The small church in Florida, the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, pastored by Rev. Terry Jones has created a fire storm (pun intended) of controversy surrounding the recent decision to burn copies of the Qur’an on the anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks on September 11, 2001. I do not think the uproar is for whether or not Rev. Jones has the right, but is it right.
I think there are a few things to be said for this planned protest. First, this is a terrible witness for the cause of Christianity. With the way the media and already skeptical critics of Christianity portray the religion, to them this church is representative of Christians as a whole. Whether this is a true representation of Christians and Christianity is irrelevant. With the microscope on Christians to paint them as bigoted and narrow minded at every opportunity, this only makes the perception worse.
Second, I actually do believe this will serve as a learning experience for the world. Remember how Muslims reacted over the Danish cartoonist who drew a comic of Mohammad? The comic was met with much violence around the world. So we can only assume this act of Qur’an burnings will be met with the same violence. Unfortunately, following all the violence, will be national apologies and prostration of the United States to the Muslim world, and somehow after all the killings and bombings by Muslims, they will be viewed as the victims in this whole debacle.
As much as there is to learn about Islam’s violent reactions to real or perceived insults, through this protest I do not think the aftermath and body count is worth it. This pastor ought to know better and have the where-with-all to protest in a more appropriate venue.
Sifting Reality 
I belive that he will be making a terrible mistake if he does in fact go through with his "plan". As a pastor and therefore a leader, of a church that claims to follow the Christian teachings, he should realize that this will,as you pointed out, be a terrible witness of the Christian faith.Also there WILL be terrorist attacks in response to this action. These attacks will be, as usual, against innocent men women and children. I think what is the most intolrable (sp?) aspect of this is this pastor KNOWS that lives will be lost and destroyed and he STILL plans on going through with this.I understand about his right to do this, however would'nt this fall under some part of national security?
Luckily, the pastor has decided to indeed back off his protest, and rightly so. There are better ways to protest Islam and terrorism. I do however think there is an amount of damage already done. In the end I was not so much concerned for the troops since it's their job unfortunately to be in harms way, I was more concerned for Americans in foriegn countries visiting for one reason or another, they will be caught by suprise by the violence which will befall them. The troops more or less are ready for and expect attacks and are better suited to defend themselves.
I think it has nothing to do with religions.. It is all politicized by the world powers and nothing more than that..
Can you elaborate by what you mean, your comment is really general. Can you be more specific?
I think when people like us, who are just plain and simple can be harmonious with people of other religions then why not governments, places of worships, religious and political leaders? It’s not the religion that coerces you to do bad things it’s your understanding, it’s your perception and your willingness to accept that perception that makes you do such stuff… I have lived with people of different religions and I have friends of different religions and I haven’t found any one of them to be like what has been portrayed on the news channel or what the world has to say about each other’s religions.
I don’t know if I’m good at explaining and that too such a complicated issue. All I want to say is that this is for political gain. The world powers who ever they are (I don’t believe America to be world power, I believe America is run by some other power… and please no offence intended… I have complete respect for everyone, every religion, every nation, every country and everything) they want us to fight and obviously every man on the universe holds his religion very deeply and cannot hear a word about his God or his holy place or holy book or anything that is holy. So, these powers want us to divide on basis of religion as it’s easy to sneak hatred when someone says something about their religion or anything they hold close to their heart. In this way when they have all the people divided in the world, it would be easy to get what those powers want out of us by manipulating and its easy to manipulate when there is a lot of confusion, division and grouping…
I don’t know if you get this… I don’t expect you to but well this is what I have analyzed so far.. because you know , I have many friends belonging to different religions, cultures and places. We attend and help each other in religious activities and ceremonies and totally respect those ceremonies. We stand for each other even though when the world has bad things to say about our religions. So why can’t governments, talk shows, bureaucrats and big shots behave like us? Do you really think that the war, bloodshed, brutality or human right violation in different parts of the world that takes place because Muslims are terrorists would benefit us? Don’t you think that if someone did us bad we should forgive them and instill peace rather to act the same way? If Christians make up the most of the world and religion is powerful enough to break relations and spread hatred then why can’t Pope instill peace? Why after 9/11 people are divided because of religions?
People I have met around the world, all gave me one answer to these questions… They said we can instill peace and we can help each other so why do governments and political leadership always have problem? Why aint they ever successful when normal people can be with each other?