And Terry Jones wins, by getting exactly what he wants.

[darkstar3]

Everybody's talking about him, so the showman got his reaction. In spades.

Everybody wants to talk about how violent the Muslims are in comparison to other religions. Jones' mock trial and Koran burning showcase the despicable nature of the evangelical faith he has wrapped around himself, but his faith gets validated every time someone says "at least he didn't kill anybody, like those Muslims."

Everybody's hedging about whether what he did should be legal. Americans of varying political stripes are pondering the idea of making blasphemy illegal, regardless of the spirit and letter of the First Amendment. Jones and his followers would certainly love to live in a country where no one could call their religious practices quackery.

I am appalled at how a simple book-burning gambit can pay off so well for a man who, regardless of his success, really isn't that clever. All that was necessary to strip this whackadoodle of the power he sought was to ignore him, and the world just couldn't do it.

"Weep for the future, Na'Toth. Weep for us all."

[midnight]

1. Seperation of church and state....

[darkstar3]

2. A concept I'm all for, but I have no idea what it has to do with what I said above.

[SharonAnn]

16. Actually, free speech is the constitutional definition. His act may have legal but it was stupid.

[Modern_Matthew]

3. Both religions are responsible for a lot of atrocious acts...and I love when they're offended. nt

[catenary]

4. Well, 'getting what he wanted' also proved his point

as uncomfortable as it is for some in the nonMuslim world to appreciate.

[darkstar3]

5. And what point was that?

"Look at me"?

[catenary]

7. No...that fundamentalists are insane.

...
I'm not happy at what he did but I sure as hell will defend his right to do it. That concept seems to be hazy in some quarters these days.

[Name removed]

10. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[davidthegnome]

17. Yes, they are.

and he is a fundamentalist.

I grudgingly defend his right to do as he did, because while it may be protected under the constitution it was still a despicable thing to do. I'm no fan of Christianity, let's say I threatened to burn bibles. However, then many people warned me not to, suggesting that others may be killed by religious fanatics if I do. That would be enough to dissuade me. Though frankly, I'm not for burning any books, so it wouldn't have been necessary to begin with... the point is, these actions have consequences.

Jones is a terrible, disgusting excuse for a human being. He's an absolute pile of puke. I'll defend his right to do as he did, but he's still a demented fundamentalist shithead.

[The Backlash Cometh]

6. I wonder, does this idiot think we need to start a war in the Middle East

so that Terry Jones can continue to burn whatever he likes in the safety of his home in Gainesville? What this tells me is that Jones is an insular socio-path who now has blood on his hands. He knew he was going to set off this chain reaction.

[catenary]

8. Maybe you didn't notice, but we've been in wars in the ME for half a century.

:eyes:

[The Backlash Cometh]

9. And now we're at least 29 people in the hole deeper than where we were.

[devils chaplain]

11. Who?

Everybody's hedging about whether what he did should be legal.

Who's this everybody? I don't see most people are hedging.

Americans of varying political stripes are pondering the idea of making blasphemy illegal, regardless of the spirit and letter of the First Amendment.

Who?

Jones certainly got what he wanted, and he's an evil man. But every time I hear rumblings of this being illegal I want to have a weenie roast over copies of the Koran, the Bible, the Book of Mormon, Dianetics, and maybe Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion" for an extra chuckle.

[darkstar3]

13. You're telling me you haven't seen anyone

debating whether Jones' actions should be legal?

Have we been reading the same board?

[devils chaplain]

14. "Making blasphemy illegal"

Who?

[darkstar3]

15. Oh FFS. Obtuseness gets old way too fast.

Making it illegal to practice an act of free speech due to the backlash that will likely come from a religious group is the very definition of making blasphemy illegal. More than one post has suggested this just today. Either you are ignoring them, or you are being obtuse for no reason I care to uncover.

Bye now.

[PurityOfEssence]

12. Well, ya gotta say: they surely did step up to the occasion, didn't they?

Religions are not equal, and they should be dealt with for what they are.

Many of us do not feel that religions are inherently "good" and deserve to be given that aristocratic immunity. To many of us, they are nothing more than groups of people with a social code and an assumption about things we cannot directly see. As such, they are no better or worse than a bridge club. The demand that they be accepted as such is an evocation of privilege, and many of us don't like that.

Beyond that, the problem with most organized religions is that they get people to accept things without proof, reinforce xenophobia and put themselves above criticism. They often demand the ultimate allegiance, superseding civil law.

Having said all that, I must tack back to one of my principal points, with which I started this post: some religions suck much more than others. This particular religion inculcates a much more anti-social violence and domination fixation among its FUNDAMENTALISTS than the other major ones. It is much less tolerant of others, much more demanding of the right to dominate and resolute in its right to never encounter any dispute or ridicule. It is a deeply anti-cosmopolitan mindset, which is skew with the concept of pluralism that many of us hold so dear.

He's an asshole, and his version of a not very "good" religion is especially creepy, but those people from that other religion he was trying to demonstrate a point about sure as hell proved his point, didn't they?

Any group that tolerates extremists of this stripe has problems and deserves to hear them.

Once again, remember: this is yet another sequence of related uglinesses that didn't involve agnostics...

[mn9driver]

18. Christian fundies vs Islamic fundies

If they want to square off and have at each other, it's fine with me.

I just wish they'd leave everyone else out of it.

[JoeyT]

19. K&R

There's like a dozen threads now about this, even here. Tons of news coverage: So much that you'd think he was a celebrity that got jacked up on coke and punched an orphan at a charity dinner. He got exactly what he wanted. Now his next stunt will be twice as stupid and ten times as loud.

[spanone]

20. he can shove his notoriety and his religion up his despicable ass

he doesn't win shit.

[JustAnotherGen]

21. You are right

He's getting a ton of publicity for this. . . now when someone in the U.S. retaliates against him directly - he can suck it up. Right now, an Islam Fundie somewhere in America is gearing up to get the Christian Fundie. It's only a matter of time. I hope all they do is show up at this guys church this morning with a bunch of bibles and set them on fire.

[lunatica]

22. Jones knew what would happen and it did

so how is he innocent of what happened?

I refuse to defend any of them.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

23. I think it highly unlikely this is the case.

While I'm no more a mind-reader than the OP is, I think it far more likely that Jones regarded the risk of violence as a price worth paying for sticking two fingers up at Islam than that he actually wanted to get people killed.