Sudan: Land of Bloodthirsty Religious Fanatics
Shoot UK teacher, say protesters
Thousands of people have marched in the Sudanese capital Khartoum to call
for UK teacher Gillian Gibbons to be shot.
Mrs Gibbons, 54, from Liverpool, was jailed by a court on Thursday after children in her class named a teddy bear Muhammad.
She was sentenced to 15 days for insulting religion, and she will then be deported.
The Foreign Office was in contact with Sudan's government overnight and is due to repeat demands for her release.
'Kill her'
The marchers took to the streets after Friday prayers to denounce the sentence as too lenient.
The protesters gathered in Martyrs Square, outside the presidential palace in the capital, many of them carrying knives and sticks.
Marchers chanted "Shame, shame on the UK", "No tolerance - execution" and "Kill her, kill her by firing squad".
Hundreds of riot police were deployed but they did not break up the demonstration.
The Foreign Office said it was seeking to confirm reports of the protest.
Once again religious zealots rear their ugly heads and prove that proclaiming to be religious and actually adhering to the tenets and beliefs of a religion are two completely different things. Or maybe the real danger is that religion is so open to interpretation (or misinterpretation) that anyone can pretty much do anything they want and still find a way to reconcile atrocities—if not justify them—in terms of religious belief. I suppose that is the main issue I have with religion. There are fanatics who do as they please and claim they are honoring their religion. And then there are the great majority of sheep who do not stop to question those actions but simply support the ones who say they are doing what is right.
There is no doubt in my mind that the majority of American Christians, for example, would support a killer who claimed he was a good Christian against an atheist who never hurt anyone. Because that's the way of religion. Religious adherents stick together, right or wrong. That is not a very Christian thing to do, of course, but let's face it: Jesus would never recognize his teachings in the actions and behavior of American Christians.
And so it is with crazy Muslim fanatics in Sudan. Demonstrating for the death of a school teacher who did nothing wrong is about as bad as it gets. This is an instance where fanatics have taken one isolated aspect of Islam and raised its importance over all others, specifically "insulting" the prophet Mohammed over all aspects of Islam that teach tolerance and condemn killing.
What needs to happen is for someone to rank-order Islam's principles and when they conflict, go with the higher principle. That would be a useful thing for someone to do in Christianity as well. For example, rank order the Ten Commandments. Which is the most important? Good Christians, of course, would be more bound by the Sermon on the Mount than the Ten Commandments, but let's go with the commandments. What should the Number One rule be? Do not kill? Or have no other God before God? That is the question. Because if the sanctity of human life was most important, killing in the nema of religion would be sacriligious. However, if having no other God before God was the ultimate commandment, then all sorts of atrocities are justified in enforcing that rule.
The mob in Sudan obviously believe honoring their God—actually, the prophet Mohammed—takes precedence over human life. Many Christians believe the same thing with respect to God and Jesus. Which makes me wonder if there can ever be peace and understanding between religious people who interpret their religion so narrowly.
The article quoted in part above is here.