TheRealMafoo said:
Rath said:
TheRealMafoo said:
Sorry to keep posting these things, but....
"It could endanger troops and it could endanger the overall effort," Gen. Petraeus said in an interview. "It is precisely the kind of action the Taliban uses and could cause significant problems. Not just here, but everywhere in the world we are engaged with the Islamic community."
Is from that article linked above.
I am sorry, we really have things backwards here. We have a group of stupid people in Florida, who due to not liking a Mosque going up in NY, chose to burn some books. BFD, no one gets hurt, and some books go poof.
Now, in retaliation to this, we think some people around the world are going to take this information, and start killing people with it. So, one group burns books, and one group murders people, and we are apologetic about the morons in Florida?
This is like someone sticking there tong out at someone, and getting there face blown off for it, and taking the side of the guy who pulled the trigger.
If burning a book makes someone want to kill, I say bring it.
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You're missing the point entirely. Just because you (and I think all others on this board) strongly oppose one group in this conflict, the extremist Muslims, doesn't mean you have to support the idiots burning the Quran. Both groups are doing something wrong, yes the extremist Muslims are doing something much much more wrong - doesn't make the book burners right.
You shouldn't avoid burning the Quran out of fear of being hurt by Muslims, you should avoid burning the Quran because it's an entirely offensive and unnessecary gesture of hate.
Also comparing it to sticking the tongue out at somebody completely underestimates the level of offensiveness of this, there isn't really anything left in Western culture that lives up to the level of offensiveness because we've become pretty thick skinned (mostly due to free speech) but the closest would probably be calling a black person by the 'N' word. Don't take this as condoning their violence or threats by the way, it's not, but I completely understand their anger.
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So if I called someone the 'N" word, and he shot me in the face, that's understandable?
Come on. I get sick of the US and our culture always being the ones that are "wrong", when the worst we do as a people is voice our opinion and demonstrate.
You don't see Christian Extremist groups heading over to the middle east and blowing shit up.
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No, they got that out of their system during the Crusades, which is really at the heart of a lot of the historical animosity between Christianity and Islam. But these days you do see them heading over to the nearest abortion clinic and blowing it up or shooting the medical staff and patients. Extreme Islam isn't the only religious fringe group that commit violent attrocities in the pursuit of imposing their views on wider society. And by the look of some of the posts from atheists here the fringe athiests aren't too far from getting violent on the asses of religious people...oh wait, I forgot, atheists have already been there: Stalin, Mao.
You need to appreciate the symbolism of ritualistic book burning. What burning the Quran in such a public way says (in the context of book burning in history) is "we want to utterly destroy you and your ideas and wipe you from the face of the Earth, and we're gonna start with this symbolic act." Basically book burning is tantamount to a declaration of war.
The only people who think building a Mosque near ground zero is anything close to a declaration of war are the fundies who like the idea of ritualised burnings of Qurans. The actual people who want to build the Mosque have no such motivation.
So the big difference between burning books and building a mosque at ground zero is that the book burning is carried out with the intent to offend, which is will achieve. Whereas the Mosque (community centre) building is not intended to offend, and I would say those who spearheaded the project are actually seeking to reconcile. But some people have chosen to take offence and for some people they have chosen to take offence for political gain; so in the end the benign intent looks like it's going to fail in its intent.
I think, even though there really isn't anything inherently wrong with building the Mosque near ground zero, the noble course of action on the part of the NYC Islamic community is to can the idea in the interests of peace and reconciliation. At some point someone has to act like a mature adult and not like a petulant child.
