NIB-NOB

So Terry Jones finally burnt a copy of the Quran (or Qur'an, Kuran, Koran, Qur’ān, Coran or al-Qur’ān).

What a funny old world we live in. If some bloke went around demanding that no one say "nib-nob" and exclaimed that if anyone dare say nib-nob he would beat the hell out of them then you could take one of two positions. You could just diplomatically avoid saying nib-nob so that you could get on quietly with your own life without this lunatic attacking you or you could say nib-nob-nib-nob nib-nob in an attempt to rile him and ask what he was going to do about it. You would likely get struck. I wonder what that is all about. It seems that the guy has arbitrarily chosen a rule and demanded that everyone else follow his rule and then he uses threats to harm people to control them. This sounds like a very insecure chap who was probably made to feel insignificant and powerless as a small boy. To assert his validity he needs to control other people. Now if I had a friend who asked me not to say nib-nob because it offended him I would probably avoid saying nib-nob out of respect. But would he remain a friend for long if he kept asserting that I mustn't say nib-nob or he would beat me up? I don't think I would waste much time with a bloke like that. It would seem to me that he was not content to deal with his own problems but rather feels the need to control other people to validate his own existence. If I believed in a God then I would suggest that God, being all powerful, created humans as separate entities such that they dealt with their own responsibilities according to God's edict. If I am responsible for myself then I should not be the bad guy beating up other people who are not good guys. Surely the trick is to be a good guy. If nib-nob is something God says I should not say then it is up to me not to say it. Ordering others around when they have equally arbitrary notions of their own is simple a device of competition to see who's nib-nob will rule the day. It reminds me of the school bully asking if you like his girlfriend. If you do you get beaten up because he owns her and if you don't you get beaten up for not appreciating her.

I think if Terry Jones bought a published copy of a book which was on sale for him to buy so that the profits (not the prophets) went to the publisher then it is up to Terry whether he reads it, uses it as a prop for his table or burns it. If he takes someone else's book and burns it he should be made to replace it. But that is not what this burning of the Quran is about. It is all symbolic. Muslims have decided to invest meaning in material objects and hold the rest of the world to ransom declaring these material creations sacred in some way. Then they justify draconian and punitive action against anyone who dares to not agree with them. Worse still, in this case, because killing other people half way round the world will do just as well to frighten Terry or anyone else who might agree with him. It is all beginning to look like the Christian Inquisition.

It is ironic that the revolutions in the Middle East are against dictatorial oppressive threatening control freaks. Are the Egyptians really going to vote in the Muslim Brotherhood? Are the populations so deprived of information and the ability to think for themselves that they are going to swap one dictatorial oppressive regime for another. Any religion which does not tolerate dissent is not acceptable to humanity. It is rather a subversive, insidious, perverse mechanism of control. Interesting that Islam is quite happy to accept Jesus as a prophet and his "message" from God was one of peace. I have not read the Quran but I am led to believe that Islam is meant to be a peace loving religion. Is the proposition that it is a peace loving religion a little like the Christian claim? Is it just a moralistic pronouncement to hide the malicious hierarchical machinations of the deceptive power mongers who hold the religion up to justify their pompous, self important rule.

There is an insight into what this is all about. If you intimidate children and control them to agree with the way you think then in most cases they will think that way in order to survive. Having perverted their freedom they are disadvantaged when it comes to thinking for themselves later on. Enforcing a religion on children is directly contrary to all the "goodness" embodied in the pretentious teachings. Pretentious because it is a pretence to tell someone that peace and non-violence is the correct way and you will beat the hell out of them if they don't agree. Threatening to ostracise children or to abandon them or to beat them are all survival threats. Adults who do that to children are behaving very badly. Except that most of them don't know what they are doing because they have been intimidated and frightened themselves in childhood they are performing probably one of the worst possible acts known to humanity. Namely perverting and corrupting the God given freedom of children.

We don't like Nazis and we don't like fascists and we don't like dictatorial regimes which isolate and intimidate their subjects. That is all about the aggrandizement of the leaders. People who attack and kill other people because they are upset should look into their own hearts and figure out what is really hurting them because it is not some goofy pastor in Florida. What is hurting them is that they have complied with the mechanisms of oppression in their own culture and they are profoundly ashamed of what they have done to themselves in the acceptance of their subjugation to their cruel leaders. They should attempt to be brave enough to stand up to their oppressors and in the case of the objection to the burning of the Quran the odds are their oppressors are the Muslim hierarchy. I say this because I know this dynamic from my upbringing as a Christian tree.

A note for anyone wanting to condemn me for saying nib-nob. I didn't say it I was just reporting a fictitious character who said it or might have said it.  I'm only a tree so burn the fiction and get on with reality.

For further reading see: Good God the Oppressor! • Is God an abuser? • God claims he doesn't exist! • Pope & Equality • What God Wants • The God Delusion.