Merged Two Mosques to be built near Ground Zero

Elind said:
I think that all I said, in essence, was that I would have thought much better of this project had it been a grass roots idea.

Unfortunately, I can't take credit for a deviously nice strawman, which is sometimes hard to construct.
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You undersell yourself. I think you should take credit where credit is due.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
I wasn't shouting specifically at you. I am expressing my frustration at all the people who won't admit they are prejudiced against 'those people'. I'm frustrated more people are not speaking out against the bigotry here and instead are justifying it.
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Perhaps people would be much more tolerant if muslims would try a little harder to integrate like most other immigrants to the West have over the centuries. The problem is that islam is just not a religion, but a way of life for them. There is no separation of church and state with the vast majority of muslims.
For christ sake, they follow a pedophilic prophet's every word.

No different to fundies who follow every word of a mythical Jesus. There are some who would make the US government based on biblical scripture.
G.W. Bush claimed he talked to god. It was god who told him to invade Iraq.
What am I babbling on about? Simple. Religion in all it's forms has passed it's use by date by centuries.
We need to make all adherents of every religion in existence to see how ridiculous their beliefs realy are. :p
 
amb said:
Perhaps people would be much more tolerant if muslims would try a little harder to integrate like most other immigrants to the West have over the centuries. The problem is that islam is just not a religion, but a way of life for them. There is no separation of church and state with the vast majority of muslims.
For christ sake, they follow a pedophilic prophet's every word.

No different to fundies who follow every word of a mythical Jesus. There are some who would make the US government based on biblical scripture.
G.W. Bush claimed he talked to god. It was god who told him to invade Iraq.
What am I babbling on about? Simple. Religion in all it's forms has passed it's use by date by centuries.
We need to make all adherents of every religion in existence to see how ridiculous their beliefs realy are. :p
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I respectfully disagree with your point about integration. Yes, the problem of fundamentalists certainly exists and yes it is a messed up religion but overall, Muslims in America do integrate quite well here, much better than they do in places like France and England despite our history with 9/11 and I would say that the majority of them here do respect the separation of church and state. There is a substantial minority who don't and pose a very real problem and don't wish to integrate and this problem is greater with Muslims than with any other ethnic group or religion but having said that, integration is a two way street. It is both an attribute of American culture and American Muslim culture that integration works better here than Europe. We can foster that spirit of integration by not making an issue about this Mosque.
I don't like Islam one bit but consider the real choices here: integrated Muslim culture or Muslim enclaves. Between those two choices I choose integration and even if we do everything we can to foster that, there will still be extremists and Muslim enclaves but resisting this Mosque will only make the problem of integration much worse.
 
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RANT! Look how easily the mob has been stirred to hatred.


It seems feeling superior to the "hate-filled mob" is the main reason some people here are so intent of seeing anybody who disagrees with the mosque's location as part of said "hate-filled mob".
 
portlandatheist said:
Muslims in America do integrate quite well here, much better than they do in places like ... England
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Evidence that Muslims don't "integrate quite well" in England, please.

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Maureen Dowd wrote an interesting article in today's New York Times on Obama and Islamophobia:

"The country is having some weird mass nervous breakdown, with the right spreading fear and disinformation that is amplified by the poisonous echo chamber that is the modern media environment.

The dispute over the Islamic center has tripped some deep national lunacy. The unbottled anger and suspicion concerning ground zero show that many Americans haven’t flushed the trauma of 9/11 out of their systems — making them easy prey for fearmongers.

Many people still have a confused view of Muslims, and the president seems unable to help navigate the country through its Islamophobia."

In the light of this, along with the destruction on the US middle class and the supremacy of too big to fail/jail corporations at the heart of government, is it unreasonable to fear that the US, still haunted by the unresolved ghosts of the civil war, is sliding towards fascism?

Going Mad in Herds
 
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Taarkin said:
B-b-but what about the non-bigots who don't want to take away Muslims´ constitutionally guaranteed rights, but just want the scary musselmen to go away?
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They are welcome to move to some other place where there are no Muslims.
 
Thunder said:
but this is America!!

America belongs to the Americans!!

Muslims should go elsewhere.
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Oh yes... gotta make that place moslemrein.

That weird earthquake-like vibration felt in D.C. right now is the Founding Fathers spinning in their graves.
 
well, its raining, so I did not go to the rallies today.

but they are all over local NYC news.

same old signs, same old messages.

"they want to build a monument to the terrorists".

"no sharia law in the usa"

"a mosque at ground zero is a spit in the eye to America"

same old crap, different day.
 
JihadJane said:
Evidence that Muslims don't "integrate quite well" in England, please.

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Isn't it obvious?
Here's one article on the topic:
Deutsche Welle: In Europe, many Muslims live in 'parallel societies', in the States there's no such problem. Why are American Muslims so much better integrated?
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http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,5522949,00.html

The reaction to the Danish cartoons in England was much more over the top than here in the states.
 
portlandatheist said:
Isn't it obvious?
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There are thousands of Pakistani & Arab & Bangladeshi Muslims in New York.

I work with some of them. They seem to be integrating quite well.

You know what IS obvious? Racists and cultural conservatives in Europe are making it very hard for Muslims to integrate. And then they blaim the Muslims.
 
amb said:
What would be the chances of building a chapel in say, downtown Mecca?
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I think that analogy fails in that Saudi Arabia is an Islamic nation and the United States guarantees freedom of religion for all it's citizens. Your analogy would make sense if the United States were a Christian nation exclusively.
 
Accidental Martyr said:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iNLTahM5QJw8Ts0SpTgWLjXwN7gAD9HOPCJ80

Anti-mosque demonstrators played Bruce Springsteen's Born in the USA....
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A quote from the article:

Gila Barzvi, whose son, Guy, was killed in the towers, stood with mosque opponents, clutching a large photo of her son with both hands.

"This is sacred ground and it's where my son was buried," the native Israeli from Queens said. She said the mosque would be "like a knife in our hearts."

She was joined by a close friend, Kobi Mor, who flew from San Francisco to participate in the rally.

If the mosque gets built, "we will bombard it," Mor said. He would not elaborate but added that he believes the project "will never happen."​

Isn't it awesome that we live in a country where one can be quoted saying he was going to "bombard" a building and no one assumes he's a terrorist? Well, as long as he's not a Muslim, of course...

Oh, and as further proof that there's no way these folks protesting the project are bigoted in any way:

Steve Ayling, a 40-year-old Brooklyn plumber who carried his sign to a dry spot by an office building, said the people behind the mosque project are "the same people who took down the twin towers."

Opponents demand that the mosque be moved farther from the site where more than 2,700 people were killed on Sept. 11, 2001. "They should put it in the Middle East," Ayling said.

On a nearby sidewalk, police chased away a group that unfurled a banner with images of beating, stoning and other torture they said was committed by those who followed Islamic law.

A mannequin wearing a keffiyeh, a traditional Arab headdress, was mounted on one of two mock missiles that were part of an anti-mosque installation. One missile was inscribed with the words: "Again? Freedom Targeted by Religion"; the other with "Obama: With a middle name Hussein. We understand. Bloomberg: What is your excuse?"​
 
I wonder if those opposed to the Islamic Center would be opposed to a Jewish Center in the same place.. why or why not?
 
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