Bigots oppose another NYC mosque

[Toontown]

Actually, I would like Breitbart and Geller to suffer right here and now. They've earned it.

But Jesus said, "Judge not, that you be not judged. For as you judge, so shall you be judged."

"For all have sinned, and have fallen short..."

How are you gonna squirm out of that one on Judgement Day?

"But Lord! I didn't really mean it! I didn't really want them all to burn in hell! And besides, You want them all to burn in hell, don't You? I was just trying to be more like You, Lord. I just wanted to see Your Plan Of Salvation come to fruition..."

"Judgement is Mine", saith the Lord...

 

[Toontown]

Has anyone here claimed that no Muslims are opposing 'the mosque'?

Thank you for at last admitting that opposition to the mosque is not, in and of itself, bigotry. But I am not happy about the way the truth had to be wrung out of you like water out of a wet dishrag.

 

[kerikiwi]

Thank you for at last admitting that opposition to the mosque is not, in and of itself, bigotry. But I am not happy about the way the truth had to be wrung out of you like water out of a wet dishrag.

How does the post you quoted lead to that?
Are you being deliberately dishonest ? Or are you genuinely stupid?
I said exactly the opposite: opposition is ultimately founded on bigotry. If some people say they oppose the mosque because it will lead to conflict, dig deeper and evaluate why it will lead to conflict.
If a gay person decides to stay in the closet because to do otherwise will lead to attack by bigots, would you argue that choice is not based on bigotry?

 

[Toontown]

Oh, boy, another strawman. I don't recall saying anything at all about 'kowtowing". I merely said that American Muslims have have the same right to their Constitutionally-protected freedoms, including freedom of religion, as Jews, Christians, and even Atheists do, and there are many Muslims in our armed forces who have fought and died to help protect those rights for all Americans.

False. You've been at pains to paint all those who oppose building the GZ mosque as bigots. Until I inconveniently brought up the fact that a majority of Muslims also oppose it. Then you started backfilling.

If you think that's "kowtowing", you're going to have to explain that a little bit more, because otherwise it looks like a complete non sequitur.

It is kowtowing to refrain from voicing opposition to an ideology one actually opposes simply to avoid being painted as a "bigot" by a dishonest rationale leftists have dreamed up.

Ah, right. Thanks for reminding me that you still haven't shown any evidence of "the left" protesting the construction of churches and trying to find legal means to stop that construction.

Red herring. Why would I need to do that? I did not accuse Fat Mikey or Bill Maher of protesting the construction of churches. Presumably leftists would be smart enough to know they can't get away with that. I was just wondering what all of a sudden happened to the endemic Christian bashing now that this mosque issue has come up and the left has assumed a convenient posture of beatific tolerance toward religion. And I'm just curious as to how leftists will subtly get back to their usual Christian bashing as soon as the current bruhaha dies down without making the current hypocrisy too obvious.

<yada, yada, yada snipped>

....And you can't say anything about what "ideology" one group of Muslims follows by looking at what "ideology" a completely different group of Muslims follows, any more than you can tell what "ideology" a Catholic follows by looking at what the preacher of a Southern Baptist megachurch follows.

But please, tell me more about how the "ideology" of the Nur Ashki Jerrahi order of Sufism that the "Ground Zero Mosque" organizers and imam belong to is similar to the "ideology" of the Wahhabi (Salafi) Sunni sect that the 19 al-Qaeda hijackers belonged to.

Please be as specific as you can when describing these similarities in "ideology", and don't forget to cite your work.

We both know that won't be happening. And it doesn't need to happen. My assertion does not depend on in the absolute indifference of all versions of Islam.

Why would I want or need to expend all that time and labor just to satisfy you that I am qualified to assert that opposition to an ideology is not bigotry? Should I also sign up for a course in Islamic Theology at the local community college?

I have a better idea. Instead of wasting huge chunks of my time, let's waste yours. How about you write a 5000 word essay, with cites, explaining in detail why opposition to religious ideologies is in fact, bigotry.

Because it was, in fact, you and your peers who have been making that positive assertion.

 

[kerikiwi]

... the fact that a majority of Muslims also oppose it.

Nobody has denied that. But can you explain why they oppose it? And explain why their opposition does not rest ultimately on bigotry?

 

[kerikiwi]

It is kowtowing to refrain from voicing opposition to an ideology one actually opposes simply ...

Can you summarise the ideology you have in mind?

 

[johnny karate]

Thank you for at last admitting that opposition to the mosque is not, in and of itself, bigotry.

This has been covered ad nauseam in other threads in which bigot-apologists made similar claims.

Bigotry, capitulation to bigots, and ignorance are the only reasons to oppose the construction of these mosques. Your previous examples of Muslim opposition fall into the two latter categories.

 

[CatOfGrey]

I've got a fundamentally different thought about this, and need it tested.

Imagine you are speaking, and, without understanding or knowing, say something that is deeply offensive to a certain racial group. How do you react? I, along with [I hope] 99% of the rest of the world, would apologize, and thank somebody for helping me remove the ignorance.

A Muslim organization decides to build the mosque. Without realizing it, their choice of location is deeply offensive to many, as the building echoes a conqueror's custom of building a shrine at the scene of the victory.

My opinion is that the organization has every 'right' to build whatever they want. However, why would that organization choose to offend millions? Thanks to a wacky and explosive minority, Islam could use some publicity about being non-aggressive, and supporting Western political correctness where we all make good effort to not offend other peoples. Why not just say "sorry, didn't mean to offend, we can do this somewhere else instead."?

The action suggests that this Muslim organization is more concerned with getting what it wants rather than being nice. As such, they aren't nice people, and we should consider them as such.

 

[kerikiwi]

I've got a fundamentally different thought about this, and need it tested.

Imagine you are speaking, and, without understanding or knowing, say something that is deeply offensive to a certain racial group. How do you react? I, along with [I hope] 99% of the rest of the world, would apologize, and thank somebody for helping me remove the ignorance.

A Muslim organization decides to build the mosque. Without realizing it, their choice of location is deeply offensive to many, as the building echoes a conqueror's custom of building a shrine at the scene of the victory.

My opinion is that the organization has every 'right' to build whatever they want. However, why would that organization choose to offend millions? Thanks to a wacky and explosive minority, Islam could use some publicity about being non-aggressive, and supporting Western political correctness where we all make good effort to not offend other peoples. Why not just say "sorry, didn't mean to offend, we can do this somewhere else instead."?

The action suggests that this Muslim organization is more concerned with getting what it wants rather than being nice. As such, they aren't nice people, and we should consider them as such.

Your summary is a perfect example of kowtowing to bigots, that is those who blame all muslims for the actions of a tiny tiny minority.
Why say sorry for something one is not responsible for?
Do you expect all christians to apologise and bear the shame of the human foulness which is Fred Phelps? To not build a church because those who hate Phelps also hate them for no other reason that Phelps bears the Christian label and so do they? And we musn't offend those people.

 

[Toontown]

How does the post you quoted lead to that?
Are you being deliberately dishonest ? Or are you genuinely stupid??

That is a false dichotomy, as you will soon learn.

I said exactly the opposite: opposition is ultimately founded on bigotry. If some people say they oppose the mosque because it will lead to conflict, dig deeper and evaluate why it will lead to conflict.

And why focus solely on those who fear conflict? What about the ones who simply want to respect the wishes of 70% of Americans? And what about those who, like the Muslim scholar I quoted, believe the mosque is purely an in-our-faces Islamist political statement?

And since you are now eager to "dig deeper" to expose the bigotry of Americans against Islam, how about we just keep digging until we unearth the underlying cause of the presumed bigotry, and discover Muslim bigotry at the root of it all.

After all, is it not bigotry on steroids to believe that all who do not convert to (fill in name of bigots' religion) are going to hell?

But I surmise you don't want to dig that deep. I surmise you only want to dig to a particular depth, in a particular direction, in order to arrive at your foregone conclusion of rampant American bigotry.

People are bigoted, to some extent, some more than others. And if you think you are not bigoted, well, I'll just note that your stubborn struggle in this thread to pin the "bigot" label on the 70% of the American people who have had the unmitigated gall to offend you, has not gone unnoticed. Without any discernable attempt on your part to understand the Americans' position, including the American Muslims, 58% of whom oppose the GZ mosque - for various reasons, not just the one you cherry-picked.

 

[A'isha]

http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/la...s-arabs-more-opposed-gz-mosque-american-media

"According to a recent survey by the Arabic online news service Elaph (Arabic version here), 58 percent of Arabs think the construction should be moved elsewhere. And according to a Media Research Center study released last week, 55 percent of network news coverage of the debate has come down on the pro-Mosque side."

Read more: http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/la...pposed-gz-mosque-american-media#ixzz13n7K47kK

The link to the poll within the Newsbusters article is broken. I tried to search for the poll, using Rauf's name in Arabic.

During my search, I found an article on elaph.com by Joseph Bishara claiming that Rauf really isn't a moderate, but seeks the "Islamization of America", posing a whole litany of questions about how Rauf reconciles Islam with the US Constitution, eventually concluding that such answers weren't forthcoming and that Rauf was trying to manipulate Americans through their ignorance, and actually specifically and blatantly accuses him of using taqiyya to try and get sharia instituted in America as part of this "Islamization."

This is, frankly, insane (Rauf wrote an entire book answering exactly the "questions" Bishara claimed to have, and that's not even getting into the ludicrousness of the taqiyya accusation).

I also tried searching for the words "للمسجد" (mosque) and "استطلاع" (poll), and got nothing. I searched on just "استطلاع", but neither of the only two results were the poll in question (one was apparently about the 2004 US Presidential election, giving poll results for Bush vs. Kerry, and the other was talking about how polls played a pivotal role in some political power play or something), but both links were also broken.

Given the fact that they posted the above article, I'm extremely dubious about just what sort of questions this poll asked and whether it was a true poll, or just a "hey, click here to vote" poll. I'd really like to read it for myself.

Do you have a working link to a description of this poll, Toontown?

http://www.5tjt.com/international-news/8139-muslim-scholar-says-dont-build-gz-mosque

"A respected Muslim scholar has a message for those planning to build an Islamic center near Ground Zero in New York: It's a bad idea, and a window on sharply differing thinking among Muslims worldwide on how to best go about promoting Islam - and peace.

Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, in Phoenix, a former Muslim U.S. Navy Commander, wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal Friday sharply critical of the planned Islamic center, urging organizer Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and Muslims all over the world to show compassion and understand the American separation of church and state.

Special Section: Sept. 11 Remembered

Jasser says the Islamic Center as conceived is more about making a political statement that will seriously divide communities than about bringing them together.

He wrote, "We Muslims should first separate mosque and state before lecturing Americans about church and state." He continues, "American freedom of religion is a right, but … it is not right to make one's religion a global political statement with a towering Islamic edifice that casts a shadow over the memorials of Ground Zero. … Islamists in 'moderate' disguise are still Islamists. In their own more subtle ways, the WTC mosque organizers end up serving the same aims (as) separatist and supremacist wings of political Islam.""

Here's more from that article:

On "The Early Show on Saturday Morning," Jasser regarded the rallies being planned at Ground Zero, for and against the center, and said he thinks, "Today is especially a day, as we remember and reflect upon 9/11 and looking over that pit of devastation there and feeling that, today, we look through that lens as Americans, not as a Muslim, not as of any faith. I don't look through this lens of trying to repair my - trying to promote Islam. It's about fighting the forces that caused this, and I think, if we're able to unite under that, that's why 71 percent of Americans are against (the Islamic center).

"It's not because they don't want mosques there, there [are] even other mosques closer. Many of us have built over 2,000 mosques in the United States with very little problem. But, I think what unites us is the freedoms and liberties our Constitution gives us, and it's time for Muslims to look less about promoting ourselves, (have) less of a victimology and (be) more about feeling the pain of the families of 9/11 and understanding what we have to do to repair the house of Islam."

How is saying, effectively, "Americans look at Ground Zero and blame it on all of Islam, therefore we should be sensitive to those who blame that attack on all of Islam and not build a mosque there" not rooted in the bigotry of associating all Muslims with the actions of a small extremist fraction?

You still haven't explained why the opposition to the Brooklyn, Staten Island, or Tennessee mosques isn't bigoted, either.

 

[kerikiwi]

And why focus solely on those who fear conflict? What about the ones who simply want to respect the wishes of 70% of Americans? And what about those who, like the Muslim scholar I quoted, believe the mosque is purely an in-our-faces Islamist political statement?

And since you are now eager to "dig deeper" to expose the bigotry of Americans against Islam, how about we just keep digging until we unearth the underlying cause of the presumed bigotry, and discover Muslim bigotry at the root of it all.

After all, is it not bigotry on steroids to believe that all who do not convert to (fill in name of bigots' religion) are going to hell?

But I surmise you don't want to dig that deep. I surmise you only want to dig to a particular depth, in a particular direction, in order to arrive at your foregone conclusion of rampant American bigotry.

People are bigoted, to some extent, some more than others. And if you think you are not bigoted, well, I'll just note that your stubborn struggle in this thread to pin the "bigot" label on the 70% of the American people who have had the unmitigated gall to offend you, has not gone unnoticed. Without any discernable attempt on your part to understand the Americans' position, including the American Muslims, 58% of whom oppose the GZ mosque - for various reasons, not just the one you cherry-picked.

I will dig as deep as you wish.
What are the various reasons, other than appeasing those who blame all muslims?
I am not the least offended. Whatever gave you that idea?
%ages are irrelevant to the reasons. 100% could still be bigots. 1% could still be bigots.
I understand that the opposition is based on blaming islam and muslims. Some people's opposition is based on not offending those who blame all muslims, some on avoiding conflict. It still comes finally back to the same thing: islam and muslims are responsible.
How am I wrong?

 

[Toontown]

Can you summarise the ideology you have in mind?

Why? So you can waste more of my time while simultaneously tricking me into laboriously laying the groundwork for your inevitable claim that some sect of Islam does not exactly coincide with my summary?

Sorry. I'm afraid you'll have to concoct another plan for an "AHA!" moment.

 

[A'isha]

False. You've been at pains to paint all those who oppose building the GZ mosque as bigots. Until I inconveniently brought up the fact that a majority of Muslims also oppose it. Then you started backfilling.

No, I started explaining to you how you were strawmanning my position. There is no reason to oppose the "GZ mosque" that does not come from bigotry, either expressing it or bowing to it.

And you still haven't explained why there's also opposition to mosques not anywhere near Ground Zero, like Brooklyn, Staten Island, and Tennessee.

Lastly, "a majority of Muslims" don't oppose it. The majority of Arabs who responded to a "survey" run by a website, with no idea whatsoever of how the survey was run or what the questions were, oppose it.

It is kowtowing to refrain from voicing opposition to an ideology one actually opposes simply to avoid being painted as a "bigot" by a dishonest rationale leftists have dreamed up.

Except what you're doing isn't "voicing opposition to an ideology". What you're doing is opposing people who you think have that ideology because they happen to share similarities you think are overridingly significant, despite the fact that those people you oppose not only don't share that ideology, but in most cases actively oppose it as well.

Red herring. Why would I need to do that? I did not accuse Fat Mikey or Bill Maher of protesting the construction of churches. Presumably leftists would be smart enough to know they can't get away with that. I was just wondering what all of a sudden happened to the endemic Christian bashing now that this mosque issue has come up and the left has assumed a convenient posture of beatific tolerance toward religion. And I'm just curious as to how leftists will subtly get back to their usual Christian bashing as soon as the current bruhaha dies down without making the current hypocrisy too obvious.

Perhaps, like me, they prefer to save their "bashing" for people who actually espouse ideas they oppose, rather than simply those who are of the same religion, and are perfectly willing to defend people with harmless and moderate ideas. Unless you have an alternate explanation for why I also have made posts here defending people like Bishop John Shelby Spong.

We both know that won't be happening.

Mainly because you don't know enough about Islam to know what you're talking about.

My assertion does not depend on in the absolute indifference of all versions of Islam.

It kinda does, actually.

Why would I want or need to expend all that time and labor just to satisfy you that I am qualified to assert that opposition to an ideology is not bigotry? Should I also sign up for a course in Islamic Theology at the local community college?

If you're going to oppose an ideology, it helps to actually oppose those who follow that ideology. When you start opposing people who don't follow that ideology, because you assume they do simply because you've pre-judged their beliefs based on some other characteristic they share with those who do follow that ideology, well...you've pretty much become a textbook example of bigotry.

I have a better idea. Instead of wasting huge chunks of my time, let's waste yours. How about you write a 5000 word essay, with cites, explaining in detail why opposition to religious ideologies is in fact, bigotry.

Because it was, in fact, you and your peers who have been making that positive assertion.

Oh look, another strawman.

Again, what's bigotry is not opposing people with a religious ideology. What's bigotry is opposing people who don't have that religious ideology, because of the overarching religious label they apply to themselves.

And that's exactly what opposing Park51 because of the 9/11 attacks is doing. And that's bigotry.

 

[kerikiwi]

Why? So you can waste more of my time while simultaneously tricking me into laboriously laying the groundwork for your inevitable claim that some sect of Islam does not exactly coincide with my summary?

Sorry. I'm afraid you'll have to concoct another plan for an "AHA!" moment.

Let me try another tack: do you hold all muslims responsible?

 

[A'isha]

Why? So you can waste more of my time while simultaneously tricking me into laboriously laying the groundwork for your inevitable claim that some sect of Islam does not exactly coincide with my summary?

Sorry. I'm afraid you'll have to concoct another plan for an "AHA!" moment.

We're not dealing with hypotheticals here, Toontown.

There's opposition to Park51, the Brooklyn mosque, the Staten Island mosque, and the Tennesee mosque. Do you oppose the groups behind all these mosques? If so, what aspects of their ideology is it that you are opposed to? Are those ideologies the same for all, or are there different things you oppose about the different groups?

What aspects of their ideology is it do you think that, say, the protesters quoted in the article way back in the OP, are opposed to?

Please be specific.

 

[Toontown]

We're not dealing with hypotheticals here, Toontown.

There's opposition to Park51, the Brooklyn mosque, the Staten Island mosque, and the Tennesee mosque. Do you oppose the groups behind all these mosques? If so, what aspects of their ideology is it that you are opposed to? Are those ideologies the same for all, or are there different things you oppose about the different groups?

What aspects of their ideology is it do you think that, say, the protesters quoted in the article way back in the OP, are opposed to?

Please be specific.

And why should I go to all the trouble of providing you all that unnecessary information? I haven't even mentioned those mosques. They're not an issue of importance to me, nor is the opposition to them an issue of burning import. It will all be worked out according to the law. And if not, you'll all have an excuse to screech for years about it, like you do about everything else that displeases you.

And particularly, why should I speculate on what aspects of Islamic ideology the protesters are opposed to? I know what I'm opposed to. I'm opposed to the entire concept of an invisible, mute, logically impossible creator-god who can only be communicated with through his self-appointed spokesmen, who must be worshipped and given money on pain of eternal torture. I find the entire concept deeply, disgustingly suspect.

And when I'm told that another 10 million is going to be thrown into the bottomless pit of someone's false god, I'm not thrilled. And when I'm told that the edifice will cast it's shadow on thousands of the dead killed by practitioners of said religion, I just wonder why they insist on ostentatiously displaying their wealth and arrogance in that particular place. After all the other tens of millions who have suffered and died in the meat-grinder of religion, I find the entire concept deeply, disgustingly suspect.

I've scoffed at the atheist left for it's sudden, newfound concern for religious rights, and found it deeply, disgustingly suspect.

I've spoken about the proposed GZ mosque. I've stated the glaringly obvious: opposition to a religious ideology is not bigotry. Quite the contrary, it is only sensible to be diametrically opposed to any religious ideology that targets one for hell-burning by a logically impossible creator god, unless one knuckles under, goes head down, ass up, and opens up one's pocketbook, while providing no logical reason for surrendering so abjectly to a stupidly beatific-acting fake god-boy who might well be a freaking psycho, like Jim Jones, bin Laden, or numerous Catholic Chesters.

And it is at least equally sensible for Christians to categorically reject another religious creed which demands that Christians must either convert or face hell fire. Convert, after all that tithing and innumerable hours spent in uncomfortable pews, getting right with the Christian god? Surely the Muslims jest. They cannot be serious. Can they?

And, when adherents of some fire-and-brimstone religious creed have slaughtered thousands for no discernable just cause, it is even less likely that an imposing edifice of the submission-demanding creed will be happily invited to cast it's presumptuous shadow on the graves of the dead. In fact, the stubborn desire to cast that shadow is, in itself, deeply, disgustingly suspect.

Frankly, to seriously expect that level of tolerance is to be a little bit touched in the head. Ain't gonna happen. Not here. Not anywhere. Yes, the mosque will be allowed. But a lot of people are not going to like it. It will become an object of endless scrutiny and investigation. And it had better be clean, and it had better stay clean.

And worse still, to condemn most of a nation as bigots for not meekly granting that level of tolerance, is nuts. And deeply, disgustingly suspect.

And to go on and on and on about it, hour after hour, writing up all kinds of rationales, struggling to make 70% of Americans out to be bigots, is itself bigoted. And deeply, disgustingly suspect.

But as for those 3 proposed mosques, they are local issues, probably catalyzed by the GZ mosque issue, and dredged up here to serve as a Trojan horse for yet another leftist attack on Americans. I'm not much interested in them, certainly not interested enough to do your ostentatiously demanded in-depth study on them. I don't really care. The place is already crawling with churches and mosques. What's a few more? Just a few more millions thrown into the bottomless pit, along with all the other vast amounts of blood and treasure that have gone down in there through the ages.

 

[Malerin]

If the problem is not with mosques, but with a mosque at that specific site near Ground Zero (since you appear to be referring to the Park51 project), then why the opposition to the mosque in the OP (which is in Brooklyn)? Why the opposition to the mosque in Staten Island? Why the opposition to the mosque in Tennessee?!

Because people don't like Muslims. And they'll continue to not like Muslims as long as stuff like this happens:

U.S. authorities on Friday said they were tightening screening of air cargo in the wake of incidents in which packages from Yemen containing explosives triggered a worldwide security scare.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39917639/ns/us_news-security/

I'm shocked- shocked I tells ya- that people in Yemen are trying to blow up Americans.

 

[leftysergeant]

But Jesus said, "Judge not, that you be not judged. For as you judge, so shall you be judged."

"For all have sinned, and have fallen short..."

How are you gonna squirm out of that one on Judgement Day?

"But Lord! I didn't really mean it! I didn't really want them all to burn in hell! And besides, You want them all to burn in hell, don't You? I was just trying to be more like You, Lord. I just wanted to see Your Plan Of Salvation come to fruition..."

"Judgement is Mine", saith the Lord...

Romans 13.

 

[A'isha]

Because people don't like Muslims. And they'll continue to not like Muslims as long as stuff like this happens:

U.S. authorities on Friday said they were tightening screening of air cargo in the wake of incidents in which packages from Yemen containing explosives triggered a worldwide security scare.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39917639/ns/us_news-security/

I'm shocked- shocked I tells ya- that people in Yemen are trying to blow up Americans.

And what do packages containing explosives sent from Yemen have to do with mosques in Tennessee, Brooklyn, and Staten Island?