Merged Two Mosques to be built near Ground Zero

[Travis]

Fictitious ideas nothing. They knew Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction.
It's either that, or they were much more stupid than one can imagine.

There were other good reasons to go into Iraq. I was for the war and I couldn't have cared less if there were any WMD's there or not.

 

[I Am The Scum]

Of course the lawyer would say that. The investors are determined to build their structure on that site no matter what, even if it is confrontational. This is where Harris is correct. If these people wished to appear sincere in their actions, seeing that more than 70% of Americans don't want the thing built there, they would go elsewhere. They won't because they say stuff the protesters, we will build it where we want. Wouldn't they look better if they did the decent thing and scrapped this controversial structure seeing that most people do not want it?

Wait wait wait. You're admonishing the Park 51 people for being confrontational (which they're not), directly after you make a post commanding another individual to be confrontational against Muslims.

So it's bad for Muslims to be confrontational with "us" (even when they're not), but totally okay when we do it to them. Gotchya.

 

[Chaos]

Hows this for starters..........The Trouble With Islam by muslim author Irshad Manji.

Infidel by muslim author Hirsi Ali.

They Must Be Stopped by muslim author Brigitte Gabriel.

Cruel And Usual Punishment by muslim author Nonie Darwish.

Why Israel Can't Wait by Jerome R. Corsi. About the thinking behind a pre-emptive strike at Iran's nuclear facility before they develop a nuclear bomb.

These are just books I have on hand. I have read and discarded many more.

What was you question?

How about Islam 101 - Basic Facts Like How To Spell ´Imam´ by Get A. Clue?

Now for my other questions. Bring it on. I´m waiting.

 

[A'isha]

Hows this for starters..........The Trouble With Islam by muslim author Irshad Manji.

Have you really read and understood what she says? Because her views stand in stark contrast to all the other authors you list below, and to what you yourself describe as defining characteristics of Islam. She's a hell of a lot closer to Rauf's interpretation of Islam than she is to theirs or yours, in fact.

Infidel by muslim author Hirsi Ali.

Her book is a genuine and harrowing tale of what she and others like her have suffered under extremist brands of Islam in Somalia and Saudi Arabia, where she lived before coming to the West. But she's not any kind of authority on Islam as a whole, since she apparently thinks all Muslims think that same way, making such bizarre assertions like "every devout Muslim who aspires to practice genuine Islam" is a supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood, which anyone who knows anything about the divisions and conflicts within Islam knows is false. The Muslim Brotherhood is doctrinally Sunni, which makes it rather problematic for say, Shia Muslims to follow them, to say nothing of other non-Sunni sects and the millions of moderates out there. It's also outlawed in some Muslim countries, like Egypt, which places her and another author on your list, Nonie Darwish, at direct odds about just how "devoutly and genuinely" Muslim that country is.

In other words, it's akin to saying "every devout Christian who aspires to practice genuine Christianity" supports the Family First Party, and just as untrue [edited to provide a more Australian example for amb].

They Must Be Stopped by muslim author Brigitte Gabriel.

She's not Muslim, she's Lebanese Christian. Her book also says stuff like "Islamic terrorists [...] are really just very devout followers of Muhammad. They are following his example and doing exactly what the Koran teaches and their mullahs exhort them to do with a daily diet of righteous jihad," which is trivially proven false simply by talking to any one of the millions of moderate Muslims in America and Europe.

It also says "[T]hey have an ingrained corruption that runs throughout their societies. They respect craftiness and deceit over honesty and virtue. They are consumed with hate for one another," which could have been cut-and-pasted from Mein Kampf talking about Jews!

Cruel And Usual Punishment by muslim author Nonie Darwish.

She was born Muslim, but converted to Christianity over thirty years ago.

She's written about the backwardness and cruelty of sharia law as many Muslim countries practice it. However, she seems to be caught between an odd contradiction where her books say things like describing Islam as "an entire religion and its culture believes God orders the killing of unbelievers," while in interviews she talks about encouraging more moderate Muslims to speak out and that "it’s the terrorists who are giving Islam a bad name."

In any case, her book is an okay (if sensationalistic) work about the excesses of a particular brand of extremist sharia, but she's not a Muslim scholar, and extremist sharia is not Islam (as proved by the fact that there are a whole lot of different versions of "sharia" throughout the Muslim world).

Why Israel Can't Wait by Jerome R. Corsi. About the thinking behind a pre-emptive strike at Iran's nuclear facility before they develop a nuclear bomb.

Jerome Corsi?! The guy who says that the Hawaiian birth certificate that Obama showed the world is a photoshopped fake, thinks Obama's really a secret Muslim, and went on Alex Jones' radio show to talk about how he supports Steven Jones' ridiculous theory that "nanothermite dust" really brought down the WTC towers?

These are just books I have on hand. I have read and discarded many more.

I'm seeing a distinct absence of any books exploring Islamic theology or history. What you seem to have done is read a bunch of Dawkins, Till, and Hitchens (and one book by David Icke), and decided you've learned everything you need to know about Christianity.

What was you question?

Okay, I have a question for you. Sura IX, verse 5 in the Qu'ran, often (mis)quoted as "Kill the disbelievers wherever you find them."

Who spoke it, when, and why?

 

[Ladewig]

Of course the lawyer would say that. The investors are determined to build their structure on that site no matter what, even if it is confrontational. This is where Harris is correct. If these people wished to appear sincere in their actions, seeing that more than 70% of Americans don't want the thing built there, they would go elsewhere. They won't because they say stuff the protesters, we will build it where we want. Wouldn't they look better if they did the decent thing and scrapped this controversial structure seeing that most people do not want it?

So when I ask you direct questions about your position, you ignore me. When I make comments almost tangential to the thread, you comment. Between that and the impeach-Bush comment, it is getting harder and harder to take you seriously.

 

[Cleon]

Hows this for starters.....

So you've read (more accurately, claim to have read) a bunch of stuff that reinforces your opinion of Islam, but you haven't read much about the religion itself.

 

[A'isha]

Oh crap, sucked in again.

As I predicted, attack the media, not the message.

No comment about my critique of the message?

 

[KingMerv00]

The investors are determined to build their structure on that site no matter what, even if it is confrontational.

They aren't being confrontational. The RESPONSE is confrontational.

This is where Harris is correct. If these people wished to appear sincere in their actions, seeing that more than 70% of Americans don't want the thing built there, they would go elsewhere. They won't because they say stuff the protesters, we will build it where we want. Wouldn't they look better if they did the decent thing and scrapped this controversial structure seeing that most people do not want it?

When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth, and tell the whole world—“No. You move.”
-Captain America, Amazing Spider-Man 537

 

[A'isha]

When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth, and tell the whole world—“No. You move.”
-Captain America, Amazing Spider-Man 537

Hah!

I was actually thinking about posting that quote in reply to amb myself.

 

[Praktik]

Is that so. Tell them their prophet was a pedophile, then watch their reaction.
Tell them it was islam, not the zionists who were responsible for the 9/11 outrage and again watch their reaction.

Ah yes, you must be a hit at parties! I find that people react rather strongly to insulting bastardizations of their core beliefs, maybe you've found different amb or perhaps the self-satisfaction you get by this method outweighs the cost of alienating friends and coworkers.

Or you actually don't KNOW any muslims in your life and thus Islam and muslims have become an abstraction in your mind that allows you treat these people with such cartoonish, low-brow arrogance.

 

[nchammer326]

Is that so. Tell them their prophet was a pedophile, then watch their reaction.
Tell them it was islam, not the zionists who were responsible for the 9/11 outrage and again watch their reaction.

I imagine they would be pretty offended. I can't imagine why they would get upset over someone taking a dump on their religion. It's almost as if insulting people's beliefs to get a reaction out of them is horrible thing to do!

 

[Chaos]

You know, it´s kind of disappointing that this amb guy lives in Western Australia. He sounds like a caricature of an backwoods redneck hillbilly bigot. You know, the ones with a Confederate flag and enough weapons to arm a platoon on the back of their pickup truck.

 

[quadraginta]

So you've read (more accurately, claim to have read) a bunch of stuff that reinforces your opinion of Islam, but you haven't read much about the religion itself.

To be fair, he did mention reading and discarding many more.

He's just given us a sample of the ones he liked, not the ones that made him feel uncomfortable about his beliefs.

 

[A'isha]

To be fair, he did mention reading and discarding many more.

He's just given us a sample of the ones he liked, not the ones that made him feel uncomfortable about his beliefs.

That's what makes the presence of Irshad Manji's book on his list so odd. Of all the authors he listed, she's the only one who is a practicing Muslim (all the others converted to Christianity, became atheist, or were never Muslim at all to begin with).

Even stranger, while Manji is certainly severely critical of extremist, fundamentalist Islam, she is also a strong promoter of the idea that one can be a freedom-loving liberal Westerner (and even gay, as she is), and still be a faithfully practicing Muslim. In a New York Times interview, she even said "It is imperative that somehow, some way, people begin to understand that the West and Islam are not mutually exclusive." This is also the central thesis of Rauf's book, and it's something that every single one of the other authors on amb's list (and, seemingly, amb himself) strongly disagree with.

 

[bokonon]

Rauf also expands on the nature of "reform" and Islam in his book, saying in the section titled "Two Approaches to Reform" that

Quote:
When people seek reform or wish to correct the mistakes of the past, they do it in one of two ways. Either they work constructively, incorporating and learning from the past, or they work critically, seeking to start over by discarding learning from the past. The advantage of the first approach is that it focuses people on what needs to be done by educating and developing them. It is also the more permanent and lasting approach because people are taught how to think through new situations and come up with a right answer - and to recognize when there is, and can be, more than one right answer. The advantage of the second approach is that it is much simpler to teach and inculcate. Crimes are easier to identify, cheaper to punish, and they invoke more passion than does education. And people are driven by passion. Moreover, it is much easier to find teachers to teach the second, critical, approach than the first constructive approach. However, the second approach creates heresies out of any idea that differs from its own and finds it difficult to coexist with other approaches. Its life is also naturally short, since it is defined by what it stands against and therefore does not outlast its opponent.

As an American, I think any Muslim sect has a right to build a mosque on any land they own, with proper zoning.

As a critical thinker, this Rauf guy seems like he's saying what should be said, both to my fellow Americans and to his fellow Muslims. I only hope both groups would listen and hear.

 

[Chaos]

That's what makes the presence of Irshad Manji's book on his list so odd. Of all the authors he listed, she's the only one who is a practicing Muslim (all the others converted to Christianity, became atheist, or were never Muslim at all to begin with).

Even stranger, while Manji is certainly severely critical of extremist, fundamentalist Islam, she is also a strong promoter of the idea that one can be a freedom-loving liberal Westerner (and even gay, as she is), and still be a faithfully practicing Muslim. In a New York Times interview, she even said "It is imperative that somehow, some way, people begin to understand that the West and Islam are not mutually exclusive." This is also the central thesis of Rauf's book, and it's something that every single one of the other authors on amb's list (and, seemingly, amb himself) strongly disagree with.

Perhaps he included a token clueful not-fanatic on list to trick us into not noticing that all the others are clueless fanatics?

 

[Travis]

So are they protesting at the WTC today or not?

 

[GreNME]

So are they protesting at the WTC today or not?

Probably. I was planning on going up there but between car troubles and not having a ride to (or more importantly, from) the train station I can't make it.

 

[Elind]

No comment about my critique of the message?

Repeat it please and I will comply. There are many parallel conversations here. I'm flattered that you pay attention to mine. Sorry, but I don't have time to read all of yours.

 

[Elind]

You know, it´s kind of disappointing that this amb guy lives in Western Australia. He sounds like a caricature of an backwoods redneck hillbilly bigot. You know, the ones with a Confederate flag and enough weapons to arm a platoon on the back of their pickup truck.

Now, I usually try to stay relevant to myself, and since coming back here and enjoying myself I have been trying hard to observe rule 12 (or is it 11?).

You fail, but you can at least take comfort that you are not alone.

Did I just fail also, or is that a recursive point?



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