Good on President Obama for apologizing for this.
President Barack Obama apologized to Afghan President Hamid Karzai for the burning of Qurans by NATO troops, calling the act “inadvertent” and “an error,” Karzai’s office and National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor said Thursday.
“We will take the appropriate steps to avoid any recurrence, including holding accountable those responsible,” Obama said in the letter, which was delivered by Ryan Crocker, U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan.
Afghanistan has erupted in violent demonstrations since the troops’ burning of the Islamic religious material at the beginning of the week.
Two American troops were killed Thursday by a man wearing an Afghan National Army uniform, a U.S. official said, asking not to be named discussing casualties.
The gunman is thought to have been acting in conjunction with a protest taking place outside the base, the official said.
And really, everyone on the other side of the aisle wouldn’t have bothered if it had happened under a Republican. We never would have heard about it, most likely.
Open thread.
redshirt
HE APOLOGIZED FOR AMERICA!!!
What are the odds the Repukes run with this one? 98%
The Other Bob
I am fine with the apology, but damn, it is a book made of paper people. Get over it.*
*This statement should be applied when people burn the Quran, Bible, the Adventures of Tinkerbelle or any other book.
Suffern ACE
Science has given me one less thing to worry about. It’s all over in 500 million years anyway when the age of animals comes to an end. But it’s good to know it won’t be over in 100,000 years. I take comfort where I can get it.
Arclite
OMG! The President apologized! Reagan would never have done that! WHY is the POTUS so weak??!? What has happened to our great country??? The POTUS apologized to a Muslim so he must be Muslim too!!!
– I channel Red State so you don’t have to go there.
Spaghetti Lee
APOLOGIST! WEAK-KNEED APPEASER CHAMBERLAIN DHIMMICRAT ARGHLE BLARGH BLARGH POOP.
@The Other Bob:
I get what you’re saying, but you can disagree with the idea of religion and still not be a prick. Burning them was a completely prickish, pointless act on the part of the soldiers. There’s no need to piss people off for no reason. I’d also add that burning books as a political statement has a sort of, um, long and storied history.
Arclite
@redshirt: Goddammit, red shirt beat me to it.
PeakVT
If DougJ takes a break from his research into the bar stool mathematics of southeast New England, he may want to take note that this man is blaspheming his god.
Amanda in the South Bay
@Spaghetti Lee:
Unless you’re pissing off Catholics by calling them rapists and pedophiles who like sticking their cocks in pre-pubescent kids mouths, then you can be a front pager!!
I assume we’ll all start a boycott of Richard Dawkins for being a prick?
Linnaeus
@Spaghetti Lee:
“Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen.” – Heinrich Heine
(“Where they burn books, they will end in burning human beings.”)
scav
@Suffern ACE: Women get pissed enough, I wouldn’t be worrying about the attacks of the tiny Ys — big XXs can handle rusty farm implements.
@Spaghetti Lee: And ditto on the F451 basic attack on information / knowledge end of the book burning, over and above the insult to beliefs other than their own.
c u n d gulag
Somewhere in Florida, in that backwater, stip-mall Christian Church for the Inbred, that Yosemite Sam look-alike Minister is twitching – jonesing to burn a Quran, like them furrin’ NATO One-World Government troops.
If they can burn ’em, why can’t he?
Martin
@redshirt:
Sounds low to me.
@The Other Bob: You’re not married, are you? “Get over it” might be the worst 3 words a person can ever utter to someone who’s offended.
Spaghetti Lee
@Amanda in the South Bay:
I’m afraid I’m missing the reference.
Svensker
Troops burn the Quran and piss on Afghan corpses. Then you come back to the States and police departments and the FBI have rabid anti-Muslims giving training on Islam.
Seems to me there’s a basic problem (aside from the US killing lots of Muslims for random stupid reasons, of course) about basic respect for Islam and Muslim people. Obama can apologize all he wants but the basic problem remains untouched.
Until the likes of Frank Gaffney are as radioactive as David Duke, we’ll still have this problem.
Egg Berry
@The Other Bob:
DIE INFIDEL!
The Other Bob
@Spaghetti Lee:
I don’t think the soldiers did it as a political statement. When the burning is a political statement, get pissed about the statement.
Assuming the soldiers are to be believed, without the politics or hate, it is just paper burning.
Amanda in the South Bay
@Spaghetti Lee:
DougJ and mistermix continually bashing the Catholic Church. I just wish more people would criticize religions other than Christianity.
LGRooney
I don’t care about the politics on this one. Yes, Obama did the right thing and, yes, Obama will be hammered by the GOP for this (what else is new?).
I simply think it will do no good. I don’t know whether desecration of the Koran is forbidden (whether formally or traditionally) or just seen as some form of disrespect. The religious tits have their dander up and nothing will appease them, even if we handed over the individuals who did this to the Taliban for public execution.
The religious PR-men have roiled the masses sufficiently that there is no recourse. It plays well in political halls overseas because they understand these realities but it will not play well within the zealot’s mind or that of the crazed opposition to this president in this country. It will be seen as CYA by the former and appeasement by the latter.
Better to get out on the stump and attack the GOP for blithering idiocy and prepare the briefing books on Christie, Bush, or whomever else is mentioned as a GOP (aren’t they always) white knight. I think it’s a real possibility and they want to wait until the last minute to not allow the build up of sufficient deficiency within the public’s collective opinion and ride the wave of incredible excitement this would bring through Sept. and Oct.
lamh35
Worst. Surrogates. Ever.
By Steve Benen
Spaghetti Lee
@Amanda in the South Bay:
I do agree that some of the very legitimate bashing of people using religion as a shield to hoard political power and exploit others crosses over into bashing religious people in general a bit too often.
McWaffle
Any chance we’ll get a matching apology from Karzai for all the violence? Or are we just letting that slide as excusable?
I agree that burning them was a mistake, but only on practical grounds, not moral/ethical ones.
And for all the Fahrenheit 451 references: Come on. Seriously, disposing of a few books is not the same as if they had hunted down all the copies in the country and destroyed them systematically. There’s no moral imperitive to preserve EVERY INDIVIDUAL book. I’m betting these were “destroyed” in the exact same way they “destroyed” everything that got thrown out.
Linnaeus
@The Other Bob:
But that’s an important distinction to make. The context matters.
Violet
Has there been a lot of blowback along the lines of “HE APOLOGIZED FOR AMERICA!” on wingnut blogs? I heard about this on a morning news show and haven’t seen or heard anything about it. I did catch a few minutes of Limbaugh’s show while in the car and he was defending Santorum and complaining about Rand/Romney conspiring together. So no “OMG THE KENYAN SOSHULIST USURPER APOLOGIZED FOR AMERICA”.
Benjamin Franklin
The wingerz don’t comprehend how much more socially evolved we are compared to the MOOOOOOslims, so they are shitting themselves over this.
I think Karzai should apologize for not having decent roads in Afghanistan.
lamh35
@Violet</a
Conspiracy! Rivals Accuse Romney And Paul Of Collusion
LGRooney
@Egg Berry: Infidel because of the Frenchified spelling? Sheesh, so sensitive.
Thomas
@Spaghetti Lee: Sorry. Savagery is savagery, regardless of the religion. One often gets the sense here that the only religion worthy of mockery is organized Christianity and its denominations. No one here likely has a problem with Prof. PZ Myers soliciting someone to procure a consecrated Eucharistic host for him so that he can dispose of it. That’s praiseworthy “satire” of Roman Catholicism. On the other hand, Muslims are members of the Great Brown Oppressed Other™. They should be spared undue scrutiny. Indeed they should be conciliated, even when THEY KILL PEOPLE OVER CARTOONS AND BOOK BURNINGS. Islam is a savage and filthy religion; it and its followers should be endlessly derided, just as in the case of other zealots.
The Other Bob
@Martin:
I am married. Your point is taken.
lamh35
@Violet:
Oh and I know this is usually the response when asked about the VP question, but this quote today after some have been alluding to a “bro-mance” between Romney and Paul takes new context right?
Rand Paul: ‘It Would Be An Honor’ To Be Romney’s VP Pick
Paul in KY
@The Other Bob: They were taken from a prison library. Just thinking about Afganistan & libraries, wonder what the odds are that a Quran would be in an Afgani library?
pragmatism
@c u n d gulag: everyone loves a good race to the bottom.
scav
@Amanda in the South Bay: When did the entire concept of an institutionalized conspiracy fall out of your brain space?
Furthermore yeah, sure there’re some damn fine bits of Christianity in theory, I’m just not seeing them enough in active use at the moment. Admiring some bits of Judaism doesn’t make me a blind supporter of any and all current Israeli administrations. Same goes for the Koran and the Taliban. Atheists span the prick to saint scale, no question. So whoop. I’ll admire religion in general (rather than in bits and in individual moral people I meet) more when it’s not being used as a national and explicit cudgel to beat people into the ground.
Precious Roy
The appropriate steps to avoid any recurrence start with kicking the dust of that shithole off our boots and getting the fuck out.
Paul in KY
@Amanda in the South Bay: I thought we criticized them all.
What about those pastafarian weirdos that worship the Flying Spagetti Monster? What a bunch of maroons. Everyone knows gnonchi is the only sentinent & holy wheat product!
Culture of Truth
I realize the troops under tremendous stress, but we’ve been there 10 years. Not-burning Korans hasn’t become reflexive yet?
scav
@Paul in KY: Heretic! Potato-based or nothing!
lamh35
just saw this story on TPM about Marco Rubio spending time as a Mormon during his boyhood years.
Even though I think it would be a mistake for Rubio to tie himself to the Romney ticket, with this type of information trickling in, it’s beginning to make me wonder if Rubio and his people ain’t just stupid enough to actually be on the ticket in 2012.
Like I said, I think it’s would be a mistake, but meh, I don’t care one way or the other, I think in some ways I’m one of the few people who don’t believe that Rubio on the ticket does much in terms of helping Romney or GOP draw in Latino votes and I get that info from my Latino friends who’ve said that just cause Rubio is Latino doesn’t really guarantee Latino support they’ve all said that Puerto Rican or different than Cubans, and Cubans are different than Mexicans and Mexicans are different than Dominincans and so on and so on.
Anyway, here the TPM link about Rubio once being a Mormon youth:
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entries/marco-rubio-spent-youth-as-mormon
Then again I’ve read elsewhere today that Rubio’s camp thinks this may be damaging to their candidate and they are “spinning” it to make it less so. (http://www.buzzfeed.com/mckaycoppins/exclusive-marco-rubios-mormon-roots)
I’m not sure how it’s damaging though?
Violet
@lamh35:
I know it’s just FYWP that turned the R in parentheses (R for Republican) into the R in a circle like a registered trademark, but somehow that’s incredibly fitting for all those Congresscritters. They’re their own businesses, aren’t they?
pragmatism
@Amanda in the South Bay: since high broderism works so well in political contexts, let’s apply it to religion! will you volunteer to keep score, amanda?
Soonergrunt
@Amanda in the South Bay: There’s not a whole lot of Islamic leadership making issues that affect civil affairs in this country.
Ash Can
@Violet: According to the commenters at Little Green Footballs, Pamela Gellar has already flipped her shit over it (surprise, surprise).
Culture of Truth
Unlikely. Perhaps they’re hoping we’ll get offended and leave.
Brachiator
@Svensker:
Which basic problem is that, aside from the fact that you have wingnuts and assorted conservative jingoists both inside and outside the government lettng their bigot flags fly?
@Violet:
I can’t bring myself to look at any of these blogs, but I would not be surprised to find this apology mixed in with the standard “Obama is weak, bows to Muslims, is a secret Muslim” nonsense that these people continually spew.
I note in passing however, the sad irony that extreme Islam demands to be respected even as it disrepects other faiths.
Paul in KY
@McWaffle: Probably (hopefully) not malicious, but Muslims believe the Quran is the ‘sacred & literal words of God’ (like God put Muhammed in a trance & just used his body to pen it out). Real Muslims may correct me here.
The Bible is believed to be the divinely inspired writings of men. Open to interpretation & maybe flawed in places due to the fact that men wrote it.
Apples & cinder blocks.
Violet
@lamh35:
Yeah, it’s kind of interesting, isn’t it? I bet Ron Paul is trying to help Romney and also help Rand (who probably needs some help since he’s not the brightest bulb). I’m sure there have been behind-the-scenes discussions about a spot for Rand in a Romney administration.
Martin
CRA and black people are responsible for the housing bubble because they’re too black and too stupid to know how much they can afford and because they’re black. Blackety!
Fucking poor black people were buying multi-million dollar mansions!
bourbaki
Seriously you are not even trying anymore are you:
Bush apology for Koran shooting
cmorenc
Actually, as scathingly low as my regard for George W. Bush is, the accidental Koran burning incident is the one sort of thing I’m certain he would have attempted to make some sort of public apology for, though I’m not so sure he would have done so in a way that didn’t clumsily step on as many Afghan/Muslim sensibilities as it attempted to heal. The reason he would have is that e.g. unlike the Abu Ghirab prisoner abuses or the general prosecution of the war itself, there would be no valid US strategic, political, or military interest threatened by admitting and apologizing for an accidental screwup, even from the perspective of the Bush White House. Bush also did think of himself as not harboring any anti-Muslim sentiments, and eager to project and maintain that impression across the Muslim world, even though as we all know the actions of his Administration too often stomped recklessly all over any good intentions that may have mixed into his motivations. Many sociopaths do nevertheless retain a curious residue of selective conscience about a few matters.
Soonergrunt
@Culture of Truth: It wasn’t about anything other than destroying some waste materials to them.
These are Korans that had been taken out of circulation from the prison library because the detainees had been writing notes to each other in them (Note the lack of demonstrating about the defacement of a Koran).
There was no intent to do anything other than destroy some waste.
It certainly should’ve been done better or differently, though. The Korans were thrown in the regular trash, which is apparently handled by local contractors and that is how it was discovered. They should’ve been placed into the classified trash and burned with the classified materials that no non-US personnel are allowed to handle. Sensitivity needs to be integrated into mission operations at all levels.
Paul in KY
@lamh35: I don’t think Senator Rand Paul is going to want to be Secretary of Housing. Maybe Sec of Defense, because then he’d be in charge of all the seamen.
Amir Khalid
@The Other Bob:
It might very well have been that, and only that, to non-Muslim NATO troops. But the troops needed to be aware of Afghans’ religious and cultural sensitivities so as not to endanger their mission, never mind their lives. It makes me wonder whether these sensitivities were addressed, in their pre-deployment training and/or in the NATO chain of command in Afghanistan.
Jay in Oregon
Hat tip to Atrios, who pointed out that some people have a funny idea of what being “grateful” means.
http://www.philly.com/philly/business/20120223_ap_farmersfuriousafteriraqstopsbuyingusrice.html
gene108
Are Koran’s not clearly marked?
Are they those hard cover books that have a glossy cover, but nothing much on the binding, so that if you lose the book cover, you’d need to open it in order to find what the book is?
There was an incident about Koran’s getting flushed down the toilet in GITMO years ago that sparked off disastrous riots.
You’d think there’d be a big notice to troops to not flush, burn or in any material way defame or deface a copy of the Koran.
redshirt
@Violet: If there hasn’t yet, just a matter of time. Talking Points Central must not have distributed today’s HATE POINTS to Rush and Drudge and the rest of the mouthpieces.
arguingwithsignposts
@Paul in KY:
Depends on who you talk to. There are many evangelical fundies who believe the writers were little more than amanuensises.
Jay in Oregon
@Brachiator:
That’s not exclusive to extremist Muslims.
Witness the Catholic cardinals and the “Our religious liberty to force our beliefs on non-believers is being infringed!” shit show we’ve all been subjected to recently.
McWaffle
@Paul in KY: I don’t remember comparing burning Korans to burning Bibles, so I’m not sure exactly what you’re calling me out on. I know full well the importance of the Koran to Muslims, that’s why I agree the troops made a mistake in burning it. I just don’t think it was a moral or ethical mistake, just a practical one. It was a bad idea to do something that they should have known would cause an irrationally violent response. I don’t care if you believe the book ITSELF was God, it’s a f’in book and you don’t get to murder people if it gets destroyed.
Catsy
@Amanda in the South Bay: Bashing the Catholic Church != calling all Catholics rapists et al.
See, if I had ever noticed any of the front-pagers calling all Catholics rapists and pedophiles who like etc etc the way you complained about in your first post, I would agree that you were making a good point. Because that would be pretty shitty, and about as acceptable as calling all Muslims terrorists.
Except they don’t. I see a whole lot of bashing of the Catholic Church, yes–bashing that is absolutely one hundred percent justified. The Catholic Church is full of either child molesters or people who help cover up for child molesters. The Church as an institution is a malignant source of some of the worst medievalism in the world, and deserves to be destroyed.
The closest I’ve seen to this kind of generalization about Catholics is the suggestion that money they contribute to the Church hierarchy goes to helping protect pedophiles.
Which–aside from donations directly to your local small-c church–happens to be true, and is in any event not at all the same as saying that all Catholics are rapists and pedophiles.
Bashing of Catholics as people, not so much.
It is not to your benefit to conflate the Church with individual Catholics if you are a lay Catholic who does not feel the Church’s crimes are representative of your faith.
redshirt
@c u n d gulag:
If that wackjob gets back in the game, boy would I love to see a counter burning of Bibles right across the street.
FREEDOM, right?
Culture of Truth
I know. That’s the point. Nevertheless it’s now an international incident.
So we agree.
lamh35
@Soonergrunt:
Sensitivity is the key issue, IMHO. That’s was the Obama “apology” had “inadvertent” and “an error” as qualifier I think.
The analogy I’d use it that I work at a hospital and one of the things we do is shred all paper documents that have sensitive and non-sensitive patient information in them on site and in most cases we incinerate all of the shredded remains in house to ensure that no sensitive info that while harmless could be obtained and cause way more trouble for the hospital than needed.
cmorenc
@Violet:
Actually, Rand is exhibit #A for why the sort of high-achieving academic/analytic intelligence that gained him entry into (and successful completion of) such a highly selective medical school as Duke, nonetheless is no guarantee of sensible social or economic intelligence. I come from a family of doctors (father, wife, daughter) and have witnessed this firsthand through personal interactions with their physician friends and colleagues over my whole life; the same people who can often be brilliant physicians within their specialties can often be wacko cranks of all types across the spectrum in their political and social views. This also carries across to physicians’ economic intelligence as investors; physicians are notorious for having no better investment judgment than average people, but their frequency tendency toward arrogant self-regard as the smartest people in any room coupled with more often having extra money to invest frequently leads them into amateurishly poor investment decisions.
Rand Paul isn’t a complete dumbshit, but he is where it comes to politics and social judgment.
slag
What if these people on the government payroll were just expressing their religious freedom with this book burning? And then what if the people retaliating for said expression of religious freedom were just expressing their religious freedom by rioting and killing some folk? Who do we root for then?
Mac from Oregon
According to the current crop of GOP fanatics, “If God did not want us to kill, piss on, and burn the holy books of Islam, why did he make so many of them?”
Continental Op
Crazy Pam doesn’t much like all that apology stuff
.
trollhattan
Tell me, again, why rubes are anti-contraception?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/police-stepmother-grandmother-charged-in-death-of-9-year-old-ala-girl-forced-to-run-3-hours/2012/02/22/gIQAnOQCUR_story.html
I think we need more, not less.
trollhattan
@cmorenc:
Isn’t it the case Rand had to invent his own board in order to become board-certified? Strike another blow against the nanny state!
Continental Op
Crazy Pam doesn’t much like all that apology stuff
Paul in KY
@efgoldman: Why hasn’t Amanda in South Bay slagged me yet? I have commited the abomination of slandering a religion.
BenA
@slag: We drink more vodka and try not to think about what kind of world our kids are born into… And people wonder why atheists can be bitter.
Brachiator
@Jay in Oregon: RE:
I note in passing however, the sad irony that extreme Islam demands to be respected even as it disrepects other faiths.
Stop it. Just stop it. The Taliban were primitive, evil thugs in Afghanistan. Extremist Muslims are at it again in the Maldives.
i note that one of the people decrying this desecration is also Muslim.
And then, of course, you have extremists in Pakistan who murdered a government official because, for extremists, moderation equals blasphemy.
I note that American Xtrianists are becoming their own kind of Taliban, but they still have a way to go.
Frank
@Amanda in the South Bay:
I’ll quote Gandhi as a response:
“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
In other words, nobody is criticizing Christianity. It is the extremists that have hijacked Christianity that are being criticized.
kerFuFFler
@arguingwithsignposts: The tricky plural form of amanuensis is amanuenses. (I guess it’s from Latin or something.)
dedc79
Not surprisingly, Faux News saw it as an opportunity to support Romney’s claim that Obama apologizes for everything
Culture of Truth
Freed them to choose to pay what they want, no?
4tehlulz
@lamh35: Rand 4 VP
Catsy
@Amanda in the South Bay: Forgot to add:
Wish away. Here’s the problem: as far as religions go, Christianity is the biggest threat that is relevant to Americans. Islam, Hinduism, Wicca–pick any other; it’s not even close.
It is tempting to suggest that we should pay more attention to Islam. The right certainly thinks so. And pound for pound, a suicide bomber who blows himself up in the middle of a crowd of civilians (and the institution that enables him) arguably does far more harm than a priest who is a serial child molester (and the institution that enables him). And it’s not as if Islamic theology is any less silly or anti-woman than most other magic-sky-father religions.
But we are fortunate that terrorists are not a typical day to day concern for most Americans. Nor are Americans–aside from the fringe right–particularly concerned about the threat of theocratic Muslims enacting laws in America to enforce their beliefs on others. To whatever extent that an Islamic theocracy is any kind of valid concern for Americans, it is an issue where there is really no benefit to getting bent out of shape about it politically–it’s not as if fundamentalist Islam has any kind of significant natural constituency in this country.
But the Christian right is very powerful in America–and the Catholic Chuch is among the most powerful sects. It is powerful enough to be able to shield most of the criminals in its ranks from prosecution, influential enough to get away with shuffling pedophiles around in a knowing, willful conspiracy to conceal their crimes in a way that exposes more children to harm. Politicians openly campaign on platforms promising to enforce their twisted versions of Christianity on nonbelievers, lawmakers openly author and pass legislation aimed at codifying those beliefs as law. Moreover, vocal criticism of this kind of Christianity and its toxic effects on democracy and human rights actually has some value in America–some chance of pushing back against this tide of theocracy.
There is a world of very good reasons why the overwhelming majority of the criticism of religions is directed at Christianity in general and the Catholic Church in particular.
Paul in KY
@arguingwithsignposts: I’m a Methodist (or I was raised one, pretty much agnostic/atheist now). I don’t give a shit what any ‘fundamentalist’ dingbat says. I was giving the ‘mainline’ Protestant/Catholic view on the Bible.
I think both interations of Christianity have those same views & both would feel the evangelical’s views are wrong/heresy by heretics, etc.
rikryah
this was the right thing to do.
Paul in KY
@McWaffle: I was just trying to edumicate you on how the Muslims feel about individual copies of the Quran. It is alot different than how we feel about individual copies of the Bible.
Wasn’t trying to offend you.
Pococurante
I wonder if they toasted up some tasty thick-slice bacon over that fire.
wrb
@Amanda in the South Bay:
There is some curious Protestant bashing by Catholics that occurs here. It usually in the form of equating non-Catholic fundies with “Protestants” (as if Unitarians are building Mega Churches) or in claiming that “Protestants” have this need to rule other faith politically, regardless of the fact that the American traditions of freedom of conscience and separation of church and state were Protestant innovations, and are under attack by Catholic theologians.
Catholic sense of persecution seems particularly odd in light of the make up of the Supreme Court.
Satanicpanic
I don’t think we should be antagonizing ordinary Afghanis, and I support Obama’s apology. But I also still holding a grudge against the people of Afghanistan for not preventing the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas, which to me was the worst case of cultural vandalism since the Chinese Cultural Revolution so I kind of feel like they should shut the hell up about a few books. I know this isn’t terribly liberal of me.
gene108
@Frank:
Most people are very unfamiliar with faiths they aren’t raised in and what is good/bad about those faiths.
Since this country is overwhelming Christian and/or an atheists parents, grandparents, etc. will most likely have been Christian, the Christian tradition and its flaws is what gets bashed in America, when people get into the specifics of what they don’t like about religion and/or why they are atheists.
Anyway, I’ve found on liberal blogs that there’s a strong group of atheists, who like to put down religion, both in general and with their specific gripes about their Christian upbringing.
When religion is brought up, as the Catholic Church did with the birth-control issue, whatever detente exists about people keeping their views to themselves goes out the windows and the atheists feel an open invitation to take a swipe at religions.
wrb
@Satanicpanic:
The loss of the Iraqi National Museum, containing much of the history of the Fertile Crescent was a far greater loos. It was looted after the fall of Baghdad as the American concentrated on securing the oil ministry.
middlewest
It’s amazing how crybaby Christians whine about how oppressed and offended they are all the time when the fundamental superstition of their religion is that people who don’t worship the same invisible man they do deserve to get set on fire forever.
scav
@gene108: Quick roll call: is everyone critical of religion on this thread an atheist? Hands? Or have we got some inter-religion bashing going on as well, because GSD, that has never been observed before on this spinning planet.
Paul in KY
@efgoldman: Oh. OK, then.
Svensker
@Brachiator:
That is the basic problem — and the fact that no one except some lefty blogs will call the bigots out on their bigotry. Helen Thomas and Pat Buchanan were fired for their racist remarks — Jennifer Rubin, et al, are still gainfully employed and respected.
Southern Beale
I found this little 30 second clip of Bill Maher talking about legislating ultrasound tests from last year and I thought his point was very apt.
And now I’m back to work …
Frank
@gene108:
Well, it is kind of hard to blame them, isn’t it, when they overreach as they did in Virginia? The selective use of the bible to force the government to run people’s lives – what do you think Jesus would think today if he saw what was happening in Virginia? Those without sin…
Again, I go back up to what Gandhi stated and I can’t argue with him. And I am a Christian myself.
Brachiator
@wrb:
It’s not about which was the greater loss. It’s about a deliberate policy to obliterate history and to terrorize religious minorities.
@scav:
I think religion is stupid. On the other hand, I think most stuff that most people believe is stupid. But people have a right to their beliefs, no matter how stupid. This goes double for wiccans and people who are proud of how “spiritual” they are. And don’t get me started on people who think that the Grateful Dead were a great band.
Democratic Nihilist, Keeper Of Party Purity
@Jay in Oregon: Poor confused fucker. We freed Iraq from:
1. A 20th century secular society
2. Drinkable water
3. Electricity
4. Law and order (albeit not the kind I’d like living under)
5. Employment of any kind
6. Roads
7. Not having to worry about terrorists
I find the number of people who thought pre-war Iraq to be some medieval mud-walled hellhole to be depressingly high.
If China came in here, destroyed all the infrastructure and killed all our leaders, occupied the country for ten years while stealing everything of value out of it, and then left only because the people were sick and tired of them shooting everybody, I’ll bet that Mr. Stoesser would not be exhorting his fellow citizens to show the Chinese some gratitude.
Oh yeah: free market, bitches.
scav
@Brachiator: We’re certainly agreed on the stupidity measure. Sometimes it’s charming, usually it’s innocuous and sometimes it’s downright dangerous. People can lick all the hot stoves they want — have at it, — they just can’t drag others along with them. The holier than thous that get up my nose are the vocal vegans. No idea why as I’m not a devout carnivore but am of the omnivorous persuasion.
Satanicpanic
@wrb: I know some of the artifacts have been recovered, and looting turned out to be not nearly as bad as was initially reported. And there’s something morally different, to me, between not adequetely protecting some artifacts during a war (which I assume is hard to do) and lining up tanks and blasting statues because you don’t like them. It’s not like America was aiming missiles at the museum. YMMV.
Mnemosyne
@Soonergrunt:
Yep — it was a very stupid mistake that could have been avoided with a little forethought. I do find it a little frightening that we’ve been there for over a decade and we still have Americans making really basic mistakes like this one.
And I don’t think that any country that has fatal riots over sports victories can really get on its high horse about how foolish people are to riot over their religion being disrespected.
Catsy
@gene108:
While I don’t really agree with the tone and framing of this, I think there is some essential truth there.
Most religions I regard as delusional and magical thinking at best, mental illness and psychological abuse at worst. The death cult fetishism of the story of Jesus’ persecution and resurrection is particularly horrifying, as is much of the associated imagery (really? the symbol of your religion is a barbaric instrument of torture and execution that was used to murder the person you claim as your savior? how fucked up is that?). The whole magic-sky-father thing I just find utterly baffling in its primitive silliness and human-centric hubris. And don’t even get me started on that fraudulent, mistranslated, internally-contradictory work of historical fiction called the Bible. I think the world will be much better off in some distant future where humanity and society evolve past the emotional need for this variety of self-delusion and regard religion overall in much the same way that we now look at flat-earthers.
Christians reading that paragraph were probably pretty offended. I don’t make a habit of going on like that, and generally when I see, e.g. someone on my Facebook friends or Flickr contacts posting something about their faith, I just skip over it. Each person’s beliefs are their own business, and it’s very personal to them. Their beliefs are not relevant to me and I may think they’re absurd and silly, but it’s boorish to butt into their virtual space and start spewing unsolicited mockery of their religion, regardless of what I think of that religion. Live and let live.
But when adherents of those religions start trying to abuse the law and political processes in order to impose their beliefs on others who don’t share them, yes: by injecting their beliefs into secular politics and using them as justification for laws that affect everyone, they have made those ridiculous beliefs and their toxic effects on society fair game to examine and criticize.
Svensker
@Satanicpanic:
Baloney. The Americans were given information that they needed to protect sensitive historic and archeological sites and they did bupkis. Why? Because Bush and the stupid neo-con scum didn’t care at all about priceless cultural artifacts.
And entire library with thousands of untranslated ancient texts was lost. And the museum lost thousands of small items — like untranslated cylinder seals. A terrible loss. Go visit the UofChi Oriental Institute website and see how they feel about the losses.
Bush and the cadres that took over Iraq were/are barbarians with no respect for scholarship, learning, culture, or anything sublime at all. They committed war crimes…but also crimes against humanity.
McWaffle
@Paul in KY: Fair enough. I was trying to direct that at the people in this thread (and I guess by proxy the people who made the same point all over during the whole Koran-burning-preacher-in-Florida thing) that took completely secular offense at the burning of even a single book. There’s a pretty significant difference between burning ONE book and burning many books as a way of intentionally limiting people’s access to information.
Suffern ACE
@Mnemosyne: Actually I can lecture people all I want. Sure, diplomacy requires that the President apologize. There weren’t riots. We did something. Riots then were all around. And diplomacy requires one not to say “I’m sorry your countrymen are a bunch of rioting fools. I’m glad I don’t live there and we won’t have keep covering your lousy, corrupt ass much longer.”
Non-diplomacy is much more fun.
gene108
@Catsy:
Interesting world view on the problems facing America.
Was Christianity a threat to this country, when Southern black ministers led the Civil Rights movement?
There’s a desire to paint with a broad brush about religion, especially by folks, who no longer want to associate with any particular faith.
noodler
Concur, and also, too, recall that we were treated to a few unsavory posts about Mary on Christmas Day around these parts.
FormerSwingVoter
@gene108:
Yes, yes, your fee-fees are hurt. That’s nice.
I’ll make you a deal – once the Catholic Church stops insisting that social conservativism is more important to their faith than the entire combined teachings of Christ, I’ll stop demanding a complete and total end to their political power. Until that day, fuck the Catholic Church.
Seriously, fuck them. I know plenty of Catholics. Almost all of them are really good people. And I’m sorry that when you hear about how twisted and insane the Church is that your brain changes it into “Catholics are bad people” – but I will continue to insult the Church as long as their leaders are consistently terrible human beings.
This isn’t hard. The Catholic Church is often treated badly because they deserve it.
Thomas
@Catsy: Your comment is the logical response one would hear to cries of “double standard.” But I’m not sure you have proven your point sufficiently. Several times each year for the past several years, Muslim residents of this country (citizens and non citizens alike) have been arrested for planning large-scale attacks on domestic targets. They have quite evidently sought to kill hundreds, if not thousands, of people. Even if you adopt the Greenwaldian line that most (if not all) of these suspects have been entrapped by law enforcement, this is a troubling — and recurring — phenomenon that is simply not replicated in either quantity or quality within other religions or political movements in the US.
If these men were all Roman Catholic, there would be far more of an outcry in these parts of the interwebs than the forced hush one senses every time the newspapers report (yet again) another man with an Arabic-sounding name has been arrested for planning mass murder. But, alas, these men tend to have skin of a dusky hue, and are indeed often immigrants, so they by definition are Oppressed™ and have Valid Complaints™ against this country.
In short, the claims of militant Islam on this country do in fact raise “day to day concerns” for Americans of every stripe.
Mnemosyne
@Suffern ACE:
Sure, lecture people all you want about how silly it is for them to riot in defense of the Koran, but realize that you look awfully foolish insisting that rioting over a holy book is stupid but rioting because your sports team won is A-OK and a sign of civilization.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
It’s not really a high horse. Riots over sports and religion are both stupid. I can understand the need for discretion and sensitivity over the burning of religious texts, while noting the primitivism behind the rioting, especially since extremist Muslims insist that their religion be respected while throttling others.
@Svensker:
I would agree with you had US forces done the actual looting. The stupidity and short sightedness of the Bush Administration here just does not compare with deliberate acts of religious and cultural desecration.
Jay B.
Did he add “sorry about the whole 10 years of bombing you and killing 1,000s of civilians” part?
We live in a very weird world. Massacring people indiscriminately is less offensive to some than defacing a book.
Frank
@gene108:
Surely you are not comparing the Southern black ministers to what the Christians did in the Virginia legislature and governor’s office?
gene108
@Catsy:
Then why do atheists do yoga?
The point of Yoga, whether Bhakti-yoga, Karma-yoga, or Bikram-yoga, is to attain a level of spiritual enlightenment.
Same goes for various Zen/Buddhist meditation techniques.
So what would a “devout” atheist do to find calm, without tramping over to religious activities? Yoga, meditation, and even deep breathing have spiritual roots.
I don’t look at flat-earthers, prior to Columbus/Magellan, as delusional. They made assumptions based on the information in front of them.
I don’t know why people have religions, but every society has developed religions about powers greater than us. Maybe billions of humans over the past several tens of thousands of years aren’t wrong.
WaterGirl
@Martin: Yep. And I think “calm down” is two worst two-word phrase you can say to someone when they are upset. Both phrases are like pouring gasoline onto a fire.
Mnemosyne
@Thomas:
Ahem. The Hutarees would like a word with you. Not to mention James von Brunn, Richard Poplawski, Jim Adkisson, Andrew Stack, Jared Loughner, etc. etc. And that’s not even bringing in people from further back like Timothy McVeigh and Eric Rudolph.
We have plenty of terrorists in the US who want to kill lots and lots of Americans. You just seem to forget all about them when they turn out to be white men. Funny, that.
Satanicpanic
@Svensker: @Svensker: I’m not trying to defend Bush, his cronies or his disastrous war on Iraq and it’s just my personal belief that being lazy, sloppy or unconcerned is a little less bad than willfully doing something. Something about the Bamiyan statues’ destruction touched me personally so I rank it higher, but I’m don’t want to turn the thread into VH1 100 Worse Incidents of Human Inflicted Destruction of Art/History.
gene108
@Frank:
Why not? Christians are Christians, right? They’re all bad.
If you want to paint Christianities influence on America as universally negative and the biggest threat facing America today, I think you also have to figure out where the Civil Rights movement fits in with your world view, for example.
Rev. King was a Christian. Many people, who participated and led the Civil Rights movement were Church leaders, like Rev. King or practicing Christians.
President Carter was the first evangelical President ever elected. His faith pushed him into the whole Habitat for Humanity thing.
I merely wish to know how people, who deride religion as an overwhelmingly bad influence feel about instances, where Christians pushed for bettering this country.
I prefer a more nuanced view towards religion and people, who practice religion, but that’s just me.
Brachiator
@gene108:
In California, a lot of hot chicks do yoga. Atheists are not fools, well most of them.
Almost every society has had a belief in the equivalent of elves and fairies. Says much about the power of imagination, not so much about powers greater than us.
FormerSwingVoter
@gene108:
I’ve got a theory: people really want to believe that someone somewhere knows what the hell they’re doing, despite all evidence to the contrary.
Violet
@gene108:
Because it relaxes them, is a good workout, the stretching is good for muscles and joints and so forth.
That is the historical, very traditional purpose of yoga. The poses we consider yoga today were not widely practiced in India prior to yoga’s “reinvention” (if you will) in the early 20th century. Modern yoga is done for a wide variety of reasons, including health and relaxation, none of which are necessarily related to religion.
Just because something has spiritual roots doesn’t mean it isn’t applicable in non-religious ways. Meditation can be relaxing and very beneficial to health, whether or not one believes in any kind of higher power.
Frank
@gene108:
I don’t deride all Christians as bad. I am one myself.
But as I mentioned before, there is a huge difference between the Christians in Virginia legislature and the people in the civil rights movement. Or how about Pat Robertson who, as a Christian, suggested we should murder Chavez, the leader of Venezuela. Or how about the paranoia about gays?
If they showed as much anger about poverty as they do about gays, then we can talk. But they don’t. And it is this selective coverage of what parts in the bible to follow that makes them look silly.
Suffern ACE
@Mnemosyne: Not certain what your point is. Both groups present problems. You may not want to think that, but they do. I’m not upset that both groups are being investigated. Or would you rather one is shown deference.
Samara Morgan
lol.
No bases for you, Uncle Sam, in Afghanistan OR Iraq.
Do you what the example of Iraq proved to the world?
America can lose.
America can be kicked out of your country.
And no one can put that djinni back in the bottle.
gene108
@FormerSwingVoter:
My feelings aren’t hurt, but thank you for taking an interest in my emotional state.
I find on liberal blogs, whether this or Dkos or whatever, atheists feel like they have an open license to attack organized religion, whereas religious liberals tend to respect an atheists views and do not attempt to proselytize to non-believers on these blogs.
I find the over all attitude of believers versus atheists to be asymmetric in terms of the rhetoric that is exchanged.
gene108
@Frank:
My response was mostly aimed at Catsy, who said Christianity is threatening America.
I don’t like one size fits all arguments.
I agree the VA government, Robertson, et. al. are pretty brutish folks and aren’t comparable to other Christian groups.
Samara Morgan
Christianity is not a threat in America, because of the separation of church and state, and the Rule of Law is secular law.
Just like christianity is not a threat in MENA because of the convolution of church and state and the rule of shariah law.
which is why christianity cant get a toehold in MENA.
pardon my gloat, but in the next twenty years one out of four humans will be muslim.
@gene108: WHITE christianity is very different from BLACK christianity.
Race trumps religion.
I learned that in Evo Theory of Culture 101.
Satanicpanic
@Samara Morgan: Uh like Somalia? Vietnam?
FormerSwingVoter
@gene108:
In my particular case, my issue has less to do with Christianity as a whole than it does with the modern Catholic Church and the Evangelical community to a lesser extent. The Catholic Church has done a lot of good, but ever since JP2 became Pope they’ve decided that People Shouldn’t Have Sex takes precedence over everything Jesus ever said – the tell is that they explicitly lie to their flock without pause, conscience, or regret (pop quiz for Christians – where do embryonic stem cells come from? hint: not abortions). Evangelicals just tend to be really, really gullible and strange and Jesus-freaky, but that’s less “they’re evil” and more “they kinda weird me out”.
Broadly speaking, most Christians I’ve met have been good people. But the actions of the Catholic Church make it hard for me to have a high opinion of the Catholic Church, despite all of the good things they’ve done at different points over the years.
Maybe the bishops should talk about the good things the Church does every once in a while.
Frank
@gene108:
Sorry for misunderstanding. I actually don’t think we are that far apart.
Samara Morgan
@Thomas:
so have non-muslim residents.
Meanwhile, back in Iraq and A-stan American troops actually KILLED, MUTILATED, RAPED, BURNED, and BLEW-UP many thousands of muslim residents.
Oh, i forgot, URINATED ON.
Samara Morgan
@Satanicpanic: Vietnam was an unplanned rout
and we didnt spend 10 years and four trillion dollahs in Somalia.
no…..Iraq is the example. In spite of pleading, negotiating, bribing, and threatening the Iraqis planted a boot in America’s ass.
No Iraqi bases for you, Uncle Sam.
Billy Beane
Cue Cole and his childishly simplistic “end all wars now because this is what happens” horseshit. Followed by another post of something stupid his dog/cat did. I swear the guy must have the IQ of a child.
Amanda in the South Bay
@Democratic Nihilist, Keeper Of Party Purity:
I guess I’m a little exasperated with liberals all of a sudden becoming realists with regards to the Baathist (and yes, I think most liberals are skeptical about intervention in Syria) regimes in the ME. Sure, they are secular-ish, but you can’t keep people repressed forever (Shia in Iraq, the Sunni in Syria). Eventually those regimes will end, and payback is in order.
Catsy
@gene108: How about quoting the entire sentence in context?
The question was why don’t people spend time criticizing religions other than Christianity.
The response was to point out ways in which the danger from fundamentalist Christianity is far more relevant to the everyday concerns of Americans than the far-more-removed dangers of fundamentalist Islam or any other religion which is a politically powerless minority in America.
Cassidy
That’s just dumb. There are plenty of reason to do Yoga, the least of which is spiritual. It’s a very common athletic practice. This atheist does it for core strength and flexibility.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@redshirt:
Fixed.
Cassidy
Exception vs. rule. Christians are capable of doing good things. Many of them choose to be shits. Even more choose to let the loud mouth shits sully their name.
Catsy
@Thomas:
Islamic terrorism is only a day-to-day worry for Americans who travel abroad in certain countries, deal with national security for a living, or have completely lost perspective on the issue.
The average American has a better chance of becoming a millionaire in the lottery than of being affected in any measurable way by Islamic terrorism on American soil. The chances of that average American being personally harmed by Islamic terrorism approach the likelihood of being personally harmed by a falling meteorite. Furthermore, not only does fundamentalist Islam have next to zero political power in America, it is a deeply disfavored and marginalized ideology with no meaningful ability to achieve its goals through the political system.
By contrast, the probability of a woman being personally harmed by the Christian right’s legislative crusade against them is extremely high–and approaches 1 if said woman plans on having sex or using birth control. If you are a gay American, the chances of being personally harmed by the agenda and bigotry of fundamentalist Christianity in America is likewise a near-certainty. The political power of fundamentalist Christianity–and their repeatedly demonstrated ability to threaten the rights and livelihoods of Americans by enshrining their beliefs in law–is enormous.
It’s a straightforward question of risk assessment. Risk of harm is not merely a function of a bad actor’s intent to harm or the severity of that potential harm, but of the likelihood of that harm occurring.
Brachiator
@gene108:
Even a broken clock is right twice a day?
More seriously, I don’t think that reliigion is true. I acknowledge that it has value.
Thomas
@Mnemosyne: Someday I know Balloon Juice readers will comprehend that the claim “militant Islamists possess a troubling propensity toward acts of terroristic violence” is not mutually exclusive with the claim that “white Christian men often commit horrific violence” OR EVEN that “the U.S. Government regularly kills innocent people in foreign lands.” It is indeed possible to hold all three thoughts simultaneously true without suffering any cognitive dissonance. The original claim made by Catsy and often assumed by the FPers on this site is that the Christian religion is the primary source of rights violations in this country and therefore most deserving of public suspicion and ridicule. The available empirical evidence suggests otherwise.
Catsy
@gene108:
What on earth does that have to do with my point? I never said that atheists were immune to magical thinking. In fact, I never asserted that atheists do or don’t do anything.
In any event vast numbers of people do yoga for physical fitness rather than any kind of sense of enlightenment, so this strikes me as more of a weak attempt at a “gotcha” than any kind of argument against what I’ve said.
Spirituality and religion are not the same thing, and methods of controlling breathing, achieving a state of serenity, and ordering one’s thoughts and mental processes have not even the foggiest relationship to imagining that the world was created for humankind by an invisible manic-depressive patriarch with anger-management problems whose solution to the imperfection of mankind was to impregnate a woman with a child whose purpose was to be brutally tortured and murdered before being resurrected.
I didn’t say the flat-earthers of that day were delusional. But it takes a special kind of mental dysfunction to believe in a flat earth today. That’s why I wrote about the “way that we now look at flat-earthers”.
Catsy
@Thomas:
I’ll bite. What evidence? What other religion in this country did you have in mind that has such enormous political power, influence, and a track record of imposing their beliefs on others through religiously-inspired legislation?
Do tell.
Thomas
@Catsy: Your assertions regarding the Christian right are undeniable. You are also right to say that the risk of harm of any given action is a function of both its gravity and its probability or likelihood. I do think you underplay the degree to which threatened terrorism has collateral effects on the daily living of a far broader swath of the populace than those who might fall victim to it.
The larger point is this. For those of us disdainful of the claims of all organized religions, it might behoove us to realize that people are being murdered over the burning of a book (and, in other cases, the publishing of a cartoon). I don’t think we should tiptoe around the tulips just because the perpetrators of these crimes happen to be part of what is perceived (wrongly) to be an Oppressed Minority (which is, in the aggregate, neither oppressed and certainly not a minority). Especially when we wouldn’t take such sensitivities into account if it were members of the Christian religion.
Catsy
@Thomas:
Neither do I. Who said anything like that?
My entire contribution to this thread began with a response to the way Amanda snidely conflated criticism of the Catholic Church with a generalized attack on lay Catholics. I later expanded on someone’s comment about atheists attacking religion in a way that was not the least bit related to the Quran-burning incident.
It sounds like you’re confusing me with someone else.
Johnny Gentle (famous crooner)
How dare that guy APOLOGIZE to some turban-wearing, brown-skinned foreigner!! Maybe he wants to surrender America to the Taliban!!!
Forget pissing on the Quran, I can’t wait for the next Republican debate where Santorum and Romney will be SHITTING on it. It means they love America!
Cassidy
Ahhhh, I get it. Thomas is doing the “both sides do it” routine.
Thomas
@Cassidy: I was obviously in error. The only “side” that “does it” is the one that aligns itself on the opposite side of the political spectrum than yourself and the Front Pagers on this blog. Forgive me my ideological deviation. May I get back in line now?
Billy Beane
@Thomas: Ok I’ll bite, give a ‘both sides do it’ example equivalent to Faux saying sponge bob is pushing an environmentalists agenda or Bolling calling the muppets communists.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCGTzRsDdn0
footnote: I can do this all day long and I haven’t even gone after the low hanging fruit.
Catsy
@Thomas: Tell you what. When there is a Young Men’s Wiccan Association in every city, a Muslim Coalition of America that lawmakers regularly consult on the wording of legislation, an Atheist Majority Coalition with vast influence in the media and over liberal politicians, a Hindu Values Coalition that stands a good chance of outlawing the consumption of beef, an Islamic equivalent to the Catholic Church that successfully shuffles known terrorists from mosque to mosque under the blind eye of sympathetic local law enforcement, or a yearly barrage of Sharia-inspired legislation aimed at imposing Islamic beliefs, then we can talk about how Everyone Does It and therefore Christianity doesn’t pose a disproportionately large threat to nonbelievers in this country compared to other religions.
Until then, what the fuck?
Svensker
@Thomas:
When the Taliban is in control of a puppet US government and some Afghan soldiers swaggering around in the streets of Virginia burn a copy of the Constitution and pee on some dead Americans, would you call Americans who rioted — violently — over those events “terrorists”? And wonder why the hell they were overreacting?
Geez, try to imagine yourself in the other guy’s shoes for a bit.
Cassidy
@Thomas: Oh cry me a fuckin’ music video. Would you like me to play something by Switchfoot in the background of your blathering?
You mouthed the basic talking points towards Islam and Muslims and then when called on it, decided to go, “well yeah, other people do it too, I guess”. Fuck off with your fake martyrdom and your sad attempt at independent thought. HS freshman have better shit than that. Pro-tip: that bullshit you bleated earlier can be found on RW sites.
Mnemosyne
@Thomas:
Except that you haven’t proven at all that militant Islamists are the primary source of rights violations in this country. You can certainly argue that they are in places like Afghanistan or Iraq or Saudi Arabia, but it laughable to make that claim about the US when the vast majority of terrorist attacks are carried out by white men.
Mnemosyne
@Thomas:
Afghans are not a minority in Afghanistan, but they have a few non-religion related grievances with the US, like the fact that we’ve been occupying their country and killing and bombing their people for over a decade.
The fact that this Koran incident was their excuse to riot against the American occupation does not make the fact that we’ve been occupying them for over a decade magically disappear. They’re pissed off at us for several reasons, and at bottom those reasons doesn’t actually have much to do with religious differences.
Thomas
@Billy Beane: You’ve certainly bitten something, but I have no idea what it is. But, yes, please do go all day long. I’ll watch out for the low-hanging fruit.
@Cassidy: It’s hard to discern the point you’re trying to make here. No one “called me” on anything. I was pointing to the hideousness of murdering people (ANY people) over the burning of a book and then placating those who approve of such action. Apparently, a critical mass of the BJ commentariat think such a point can be effectively undermined by pointing to Jared Loughner and the fact that James Dobson wants to prevent gay marriage. This is normal fare in these parts.
Possibly, if you weren’t so absolutely determined to fit every point in opposition to the party line on this blog into one of the cute category tags that you all have come up with (“both sides do it”), you might have seen this point. But don’t let me get in the way of another great zinger on David Brooks!
Cassidy
Shorter Thomas: Look at me and how cool I am for being a pretend moderate.
Catsy
@Thomas:
What is apparent is that you are deeply confused about who has written what in this thread, or even what the topic of conversation actually is.
Spaghetti Lee wrote in #5: “Burning [the Qurans] was a completely prickish, pointless act on the part of the soldiers. There’s no need to piss people off for no reason.”
Amanda in South Bay pivoted from that and replied (#8, #18) with complaints about how much time the B-J FPers spend bashing the institution of the Catholic Church, mistakenly conflating this with attacking Catholics–and expressed a wish that “more people would criticize religions other than Christianity”.
I pointed out (#61) that bashing the Catholic Chuch is not the same thing as bashing lay Catholics, and (#80) that American liberals complaining about religion focus their ire on fundamentalist Christian religions in general and Catholicism in specific because of the disproportionate power and influence Christianity has in America and the disproportionate threat Christian theocrats and their legislation pose to e.g. the rights of gays and women.
With me so far? Note that I have not expressed one single word of opinion about Muslims in Afghanistan rioting over a Quran-burning. The only person in this entire chain talking about that was Spaghetti Lee, and Amanda’s response (and my subsequent responses to her and everything else) had nothing at all to do with that topic.
This was where you came in. You responded to #80–which was purely and solely an explanation of why fundamentalist Christianity is a more relevant threat to the day-to-day lives and rights of many Americans than is the far more remote threat of fundamentalist Islam. You objected to this characterization, pointing to the (extremely uncommon and almost always thwarted) plots of Islamic terrorists on American soil and arguing that this should receive more focus from liberals/atheists/whoever than the (nearly constant and frequently successful) assault by Christianists on the rights of gays and women.
I responded (#138) with an explanation of how I was looking at this from a realistic risk assessment standpoint, and how while the severity of a successful Islamic terrorist attack is extreme compared to the religious right’s assault on our rights, the frequency and probability of being impacted by that threat is vanishingly smaller than the daily, constant threat to our rights and livelihoods posed by the Christian right.
Then you wrote (#140) to someone else: “The original claim made by Catsy and often assumed by the FPers on this site is that the Christian religion is the primary source of rights violations in this country and therefore most deserving of public suspicion and ridicule. The available empirical evidence suggests otherwise.”
This is ridiculous on its face, and when challenged (#142) to provide examples of other religions that are a greater source of rights violations in this country, you did not.
Up to this point you and I were having the same conversation, just disagreeing.
But then you replied (#143) with this head-scratching comment: “The larger point is this. For those of us disdainful of the claims of all organized religions, it might behoove us to realize that people are being murdered over the burning of a book (and, in other cases, the publishing of a cartoon). I don’t think we should tiptoe around the tulips just because the perpetrators of these crimes happen to be part of what is perceived (wrongly) to be an Oppressed Minority (which is, in the aggregate, neither oppressed and certainly not a minority). Especially when we wouldn’t take such sensitivities into account if it were members of the Christian religion.”
This was where you started conflating your conversation with someone else about the Quran burning in Afghanistan with your conversation with me about the power held by the religious right and the degree to which they threatens the rights of Americans compared to other religious.
They are not the same thing. They are not even the same topic being discussed by the same people.
Frankly, I have yet to see anyone in this thread who actually has made the argument that you’ve been mocking.
Billy Beane
@Thomas: Just what I thought. Nothing but verbal diarrhea from a troll.
Paul in KY
@Svensker: Great point!