How do you feel about the whole Koran burning thing?

Stjernkvist · Nov 24, 2010

RipleyCountyChristian said:
I agree that some churches are just trying to go along with the culture of the day, they are turning scripture into whatever humanity wants it to be.."Christianity Lite"..if you get what I mean

Exactly what I tried to say!

HarborOrange · Nov 29, 2010

Stjernkvist said:
Exactly what I tried to say!

Definitely, and that's why I wanted to see them go out of their way to burn it, just so they wouldn't try to fit in like all the churches try to do nowadays.

Girder of Loins · Dec 6, 2010

solarwave said:
To burn Qurans makes us no better then them and just gives us more reason to think we are evil. Trying to show we are better isn't the way, living in love is the way and that means love for those we think are wrong.

I am going to have to agree with you on this one. We are known as hypocrites, liars, extortionists, intolerant, and evil. When we come to this world saying Jesus is a loving God, then go and disgrace another religion by burning their holy book, we are saying their beliefs mean nothing to us. While I don't believe in their beliefs, I do believe in them as people. And they have grown up in a Muslim world(most of them), it has become part of their person. You can slowly take that out of them and fill it with God, but you don't rip it out of them. You let it slide off so they feel comfortable with the transition. You don't tear it off with pliers and expect them to accept God. That is the WORST WAY to do that! I hate it when Christians do stuff like this. They try to be "radical for Jesus!" and screw with the rest of us who are trying to change the world's views on the Church. I'm not letting the Muslim's stomp all over me, I will stand up for my faith. But I will obey the Golden Rule and not trample over theirs.

Truffle · Dec 26, 2010

Wrong. It starts a true hate within groups of people.

HarborOrange · Dec 26, 2010

Truffle said:
Wrong. It starts a true hate within groups of people.

What do you mean? The hate's already there in most cases.

Dharma Wheel · Dec 26, 2010

I thought it was a horrible thing to do and was a despicable act of cruelty. I bet most Christians would be up in arms if a Muslim wanted to burn Bibles. Either you agree with people burning all the books they find ''offensive or you don't. If you agree and think they should burn Qurans, tehn you should be OK with them burnbing the Bible. You cannot have it both ways.

Also book-burning was done before...in NAZI Germany, and remineds of this quote by the great Heinrich Heine;

"That was but a prelude; where they burn books, they will ultimately burn people also."

HarborOrange · Dec 26, 2010

Dharma Wheel said:
I sort it was a horrible thing to do and was a despicable act of cruelty. I bet most Christians would be up in arms if a Muslim wanted to burn Bibles. Either you agree with people burning all the books they find ''offensive or you don't. If you agree and think they should burn Qurans, tehn you should be OK with them burnbing the Bible. You cannot have it both ways.

Also book-burning was done before...in NAZI Germany, and remineds of this quote by the great Heinrich Heine;

"That was but a prelude; where they burn books, they will ultimately burn people also."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Heine

Yeah, they already burn Bibles... So your point's pretty invalid.

Dharma Wheel · Dec 27, 2010

HarborOrange said:
Yeah, they already burn Bibles... So your point's pretty invalid.

Not really. It doesn't matter whether they do it or not, the fact is that Christians think it is wrong.

And, is it revenge? What happened to turning the other cheek?

I think Gandhi-ji said it best with ''an eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind''.

Asvin · Dec 27, 2010

Muslims shouldn't burn Bibles and Christians shouldn't burn Qurans.. Also, no religion should be permitted to burn another religion's sacred book because, despite claims to the contrary, they will definitely provoke someone to act in a violent way!

LswaN · Dec 27, 2010

Agreed. We are supposed to reach the world with love and kindness, not disrespect.

coreydstone · Jan 1, 2011

They have freedom of speech, but it was a disgusting act. It offended thus widening the rift been Christians and Muslims. How many that could have been saved because of recent progress will not be now because of the offensive act. Before you do something, whether you think it's for God or not, I urge you to ask if the act will directly or indirectly bring people to Christ, glorify God, or prepare you in some way to do the aforementioned.

~Peace & Blessings

HarborOrange · Jan 1, 2011

coreydstone said:
They have freedom of speech, but it was a disgusting act. It offended thus widening the rift been Christians and Muslims. How many that could have been saved because of recent progress will not be now because of the offensive act. Before you do something, whether you think it's for God or not, I urge you to ask if the act will directly or indirectly bring people to Christ, glorify God, or prepare you in some way to do the aforementioned.

~Peace & Blessings

Burning the Koran would have glorified him. You must not understand how much G-d is against Islam... It's basically the rival religion of Christianity and Judaism. I mean, I can't see how anyone could make the rift between these religions wider. I mean, Muslims want us all dead, I don't understand how it could be any worse if a few people in a church decided to burn the Koran. After all, what are Muslims doing at the moment? That's right, they're bombing churches in Egypt, killing Christians. I think if they're able to do that, we should be able to burn the Koran if we deem it right. I'm for it actually. Allah is not the same as YHWH. For Allah is, traditionally, the moon god. When does the moon come out? At night. Night is darkness. Therefore, Allah is darkness. If the book of Islam promotes the killing of the Infidels (you and I.) Then I think it's a book that should be burned.

solarwave · Jan 1, 2011

HarborOrange said:
Burning the Koran would have glorified him.

Would it?

You must not understand how much G-d is against Islam... It's basically the rival religion of Christianity and Judaism. I mean, I can't see how anyone could make the rift between these religions wider.

The Islam of the average muslim is more like Christianity than the 'islam' terrorists follow.

I mean, Muslims want us all dead, I don't understand how it could be any worse if a few people in a church decided to burn the Koran.

Muslims don't want us dead, terrorists do. Burning the Koran would just give some people more of a reason to take an extremist view against the west.

After all, what are Muslims doing at the moment? That's right, they're bombing churches in Egypt, killing Christians. I think if they're able to do that, we should be able to burn the Koran if we deem it right. I'm for it actually.

Most are trying to live good lives like us. They may be able to bomb people, but it doesn't mean they should, in the same way that we can burn the Koran, but it doesn't mean we should.

Allah is not the same as YHWH. For Allah is, traditionally, the moon god. When does the moon come out? At night. Night is darkness. Therefore, Allah is darkness. If the book of Islam promotes the killing of the Infidels (you and I.) Then I think it's a book that should be burned.

If Christ is called the bright morning star does the same apply to Him? Doesn't Allah just mean God?

I see why you are against Islam so much, I guess you think it is of the devil, but there are many good people in all major religions.

solarwave · Jan 3, 2011

alew said:
Youve missed a major point here. I wonder if youve actually ever read the Koran? It is filled with passages telling the believer to actively seek out the non-believer and destroy him. It is Islamic sin to not actively seek out and destroy the infidels. You talk of the Islamic terrorists like they are an exception. This is simply not true. The average Muslim, especially in the Islamic countries, is far more religious than the average Christian in the western world. Even the moderate Muslim believes that they must convert or destroy every non-believer. But the simple fact is, the more one believes in their religion, the more violent they will be. Cant you see the obvious solution here?

I havn't read the Koran, and even if it has verses like that I don't really mind. The Old Testament has things in it we would consider wrong but Christians and even Jews who only have the Old Testament have risen above it. It really depends how you understand a 'Holy' book.

To just say 'the Bible/Koran says this, therefore this' is probably not the best way to understand God. Deeper thought it needed.

If it is true that moderate muslims believe they should convert or kill people it doesn't mean that overrides their morality. I used to believe lots of things I would consider untrue now, but I think that when it came to actually living out life I tended to live what I considered a good life and leave behind my worse beliefs. Perhaps this is true of moderate muslims. I dunno.

As above, this is completely wrong.

Bit of a generalization?

Correct, but actually they have all they need simply because you are not a Muslim.

Well I hope that in the future Islam in general will become more liberal.

Again, you are referring to good as you see it. But yes, according to the standards of morals that the human race tends to accept universally outside of religion, there certainly are good people in all religions. But generally, they are not good BECAUSE of their religion, but in spite of it.

I know, how wrong of me to talk as if there is an objective morality

There are many good atheists so of course it is something you can be without religion. I would say there is more foundation for it in religion though.

HarborOrange · Jan 3, 2011

alew said:
Perhaps, in that case, you should read the Koran and understand at least something of Islam before you go making statements about its followers.

So what you are saying is that you should just pick the bits from your text that you think are good and go with those and ignore the bad bits. How do you decide what is good and what is not? Is the Bible not the infallible word of the Lord? The simple fact that there are so many denominations of almost every faith suggests that no one can really agree on which bits you should take literally and which you should not. Who is right?

Either you believe your text or you do not. To cherry pick is not an acceptable way to follow it. It is also not acceptable to change your interpretation of a verse simply because it does not fall in line with your current views.

It absolutely does. These "terrorists" that you are talking about believe 100% that they will be martyred and go to heaven to enjoy eternal bliss with 72 virgins. There is no way they would commit suicide attacks on non-believers if they did not believe this (or something similar). They purely and simply believe that what they are doing is for the greater good and is a moral act. To them, it is wholly immoral to be a Christian or a Jew or Hindu or an atheist or anything other than a Muslim. To suggest that their morality has no basis on their religion is not only false, but it undermines the religion itself which I would suspect you would not accept if it were said against Christianity.

And how did you decide what was a good life and what was not? Sounds like you are suggesting that you managed this outside of what the Bible told you.

I'm also not suggesting that all Muslims are terrorists. There are undoubtedly Muslims that do not want to kill all infidels. However, these are those who are less religious, it is impossible to be a very religious Muslim without following its scripture (by definition). The problem is that these "moderates" are harbouring the terrorists by keeping the religion alive.

Not at all. Terrorists almost invariably are acting out in the word of their God or religion or other "infallible leader" ideology.

So what you are saying is that you hope in general that Muslims will believe less and less of what their book tells them? I completely agree, you are suggesting that we would be better off if the members of a religion did not actually believe in it and kept their beliefs to themselves. You are coming around to my way of thinking!

Not wrong per se, but you are clearly misguided as to where that morality comes from.

How can you possibly say that when there are overwhelming examples of people committing unthinkable crimes based on the "morality" of their faith? From a 21st century view, these people were "bad" people because our ideas of right and wrong have changed dramatically throughout history. As recently as the mid 20th century, people were still keeping slaves and this was considered acceptable. The Bible itself tells you so on many occasions. Who are you to suggest that the Bible was wrong?

I actually must agree with everything you have said here. The main problem I have with the Christian and Jewish faith is the fact that they pick parts out of the Bible that they like and that are easy to accept... It's all still applicable, you can't just choose what you want to hear. If you want to believe something, you have to believe it whole-heartedly.

MissElizabeth · Jan 3, 2011

this is an interseting debate. i dont really have an opinion yet.... its hard to tell what would have been the best thing to do under the circumstances. but i do think what alew is saying is very true. i, personally couldnt trust a muslim (based on his religion) as far as i could throw him.

solarwave · Jan 3, 2011

alew said:
Perhaps, in that case, you should read the Koran and understand at least something of Islam before you go making statements about its followers.

I'm just going by what I heard. Even if I read the Koran it would be wrong to judge the religion just on that anyway.

So what you are saying is that you should just pick the bits from your text that you think are good and go with those and ignore the bad bits. How do you decide what is good and what is not? Is the Bible not the infallible word of the Lord? The simple fact that there are so many denominations of almost every faith suggests that no one can really agree on which bits you should take literally and which you should not. Who is right?

I have only come to the current view I have of the Bible recently so I don't have any solid answers yet, but I would say understanding God and the Bible is a process. So you learn a little bit and try and use that to learn more. So no I don't think the Bible is infallible (I could be wrong) but things can be learnt from it.

Either you believe your text or you do not. To cherry pick is not an acceptable way to follow it. It is also not acceptable to change your interpretation of a verse simply because it does not fall in line with your current views.

I follow God, not the Bible. The Bible is only a tool used for that.

It absolutely does. These "terrorists" that you are talking about believe 100% that they will be martyred and go to heaven to enjoy eternal bliss with 72 virgins. There is no way they would commit suicide attacks on non-believers if they did not believe this (or something similar). They purely and simply believe that what they are doing is for the greater good and is a moral act. To them, it is wholly immoral to be a Christian or a Jew or Hindu or an atheist or anything other than a Muslim. To suggest that their morality has no basis on their religion is not only false, but it undermines the religion itself which I would suspect you would not accept if it were said against Christianity.

Ok maybe I'm wrong

And how did you decide what was a good life and what was not? Sounds like you are suggesting that you managed this outside of what the Bible told you.

I suppose I started to see life differently. Also I would like to think I started to understand the spirit of the law rather than just the letter of the law in the Bible. The former is more important than the latter.

So what you are saying is that you hope in general that Muslims will believe less and less of what their book tells them? I completely agree, you are suggesting that we would be better off if the members of a religion did not actually believe in it and kept their beliefs to themselves. You are coming around to my way of thinking!

Yeah, I suppose so, for them to be more rational and loving.

Not wrong per se, but you are clearly misguided as to where that morality comes from.

I don't think morality was created or choosen by the way.

How can you possibly say that when there are overwhelming examples of people committing unthinkable crimes based on the "morality" of their faith? From a 21st century view, these people were "bad" people because our ideas of right and wrong have changed dramatically throughout history. As recently as the mid 20th century, people were still keeping slaves and this was considered acceptable. The Bible itself tells you so on many occasions. Who are you to suggest that the Bible was wrong?

Who are you to say God isn't real

If I am wrong it is on my head, people don't have to agree with me.

When I said foundation of morality I don't mean the content of morality has to come from religion, but religion seems to give a better reason to think morality is real. It gives objective value to humans and the universe.

HarborOrange said:
I actually must agree with everything you have said here. The main problem I have with the Christian and Jewish faith is the fact that they pick parts out of the Bible that they like and that are easy to accept... It's all still applicable, you can't just choose what you want to hear. If you want to believe something, you have to believe it whole-heartedly.

Well thats good to know, I'm normally the one more likely to agree with atheists.

I believe in God not the Bible. The Bible is good in my opinion, but Jesus is the Word of God not the Bible.

Am allowed to say that if you are going to be religious you have to believe everything in religion (all religions)?

solarwave · Jan 4, 2011

alew said:
I suggested that you read it and also understand the religion. Of course you cannot judge them purely by their text, but you also cannot understand them WITHOUT reading the text.

Well one day I hope to understand some/most of the major religions much better, but currently I only have time to research a few things at a time.

So at any point in time you are not yet fully versed with the way God is and what he wants of you. So how do you know that you are not completely wrong about everything so far because you are missing that vital piece of understanding which changes your view and understanding of everything else youve read?

All I can do is do my best to understand. Its not as if there is any other subject area where everything is understood and where new vital information might be found.

Again you seem to think that you can just go and change your interpretation of the bible whenever it suits you and any time you do something wrong, you claim it is because of your misunderstanding of the bible. You cannot just blame someone else for your errors. You must stand up and be counted like the rest of us.

I do try to be reasonable in my understanding of God and the Bible and I do listen to the points of other people.

Am I blaming someone else for my errors? Stand up and be counted? What has that got to do with this?

I would say the same about Christians and indeed of all faiths. Christianity has been the cause of just as much hatred and terror in the past as Islam has been.

I would agree and say the same thing to the non-religious too.

So how do you define it?

Like the laws of logic perhaps morality is just something that is naturally true and unchangable. I would say what is good is what is loving. Then again I don't expect to be able to fully answer the question when many people have spent their whole lives asking what is good.

This is the problem. Its not just on your head, but the heads of everyone that continues to keep alive the faith in an outdated idealism that causes conflict and suffering. You may be a liberal Christian that does only good things, but by feeding the church with money and support, you are also supporting the fundamentalists of your faith who will stop at nothing to bring on the return of Christ by destroying the world.

I don't think I am supporting fundementalist, more like the opposite. I don't really see how any of this is true to be honest.

solarwave · Jan 4, 2011

alew said:
A good attitude, but you must not make statements about other religions when you clearly do not understand anything about them. That's all I'm saying.

Yeah, better off I let Christians express their hate for other religions and give each other a better reason to fight.

My original point in this thread is that burning Korans does no good and isn't loving. I tried to reply to any other points that were brought up.

Do you think you know enough about Christianity to speak about it?

No, quite, but Christianity (and in fact most religions) claim to know all the answers so either you align with this or you reject the religion. You cannot possibly know all the answers, so the religion MUST be wrong.

I don't think any religion has ever claimed to have all the answers. People or books might have, but some havn't claimed that.

I don't get why you need to understand God at all, what benefit does this bring you? What do you need to understand?

I think it gives a better understanding of reality, and a foundation for morality and purpose in life, to speak of some things.

Ok, maybe out of place, but, ultimately you will blame God for making you how you are, for making you fallible. Those who do things in the name of God that turn out to be totally immoral will accuse God of telling them to do it through the scriptures. Religion is a way of absolving responsibility from yourself.

Even though Christianity tend to tell people to repent of wrongs they have done and then change their ways for the better? Of course we are all influenced by things outside of our control, but alot of what we do is our own choice too.

Perhaps you can enlighten me with an example of when a non-religious person has done a terrible thing because he is not religious?

I wouldn't say you tend to do things because of a lack of belief. But some of the scientists in nazi germany did terrible things because there is no scientific basis for morality.

In my opinion ignorance is better than immorality, or in less moral terms, is better than horribly harming and killing innocent people. Of course I think that truth and goodness are very close though.

Morality is subjective and relative. You cannot have something that is good and something that is bad, you can only have something that is better or worse than something else. What was morally acceptable 500 years ago is not necessarily what is morally acceptable today and is unlikely to be the same in 500 years time. It really depends on what the majority find is the most desirable way to live at any one time that dictates the morality of that time.

Why can't you have something that is good or bad? Peoples perception of morality changes, but does that mean morality changes? The generally accepted philosophical worldview changes, but this doesn't mean there isn't some absolute truth about what reality is really like.

You may not think you are supporting it but indirectly you are. By supporting the Church you are giving the Church protection against the state, even promoting support from the state (which is hugely immoral in itself) and consequently giving freedoms and protection to those extremists that are fighting bloody wars around the globe. If there were no protection of religion by the powerful countries of the world, then we would be better placed to crack down on terrorism caused by religious extremists.

I may support it to some extent, but I think more good is done by the church in general than evil done by fundementalists.

Girder of Loins · Jan 7, 2011

HarborOrange said:
I actually must agree with everything you have said here. The main problem I have with the Christian and Jewish faith is the fact that they pick parts out of the Bible that they like and that are easy to accept... It's all still applicable, you can't just choose what you want to hear. If you want to believe something, you have to believe it whole-heartedly.

" But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either." -Luke 6:27-29

It is written in the Old Law, and confirmed by Jesus that in order to have eternal life, we need to love our neighbors. Who are our neighbors? The Parable of the Good Samaritan. Background on it is needed to fully grasp what the parable is about. A bloodied man who was beaten up or even had a cut on him was considered "unclean" to touch. This didn't hold much weight on normal Jews, but to a priest or religious official, it was bad to do, unless necessary.
The priest that comes up and goes away in this parable probably came back from a ceremonial cleansing that took weeks long to do. So when he comes up to the bloodied man, he dare not touch him lest he has to go through the ceromony again.
The Levite doesn't want to help because Levites were more conservative and the "no touchy of the bloody" rule applied to all.
The Samaritan comes. A Samaritan was the scum of the earth to Jews. They were cross-breeds of Jews and Gentiles, and were considered "unholy" to touch. It would require a sacrifice for cleansing if you did. They were hated by the Jews. So much that Jews, to get to Judea from Jerusalem(and visa-versa), would take a very long road around Samaria so they wouldn't have to enter Samaria. And now a Samaritan is helping this dude. Does he care about social standing? No, he takes care of the Jew. Does he care if this man hates him? No, he helps him. So Jesus calls a Samaritan the neighbor. So what does this mean?
This means that everyone is a neighbor, right down to the worst of the worst. Now you may bring up the end which says that the "man who showed mercy" constitutes a neighbor. But He was making a point that everyone, right down to the "bad of the bad" is capable of doing good. Hope this settles this debate. Burning a Qu'aran is a slap in the face to muslims, and is not loving to our neighbors. Neighbors=everyone(including Muslims!). Who is taking apart the Bible now?

How do you feel about the whole Koran burning thing?

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