Today, I bought another Quran.
I already have two of them. Translated by different people. They’re heavily underlined, highlighted, annotated (defaced some may say) just like my copies of the Jewish and Christian scriptures.
I’ve studied them all in quests for understanding that have serves as the backbones of three novels — Daughter of God, Perfect Killer and an almost-completed (and so-far-untitled) work. That study has also helped me — a fairly heretical Protestant — to understand my own faith.
But why yet another Quran?
Because the same evil irrationality that has hijacked most of Islam outside of the United States has possessed Terry Jones — a Florida religious cleric — who says he wants to burn copies of the Quran.
I bought another Quran today as a preemptive strike against Jones’s sectarian bigotry. For, regardless of whether he ever sets match to a Quran, he has burned goodwill and torched the efforts of rational, earnest people who have made an effort to bridge the religious divide.
When the Quran I bought today arrives, I’ll donate it to a friend or a local church or synagogue and urge its careful reading. I will do this because a thoughtful reading of the Quran and the Jewish and Christian scriptures will reveal frighteningly similar tales of death, destruction, murder, mayhem and mutilation committed in the name of Allah, God, or Yahweh.
While today we hear most about the Quran’s admonitions to “slay the infidels wherever you will find them,” Islam has nothing close to a monopoly on scripturally sanctioned violence against people of differing faiths: The Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition and Israelite extermination of Canaanites and others come to mind.
Islamist terrorists and right-wing, fundamentalist religious nuts (same difference) want to tell the world what the Quran says without ever having read the book. They’re counting on others not to read it either. Maybe that’s why it might be an intelligent act to read the words and make up your own mind.
1
Support the Blog — Buy This Book!
For Kindle and with free ePub version. Only $9.49 Great reading.
Here is what Gary Shapiro CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) said: Dvorak's writing sings with insight and clarity. Whether or not you agree with John's views, he will get you thinking and is never boring. These essays are worth the read!
Put this ad on your blog!
Syndicate
Subscribe to Main Blog feed here:
Subscribe to Comments too (below):
Junk Email Filter
If you burn a book about Santa Clause will that offend people too?
Whatever happened to “I may not agree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it?”
I haven’t heard any one say he doesn’t have that right. But the rest of us have the same right to say he’s a bigoted moron.
Starting advice is not bad… my parents intentionally provided us, the elementary-to-highschool children at the time with Bible, Quran, Bhagavad Gita, Capital (though that one was required school reading) among many others. All of which we read and at least have better chance of understanding others. USA Public School system might think of placing all of those on their reading lists and stopping religio-phobia.
That said, the rest of article fails to see causality in human behavior. Burning Quran Day is manly direct consequence of equally in-your-eye NYC Mosque building. Both are perfectly legal. Both are legal because of very basic rights that this country cherishes. Both are dumb, reckless and hurting “the others”. Catch is, one is presently politically correct to support and the other isn’t. That last bit is what is actually wrong.
#2 – Agreed.
But, President Obama did defend the right of Cordoba House to build their mosque 2 blocks from ground zero.
I agree they have that right. Personally I don’t care where anyone builds a mosque.
So far, I have heard of President Obama defending the right of right-wing fundamentalist religious nuts to burn the Koran.
#4 correction, “I haven’t heard President Obama defending the religious right-wing fundamentalist nuts.”
BTW, if Christian religious nutbars are considered “right-wing”, what are Islamist religious nutbars considered? Left-wing?
Reading the Qu’ran won’t change most people’s mind — just like reading the bible doesn’t.
Holy books are like that — dense, mystical, not easily categorized.
I’ve read the Qu’ran about 1½ times and read TONS about it, mostly by Muslims and it did make me understand how there can be such a range of Muslims from scary radicals to gentle mystics.
The other odd thing about scriptures is that most religious people read them only rarely and often have the most superficial understanding of them.
This is especially true of the Qu’ran since a huge percentage of Muslims are either totally illiterate or can’t read Arabic (the only inspired way to read the Qu’ran.)
An extremely common mistake the Muslim bashing “experts” make is to find violent verses in the Qu’ran and then try to explain Muslim behavior on that.
Most Muslims (like most Christians) are not primarily motivated by scriptures. If they want to kill Americans it’s not because the Qu’ran told them to kill infidels — it’s because of history, politics are just general bastardliness.
I thought that reading the Quran in translation was in bad form. I guess that it is better in translation than not at all.
lperdue==you lost moi. There is no reason at all to read another fairy tale book. It doesn’t matter how “we” might interpret its words. It doesn’t matter how similar or dissimilar the book is textually or thematically from some other book. The only “thing” that matters is what some group of thumpers believe especially if they get numerically or powerful enough to take action on those beliefs.
It doesn’t matter that the bible says to kill anyone who xyz’s because the groups around today edit out that immoral part. The islamic thumpers haven’t gotten around to that bit of humanism so they are a threat.
How does anyone reading anything change that?
I’m afraid lperdue you have lost the faith in your own cultural superiority: I may disagree with what you say, but will defend to my death your right to say it. Ahem==unless what you “say” is a call to action to take my basic freedoms away from me. Then I will kill you rather than try to understand you.
Understand “yourself” before you go throwing those pearls around.
>> tcc3 said, on September 8th, 2010 at 6:06 pm
>> I haven’t heard any one say he doesn’t have that right.
I’ve heard a few people suggest that he may be inciting violence and engaging in religious intimidation.
A 2004 ruling upholding a Virginia ban on cross burning seem similar to this.
But, I haven’t read the ruling, nor do I know Florida law. I’m sure other here know better than I if this argument has any merit.
If one must burn the Qu’ran, one should probably use a couple of Bibles for kindling.
#5–Greg Allen, too moral and intelligent to be as religious as he is said: “Holy books are like that — dense, mystical, not easily categorized.” /// No, not really. They are inherently conflicted to themselves and to reality, a fairytale ranging from hope to fantasy, and easily categorized as mindless BS.
Then you say: “Most Muslims (like most Christians) are not primarily motivated by scriptures. If they want to kill Americans it’s not because the Qu’ran told them to kill infidels — it’s because of history, politics are just general bastardliness. /// Again no. Being illiterate puts them more at the mercy of the islamic clerics who do stress the kill the infidel parts of their scripture UNLIKE their western counterparts. The telling difference. Stop equating things that are quite different. Yes, much the same as well, but the differences are telling.
In the main though, I agree with you. All these religions are a crock and not to be trusted beyond our own appreciation of our constitutional natural rights of man in the spirit of the Enlightenment.
>> John E. Quantum said, on September 8th, 2010 at 6:43 pm
>> If one must burn the Qu’ran, one should probably use a couple of Bibles for kindling.
Also, you can be sure that the 911 attackers burned-up at least a few Qu’rans.
Pay, Pray, Obey!
Oh, and kill all those other guys!!
Or so it was written!!!
Burning a Koran is not protected free speech. Saying you hate the Koran and everything in it is protected speech. Burning is an action, and local authorities have already denied a permit, so he could go to jail for at least that.
But since none other than General Petraeus has come out and said the action of this bigoted hatemonger who calls himself a preacher could seriously endanger the lives of troops in Afghanistan, that elevates the crime significantly: hate crime at least, maybe terrorism, maybe even treason.
Ariane==how can burning the American Flag be protected speech but burning a book is not? I think you are “assuming” special facts necessary to make it illegal and will assume that burning any book you own on your private property is legal. You say he has been denied a permit so what could be illegal is staging a rally regardless of its other trappings.
Hate Crime? Yes, I guess so. See the power of speech. Its not like he’s beheading anyone.
I went on line and down loaded a copy I found that was free and approved for those lack wits that can’t read Gods word in Arabic.
Stone the whore because she was raped! Allah be praised.
Blow up the children in the market. It is God’s will.
Wait…..they burned a book! I am outraged! Kill the infidel!
Clearly, bobbo, I don’t agree with you on either the bible or religion in general but I couldn’t help enjoy your backhanded compliment of me!
Many literary scholars have studied and appreciated the bible — completely apart from the question of faith.
Harold Bloom, for example, heaps endless praise on the biblical writer known as “J” who wrote much of the Pentateuch. Bloom believes that J ranks right up there with Shakespeare, Homer, Tolstoy, etc. Bloom guesses J to be a woman making her arguably the greatest known female writer in the first 99.99% of human history.
And he’s only one scholar — it’s a long list of great minds who view the bible as more than just B.S.
Of course not all the bible is as great as J’s contribution. It was written over a few thousand years by a whole bunch of writers, some who may have been writing in a second language.
Well, I gotta go and can’t continue this discussion but I am curious what parts of the bible you’ve read, bobbo. Maybe you can tell me later.
I ain’t never read Alice in Wonderland neither, don’t mean I want to kill chess pieces ’cause the rabbit told me to. Who the hell is lpurdue? At least I could dismiss bobbo as an attention-starved linguistics major, now I have to deal with this nutball too?
Until you believe that we shouldn’t have abortions because religious nut jobs will bomb clinics and kill people, then you are a hypocrite if you think that he shouldn’t burn Qurans because religious nut jobs might kill soldiers.
You don’t have to agree with what he’s doing, but saying he shouldn’t because of the actions of nut jobs is cowardice. You should condemn the violent reaction, not the non-violent protest.
#18–Greg Allan, who scrambles from the light of pure reason==its not true, but I’ll say I read the cover.
How about we just outlaw all imaginary friends or saviour and face reality for once? Oh, I forgot, ignorance is a lot easier to control than intelligence.
The bottom line for this is that once the good pastor committed himself to this act, he painted himself into a corner from which there is no exit that leaves his feet paint-free.
He said that he and his congregation had already prayed over this and were convinced that this was the right thing to do. If they relent to pressure, they are either refusing to do God’s will, or they are admitting that they may have misunderstood God’s telepathic message. Either alternative is a sizable helping of crow to eat.
Ahhh, I just can’t resist: Greg Allan, jumping horses mid stream to avoid the BS: “Many literary scholars have studied and appreciated the bible — completely apart from the question of faith.” //// ha, ha. Yes, apart from the BS of faith, many nonsense fantasies can be appreciated for their imagery and other literary merit===but thats not what you posted nor what I replied to. I hope you aren’t conflating its literary merit with issues of faith or anything else?
And at #15–I agreed the book burning could be a Hate Crime. I was thinking from a moral perspective, not from a strictly legal one which was the context.
Doesn’t photoshop have a drop down menu for point making? You can adjust the size and opaqueness and what not? Pretty sure you can.
Amusing what subjects make experts in their fields only look more and more irrelevant.
#20 The difference is this Rev. Jones is doing it precisely because he hopes to trigger a Holy War.
Its bad enough that Faux News is inciting hatred with non-stop coverage of a proposed Islamic community center in a declining neighborhood blocks away from Ground Zero, which has led to vandalism of other Islamic community centers in Murfreesboro, Tennessee and Phoenix, Arizona.
This anti-islamic crap is getting international attention, and is likely going to escalate out of control. Extremist terrorist groups are using this stuff as a recruiting tool, and will likely lead to increased acts of terrorism.
Maybe this is what the “right wing” wants so they can blame Obama when the inevitable next terrorist strike hits America.
I won’t blame Obama, I’ll blame Faux News and Rev. Jones.
The man has every right to burn his own koran.
In fact, he as a right to be a bigot.
Some of us can choose to publicize his actions – or not.
And yes, lperdue, I’m looking in your direction.
The Dove World Outreach Center is a weird, cult-like operation.
Ariane==I’ll agree burning the Koran may be motivated by a desire to start a Holy War but so can burning the American Flag==so what again is the difference?
In the same vein, I see nothing wrong with inciting hatred towards something that is hateful. One of the few religiously motivated incitements that actually makes sense.
Silly to think terrorists groups need to be given a motive to use their tactics. More honest to say they are motivated by each and every day that there is a single infidel that is in their holy lands. Much less those in uniform?
You are correct that our own right wing terrorists groups will blame Obama. It balances things out that their silliness is countered by your own. Onward Christian Soldier!!!!!
Perhaps instead of burning the Korans, now that they have the attention, they should read the parts about how Israel belongs to the Jews.
How long has Christian/catholic religions WANTED anyone to even read the bible?
do you really thing they want you to know ANYTHING else?
hO MANY INTELLECTUALS HAVE BEEN KILLED/threatened/shut up, by the church?