With so much at stake & everything going on in the world...

With so much at stake & everything going on in the world...

Edited by 0 users.
Last edit: 02:20, 24 April 2011

With so much at stake & everything going on in the world-the so-called "man of God"testing the US Constitution while inciting the deaths of innocents & whipping fanatical Islam into a fervor with his idiotic actions is unforgivable & serves to drag down the image of our noble country along with the chances of stabilizing the region or relations there being greatly diminished.This one clown singlehandedly has shown perhaps the largest logical reason to date for amending the Constitution in order to protect life,property and freedom. He should be hung publicly for causing the deaths directly caused by his ignorant,irresponsible actions instead of worrying about the Constitution or the other side's "feelings" about his Qur'an burning hobby.Nothing this publicity seeking imbecile could possibly do would ever justify the murderous,indiscriminate rampage focused against all Americans,Westerners or Christians by what appears to be the largest assemblies of illiterate,illogical radical morons I've ever seen to date outside of certain political events here in the US. Sheer stupidity by all parties involved & totally uncalled for...

99.50.190.76 (talk)02:20, 24 April 2011

Muslims are always very eager to respond to Western characterizations of them as mindless violent animals... by burning, destroying, and killing. Mission accomplished!

204.116.109.80 (talk)03:09, 24 April 2011

untrue ignorant comment; however it's true that one can be sure that some WILL get murderous and this dickhead pastor knows it. Does he not feel he has enough blood on his hands?

Mcchino64 (talk)08:37, 24 April 2011

It's not the pastor's fault that muslims are violent animals. Not only he proved his point but the American government punished him for doing it.

Islam has already ruined half of Europe, it seems they want to ruin the Americas now also. First that attack on the Brazilian school, now in the US the government is arresting people who criticize islam. We must do something about it, and I'm afraid pretending that muslims aren't violent and that you're a friend of them won't stop them from hating you for not being a muslim.

Ungoliant MMDCCLXIV (talk)17:16, 24 April 2011

What just like dickhead evangelical pastors and rednecks will hate me for being gay or black. Wake up mate, its no secret that a significant proportion of muslims are violent - its not a conclusion that you've come to and its just that people like me just arent listening. But I also know from experience that not every single muslim is a flag burning, shoe throwing, machete yielding murderer.

Ignorance breeds fear and hatred can you not see that by your ignorance you are no better than violent Muslims. You're both pig-headed and will not agree, which I guess I'll have to live with since there are so many like you, but keep it the fuck to yourself don't try to shove ur ill informed off the cuff anus gas in my face coz u don't have the wits about you.

Mcchino64 (talk)19:19, 25 April 2011

Since some of these people demand a capitol offense for blasphemy against Islam, am I also going to be held against merely saying something that they will take murderous offense to? How much more of this nonsense are we going to put up with? If I decide to burn a book and they decide to kill over it, I won't lose one second of sleep for their crimes. I have no respect for their religion any more. There was a time when I thought nothing of Islam. Now it's a different story. It WILL get to a point when they will be so pissed at Americans, even Muslim Americans, for the tiniest piece of nonsense that they will kill more people. Heck, after this one book burning, they called for Obama's assassination, Obama who spoke out against the burning! People in Pakistan were chanting, "Death to America! Death to Israel!" And all that for what this one man did.


edit: not intended as a reply to any specific comment here.

Dpattiris (talk)01:14, 26 April 2011

A couple of issues here. It wasn't just 'any book'. As an atheist and somebody who has had the luck to be born and grow up in a comfortanble affluent environment; to me it is just a book but to many people living in more poverty stricken countries their religion is all they have. I suppose much akin to the less affluent parts of the US being more openly and devoutly christian or evangelical.

They are also less educated and more susceptible to hear-say, which brings me on to my second point; the media will only report the crowds of people burning American flags or chanting about death and jihad - this is all that your western eyes see. Much like a lot of all they see and are told is Western Jets and soldiers invading muslim countries. They may percieve it as an attack on their religion.

Nobody is denying that many many many attrocities have been committed in the name of Islam over the past decade but you must try to see a bigger picture or risk being as ignorant as those extremists are, and do not pretend that none have been made by the West at any point in history because you will find yourself sorely mistaken. They likely see the US as a Christian force attempting to oppress or exterminate them just as much as you think all Islam is an evil plot that does not deserve a place on the planet.

Mcchino64 (talk)07:58, 26 April 2011
 

I'm no better than ignorant muslims? Well I assure you that I never blew myself up with other people, I never stoned a woman for being raped, I never walked around calling for the killing of jews because they are jews, I never flew a plane into a building filled with people, I never slaughtered Christians because a priest burned a book.

Did you know also that not every nazi killed jews. Hey but the media only shows the concentration camps and ditches filled with corpses right? Yet we had to stop nazism, because even though not every nazi killed jews they were part of a community where killing jews was the norm. Same thing with islam; we have to stop it because even though, as you say, "not every single muslim is a flag burning, shoe throwing, machete yielding murderer" they are part of a religion where flag burning, shoe throwing, and murder are encouraged. Encouraged against us, and ignoring the problem wont make it go away.

Ungoliant MMDCCLXIV (talk)13:59, 26 April 2011

Terrorists are not true Muslims. Also, there are plenty of Christian terrorist groups, perhaps most notably the National Liberation Front of Tripura. It cannot be said that Christian terrorists truly represent Christianity, and neither can it be said that Islamic terrorists truly represent Islam.

Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs)14:38, 26 April 2011

I'm pretty sure the terrorists disagree. Note however that such a group as the NLFT is more of a political terrorist group than a religious. Of course there is a big influence of Christianity in it, but compare it to a group like al qaeda, with barely any political purpose. Their goal is to kill us for not being muslims, not declaring the independence of a territory as the NLFT.

And even if you take into account the terrorists doing it strictly for religious motives, like w:Joseph Kony, the numbers are just incomparable. How many die every month because of Christian terrorists? perhaps a hundred at the very worst. Islam on the other hand (despite being a less numerous religion):

Monthly Jihad Report March, 2011 Jihad Attacks: 146 Countries: 15 Religions: 5 Dead Bodies: 766 Critically Injured: 1190 (http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/)

The muslim population in my country is 0.00014% of the total. Yet a few weeks ago a muslim guy entered a school and killed 12 children. Christians are at 89.2%, but children being shot in the name of Jesus are unheard of here.

Ungoliant MMDCCLXIV (talk)22:38, 26 April 2011

So, lemme get your stats straight. Five deaths from Islamic extremists in March, versus "perhaps a hundred" from Christian extremists. Hmmm.

NLFT may brand itself as declaring independence as a main cause, but believe me, they want to do it to establish a "Kingdom of Jesus" - hardly non-religious.

Of course you don't see Christian attacks in majority Christian countries, because they are not a minority there and only minorities are persecuted.

Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs)23:05, 26 April 2011
 

BRS, you just used the "No true Scotsman" logical fallacy. Example: "No true Scotsman would *ever* do <insert action here>, therefore anyone who does that isn't a Scotsman". Details here: w:No true scotsman.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand. Both "Scottish" and "Muslim" are extremely broad words. Attempting to artificially narrow those words based on personal opinion is what causes this logical fallacy. I might say, "no true Scotsman would eat icecream!", but icecream is in no way related to being Scottish. Saying "No true Muslim is a terrorist" is just as stupid. It is entirely possible to be both a "true" Muslim and be a terrorist. To be Muslim merely means that you believe in Allah and accept the words of the Prophet Mohammed and the Koran as truth (and 2 other holy books too, usually). That's it. You can do both of those things and *still* be a suicide bomber. Just like you can have 3000 years of Celtic ancestry in Scotland and still like icecream (or **** sheep, or be a Jew, or believe in unity with England, or hate alcohol, or whatever else is seen as not "Scottish" enough:P).

Gopher65talk02:44, 27 April 2011

No, I disagree. I view religions ('christianity', 'Islam') as broad concepts covering a range of beliefs. For example, amongst Christians it is now quite popular as I understand to reject all mainstream interpretations of any given concept and form an individual view - but people who do thus are still as Christian as someone who, say, takes the Bible literally, or a stereotypical Catholic or Protestant, etc.

I feel when faiths are twisted into extremist things they are so far removed from the original as to be something new entirely. Thus, I don't actually categorise 'Islamic terrorism' as anything to do with Islam proper but rather as an entire faith all on its own, based on Islam.

In this light, I feel my logic holds regardless of wether you agree with it.

Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs)06:27, 27 April 2011
Edited by author.
Last edit: 05:12, 28 April 2011

The problem with that logic is that Islam wasn't written to be a pacifist or anti-terrorist organization. *If* Islam had been conceived of as being a religion that specifically excluded those who would engage in military action in its name, then you would be correct that it was being "twisted" by terrorists in order to justify their position. But the Quran specifically calls on Muslims to spread Islam via force (in multiple locations throughout the book), including calling for unbelievers to be forcibly converted or, if they resist, killed. Here's part of one of the passages in question (it's a long and overly windy book, like all religious texts):

"Fight those who do not believe in Allah, nor in the latter day, nor do they prohibit what Allah and His Messenger have prohibited, nor follow the religion of truth, out of those who have been given the Book, until they pay the tax in acknowledgement of superiority and they are in a state of subjection."

It also specifically mentions things like... (paraphrased for brevity) "Any Muslim who leaves Islam *must* be executed. Any Muslim who does not execute them is as guilty as they are." It's an intrinsically violent religion, even when you ignore the made up (recently added) bits from Sharia Law. If you read those things in your holy book (and you actually believed in the whole God thing, heh), wouldn't you feel justified in attacking non-believers?

I occasionally hear a liberal Imam in a western country claim that people who engage in military action in support of Islam are "twisting the words of Muhammad", but I've read enough of the Quran to know that that is not the case. Just like the literal Christians aren't "twisting the words of God" by actually attempting to adhere to their Bible rather than imagining what they'd like it to say, following that, and still calling themselves Christian.

Gopher65talk12:07, 27 April 2011

One thing that I will add: the Quran specifically disallows any form of suicide, regardless of the situation. Therefore anyone who straps explosives to themselves and blows themselves up (for any reason) won't get their 72 virgins. Various Sunni organizations have attempted to interpret the bits of the Quran that speak of "dying in the name of Allah (and being rewarded for such action)" as giving a blanket justification for *any* death in the service of God, but they don't. That's one of the few instances of the "twisting" of Islam in order to allow banned military actions that I've seen.

It's also interesting how most of the major (and minor) terrorist groups are Sunni, not Shiite.

Gopher65talk12:13, 27 April 2011
 

I certainly get what you're saying; but, as an outsider, I view religions as essentially untangible and undefinable. Partly, of course, exact definitions shouldn't be any of my business unless it harms people who did/do not sign up for such...

Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs)21:26, 27 April 2011

Really, the article was not clear enough apparently. The issue was the US constitutional right of free speech. The specific instance in this case was a pastor who wanted to demonstrate against a particular religion and was being required to post a bond for police protection in order to do so. The issue of religion seems to distract people from the fundamental right of free speech whether it be about religion or any other topic.

Mattisse (talk)21:51, 27 April 2011

I'm curious as to why that was directed as a reply to me, since the conversation was already on a tangent by the time I entered. Indeed, it was the tangent I was keen to comment on.

Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs)21:53, 27 April 2011

It wasn't directed at you. I am sorry if it seemed so, and I apologize. (I just now clicked on the message thingie at the top of the page (I have been wondering what on earth it referred to) so I am answering here. Again, I apologize if the effect was such that it seemed directed at you.

Mattisse (talk)22:04, 27 April 2011
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

I'd be careful with using a Nazi analogy because it may just reinforce my point that these problems are exacerbated by countries such as the US, UK and France. The cruel punishments enforced against Germany arguably nutured conditions under which Naziism could breed - I could equally say that the foreign policy of the US and UK are doing the same for muslim fundamentalism.

Nobody is attempting to be an apologiser for the terrible things that have been committed under the name of Islam.

But what is your solution? If we were to assume that all of Islam was dangerous to western perception of how a life should be lead, what should we do about it? Kill every single muslim in the world? good fucking luck, we can't stabilise one country in a decade its not going to be possible to exterminate half the planets population. I think you need to realise that most people dont fly planes in to buildings or blow themselves up - muslim, christian or otherwise. But the approach of the US - be democratic and like us or else is not helping matters.

Mcchino64 (talk)15:27, 26 April 2011

No, I don't want to kill them all (how did you even get this idea?). Keeping them away from western Countries is good enough.

Ungoliant MMDCCLXIV (talk)22:07, 26 April 2011

I'm bored of this argument. Burn as many religous texts as you want mate, spend your time rounding up people that have settled in your country and kick them out, good luck.

Mcchino64 (talk)08:45, 27 April 2011

For the record it is much, much, much easier to exterminate the population of a country (or a continent, or a planet) than it is to conquer and subdue a population, which is what they've effectively been trying to do in Afghanistan for the past decade.

Both of those types of action are, of course, stupid. No argument there.

Gopher65talk12:18, 27 April 2011
 
 
 
 
 

Well... I'm not a dickhead redneck, but after studying Islam, watching how Muslims act over someone burning a Qur'an and just studying history I've realized that Islam is not truly a religion. It is more of a system of government. How many Christian Republics are there in the world right now? Okay, now look up how many Islamic Republics there are in the world. If you really think about it, Muhammad's Qur'an is fickle. At least with the Bible it had multiple authors, over an extended period of time, so there was no central author, however with the Qur'an it's a completely different story (No pun intended). One man wrote it, and he said that this book was God's word, word-for-word. This is just strange to me, it seems like he just wanted people to think he spoke with God so that he could have a taste of power. Unfortunately people believed him, the lie spread, and is now a "real" religion. If I'm not mistaken to Qur'an says that God placed mountains on the Earth to hold it in place, but I find two things wrong with this. 1) It supports a flat earth, if the earth needs to be held in place it would have to be laid out on something (I like to imagine something like a world map being laid on a table with knives holding it in place, knives taking the place of mountains), and it's fairly obvious that the world isn't flat 2) If you look at mountains and how they were formed, they weren't placed here, they were pushed up out of the ground. So, I'm done now. I'm sure I'll be called an ignorant asscrack for this, but all that says to me is that people are uneducated themselves and that they're Islamic Sympathizers (most likely). Anywho, try to tear me apart as you will now, prove me wrong, call me horrible names, call me ignorant, do what you must, I just hate that you'll never understand and grasp the fact that you're wrong.

75.150.63.121 (talk)16:33, 26 April 2011
 
 

It's true! And don't forget, they just love to restrict the freedom of others in the process and try to force their own religious laws on people. 138.162.8.57 (talk) 12:15, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

138.162.8.57 (talk)12:15, 27 April 2011

Eh, there is enough of that among the other religions. Some atheists, for example, are being told by God-fearing Christians to "get off our country!" Though, at least they aren't beheading the offenders like one certain group of people.

Okay, quiz time everyone! Which religion will you find people calling for the death penalty because:

1) someone said something bad about their religion?

2) someone burned their holy book?

While we wait for the next guy or gal to step up and point out the history of Christianity and all the atrocities committed in its name hundreds of years ago, I'll get back to enjoying my breakfast.

Dpattiris (talk)13:03, 27 April 2011

Depending on your perspective, there are still atrocities committed in the name of Christianity today. (I'm atheist, if you must know, not that this should change things, I'm merely making a point).

In your style:

While I wait for someone to flame me for being a "gay, commie, hippy dissident", I'll return to my...uh, glass of water.

BTech United (talk)03:47, 29 April 2011

This article has to do with the constitutional right to free speech. Judgments about the merits of religion or particular religions are not the issue. Free speech is a constitutional right on any issue, except the example of yelling "Fire" in a crowded theater.

Mattisse (talk)12:56, 29 April 2011

I agree. Both sides are being stupid here. I've been reading about Terry Jones for years (?) now, and he's an idiot. But that doesn't stop the fact that he shouldn't be forcibly silenced. When you do that you merely drive unpopular opinions and prejudices underground where they can fester and mutate into something truly horrible.

Gopher65talk13:42, 29 April 2011

free speech and free action are different

Mcchino64 (talk)19:28, 30 April 2011

That's true. A peaceful demonstration or protest is considered free speech, and there was no evidence that the pastor would do anything violent, as far as I know. His views were unpopular, others would protest against his views, but that is not a reason to deny him free speech. None of the sources revealed any evidence that he has engaged in physically violent actions. His point of view is unpopular. Mattisse (talk) 19:46, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Mattisse (talk)19:46, 30 April 2011

An action doesn't need to be physically violent to be illegal. In the UK at least you can be arrested for standing still if you've been asked to move on if you're inciting violence just by your mere presence. I would argue that burning the holy book of any religion is intended to provoke a reaction. I'm not arguing against the fact an offence like this to Islam is not more likely to provoke a violent overreaction than other major religions, but also maintain the perspective that this violent overreaction also took place in one of the poorest messed up countrys in the world.

Conflicts of freedom happen all the time. Sometimes it is difficult to balance the rights of one group over another; I do not think it is difficult in this case - the right of an individual to display the upmost disrespect and ignorance by burning a holy book (not even for any justifyable reason such as keeping warm in some kind of 'day after tommorrow' type situation ;-)) against the right of a major world religion consisting of billions.

Mcchino64 (talk)10:35, 1 May 2011

He was not going to burn anything in this particular case. He requested a permit for a demonstration and was told he had to post a bond for "police protection". The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that it is unconstitutional to require a bond for police protection. That is what this article was about.

Mattisse (talk)12:35, 1 May 2011

I only got involved because the opinions page became a 'mecca' for anti-Islamic sentiment

Mcchino64 (talk)16:22, 1 May 2011

It certainly did become a 'mecca' for such sentiment, and the major point of the article was blurred by the emotion over religious view points. So I understand why you replied!

Mattisse (talk)16:59, 1 May 2011