Probably, yes. I’ve pointed out already that this was a stupid thing to do. That being said, this and incidents like it don’t justify killing people however much we are used to expecting people to be killed over these kinds of things.
/OT It’s happened before.
So, the Koran is not just a book then. You’re (rightly as far as I’m concerned) actually saying ‘no matter how symbolically important an object is, even if it’s a holy book containing the actual words of God’, don’t get bent out of shape about it.
Would be even easier if our people didn’t go out of their way to sabotage things by provoking them in the first place though.
It wasn’t just a stupid thing to do - it was heinous negligence bordering on treason given the history and context. Whoever gave the order to burn them and whoever carried it out share a portion of the guilt for all the killings.
I can understand that to the belivers of the Muslim faith they believe it is the word of God,but I wonder what Kind of a God would consider a book more valuable than an person who is supposed to be his child.
I believe we should not try to stir up people who we know are so upset over some things that they take to killing over it. It is supposed to be a peaceful religion,but the radical leaders take advantage of the fact that the people are easily insulted. And in a way are not following the teachings of Muhammed.
God has never been pro-life.
The statement has no information content other than ‘it is a book’. That is no information content at all other than it is ‘just’ a book, which is the correct statement implied by the phrase. Your examples are not apposite.
Well, that’s a whole other debate but nothing i’ve seen in the history of Islam suggust Islam is a religion of peace. I judge a religion on what it does in the world not on the mumbo jumbo.
Or perhaps more accurately: “…don’t get so bent out of shape about it that you think you’re justified in killing people, or even assaulting them”. Because the civilized world disagrees.
If you look for slight you will find it. You make it sound as if the soldiers were wiping their asses with the pages of the Koran, which still wouldn’t justify killing and assaulting people. But the books were being destroyed because they had already been “defiled” by people writing in them.
NO. NO. NO. The only people responsible for killing others are those that actually kill others. Your position gives credence to the position that the killings are to some degree justified. NO. That’s the absolute wrong position and the worst message we can send the uncivilized.
Do you realize your are attempting to slowly and deliberately walk me through a point I already made in my first post on this part of the issue?
Saying that people ‘like the book’ was a sarcastic way of referring to this issue. I recognize the Quran carries a great deal of cultural importance, but that doesn’t justify killing people over it.
I said about half a dozen times that this was a very stupid thing to do, although I think you might be putting too much blame on the provokers rather than the rioters and shooters.
No, they don’t. Insensitivity - even grievous and idiotic insensitivity - does not justify killing people and does not shift blame from the Taliban and other religious fanatics (who do this kind of thing at any provocation) and from people who made the choice to go take to the streets and destroy property and hurt people in response to the insult.
I should know better but, hey… what do you think it’s an “insult” of?
I partially disagree. If you do something knowing that it has the potential to result in someone else killing, yet do it anyway, you do accept some of that responsibility, no matter how irrational an overreaction it is. That doesn’t justify the killings; it provides justification in the minds of the killers, sure, but that’s a very different thing. It’s the knowledge of result that would make the difference; you don’t take responsiblity for results which are unexpected overreactions because you didn’t expect them.
If we lived our lives that way then there is no end to the freedoms we give up because someone else dictates terms.
They regard it as an insult to their religion. Is this some kind of mystery?
If the United States wishes to maintain the occupation of Afghanistan without annihilating the people of Afghanistan, the United States will need to understand and respect the sensitivities of the Afghans.
When President Bush planed and ordered the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq he seemed to have thought that the people in those countries would greet American forces as liberators and set about creating pro capitalist, pro American democracies.
There were historical precedents for this. During World War II Italy had been an ally of Germany. Nevertheless, then the United States and Great Britain invaded Italy most of the Italians did greet our soldiers as liberators.
When the Soviet Union fell, former Warsaw Pact countries did create pro American, pro capitalist democracies.
Nevertheless, the people of Italy and Eastern Europe are Europeans. Muslims in the Near East have different histories, different traditions, and different values than we do.
No, they regard it as an insult against them.
Similarly, at college, I remember a debate springing up amidst a bunch of us at a late night dorm session when one student, for reasons I can’t remember(we were all either drunk or high) brought up the fact that when the Israelis retook East Jerusalem during the Six Day War, they found the Jordanians had decided to use tombstones from the ancient Jewish cemeteries to use to pave roads and to use as the top parts of latrines.
Most of my fellow students were utterly disgusted by this, but I, being 19 years old and believing I knew everything and having just gotten back from Israel where, for various reasons, I’d been convinced it was a Middle Eastern South Africa, decided to have some fun.
I said so what. The headstones were simply rocks, the people who’d been buried beneath them had long since dissolved so who cared though I made the point with a little more panache.
My comment did not go over to well. In fact one girl grabbed an empty beer can and flung it as hard as she could at my head and the RA told me to go to my room “RIGHT FUCKING NOW” and someone even threatened to have me charged with hate speech.
Now, I don’t know why Jews don’t react well to the argument that “they’re just rocks” but I suspect that for similar reasons Muslims don’t react well to arguments that “it’s just a book.”
Moreover, had circumstances been different and those people rather than being relatively privileged college students been dirt-poor peasants of a nation that had been occupied for ten years by people like me that I’d have faced far more than a thrown beer can at my head.
The head of the Greek Orthodox church has a written document sent to the Church from Muhammad himself, telling him that all religions should be respected and it was a religion of peace, so those who teach differently are not following what Muhammad taught.Just as many Christians do not follow all that Jesus taught.
The point is not how many adherents of a particular religion are devout and follow the religion to a tee. No one much cares if a Catholic, Jew, Lutheran, Presbyterian, or Muslim does not follow the tenets of his religion. The issue is acts of violence, and the degree to which Islam—or any religion—is used to justify it.
Yep, pretty much. The inevitable downside of freedom* is *responsibility. In the end it comes down on a per case basis as to how much value you place in a particular freedom versus how much responsibilty you’re willing to take - but that’s pretty much how everything works anyway.
Unfortunetly, we can’t really wish away responsibility simply because it taints our freedom.
It takes very little to have Muslims up in arms over perceived slights, leaving imams sobbing in self-pity. I don’t believe in aggravating them for no reason but I also don’t believe in apologizing for things that were done inadvertently (like the Quran burning). If they bring the violence over anywhere else, then the people should retaliate against them.
How exactly do we retiate against “them” particularly when some of “them” are “us”?