Pastor Terry Jones to burn books again.
From Australian Newspaper, The Age:
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/bookburning-shelved...
The Texan pastor's moved on from the Qu'ran to a pyre of The God Delusion.
IN SCENES of calm bemusement not seen in the lower United States since John Scopes taught innocent schoolchildren evolution, it was reported yesterday that Pastor Terry Jones had given up on his plans to burn 200 Korans and was instead planning to incite atheists by soaking a gross of Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion in moonshine and putting a match to them.
Atheists, who hadn't been expected to come out in pick-up trucks with gun racks on their rear windows and circle his church with their engines revving like goaded Rottweilers, didn't.
''Well,'' said Billy-Bob Huxley, a leading Texan non-believer, ''look on the bright side; Dawkins will be happy for the royalties. And we figure the book is filled with truths that can't be burnt.'' *
A spokesman for the Atheist Brotherhood in Australia was quoted as saying: ''We feel strangely unaffected and will seek revenge by raising our eyebrows and shrugging our shoulders. I've already sent Pastor Terry a message wishing him good luck with his ecclesiastical grandstanding, and I feel sure he can grab a TV slot on a Baptist network with a weekly conflagration of tomes he hasn't read and doesn't agree with.''
In Britain and France, countries that remember the Enlightenment, and in Russia, with her seven decades of secularism still befuddling her, nobody burnt Uncle Sam in effigy and mobs of unbelievers didn't riot and burn churches, nor were believers flogged or beaten. So far the body count is nil. Atheists have turned the other cheek. Christians have called this a nasty plagiarism.
President Barack Obama, despite objecting to the burning of the Koran, has been burnt in effigy in Kashmir, where the American flag is also being burnt and 15 people have so far been killed in street battles with police.
When asked about Pastor Jones's new plan to torch Dawkins's magnum opus, the President said: ''It's sweet with me. Let reason be fuel for the bonfires of the faithful. As long as atheists aren't going to whomp on us from the ridge tops with AK47s, let the Pastor light up a complete set of Hitchens and Sam Harris as well.''
Across vast areas of the Middle East and in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where people had rioted and been killed at the mere threat to burn the Koran, nobody stirred.
Emboldened by the pastor's book-burning, in a move calculated to make further trouble by a gross act of free speech, Queensland lawyer Alex Stewart tore a page from Darwin's The Descent of Man, saying he could make neither head nor tail of the thing by reading it and thought it might make more sense when smoked.
He lit up on YouTube, claiming it his right in a free and open society to commit this symbolic act and saying: ''Dudes, it's just a book. Get over it.'' Leading atheists called for calm … and atheists everywhere delivered it, showing themselves to be compliant minions. (Though a rumour persists that as the global supply of effigies is being monopolised by Kashmir and Iran, atheists were powerless to smoke the Queensland lawyer in retribution.)
Professor Dawkins himself, when asked about the burning of his book, said: ''It seems a little old-fashioned and pointless to burn a book in the age of the internet. Like knee-capping a town-crier. Still, the burning of a book is as much a freedom as is the reading of one. It is, to be sure, insensitive and provocative and perhaps foolhardy. But if freedom of speech were not, at times, all of these, it wouldn't need protection by law.''
Religious leaders responded by saying Dawkins was a dangerous appeaser whose forgiveness of Pastor Jones could be seen as an apologia for the burning of all books, and while they weren't troubled by the burning of his, there was no need to extend the privilege to authors more divine.
Meanwhile, Effigies 'R' Us in Faisalabad has announced it is making a new Pastor Jones model of yak hair and hypocrisy that gives off an unholy stink when ignited.
Salman Rushdie, from a safe-house in Greenland, has called for calm and offered Pastor Jones a truckload of his novel The Satanic Verses to burn in place of the other texts. He said this should just about satisfy all parties, and if he can't win the Nobel Prize for literature, then he might as well get it for peace.
''My books have been smoked in both hemispheres,'' Salman said, ''so I'm not as easy to upset as some of these one-off authors like Mohammed and God.''
*All quotes have been concocted for the purpose of clarity and truth.
Greetings in the name of the Lord,
I' m very glad to write you and asking how are you today despite we have not met before, But with faith and spirit of the Lord today i come to know you and i want to know more about you for my better expression today. I am Mrs. Susana Williams from Madagascar, But residing here in Ivory Coast , for my health care, Please if you can do the favor and get in touch with me back with my direct email ([email protected]) so that we can bitterly discuss very well.
Wishing you all the happy blessing of the Lord,
Waiting for your mail anxiously,
Thanks,
Mrs. Susana Williams.
So how many guys are there in his church? 10? 20? 30? 50?
Only 50 member church?
And I hope half of them are not his kids from his Grandmother, Mother, Daughter and Grand daughter. Cause that's the only way it could be 50....lol.
Dumb pricks.. Even if there were Christians in that school, how were they responsible for an idiot's opinion who is living all the way across the world.. As it is the holy Muslims ended up burning copies of Quran themselves, a bit ironic.
Kashmir: principal of fire-ravaged Christian school speaks out.
by Parvez Samuel Kaul
The school served 500 students, all Muslim. The main damage is to the Muslim community itself. The school belonged to the Church of North India, which has been operating in Kashmir for the past 150 years. An angry mob burns the school’s library and its copies of the Qur‘an.
Tanmarg (AsiaNews) – There are no Christian students in the school burnt down by Muslim fanatics three days ago. “The community we were serving was 100 per cent Muslim,” said bitterly Pravez Samuel Kaul, principal of the Tyndale Biscoe School, which is now but smouldering ashes as a result of the ‘Burn-the Qur‘an’ proposal launched in the United States by Rev Terry Jones. “Ironically, our library had many copies of the Holy Qur‘an,” he said.
Ma Kaul, who is Anglican, has worked in the education field in Kashmir for 26 years. His tale of destruction is also the story of how law enforcement underestimated the situation and moved in too late. It is also the story of how the fundamentalism of so many quickly turned against the school, and themselves. “The impact of the loss [of the school] will be felt firstly by Muslims themselves,” Kaul said. Here is what he told AsiaNews.”
The Tyndale Biscoe School belongs to Church of North India and is a branch of the Tyndale Biscoe and Mallinson Educational Society in Jammu and Kashmir.
The school in Tanmarg, which is to the north-west of Srinagar, was designed to serve the people living in this rural area. Tanmarg is completely rural and there are no Christians. The community we served was 100 per cent Muslim. Our society, the Tyndale Biscoe and Mallinson Educational Society, has been here since 1880. It was our contribution to rural society, providing holistic values based on quality secular education. All of our staff, teaching and non-teaching, is also made up of Muslims.
The burning of our school is the immediate result of the outrage caused by the proposal to burn the Qur‘an in the United States.
On Sunday night, in Kashmir, the local Masjid (mosque) showed a video-clip from an Iranian news channel of the reported desecration. After the mosque called for a mass gathering, people stayed out until 4 am of the next day.
The local authorities did nothing, assuming people would disperse after the protest. Our request for security went unheeded.
The crowd grew until 15-20,000 people marched on to the school, which is just one kilometre and half away from where the gathering took place. When they arrived, they began vandalising the building, and then set it on fire. The whole three-storey structure with 26 classrooms, library, and computer labs burnt down to the ground.
Ironically, our library had various copies of the Qur‘an. In half an hour, the building was gone since it was made of wood.
Before burning it, the mob vandalised it. Ours was a beautiful school—we had just finished painting it two weeks ago. It was spread over three acres but now it stands desolate and ravaged.
The destruction is the product of uncontrolled fanaticism. I was told that during that the attack by the angry mob, someone asked, “Why should a Christian school be present in our village?”
Our founder, Mr Biscoe, believed in empowering people through education. This school in rural Kashmir has been serving Kashmir’s rural society for the past 150 years. Currently, our school was serving 150 villages, all Muslims. The impact of the loss will be felt firstly by Muslims themselves. Across Kashmir, our organisation is connected to at least 7,000 families, all Muslim.
I sincerely pray that religious leaders may preach love for their neighbours. Sadly, many think like fundamentalists, something that leads to all sorts of incidents.
It is sad to say that on the day of Eid, thousands and thousands of people were outside our campus in Srinagar. At the gathering, Muslim leaders slammed the ‘Burn-the Qur‘an’ campaign, but they also acknowledged publicly the contributions made by Christians to Kashmiri society. They also emphasised how the tiny Christian community has contributed a lot in the fields of education and health care.
Regrettably, the next day, people in this rural corned of Kashmir were incited to unleash their fury against our school.
http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Kashmir:-principal-of-fire-ravaged-Christian-school-speaks-out-19462.html
LOL..excellence reading to some facts that contra some kind of action. Indeed Pastor Jones have lots of options apart from burning.
AWESOME reference to evolution education. Thank you!
tales more energy that I am willing to expend ;)
Good one, Adey!
This guy is psychic...needs some counseling.
legal_pad - If you do that,some people will burn your effigy's ass and send you hate mails...
Could be
I think I do ;) I could be entirely wrong!
I don't know FU, do you?
Is adey the same guy I like to read?
man, what a pussy... I thought the point was supposed to be that he wasnt afraid of islam.. Of course, instead he tries to offend people who have common sense on their side. Well played, pastor, how radical.
oh no, not at all. I am just saying some MAY be.
nomerci, you mean they're true in a satirical sense.
villagejoker, parts of it may be.
For a moment there, I thought this article was real.
"We feel strangely unaffected and will seek revenge by raising our eyebrows and shrugging our shoulders."
This is exactly how EVERONE should have responded to Pastor Jones' last threat.......
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LOL fantastic read...
lol adey, great reading. A serious relief from the usual drivel .
Thanks , made me chuckle.