Terry Jones: With Great Attention Came Great Irresponsibility

Oh, boy. Yet another religion post. Ah, well. Ever hear of Pastor Terry Jones? He is the pastor of a church known as the World Dove Outreach Center in based in Florida.

Terry Jones: The only awesome thing about seeing him on TV, is looking at his moustache.

I actually first became aware of his antics through YouTube when I watched a video by the atheist vlogger known as ""xxxThePeachxxx" posted a video on the Qur'an and book burning. It was then I was informed of this man and his organisation, and his intentions to burn the Qur'an on September 11, 2010: the 9th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks on the World Trade Center, since according to Jones, the book had inspired the terrorist attacks. At this point, I wasn't much of a vlogger myself but if I was, I would've pointed out on YouTube that by his own reasoning, the religious book he uses: the Bible, isn't entirely clean from people doing horrible shit to fellow human beings with this particular holy book being used as inspiration for them:

Now, xxxThePeachxxx's video suggested that as backwards and obsolete of modern-day society as the Qur'an is, burning it is at best, an infantile approach to show your disdain for a book, and at worst purging our collective civilization of manuscripts of ideas and beliefs we once had, for generations to come. During the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque" media frenzy in the United States (which wasn't a mosque, nor was it even near Ground Zero of the WTC), I noticed that widespread global media attention actually went to this man and his followers, and it seemed like he was seriously considering this. It was then that several US government officials, no less than Secretary of the State Hilary Clinton; General David Petraeus, the commander of the US forces in Afghanistan; and the commander-in-chief President of the United States Barack Obama himself specifically warning him that his actions could potentially threaten the lives of the soldiers abroad in Afghanistan and Iraq. It would've seemed Terry Jones didn't care and would rather uphold his constitutional right to burn the Qur'an if he so chose, just because; but then he supposedly received a call from the developers of Park51 (aka the "Ground Zero Mosque") informing him that they'll move the building elsewhere, and so he relented. Of course, no such promise was ever made to him, and when this was brought up, Jones tried to turn it into them breaking their fictitious promise. Still, he relented saying he'll move the date and that his point was made (He also received a lucrative Toyota deal if he didn't go through with it).

Turns out he was serious when he said he'll move the date elsewhere. This fucking moron on the 20 May 2011, held a mock trial for the Qur'an, in which he found it guilty of crimes against humanity (or something) and burnt it after dowsing it with kerosene. A member of his congregation filmed the whole trial and the video was uploaded onto the Internet. The world's media caught wind of his new attention-whoring antics and "somehow" that news became within Afghan President Hamid Karzai's reach, who then condemned the Qur'an burning. This news spread and a protest was held on April 1, 2011 in Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan; which quickly turned violent with 12 people killed as a result: 5 of them Gurkhas and 3 UN staff members. Terry Jones being the amoral fuckwit he is, bears no responsibility for the protests.

Now this post is going to be my honest opinions on the entire thing. Also what I found is that I can put my thoughts properly when I write it down, so here it goes: Terry Jones, you sir, are an attention-seeking moron. Did you not consider that for one second if you were really as patriotic as you fancied yourself to being last September, then you would've taken heed of the warning of Gen. Petraeus and President Obama of the consequences of your actions? and how it would affect the situation abroad in Afghanistan and Iraq? But you didn't care. You just wanted your 15 minutes of fame, and put it at the expense of the lives of those operating in Afghanistan and Iraq. If this was your way of finding proof that there is a violent element to Islam that still exists in areas like Afghanistan, my response is: "No fucking shit, Sherlock!" The Taliban is still actually out there. Of course there's violent elements to Islam. It's a religion with a book written 1400 years ago.

Protesters: As much as I find this Terry Jones guy vile, I'm aware you for the most part don't know much about the United States and the Western world in general. And I understand that since you guys have dealt with warlords fighting each other, the Soviet Union invading your country, and being ruled by the Taliban who basically controlled your exposure to the Western society (which is to say they only showed the bad bits and exaggerated them). But one of these days, you must realise that not everyone in the world is going to respect the religion that is predominant in your nation. Not everyone will put the Qur'an on top of the shelf, and that in the West, there are a number of people that will not view your holy book as the source for all morality and even in many cases, find it ridiculous that people in this day and age still use it. In the same way that the accusation is often made that people in the West generalise all Muslims as terrorists because of the sort of media there, you also can't generalise as some homogeneous block where everyone shares the same sentiments. The reality is far from what is presented to you about the way of life experienced in the West and the freedoms you will experience there. Sure, we've been absolute dick things abroad, especially in your neighbourhood, but that still doesn't warrant you to go and kill people you identity to be foreigners, or look Wetsern, or associated with Westerns. All you're doing is legitimizing the Islamophobic sentiments that is becoming a problem in Western culture. If you want people to respect your beliefs, then try to do everything that is within your power, to stop reacting violently. Terry Jones does not give a flying fuck if you burn effigies of him. In fact, he's hoping that you do just that to prove his point. And do not listen to those religious cunts who claim to speak for you and uphold your religion. They are part of the problem, and a significant reason as to why your country can't experience the liberties they deserve. They are even worse than Terry Jones. They are the ones who will tell you to give up your son to them, so that he can fight for some vague, unachievable goal as part of some fictitious Jihad.

And finally, media: I sincerely hope you dickheads had your lulz out of this mustached cunt. Care to explain how someone like Terry Jones was able to get your attention in the first place? Because I sincerely doubt he's that charismatic. I mean, look at the size of his congregation. How an organisation of no more than 50 members, all of them almost as uneducated as an 8-year-old girl under the Taliban were able to get the world's media's attention is beyond me. And worse, before you ask Terry Jones if he feels responsible for the protests in Afghanistan, why don't you take a good look in the mirror and ask yourselves: On what slow day was this newsworthy? Should we pander to attention-whoring pricks like this man? Is it worth pestering government officials on this man's actions? Would these protesters even know about this man if you ignored his attempts to showcase his fundamentalist idiocy on the six-o-clock news? Well, guys it was funny while it lasted (well actually, it wasn't) until people got hurt. So that's my take on this whole sorry affair. Misanthropy is becoming a more promising position when you have: 1. An idiot who can't voice his objection to someone's beliefs without it feeding his own ego, and pyromania; 2. A group of people who get really upset over their shared favourite book being burned that they have to kill someone as compensation (although showing them other, better books that can inspire practical use from its information gained from it); And 3. The media morons thinking number 1. is more interesting enough to report time and time again, until something cool happens. Like 12 people being killed, 5 of them Gurkhas. Awesome(!) There's enough asshole to go around.

So, what have we learned? Burning books are not arguments against them. And if you want respect, stop behaving in a manner that makes it harder for you to get it. Act like your fucking species, please. That's all. See you soon.

UPDATE 06/04/2001: My position has somewhat changed. Pastor Terry Jones is an idiot. However, burning the Qur'an does not kill people. Overreacting to the burning the Qur'an with violence kills people. The media just does what it does and it was pretty inevitable that they'd report on him again after last September. Also, where does the blame go from there, to relations between the West and the Islamic world? No. It begins and ends with the guys who killed innocent people for whatever reason. The real problem is people who cannot behave even in a slightly reasonable manner when their favourite story book is burned. Even if they had a lack of education, I still suspect that the killing of these people wasn't an accident. Shoot, even the Dove World Outreach Center is uneducated, I still think burning a Qur'an harms any diplomatic measures that should be taken. And so the ones who killed those 13 people, are a bunch of cowardly butthurt assholes. What reason was there to react like that and kill those people, none of them are Terry Jones or related to him in any way? Why did you kill the ones who weren't Westerners? And if they should be found and arrested for their actions, what will their excuse to the police?: "I killed those people because someone across the world burnt the Qu'ran"? That's a pretty fucking pathetic reaction to a Qur'an burning, as infantile as it is. If any protesters there do not advocate the murder of these people, then they should distance from them. As I said before, do not allow yourselves to be swept up by cunts who care less about you and your rights than their dogma. They are the ones that have ultimately ruined your country, not the West (well, kinda). So stop overreacting over a book and take personal responsibility.