Petraeus warns over Qur’ān burning, News Story #85

This

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-11209738

is going to be more serious than drawing Mohammad cartoons.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11223457

That pastor is opening a can of worms. Does he think the maniacs he's trying to confront would be content just to burn the Bible in retaliation? By doing what he intends to do, he is showing himself as no better than al-Qaeda or Taliban bigots!

Sylvia, Sophie:

I have split your posts from where you originally posted them as I feel they are better beginning a new thread. By the way, I’ve put you in the Friends group on this board so you can post using HTML. Just wrap the dohtml tags in square brackets around your text. You can click on “quote” on some of our posts to get an idea of how to post in HTML.

For news stories, we tend to post them in the following format.

Tuesday 07 September 2010

Petraeus: Koran burning plan will endanger US troops

The top US commander in Afghanistan has warned that troops’ lives will be in danger if an American church sticks to its plan to burn copies of the Koran.

Gen David Petraeus said the action could cause problems “not just in Kabul, but everywhere in the world”.

Pastor Terry Jones, of the Dove World Outreach Center, plans to put copies of the holy book in a bonfire to mark this week's anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

Full story at BBC News

Wednesday 08 September 2010

US church defiant despite condemnation of Koran burning

A small US church says it will defy international condemnation and go ahead with plans to burn copies of the Koran on the 9/11 anniversary.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the church’s plan was “disrespectful and disgraceful”.

Muslim countries and NATO have also hit out at the move.

But organiser, Pastor Terry Jones said: “We must send a clear message to the radical element of Islam.”

The controversy comes at a time when the US relationship with Islam is very much under scrutiny.

Full story at BBC News

Incidentally, this is my 911^th post on the forums!!!

Thanks, Ebudae! I'll try and learn to post in HTML. It's an honour to be one of your Friends here.

Eek!

What the world needs is not stupid acts like drawing cartoons or burning books but more natural disasters like the recent flooding in Pakistan. They are the only effective way to make the world a safer place by reducing the population of these dangerous Allah-worshipping maniacs.

Careful! Not every person who worships Allah is necessarily a maniac.

I did not mention anything about the worshipping of Allah.

It's no laughing matter. I'm sure the burning of the Bible would offend some Christians, as the burning of the Koran certainly will offend Muslims.

The plan by Pastor Terry Jones to burn copies of the Muslim holy book has been condemned by President Obama.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11243711

(Apologies for not posting in the correct format; I find it easier just to give the link. And yes, Ebudae, you can edit my post. ) According to the excellent analyses in the BBC News articles, Pastor Jones cannot be legally interdicted from carrying out his plan because of the US Amendment that allows for freedom of speech. Even the President himself can do no more than appeal to the pastor not to go ahead with his controversial plan.

Why US government could not have stopped the Koran bonfire: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11254419

The bonfire didn't go ahead after all. It all appears to be just a publicity stunt. He wasn't really intending to burn anything, was he? He just wanted to attract attention and stir up sensitive feelings by threatening to burn the Koran and then backing down at the last moment.

With the Koran-burning hoo-ha now over, media attention is now on American protests against plans to build a Muslim mosque close to Ground Zero. The reasoning of these idiots is as follows.

1. The September-11 attacks are the work of al-Qaeda.

2. Al-Qaeda are Muslims.

3. Therefore Muslims are responsible for the September-11 attacks.

Well, well. If this is typical of the way Americans reason things out, it is no wonder that it should be America and no other country that has produced that G.W. Bush freak. Really, I wouldn’t half mind seeing more September-11 style attacks on America – for the satisfaction of seeing these fuckheads weeded out of the gene pool! The world a much more reasonable place to live in then!

Hi George. Actually, the argument is not so much fallacious as ambiguous. The ambiguity lies in the third statement.

It is not clear whether you mean "all Muslims" or "some Muslims". If "all Muslims", then the syllogism is clearly invalid. But it is valid if you mean just "some Muslims". It may not be a very persuasive argument for the protestors in the debate on the building of the mosque, but "some Muslims" still renders the argument valid.

As I'm currently reading a philosophy book, it's worth getting such things straight in my thinking.

Thanks for pointing it out, Sophie. Actually, strictly speaking, “some Muslims” still won’t make the argument valid – unless you adopt the “weak” version of the predicate calculus, in which universal quantification implies existential quantification (so, for example, “all al-Qaeda members are Muslims” implies “there exist some al-Qaeda members (and therefore some Muslims)”).

But what do Americans know about such things as the quantifier-shift fallacy (or in this case the missing-quantifier ambiguity) anyway? By misplacing or omitting quantifiers here and there, they are always hoping to fool others who are as nescient as they are in predicate logic into treating illogical arguments as logical. That is what makes me hate Americans so much!

Thank you, George. All I can say is that I myself have nothing to say about the building of the mosque, for or against. It doesn't bother me and I'm not bothered with it. Best to avoid the fire and brimstone of the debate.