You know, I like Claus overall; he gives the gullible a much deserved tongue lashing... but sometimes he does seem almost as unworldly as the woo's.
But what they are doing is getting pissed about a copy of the Book of Kells being destroyed.
No, this isn't what they are getting pissed about at all. Let me give you a few different examples of the exact same thought processes involved.
Someone hears that a man they aren't attracted to is masturbating over them. They don't even have anything of yours, except your image in mind. Yet you respond with absolute disgust. Why?
Someone is in a pub, and they hear their favourite sporting team criticized. This criticism doesn't take any points away from your team, their history isn't changed. Yet fights often ensue because of that criticism. Why?
Someone sees an advance preview of a film, and states on the internet that the film really isn't any good. Those who haven't seen it yet, but were looking forward to doing so, proceed to flame the living shinola out of him. But their enjoyment of the film shouldn't be affected until they see the film... and yet, it is. Why?
If we must spell it out, it's because people associate disrespect to the
idea of something as being the same as disrespecting the thing itself. It's nothing to do with Religion per-se, it's simply that Religion being one of the areas both extremely dear to people, and an area most focused upon this fuzzy mental understandings of things, that you see this trait most clearly.
In this particular thread's case, this extension of qualities into the mental realm of associated ideas is not even the whole story. You have the Quran being abused by what is seen as an occupying army of a different faith, which is widely suspected in that part of the world of being involved in a war against Islam itself... which may not officially be true, but there is an undeniable history of the use of cultural and religious humiliations being inflicted upon prisoners held there and around the world. And then someone comes along, and takes your religious book, and knowing what it symbolizes, knowingly abuses it all the same. Which doesn't destroy the word of God by being abused it is true, but still causes enormous offense when it is abused... Why? Well gee, I
wonder why...
Honestly Claus, I'm surprised by the amount of naivety in this thread. You can try and turn it into a debate about how silly religious people are for holding the Quran in high esteem... but out in the real world, it's not about the Book at all. The people abusing the Quran do not do so because they believe it's the Word of Allah... they do it because they know
you believe that, and they hate
you. And the people who are getting outraged don't think the people doing the abuse believe it's the word of Allah either: They are angry because they understand you are trampling it because you know
they value it. Take away the Quran, and you'd just shift the abuse and perception of why the abuse is occuring, to another symbol... such as using female underwear to humiliate someone culturally. Or decapititation of non combatants.
Understanding and context, Claus. Understanding and context; it's vital you don't lose sight of those qualities. Ironically, your first paragraph even gives the right answer;
it was actually a war going on.
And that's what's going on now too. Nothing to do with Religious hypocrisy/incoherance. Everything to do with the capacity for and ability to percieve human conflict and violence, in particular to the idea of things.
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