Saturday, September 18, 2010

Good Question

Wade Burleson asks a good question:

The U.S. military has confirmed that Bibles of United States soldiers serving in Afghanistan were confiscated and destroyed by order of the U.S. State Department because Muslims were offended that the soldiers were filmed reading the Bibles on Arabic Al Jazeera television. CNN reported that that the Bibles were "burned" in order to satisfy the demands of Muslim authorities who were deeply offended that copies of the official sacred book of Christianity, printed in the local language of the Afghans and read by U.S. soldiers fluent in Pashto, were allowed into the country. The burning of the Bibles in Afghansitan was approved by the U.S. government, lauded by the Afghan Muslims and seemed to satiate the anger of those Muslims deeply offended at Bible reading on Arab network television.

Why was there not a similar outrage among Muslims, the American military and the American government over the burning of Bibles in Afghanistan?

I know the issue has pretty well died down, but this was the first time I became aware of the problem since our fair and balanced news never mentioned it around here, and a couple of answers came to mind on this question.

1. It mixes apples and oranges. An Islamic country's legal system is religion based. There are lots of laws and practices that are not compatible with our democratic ideals. They have the right to preserve their laws and we have no right to openly push our religion on them.
2. Retaliating by burning their sacred book here is just childish. For that matter throwing temper tantrums over where they build a mosque/community center is just as childish. We are a democracy and should act like it.

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