It's Burn a Quran day!
A small “Christian” sect in Florida has chosen today to burn some religious texts. I’m not sure what so-called Pastor Terry Jones hopes to gain by this, except perhaps a comparison to the events of November 9-10, 1938.
Book burning has a long and shameful history…it’s a tool often used to scare and intimidate, as well as irrevocably destroying things a particular group of persons is opposed to. That could be the state, the church, a civic group, or even just an individual down the street. But what does it say of those who would burn books? I would have to call it the height of intolerance and hatred. What could words possibly say that is so alien to your beliefs that your only choice is to destroy it forever?
Earlier in the week, General Petraeus went to the media and made some statements that such a burning event would be counter-productive and could even put US troops in harms’ way. That seems reasonable to me; after all, consider if the positions were reversed. You know it’s going to happen if they follow through with the burning today; when there is a Bible-burning in Tehran in the next ten days or so, would you want to be a Muslim in certain sections of the United States? It won’t be a safe place for a while.
Of course, we all know what today is. 9 years ago, a handful of religious extremists drove some airplanes into the WTC and the Pentagon. The same Koran that is being burned today was used to manipulate these men into murder and mayhem. Somewhere among the vast amounts of books and paper in those towers, I’m sure we could have found a few Korans, Bibles, or other religious texts. I’ll admit it’s a stretch, but the terrorists in all probability burned their own book by their actions.
Does that make them any different from Mr. Jones, or those among us that would listen to that rhetoric?
Bob wrote about this on Thursday; words can kill. Throughout history, and that must include the Bible and the Koran, many forces have used words to incite their followers to violence. The First Amendment gives us the right to say these things, but it does not give us freedom from responsibility for our actions.
If I want to burn Bibles on Christmas Day in front of a church, I can’t then complain that people beat me up. My fear is that the burning today will lead to more dead GIs in Iraq and Afghanistan, or maybe that dreaded terrorist act on our soil. Given how balkanized the country is now, any further attack that comes on the US might just lead to our downfall as we try to respond to it. No less than Jesus Christ himself said the following: “Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand.” (Matthew 12:25) The Republicans and the religious right seem hell-bent on furthering those divisions, instead of healing them. We have started down a dark path, but will it lead to our destruction, or is there still time before we plunge of the cliff?
In the big picture, the Koran-burning today will be consigned to the dustbin of history, but history has a very long memory. Abraham Lincoln once said “The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.” That can be extrapolated to many things...heroic, infamous, or otherwise. Words and actions have a legacy.
Is this a legacy that Pastor Terry Jones is ready to live with?
Book burning has a long and shameful history…it’s a tool often used to scare and intimidate, as well as irrevocably destroying things a particular group of persons is opposed to. That could be the state, the church, a civic group, or even just an individual down the street. But what does it say of those who would burn books? I would have to call it the height of intolerance and hatred. What could words possibly say that is so alien to your beliefs that your only choice is to destroy it forever?
Book burning, biblioclasm or libricide is the practice of destroying, often ceremoniously, books or other written material and media. In modern times, other forms of media, such as phonograph records, video tapes, and CDs have also been ceremoniously burned, torched, or shredded. The practice, usually carried out in public, is generally motivated by moral, religious, or political objections to the material..
Some particular cases of book burning are long and traumatically remembered - because the books destroyed were irreplaceable and their loss constituted a severe damage to cultural heritage, and/or because this instance of book burning has become emblematic of a harsh and oppressive regime. Such were the destruction of the Library of Alexandria, the obliteration of the Library of Baghdad, the burning of books and burying of scholars under China's Qin Dynasty, the destruction of Mayan codices by Spanish conquistadors and priests, and in more recent times, Nazi book burnings, the burning of Beatles records after a remark by John Lennon concerning Jesus Christ, and the destruction of the Sarajevo National Library.
Some particular cases of book burning are the result of "unacceptable" material according to a group's moral, community and or religious standards; for example child pornography
Earlier in the week, General Petraeus went to the media and made some statements that such a burning event would be counter-productive and could even put US troops in harms’ way. That seems reasonable to me; after all, consider if the positions were reversed. You know it’s going to happen if they follow through with the burning today; when there is a Bible-burning in Tehran in the next ten days or so, would you want to be a Muslim in certain sections of the United States? It won’t be a safe place for a while.
Of course, we all know what today is. 9 years ago, a handful of religious extremists drove some airplanes into the WTC and the Pentagon. The same Koran that is being burned today was used to manipulate these men into murder and mayhem. Somewhere among the vast amounts of books and paper in those towers, I’m sure we could have found a few Korans, Bibles, or other religious texts. I’ll admit it’s a stretch, but the terrorists in all probability burned their own book by their actions.
Does that make them any different from Mr. Jones, or those among us that would listen to that rhetoric?
Bob wrote about this on Thursday; words can kill. Throughout history, and that must include the Bible and the Koran, many forces have used words to incite their followers to violence. The First Amendment gives us the right to say these things, but it does not give us freedom from responsibility for our actions.
If I want to burn Bibles on Christmas Day in front of a church, I can’t then complain that people beat me up. My fear is that the burning today will lead to more dead GIs in Iraq and Afghanistan, or maybe that dreaded terrorist act on our soil. Given how balkanized the country is now, any further attack that comes on the US might just lead to our downfall as we try to respond to it. No less than Jesus Christ himself said the following: “Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand.” (Matthew 12:25) The Republicans and the religious right seem hell-bent on furthering those divisions, instead of healing them. We have started down a dark path, but will it lead to our destruction, or is there still time before we plunge of the cliff?
In the big picture, the Koran-burning today will be consigned to the dustbin of history, but history has a very long memory. Abraham Lincoln once said “The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.” That can be extrapolated to many things...heroic, infamous, or otherwise. Words and actions have a legacy.
Is this a legacy that Pastor Terry Jones is ready to live with?
posted by Unknown at
05:55
1 Comments:
There was a Border's bookstore on the street level of the World Trade Center, with many religious books ; Korans and Bibles.
By
Unknown, At
9/13/2010 08:18:00 PM
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