# Burning books in the US...'Burn Quran Day' **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 20, 2010, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burning-books-in-the-us-burn-quran-day/550891 "2010-08-20T17:58:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2010, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burning-books-in-the-us-burn-quran-day/550891/161 "2010-08-23T17:43:35Z")
> [@Uzi](#): > > > [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > > > Yeah, it’s a good thing modern Christians don’t blow up abortion clinics or anything. > > How many abortion clinics have been blown up? How many World Trade Centers have been blown up? What difference does it make how many? A terrorist site is a terrorist site. > [@](#): > > [QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic] > I’m not talking about jail, I’m talking about apartheid. What apartheid? [/QUOTE] There’s this country in the Middle East I forget the name of. I think it was in the Bible. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2010, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burning-books-in-the-us-burn-quran-day/550891/162 "2010-08-23T17:46:28Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > > [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > > > Yes, it’s your imagination. > > OK, so what percentage of acts of terrorism in the last 10, 20, 30, 40 or 50 years do you think were committed by Muslims? I’m not saying that any appreciable percentage of mulsims are terrorists but I am saying that a significant percentage of terrorists are muslims. The population in US prisons is disproprtionately black. What does that say about black people? ---
**Author:** ![Uzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/91b2a8/32.png) [@Uzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uzi)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2010, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burning-books-in-the-us-burn-quran-day/550891/163 "2010-08-23T17:47:13Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > > [@Uzi](#): > > > > How many abortion clinics have been blown up? > > [41](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-abortion_violence#Arson.2C_bombing.2C_and_property_crime) in the US and Canada since 1977, not including unsuccessful attempts or arson. Why? [QUOTE=from the link] October 1999: Martin Uphoff set fire to a Planned Parenthood clinic in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, causing US$100 worth of damage. [/QUOTE] And you equate this in scope and numbers with someone strapping on a bomb and killing themselves and a cafe full of people, or planes full of passengers, and the destruction of billions of dollars of property and the people in them, correct? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2010, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burning-books-in-the-us-burn-quran-day/550891/164 "2010-08-23T17:48:23Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > > [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > > > Everybody here is defending the free speech right to burn the books. **Oakminster** was getting grief for comments completely unrelated to that. > > OK I guess you are right but I did see a lot of “this pastor is an asshole for wanting to burn books” with percious few “that imam is an asshole for wanting to build a mosque so close to the twin towers” Because there is absolutely zero equivalency there. Building a mosque is not offensive and not an insult. It’s offensive to say it’s offensive. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2010, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burning-books-in-the-us-burn-quran-day/550891/165 "2010-08-23T17:50:13Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > > > Did you miss the part where one side is holding forward the westboro baptist church on the one hand and the other side is holdig forward half the middle east on the other? > > An irrelevant point. It’s still less than one percent of all Muslims who are extremists. and it’s still equally stupid to villify a billion and a half people you’ve never met for the actions of a few extremists. Where do I vilify all muslims? I am asking why does islam produce so much terrorism. > [@](#): > > The extremism has nothing to do with the religion, by the way. It’s political. Religious;ly motivated violence and fanatacism within a culture is a symptom, not a cause. Muslims integrated into the US tend to be completely law abiding and non-violent because they aren’t subjected to the stresses (or ghettoization) they are subjected to in some other countries. > > Lock a bunch of Christians behind barbed wire and armed guards for a while, and Christians would start putting bombs in backpacks too. The religion has nothing to do with it. Any religion will do. It’s the stresses on the population that causes extremism. And if Palestinian terrorism was all that we saw then I might see where you are coming from but that is not even close to what we see. In fact palestinian terrorism barely even makes the news here. Its the stuff perpetrated by Egyptians and Saudis and Jordanians in places like Spain and Times Square. Religion might be a very powerful language with which to communicate extreme political points of view and Christianity has certainly had its periods of ultra-extremism but right here, right now, it is Islam that is being used to justify terrorism, isn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2010, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burning-books-in-the-us-burn-quran-day/550891/166 "2010-08-23T17:51:31Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > > > So we should protect people’ > > s right to practice their religion where people murdered 300 folks in the name of that religion but we should restrict people’s ability to burn an icon of that religion? > > Name one person in this thread who has said we should restrict anyone’s right to burn Qur’ans. My mistake. I just saw oakminster taking a pounding for defending the book burners on EXACTLY the same grounds that people used to defend the mosque. But there were certainly people who thought we shouldn’t do it because it would provoke more terorrism. I say fuck em. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2010, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burning-books-in-the-us-burn-quran-day/550891/167 "2010-08-23T17:51:46Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > > [@qpw3141](#): > > > > Almost certainly, yes. > > what percentage of terrorism is commtted by muslims? Who’s killed more civilians in the past 20 years, Muslims or the US? Incidentally, are you familiar with the ethnic cleansing (i.e genocide and mass rape) of Muslims by Christians that occurred in Bosnia in very recent memory? Why don’t the Islamaphobes ever bring that up? ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2010, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burning-books-in-the-us-burn-quran-day/550891/168 "2010-08-23T17:52:55Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > How many World Trade Centers have been blown up? All of them. > [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > What difference does it make how many? A terrorist site is a terrorist site. This is unfortunate. You’re equating the murder of 3,000 people, which could easily have been 30,000 with the blowing up of a small abortion clinic with no one in it. Come on, man. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2010, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burning-books-in-the-us-burn-quran-day/550891/169 "2010-08-23T17:53:31Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > > [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > > > Name one person in this thread who has said we should restrict anyone’s right to burn Qur’ans. > > My mistake. I just saw oakminster taking a pounding for defending the book burners on EXACTLY the same grounds that people used to defend the mosque. No you didn’t. **Oakminster** got no flak at all for defending the book burners, and once more, there is NO EQUIVALENCY to the mosque. ---
**Author:** ![Uzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/91b2a8/32.png) [@Uzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uzi)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2010, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burning-books-in-the-us-burn-quran-day/550891/170 "2010-08-23T17:55:12Z")
> [@](#): > > There’s this country in the Middle East I forget the name of. I think it was in the Bible. Which is as much the fault of the Palestinians as the Israelis as any impartial observer would know. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2010, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burning-books-in-the-us-burn-quran-day/550891/171 "2010-08-23T17:56:23Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Where do I vilify all muslims? I am asking why does islam produce so much terrorism. Which is a perfectly valid question. It doesn’t go down well here, because the answer is, the Koran. And, oh..oogie-boogie…how dare anyone judge another’s religion? :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2010, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burning-books-in-the-us-burn-quran-day/550891/172 "2010-08-23T17:57:26Z")
> [@Uzi](#): > > > [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > > > [41](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-abortion_violence#Arson.2C_bombing.2C_and_property_crime) in the US and Canada since 1977, not including unsuccessful attempts or arson. Why? > > [QUOTE=from the link] > October 1999: Martin Uphoff set fire to a Planned Parenthood clinic in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, causing US$100 worth of damage. And you equate this in scope and numbers with someone strapping on a bomb and killing themselves and a cafe full of people, or planes full of passengers, and the destruction of billions of dollars of property and the people in them, correct? [/QUOTE] Yes. It’s exactly the same, and you can also add in the bombing of Olympic Park, the Murrah building, the gay bars that Eric Rudolph bombed, the genocide in Bosnia, the Christian terrorist sects in Ireland, etc. Also, you can factor in the hundreds of thousands of civilians killed by the United States for no reason in Iraq. Osama is a piker compared to us. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2010, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burning-books-in-the-us-burn-quran-day/550891/173 "2010-08-23T17:58:13Z")
> [@Uzi](#): > > > [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > > > [41](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-abortion_violence#Arson.2C_bombing.2C_and_property_crime) in the US and Canada since 1977, not including unsuccessful attempts or arson. Why? > > [QUOTE=from the link] > October 1999: Martin Uphoff set fire to a Planned Parenthood clinic in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, causing US$100 worth of damage. And you equate this in scope and numbers with someone strapping on a bomb and killing themselves and a cafe full of people, or planes full of passengers, and the destruction of billions of dollars of property and the people in them, correct? [/QUOTE] Which part of “unsuccessful attempts or arson” was unclear to you? In any case, you have totally missed the point. I was responding to your own earlier contention: > [@Uzi](#): > > There are things in the Koran that specifically call for ‘extremist’ actions. These haven’t been left on the scrap heap of history like similar things have been in Christianity. So, you can’t say it has nothing to do with the religion based upon small minorities of people living within another culture. You implied that extremist actions have been left on the scrap heap of history by Christianity. The fact that Christians continue to blow things up would seem to put the lie to that claim, even if they aren’t very good at it. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2010, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burning-books-in-the-us-burn-quran-day/550891/174 "2010-08-23T18:05:16Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Yeah, it’s a good thing modern Christians don’t blow up abortion clinics or anything. I think we should tell those fuckers to fuck off too (and for the most part we do) but abortion clinic bombing doesn’t have nearly the death toll or the frequency of terrorism from Islamic terrorists. You can’t point to a score of anti-abortion religiously motivated acts and say “see, Christians do it too so there’s really no difference between Christianity with its score of anti-abortion acts of terrorism” (or any other religion really) and Islam and its recent association with terrorism. There is a qualitative difference of scale. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2010, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burning-books-in-the-us-burn-quran-day/550891/175 "2010-08-23T18:06:41Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > > [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > > > An irrelevant point. It’s still less than one percent of all Muslims who are extremists. and it’s still equally stupid to villify a billion and a half people you’ve never met for the actions of a few extremists. > > Where do I vilify all muslims? I am asking why does islam produce so much terrorism. It doesn’t. Political pressures create terrorists. Subject any religious culture to the right pressures (including Christians in the late 20th Century), and you get terrororists who use their religion to justify it. It happens with any religion. > [@](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > The extremism has nothing to do with the religion, by the way. It’s political. Religious;ly motivated violence and fanatacism within a culture is a symptom, not a cause. Muslims integrated into the US tend to be completely law abiding and non-violent because they aren’t subjected to the stresses (or ghettoization) they are subjected to in some other countries. > > > > Lock a bunch of Christians behind barbed wire and armed guards for a while, and Christians would start putting bombs in backpacks too. The religion has nothing to do with it. Any religion will do. It’s the stresses on the population that causes extremism. > > And if Palestinian terrorism was all that we saw then I might see where you are coming from but that is not even close to what we see. In fact palestinian terrorism barely even makes the news here. Its the stuff perpetrated by Egyptians and Saudis and Jordanians in places like Spain and Times Square. > > Religion might be a very powerful language with which to communicate extreme political points of view and Christianity has certainly had its periods of ultra-extremism but right here, right now, it is Islam that is being used to justify terrorism, isn’t it? I was using the Palestinians as one example, not as an explanation for all of it. I do know that when Muslims are allowed to live and function without despreate political pressures (and that includes a lot of bullshit from their iown ostensible leaders in many countries), they assimilate very well. The US actually has some of the least problems and violence in the world from native and transpalnted Muslims because we don’t ghettoize them as in some other parts of the world, but give them the same rights and opportunities we have. We don’t have riots and petty terrorism like in France because we treat them as equals. That is our greatest strength, and doing shit like trying to stop a perfectly legal, peaceful non-offensive religious structure from being built is about the most counter-productive thing we could possibly do. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2010, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burning-books-in-the-us-burn-quran-day/550891/176 "2010-08-23T18:09:05Z")
> [@tumbleddown](#): > > [Pastor Terry Jones arrested for Child Pornography](http://www.nbc.com/news/2010/08/06/pastor-terry-jones-arrested-for-child-pornography/). > > The church says that nevertheless, they’ll still be burning Qurans on 9/11. Ironic as this would be the linked story looks decidedly fake to me. That said I find Rev. Jones refusal to address these allegations quite telling 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2010, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burning-books-in-the-us-burn-quran-day/550891/177 "2010-08-23T18:09:48Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > > [@Uzi](#): > > > > There are things in the Koran that specifically call for ‘extremist’ actions. > > There are just as many things in the Bible that call for extremist action. Yeah but a lot more terrorist seem to be quoting stuff from the Quran than from Leviticus. > [@](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > These haven’t been left on the scrap heap of history like similar things have been in Christianity. > > For the vast majority of Muslims, yes they have. Absolutely. The vast VAST majority of Muslims (especially Muslims in America) are regular folks but when you look at terroism around the world these days most terrorists seem to be associated with islam. ---
**Author:** ![Uzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/91b2a8/32.png) [@Uzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uzi)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2010, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burning-books-in-the-us-burn-quran-day/550891/178 "2010-08-23T18:09:58Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > The US actually has some of the least problems and violence in the world from native and transpalnted Muslims because we don’t ghettoize them as in some other parts of the world, but give them the same rights and opportunities we have. You could also translate this as long as you keep them from gathering into sufficient numbers you have no problems with them. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2010, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burning-books-in-the-us-burn-quran-day/550891/179 "2010-08-23T18:10:19Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > > [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > > > How many World Trade Centers have been blown up? > > All of them. > > > [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > > > What difference does it make how many? A terrorist site is a terrorist site. > > This is unfortunate. You’re equating the murder of 3,000 people, which could easily have been 30,000 with the blowing up of a small abortion clinic with no one in it. Come on, man. To the loved ones of those killed at those abortion clinics,there’s no difference, and this is missing the point anyway. The question was whether anyone would consider it offensive to build a Christian church near a site which ahd been a target of Christian terrosim. The scale of the particular act is irrelevant to the point. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2010, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burning-books-in-the-us-burn-quran-day/550891/180 "2010-08-23T18:11:15Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > > [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > > > Yeah, it’s a good thing modern Christians don’t blow up abortion clinics or anything. > > I think we should tell those fuckers to fuck off too (and for the most part we do) but abortion clinic bombing doesn’t have nearly the death toll or the frequency of terrorism from Islamic terrorists. You can’t point to a score of anti-abortion religiously motivated acts and say “see, Christians do it too so there’s really no difference between Christianity with its score of anti-abortion acts of terrorism” (or any other religion really) and Islam and its recent association with terrorism. > > There is a qualitative difference of scale. There certainly is a difference of scale. We’ve had two successful acts of Islamic terrorism on US soil (including the Fort Hood shooter). We’ve had dozens of Christian terrorist attacks. Anyway, as far as I’m concerned, there _is_ no difference. I am neither a Christian nor a Muslim, and I am to all intents and purposes equally likely to be blown up by one as by the other. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burning-books-in-the-us-burn-quran-day/550891.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burning-books-in-the-us-burn-quran-day/550891.md?page=10)