A pastor at the misleadingly titled ‘Dove World Outreach Centre’ in Gainesville, Florida has caused upset in the Middle East by burning the Koran, the sacred book of Islam. As a direct response to the act, a wave of violence has broken out across Afghanistan resulting in the deaths of seven UN workers and dozens of injuries.

“I haven’t read the Koran, but I’ve heard a lot of English-speaking people with bigoted views similar to my own talking about it and they all think it’s a hate-filled book of lies, and I agree with them” said the pastor in front of literally tens of people at a recent church congregation.

“I don’t need to read or understand something in order to make my mind up about it. Heck, next they’ll be claiming you have to read actual scientific data in order to understand issues such as climate change!” laughed the pastor. “I know what I need to know and I know that Islam is a religion fueled by violence, vengeance, and intolerance” said the pastor before reading an excerpt from the Bible in which God kills thousands of innocent newborn children as punishment for the incumbent Egyptian regime’s maltreatment of the Israelites.

The gaps in pastor Jones’ Koranic knowledge appears to be matched only by his apparent lack of knowledge regarding several key sections of the Bible. It would seem the pastor may have neglected to study the section that deals with lying seen as he spectacularly backtracked on an explicit promise made on live television that he would NOT participate in the burning of the sacred Islamic book. Pastor Jones also apparently missed the bit in Matthew 7:1 where it says “judge not, lest ye be judged,” as he not only burned the sacred tome but presided as Judge over a mock trial of it prior to its fiery desecration.

The act has drawn condemnation from many high-profile figures in the US including both President Obama himself and General Petraeus. However, Jones is not without support. A considerable number of right-wing conservatives have taken time out of their busy schedule of advocating the death penalty for any American citizen caught burning the US flag to voice support for the controversial pastor.

“We need to stand up and say enough is enough to these Muslims. There is no room for hate, intolerance, or violence in American society and if that means that every now and again we have to send the full might of the US military to the Middle East to begin preemptive wars against regimes that have no proven links to Islamic terror organizations, then so be it” claimed one supporter.

For his next trick, pastor Jones has announced that he will burn a Danish cartoonist in the centre of Copenhagen. “I like to keep my critics guessing, I don’t like to get pigeonholed otherwise you run the risk of the media just thinking you’re a two-dimensional lunatic and ignoring you” said the pastor to one interviewer who was pretending to record the conversation.

-Johnny McGee