On how the burning of a book became worse than the slaughter of people for retarded reasons

Remember the case of the crazy pastor (I know this is kind of redundant, but this guy is worse than the usual) who wanted to burn a Koran and even Obama came out to ask him to do so?

Well, he finally did it:

Koran burnt in Florida church

The burning was carried out by pastor Wayne Sapp under the supervision of Terry Jones, who last September drew sweeping condemnation over his plan to ignite a pile of Korans on the anniversary of September 11, 2001 attacks.

Sunday's event was presented as a trial of the book in which the Koran was found "guilty" and "executed."

The jury deliberated for about eight minutes. The book, which had been soaking for an hour in kerosene, was put in a metal tray in the center of the church, and Sapp started the fire with a barbecue lighter.

A very dick thing to do, especially considering that Muslim extremists are violent enough to go on a murderous spree as they did when the Muhammad cartoons were published. If can have faith in something, it’s in the fanaticism that religions inspire

Ten dead in Afghan Quran burning protests

At least 10 people have been killed and 83 wounded in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, officials said on Saturday, on a second day of violent protests over the burning of a Quran by a radical fundamentalist Christian in the United States.

A suicide attack also hit a NATO military base in the capital Kabul, the day after protesters over-ran a U.N. mission in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif and killed seven foreign staff, in the deadliest attack on the U.N. in Afghanistan.

This isn’t anything less than outrageous. Yet, there are many, especially politically correct liberals with a “multicultural” mindset who abhor the actions of pastors Sapps and Jones, but say nothing about, and even try to justify their actions by blaming it on the pastors.

Is it disrespectful and bigoted? Yes, but it is also within one’s rights to burn his property on the land he owns. At least in the United States. No one says that this is an action that deserves praise, but certainly deserves the freedoms that our constitution guarantees.

The killing of innocent people, who had nothing to do with the actions of a religious zealot? Despicable and hateful, and certainly proper of a religion that wants to be considered as a religion of peace, but is ready to kill in order to prove it. This is something few people want to admit, and will try to whitewash how mindlessly violent faith can be. Want an example?

Obama calls killings in Afghanistan outrageous

"No religion tolerates the slaughter and beheading of innocent people, and there is no justification for such a dishonorable and deplorable act," Obama said.

Obama wants to be nice, and keep the peace among everyone (or at least, keep the fire away from him), but this is certainly not true. Religion tolerates the slaughter and beheading of innocents. The only difference is that some take that literally and others don’t. But we will never know which one is right.

Muslims need to realize that the beliefs they hold so dear also inspire hatred and violence. Just like Christianity, but in a greater way. No one should have to hold their criticism just because they have a gun pointed at their head, and if the gun fires, have people saying "it's your fault for provoking them".

As much as I despise pastor Jones' actions, I think he has a right to carry on with them, if we are to care about freedom of speech. A friend of mine suggested to me that I might be falling into a slippery slope fallacy by considering that prohibiting such speech would prohibit also other actions that might be considered disrespectful to Muslims or any other groups. But consider that this action is being done away from a Muslim community and whatever is burned is private property. If we are going to start prohibiting people to state their discontent with a group's action and philosophy by a symbolic act that harms no one, then the same could be applicable to any cartoon, any speech or any book.

Sam Harris explains this very clearly:

The point is that only the Muslim community is combustible in this way. The controversy over Fitna, like all such controversies, renders one fact about our world especially salient: Muslims appear to be far more concerned about perceived slights to their religion than about the atrocities committed daily in its name. Our accommodation of this psychopathic skewing of priorities has, more and more, taken the form of craven and blinkered acquiescence.

There is an uncanny irony here that many have noticed. The position of the Muslim community in the face of all provocations seems to be: Islam is a religion of peace, and if you say that it isn’t, we will kill you. Of course, the truth is often more nuanced, but this is about as nuanced as it ever gets: Islam is a religion of peace, and if you say that it isn’t, we peaceful Muslims cannot be held responsible for what our less peaceful brothers and sisters do. When they burn your embassies or kidnap and slaughter your journalists, know that we will hold you primarily responsible and will spend the bulk of our energies criticizing you for “racism” and “Islamophobia.”