Unf**king Believable, A mosque to be built at Ground Zero

Discussion in 'Religion Archives' started by pavlosmarcos, Jun 8, 2010.

  1. phlogistician Banned Banned

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    Prime real estate, location, accessibility, because they are US citizens and may buy whatever piece of land they want to, ...

    ... tell you what, why don't you establish why they shouldn't build there, given that there were Muslim victims of 9/11 too.
     
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  3. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    Denial, and then association.

    You may well be right, although the triumphalist message in your position is disturbing. I wonder if the moral wheels would be as easily greased if the KKK had decided to make such a purchase.

    Er: would they win? This is more speculation.

    Which you're completely disinterested in.

    I'm amazed at the incredibly personal way in which you've interpreted this entire thing from the beginning: first, the insinuation that I'm attempting to organize a lynching, then banging on unflaggingly about some 'personal' option I'm attempting to exercise here. Do you have some personal stake in this decision? And how would such an option work? I've stated repeatedly that what I want is a more full investigation of Rauf, but you take this position and run it completely out of bounds to justify your pre-conclusions - on several fronts. "Private subpoena power", indeed. Let us see where Mr. Rauf's money is coming from, since his donation box in the United States is none too full.

    I ignored the remainder of your post as it had nothing to do with the issues, or reality.
     
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  5. Emil Valued Senior Member

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    It is not convincing.The same thing exists in thousands of other sites
    Returning to the question why is so important for Muslims that location?
     
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  7. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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  8. phlogistician Banned Banned

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    What isn't, and why?

    Exactly, and the assembled mass of right wing bigots aren't making a fuss over those, so why this one?

    Seems more important to anti Muslim bigots. Muslims are free to build wherever they want. It's only bigots who have a problem with them building where they are. Remember, Muslims were victims inside the towers too.
     
  9. phlogistician Banned Banned

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  10. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    They should sue the state. They will get millions.
     
  11. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    If they got $10 million, that would only leave them $89,999,800 to go to fund the build. (I understand they've already collected $200 in the jar.) Odd, though: what kind of religious center gets built on the assumption they'll just pull $100M (or $89,999,800) out of one's ass? Strange, no?

    Phlog: I get your argument. I think it's rather "hey, don't build right here, it's insensitive". I'm more interested in the philosophies behind the mosque/center myself: why there? would seem to be dictated by why Rauf?

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  12. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    Yes, but of Islamic extremism. I can see why it's thought insensitive: I wouldn't go slapping an American war memorial on the blast-site for Nagasaki, either.
     
  13. phlogistician Banned Banned

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    Nah, that's BS.

    When the IRA were bombing the shit of out of Northern Ireland and Mainland Britain, we wouldn't have prevented the Catholic Church from having a service on one of the sites, nor building a new Church in the vicinity.

    The IRA terrorist atrocities were linked to religious sects, Catholics vs Protestants, if you were unsure. I see no major distinction between schizms of the same religion, and different branches of two Abrahamic ones. They're all following the same God, from the same original source.

    A war memorial? In what way is that relevant? Apples to Oranges. I bet there's a MacDonalds nearby. That's an American 'Cultural' landmark, that's a closer comparison. Oh, a quick Google reveals two MacD's in Nagasaki.
     
  14. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    That's a new one on me, phlog: but if so, that would be reprehensible too. Have you got a link for this? What were the inclinations of the builders of the new Catholic churches or services?

    Not exactly the same thing, mind: capitalism. But if a significant part of Nagasaki thought it were offensive, that would be reason enough for me not to further contaminate them with suspicious beef.
     
  15. Emil Valued Senior Member

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    Most likely scenario is the following:
    American extremists will go to different actions,while their posting only able to save America from Muslims.Also will increase their sympathizers.In response Muslims will grow their extremism.Following American extremists will intensify their actions.And so on.Who has profited?However no simple people who want to live peacefully.

    Even with the risk to be labeled bigoted and anti-democratic, to eliminate this risk,I am firmly against the construction of a Muslim center there.

    I make the following statement:
    I firmly condemn any manifestation of extremist.Specifically,I condemn unequivocally Muslim extremists who carried out the attack on 9 / 11 against the Twin Towers.
    Those who argue there to build a Muslim center and not make such a declaration,I will assume they are among those who have advantage due to growth of extremism and I'll ignore them.
     
  16. phlogistician Banned Banned

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    You miss the point. It's not if new churches were built, but that we wouldn't have cared if they were. It would not reprehensible at all. It would be the epitome of freedom, and open mindedness. We did not equate the work of terrorists with the religion they allegedly follow, even though their violence was sectarian. Get it yet?

    It is therefore also false to identify the 9/11 bombers with regular Muslims.

    We have much more direct and deliberate antagonistic scenarios to deal with. What you might not be aware of, is 'The Orange Day Parade', where Northern Irish protestants literally take a marching band though Catholic areas of Northern Ireland. THAT is inflammatory, and given the very real bombs and bullets traded regularly by both sides note more than inciting hatred and fuelling the divide. But guess what? We allowed it to happen, and policed it, and tried to keep it safe. Banning freedom of expression is not something we take lightly over here. Seem too many Americans think freedom only applies to white christians.

    They lost the war and had sanctions imposed upon them. Like they felt like that they could complain.
     
    Last edited: Aug 11, 2010
  17. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Of course anyone with enough money can jam something like this down all of our throats - and I have no objection to the basic legal structure that guarantees them that right. If they legally bought the Statue of Liberty and put a burka on it, as an effort to promote mutual understanding and bring the true face of Islam into America to create peace and good will, I would have no objection to the fact that they were exercising their legal rights in that case, either.

    But you have to agree that describing such an effort as a promotion of mutual understanding and comity, is problematical. Is their offered description ignorant, or dishonest?
    No. I am against it partly - an only partly - because I can't find out who is paying for it.

    One of the implications of that is that you can't either, which means when you say this:
    you don't know what you are talking about. You don't know what culture, if any, that center is being built to promote. The evidence so far is that is being built to promote the specific aspects of the specific culture that produced the people who carried out 9/11, and celebrated its success.

    Saudi Arabians are not American citizens, nor is all of their dominant culture compatible with basic American values - or any reasonable human civilization's values, actually.
     
  18. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    Utterly. But have you got a single site where 3,000 Protestants or Catholics were killed, and someone wants to throw a church up on it? If no one cared, that's great; but that's a group dynamic, a group agreement. Here, there isn't that. If you consider that acceptable for yourselves, that's fine. Here, it isn't that: so maybe it's kind of a shitty, insensitive deal.

    Yes.

    Yes, I am blisteringly well aware of the Orangemen, and their heartfelt work in the arena of being astoundingly ignorant assholes. If you choose to let that fly, then great: it's pretty insulting, but fine. Personally, I'd shut it down and give them all a slap. This is kind of the same case: Rauf and his ilk (who don't seem too representative of average Muslims themselves) could stand with a stiff one as well. He's treading on people's sensitivities, and I think it's inappropriate. Now, given certain provisos, I'd be all for it: like if they asked Suleyman Schwartz to run it, as one example. There are others.

    Arg. That's not the point. But by what you're saying, I can see that you do get it: they didn't feel like they could complain. Meaning they probably bloody would have done, and they should have had the right to.
     
  19. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    In all this I find it highly intriguing that Orthodox Jews have supported the mosque and rabbis have spoken up for its construction while liberals at sciforums, constitutionalists and the Anti-Discrimination League [chuckle] have opposed it.
     
  20. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    And you don't know, as iceaura points out, who's footing the bill. I note Rauf is off on a State-Department-sponsored trip to Saudi Arabia today. Wonder what he's doing there. Maybe he needs a new gold collection plate.
     
  21. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    Americans of course, who else?

    A word from the sponsors:

    As a group, Muslim Americans, especially women are among the most highly educated group, second perhaps only to Jews. They are also highly religious [80%]

    They can manage to raise the money from their fellow Americans.

    http://www.oismidwest.org/statement-on-galluppoll.htm
     
  22. Pandaemoni Valued Senior Member

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    Yes, no doubt the State Department wants to send him to raise funds for his many pro-terrorism activities. Either that, or since he's known as a moderate voice within Islam, that's why they chose him.

    Also, the reports I have read say he's going to Qatar, Bahrain and the UAE, not Saudi Arabia. See: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...-state-department-drop-sponsorship-imam-trip/

    Looking at the State Department website, it''s easy to find problems. It almost seems like Saudi Arabia is an ally of the U.S., which can't possibly be the case given your hysteria. Someone also seems to have accidentally dropped them from the "State Sponsors of Terrorism" list. http://www.state.gov/s/ct/c14151.htm

    Rauf has worked in New York for a long time. Even if you stomped on his civil rights in the manner you would like to, he would just go to a different mosque and speak his same message. Why are you opposed to Park 51, but not opposed to the Masjid al-Farah mosque that already sits in triumph just four blocks away from Ground Zero? Because it's small? How many stories is a mosque allowed to have before you start getting worried about it? Is there a "building size to blocks away from Ground Zero" ratio that Muslims can use as a guideline? Rauf served as Imam at the Masjid mosque for some time, and I believe still does. Do you imagine you have the right to see their finances too?
     
    Last edited: Aug 11, 2010
  23. phlogistician Banned Banned

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    Just what the fuck has it got to do with you in the first place? It's American citizens going about their lawful business, and it's none of your business.

    Neither. They aren't really under any obligation to explain to others what the purpose of the building is. But the people behind it have a laudable mission statement.


    Boohoo for you. Do you know who paid for all the other structures in the vicinity? No. Why get a hard on over this one?

    The centre is to promote Islam. You are conflating Islam with Terrorism. George Bush was a Christian, you think all Christians undertake illegal foreign wars, that have killed over a hundred thousand innocent civilians? Or we could say George Bush was an American so all Americans support the slaughter of the innocent.

    I thought this centre was being built in America, for American Muslims. So it might be getting bankrolled with the aid of some foreign money. So what. The Japanese buy up land and build Golf course. Large parts of America are foreign owned. Why have you got a boner for this one building?
     

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