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[scriver]

Wtf? Didn't they learn anything from when the whole world raged against them? Not even a little clue?

[Rilder]

Well I suppose they aren't burning actual Muslims so they may have progressed a -little- from the 11th century.   

[RedKing]

Wtf? Didn't they learn anything from when the whole world raged against them? Not even a little clue?

Yes, they learned that "Wow...that many people paid attention to a pissant little holy-roller church for just TALKING about burning a Koran, I bet we'll be on ALL the talk shows if we actually do it!"

Srsly God? If you're up there, you need to pimp-slap your boy Terry Jones but hard.

[Virex]

You know, people burning the Quaran after a hoax trial is all stupid and things but I'm more appalled by the mob of Afghans who responded by brutally mascaraing 8 UN employees...

[RedKing]

That would be because Americans have a disconnect from the rest of the world. In the 20th century, we've gotten so used to not taking shit seriously (really, this is a defining American trait IMHO) that we forget that there are still large swathes of the world that do take shit seriously.

[scriver]

You know, people burning the Quaran after a hoax trial is all stupid and things but I'm more appalled by the mob of Afghans who responded by brutally mascaraing 8 UN employees...

Yeah, because worse things happening somewhere else definitely excuses their intolerance and stupid behaviour. Especially if the commiters of the worse crime can somehow be consider "the other side" by those of the lesser one, because then it is totally justified, right?

[Phmcw]

Well, what are you waiting form the Afghans? Why the hell did you deploy troops on the ground, that whole region is ideologically booby trapped, designed to be a resistance field against USSR.
On the other hand  didn't expect anything else than koran burning from Americans fundamentalists, so I guess his whole deal is just  business as usual. Stupid people doing stupid things.

The fundamentalis, while idiots, were in their right, though, unlike the killers.

[Virex]

You know, people burning the Quaran after a hoax trial is all stupid and things but I'm more appalled by the mob of Afghans who responded by brutally mascaraing 8 UN employees...

Yeah, because worse things happening somewhere else definitely excuses their intolerance and stupid behaviour. Especially if the commiters of the worse crime can somehow be consider "the other side" by those of the lesser one, because then it is totally justified, right?

A book is just a book, but an UN employee is a human being (excluding some corner cases). I fail to see how someone who could rage about a book being burned could even think of ignoring an eightfold murder, yet the whole discussion here is about the book, not about the other (in my eyes more important, but apparently I'm the only one) victims. I never said burning a Quaran could be justified, only that there seems to be a disproportional amount of attention to the inanimate victim as compared to the once living beings.

[dragonshardz]

Yay, hate crimes and relentless intolerance!

Makes me ashamed to call myself a Christian, it does. It's shit like this that makes the rest of the world look at you funny when you say that you are a follower of the religious movement that believes this random Jewish carpenter is the son of God...

...Well, they look at you funnier, like you're gonna kill 'em, instead of looking at you like you're a bit off.

I just love how people use a book whose basic message boils down to "Love and tolerate everyone, no matter how much you dislike them" to justify hate and intolerance.

Because persecuting people who have literally done nothing to you except follow a different religion is TOTALLY love and tolerance.

[userpay]

Stuff like this is why I'm agnostic, also suits my personality of neutrality pretty well. At any rate I can see both sides of the story, on one hand its just a book (not sure if burning it was a right persay though) but on the other for some its the word of God and should be treated with respect. As RedKing said most of us Americans don't take this kind of stuff seriously.

[Willfor]

Well, what are you waiting form the Afghans? Why the hell did you deploy troops on the ground, that whole region is ideologically booby trapped, designed to be a resistance field against USSR.
On the other hand  didn't expect anything else than koran burning from Americans fundamentalists, so I guess his whole deal is just  business as usual. Stupid people doing stupid things.

The fundamentalis, while idiots, were in their right, though, unlike the killers.

No, they were not in their right. There was controversy because everyone knew this was going to happen. The church that burned the Qu'ran was told that something like this would definitely happen if they were to go through with it, and that put their fingers on the trigger as much as the people who actually did the shooting.

In my book, Terry Jones is on the hook for anything that comes of this, not to the exclusion of anyone else, but to the inclusion. He is as responsible for it as they are, having been given clear warnings from everyone to Sarah Palin that this was a bad idea from the get go.

[RedKing]

You know, people burning the Quaran after a hoax trial is all stupid and things but I'm more appalled by the mob of Afghans who responded by brutally mascaraing 8 UN employees...

Yeah, because worse things happening somewhere else definitely excuses their intolerance and stupid behaviour. Especially if the commiters of the worse crime can somehow be consider "the other side" by those of the lesser one, because then it is totally justified, right?

A book is just a book, but an UN employee is a human being (excluding some corner cases). I fail to see how someone who could rage about a book being burned could even think of ignoring an eightfold murder, yet the whole discussion here is about the book, not about the other (in my eyes more important, but apparently I'm the only one) victims. I never said burning a Quaran could be justified, only that there seems to be a disproportional amount of attention to the inanimate victim as compared to the once living beings.

There were also 5 Afghans dead and 20 wounded. From all accounts, it started out as a peaceful protest, much like the dozens of OTHER protests in Afghanistan that didn't turn into riots. Then shit got out of control. That can happen when you've a got a large group of really pissed off people taking out their aggression against a convenient target. I don't think anybody here is going, "Yeah! Bust the shit out of those oppressive UN bastards!"

I mean, it's the UN. It's like beating up a Canadian. But to them, it's "the West". The Koran burning is getting the bulk of the attention because it's the proximate trigger. It's not as if the Afghans (well, the non-Taliban Afghans) regularly attack the UN.

By way of analogy, if you climb into a corral with a bull and wave a red flag and then get curb-stomped by said bull, should the focus of the attention be, "Wow, that bull is a real menace and should be put down," or is it going to be, "Wow...that was pretty fu*cking stupid. What did you THINK what happen?" One of the big arugments against burning the Koran in the first place, besides the fact that it's just idiotic, is that it was a provocation and almost certainly liable to lead to an incident just like this. Which is probably why Pastor Jones did it, so that he can say, "Look! See how vicious these people are??"

It's a dick move. It's like poking someone in class with your pencil over and over so that they turn around and hit you and then THEY get in trouble.

[scriver]

A book is just a book, but an UN employee is a human being (excluding some corner cases). I fail to see how someone who could rage about a book being burned could even think of ignoring an eightfold murder, yet the whole discussion here is about the book, not about the other (in my eyes more important, but apparently I'm the only one) victims. I never said burning a Quaran could be justified, only that there seems to be a disproportional amount of attention to the inanimate victim as compared to the once living beings.

First of all, it's not just a book, it is a symbol of their faith. If it didn't have any symbolic value, those Christians wouldn't have had any reason to burn it, and the Afghanistani guys wouldn't have been offended enough to kill. Do not try to cheapen it's value by saying it's "just a book", as it obviously is not - you might as well write those eight UN workers of as "just animals" or "piles of carbon". They are more than that, in both cases, and we both know it.

Secondly, however, I will admit to not reading the link in the OP, and I had no idea there was people killed. And when you brought it up just now, I did not see the "responded" and thought it was some completely unrelated event. As you probably can understand, that puts your post in a rather different light.

I was going to put a "thirdly" here before I went to eat, but now I have forgotten what it was. Anyway, lastly, I mostly agree with you. And maybe you are right that the attention is disproportionate distributed. But let's not forget that those Christian fundamentalist and their childish, idiotic behaviour are also part of what caused those deaths. Hate begets hate, violence begets violence, and all that. And one of those causes are very much closer to home than the other.

[dragonshardz]

By way of analogy, if you climb into a corral with a bull and wave a red flag and then get curb-stomped by said bull, should the focus of the attention be, "Wow, that bull is a real menace and should be put down," or is it going to be, "Wow...that was pretty fu*cking stupid. What did you THINK what happen?" One of the big arguments against burning the Koran in the first place, besides the fact that it's just idiotic, is that it was a provocation and almost certainly liable to lead to an incident just like this. Which is probably why Pastor Jones did it, so that he can say, "Look! See how vicious these people are??"

It's a dick move. It's like poking someone in class with your pencil over and over so that they turn around and hit you and then THEY get in trouble.

The problem, RedKing, is that the first reaction is ten times more prevalent in American society than the second. For some reason, the majority of the populace refuses to accept that their actions ever result in negative consequences.

[Phmcw]

Yup, totally dickish move from the pastor's side, but let's say that the other side doesn't deserve sympathy.
As far as I'm concerned, you can still burn any symbol you want, but you are not allowed to kill.

So as I say, stupid people do stupid things, innocents die and nothing new under the sun.
Oh yeah, and gtfo Afganistan asap.