Koran Burning is Morally Wrong

I do not mean Koran Burning is wrong in-and-of-itself but rather because it incites violence. This is a response to this article.

As despicable as he may be, Jones didn’t do anything wrong — he certainly didn’t do anything illegal. He burned a book, but he has a right to do that. He may hate the Koran, Islam, and Muslims as a whole, but I have yet to hear him advocating violence against that community. He didn’t cause the recent violence in Afghanistan that transpired after his burning — instead, the blame rests on three mullahs and President Hamid Karzai for fueling that fight by bringing unnecessary attention to Jones’ event.

It would be nice if everyone was as secular as you and me, but in a world torn apart by religion, we must not ignore religion and its ideologues.

I condemn Terry Jones for inciting violence when he knew that deaths of innocent people were the only consequence of his unnecessary actions. It is by knowing the effects of our actions that we become responsible, and if I give a person a motivation to kill, I am morally responsible and people ought to condemn me for that action.

Koran is way more than just a book for more than a billion people. It is way more than the greatest piece of art. This is worse than taking a hammer to the Pieta. Vandalism of it is like attacking their god. It is a holy relic and a connection to the will of their god, and we ought not impose our crude secular interpretation of its value by simply calling it a book.