Mohammed 'on trial' for his next 'day of judgement'

[Gob]

Despite clear evidence that his actions have led to multiple murders and widespread violence in the Middle East, controversial Florida pastor Terry Jones has vowed to step up his provocative campaign against Islam.

The radical pastor said that he was considering putting Islamic prophet Mohammed 'on trial' for his next 'day of judgement' publicity stunt.



His last, in which he oversaw the burning of a copy of the Koran after a six-hour mock trial, has been directly responsible for a wave of violence that began last night and has left 30 people dead and more than 150 injured.

The defiant stance has led General Petraeus, the head of NATO forces in Afghanistan, to join international condemnation of pastor Jones.

The General urged Afghans to understand only a small number of people had been disrespectful to the Koran and Islam.

He said: 'We condemn, in particular, the action of an individual in the United States who recently burned the Holy Koran.

'We also offer condolences to the families of all those injured and killed in violence which occurred in the wake of the burning of the Holy Koran.'

The call comes after a third day of violence in Afghanistan saw at least ten deaths, 78 injured and at least 17 arrests as protesters clash with security forces in Kandahar.

There were also reports of attempted suicide attacks on a U.S. military base in Kabul, but these were not directly linked to Mr Jones's actions.

The vilified pastor remains unrepentant about his actions, and has even hinted that he will take his provocative stance further.

He said in an interview: 'It is definitely a consideration to stage a trial on the life of Mohammed in the future.'

Such a move would trigger further violent protests in the Muslim world - even in more moderate Islamic states.

But Mr Jones shows no signs of backing down, refusing to admit the violence is his fault, and apparently proud of his actions.

In an interview at his Dove World Outreach Center, the pastor at least admitted that he was saddened by the Afghan attacks - but added that he would burn the Koran again if given the chance.

He told the New York Times: 'It was intended to stir the pot; if you don’t shake the boat, everyone will stay in their complacency.

'Emotionally, it’s not all that easy. People have tried to make us responsible for the people who are killed. It’s unfair and somewhat damaging.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z1IV1N8ZJM

[dgs49]

PLEASE think about this for a moment:

"His last, in which he oversaw the burning of a copy of the Koran after a six-hour mock trial, has been directly responsible for a wave of violence that began last night and has left 30 people dead and more than 150 injured."

This is absolute rubbish. He burned a fucking book. If he had burned a bible or a Book of Mormon, or the sayings of Chairman Mao, or a religious text of any other religion in the world, it would have made a couple people unhappy and that would have been the end of it.

You may recall that OUR TAX DOLLARS were used, a few years ago, to pay an "artist" to display a crucifix - the highest expression of the fundamental article of faith of my religion - in a bottle of urine, and call it "art." Was anybody killed or even assaulted in the aftermath of this religious crime? The "artist" remains at large, and I have no doubt that he is making more money now than he ever would have been had he not targeted the one institution in America that one can target with impunity.

If any kidnapper killed a hostage after the police failed to provide him with a helicopter and a bundle of cash, would any newspaper in the world accuse the POLICE of MURDER? would they write that the police "...were directly responsible for..." the killing of the hostage?

Hardly. The very thought of it is absurd.

We have blatant murders and injuries of innocent people - with more promised as the idea catches on - and the international press is blaming some guy who symbolically burned a book?

Are they out of their fucking minds? "Directly responsible"?

It is reality turned upside down. The real story - without any doubt - is the international Islamic culture of insane, gratuitous violence that the West is too pusillanimous to even acknowledge. Shame on us. It is embarrassing.

[Crackpot]

Someone doesn't know their religion very well.

[Big RR]

the guy is clearly a self promoting asshole, but like Westboro Baptist, I am not going to say he should be prevented from doing this. He should stop on his own, definitely, but he has a right to spew his BS message if he wants. Is he responsible for the foreseeable consequences of what he does; morally I'd say he is. Don't do something you know will rile people up and incite them to violence (however stupid those reactions are) and just say "how can you blame me?" I'm not defending the jerks who commit the acts of violence, but I'm not letting him off the hook either.

And DGS, sure there are a lot of islamic jerks, but they are hardly the only, or even the worst, religious jerks in the world.

[Scooter]

You may recall that OUR TAX DOLLARS were used, a few years ago, to pay an "artist" to display a crucifix - the highest expression of the fundamental article of faith of my religion - in a bottle of urine, and call it "art." Was anybody killed or even assaulted in the aftermath of this religious crime? The "artist" remains at large, and I have no doubt that he is making more money now than he ever would have been had he not targeted the one institution in America that one can target with impunity.

(1) The work in question was not a "crucifix...in a bottle of urine". It was a photograph of a crucifix submerged in what the artist claims to be his own urine. Without having been identified as such, an observer would have no way of knowing what it actually was.

(2) The artist, Andreas Serrano, happens to be a Christian who was not intending to attack religion or any religious institution. The piece was a commentary on what modern society thinks of Christ and the values he put forth. Notwithstanding the medium used to convey it, I believe the message to be one with which many devout Christians would agree.

(3) Although no one was killed, Serrano was the target of several death threats, as were staff at some galleries where the piece was displayed. A showing of it in Melbourne had to be cancelled when vandals attacked it with a hammer because of the danger to other works on display at the time. George Cardinal Pell, then Archbishop of Melbourne, went to court to attempt to block the exhibition entirely.

From any way one looks at it, this example is hardly the one to perpetually flog to demonstrate the alleged "tolerance" that our society has for displays of what it deems to be "offensive".

One can also point to the riots, firebombings, and assaults that were launched against theatregoers at screenings of The Last Temptation of Christ, yet another work of art whose detractors were too simpleminded to understand.

[Big RR]

Or when Rudy Giuliani threatened to retaliate against the Brooklyn Museum if they didn't remove a multi media portrait of Mary (Jesus' mother) that used elephant dung as one medium (and not even the primary one).

I also recall getting screamed at and threatened (mostly metaphysically with burning in hell for ever) when I crossed a picket line to see the movie Hail Mary in the 80s, a movie I'd bet none of the protesters even saw--they were just doing the bidding of someone else.

[Scooter]

That's precisely it, and the furor over Last Temptation is a prime example of that. People were incensed because, they claimed, the film depicted Jesus having sex with Mary Magdalene. Of course, nothing could have been further from the truth. The entire sequence was a fantasy put before Jesus hanging on the cross by Satan, to tempt him with the life he might have had, if he decided not to go through with the crucifixion (hence the title). It was a far more intellectual rendition of the sacrifice Jesus was being called on to make, than the pedestrian blood and guts fest that was The Passion of the Christ, which, in contrast to Last Temptation, was the darling of the fundamentalists because it was a movie which their dull wit could understand.

[Sean]

[Lord Jim]

The Western Press can't be blamed for sensationalizing this one...

Apparently this happened a month ago, and it got virtually no press coverage...

Until our good friend and ally Hamid Karzai, decided to bring it to the fore...

That this so called "Pastor" is a certifiable asshole, (among other certifiable things he may be) is certainly not in dispute....

But that having been said, I have to confess that the "reasoning process" that leads one from, "this meaningless ignorant redneck asshole with 30 followers in Florida burned a Koran" to, "therefore, let's go on a rampage and kill innocent unarmed Nepalese UN volunteers in Afghanistan" is not immediately apparent to me...

I've said it before and I'll say it again...

I don't approve of mocking or insulting anyone's religion....I would prefer that no one do that....

But the folks who think that an insult to their religious beliefs gives them a right to go on a murderous rampage need to grow up...

As a Christian and a Catholic, if I were going to launch into a bloodthirsty rage every time my religion was mocked or insulted, I'd have little time for anything besides rioting....(and at my age, I wouldn't be a particularly effective rioter)

The folks who are so insecure (or testosterone driven...which I believe plays a role in this) about their Faith that they think they have to kill nuns when they perceive an insult from the Pope, or behead cartoonists who draw pictures they find offensive, need to get over themselves.....

They need to jump seven centuries ahead and join the rest of us in the 21st....

The good news is, that there appears to be an awakening going on in much of the Muslim world that wants to do exactly that.

[Scooter]

Until our good friend and ally Hamid Karzai, decided to bring it to the fore...

There's another one who, for a number of reasons, we should be kicking to the curb.

[rubato]

Religious bigots deserve each other.


A further reason that western civilization only improved where religion was taken out of government.



yrs,
rubato

[dgs49]

Like in Russia and the Soviet Union? Cuba? China?

Right. I get it.

[quaddriver]

this guy looks like a jag-off in his pictures, but he does have a point: he should be able to burn books and mohammet dolls in effigy all day long and nothing happens. He might be an asshole but the ones doing the killing are bigger assholes.

[Scooter]

Yeah, because life under the czars and Battista was such a paradise

[MajGenl.Meade]

I saw the Last Temptation of Chris and The Passion. On the whole the first was probably a better and more thoughtful movie. The latter, based on the visions of some obscure nun (and not the Bible though any resemblance was coincidental), omitted the mental and spiritual agony and testing of Christ which, as Scooter pointed out (damn I'm getting sick of agreeing with him ; thank God he'll never know) was an essential element of the first.

Well I guess it's constitutional to burn a flag or a Q'uran in protest, no matter what the consequences. However, that something can be done does not mean that it should be done. Perhaps shouting "fire" in a croweded theatre has some leeway connected to the number of exits or whether the audience is deaf or the movie sound too loud.

But this man is morally responsible for the foreseeable consequences of his action. His burning of the Q'uran serves no other purpose than to incite maniacs to acts of violence; it is an empty protest with no moral redeeming value whatever. He's a killer by proxy. He should be stopped. Perhaps a fatwa or an asswad?

He will be judged by one whose standards are exactly correct and his reward will be exactly what it should be

Meade

[dgs49]

Meade:

"...this man is morally responsible for the foreseeable consequences of his action."

I respectfully disagree. We are each responsible for our own actions, not the over-reactions of evil zealots. If I write and publish an article factually and truthfully chronicling the clear moral depravity of the "Prophet" known as Mohammed, am I responsible for a riot that takes place in Iran?

Odious as he is, "Pastor" Terry Jones makes a valid point. An absurdly disproportionate share of the world's armed conflicts (and all that goes with them) are the "direct" result of the actions of zealots who hold up the Quran as their justification. And until civilized people confront that issue squarely, and demand that more temperate forces within Islam do something to change the situation, it will only get worse.

There are simply too many examples where reasonable and rational acts and communications will lead to predictable violence, and to say that the person undertaking the reasonable and rational acts and communications is responsible for the irrational, evil reaction is simply unacceptable. We must not be intimidated into silence. Which is Jones' point.

[MajGenl.Meade]

dgs49: I respectfully re-disagree.

When the known consequences of a human symbolic act of no value are the death and mutilation of other human beings then it is not counted amongst "reasonable and rational acts and communications". Instead it is an act of provocation which in civil society is a criminal act - causing an affray, incitement to riot and so forth - very unreasonable and not at all rational.

The odious "pastor" may preach and speak as he sees fit- probably no-one would care. What he may not do is wave the bloody flag and step aside from the consequences of his act, sheltering behind the spurious argument that "they did it". Yes they did. But only because he knowingly provoked it. The man should be in jail

To answer your first question, not a bad idea - let's test it and see what happens. I think that numerous books and articles have been published documenting the history of Mohammed and the Q'uran without causing riots. Cartoons of Mohammed and the burning of Q'urans are considered to be heinous acts and provocations where books dealing factually with history are not. In the event your purpose is likely to be academic and historic - the "pastor" Jones effort was intended to be nothing other than publicity-seeking incitement of volatile people

I suggest that burning the Q'uran has exacly the opposite effect on the "temperate forces within Islam" who are increasingly marginalized (toward the extremists) by what is an insult to them as well as to the mob. They remain too polite to burn their local Christian

Meade

[Big RR]

And burning koran is reasonable of rational exactly why? It seems to me an act calculated to piss some people off, not to provoke discussion or understanding. Clearly I believe his legal right to do it is, and should be protected, much as I feel about the actions of the jerks at Westboro baptist; but I am in no way giving him a "pass" on his moral guilt in provoking the reaction (which seems to be his only goal), or in the damage that reaction causes. Clearly the rioting idiots are responsible as well, but he knows damn well what he is doing; indeed, the violent reaction is the only reason he is doing it.

[quaddriver]

And burning koran is reasonable of rational exactly why? It seems to me an act calculated to piss some people off, not to provoke discussion or understanding. Clearly I believe his legal right to do it is, and should be protected, much as I feel about the actions of the jerks at Westboro baptist; but I am in no way giving him a "pass" on his moral guilt in provoking the reaction (which seems to be his only goal), or in the damage that reaction causes. Clearly the rioting idiots are responsible as well, but he knows damn well what he is doing; indeed, the violent reaction is the only reason he is doing it.

I am also going to have to fail to see the connection.

Of greater moral issue is equating the destruction of a book - regardless of origin or content - to large scale murder.

It would never pass as legal defense here, why should it there?

[Big RR]

Legal defense to what? Clearly those who riot are legally guilty for what they do, not the dear reverend. All I am saying is that he is doing this to provoke that reaction, and he shares in the moral guilt of the foreseeable consequences of his actions.

It's like the jerks at Westboro baptist picketing funerals; if the crowd at the funeral gets riled up and beats the shit out of them, they should be held legally liable. But morally, those provoking them share in the guilt.

An for my edification, who is equating the burning of a book to large scale murder?