Merged Two Mosques to be built near Ground Zero

[Elind]

so once they are enough they will turn violent?

If you keep trying to put words in my mouth I will sulk.

 

[Elind]

Taking a break. Later perhaps.

 

[DC]

Which part is propaganda? The Swiss don't breed enough or the Muslims (who I presume are also Swiss) breed much more?

swiss birthrates are climbing again, and there seems to be a trend of Muslim immigrants having less and less children.

 

[Praktik]

Oh dear me. I must concede, I hadn't thought of that angle. Not my opinion.

I was referring more generally to my observations from having lived in places like Saudi for about 10 years. When people of a faith that requires certain behaviors, like praying 5 times a day (to keep it basic) are in the presence of their own, they know they are being judged and act differently from when they are with infidels like me.

Hehe ya I was going tongue in cheek in that one. Saudi eh? I had family friends posted there in the Foreign Service.

Kind of a crazy place that's for sure.. I imagine that experience might colour your current views somewhat...

 

[A'isha]

As to the above fair question. This is a debate with differing opinions which makes it interesting. Rauf is only one component. I don't oppose American Muslim building anything legal anywhere, but that doesn't mean I can't be critical of them, or their religion in general.

It helps to know what you're criticizing. CBN is no more an accurate resource regarding the activities and views of Islam than the "official" Palestinian TV stations are an accurate resource regarding the activities and views of Israel.

CBN has a vested interest in portraying anything Islam-related in the worst light possible. Whatever truth there may (or may not) be in what that article reports on, you can be sure that it's been twisted to fit their preferred weltanschauung in a way that makes the Daily Mail looks like amateurs.

Especially since they repeat the "demography is destiny" foolishness that is at the core of so much fearmongering in Europe today.

I am critical of Rauf because I think a major project like this (and bound to be controversial to many) should have been developed over time, like the last 10 years, and not sprung out of the blue,

You apparently aren't aware that Rauf has worked towards this for years, and he and his wife have been all over various media for quite a while now, even Fox News Channel (including one moment almost a full year ago where Bill O'Reilly's guest host spoke approvingly about the project)?

It was not "sprung out of the blue."

and partnered by a recovering alcoholic with a police record who didn't have a pot to pee in 5 years ago, before converting to Islam and being a front man for moneyed property investors.

So, your big objection is that a developer and property owner that owns a number of buildings may potentially be corrupt and is a front man for "moneyed property investors"? In Manhattan?!

To keep it short, I will just go with Sam Harris on the rest.

Despite him basically having lied about everything he said, as has been shown right in this very thread?

My opinion is simply that Islam is not well suited to western society, and that is an opinion many Muslims will hold.

No wonder you're against this project, then. Rauf, the man behind it, wrote an entire book stating exactly the opposite (that Islam and Western society are not just compatible, but virtually identical in their core principles).

 

[Elind]

Hehe ya I was going tongue in cheek in that one. Saudi eh? I had family friends posted there in the Foreign Service.

Kind of a crazy place that's for sure.. I imagine that experience might colour your current views somewhat...

Well, I might say it did better than just color (notice our different spelling?).

Anyway, signing off for now. I was watching the CNN Anderson Cooper segment on this issue. It was interesting along with many comments from Rauf, finally.

You need to watch it.

 

[Elind]

No wonder you're against this project, then. Rauf, the man behind it, wrote an entire book stating exactly the opposite (that Islam and Western society are not just compatible, but virtually identical in their core principles).

I will keep this short, and ask you to read what I have already said, if you wish to continue.

I am not against the project. I am just critical of it on several levels, never mind the one that I am also critical of Islam, and most other religions in different ways.

Rauf dug his hole, and I said so before I heard him say he regretted it tonight. Let him lay in it.

He is probably a good man, just naive and possibly a little more ambitious than he can handle.

 

[Taarkin]

so once they are enough they will turn violent?

Muslims are literally Warhammer40k Orks. Get enough of them together and their combined psychic powers drive them onto a great WAAGH! Also they are really made out of algae or something. The more you know.

 

[Praktik]

Well, I might say it did better than just color (notice our different spelling?).

Anyway, signing off for now. I was watching the CNN Anderson Cooper segment on this issue. It was interesting along with many comments from Rauf, finally.

You need to watch it.

Its lined up - watching the direct interview/ soledad first.

OF course my main man Zakaria is up there and gonna lay the smack down...

 

[Ladewig]

Oh, so they made it up? Would your comment be any different if the report came from CNN?

The Muslims in the street have been granted unofficial rights that no Christian group is likely to get under France's Laicite', or secularism law.

When one makes accusations that have no evidence to support them, then that can appropriately be described as making stuff up. If CBN had put quotes around that then they could have argued that they were citing a relevant person's opinion - but they didn't - so it is making stuff up.

 

[quadraginta]

I hear he's almost as knowledgeable as an actual inman.

As opposed to an outman, like Elton John?

I don't see what one's sexual orientation has to do with any of this...

I figured it had something to do with belly buttons.

... and maybe misogyny.

 

[Eddie Dane]

Muslims are literally Warhammer40k Orks. Get enough of them together and their combined psychic powers drive them onto a great WAAGH! Also they are really made out of algae or something. The more you know.

That is awesome.
I bet that they're full of vitamins.

 

[A'isha]

I will keep this short, and ask you to read what I have already said, if you wish to continue.

I have been reading what you said. That's why I keep pointing out where you're repeatedly wrong about such things as Rauf's "blaming" America for 9/11, or his "refusal" to condemn Hamas and terrorism, or the claim that this project came "out of the blue", or that Rauf hasn't spoken publicly about his views (especially regarding terrorism and the necessity of Muslim coexistence with the West), or the "reliability" of Harris, or the "reliability" of CBN (which you've cited a number of times now), or the terrorist threat represented by Muslims as compared to non-Muslims, or that anyone who thinks American foreign policy had some connection with terror attacks on the US is just repeating "apologia".

I am not against the project.

Okay, well, mostly reading what you said. You are, of course, right, and indeed have said this before. I apologize.

I am just critical of it on several levels,

All of which, so far, have been entirely groundless criticisms.

never mind the one that I am also critical of Islam, and most other religions in different ways.

...excepting, apparently, Pat Robertson's brand of fundamentalist evangelical Christianity.

Rauf dug his hole, and I said so before I heard him say he regretted it tonight. Let him lay in it.

What, exactly, did he say he regretted?

He is probably a good man, just naive and possibly a little more ambitious than he can handle.

Yes, he apparently thinks Muslims and Jews and Christians can and should live together in peace and cooperation in the West.

As we've seen from the "controversy" over Park51, it seems he was foolishly optimistic about America's faith in its own core values.

 

[Laeke]

As to Sarkozy, I never quoted him, but the news in France clearly doesn't reach where you are.

I don't think this has been followed upon so I can confirm this.

In Grenoble, 30 July 2010, Nicolas Sarkozy made a speech regarding security after some incidents that prompted him in changing the local préfet* [to sum it up, a casino robber was killed by the police during a chase, several violent acts followed in the district, including the police being shot at with "real" bullets.]

The speech was solely directed towards the subject of security, Sarkozy declared "total war" on "criminal/delinquants".

More specifically he said the following
"Nous subissons les conséquences de 50 années d'immigration insuffisamment régulées qui ont abouti à un échec de l'intégration."

Which I could roughly translate as
"We suffer from the consequences of 50 years of insufficiently-regulated immigration that led to the failing of the integration policy"

He indeed tied in "immigration" (Heavily implied to anyone familiar in French political debates: From Africa/North Africa) and "crime/delinquency" in a very direct way.

And for the record, I do find that to be incredibly bigoted & inflammatory rhetorics. There is many more that could be said about this speech of the usual posturing of the President (That's like the 10th time he speaks of "waging total war on crime/hooligans/pick your favorite" in the 8 years he's been in charge of the issue), but that would certainly derail the topic.

* I am not sure American people might be familiar with this notion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Préfet

 

[amb]

amb,

what is an "inman", and why are you using this term instead of referring to the person in question by the term actually describing what he is?

Would you agree to revoke voting rights for Republicans if a poll showed that 70% of Democrats think Republicans do not deserve voting rights?

Would you agree to reinstate slavery of Blacks if a poll showed that 70% of all Whites think Blacks do not deserve freedom?

Which other constitutional rights should be withheld from which groups just because other groups want that?

It's just another word for a mullah. I've forgotten the gentleman's name if you must know.

 

[A'isha]

It's just another word for a mullah.

No, it's not.

I've forgotten the gentleman's name if you must know.

Feisal Abdul Rauf.

 

[Praktik]

What, exactly, did he say he regretted?

Basically Soldedad was persistent in asking, with a note of exasperation, how - knowing what he knows now - would he have still gone on with the project where it is now...

He answered earlier formulations about 5 times - it got real tiring that Soledad kept asking the SAME question and we kept hearing the SAME answer. He repeated - and Soledad just couldn't take on board - the plain fact that this was a front-page NYT story in december, with no subsequent explosion of rage, that he had no way of knowing that it would metastasize so virulently when the political hacks threw the whole thing in as chum to the political-media nexus.

After saying that a few times Soledad pressed on and tuned her question a bit and we heard, and I believed him, that he would probably have picked a different place because obviously this whole mess is not good for anyone: he acknowledged the pain of some 9/11 families, the increased risk to him and fellow muslims in America, and he kept pressing on the ways this has become a national security issue (like the Danish cartoons) that could have repercussions for American troops, Americans traveling abroad and the way it could work as fuel to drive the radicals on both sides to exacerbate the West vs Islam Inevitable Holy War rhetoric that is hijacking the debate everywhere. Knowing all that, he would have preferred not to have caused the mess.

But as I type that - I realize we have the wrong formulation. He didn't cause any of this. It was a pure political construction erected in campaign season by a bunch of pols and their Keyboard Army. They caused this.

So really, he regrets having picked a place that would later be easily used as fodder for this idiotic "debate". Picking something else by chance would maybe have avoided it - I think he probably gave people too much credit and didn't have the devious imagination to picture the ways his project would be abused and used as cheaply as it has been.

He probably regrets not being able to think like that too.

 

[Chaos]

It's just another word for a mullah. I've forgotten the gentleman's name if you must know.

Thank you for revealing your ignorance. The other word for a mullah is "imam", as has been pointed out repeatedly.

Also thank you for revealing yourself as a liar. If you have "read extensively about islam", as you claim, you would know that the right word is "imam".

Now answer my other questions.

 

[A'isha]

Thank you for revealing your ignorance. The other word for a mullah is "imam", as has been pointed out repeatedly.

Well, even that isn't strictly true. An imam (usually) is the leader of a Muslim community, the one who leads the five daily prayers. A mullah is someone educated in Islamic theology, who can speak and teach about Islam and sharia. They're similar terms, but not identical. Depending on the particular Muslim sect and community, one can be considered an imam but not a mullah, or they can refer to the same thing. EDIT: And in Shia Islam, an imam is something else entirely, and is the cause of the further division of Shiites into subsects.

The nearest Christian equivalent, I guess, would be "preacher" and "seminarian". In some sects of Christianity, you can be a preacher of a church without having received formal theological training in a seminary, and not everyone who's received a theological education preaches in front of a congregation. In others, you have to go to seminary if you want to be any kind of preacher before a congregation. As a result, while many preachers are indeed seminarians, you can't call all preachers seminarians, nor all seminarians preachers. Same thing with mullah and imam.

I'm shocked that someone as well-read about Islam as amb here did not appear to be aware of that.

 

[Chaos]

Well, even that isn't strictly true. An imam (usually) is the leader of a Muslim community, the one who leads the five daily prayers. A mullah is someone educated in Islamic theology, who can speak and teach about Islam and sharia. They're similar terms, but not identical. Depending on the particular Muslim sect and community, one can be considered an imam but not a mullah, or they can refer to the same thing. EDIT: And in Shia Islam, an imam is something else entirely, and is the cause of the further division of Shiites into subsects.

The nearest Christian equivalent, I guess, would be "preacher" and "seminarian". In some sects of Christianity, you can be a preacher of a church without having received formal theological training in a seminary, and not everyone who's received a theological education preaches in front of a congregation. In others, you have to go to seminary if you want to be any kind of preacher before a congregation. As a result, while many preachers are indeed seminarians, you can't call all preachers seminarians, nor all seminarians preachers. Same thing with mullah and imam.

I'm shocked that someone as well-read about Islam as amb here did not appear to be aware of that.

I bow to your superior knowledge.

But to paraphrase, um, Feynman, I think: To say that an imam is the same as mullah is wrong; to say that an "inman" (whatever that is) is the same as a mullah is also wrong; but to say that both are equally wrong is more wrong than both of them together.