There has been a big fuss lately about a rumour that US interrogators of terrorist suspects sometimes “desecrate” copies of the koran book.

This is apparently a religious offence, in much the same way that Galileo blasphemed the christian church by his astronomy theories, or in the way that some US conservatives view the act of flag-burning. At least those latter two concerns have been given the big legal smack-down over the centuries and decades, but the first one is still alive and well. How much deference is a non-believer supposed to exhibit toward theologically protected artifacts? How much respect can one have for a religion that exhibits so little tolerance for non-believers?