There's a big row about some American nutter who decided to burn a Qur'an and then decided not to, but lots of Muslims rioted anyway.
And there's something about the whole story that I just don't get. It's obviously big enough for world leaders to intervene...
Most of the Muslims I know and have known have been reasonably intelligent, socially moderately normal people. There were a few oddballs, but I know plenty of non-Muslim oddballs as well. Most people in poor countries I know and have known have also moderately normal.
So is there something about Muslims in Afghanistan that means they stop maturing at about the emotional maturity of a stroppy teenager?
Or is it a normal, mature and sensible human reaction to riot and kill people because some silly chap on the other side of the world bought a Qur'an with his own money and then set fire to it? And let's be honest, he didn't set fire to it, and the one he would have set fire to was probably only an "interpretation" of the Qur'an (i.e. translation), which the Muslims don't even think is holy.
I'm a committed Christian, and have a very high view of the Bible. And to be honest, if someone down the road bought a Bible and set fire to it, or used it as loo roll, I don't especially mind - they can do that if they want to. I might like to have a chat with them about why they felt that way, but they're free to do it.
I am fully aware that people blaspheme God, and say all kinds of nasty things about him, and disrespect him in all kinds of different ways. Now I disagree with them, but I figure that God is big enough to deal with that himself.
So what is going on? Is there a new thought police in town? Do Afghan Muslims have an emotional age of 13? Is the God they believe in too small to look after himself? Or is the media whipping up a storm in a teacup to sell copies?
I don't know, but there's something odd going on...
4 comments:
"there's something odd going on."
America at the moment reminds me of the ancient proverb - "Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad" which is wrongly attributed to Euripides. Large parts of the place seem to be going stark raving bonkers.
Quite. It's like they're terrified of Islam and Muslims. Is that because they've got what America is so badly lacking - willingness to inconvenience themselves for what they believe in?
Muslims have a higher view of the actual letters of the Quran than Christians do of the bible that isn't news. We may think they're wrong, but the comparison with burning a bible still isn't a particularly good one; if someone's made a jab at one of their sensitive points, we should look at our responses to our own sore points. This is like the cartoons of the prophet from a few years back, the Christian equivalents would probably have involved Catholic priests and young kids.
That still doesn't make any of the responses right, of course. What I'd like to know is how the burnings got reported in anything bigger than the local rag in the first place, the actions of an oddball pastor aren't exactly newsworthy.
Quite, but I don't think there's any level of rebellion against God or insult against him that would get me acting like that. I rather suspect that Western journalists told crowds in Afghanistan to see how they'd react to make a better story out of it...
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