Burn a Quran Day--the world takes notice

You've gotta hand it to the Rev. Terry Jones--he's got the world in the palm of his hand.

With four days left to decide whether to make good on his already shaky promise to hold "Burn a Koran Day" on Sept. 11, the minister's eventual choice will have a far-reaching impact that could trigger a proverbial, or literal, firestorm.

Have we not, as a species, learned our lesson about what comes from burning books? I guess that doesn't apply to Jones, who has said he believes God itself wants him to burn Qurans.

People worldwide are warning against this action. Even David Petraeus, the top U.S. military commander, said "Burn a Koran Day" will undoubtedly make extremists worldwide even angrier, according to an Associated Press piece via Yahoo! News.

The question running thru everyone's mind: what if the tables turned and some extremist religious group decided to burn Bibles? Well, something close to it happened last Monday, when citizens in Kabul burned Jones' effigy along with an American flag whilst calling for President Obama's death, according to The Washington Times.

It's evidence of the truth behind Petraeus' warning. If he follows through, Jones' act will be a new low to stoop to for American Christianity, a religion with forgiveness as its foundation. Doesn't forgiveness involve not doing something so drastic as burning a Bible equivalent? Doesn't Jones see that he may as well be burning Bibles?

CNN's American Morning show today put online this video of a group of about 13 American soldiers in Afghanistan, talking to Jason Carroll about what they've been doing over there lately. One of them said they don't go on the offensive--they just defend themselves, in addition to trying to get the local civilians to come together as one people.

Our troops are constantly under attack. The violence there is barely containable, which should come as a surprise to no one. The soldiers' revelation lead me to believe Petraeus' warning all the more.

I can't help but draw a similarity between what happened to South Park. Making an episode on television is not exactly the same as holding a book-burning, but the result will be similar: millions of people will witness the creation. Jones' cry for attention has worked, and now the world bites its fingernails in anticipation.

The reason Jones is doing this in the first place is to protest a mosque building project at Ground Zero, but his message has been totally overwhelmed by intentions. It's not cool to burn books as protest. It sets society back, and it makes Christianity seem accepting to extremists who would use its teachings for violence.

But if we look back just a wee bit in history, we'd see that it wouldn't be the first time a religion has been used as a front for persecution and intolerance.