By JERRY COYNE AND (SEPARATELY) PZ MYERS - WEIT AND PHARYNGULA
Added: Thu, 09 Sep 2010 19:02:33 UTC

Jerry Coyne: I think it’s a damn stupid idea for Florida pastor Terry Jones to burn a Qur’an in public, given that a) It’s being done by religious loons who have trouble with Islam but not with their own faith. b) If you want to criticize Islam, there are more productive ways to do it. This accomplishes very little except to express one superstition’s dislike of another. c) It seems more a xenophobic right-wing gesture than a religious one. And, of course, there’s the elephant in the room (not so hidden, actually): d) The Qur’an-burning—as President Obama just stressed—is likely to ignite all kinds of protest in the Muslim world, leading to violence and death. Read on

PZ Myers You know, I'm something of an expert in the public desecration of sacred objects, and I'm seeing the same madness going on right now with Terry Jones and his plan to burn copies of the Koran that I saw in the response to throwing a cracker in the trash — only amplified to a ludicrous degree. People just aren't getting it; they're so blinded by an inappropriate attachment to magic relics that they're missing the real issues. Read on

TAGGED: ISLAM, POLITICS, RELIGION