thalamtnafsee:

…It is fathomable when a particular group of people, or for argument’s sake, a single person, decides that a specific ideology does not suit their intellectual liking. It is also understood - and dare I say, quite honorable - if a group of people decide to host intellectually stimulating discussions about religion for groups of people who are of different faiths.

But what I don’t seem to fathom is when people choose (yes, it is a choice) to be completely blinded by the amount of people who hold different views from them while encouraging hateful crimes and deviant intolerable behaviors. I do not understand how people mindfully decide to justify the burning of religious texts that people revere and find guidance in. What are you possibly thinking when you burn the Quran, flush the Bible down the toilet, or mock people of religion by hosting websites about how “useless” their religion is?

A few weeks ago, I was browsing through YouTube when I came across this horrid video about students flushing the pages of the Bible down the toilet. I was taken aback by this hateful crime; what makes you think this behavior is appropriate, I remember asking myself.

 And then not so long ago, we have seen the burning of the Quran by Florida Pastor Terry Jones. When I read of the incident in the paper, I was beyond furious. But I wasn’t just furious because my sacred book was being burned, but because this man believes that he’s a man of God. Holding a mock trial on the 20^th of March, Terry Jones deducted that it was only rational to burn the Quran. The article reads:

After listening to “evidence” and arguments from both sides, the jury pronounced the Koran “guilty” of five “crimes against humanity,” including the promotion of terrorist acts and “the death, rape and torture of people worldwide whose only crime is not being of the Islamic faith. The Koran’s “punishment” was determined by the results of an online poll. Besides burning, the options had included shredding, drowning and facing a firing squad. Mr. Jones, an evangelical pastor, announced that voters had chosen to set fire to the book, according to a video of the proceedings.

After that incident infuriated so many American Muslims, many Christians have decided to openly declare their apologies about this crude behavior shown by Pastor Jones. For some, that was enough to forget the incident. But for many others, this did not solve the issue.

Hateful crimes against religion will always disrupt society, I am sure of that. But I am not entirely sure if such behaviors with ever permanently go away. What I am sure of, however, is as long as we continue to birth children that are tolerant, respectful, and intellectually stimulating, we will be able to condemn such actions on a universal level. I believe that if Muslims took the time to read the Bible as much as Christians took the time to understand it, we can become a tolerable nation. And I believe that if Christians decide to attend Quran courses as much as they are willing to take Bible study, we’d learn to love one another.