I know I gave up blogging for Lent except on Fridays but I missed a couple Fridays so I think this one's ok.
-------
Some nutty Christian pastor burnt up a Koran and so some UN people got killed. That makes sense right?
I mean, if someone in Ethiopia burns the bible, Christians would attack and kill unaffiliated workers at the African Union HQ right?
That's straight up stupid and the world needs to tell Islam enough is enough.
It took the world a long time to stand up to Christianity and tell it to sit the hell down and stop killing natives and burning witches, but it happened. And Christianity is only about 400 years older than Islam so maybe now is the time the world tells them off.
No other group in the short history of my life has been able to command as much fear as that of the islamic mob. I don't mean that in a mafia sense, but in the sense that an Al-Jazeera news report can send thousands of them out to the streets for blood.
Now some, like Archbishop Lawrence Saldanha of Lahore, Pakistan, are calling for the arrest of this American protestant pastor because be burnt the koran.
And some of what Archbishop Lawrence Saldanha of Lahore says is true. The actions of the minister did enrage muslims, his actions were inflammatory.
Now some will argue his actions are responsible for the deaths of those UN workers...I say we make our stand here.
Enough. Sit down Islam. Count to 10.
I'm making my stand with a crazy ass Colonel Sanders looking pastor/furniture salesman who in a meaningless show of stupidity decided to exercise his rights under the US Constitution.
You'll note in a previous blog I've defended the Westboro Baptist "Church's" right to have it's dumb beliefs and show them to all who will look. I think salesman-pastor has the same right. I further believe angry muslims have every right to burn, beat and hang him in effigy, scream death to America, burn the US flag and go hog wild, so long as they don't hurt anyone.
But they can't kill for this, and we're complicit in those deaths if we do not stand up and point the finger for these deaths at the guilty, not at the idiot pastor.
All muslims are not to blame for this attack, 9-11 or anything even a bunch of them do. But no muslim leader with any clout ever speaks out firmly against irrational violence and we're not talking about just extremists. Hundreds to thousands of every day devout muslims join these violent "protests" over whatever South Park or some Florida church wacko does and in the process some foreigners tend to get killed.
I don't deny that there may be a time to fight and kill and die for one's faith. In some contexts, this is even noble. But the minutia over which it happens every month or so in the muslim world is too much.
Rioting and chaos are not from God, not from Moses, not from Jesus and not from Muhammad. It's from ignorance and intolerance on a really big level.
Well enough Islam. Judaism grew up. Christianity grew up. It's time to put on your big boy pants and join the modern world.
I will manually add comments from Facebook for the sake of our non-facebook using reader.
ReplyDelete(From Facebook)
Mike Lipps: Thanks for saying what's on so many of our minds, John.
"But they can't kill for this, and we're complicit in those deaths if we do not stand up and point the finger for these deaths at the guilty, not at the idiot pastor."
ReplyDeleteIs someone really blaming the pastor for their actions?
Matt, handful of things I read called for his arrest, others were blaming him indirectly.
ReplyDelete(From Facebook)
ReplyDeleteAmy Walsh-Kuenneke" Come on look at the Baptist group who burned the Koran and protests soliders funeral. Crazy! Just as how 1 small group of CHristians acts should not reflect on the whole. So goes the acts a group of Muslims should not reflect on the whole.
I pointed out to Amy that the blog addressed all that, then she said this killing in the name of religion is disgusting and I said.
ReplyDelete"John M. Stegeman" Yeah, very disgusting agreed. But my blog is about the ones doing the killing. They all happen to espouse one religion. That doesn't condemn the religion, but it is a call to action for Islamic leaders to step up and say enough."
It get's long....I'll summarize when the back and forth ends.
Amy Walsh-Kuenneke: But this could insight those Christians that carry the same crazy as those Muslims
ReplyDeleteJohn M. Stegeman: What's going to incite what now? My blog? The koran burning? The muslim violence?
NOTE: I really dunno what she's trying to say and are original spelling has been maintained.
ReplyDeleteWyhat I mean is, is anyone besides Muslims blaming the pastor?
ReplyDeleteI believe I commented on an earlier blog that this pastor runs a small sect of about 60 members (mostly related to each other). So, they're all idiots.
ReplyDeleteBut, the koran is an inanimate object...a book; and, unfortunately, an anthropomorphic one. Burning, or even questioning the koran is cause for rioting and killing? I think not.
I'm afraid that Islamic militants are hopelessly mired in the 5th century (with 20th century weaponry). Extremists, like the Taliban, see that the world has passed them by and they no longer have the cache that they once had. They only have their, once glorious, history. (I've visited a small 19th century era castle in the Crimean region of the southern Ukraine. It was magnificent.)
I think I know the reason for all of this. The ones with the most to lose, make the loudest noise. (Squeaky wheel theory.)
P.S. The Crimean castle I visited was Ottoman architecture. This place is only about 150 miles across the Black Sea to Turkey.
ReplyDeleteLet's send them HD televisions, fast cars, smartphones, video games, satellite radio, blu-ray players, laptops, dance clubs (we'll build those for them), TV dinners, fast food, and we'll drop leaflets on their nations featuring pornographic pictures everyday. They will submit to our fun-loving, lethargic lifestyle!
ReplyDeleteI suspect that at the most basic level, many Muslims simply don't value unrestricted free speech when it comes to religion. Political speech yes (some of the time), but not religious speech.
ReplyDeleteThe western viewpoint, on the other hand, is that non-violent speech or action (as long as it doesn't directly incite immediate violence) is a right, period.
If you don't share common values on a fundamental level, there's really not a lot to reconcile after the fact. The best you can do is ignore them (difficult since we're involved in 2 1/2 wars in Muslim countries) and don't do business with them (hah!)...
Matt, yes to part one and haha to part two, but it actually might work.
ReplyDeleteJerry, I think you're agreeing with me right?
Dungy, ding ding ding, we have a winner. Man it's inconvenient that they live where they do.
Gots to get me summa dat oil!