Your Australian Source of Atheist News
QLD Book-burning Lawyer not sacked by Uni
The Queensland University of Technology (QUT) says it will not be sacking one of its legal staff for burning pages from the Koran and Bible.
QUT lawyer Alex Stewart made international headlines last Monday after he posted a 12-minute video clip of himself online, smoking two cigarettes rolled from pages of the Koran and the Bible.
It occurred shortly after international outrage about a Christian pastor in the US threatening to burn the Koran to mark the anniversary of September 11.
Mr Stewart has since met with the University’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Peter Coaldrake, and has apologised unreservedly for the offence.
Professor Coaldrake says QUT is proud of its sense of community, and is welcoming people from other cultures and religions.
He says the matter has now been concluded.
Sanity prevails.
About the author
A passionate defender of equality of opportunity. A scientist who prefers to use evidence rather than dogma or superstition. A despiser of "Faitheism" & Accomodationism. One who knows that religions have exceeded their "best before" date by thousands of years.
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For what did he have to apologise? This was an act done on his own time, with no connection to the University.
Smoking the Koran or Bible doesn’t contradict welcoming people from other religions; it merely points out that it’s not reasonable for a religion (or religious person) to expect everybody else to act in ways they would approve, to things they regard as sacred.
about 1 year ago
From memory, I think he sent it via a University funded internet connection.
If he is to be mildly criticised for anything, it would be the tobacco smoking!
The concept of ’sacred’ is to imbue an object with magical properties, and is illogical.
But I must admit that I have these illogical ’sacred’ thoughts. I still keep my now adult child’s finger-paintings.
If some kind fellow were to give me Einstein’s fountain pen, I would revere it as I held it: a kind of magical thinking to which none of us are immune.
The difference is that I do not try and impose it on others.
If some had a replica of Einstein’s pen, I couldn’t care less what they did with it! Same should apply to replicas of the Qu’ran and the Babble.