As we know, there are many different religions in the world all with its religious leaders. For example, there are priests, ministers, rabbis, and an Imam. These religious leaders are supposed to be holy people in which they act in accord with their beliefs and represent their religious organization, so its followers agree and go along with its leaders. Many times this can be a wise thing to follow, but at other times, there are questionable actions that people follow.
In the New Haven Register, I read an article entitled, "Florida minister vows to burn Quran as 9/11 protest" in which a Christian minister wanted to create a movement in which people gathered together to each burn a Quran(the holy book of Islam) as a protest to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11th. Pastor Terry Jones claims that this idea came to him in July because he believes in an anti-Islam philosophy and preaches this idea to his small, evangelical Christian church. Ever since this thought in July he prayed about whether or not he should proceed with this event and decided the week of the anniversary of Sept. 11th, that he would go on with the burning of the Qurans.
This sparked much controversy on a global scale, public in the United States, in the White House, and for the top U.S. general in Afghanistan. The public in the United States have shown their disapproval of this movement, because there have been press articles regarding the disagreement against Pastor Terry Jones. Pastor Jones has also recieved more than 100 death threats from unknown sources. On a global scale, this reflects badly on the United States, because one of the beauties of this country is the freedom and acceptance of religion for all. Now, that there is this act by the minister, it is making this country sound contradictory and untrustworthy, and so it is inflaming public opinion and inciting violent views towards this country. The U.S. general in Afghanistan said that "the images of the burning of a Quran would undoubtedly be used by extremists in Afghanistan and around the world to inflame public opinion and incite violence." (New Haven Register) The White House is unsupportive of this movement because it is impinging on what this country represents and is causing too much disruption among the people. Although people are unsupportive of this, Pastor Terry Jones is protected by the First Amendment and he has the right to take this action.
This event has caused much attention to the Middle East as a whole. People are looking to how the Middle East is going to react to this and what action they are going to take in response to such a distasteful event. The Middle East and the United Sates are trying to mend their relationship and trying to improve it, but it is no help when people in this country are doing things to incite ill feelings. In a sense, Pastor Terry Jones is ripping off the bandaid covering a wound and then him burning the Qurans is like re-opening the wound. Now, the Middle East has been more affected on how people perceive this organization even after alomst a decade after the events of September 11th. Just when people thought the hatred against the Middle East was lessening, more controversy towards the Middle East has resounded.
In my opinion, I believe that the actions of Pastor Terry Jones were unpatriotic, wrong, and illegal. The Quran is similar to that of the christian Bible, in which it is the sacred word of God and it insists on being treated with the utmost respect. As mentioned in my previous blog concerning the potential building of a mosque near Ground Zero, the Islamic religion should not be punished just because of the actions of a couple of individuals from that religion, not all members are bad and terrorists. Why then are people, especially Americans, who are Muslim, being punished and criticized for something they should not be attributed to? This issue links to the reading we had for class in Chapter 4 of The Basics of Social Research, in which the term ecological fallacy is, "erroneously basing conclusions about individuals solely on the observation of groups and that it is an assumption that something learned about an ecological unit says something about the individuals making up that unit." (Babbie, 108). People in the United States and I am sure all over the world assume that all Middle Eastern individuals are bad people and terrorists after the events of September 11th, and that any Muslim is deemed to be associated with the terrorists and events of September 11, 2001. We also see that a spurious variable which is, "a coincidental statistical correlation between two variables, shown to be caused by some third variable" (Babbie 98), and example is the location of people may have an affect on a differing opinion whether it be people within the United States and people outside of the United States, from a different country. I am shocked to see that such a holy man that is supposed to represent God is doing something so distasteful just because he wants to protest the Islamic religion. There are other ways to do so in a more respectful manner and get your point across. Stay tuned in one of my future blogs that will address how this protest went and what results, if any, were created from this protest.
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