Burning Books

The Dove World Outreach Center, based in Gainesville, Fla., announced plans to burn copies of the Qur’an on church grounds to mark the ninth anniversary of the 9-11 terrorist attacks. Obviously, this triggered protests and hundreds of Afghans rallied against the United States and called for President Obama’s death. Although the church was denied a permit to host a bonfire, they’ve vowed to proceed with the burning, and are distributing shirts around with the caption: ‘Islam is of the Devil’

I almost feel like I can leave it at that; I don’t even need to comment on the absolute stupidity of these people. One point I want to make is that it is completely idiotic and arrogant to believe that the terrorist attacks were due to religious beliefs, but it’s a whole other level of stupidity to think that everyone associated with the Qur’an are associated with terrorism.
Like the group of teachers who burned Harry Potter books and later admitted to never reading any of the books, these ‘God-fearing’ believers are just embarrassing themselves with rash actions due to lack of knowledge. How about we look at Christianity the way they are looking at the Muslim religion. How many serial killers claim to be doing the work of God? How many lunatics are adamant on their ability to talk to God? In that way, how many irreversible crimes have been committed in the name of God? How many wars throughout history started over religious clashes? If you took a tally of how many crimes were in the name of God in America, and how many crimes were in the name of Allah in America, than for every one Qur’an burnt, one million Bibles should be set ablaze as well.
The fact is, after the terrorist attacks, guess who was doing a lot more terrorising in supposed “revenge”? CHRISTIANS. There were more terrorist attacks than ever, and the victims were always Muslim. What kind of idiot thinks that way? Well, they read this book and believed it and so do you, therefore you should be held accountable for their crimes. Not only that, we will forever suspect you of terrorising us, so just to be sure, we’ll keep terrorising you before that can happen. Not only does this solve nothing, it prolongs the issue and angers people into going against you when they otherwise wouldn’t have. If this is supposed to be a statement, what kind of statement is it? I’m pretty sure the Bible says that only God can judge, and I think that applies when you openly claim an entire religion to be of the Devil. Does it mean those who seek a higher power are evil if that higher power isn’t the same as yours? Does it make everyone look at your religion and see you are just as capable of hate and prejudice, but even worse since you stoop to that level after claiming it happened to you? When was the last time ‘an eye for an eye’ was ever appropriate to use, especially when you bring in members of the community to participate? Honestly, I don’t agree with the Qur’an, and I don’t agree with what some people do in the name of Allah. But I also don’t agree with the Bible, that tells us to have slaves and to stone our disobedient children, and I don’t even need examples when I say I don’t agree with the crimes committed in the name of God. I don’t believe that the solution is simply a matter of switching to the right religion as much as I believe that religion itself is probably the most destructive thing that has ever happened to mankind. And after they burn those Qur’ans, do they think it isn’t just adding fuel to the fire? Do they think that they aren’t advertising a war to go on some more, instead of using their brains and being the bigger person? It’s thinking like this that keeps wars going, that keeps people dying, promotes segregation, and keeps intelligent people like me angry everyday they read the news.