well that claerly calls for a new sign.
Burn the Quran, but save the Child Porn for our Pastor
Oakminster, I was all ready with some righteous indignation, but good move on the apology, so I’ll save it for the pastor and for the inevitable protests of the protest.
Guessing everyone here can agree on the following:
- The church burning the Korans are a bunch of douchebags.
- Their actions should remain legal.
- It should remain legal for us to call them a bunch of douchebags.
- Anyone who threatens them with violence is worse than a douchebag: they’re a criminal, and their actions SHOULDN’T be legal.
- Czarcasm’s idea is freakin brilliant.
- Saudi Arabia is no more Unitarian than the Inquisition was Sufi.
- Karma’s a bitch.
We all agreed?
Nope, and I may have jumped the gun indeed.
However, the church itself made the link as well, as the newsletter which detailed their troubles said “the Fire dept refused to give us a permit BUT WE WILL STILL BURN KORANS, the bank called our mortgage BUT WE WILL STILL [etc…]”, making it sound like both the insurance and bank troubles are directly related to the planned book barbecue (cite).
If anything, it sounds like the Koran burning stunt might have been a desperate attempt to drum up extra donations to pay off the note.
Be great if it didn’t work. But it will.
Well, given the level of intelligence thus far displayed, it is always possible that sparks from the flaming Qur’ans will ignite the church. (Then, the delicious irony would be to have the fire department charge them with arson.)
Now, Universe, I know I haven’t been a very good pantheist. But if you could just give me this sign…
Interesting. Are those Muslims who are pro-free speech likely to be insulted by this action? Being pro-free speech myself, I’m not really insulted much by what anyone says unless they are lying about it, that is. So, why would this likely be insulting to ‘all’ Muslims? Unless you really mean that most Muslims are not free speech advocates at all?
My Congressman, Mr. Ellison, assures me that the vast majority of American Muslims hold values more or less in line with mine own. I have seen no evidence to the contrary.
This does not follow.
I advocate free speech, even to the acceptance of the idea that boors who desecrate the U.S. flag or the bible for vague political purposes should be free of legal sanctions for their actions, but I still consider such people rude and, on many occasions, I would consider their actions insulting.
If they aren’t hurting you or someone else (eg. forcing Muslims to be at the event and watching them do it), then how is it insulting, or even rude for that matter? Really, I’m trying to think of someone saying something to me, about me, that being true, would be insulting to me, or doing something with their own property that I’d become offended over.
I’m not talking about someone screaming in your face, but about events that would have no affect on you otherwise if you hadn’t heard about it on the news.
I’m asking more for clarification rather than arguing a point here, btw.
Okay, Dio.
I would not go out of my way to take offense or to seek some sort of “satisfaction” of the insult, but an action that shows disrespect for an idea or the symbol of an ideal that I hold is, pretty much by definition, insulting. While I dislike settling arguments with a dictionary, I don’t think that we are to that point, yet, so I will note the Merriam-Webster definition the verb insult: “to treat with insolence, indignity, or contempt.” It is a transitive verb. It does not require a reaction on my part. That one engages in an action that demonstrates insolence, indignity, or contempt causes one to be insulting, regardless.
I can even take steps to defend their right to engage in that behavior, but that does not change the nature of their actions.
In a word, fear. A thing like this creates fear. And fear not simply leads to evil, fear is evil.
I’d bet if I were to burn a bunch of Bibles, the congregation of this church would find it insulting.
It does require an action on your part because if no one found their actions insolent, indignant, or contemptuous, then there wouldn’t be an insult. You determine that it is an insult, not the people doing the actions. They may think they are doing so, but only you can say if it is true or not.
“Look at us! We’re insulting you!”
“Uh, no you’re not” <carries on with life> See what I mean?
The assumption here is that Muslims, who believe in free speech, would find this insulting. Carrying my thought further, if a Muslim believes in free speech and would find this insulting, then why should we care if it happens? They’ll just chalk it up as that person’s right to be an ass. If they think it is an insult and want to do something about it, like lop that person’s head off, then they obviously don’t believe in free speech or only if it doesn’t gore their particular ox which is essentially the same thing.
I see that you and I have rather different understandings of the meaning of the word “insult.” I can chhose to not take offense at an insult, (much as I can laugh at the ineffectiveness of a two-year-old striking me with a fist), but the fist blow and the insult both occurred.
I’m afraid I have to disagree with this point, because the Inquisition wasn’t Sufi at all, but Saudi Arabia is very much Unitarian. That’s the dominant religious school there. I mean, we call them Wahabis, but they don’t call themselves that…they consider it insulting. They call themselves Muwahhidun, which means “the Unitarians”. They don’t have very much in common with American Unitarian Universalists, of course, although both groups deny the concept of the trinity, so I guess there’s that.
I think it’s fair also to count intent into the equation. If someone insults me in a way that I can easily laugh off, they have still attempted to insult me; even if their attempt did not succeed, they made the attempt. So rather than find them offensive for their insult, rather, you might find them offensive for trying to insult you.
Quite.
People who are tolerant of others and believe that one should avoid insulting others find these book burning goons offensive because they are intending to behave in a gratuitously insulting manner - to whom is barely relevant.
Some may be offended because they are actually insulted.
Some may be offended for both reasons.