{"id":18538,"date":"2010-09-13T10:13:33","date_gmt":"2010-09-13T16:13:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/?p=18538"},"modified":"2010-09-13T10:15:58","modified_gmt":"2010-09-13T16:15:58","slug":"some-late-notes-on-the-whole-quran-burning-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2010\/09\/13\/some-late-notes-on-the-whole-quran-burning-thing.html","title":{"rendered":"Some late notes on the whole Qur’an burning thing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"In no particular order:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Rev. Jones got way freaking too much attention.\u00a0 He was, ironically, like those crowds on “the Muslim street” who caterwaul and burn flags as soon as the cameras come out.\u00a0 Hopefully he has attained his 15 minutes of fame and will now sink into deserved obscurity.<\/li>\n
  2. I note my own measure of responsibility in the above.<\/li>\n
  3. Just as Rev. Jones and his supporters should be aware that their actions do not serve the cause of America being a home of liberty or Christianity being a religion of love, the “Muslim street” ought to be aware that burning flags and issuing fatwas of death over Rev. Jones’ actions do not serve the cause of Islam as a religion of peace well.<\/li>\n
  4. Sorry folks — we don’t arrest people in the US for being rude or offensive or stupid or counter-productive, per se<\/em>.\u00a0 I think that’s more of a feature than a bug in our system, but it’s one that a lot of people (internationally in particular, but not solely) just don’t get.<\/li>\n
  5. People who don’t hold sacred what you hold sacred are not obliged to do so because of your claims that it is sacred.\u00a0 Trying to impose your view of the sacred on all others and hold them responsible for acting in that fashion is profoundly selfish.<\/li>\n
  6. If you claim you’re not being selfish, but that you’re doing it for God — do you really think God is lessened by the actions of any mortal?\u00a0 Is Allah less great because someone burns a Qur’an or draws a cartoon of Mohammed?\u00a0 Is Yahweh less the Father because someone burns a Bible or desecrates some holy item? (Christians, consider the meaning of Mark 2:27<\/a>.)\u00a0 No, the offense is your own, not God’s — and if God is offended, God will deal with it as God sees fit (Romans 12:19<\/a>).<\/li>\n
  7. People who assume that, just because they don’t hold something sacred they have no social responsibility to acknowledge and respect that others do, are also being selfish.\u00a0 Are your emotional connections to things (or ideas) so rarefied and logical and utilitarian that you don’t get offended or peeved or insulted by anything save that which causes you physical harm or discomfort?\u00a0 Really?\u00a0 If someone takes a crap on your mother’s grave, are you only miffed because of the public sanitation aspects?<\/li>\n
  8. Nobody has a right not to be offended. Trying to pass a law to that effect never ends well, because you will inevitably end up offending someone else and being hoist on your own petard.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the quickest to take offense are often the least likely to realize this.<\/li>\n
  9. Intentionally and publicly offending people to “send a message” (that you don’t care whether they are offended, that your side is smarter \/ holier \/ more powerful than theirs, whatever) doesn’t make you mighty and righteous. It makes you a dick.\u00a0 And if you claim to be doing it in Jesus’ name, reread your Matthew 7:12<\/a> \/Luke 6:31<\/a>.<\/li>\n
  10. Respect doesn’t mean obedience or surrender; it means considering and valuing the feelings of others, just as (to go back to the two Bible passages above) you would hope others would consider and value your own.\u00a0 That isn’t an absolute moral imperative — sometimes apparent disrespect and giving offense necessary, to break someone out of their shell or as an unfortunate side effect of a more beneficial purpose.\u00a0 But it’s not trivial, either.<\/li>\n
  11. Folks, we’re all stuck here on this planet together.\u00a0 Can we please <\/em>figure out how to get along without spending so much of our time and energy offending and\/or being offended?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    In no particular order: Rev. Jones got way freaking too much attention.\u00a0 He was, ironically, like those crowds on “the Muslim street” who caterwaul and burn flags as soon as the cameras come out.\u00a0 Hopefully he has attained his 15 minutes of fame and will now sink into deserved obscurity. I note my own measure … Continue reading “Some late notes on the whole Qur’an burning thing”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10,27,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitical-brouhaha","category-religion","category-zt-pc"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":18441,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2010\/09\/07\/a-futile-exercise-in-addressing-lunacy.html","url_meta":{"origin":18538,"position":0},"title":"A futile exercise in addressing lunacy","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 7-Sep-10 10:16pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I know it's silly to keep analyzing Bryan Fischer and trying to point out how nuts the things he says are, let alone trying to point out logically how the points he raises are poorly founded, dubiously structured, and thus utterly undependable as conclusions. \"Insanity is doing the same thing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/straitjacket.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":13377,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/01\/08\/witnessing_bashing_and_li.html","url_meta":{"origin":18538,"position":1},"title":"Witnessing, bashing, and licensing","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 8-Jan-09 7:52am","format":false,"excerpt":"South Carolinian conservative Christian groups are up in arms over the federal court injunction against the state's \"I Believe\" license plate (previously discussed here). 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Another pastor at the church, Wayne Sapp, told the AP, \"I in no way feel like our church is responsible for what happened.\" Really? Really? 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