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The demonization of Islam continues unfettered by reason or understanding.
A Florida church with “Islam is of the devil” signs in its front lawn plans to host an “International Burn A Quran Day,” on the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks this year.
The Dove World Outreach Center, a non-denominational church in Gainesville, has marked the date in previous years with protests against Islam. The church holds protests on other issues, such as homosexuality, same-sex marriage, and abortion.
Pastor Terry Jones said members of the church plan to be at the Gainesville City Hall on Aug. 2 to protest the election of the city’s openly gay mayor. Church-state groups had previously accused the church of illegal politicking for its “No Homo Mayor” signs.
Jones, who is also the author of a book titled “Islam is of the Devil,” said protests are key to the mission of his church.
“We feel, as Christians, one of our jobs is to warn,” said Jones.
The goal of these and other protests are to give Muslims an opportunity to convert, he said.
The outcome of such an act of ignorance is to antagonize even moderate Muslims. Anyone who believes that burning a religion’s holy book will help in converting its followers to one’s own religion is in dire need of mental counseling.
The truth is that people like Terry Jones have no desire in converting anyone. His mission is to find an outlet for his own raging hatred and bigotry and to do so in as public a fashion as possible. What he does not understand, and I suspect never will, is that he is no different from the very people who terrorize in the name of religion. The motivational forces that drive some to fly planes into buildings are identical to those that drive Pastor Terry Jones to do what he does.
Intolerance and hate are ugly and destructive no matter which religion you choose to call your own.
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“Them that begin by burning books, end by burning men.”-Heinrich Heine
It will do no good but I feel better for just having sent an email to the Dove World Outreach Center. It makes me so sad that people use religion which should spread love and tolerance to instead spread bigotry and hatred.
Fear is born of ignorance and hate is born of fear.
I agree with Charlie that it will peobably do no good – at best, it will be posted on their website as an example of “Christian-bashing”. It takes a lot of nerve for someone to take an organization with the principles Jones espouses and name it “Dove”. Fred Phelps has a soulmate – except that maybe Jones isn’t as strongly focused on gays as Phelps would like. I checked them out firsthand with a search at http://www.ask.com/web?q=Dove+World+Outreach+Center&qsrc=145&o=ffx – excuse me for a bit while I shut down and clean the slime off my screen.
Nothing much shocks me any more but I was taken with the name they chose for their church, “The Dove World Outreach Center” the entire name is completely antithetical to their mission. I am guessing that there are no intellectuals among the congregation ;)
The Dove World Outreach Center Blog has posted a comment that states their Islam Is of the The Devil sign has been vandalized. http://www.doveworld.org/blog/islam-is-of-the-devil-signs-vandalized#comment- I don’t approve of vandalism but, ho-hum.
“Intolerance and hate are ugly and destructive no matter which religion you choose to call your own.”
Life has a funny way of mirroring back to us what we put out. It’s a little ironic that the most popular post on this blog was one that attacked Mormons.
me being a Muslim will b really pissed if they burn our holy QURAN…. this stupid act cant make me change my religion…. i thought people from the side of the world were smart… ALAS! i was wrong… they are dumb.. at least these guys are
Dear umair ali, The most sensible thing you can do is do nothing. Do not bring yourself down to the level of the hypocrites that think they are doing God’s work. The majority of people realize that the members of the badly misnamed “Dove World Outreach Center” speak for themselves only and not for everyone.
The reason is to convert? The only people they would appeal to are those that already harbor hatred for the same people that are always targeted by the bigotry of others. When it’s religious hate for another religion I am thinking, how would the laws come into play here? This church has clearly defined a hatred for a religion, without even trying to disguise it any better then the false wish for conversion. In this country you can not discriminate based someone’s religion. Wouldn’t this be an interesting case in a court of law? Would it get that far? Since it’s a church that is likely breaking the civil laws against discrimination. Freedom of religion does not allow for the breaking of our laws onto other freedoms. I feel like we can go in circles with this, but surely there is an important case here.
Islam is the enemy of freedom and democracy. We are at war with it and only one ideology will survive.
Ivan, you are the enemy of freedom and democracy. Just FYI.
No no no Ivan, we are not, as even George W. Bush said, at war with Islam but rather with terrorism. We were at war with Islam centuries ago and both religions seemed to have survived.
I have no more respect for the ranting of the homophobic Fred Waldron Phelps, Sr. of Kansas than I do for the members of al qaeda. The true Christians and Muslims of the world should not be classified as terrorists because of the actions of a few.
I had business dealings with many Muslims before I retired and found the majority of them to be sane and reasonable people. All of the foreign born Muslims with whom I associated had come to America to enjoy our freedom and democracy, not to destroy it.