Korea Times article here:
Wiki article on the temple here.
What the heck? There are people living there, and those people aren’t hurting anybody at all. Plus, the temple is a beautiful building. Why destroy that? As the article mentions, one of Korea’s most famous landmarks, commonly known as Namdaemun, was destroyed a couple of years ago by an arsonist.
Some crazy people enjoy burning things.
One Korean cartoonist seems to assume that a Christian fundamentalist was responsible for the arson.
I’ve got 5:1 odds that it was a North Korean who set the fire.
Some nutter chopped up the Glastonbury Thorn a few weeks ago, too. People are savages.
There used to be a ‘weird things in the news’ column in the paper. One category was titled “Whatever’s Not Nailed Down”, about stupid, pointless thefts of stuff, of absolutely no use to the thief. Eyeglasses. Bird baths. Door to the mailbox. Just because they could steal it, they stole it. This is the same principle, mindless, pointless evil perpetrated by the bored.
Could it be not an act of religious fundamentalism, but simply of arson for fame (like in Ancient Greece)?
Some people are just awful. shakes head
Have they already destroyed all the temples in NK, for the sake of atheism? Or is it state policy to preserve them?
Setting fire to ancient Korean gates seems to be a common thing to do. National Treasure #1 was burnt also.
Mentioned in the OP.