Burn the Koran? On 9/11? Are You Morons?

The Koran is a translation/interpretation of the Torah (Hebrew) or the Old Testament as we call the translation/interpretation as Christians.  Burning the Koran?  You are burning a version of the Old Testament you idiots.

Not that I believe any religion is right or wrong, I pretty much believe they are all wrong.  If there is a "God" or "Allah" or whatever you want to call him (or her), bad things would not happen to good people.  I do believe there are forces out there we cannot explain that do cause the unexplainable, but these forces cannot consciously decide what happens when, and why.

These same people who want to burn the Koran, also would want you to believe in "Creationism" when it has been scientifically disproved.  These people (extreme religious right, tea party patriots, uneducated middle of the country people, extreme right wing republicans, insert your favorite synonym for idiot or inbred, etc.) went so far as to call it "Intelligent Design", though intelligent in this case is an oxymoron.  Intelligent Design is actually the "PR" name for creationism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation%E2%80%93evolution_controversy), or as I like to call it, dumb ass ignorance(a double entendre, not oxymoron). 

How could people be so ignorant?  None of the people I know, work with, speak to on a regular basis, even come into contact with in a normal day believe this crap.  I still am amazed at how impressionable these people could be.  Christian terrorists? Yes, they are.  They want to teach their religious extremist ideas in school, and raise their children close minded and insulated from the outside world.  They kill people at abortion clinics (another oxymoron) to justify not terminating pregnancies.  Maybe they are afraid that they would have been aborted, and people like themselves would be as well.  Maybe if their father/uncle (it is possible for your father to also be your uncle where these people live) knew there was an abortion option, they would never have been born. 

All major religions preach along similar lines:  be good to others, don't steal, cheat, murder, etc. but all religions have another common theme:  terrorist extremists.  Israelis?  Check.  Christians?  Check.  Muslims?  Check.  (Buddhism is probably as close as you get to the truth, a wise fat guy who grants you wishes when you rub his belly, kind of like Santa Claus, but no extremists, just wise old sayings.  Maybe I'm partial because I am a fat guy who doesn't cheat, steal, murder, etc.)

Religion is great for people who want to believe, and more importantly for people who need to believe.  Some people like to hear the rules over and over, while others need to be reminded of them constantly.  That is fine, I wish I had more time to practice at golf, I would probably be a lot better at it, but the rules to life, I'm good.  Religion is not so great when religious leaders bend and twist the rules (IE: interpret them) in a way that condones violence, acts of terrorism, and hatred towards others.  Unfortunately, all major religions are guilty of this as well.  The problem lies with the religious leaders themselves, not because they aren't good people in general, but because of the simple fact that they are humans (not God, prophets, or Intelligent Designers) and are subject to human nature, just like the rest of us.

The power does get to them.  The followers give this power to them.  Ultimately, ambition gets to them (they want to move up the ranks, to grow their "flock", to stake their claims to land, to convert others to their faith, to influence politicians and government) and this goes against every religious belief system, but you cannot eliminate human nature or emotion, proof of evolution again!  If people wonder why religion and politics should not mix but always do, re-read the previous 3 sentences, and then think about what religion resembles most closely.  Wouldn't you guess the Government (any country's government)?

Both tax you, both want your votes, both tell you the rules (to your private and public life), both use your "taxes/donations" to further promote themselves and their beliefs, and both have fundamental (for the mental) extremists.   They both promote peace, and both promote wars, which brings us back to today, 9/11. 

War does not protect the innocent, obviously, or terrorists would have attacked our military bases and our government, not a densely populated major city known as the capital of the world.  My only concern with this is why did we wait so long to fight back, and why didn't we just eliminate every single person known to be a terrorist or extremist?  Why are we supposed to fight a war with different rules?  Is our country's public relations department so incompetent that we cannot justify fighting back under our own terms?  The Koran itself speaks of "an Eye for an Eye" but the world would be outraged if we turned the mountain range between Afghanistan and Pakistan into a parking lot.  All of these terrorist attacks are because of religion?   Because we defend Israel?  Because we defend democracy for all who need defending?

If you hate Israel, attack Israel, or are you afraid to?  The one airline you never see getting hijacked is El Al, the Israeli airline.  That's because if you try to hijack one, you get killed.  No questions asked, bad PR be damned.  The world might hate us, but they will think twice before attacking us again.  And another newsflash, the world already hates us (Americans), so why are we so worried about what everyone else thinks?  Probably because our politicians (past and present) always have something to gain financially through war, and they just can't justify a war to be solely about the safety of the American people, which brings us back to bad PR.

The Big FU goes to the people who burned the Koran, and the people who wanted to, for being too stupid to realize that it is their own religion as well, and to our leaders who should take their dress off and fight the war we should have fought.  The burning of the Koran will just get more of our soldiers killed, its just more bad PR.  Go after the terrorists, and if they hide behind civilians, eliminate them.  I do not remember seeing any of our soldiers hiding at the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan on 9/11/2001, but for some reason, they hit not once, but twice, into two buildings filled with civilians of all faiths, who were just going to work that day, or just visiting tourists.   




I was about to finish writing the mortgage meltdown article I was writing when I realized what date it was today:  9/11/2010.  It has been 9 years since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
The mortgage meltdown could wait another week, it happened already, but my opinion above could not wait.

I am fortunate enough to have many family members and friends who live in the area and work in the area who all survived that day.  Some are police officers, some firemen, some who worked in lower Manhattan, mostly all living in the vicinity. 

I remember working from home on my computer, "sportscenter" in the background on ESPN, and then my cell phone ringing.  I answered the call and that is when I started listening to sportscenter, but it was ABC news in NY on ESPN, and my friend on the phone saying "Do you know what is going on right now?"  I went to the TV and saw the 2nd plane crash into one of the World Trade towers, the other one already smoking.  My friend yelled "did you see that!?", I said yes, what the hell is going on?  Eventually everyone found out.  The news seemed to be on a continuous loop for days.  Cell phone service went out and was intermittent for days.

The only thing I could not figure out that day was the last plane that crashed in Pennsylvania, on its way to Washington, DC.  I recall hearing on one news report that there was one plane unaccounted for, and not responding (all other flights had been grounded/rerouted) and that military fighter jets were following this plane.  They did not mention which plane and where it was, but it makes sense when you hear the phone conversations people had with their family and friends who were on that flight that went down in Pennsylvania, and one of those people/recordings mentioned that the wing was on fire before they fought their way into the cockpit. I know I tried to switch to multiple channels and news sources, but I only heard that one brief report about the fighter jets, and it was never mentioned again that day, or any of the subsequent days after the tragedy. The recordings and phone conversations came much later, I believe days or even weeks after 9/11, but still no mention of the fighter jets and that last plane.

 I do not know if anyone else might have remembered, but feel free to comment about any and all of the above.