A Burning Question
(Editors' Note: This image is not of a burning Koran)
The nation - and a good portion of the world - has been pretty much transfixed by the controversy sparked by an obscure Christian Ministers' declaration of International Burn the Koran Day. For those of you living under a rock, the Koran is the holy book of Islam, and the tenets of Islam say that this book was dictated to the Prophet Muhammad by God himself. So, whereas many Christians believe the Holy Bible was written by divinely inspired Holy Men (sorry ladies), Muslims believe the Koran is the literal word of God. So, whether you agree with that or not, the great majority of Muslims get understandably upset at the notion of desecrating a Koran. OK.
First, before I delve deeper into this controversy, I think it's worthwhile to point out how this all got started. BBC News has an article on their website today titled How Koran burning story grew from obscurity , authored by James Reynolds. This article explains the events leading up to this story going viral on all mediums. The interesting part about the build up of this story is that it has it's roots in Facebook and You Tube, which lead to the story being picked up by religious oriented Christian and Muslim groups, which eventually lead to the first 'mainstream' media outlet to report on this story via CNN on July 31st. The rest, as they say, is history. However, the reason I point this out is because I have been wandering around various message board discussion threads on this topic, and I have seen many presumptive comments from liberals who claim that the reason this story has gone viral is because of FoxNews, Rush Limbaugh, and a variety of other conservative talking heads have made this a sensation. The BBC article suggests otherwise. Hardly conservative by any measure, CNN was the first national news outlet to give Minister Terry Jones the spotlight, according to the BBC. High placed US Government officials issuing statements on this obscure man and his obscure church kept him and his Koran burning agenda in the news thereafter.
I don't like this idea of burning a holy text, even though I am frankly highly skeptical that the Koran text was dictated by God to his Prophet word-for-word. Desecrating a holy text....it bothers me. As in imperfect Christian myself, Koran-burning seems to me to be a very unChristian thing to do, especially so for a man who claims to be a Christian Minister, and is sponsoring this burn-the-Koran day under the auspices of his Church. At the end of the day I guess you could say that for me this is a 'do unto others' kind of thing - I would rather not see the Bible burned in protest, and so I am opposed to burning other religious texts in protest as well.
But I understand - to a point - why these people would do it. That doesn't mean I agree with it.
Although on the surface, the Koran burning and the building of an Islamic "cultural center" steps away from the World Trade Center (WTC) in New York City (NYC) are not directly linked in a literal sense, they are linked in another sense: They are both calloused, insensitive affronts to the sensibilities of others.
No one who is involved in the development effort for this "cultural center" near the WTC can convince me that they did not intend it as a provocative act. Recently Feisal Abdul Rauf appeared on CNN's Larry King Live and claimed "“If I knew that this would happen, that this would cause this kind of pain, I wouldn’t have done it”.
Frankly, that's a load of crap.
Rauf went on to a tepid claim that moving this unwanted Mosque/Cultural Center away from the WTC would inflame some Muslims. Yet the inflammation caused by this stick-in-the-eye facility to non-Muslims is of no consequence to Rauf, and that is the problem.
Extremist Muslims use homicide as their method-in-chief for advancing their political/religious beliefs. Their primary target may be non-Muslims (infidels), but they also have no problem with "collateral damage" of killing fellow Muslims. And sometimes killing of other Muslims is deliberate, not accidental. The Taliban, Al Qaeda, and the Iraq insurgency have all slaughtered their own as well as the "infidels", and yet we have never seen Muslim mass protests around the world decrying these killings or demanding their end. Indeed in many corners of the Muslim world, these extremists are quietly supported, either through clandestine cash support, or through passive acquiescence. Nonetheless, when Muslims kill, there are almost never protests. Yet when a cartoonist draws a caricature of Muhammad, or an obscure Minister threatens to burn the Koran, Muslims pour into the streets by the thousands to protest, and some threaten violence and promise yet more death and bloodshed as penalty for the affront. Across the middle east, Muslims cheer the killing of Jews in Israel, lust after it's destruction, and the leadership in Iran at least hints of a desire for a 2nd Holocaust. No protests. For these reasons, many, including myself, doubt the fundamental good intentions of Muslims around the globe. We are told that Islam teaches tolerance, yet we see on the news that an adulterer in Iran is to be stoned to death , an apostate man in Pakistan is doused in gasoline and set ablaze , another apostate in Afghanistan is sentenced to death and so on. Tolerance? Maybe in some places, but certainly not all.
Here in the United States, a recent CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll shows that 70% of Americans oppose the building of this Islamic Cultural Center near the WTC. To put this into better perspective, according to Google , the US population stood at 307,006,550 as of July 2009. That means approximately 215 million Americans stand in opposition to this facility in NYC - an extraordinary number. It is rare indeed that in a nation so diverse as we are that such an enormous number of people share a common belief. We hardly ever see a single issue poll this high, and I don't personally recall a time since the September 11th attacks where the country was as united. Americans are not listening to President Obama, Mayor Bloomberg or the variety of liberal intelligentsia elitist snobs espousing support for the 'ground zero Mosque'. We, the people, do not want that facility built.
One person came forth and declared his intention to burn the Koran in protest, and thousands took to the streets in opposition. Two hundred million Americans oppose the 'ground zero Mosque', and yet their will is to be ignored, and a rank insult to those 2,753 people who were murdered so gruesomely in the name of Islam is to stand. The World Trade Center site is of profound shame to the entire Muslim world, and it should be given it's due solemn respect. Build no Mosques there.
A Koran should not be burnt. A Mosque in such proximity to a Muslim perpetrated crime against humanity should not be built - Muslim 'extremists' be damned.
First, before I delve deeper into this controversy, I think it's worthwhile to point out how this all got started. BBC News has an article on their website today titled How Koran burning story grew from obscurity , authored by James Reynolds. This article explains the events leading up to this story going viral on all mediums. The interesting part about the build up of this story is that it has it's roots in Facebook and You Tube, which lead to the story being picked up by religious oriented Christian and Muslim groups, which eventually lead to the first 'mainstream' media outlet to report on this story via CNN on July 31st. The rest, as they say, is history. However, the reason I point this out is because I have been wandering around various message board discussion threads on this topic, and I have seen many presumptive comments from liberals who claim that the reason this story has gone viral is because of FoxNews, Rush Limbaugh, and a variety of other conservative talking heads have made this a sensation. The BBC article suggests otherwise. Hardly conservative by any measure, CNN was the first national news outlet to give Minister Terry Jones the spotlight, according to the BBC. High placed US Government officials issuing statements on this obscure man and his obscure church kept him and his Koran burning agenda in the news thereafter.
I don't like this idea of burning a holy text, even though I am frankly highly skeptical that the Koran text was dictated by God to his Prophet word-for-word. Desecrating a holy text....it bothers me. As in imperfect Christian myself, Koran-burning seems to me to be a very unChristian thing to do, especially so for a man who claims to be a Christian Minister, and is sponsoring this burn-the-Koran day under the auspices of his Church. At the end of the day I guess you could say that for me this is a 'do unto others' kind of thing - I would rather not see the Bible burned in protest, and so I am opposed to burning other religious texts in protest as well.
But I understand - to a point - why these people would do it. That doesn't mean I agree with it.
Although on the surface, the Koran burning and the building of an Islamic "cultural center" steps away from the World Trade Center (WTC) in New York City (NYC) are not directly linked in a literal sense, they are linked in another sense: They are both calloused, insensitive affronts to the sensibilities of others.
No one who is involved in the development effort for this "cultural center" near the WTC can convince me that they did not intend it as a provocative act. Recently Feisal Abdul Rauf appeared on CNN's Larry King Live and claimed "“If I knew that this would happen, that this would cause this kind of pain, I wouldn’t have done it”.
Frankly, that's a load of crap.
Rauf went on to a tepid claim that moving this unwanted Mosque/Cultural Center away from the WTC would inflame some Muslims. Yet the inflammation caused by this stick-in-the-eye facility to non-Muslims is of no consequence to Rauf, and that is the problem.
Extremist Muslims use homicide as their method-in-chief for advancing their political/religious beliefs. Their primary target may be non-Muslims (infidels), but they also have no problem with "collateral damage" of killing fellow Muslims. And sometimes killing of other Muslims is deliberate, not accidental. The Taliban, Al Qaeda, and the Iraq insurgency have all slaughtered their own as well as the "infidels", and yet we have never seen Muslim mass protests around the world decrying these killings or demanding their end. Indeed in many corners of the Muslim world, these extremists are quietly supported, either through clandestine cash support, or through passive acquiescence. Nonetheless, when Muslims kill, there are almost never protests. Yet when a cartoonist draws a caricature of Muhammad, or an obscure Minister threatens to burn the Koran, Muslims pour into the streets by the thousands to protest, and some threaten violence and promise yet more death and bloodshed as penalty for the affront. Across the middle east, Muslims cheer the killing of Jews in Israel, lust after it's destruction, and the leadership in Iran at least hints of a desire for a 2nd Holocaust. No protests. For these reasons, many, including myself, doubt the fundamental good intentions of Muslims around the globe. We are told that Islam teaches tolerance, yet we see on the news that an adulterer in Iran is to be stoned to death , an apostate man in Pakistan is doused in gasoline and set ablaze , another apostate in Afghanistan is sentenced to death and so on. Tolerance? Maybe in some places, but certainly not all.
Here in the United States, a recent CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll shows that 70% of Americans oppose the building of this Islamic Cultural Center near the WTC. To put this into better perspective, according to Google , the US population stood at 307,006,550 as of July 2009. That means approximately 215 million Americans stand in opposition to this facility in NYC - an extraordinary number. It is rare indeed that in a nation so diverse as we are that such an enormous number of people share a common belief. We hardly ever see a single issue poll this high, and I don't personally recall a time since the September 11th attacks where the country was as united. Americans are not listening to President Obama, Mayor Bloomberg or the variety of liberal intelligentsia elitist snobs espousing support for the 'ground zero Mosque'. We, the people, do not want that facility built.
One person came forth and declared his intention to burn the Koran in protest, and thousands took to the streets in opposition. Two hundred million Americans oppose the 'ground zero Mosque', and yet their will is to be ignored, and a rank insult to those 2,753 people who were murdered so gruesomely in the name of Islam is to stand. The World Trade Center site is of profound shame to the entire Muslim world, and it should be given it's due solemn respect. Build no Mosques there.
A Koran should not be burnt. A Mosque in such proximity to a Muslim perpetrated crime against humanity should not be built - Muslim 'extremists' be damned.
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