Pastor Terry Jones plans to burn a stack of Korans on September 11 in what he calls "International Burn a Koran Day". Nearly everybody on the planet within range of a radio, TV or Internet connection has heard about it and has been busy weighing-in with their (nearly unanimous) opinions and, not to mention, giving Terry Jones and his church an unimaginable amount of free publicity. And Muslims around the world are said to be "outraged" and "up in arms" over the plan.

Amazing.

I think the idea of burning the Korans is pretty dumb. But that said, if the Koran is the "uninterrupted, unchangeable, and eternal word of God", then how can burning their physical incarnation have any effect on their eternal meaning? Surely the word of God-- Allah-- is mightier than a piece of paper in a book?

And if Muslims are truly "enlightened" and confident in their religion, then what does it matter what one lunatic does with copies of the book? Which are probably written in English anyway. For years Muslims have implored the rest of the world to "understand" that the acts of Al Quaeda were the actions of religious extremists and that "tolerance" should prevail. And yet here they are, up in arms and "upset" over the actions-- correction, the about-to-be, hasn't-happened-yet actions-- of religious extremists. At least when "Christians" get upset, they are upset about something that (some, purported) Muslims have actually already done.

But, if the about-to-be, hasn't-happened-yet action is, in fact, about to occur, why doesn't Allah stop it?

It seems to me that Islam suffers from one of the same fundamental "problems" of Christianity, namely the apparent need of God / Allah, whatever name you choose to use-- "the deity's" word to be interpreted for the masses.

My question is this: If God or Allah is so powerful, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent-- and the words so universal-- why does God need a mouthpiece?