Delete-a-Koran Day

Have you heard about that church in Gainesville, Florida? The pastor announced that he and his “flock” will burn Korans on September 11. I hope at least one enterprising member of the congregation will bring some all-beef wieners, or at least some marshmallows.

The reason is a bit unclear, but It almost seems that the Koran burning ceremony is supposed to make some sort of silly little political point (as if it’s the job of the Christian church to make silly little political points). It sure isn’t going to make a dent in the Koran publication industry.

Now, it’s just my opinion, but it seems to me that a printed copy of any sacred writing is not the sacred writing itself, but just a printed copy. This is true for the Christian Bible as well as for the Islamic Koran. And therefore burning printed copies of the Koran is a meaningless and moronic religious-political act done solely for self-aggrandizement and is needlessly provocative toward Islamists. And since the action is bound to provoke the Islamists, it is also part of my opinion that any reaction by the Islamists to this meaningless and moronic religious-political act would be just as moronic, just as meaningless, and just as political.

In other words, the Koran burning is just a childish display of stupidity by the party of the first part that will result in childish displays of stupidity by the party of the second part.

If you ask me, these modern church attendees are taking a step backwards by resurrecting the medieval tactic of book burning. During the middle ages, burning books actually meant something because books were hard to reproduce. Back then, if you burnt someone’s book, you really affected the person’s ability to distribute what he had to say. But, with today’s computerized publication processes, burning a book is just a politically symbolic waste of time.

So, I suggest the following:

To keep up with technological advances over the last one thousand years, this little group in Gainesville should bring laptop computers to the church, each with a copy of the Koran on the hard drives. Then, at the appointed time, each one command their computers to “format c:/”. They would have accomplished the same thing as a book burning, but without all that nasty smoke smell in the clothes. And they wouldn’t even need a burn permit.

But, they would have to be ready for the inevitable Islamist back-lash. I’m sure imams around the world would call for a “technical jihad” – a sort of computerized “eye-for-an-eye” retaliation. They would probably start by downloading copies of the Bible and the Torah onto their hard-drives and deleting them in unison while quoting the Koran (except maybe 60.6). Then, they may download pictures of the “Koran deleting infidels”, print those pictures onto film-quality paper, and then encourage their children to cut the heads off the pictures (with those cute little snub-nosed safety scissors, of course) while yelling “Allahu Akbar”.

(Hey, I know that’s silly. Rational people practicing a peaceful religion would never consider teaching their children to cut the heads off of perfectly good pictures - - - right?)

Anyway, the church in Gainesville say they are committed to doing this absurdity. And the Islamists say they are just as committed to responding with even more absurdity and some level of maliciousness. Like Forest Gump used to say, “Stupid is as stupid does.”