anti-Islam artist.

No, no. You live in a country that is proud of free speech and so makes it a point of pride that it can live with acts symbolic of free speech, such as burning the US flag, or airing South Park. And now burning another religion's bible.

That is your system and it is what you are motivated to defend (as opposed to some particular religion that some americans might practice).

But your system does not allow for free physical attacks on its citizens. So while it is "good" that a pastor can burn a koran, it would be "bad" if the pastor burnt a muslim. At least if the muslim was a fellow US citizen, not collateral civilian damage in some distance country.

Why is there so much difficulty with joined up thinking on this subject?

 

[lisab]

I hear they don't even string negros from the trees for miscegenation anymore. An almost buddhist calm has descended on middle america hasn't it?

Sorry, I shouldn't respond. It is clear you are not interested in the real world of power politics.

apeiron, I'm curious, how much have you traveled in the US?

 

[nismaratwork]

Why differentiate between 'nice' and 'nasty' but not between 'mildly annoying whacko' and 'mass murdering global terrorist outfit'?

Hell yes, but then keep in mind that I didn't agree with the original comparison. See my post https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=2872075&postcount=69

 

[nismaratwork]

apeiron, I'm curious, how much have you traveled in the US?

I think I can see what you're driving at, so let me regale you with a recent experience. I'm male, and not black... I travel a lot in the south/southwest. A bit less than a year ago in Georgia, in a room full of other white guys, I was treated to this "joke". I was one of only 3 people out of over 20 who didn't laugh.

"What's the difference between a n***** and a jackrabbit? Give up? A n***** can jump higher and the rabbits smarter!" Laughter proceeds. This is definitely an improvement from 23 years ago, when I was traveling in Mississippi, rural, and stopped for directions at a gas station. The manager/owner/white-hick, without pause turned and said, "Hey n*****, can yah help this boy on his way?". A black mechanic came out, and did, never batting an eye, while I tried not to flinch or floor the gas from shock.

I've never seen anyone lynched or road-hauled, but for everyday occurrences, I'd say apeiron's general point stands. There are places you DO NOT GO, if you're black in the south (and no, I don't mean country clubs), just like I wouldn't wear hat with the confederate flag on it in the heart of Harlem at night.

 

[Evo]

Wow, I had to go to the doctor and there are three pages of new posts?

Closed while I catch up.