Saturday, April 2, 2011

Book Burning

I agree with Bill Maher on many topics, but there are a few in which our views are at great odds. One of these concerns the religion of Islam. In Maher's view, Muslim jihadists are a natural outgrowth of Islam and that this religion, in general, spawns violence. From my perspective, the conservative or fundamentalist elements of ANY religion are more prone to violence than mainstream or more liberal adherents.

On last night's Real Time program on HBO, Maher discussed the recent killing of 12 people at a UN compound in Afghanistan. The violence was sparked by "the reported burning of a Quran by Florida pastor Terry Jones." Maher opined that only Muslims would get this upset at some lunatic burning a holy book.

I find this assertion to be preposterous! If some American Muslim cleric held an event in which Christian Bibles were burned, does anyone think for a second that there wouldn't be attacks on Muslim individuals around the country? Not only would there be widespread attacks upon persons, but I bet a slew of mosques would be vandalized and/or burned.

If such an event was held in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen or Libya, I wouldn't be the least surprised to learn that US missiles, drones and/or bombs were rained down on the area countryside. We would be told some official-speak story that a suspected terrorist was being targeted, but most everybody would know the real reason.

3 comments:

  1. Only in the major three religions will you find such psychotic individuals. This is my disdain for these faiths. If someone were to burn the Tao Te Ching, you would not find one person freaking out. Our destruction will come from this madness. Its just a f***ing book! A book written about mystical creatures who are just as crazy as their followers

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  2. I would suggest lunacy is more likely evenly distributed across religions.

    Violence in the name of religion appears to be more prevalent in the Abrahamic religions, however.

    I'm not sure what the Taoist equivalent would be for Wahabism, Evangelicalism, or Haredism.

    I'm fairly certain however, that the Tao "smiles knowingly" at those who turn away rather than "scowls disapprovingly".

    In fact, when I type in "taoist" and "terrorist" in google search, I get THIS BLOG!

    LOL

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  3. In light of this discussion, may I recommend a truly wonderful and beautiful film, an old Hong Kong martial arts movie (1979) by King Hu called "Raining in the Mountain." It addresses this topic of "reverence for scripture." Hard to find on DVD, but you can watch it in segments on youtube:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RPmbJEKbJE

    Info here:
    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0192213/

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