The Koran for free. Or maybe not.

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Apr 252012
 

The Koran, much like the Bible, is full of injustice, intolerance, cruelty, violence, contradictions, and hate. It’s true, though, that violence is much more likely to come from Muslims than from Christians. Christianity has had its violent past but it is now largely neutered but Islam is increasingly expressing more closely its core fundamental believes manifested as violence. In that respect I can see, without condoning, why Germany seems against the free-issuing of Korans:

But such differential prohibitions are not for the common good. Most people who have rejected religion are those that have studied religion and found it to be nothing more than man-made nonsense. Instead of such censorship, I would rather concentrate on secularising governments and making fun of religion by highlighting the nonsense/injustice/hatred/etc. in these religions, and showing the incompatibility of religion to the truths revealed by the beauty of science.

I, for one, will take it as extremely insulting if any person of faith makes the assumption that their faith gives them the moral edge on me. I want to hear a lot more apologising from the faith based communities for the evil that they’ve done before they even start clearing their throats and telling me I wouldn’t know right from wrong without their permission. I’m sorry, I won’t be, can’t be spoken to in that tone of voice and nor should any of you.
— Christopher Hitchens

I have examined all the known superstitions of the world, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology.
— Thomas Jefferson

There are many hypotheses in science which are wrong. That’s perfectly all right; they’re the aperture to finding out what’s right. Science is a self-correcting process. To be accepted, new ideas must survive the most rigorous standards of evidence and scrutiny.
— Carl Sagan

Faith is the surrender of the mind; it’s the surrender of reason, it’s the surrender of the only thing that makes us different from other mammals. It’s our need to believe, and to surrender our skepticism and our reason, our yearning to discard that and put all our trust or faith in someone or something, that is the sinister thing to me. Of all the supposed virtues, faith must be the most overrated.
— Christopher Hitchens

I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious ideas of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God. So far as religion of the day is concerned, it is a damned fake… Religion is all bunk.
— Thomas Edison

Article by Kulvinder Singh Matharu – 2012

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Muslims Who Become Atheists

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Apr 152012
 

From Laughing in Purgatory:

The fight worth fighting; against ignorance, intolerance, and barbarity.

Article by Kulvinder Singh Matharu – 2012

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Burning of the Koran

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Sep 082010
 

This is reported by the BBC and others:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11223457

US church defiant despite condemnation of Koran burning

Terry Jones said he had prayed over the matter but insisted the Koran-burning would go ahead

A small US church says it will defy international condemnation and go ahead with plans to burn copies of the Koran on the 9/11 anniversary

This is just plain wrong. As much as I think that the Koran (and the Bible for that matter) is full of nonsense, I don’t think a public event to glorify the burning of the book is the correct way to highlight the nonsense. A critical review of the Koran with critical arguments and appropriate mocking is the best and honest way. All that this book-burning will do is push people further to the extremes and everything that is associated with such extremism.

For a quick (mostly correct) check on the nonsense in the Koran look at these links:

And for balance, here’s a check for nonsense in the Bible:

Although there is a lot of nonsense in the Bible, “Christian extremism” is now rare and has not really existed in any tangible form for some time (eg Spanish Inquisition) but this Koran-burning event is an unwelcome and unneeded move in that direction of extremism; it rather smacks of the naive and irrational burning of the “The Satanic Verses” by Muslims and the book-burning events by the Nazis. If a Christian wants to question and explore what the Koran says then Christians have already done most of the hard work:

Please note that I do not endorse everything at this site (as I think Christianity is absurd too) but what I was attempting to do was show a better way for a Christian to criticise the Koran than book-burning.

Here are some links that I do (mostly!) endorse:

What I would ask is for you to examine the evidence, the arguments and make up your own minds. But make sure that it is an honest assessment of the evidence otherwise the effort is just a waste of your time.

Article by Kulvinder Singh Matharu – 2010

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