Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Would it be considered provacative and a disturbance of public peace if someone were handing out Book of Mormon in Germany? If someone were to nail a list of complaints on a Catholic church front door?

This link. About a for-free Koran distribution effort. It appears the messengers and not the message is what authorities in Germany object to; here and here. I can get a free Koran [aka Qur'an] online several places, e.g., here (with study aids), and Project Gutenberg has multiple English language versions, e.g., here, here (side-by-side texts for comparison), and here. Should we consider U.Michigan and Project Gutenberg as suspect? As provocative?

How about freequranonline.org? That appears to be a collection of essays on faith and not presenting the claimed holy writing itself. Are they somehow to be considered as having less bona fides than the many other online resources providing free books of faith and commentaries on issues of faith? Is an audio Quran going too far, or better than a readable text?

And how about defacing a Church door? Nailing criticisms to the door? If it were one or two complaints would that be okay? If you used scotch tape and left no nail holes? What about if you complaints got up into the nineties, barely short of a hundred, and the act of nailing them up being done as an act of deliberate protest or provocation? Would that be stepping out of line? Should such conduct be indulged? Is it a showing of a disruptive nature that the authorities should try to curb? If so, with what degree of stamina and vigor?

That part of the German activity - individuals setting up a kiosk, handing out free materials - is there something fundamental at play there, if done peaceably, that should not be under official attack?