Friday, September 10, 2010

Assitance for Terry Jones

Wanting to do my part to rid the world of outdated religious mysticism, fanaticism and hypocrisy, not to mention help heat the atmosphere with some badly needed carbon, I thought I'd perhaps consider a few bibles to burn while Rev. Terry Jones rounds up Qu'rans in Florida. (Please take the time to click on that link, where you can see how many people "like" this hate page.) After a quick 'Net search I came up with several bibles that the world could surely do without:

1. The Shooter's Bible: "Stoeger Publishing has released the 97th Edition of the Shooter's Bible, a 578-page reference volume featuring contributions from GUNS Magazine contributing field editor Sam Fadala." Then again, maybe burning is the wrong way for this book to meet it's maker. Perhaps death by firing squad would be more appropriate?

2. The Bootstrapper's Bible: "Available to you once again! There's never been a better time to start a business with no money. This manifesto will show you how." A financial suicide manual by any other name is still a financial suicide manual, right? Let's burn the damn thing and get it over with!

3. The Idiot's Bible: Hey, if the Wall Street Journal says it's the idiot's bible it can't be all bad. Or can it? According to pundit Mary Anastasia O'Grady, this is the name given "in free-market circles" to a book by "Uruguayan Marxist Eduardo Galeano" entitled Open Veins, which dares to blame the developed countries and multinational corporations for plundering resources in Latin America and contributing to the economic underdevelopment of the region. An unthinkable proposition, which has nevertheless been thought and documented in thick volumes by several authors since the 1970's. Commit it to the flames, as Hume said, for it contains nothing but lies, distortions, and unpleasant claims about the primary audience for the WSJ.

4. The Swing Trader's Bible: And I never even realized that Wall Street was so enamored of bibles! Here's a Wiley publication by Matthew McCall and Mark Whistler, which putatively "provides traders with different strategies to capitalize on market fluctuations". Funny, I always heard that market timing was a sure path to self-destruction - sort of on a par with starting an uncapitalized business. Somebody tell these guys about dollar cost averaging, and let's send up some smoke signals with this tome.

5. The American Patriot's Bible: Here's a book for all patriotic Americans who would like to replace the current, outdated Constitution with one that discards the principle of separating Church and State. All in favor say "Oy!" Not that the book says explicitly to dump the old James Madison text, as far as I can tell from perusing the web site, but since its premise is that "It's impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible" one is hard-pressed to put any other interpretation on it. Perhaps Rev. Jones would agree. But I thought the biggest issue with Islamic culture was its tendency to do exactly what this book counsels, albeit with the Qu'ran rather than the Bible itself: Shari'ah law is precisely a religious foundation for criminal law based on the Holy Qu'ran and the alleged sayings and doings of Mohammed. If you're going to burn Qu'rans, certainly you'd want to throw a few of these into the bonfire.

Now I know that some of you will be disappointed at the absence of a particular bible that is a bit more like the Qu'ran than those I've mentioned. The problem is, they're not flamable. Don't believe me? Open up one of them and read about Shadrack, Mishack and Abednego and then tell me you can just throw gasoline on a stack of Bibles and watch 'em burn. Ain't gonna happen. Wait, isn't that story in the Qu'ran too? I think it involves the prophet Abraham there. Oh, Rev. Jones, you'd better think twice about this. God might just take it the wrong way!

P.S. - L'Shanah Tovah, Rev. Jones. Er, ‘Eid Mubārak.

No comments: