Religious Bigotry And Death - An Old Story

The religious bigot pictured above, Reverend Terry Jones of Gainesville (Florida), is back in the news. Last year he made undeserved headlines with his promise to burn a Quran (the muslim holy book). Decent people around the world were outraged by his plans, and he was even warned that the action would be dangerous for non-muslims in some other countries. General Petraeus, commander of American forces in Afghanistan, even said the silly book-burning could be dangerous for American soldiers fighting in Afghanistan.

Jones backed down at that time, and didn't burn the book. But bigotry will always show its ugly face, and a few days ago Jones revived the issue. He held a mock trial for the book, and evidently the book was found guilty of something because he then soaked it in a flammable liquid and burned it. And his stupid action had the expected result.

Crowds of muslims were outraged in Afghanistan and rioted, killing aid workers trying to help people in that country. Since then the political pundits and politicians have been busy attaching blame. Some on the left blame Jones for the deaths because he had been warned about the reaction his bigoted actions would produce. Some on the right have blamed the muslims for overreacting and causing the deaths.

Both sides are right this time, and there is plenty of blame to go around. Jones was wrong to provoke the riots and the muslims were wrong to carry them out. Both sides must share the blame for the deaths of innocent people -- people who were just trying to help people in trouble. And both sides should be ashamed of their bigoted actions.

And to think that all of this happened because of a stupid book (and I'm not picking on the Quran -- all religious books are stupid, including the Bible). There are millions of Qurans and Bibles in existence and millions more could be printed at the drop of a hat. The destruction of one (or a hundred or thousand) of these books is never going to be worth the taking of a single life.

But this is an old story. The christians and muslims have been killing each other because of religious bigotry for many centuries -- making them the two bloodiest religions in the history of mankind. Sadly, both sides think the invisible sky-fairy is on their side and approves of their killing in his name. And the killing by both sides will probably continue.

I'm not a religious person so none of this makes any sense to me. If people want to have or need to have their religious crutch, that is fine. But they must stop trying to force it on others. The bigotry and death is just wrong -- even in the name of religion.