And the winner of the Best Religion Award goes to...

So we've been hearing all week about the American Gitmo guards who may or may not have flushed the Koran down the toilet as a means to break their Muslim prisoners. The latest is that the incident didn't occur, but the ICRC does attest to other abuses of the Muslim holy book. In response, violent anti-U.S. protests -- some resulting in multiple deaths -- have taken place in Afghanistan, Pakistan, even India. The Pentagon and the White House are blaming Newsweek for stirring up anti-American sentiment around the world. Nice try, guys. Foreign nationals in American military-run prisons have been beaten to death, physically tortured, sexually humiliated, and denied access to legal representation, without indictment or trial, for a few years now. The Bush administration has been wiping its ass with the Geneva Conventions regarding prisoners of war. None of this is a secret, and Newsweek is not to blame for any of that. But that's not my point. My point is the overwrought reaction to the news. Desecration of the Koran is punishable by death in several Islamic countries, including Afghanistan and Pakistan. Excuse me, DEATH? Newsflash, radical Islamists: it's a BOOK. Relax, okay?

And I'm not restricting this diatrabe to Islam. Ousted Georgia Chief Justice Roy Moore's ten commandments monument went on a national tour recently after he was ordered to remove it from his Supreme Court building. Masses of people lined up all over America to caress the granite slab, weep, and express indignation that their holy monument cannot legally be displayed in a government building. Hello, idiotic Christians? It's a ROCK. And you're wrong, this country wasn't founded on Christianity, it was founded on the grand principle of separation of Church and State so that citizens could practice any religion they like, or no religion if they prefer. The reason "the pilgrims" sailed to Massachusetts in the first place was to escape the dictatorial Church of England. And now you seem to think it's a good idea to impose your Christian monuments, books, and teachings on the rest of us. Back off, okay?

You know who gets my vote for Least Offensive Religion? The Buddhists. In March 2001 the Taliban blew up a bunch of Buddha statues in Afghanistan because Mullah Mohammad Omar deemed "false idols" an offense to Islam. These weren't ordinary graven images, though. A couple of them were the tallest Buddha images in the world, carved out of the living rock of cliffs in Bamiyan province almost 2,000 years ago. These sculptures were a page of world history and a part of our human cultural heritage. Thailand, Japan, India, France, Germany, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, the US, the UN, and and a host of other countries all appealed to the Taliban to no avail. As the demolition was taking place, however, I heard a Buddhist monk being interviewed on NPR. He joked that Gautama Buddha must be laughing in heaven right now -- all this fuss over a pile of rock!

It would do all religious fanatics well to examine his mature perspective. Everything is transient: monuments, books, statues, yes -- even American flags. To desecrate a physical object is not to desecrate the idea behind it. If you think it is, then perhaps you should ask yourself why you invest so much importance in a strip of cloth, or a printed page, or a carved rock. Because that's all they are. They are no more holy than any other object in this world, and certainly much less important than real human compassion and understanding.

And I'm sure that both Jesus and Mohammed would agree with Buddha on this point.