It seems to be the silly season again as a furore stirs over plans by an evangelist church in the USA to stage a "Koran Burning" on the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Nothing quite demonstrates the lunancy of god-botherers so much as the spectacle of religious groups burning each others so called holy books.
Here is an ABC news video complete with "internet evangelist" Bill Keller claming " There is only one truth - it's in this book {waves Bible} .. if it's not in this book it's not true..." . Which is of course exactly the same whacky belief system that Muslims have about their own "holy" book - the Koran.
Since Terry Jones the pastor of another evangelist Church - the Dove World Church - threatened to stage a "Koran burning day" on the anniversary of the World trade centre atrocity there have been Muslim protests in many places complete with - yes you guessed it - effigy and flag burning. It seems that there is nothing that the religious like better than a spot of symbolic burning. I suppose we should at least be grateful that these days it's confined to books and flags and not heretics. ( There is the occasional stoning and flogging of women in Muslim countries of course but I'm sure that Muslims would argue that doesn't count - hey it's only women after all !)
The fact that each side claims that it's Holy book contains the complete and unalterable truth and that the opposing side and it's "holy" book represents "evil" never causes any of these idiots to stop for a moment and think. Perhaps, just perhaps, none of these holy books actually contains "divine" truth ? To an outsider they all sound as kooky as each other frankly. Admittedly in recent years it's been mostly Muslims who have been murdering and terrorising in the name of their religion but I wouldn't bet against Christian fundamentalists using the same kind of tactics given the right circumstances.
What is it with fundamentalist Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus and other believers? Why can't they just practice their own particular brands of religious fetishism quietly in the privacy of their own homes and leave the rest of us to get on with our daily lives? Frankly I could see the temptation to hold a general "Holy book Burning day" and put the whole lot on a big fire. That isn't going to happen of course because it's generally only people who are truly and utterly convinced that they have the inside word on some sort of divine destiny that resort to such tactics.
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4 comments:
If that could happen, what will happen to the media? So many souls will become unemployed!
It seems to me that random acts of desecration are almost part of our culture now.
I am curious of what you think of the media in all this. There are probably one or two million pastors in this country with an unimaginable range of views. Among them are some who communicate with space aliens, Wiccans, new agers, pedophiles and who knows what else. Why all the attention to Terry Jones?
I'd almost like to see the Fox News point of view on this... Almost.
Yeah, agree with most of this. I'm not sure either Terry Jones, the folks at Westboro Baptist Church, the people who burnt Beatles records or who attack abortion clinics and the Muslims who have threatened to respond to this provocative act are reflective of either religion. Fringes of but not it's whole - "religious fetishism", spot on. Marf, Fox News took an unusual position on this (for them). They reported on the death threats against Jones but O'Reilly, for example, has been roundly castigated by his supporters for suggesting that legal redress be considered to prevent the Qur'an burning. The whole idea of burning something in public is fairly dramatic isn't it? No patiently feeding each page through a shredder, dog earing the pages, taking it into the bath with you and getting it all wet or giving a laptop a light flick. Either way, it didn't happen thank goodness and we can all remember and reflect in peace. Great blog, thanks.
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