I’m not a particularly pious man. I don’t think I can remember the last time I was in a church that didn’t involve a wedding or a funeral. I don’t think that makes me a bad person and I still think of myself, nominally, as a Christian. At least that’s how I was raised. Even if I were a hard core, mainstream Christian I can’t imagine a scenario where someone burning a Bible would result in me and my closest friends taking to the street and demanding execution for the guys who lit the flame. As a matter of principle, I’m opposed to book burning in whatever form it takes. Destroying knowledge is never good for the upward swing of humanity. Still, I think it’s time for our Afghan friends to take a deep breath and think for a minute before they decided this is an issue worth dying and killing for. I’m not a theologian or anything, but I’m pretty sure that God or Allah, or whoever you’re busy praying to doesn’t actually live between the covers of the Bible or Koran. At the end of the day it’s just a book – a collection of highly processed pieces of dead trees. You can no more destroy a system of beliefs contained in a copy of one of these books than you can destroy Kellogs by setting fire to the box of Corn Flakes I have sitting on top of my refrigerator.

Was it a mistake? Maybe. Was it stupid? Absolutely. Is it worth killing over? Yeah, not to much. I guess I just don’t have the mindset to be an extremist. Some things are worth fighting and dying for… To my way of thinking, though, anything I can buy from Amazon and have shipped to my house overnight doesn’t qualify for that level of importance.