Nah, just being barbaric because I had nothing better to do.

Doh.

I'm pretty sure I'm right about this one Ty, but perhaps you could show me a thing or two with an impassioned violent outburst...

:D

"that"

I dare you to say that to my face.

I wouldn't call it barbarism. Any strongly impassioned group is capable of nearly identical displays, no matter how "civil" they or their protest may be.

It seems like the burning idea was the icing on the cake though. From another article:

"The protesters chanted “Down with Qur’an desecrators,” and protest leaders denounced the desecration in speeches to the crowds."

I agree they have more complex reasons under the surface, I just don't understand barbarism like this. I find it funny that while Koran desecration has been punishable by death in some countries, they get so fired up that it may be happening in the U.S. that they end up killing themselves just gathering and yelling about it.

It's almost as if these people are looking for something to ignorantly go bat-shit over. They refuse to recognize that the few people that had the idea to burn the Koran were fiercely shot down by the majority opinion.

Because it may be about the Qur'ans, but it's not really about the Qur'ans, if you know what I mean. Their beef (and the outpouring of anger) is much more complex than a reaction to a simple act of sacrilege.

It's getting MUCH WORSE. Now violent protests are erupting in Kashmir. Many more people are dying and getting hurt because they seem to think that mass Koran burnings happened in the U.S.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1311785/Indian-police-kill-18-wound-100-Kashmir-Koran-burning-riots.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

"Indian forces killed 18 people and injured scores of others in the bloodiest day of violence in the troubled area of Kashmir.
Police were called in when thousands of rioters, chanting 'Down with Koran desecrators' and 'Down with America', attacked a Christian school in one town and buildings in other cities.
Kashmiris defied curfews in the Indian-controlled region and took to the streets, chanting anti-India and anti-US slogans and burning effigies of US President Barack Obama."
[...]
"They were inspired by Florida pastor Terry Jones, who had planned to hold a 'Burn A Koran' day on September 11.
He cancelled the event after international pressure but it has not stopped rioting and deaths in Muslim countries around the world."
[...]
"Mohammad Yahya, a protester apparently unaware of Pastor Jones' decision to cancel the burning ceremony, said: 'The Governor [of Logar] must give us an assurance that the church is not going to burn the Koran, otherwise we will attack foreign troop bases in our thousands.'"

It's almost as if these people are looking for something to ignorantly go bat-shit over. They refuse to recognize that the few people that had the idea to burn the Koran were fiercely shot down by the majority opinion. I understand that most of these people probably don't have access to up-to-the-minute international news, so they probably didn't hear that the Florida pastor didn't go through with it. It just doesn't even seem like they want to find out that information before they flip out and riot violently. I wonder what encourages that sort of behavior? (I wonder)
The irony is just insane.

Elemenope, I did read about the few random acts by some that weren't such media whores like the Florida pastor. I always find it interesting whenever non-violent intentions by some result in riots and violence by others that don't agree. It's so self-defeating. In examples like this one it has become very unsurprising (almost expected), and comical (to me).

Thanks for the welcome! I've missed participating but between working and taking classes, I realized I had to just step back and watch, rather than 'play'. :)

The Phelps idiots burned a Koran and an American flag at the White House.

UrsaMinor-- I've been seeing a number of articles on, and interviews with the author of 'Stayin' Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class'. I have yet to read it myself but it just moved up to the top of my list. It might sound silly, but my own conversion to Christianity in 1977 was in large part fueled by the growing mindlessness and meaninglessness I felt I was drowning in during the height of that disco era. Sounds like a good read.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51zLBaOaTzL._BO2,204,203,

(review from the Amazon.com page)
An epic account of how working-class America hit the rocks in the political and economic upheavals of the '70s, Stayin' Alive is a wide-ranging cultural and political history that presents the decade in a whole new light. Jefferson Cowie's edgy and incisive book--part political intrigue, part labor history, with large doses of American music, film, and TV lore--makes new sense of the '70s as a crucial and poorly understood transition from the optimism of New Deal America to the widening economic inequalities and dampened expectations of the present.

Stayin' Alive takes us from the factory floors of Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Detroit to the Washington of Nixon, Ford, and Carter. Cowie connects politics to culture, showing how the big screen and the jukebox can help us understand how America turned away from the radicalism of the '60s and toward the patriotic promise of Ronald Reagan. He also makes unexpected connections between the secrets of the Nixon White House and the failings of the George McGovern campaign, between radicalism and the blue-collar backlash, and between the earthy twang of Merle Haggard's country music and the falsetto highs of Saturday Night Fever.

Cowie captures nothing less than the defining characteristics of a new era. Stayin' Alive is a book that will forever define a misunderstood decade.

"Two protesters died and four were injured"

(I know it's wrong but....)

http://nelsonhaha.com/

Actually, it turns out there were a few sporadic Qur'an burnings in the US yesterday, just not at the behest of that clown in Florida.

But yes, I get your point. I thought it was silly and self-defeating for someone to say, in essence, "how dare you burn our Holy Book! We're so mad we'll...burn your flag! That'll show you how wrong it is!"
-----

btw, welcome back. It's been a while since you've been around!

Anyone else find it ironic that violent protests erupted in Afghanistan upon the mere possibility that a Koran might be burned, when none actually were?

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hvWEqwq3CrRvaQCmt21MfoYhjZJQD9I6EVR80

" Two protesters died and four were injured as Afghans protested for a third day Sunday against a plan by an American pastor to burn copies of the Islamic holy book, despite his decision to call off the action."

"The protesters in Logar chanted "Death to America" and burned tires, attacked several shops and set election campaign posters on fire"

I remember too. It was really an empty gesture, since disco was on its last legs already.

um.....yep

I remember

Disco Demolition, 1979, Chicago
Books ain't the only things that get burned/blown up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYVYxKwEdIw

Anybody else out there old enough to remember this?

Quran burning has been scrapped.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20100909/tuk-planned-9-11-koran-burning-scrapped-6323e80.html

Well, if this loon wanted attention, he got it. He was in a Brazilian newspaper today.

Book burning in this case could be compared to flag burning. Historically, book burning has been an attempt to eradicate certain points of view, but I don't think Rev. Jones is actually trying to eradicate the Koran from the Earth (not that I don't think he'd like to, but that I doubt even he is so stupid as to believe it possible).

It would be a far more effective protest if he simply read some of the more violent and ridiculous passages of the Koran to folks. But then they might realize it isn't very different from the Bible.

lol

one crazy ass fundy mad at another

well, I guess it's good for a cheap laugh at least

And Westborough Baptist Church is PO'd that these upstsrt haters are taking their spotlight:

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/09/09/100291/fred-phelps-daughter-westboro.html

Sounds like he was trying to create quite a "fuhrer" at his last church in Cologne, Germany, too:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,716409,00.html

The 'Dove World Outreach Centre', the church at the centre of the controversy, is in considerable financial trouble. Jones and his family had been operating a for-profit business out of the church, while taking advantage of its tax exempt status.

http://www.gainesville.com/article/20100325/ARTICLES/3251059?tc=ar

The county is currently in the process of yanking the Church's exemption from local taxes. The IRS is investigating the Church for violating tax law and operating a for-profit furniture business. The bank has canceled the mortgage on the Church, and is demanding a full repayment. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/26/us/26gainesville.html?_r=1

This is a cash grab, and nothing more. Jones needs a massive wave of publicity and donations in order to keep the Church and pay the back taxes on his furniture business.

"Oprahism"

James G, you just made me snort out loud

Just to be fair and balanced, I think there should be a mandatory prayer at the beginning of the day, but each day it's a different religion and you work your way through all of them - Christianity, Satanism, Judaism, Voodoo, Scientology, Rastafarianism, Pastafarianism, Oprahism or even worshipping all powerful Atheismo.

I think snarky blogger WhoIsIoz nails the issue pretty clearly:

Look, book-burning is wrong, and I do not doubt that the scenes of a bunch of fat white Floridians cavorting around a Koran Kampfire will be receycled in the Muslim world, but honestly, Fred Kaplan et al., how many times will it bear repeating: the reason Muslims think that America is at war with Islam is because we keep bombing, invading, and occupying their countries! The reason "our troops" are in danger in Afghanistan is not that Rush Limbaugh hates mosques or that some Podunk preacher hates Islam's holy book, but because "our troops" are foreign occupiers.

much better said, thanks UrsaMinor

That jerk pastor has the right to burn the Koran and I have the right to call him a fucking hypocritical idiot to his face

if only........

Supporting the right to free expression does not mean that one must condone deliberately provocative acts of naked prejudice and hatred. While I have no love of any religious text (and certainly no respect for the ideas contained in them), I think it is nevertheless a really stupid idea to burn somebody else's holy book. What, exactly, is this supposed to accomplish, other than to set the stage for yet another religious war?

Our educational system fails on many counts, not the least of which is the teaching civics and Constitutional checks and balances. And it utterly fails to educate on matters of religion and religious differences. not to mention agnosticism and atheism. I'm a strong proponent of teaching *about* religion in the public schools, as long as it's presented as a sociological phenomenon in its proper context, and does not stray into the realm of proselytizing for any one religion. I find it bitterly amusing that the same people who are pushing to get prayer into the schools are the ones who would howl the loudest if it were implemented as, say, a mandatory kneeling down five times a day, facing Mecca and praising Allah. For a Christian, this is clearly beyond the pale, but to an atheist, the difference between that and having to affirm that we are one nation "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance is barely visible to the naked eye.

I like to think that mandatory exposure to the variety of religious thought out there would get people to thinking more broadly about their unexamined assumptions regarding their own religion. But cognitive dissonance is a powerful thing, so that is probably too much to hope for.

In the end, if you believe in the Constitution's protection of freedom of speech, you have to let the nutjobs go ahead with their Koran-burnings. But you should also use that same freedom of speech to oppose it for the bad idea that it is.

I know, I know.............bible, koran........book of mormon.........etc.,they are all fairy tales that cause hate, war, genocide and most all the world's ills.

I have to say though, I am a Navy vet and have a cousin in Iraq and several dear friends in Afghanistan.

I'd like to take that "pastor" in Florida and personally wring his neck, IN PUBLIC!

The whole idea that this jerk and his ilk will completely ignore the fact that our kids/spouses/parents/partners will be put in harms way by his really, really stupid idea is beyond the pale. I truly hate all things that allow people to be this ignorant, especially our eroding education system and the Theocrats who will take all my rights away........

ok, I went off course a little there in the end. I could go on and on

this really cheeses me

Hi and welcome! I understand your feeling a bit lonely. Atheism can be a lonely pursuit (?). At least, that's the way it's been for me. Big thanks to Daniel for creating another meeting place for all of us :-)