That awkward moment when you condemn passages from the Quran, that are actually from the Bible.

Courtesy of The Friendly Atheist:  

A lot of conservative Christians like to argue, as do atheists, that the Qur’an is full of barbarism and misogyny. Unlike the atheists, though, they forget that their own Bible is also full of horrific verses. 

So the Dutch pranksters at Dit Is Normaal ran an experiment. They bought a Bible, but changed the cover to say it’s the Qur’an. Then they asked people to read passages and give their thoughts.

You know as far as pranks go, that was fairly brilliant. 

And of course that is the point that Atheists make over and over again.

These books are FILLED with hateful, violent, misogynistic garbage like that and if you do not live in a relatively progressive society, and instead one that bases its laws and guidelines on the holy book, you are essentially surrounded by barbarism.

Crazy Islamophobic pastor Terry Jones plan to burn 3,000 Qurans on 9-11 stopped after he is arrested on way to book burning.

Courtesy of The Tampa Tribune:  

It wasn't a jihadist or suicide bomber who stopped the Rev. Terry Jones from torching nearly 3,000 Qurans on the 12th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. It was the long arm of the law. 

Jones had planned to burn 2,998 copies of the Muslim holy book – one for each victim of the Sept. 11 attacks -- in Loyce E. Harpe Park, just north of Mulberry at 5 p.m. Wednesday. 

Supporters gathered, but Jones never arrived. 

That's because at 4:58 p.m., the 61-year-old pastor was pulled over by sheriff's deputies a couple of miles away. He was a passenger in a pickup truck driven by Marvin Wayne Sapp, 44, an associate pastor in Jones' Dove World Outreach Center. 

The truck towed a large, smoker-style grill that Jones was going to use as an incinerator. In the smoker were the condemned Qurans.

So while I agree that it is a good idea that Jones be locked up, he still does have freedom of speech, so on what charge did they arrest him?

Some of the books were soaked in kerosene, said Fran Ingram, spokeswoman for the church. The Polk County Sheriff's Office arrested Jones on felony charges of unlawful conveyance of fuel and open display of a firearm. 

The sheriff said dumping kerosene onto the books presented a hazardous situation. “He was potentially driving a bomb around if he had gotten into a crash.”

Hey, works for me. After all they got Al Capone for tax evasion, why not arrest this fruit loop for towing a potentially explosive barbecue?

Personally I think he should be thrown in jail for simply being a douchebag, but I guess there is not law against THAT. At least not yet.

Very interesting, and much more revealing, interview with Reza Aslan, author of "Zealot."

I usually do not post videos that are this long but I did this time because I found this interview to be very interesting in that it explains what Aslan believes about the existence of Jesus, how much of what we think we know about Jesus is accurate, and how he, a scholar who studies religions, can remain an adherent of Islam.

Essentially Aslan is saying that nobody is supposed to take what is written in the Bible literally, including the words attributed to Jesus, but that what was written was supposed to provide a description of what the authors wanted readers to believe went on and describe the kind of man that people already believed Jesus to be.

He essentially says that where modern believers go wrong is in their desire to take what is written in the Bible as literal fact, when in fact it is Gospel truth, in that it is meant to impart a deeper "truth" about who they believed Jesus and other Biblical figures were rather than to paint an accurate picture of who they were and what they said.

Personally I find that explanation fascinating. To me it appears that the first step toward understanding the teachings in the Bible, or Quran, is to simply have faith, and to read them from that perspective, since without faith the books are of no value, either historically or as factual account of the lives of the characters within.

Since I simply cannot get past that first hurdle, my readings of the Bible have left me confused and sorely unimpressed.

Now another thing that Cenk Uygur was able to get out of Aslan, is the answer to a question that has been driving me crazy since I saw his first interview concerning this book.

You see Aslan has essentially destroyed one of my most personally held beliefs about the study of religion. And that is that somebody who REALLY studied religion, and compared them to one another, simply could NOT continue to be a person of faith.

Aslan's answer still leaves me with a lot of question about his faith, but it does answer the question, to some degree, as to how a learned individual could still believe in a supernatural being "beyond the materiel world."

I especially enjoyed this quote "Anyone who says 'I believe in Christianity' or I believe in Islam' misses the point. Christianity and Islam are not 'things to believe' they are signposts to God. They are a means to an end, not an end in and of themselves." 

I don't think this is the way much of Christianity is presented in this country, but it does make some sense.

Of course I still don't find myself compelled to believe any of it, but at least I can respect a learned person wanting to find a way to relate to something that they take on faith alone.

Accepted fact in this country: By nature Islam is the most violent religion. Not so fast Christians!

I have little doubt that you have heard this argument made multiple times. and in fact it raised its ugly head right here just last week.

However as comforting as it is for Christians to believe that THEIR religion is a religion of peace and that the Islamic religion is one of hate and aggression, the facts do not bear that out.

This from the Boston Globe back in 2009:  

Unconsciously, perhaps, many Christians consider Islam to be a kind of dark shadow of their own faith, with the ugly words of the Koran standing in absolute contrast to the scriptures they themselves cherish. In the minds of ordinary Christians - and Jews - the Koran teaches savagery and warfare, while the Bible offers a message of love, forgiveness, and charity. For the prophet Micah, God's commands to his people are summarized in the words "act justly, and love mercy, and walk humbly with your God" (Micah 6:8). Christians recall the words of the dying Jesus: "Father, forgive them: they know not what they do." 

But in terms of ordering violence and bloodshed, any simplistic claim about the superiority of the Bible to the Koran would be wildly wrong. In fact, the Bible overflows with "texts of terror," to borrow a phrase coined by the American theologian Phyllis Trible. The Bible contains far more verses praising or urging bloodshed than does the Koran, and biblical violence is often far more extreme, and marked by more indiscriminate savagery. The Koran often urges believers to fight, yet it also commands that enemies be shown mercy when they surrender. Some frightful portions of the Bible, by contrast, go much further in ordering the total extermination of enemies, of whole families and races - of men, women, and children, and even their livestock, with no quarter granted. One cherished psalm (137) begins with the lovely line, "By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept"; it ends by blessing anyone who would seize Babylon's infants and smash their skulls against the rocks. 

To say that terrorists can find religious texts to justify their acts does not mean that their violence actually grows from those scriptural roots. Indeed, such an assumption itself is based on the crude fundamentalist formulation that everything in a given religion must somehow be authorized in scripture. The difference between the Bible and the Koran is not that one book teaches love while the other proclaims warfare and terrorism, rather it is a matter of how the works are read. Yes, the Koran has been ransacked to supply texts authorizing murder, but so has the Bible.

If Christians or Jews want to point to violent parts of the Koran and suggest that those elements taint the whole religion, they open themselves to the obvious question: what about their own faiths? If the founding text shapes the whole religion, then Judaism and Christianity deserve the utmost condemnation as religions of savagery. Of course, they are no such thing; nor is Islam. 

But the implications run still deeper. All faiths contain within them some elements that are considered disturbing or unacceptable to modern eyes; all must confront the problem of absorbing and reconciling those troubling texts or doctrines. In some cases, religions evolve to the point where the ugly texts so fade into obscurity that ordinary believers scarcely acknowledge their existence, or at least deny them the slightest authority in the modern world. In other cases, the troubling words remain dormant, but can return to life in conditions of extreme stress and conflict. Texts, like people, can live or die. This whole process of forgetting and remembering, of growing beyond the harsh words found in a text, is one of the critical questions that all religions must learn to address.

I have to admit that though I own a Quran I have only read a few pages into it.  (I have been told that reading the Koran in English is tantamount to trying to eat an ice cream cone through a chain link fence. The brutish language makes the beauty within its pages virtually unattainable.)

However I HAVE read the  Bible about one and a half times, and found the experience to be quite a challenge and the primary reason for my atheism. How anybody can read that book and NOT be an Atheist is one of the great mysteries of mankind.

And yes the brutality contained within its pages would give Stephen King himself nightmares. (And in fact it has been suggested that many of his most frightening tales have been inspired by his reading of the Bible.)

I believe that it is factually accurate to suggest, and our blood drenched history bears this out, that IF America were actually to derive its laws, undiluted, from the Bible, we would be the most savage and brutal country on the planet.

It is ONLY because our views are tempered with reason, and our laws are written in a largely secular manner, that we have any justice in this nation whatsoever.

So when Christians look down on Muslims for their violence toward women, or nonbelievers, or Westerners, they really are peering at them from the most fragile of glass houses.

The religious indoctrination of children. For their own good, or a form of child abuse?

I am once again going to refrain from saying anything derisive and simply open up this topic for discussion. 

I do have a few questions however. What exactly is the benefit of a religious based education system? I mean besides the obvious opportunity to misrepresent the facts and proselytize to children at their most vulnerable and trusting?

And do most of you think that it is appropriate to tell children that the stories from the Bible, Torah, or Quran are factual, when the evidence does not support that point of view? Or do you feel that only ONE of these books should be taught as though its contents were factual? And if so, which one, and why?

Quran burning minister pretends to feel shock that his actions resulted in deaths at the hands of Islamic extremists.

From the Daily Beast:

Now Terry Jones is shedding crocodile tears, saying he is "devastated" by the violence, but it was entirely predictable. At the time of the book-burning, he also played sober and solemn, saying: “It is not that we burn the Koran with some type of vindictive motive… We do not even burn it with great pleasure or any pleasure at all. We burn it because we feel a deep obligation to stay with the court system of America. The court system of America does not allow convicted criminals to go free. And that is why we feel obligated to do this.”

This bit of self-delusion deserves extra scrutiny because it captures a strain of extremism we’ve been increasingly seeing: radical action as a reluctant obligation, an expression of fidelity to deeper principles. The fact that Jones is invoking the courts—when his show-trial stunt took place in a near-empty church and the "convicted criminal" is a book—is one sign of the psychosis at work. Bad craziness takes great pains to present itself as misunderstood patriotism these days. Playing the victim card will not be far behind.

But it is a sign of our times that the reverberations of Terry Jones’ brand of crazy can reach across the world and translate to real violence. It is a reason why extremists’ statements cannot be simply ignored in the hopes that they will go away on their own accord.

The fact that Jones’ greatest enablers in terms of getting his message out included the Taliban is also illuminating—extremists encourage each other, they fuel the cycle of incitement and serve as powerful recruiting tools. Islamist radicals want their followers to believe that Jones’ actions are indicative of all Americans, and the Terry Joneses of the world see the murders as evidence of Islam’s inherent violence—hate, ignorance and intolerance begets more of the same. Good people of all faiths and nationalities can get caught in the crossfire between the extremes.

Terry Jones and the Taliban, two extremists sides of the same superstitious coin.

I don't know who is more pathetic.  Jones for expecting us to believe he really had no idea how this might turn out, or the Muslims who jumped through the hoop that he held up for them half a world away.

For those who have been upset with my criticisms of religion, my question in this case is how could I not?

Jones is a member of an Apostolic church that believes war in the Middle East is absolutely necessary to usher in the second coming of Christ, which ALL people of his faith desperately wish to happen during their lifetimes.  On the other hand the Muslim extremists believe that the burning of their holy book proves that Christians are conducting a holy war against them and feel they are justified in taking lives in response.

Both of these very extreme positions are, the protagonists feel, supported by the teachings of their religious faith.  So how can any rational person looking at it from the outside NOT conclude that the fault lies with religion in general, and religious fundamentalism specifically?

Let's face it if religion were taken out of the equation, Terry Jones would have been unable to agitate these Afghans, nor would he have felt compelled to do so.

If I am missing some larger point, please educate me.

Muslims attack and kill 7 UN staff members in Afghanistan in response to burning of the Quran by "Christians" in US.

From Reuters:

Afghans protesting against the burning of a Koran by an obscure U.S. pastor over-ran a United Nations compound on Friday and killed at least seven international staff in the deadliest ever attack on the UN in Afghanistan.

Thousands of demonstrators flooded into the streets after Friday prayers and headed for the UN mission in usually peaceful Mazar-i-Sharif, a city slated as safe enough to be in the vanguard of a crucial security transition.

The governor of Balkh province said insurgents had used the march as cover to attack the compound, in a battle that raged for several hours and raises serious questions about plans to make the city a pilot for security transfer to national forces.

Christian preacher Terry Jones, who after international condemnation last year canceled a plan to burn copies of the Koran, supervised the burning of the book in front of a crowd of about 50 people at a church in Florida on March 20, according to his website.

He told the British Broadcasting Corporation that he did not feel guilty over the deaths in Mazar. "We are not responsible for their actions," Jones said, when asked about the attack.

No, Terry Jones is wrong.  He is ABSOLUTELY responsible for the deaths of those United Nations personnel.  In order to know that all you have to ask is, would they still be alive if he had not orchestrated a burning of the Quran?

Look what the Afghan Muslim's did is reprehensible, and indefensible.  However so are the actions of Jones and his ilk, who did this for the sole purpose of revealing the savagery of a religion that they are competing against. Though they might have achieved their short term goals by infuriating the Afghans into committing murder,  what does it say about them, and THEIR religion, that they knew full well that this might be the outcome of their actions, and did it anyway? How does instigating violence and murder, make you that much better than those who committed the violence and murders?

Killing in the name of religion may seem abhorrent to most Americans, but if they were to really read their own Bible they would quickly learn that it is just as brutal and filled with violent images as the Quran.  Perhaps even more so.

If the laws of the Christian Bible were to actually be implemented here in America we would find ourselves living in a far more repressive environment than the one currently found in many Islamic countries.

Imagine living in a country that upheld these laws:

Any person who curseth his mother or father, must be killed. (Leviticus 20:9)

Anyone who curses or blasphemes God, should be stoned to death by the community. (Leviticus 24:14-16)

If a man has sex with a woman on her period, they are both to be "cut off from their people" (Leviticus 20:18)

If you find out a city worships a different god, destroy the city and kill all of it's inhabitants... even the animals. (Deuteronomy 13:12-15)

Both books were written by primitive people, drowning in superstitious nonsense, who wrote the books specifically to describe the tenets of their faith and in what manner to punish anybody who dared to question the absolute authority of their religion.

What makes America a more sane and hospitable place to live than many other locations in the world, is NOT because the majority of the people are practicing Christians, but rather because we base our rule of law on the ever evolving needs of the people that it serves.

The reason that Afghanistan does not yet enjoy the same progressive atmosphere that we do in the US is because they cannot yet see past their superstitions, and oppressive religious beliefs, to recognize a calmer and more modern point of view.

Instead of demonstrating how respectful Christians can be of other religious beliefs, Terry Jones and Wayne Saap have simply shown the Islamic people of the world that THEIR religion is just as intolerant and hate-filled as the ones they have spent countless Sunday mornings preaching against from their respective pulpits. Here was an opportunity to demonstrate the love and respect inherent in their religion, and they chose to demonstrate the exact opposite instead.