"Ground Zero" Mosque?

[noodle]

While it's strictly legal to build a mosque at Ground Zero, doing so shows a tremendous amount of poor taste, antagonism, and perhaps willful ignorance of Western values. I'm not sure if the promotors of the moque are aware of this or not, but in the Western world, battlefields and the sites of great wrongs have long had a hallowed status independent of religion. Examples of this are the battlefield of Gettysburg, the wreck of the USS Arizona, the beaches of Normandy, the various death camps operated by the Nazis, and so on. At battlefields we honor soldiers on both sides (there are German memorials at Normandy). At the sites of great wrongs, we honor the victims. Erecting a monument to anything related to the perpetrator of the wrongs would be a travesty. That's why a German cultural center would be intolerable anywhere near the death camps. This is also the reason for the controversy surrounding the erection of a cross at Auschwitz -- Christianity has historically been antisemitic. Furthermore, cultures all over the world have historically built monuments on the wreckage of conquest to rub it in. Numerous sites previously consecrated as pagan sites were reconsecrated as Christian churches. The Temple in Jeruselem was rededicated to pagan deities several times. Some time after it stopped being used as a temple to Jupiter, it became a garbage dump and then was coopted as an Islamic site.

These principles should be sufficient to justify forbidding any Muslim monument anywhere near Ground Zero.

[Rani]

[quote name='noodle' timestamp='1283478194' post='481087']
While it's strictly legal to build a mosque at Ground Zero, doing so shows a tremendous amount of poor taste, antagonism, and perhaps willful ignorance of Western values. I'm not sure if the promotors of the moque are aware of this or not, but in the Western world, battlefields and the sites of great wrongs have long had a hallowed status independent of religion. Examples of this are the battlefield of Gettysburg, the wreck of the USS Arizona, the beaches of Normandy, the various death camps operated by the Nazis, and so on. At battlefields we honor soldiers on both sides (there are German memorials at Normandy). At the sites of great wrongs, we honor the victims. Erecting a monument to anything related to the perpetrator of the wrongs would be a travesty. That's why a German cultural center would be intolerable anywhere near the death camps. This is also the reason for the controversy surrounding the erection of a cross at Auschwitz -- Christianity has historically been antisemitic. Furthermore, cultures all over the world have historically built monuments on the wreckage of conquest to rub it in. Numerous sites previously consecrated as pagan sites were reconsecrated as Christian churches. The Temple in Jeruselem was rededicated to pagan deities several times. Some time after it stopped being used as a temple to Jupiter, it became a garbage dump and then was coopted as an Islamic site.

These principles should be sufficient to justify forbidding any Muslim monument anywhere near Ground Zero.
[/quote]

I would agree with you if it were a shrine for Osama Bin Laden, but it's not. It's a cultural center that includes a religious structure for a religion that WAS NOT in and of itself responsible for the attack, and it's not at ground zero. It's two blocks away, and it was planned and in the works PRIOR to 9/11. The very principles of this nation are about tolerance and understanding. This is yet another example of idolizing the principles but not having the courage of our convictions to allow it to continue without trying to deny it because it doesn't sit well.. Sure it's in bad taste, but then so is Lady Gaga. So what? That is after all what freedom is about isn't it? Standing firm on your principles even when it's not comfortable to do so? Even in the face of very bad taste?

We either have to suck it up and admit to complete hypocrisy when standing up for our ideals is only something we're willing to do when it's comfortable and we don't have to put ourselves out much or we have to learn to be tolerant even when it's not so comfortable and even when it's in bad taste. We can't have it both ways.

'Rani

[Tyler]

I'll just leave this here

[url="http://daryllang.com/blog/4421"]http://daryllang.com/blog/4421[/url]

[Chreees]

Thanks Tyler... you just gave me something good to email to my conservative gparents.

[Venger]

[quote name='Tyler' timestamp='1283677229' post='481285']
I'll just leave this here

[url="http://daryllang.com/blog/4421"]http://daryllang.com/blog/4421[/url]
[/quote]

ya know I could see if the IRA had flown 2 passenger jets into the world trade center you would be upset over the Irish bar or even a couple of mcDonald eating strippers that had done the Gentleman's club and fast food joint would be offensive, But they were Muslim. I am a Christian and a libertarian. We got a bad name for that militia group that claimed they represented all Christian libertarians. Not sure what the point of this post is. Every group has their rabid fans but I don't think this is an anti-Muslim thing. I think people who are emotional irrational being still feel hurt.
Ray

[Rani]

To add to the information, in 2002, I was working for a company in Burbank. This total bitch of a Senior VP was this self-obsessed, really bitter hateful woman who had one thing in her life she adored and made into a complete mama's boy. Her son, who during the time I worked for her graduated Yale with double degrees in Architecture and Engineering. So the little brat is trying to decide what he's going to do with his life now that he's actually out of college and he gets this offer from some big firm in NYC in charge of rebuilding Ground Zero. They paid this kid, wunderkin in the classroom though he might have been, still wet behind the ears, and never gotten laid by the way because believe me the entire office had to hear about his failed exploits, nearly $250k a year to do studies about they should do with this valuable piece of real estate that just miraculously opened up. So i'm a bit skeptical about hurt feelings and blows to the heart and so forth. I think it's an excuse to dig up old wounds and continue to push up the price of the real estate, because last time I check they hadn't even put down tent stakes at Ground Zero.

Our constitution says they can build the center. They paid for the land and had it planned before 9/11. Some survivors are even supporting it, and most of the anger is coming from people who don't even live in NYC so what we think isn't worth a rats ass anyway. Let them build the damn thing and move on. We're going to write the history books the way we want them to read anyway.

'Rani

[Venger]

Amendment 1
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging
the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right
of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the
Government for a redress of grievances.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This does not grant them the right to build the center. I merely state that the federal government can not pass a law in respects to an establish official religion or stop them from freely worshiping their religion. This is between the city of New York and whether they have to proper permits to build where they want to build. If the city has approved this building and location then this discussion of can they or can't they is moot. Rani, what you said about following the money I COULD NOT AGREE MORE WITH YOU.
but this is not 100% money some relatives of some victims are truly hurt and while I feel for them they will have to get over it.
Ray

[Genie]

I don't have a problem with this Islamic Cultural Center being built--a center that will have a mosque in it. I find it interesting that more people are upset about the mosque (a place of worship) than the rest of the center (a place of business and education about Islam).

Here's what I really don't get, NEW YORK CITY okayed it. If the powers that be in that area, all New Yorkers I am sure, don't have a problem with it, then why is everyone else throwing a fit? It's not even a state issue, it's a city issue. And the city said, "Build it!" It's their business, not the rest of the country's.

There is such massive ignorance out there regarding Islam and the majority of these people absolute refuse, are offend at the very idea, to accept that there's a difference between Islam and Islamist terrorists. They don't care. They don't WANT to be educated. They just want to hate all things Islam. It's quite sad and I find it embarrassing. As an American, I like to think myself above such ignorance and intolerance yet 90% of the people around me are screaming bloody murder because "the terrorists want to build a mosque at the World Trade Center." Come on! What, do these ignorant masses really think that terrorists are going to use this place as the launching pad for some massive act of war against America? If they were building a structure somewhere to be headquarters for training new terrorists, wouldn't they build it somewhere a little less obvious? Somewhere a little further away from the public eye

I understand why people are sensitive about this, I do. But that's no reason to completely lose all sense of reason. Law-abiding Americans who happen to be Muslim want to see the area around the WTC site revitalized as much as the rest of us so we can move forward and show the terrorists that they can't stop us. I love that peace-loving Islamic Americans stand with the rest of America in continuing to do what Americans do best--we BUILD BUILD BUILD. We sell. We buy. And the majority of us worship.

As far as I'm concerned, this Islamic Cultural Center is as much a slap in the face of terrorism as everything else we are doing to prove that we won't be cowered by terrorists.

[mustafabey]

Genie said: "There is such massive ignorance out there regarding Islam and the majority of these people absolute refuse, are offend at the very idea, to accept that there's a difference between Islam and Islamist terrorists. They don't care. They don't WANT to be educated. They just want to hate all things Islam."

Its not that they want to hate Islam, I think, it is that they are being taught to hate Islam. I remember when the Berlin wall fell and the Soviet Union dissolved, I said that they are going to have to find someone else to hate. Without hate, there might be peace and with peace, the great military industrial complex Eisenhower warned us about in his farewell speech in 1960,would stop making obscene profits in the business of killing. Look at the hateful rhetoric spewing out of the mouths of the pseudo Christian right wing pundits, look at all the hate literature being published(look at books on Islam in eBay and you will see a great majority are hate books) No attempt is being made to understand Islam. Now, even the Pope wants to get involved in this issue of an adulterous Iranian woman, Popes had nothing to say about the Holocaust, but Benedict has already shown an anti Muslim streak. Evangelical Christians feel this war with Islam is part of their end of time eschatology and that this is all somehow or other god's will. Its like the Crusaders crying Deus Vult, god wills it as they killed Jews, sacked Constantinople and slaughtered everyone in Jerusalem. The evangelical lobby in America is a very powerful power group that must be pandered to. We are just being programed for, what some in government feel is inevitable, a massive world conflict to secure rapidly depleting oil supplies. There is nothing religious about it, religion is just being used to secure the approval of the population.

[Rani]

[quote name='mustafabey' timestamp='1283782934' post='481406']
Genie said: "There is such massive ignorance out there regarding Islam and the majority of these people absolute refuse, are offend at the very idea, to accept that there's a difference between Islam and Islamist terrorists. They don't care. They don't WANT to be educated. They just want to hate all things Islam."

Its not that they want to hate Islam, I think, it is that they are being taught to hate Islam. I remember when the Berlin wall fell and the Soviet Union dissolved, I said that they are going to have to find someone else to hate. Without hate, there might be peace and with peace, the great military industrial complex Eisenhower warned us about in his farewell speech in 1960,would stop making obscene profits in the business of killing. Look at the hateful rhetoric spewing out of the mouths of the pseudo Christian right wing pundits, look at all the hate literature being published(look at books on Islam in eBay and you will see a great majority are hate books) No attempt is being made to understand Islam. Now, even the Pope wants to get involved in this issue of an adulterous Iranian woman, Popes had nothing to say about the Holocaust, but Benedict has already shown an anti Muslim streak. Evangelical Christians feel this war with Islam is part of their end of time eschatology and that this is all somehow or other god's will. Its like the Crusaders crying Deus Vult, god wills it as they killed Jews, sacked Constantinople and slaughtered everyone in Jerusalem. The evangelical lobby in America is a very powerful power group that must be pandered to. We are just being programed for, what some in government feel is inevitable, a massive world conflict to secure rapidly depleting oil supplies. There is nothing religious about it, religion is just being used to secure the approval of the population.
[/quote]

I agree, but it's also not a unique movement to America. We have simply become the most obvious and prominent. It has occurred to me recently that too many of us across the world are being controlled by too few with their personal agendas that consider the population as nothing more than pawns in their movement to increase personal power and wealth. And the saddest thing of all is they have probably managed to convince themselves as a salve to their guilt that rises up to choke them in the darkest part of night before dawn, that they doing it for "our own good". It's the only way those who are not pathological can live with themselves.

There really needs to be a world movement towards self-awareness and independence, where we actively seek out information being denied to us at our national and religious levels. We need to get out from under the agenda if we ever want peace. We hear nothing we can personally confirm as truth. Send in media to a war zone, and they publish those interviews and articles that support the agenda. In my Green Zone thread Scotsman pointed out that Kawait and Saudi Arabia requested assistance from the US and UK. That is technically untrue, because the governments of these nations asked for assistance. Nobody went around as a completely objective entity and asked the people themselves. "Truth" has become a very flexible idea throughout the world and seems to be flexing the most when it comes to serving the agenda.

As far as Islam is concerned, I suggest everyone actually read the Quran. There are copies to be had for free off eBay, you only pay shipping. It has a few more duplications of "Praise His Name", etc. than the other well known "Holy" Book, but other than that, it doesn't differ a whole hell of a lot. I continue to subscribe to the theory that God and religion are two entirely different things and that in the case of fighting against a place of leaning and community, we pretty much serving the later at the expense of the first.

'Rani

[mustafabey]

I agree wholeheartedly with your last post. There is a global hatred of Islam growing, the nijab controversy in france, minarets in Switzerland,headscarfs everywhere. Who is fueling this hate? As you suggest, truth is no longer a commodity in the information market,spin and Goebbels's big lie rule today. Its the news that sells,which is why I see more celebrity "news' than hard fact on CNN.com. And yes, alot of them think they are doing god's work, but I suppose there's just a whole hell of alot of power lust and greed out there. When the history of our time is written, one of main stories is going to be how the people got manipulated into their own destruction. My generation wondered why the German people in the 30's and 40's swallowed Hitler's line of bullshit, but now I see my own people in lock step behind demagogues who would exterminate Islam,usee military force to control Hispanics and participate in what amounts to slavery for economic sake and personal greed. Pretty fuckin' scary.
Religion, perhaps the greatest mind control discovery of mankind. To have a world movement, as you suggest, towards"self-awareness and independence, where we actively seek out information being denied to us at our national and religious levels," we would have to wean America away from Reality TV, etc. People out here think Fox news is truth and because they pander to the small minds and prejudices of semi educated America, they come off as the bearers of truth,the champions of freedom etc.Here in Virginia our new Republican governor has slashed education budgets, the same is happening with Christie in New Jersey. Hell, they want us to be stupid. It will probably take a great cataclysm to wake up the dead,but the Armageddon is coming, so says my nearest neighbor.
Hallelujiah!

[Chreees]

You know what makes me facepalm the most? That my gparents actually believe the Quran says to "kill the infidels." They watch too much Fox News...

[Rani]

[quote name='INCUBUSRATM' timestamp='1283816370' post='481442']
You know what makes me facepalm the most? That my gparents actually believe the Quran says to "kill the infidels." They watch too much Fox News...
[/quote]

So buy them a copy and challenge them to read it. What amazes me, is that even if it did categorically state nothing but kill every non-Muslim, it still wouldn't have the power it does for the extremists if we didn't play into their hands. You don't bring peace with tanks. You bring it with food, building materials, water and books. Give them tools to support themselves and become self-aware and self-determining and they will choose what they want for themselves. And even if after all that, they choose 12th century religious government, they are entitled to do so. Nobody is right just because we think we are. They have to decide for themselves.

'Rani

[Chreees]

Eh, they would refuse to read it, so it'd be a waste of money...

[Chreees]

Okay Rani I've got an even better story for you...

Okay, so my gf and I were visiting my gparents and in the other room we hear my grandpa ask my grandma what she was doing. This was her reply: "I'm looking in the Bible to check a reference that *some lady at church* gave me that proves Obama is the third anti-Christ. The first one was Napoleon, and the second was Hitler."

My gf and I just stared at each other, our jaws dropped. That's southern baptists for ya...

[Rani]

[quote name='INCUBUSRATM' timestamp='1283824824' post='481451']
Okay Rani I've got an even better story for you...

Okay, so my gf and I were visiting my gparents and in the other room we hear my grandpa ask my grandma what she was doing. This was her reply: "I'm looking in the Bible to check a reference that *some lady at church* gave me that proves Obama is the third anti-Christ. The first one was Napoleon, and the second was Hitler."

My gf and I just stared at each other, our jaws dropped. That's southern baptists for ya...
[/quote]

I have an wicked, evil sense of humor. I'd only visit wearing reversed pentagrams and black robes and nail polish. Every time they mouthed something biblical, I'd be clutching the pentagram and chanting. If ya can't reason 'em out of "stupid" scare 'em into not bothering you ever again.

'Rani

[Chreees]

They help me pay for college, though... :/

So I kinda just deal with it...

[mustafabey]

I'd just pray for them,Chris. They are paying for your school, their probably wonderful, they've been fed a line of shit by those they have their trust in.

[Chreees]

Oh trust me, I know. I do pray for them, all the time. Just can't believe how fooled they are.

[Rani]

[quote name='INCUBUSRATM' timestamp='1283828687' post='481460']
They help me pay for college, though... :/

So I kinda just deal with it...
[/quote]


All joking aside, ahh, yeah. This is where you suck it up and be grateful for their love and help. And truthfully, well, you might over time change their minds if you look for the opportunity. I wouldn't thrust a socialist manifesto at them, but you might get them to actually read some "borderline" articles, etc. that might lead them to dig deeper themselves. And if despite all that, they still choose to believe the nonsense of those three actually being sons of Satan, well, it's sad, but it's their right. That funky freedom things again. It guarantees people even the right to be deluded beyond belief.

'Rani.

[Genie]

[quote name='mustafabey' timestamp='1283782934' post='481406']
Its not that they want to hate Islam, I think, it is that they are being taught to hate Islam. I remember when the Berlin wall fell and the Soviet Union dissolved, I said that they are going to have to find someone else to hate. Without hate, there might be peace and with peace, the great military industrial complex Eisenhower warned us about in his farewell speech in 1960,would stop making obscene profits in the business of killing. Look at the hateful rhetoric spewing out of the mouths of the pseudo Christian right wing pundits, look at all the hate literature being published(look at books on Islam in eBay and you will see a great majority are hate books) No attempt is being made to understand Islam. Now, even the Pope wants to get involved in this issue of an adulterous Iranian woman, Popes had nothing to say about the Holocaust, but Benedict has already shown an anti Muslim streak. Evangelical Christians feel this war with Islam is part of their end of time eschatology and that this is all somehow or other god's will. Its like the Crusaders crying Deus Vult, god wills it as they killed Jews, sacked Constantinople and slaughtered everyone in Jerusalem. The evangelical lobby in America is a very powerful power group that must be pandered to. We are just being programed for, what some in government feel is inevitable, a massive world conflict to secure rapidly depleting oil supplies. There is nothing religious about it, religion is just being used to secure the approval of the population.
[/quote]

I disagree with why so many Americans hate Islam, but for this discussion, I don't think it matters much. The hate is there regardless. I applaud people like Irshad Manji who are out there working hard to change the world's perspective on Islam and, more importantly, pushing for Islamic reform. She insists that it's up to Islam to change things. And she's right. We can only support Islamic reform, and it has to be done from the inside out. Up until recent years, peace-loving Islam has been all too content to sit by while Islamists, well, do what they have done and are still doing. It's time for Islam to reclaim its former glory. Before the crazies took over, Islam had a great deal to offer the world. So I say that people are out there trying to educate the world about Islam, the problem is that no one wants to hear it. It's just easier to hate them all. Especially for a LOT of Christians who are, for some reason, threatened by Muslim beliefs.

Islam, Christianity, and Judaism all have the same roots. There will always be a fierce religious battle between the three main religions of the world because each of these groups believe they are the ones who have it right so everyone else is a threat to them. What I don't get is why people can't be comfortable enough in their beliefs to relax and let other people follow their own paths. Makes me wonder, is it so scary for a fundamentalist of any religion to accept that there might be the slimmest possibility that they don't understand everything there is to understand about their god? Would it be so bad to think that?

As to Islamists--their jihad is DEFINITELY NOT about religion. It's about money, power, and oil. Islam and righteousness is just a convenient cover for them. And an easy way to get troops--convince your army they are elite, that they are cleansing the world, that they will be richly rewarded in the afterlife. And do this with a people that have been subjugated for generations, people who are ignorant (not stupid, ignorant--deprived of information and education we Americans take for granted) and you've got all the army you'll ever need. So I agree with you that this war is not about religion--not from our side, and not from their (they being Islamists, not Islam, just wanna be clear) side.

I don't feel I am being programmed by anyone, perhaps it is because I am a non-theist that I'm able to ignore the rhetoric of religious leaders regarding Islam and the war, and I don't have to experience the peer pressure of my local religious community. I think I get spared a lot of the misinformation about Islam because I don't attend church, I don't read forwarded emails, and I don't spend time in coffee klatsches trying to figure out a way to deal with the world's unbelievers (who are ruining everything with their immorality, don't you know).

[Genie]

[quote name='INCUBUSRATM' timestamp='1283824824' post='481451']
Okay Rani I've got an even better story for you...

Okay, so my gf and I were visiting my gparents and in the other room we hear my grandpa ask my grandma what she was doing. This was her reply: "I'm looking in the Bible to check a reference that *some lady at church* gave me that proves Obama is the third anti-Christ. The first one was Napoleon, and the second was Hitler."

My gf and I just stared at each other, our jaws dropped. That's southern baptists for ya...
[/quote]

I hear this kind of stuff all the time, makes my skin crawl. I was a Southern Baptist for a long time. Looking back, I think it was really just the Blue Grass that kept me coming back. I don't remember much else--except for a rather terrifying description by one of the deacons of what hell would be like. That and being told I was going to get to experience that hell because I'd had a moment of doubt and decided God didn't exist--and even though I'd changed my mind again it was too late because denying God was an unforgivable sin. I wonder if an antichrist can be forgiven?

[Chreees]

[quote name='Rani' timestamp='1283838158' post='481466']
All joking aside, ahh, yeah. This is where you suck it up and be grateful for their love and help. And truthfully, well, you might over time change their minds if you look for the opportunity. I wouldn't thrust a socialist manifesto at them, but you might get them to actually read some "borderline" articles, etc. that might lead them to dig deeper themselves. And if despite all that, they still choose to believe the nonsense of those three actually being sons of Satan, well, it's sad, but it's their right. That funky freedom things again. It guarantees people even the right to be deluded beyond belief.

'Rani.
[/quote]

Well, I've tried showing them unbiased source information and they just disregard it if it isn't Fox News now. Few years back they'd watch CNN and other stuff, but now now. It's gotten worse in their old age. It even got to the point where I asked my grandma to please not have Fox News on all the time while I'm there... Sure enough, it's not AS much now when I visit. My grandma is more just going along with my grandpa, which I really hate... He's actually my step-grandfather, but is like a real grandpa to me because he's been there since I was three. My real grandfather was democrat. So that's what leads me to believe she's just going along with it.

[quote name='Genie' timestamp='1283852682' post='481470']
I hear this kind of stuff all the time, makes my skin crawl. I was a Southern Baptist for a long time. Looking back, I think it was really just the Blue Grass that kept me coming back. I don't remember much else--except for a rather terrifying description by one of the deacons of what hell would be like. That and being told I was going to get to experience that hell because I'd had a moment of doubt and decided God didn't exist--and even though I'd changed my mind again it was too late because denying God was an unforgivable sin. I wonder if an antichrist can be forgiven?
[/quote]

Oh yeah... I canNOT stand southern baptist churches anymore. It's what turned me off to going to churches at all. Everytime I would go, I felt like everyone around me were hypocrites. Now my belief is you don't have to go to church to worship God.

[Barnaby]

Ugh Fox news.. How I hate it so. But I give them their props. Let's take my in-laws for example. When I first met them, they watched alot of overseas news, like Al-Jahzeer and what not over satelitte. They had a good distrust of the government, and had even seen Loose Change (9/11 documentary if you haven't heard of it). so, all in all you'd think they were pretty open minded, and not easily swayed by mainstream propraganda. But, they were still VERY devout Christians. They are kinda there own thing, but its pretty close to being 7th day Adventists. And despite MANY conversations about religion, and the many possibilities that Christianity is not the 1 truth. That the bible is not infallible, and that other religions may hold some truth, they've been VERY close minded on this.

This was about 4 years ago when I met them. Fast forward today, and they watch nothing but Fox. They even follow Glenn Beck. And I think, FFS. How could they have gotten to this point. Religion aside, I thought they wouldn't be fooled into watching Fox. let alone Glenn Beck.. But there it is. They give ppl what they want to hear, but its all sensationalism BS. And Glenn Beck will take a small fact, run with it, and blow it out of proportion to appease the right wing tea party crazies.

They got a distraction for everyone..

[noodle]

It is curious that city officials seem to fasttrack the mosque project while continuing to throw roadblocks in front of the effort to rebuild the St Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church that was buried in the rubble.