Obama supports "Ground Zero Mosque" (of course he does) [Archive]

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Bubblehead1980

08-15-10, 07:31 PM

Obama supports the Ground Zero Mosque, BIG SUPRISE :har:

What scum.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZOIBEEvbO0&feature=popular

Safe-Keeper

08-15-10, 08:03 PM

President of the United States supports the upholding of the Constitution of the United States, news at 10.

Oh, wait, I forgot you've had eight years of Bush:O:.

U777

08-15-10, 08:19 PM

Bush was better than Obama I can tell you this much.

http://cdn.ihatethemedia.com/wp-content/uploads/bush-miss-me-yet.jpg

Yes we do.

Oberon

08-15-10, 08:20 PM

http://membres.lycos.fr/fredrichung/forum/i%20like%20were%20this%20thread%20is%20going.jpg

krashkart

08-15-10, 08:24 PM

:har:

Takeda Shingen

08-15-10, 08:41 PM

How many of those do you have, Oberon?

Platapus

08-15-10, 08:48 PM

So lemme see if I understand this.

The "big government should stay out of small businesses" people are now wanting the government to butt into a small business?

This is a private piece of property, properly zoned. A private group is intending to use their own money to build something that is legal on this private property. And some people are actually wanting the government to "do something" about this? :doh::doh::doh::doh:

FYI: The word hypocrisy comes from the Greek ὑπόκρισις (hypokrisis), which means "play-acting", "acting out", "coward" or "dissembling".

Jus trying to understand this position.

UnderseaLcpl

08-15-10, 09:01 PM

Just trying to understand this position.

Well, you won't get far that way. You must first understand that it is not what you or I would define as a "position". It's not a universal standard or anything like that. It's an amalgamation of varied and often contradictory opinions promoted by the varied and often conflicting interests that make up a large portion of the electorate and the party that represents them. It's like that other party that is the same thing.

The closest thing to a "position" represented here is that people want this country to be the way they want it to be, even if it means undermining part of what they love about this country. I hate to ever underestimate anyone's intelligence, but I do believe they may not have put much thought into this.

Reece

08-15-10, 09:21 PM

I think it's a slap in the face for the loved ones of those who died on that tragic day!:nope: IMO!

Sailor Steve

08-15-10, 09:26 PM

What scum.
Fascinating. He never once said he supported the mosque itself. As Safe-Keeper pointed out, the only thing he supported was the Constitution.

So upholding the Constitution makes him scum? Fascinating.

nikimcbee

08-15-10, 10:57 PM

Let's test his love for the Constitution:hmmm: Time to build a large synagouge, and large Christian Church (pick your denomination) all next to each other. We can celabrate all faiths.

...with a Texas BBQ across the street for post service dinner.

Bubblehead1980

08-16-10, 12:19 AM

This is not about the constitution.This is about stopping a mosque which will be led by a radical Imam from being built close to Ground Zero.This is about stopping a gigantic "**** YOU" from being built near "Ground Zero" Liberals so obessessed with "tolerance" of an intolerant religion are just ignorant of what this mosque actually is.Pretty much what is going on here.Muslims know they can't win be traditional methods, they are using our "tolerance" against us and it is just disgusting.I promise you our founding fathers would have found this unacceptable.Funny Obama pushes an unconstitutional health care law yet invokes the constitution in the video.Scum, nothing more.:damn:

Say what you want about GW Bush but he loved America and would not support this crap as President. I was not a big fan, he let things get so bad America lost it's damn mind for a bit and elected Obama.Kind of like getting super drunk, letting your standards go down and sleeping with a fat girl one night, then waking up and saying never evvver again.Pretty much what happened to America in 2008.Bush was the cruel bitch ex girlfriend who caused the driniking which led to the chubby chase that one night:har: Live and Learn.

Again I'm not shocked given Obama's muslim heritage.No I do not believe he is a practicing muslim but his backround certainly skews his view of whats right for the US.Of course he thinks there is something wrong with America anyway(other than the massive debt he continues to run up).

Tribesman

08-16-10, 01:13 AM

Second topic on this subject and the arguements against replacing the existing mosque with a new mosque are an even bigger pile of excrement than in the last topic.
Well done Bubblehead:rotfl2:

Ishmael

08-16-10, 01:21 AM

Aramike

08-16-10, 02:04 AM

President of the United States supports the upholding of the Constitution of the United States, news at 10.

Oh, wait, I forgot you've had eight years of Bush:O:.Seriously? There's not smilie that can make me laugh hard enough, but this is a start:

:har:

No where in the Constitution does it allow anyone to build/improve anything anywhere. Your assertion that it does either demontrates gross ignorance or gross misrepresentation.

Which is it?

This isn't a Constitutional issue. Those on either side don't even bother pretending it is. Why are you? (Along with throwing the Bush insult out there? Perhaps is it that your politics are based upon nothing more than Bush-hating?)

Skybird

08-16-10, 03:19 AM

Why the hairsplitting over who said what when where.

It is clear, if the original adress by Obama was listened to, that Obama supported by his general statement the idea of a mosque beeing build on the graves of those who got killed in the name of right that ideology that any mosques represents and stands for (it is not like just any other buildng, it has a symbolic function that better should not be ignored). It is also clear that here good will of some people who think they can appease said ideology, or who think it is different than what it claims to be in its teachings, collides with the desire of the many (a majoirty) and that the constitutional claim that religion should be protected no matter what collides head-on with an ideology that pushes politics and cultural influence under the label of "free relgion" (becasue the state order of the US bases on the separation of relgion and poltics, while Islam refuses such a separation).

I have repeatedly pointed out that the names and the organisations behind financing and pushing this mosque project are extremely hotile to the West, that they are what the West calls radical fundamentalists who indeed think in terms of dawa and djihad as an external effort of conquest, and that these people build the mosque itnentionall at that place becasue they do intend indeed to raise this controversy and make the public once again falling back ihn the face of being challenged. not a singole guy here so far thought he mist adress this nature of these people, instead oyu all chose to ignore it completely, that way makoijng your ignorrance of the jihad nature of this project your declared reality you want to dela with, while leaving out what puts your thinking in doubt.

Freedom that accepts freedom to the other to destroy freedom, is stupidity. It is suicidal, obviously. The same is true for tolerance and protecting religion. There mjst be limits, set out where these freedoms start to be abused for detsroying that community that declares these freedoms, tolerance and right of free religion.

that building the mosque on the graves of the victims of 9/11 is pure mockery, has been said before.

In the past two weeks, I read in random news reports always the same number: that roughly two thirds of Americans are against this mosque, and that not even one fifth is for it. Such numbers I randomly read both in German and British papers, over the past two weeks.

Itis in the higher imnterest of the community that this mosque does not get build, not in that place and not near to it. Alloowing it is like pissing on graves. And Obama - he made clear in his Cairo speech where he has put his money. His weak foreign policy reflects this bet's aiming. That one cannot expect a critical perception of islam and islamic nations from Obama, should be clear by now. Many poltiicians in the West are willing to sell all and everything away just to avoid conflict and cofnrotnation with islam. They even will to sell the freedom of our children'S children, to escape the need of admitting that if freedom should be safe in the bfuture, this fight must be picked up, and the challenge of confronting islam over destroying freedom must be accepted, not evaded. And many people like Obama - already have started to run away - that way leaving their freedom behind. to me it is high treason, and betrayal of their own people ( the values of their culture that defines these precious freedoms anyway).

And I think they never deserved that freedom anyway, then. Pity is that they are damaging the future for all others as well by their treachery and cowardice. If they would only effect themselves, I would say: okay, let the idiots leave, if they are gone we are a society with less idiots than before. But since they damage our society for all of us and seal the fate of all our children and children'S children, I instead say this: stop them, at all costs, before time has run out completely.

Tribesman

08-16-10, 03:42 AM

It is clear, if the original adress by Obama was listened to, that Obama supported by his general statement the idea of a mosque beeing build on the graves of those who got killed
Thats true if you are from planet loon.

that building the mosque on the graves of the victims of 9/11 is pure mockery
It would indeed be a mockery, but as it isn't true that is an irrelevant fabrication by hatemongers.

In the past two weeks, I read in random news reports always the same number: that roughly two thirds of Americans are against this mosque
So what?

This isn't a Constitutional issue.
In the absence of any legal basis for blocking construction any other attempt to block it would be unconstitutional as it infringes on freedom of religion.
So any attempt to ban mosques from lower manhatten would fail under the constitution as it would not be deemed generally applicable unless it banned all places of worship from existing near there.

Platapus

08-16-10, 06:16 AM

Well, I can only give one data point. I can only speak for myself.

I am an American and I was horrified, angered, fearfull, (add almost any other "bad" emotion) about the attacks on the World Trade Center, Pentagon. I was saddened at the crash in PA. Since 911, I have, in my professional capacity, supported my country in its response and security against future terrorist attacks. I knew some of the dead in the Pentagon. I have known some of the dead in the AF and IZ conflicts. I find the concept of terrorism abhorrent and will continue fighting, in my modest way, terrorism.

But I don't have any problem with a community center being built, with private funds, on private property almost three blocks from the WTC site. I do not feel insulted in any way. Building this community center will in no way diminish my love for my country nor my professional dedication to its missions. I do not consider it a sign of "victory" from the terrorists as it is not related to the terrorists.

A sign of victory for the terrorists is that we still have a big hole where the WTC is after almost 10 years. THAT'S a sign of victory.

A sign of victory for the terrorists is that we we are so fearful of Islam that we are afraid to allow a Islamic Community center to be built because we think it will encourage terrorists.

A sign of victory for the terrorists is that we are lowering ourselves to their abhorrent level and declaring hostility to an entire religion.

A sign of victory for the terrorists is that we, in this nation, have changed because of the terrorist attacks. This is what UBL wanted.

Perhaps we have already lost the war on terrorism, but we just don't realize it.

Just an old guy's opinion.

mookiemookie

08-16-10, 07:43 AM

Bush was better than Obama I can tell you this much.

http://cdn.ihatethemedia.com/wp-content/uploads/bush-miss-me-yet.jpg

Yes we do.

That's like asking me if I miss having cancer because I now have a cold.

Oberon

08-16-10, 07:44 AM

How many of those do you have, Oberon?

Not enough these days! :wah:

Sailor Steve

08-16-10, 08:02 AM

This is not about the constitution.This is about stopping a mosque which will be led by a radical Imam from being built close to Ground Zero.
No, this is about you being willing to throw out what America stands for because someone's religion offends you. You can't accuse Liberals of ignoring the Constitution and then whine when they uphold it.

This is about stopping a gigantic "**** YOU" from being built near "Ground Zero" Liberals so obessessed with "tolerance" of an intolerant religion are just ignorant of what this mosque actually is.Pretty much what is going on here.
1. You need to read the rules of the forum concerning swearing and 'fake swearing'.

2. I agree about the "tolerance" problem. Problem is, the law is the law, and unless it applies equally to everyone we are no longer Americans. You can't destroy the village in order to save it.

Muslims know they can't win be traditional methods, they are using our "tolerance" against us and it is just disgusting.
I agree, but you want to become them, and that's even worse.

I promise you our founding fathers would have found this unacceptable.Funny Obama pushes an unconstitutional health care law yet invokes the constitution in the video.Scum, nothing more.:damn:
And yet again you pretend to know what the Founders would think. Can you supply anything they wrote that would back up your claim?

And yet again you use the term "scum" to describe someone who believes differently than you. I asked you before to give actual evidence as opposed to childish diatribe, and you haven't yet. You seem to be the one who would destroy what America stands for in order to save it. That doesn't work.

Skybird

08-16-10, 08:02 AM

A sign of victory for the terrorists is that we we are so fearful of Islam that we are afraid to allow a Islamic Community center to be built because we think it will encourage terrorists.

Always needing to give it a twist, hm?

I have not said that myself nor do I remember right now anybody here did say something like that. I for myself mentioned cltural claims made by an ideology, and i mentioned the historically established, culturally embedded symbolic message and meaning of certain buildings, like mosques, but I also mentioned the claim for power and control, superiority and dominance that estabolishing high towers in the history of both the occident and the orient symbolises.

I also mentioned the fundamantalistic background of the organisation financing the mosque building, I hinted at it's ultra-radical agenda, and that it is massive assalt on the feelings of all those who have lost friends and family members there.

And you just summarise all this as a vague - may I say you even seem to imply: irrational - fear of Islamic terrorism?

I'Ve said that before, and I say thatb again: Islamic terrorism in the West, as long as it does not go nuclear or biological, is the last thing I am afraid of in context with Islam. Not becasue it does not exist, it exists for sure and is solidly founded in Muhammad's orders to his followers. But becasue we can adapt to that. We can learn tom live with it. It cannot really destroy us.

What can destroy us as a functioning culture, are demographics, cultural erosion, self-denial of our identity and self-censorship of our historically acchieved values that define what we understand as "freedom", "justice" and and "human rights".

In one thing you are right, though. If there is a table with players around, and just one guy decides to not follow the rules of the game being played, he caqn spoil the round for all others the very moment he does not stick to the rules anymore. I see only two solutions: to give up the game and now play what he wants to play, or to kick him out, if needed by force.

I'm for the latter. For three reasons: I like our game muuuuch better, and I do not like getting bullied and giving ground to a bully, and I even do not like his game and rules for themselves. Not one damn bit.

Sailor Steve

08-16-10, 08:11 AM

No where in the Constitution does it allow anyone to build/improve anything anywhere. Your assertion that it does either demontrates gross ignorance or gross misrepresentation.
Tenth Amendment. State and local laws are guaranteed precedence and protection against interference by the Federal Government. Hate them or not, these people have exactly the same right to build where they want that you or I do, as long as they don't break any law.

Perhaps is it that your politics are based upon nothing more than Bush-hating?)
Are your politics based upon nothing more than Obama-hating?

Sailor Steve

08-16-10, 08:28 AM

Why the hairsplitting over who said what when where.
Because the original post is about exactly that, and nothing more.

It is clear, if the original adress by Obama was listened to, that Obama supported by his general statement the idea of a mosque beeing build on the graves of those who got killed in the name of right that ideology that any mosques represents and stands for (it is not like just any other buildng, it has a symbolic function that better should not be ignored).
So we should ignore what makes us "us" in the first place? Throw out the baby with the bathwater? Once again, I see you as being no different from them.

It is also clear that here good will of some people who think they can appease said ideology, or who think it is different than what it claims to be in its teachings, collides with the desire of the many (a majoirty) and that the constitutional claim that religion should be protected no matter what collides head-on with an ideology that pushes politics and cultural influence under the label of "free relgion" (becasue the state order of the US bases on the separation of relgion and poltics, while Islam refuses such a separation).
In our country the law is designed to protect the minority from abuses by the majority. You seem to be saying that we should remove our protections because they don't have the same values? We punish criminals for what they do, not what they claim to believe. You seem to think otherwise.

I have repeatedly pointed out that the names and the organisations behind financing and pushing this mosque project are extremely hotile to the West, that they are what the West calls radical fundamentalists who indeed think in terms of dawa and djihad as an external effort of conquest, and that these people build the mosque itnentionall at that place becasue they do intend indeed to raise this controversy and make the public once again falling back ihn the face of being challenged. not a singole guy here so far thought he mist adress this nature of these people, instead oyu all chose to ignore it completely, that way makoijng your ignorrance of the jihad nature of this project your declared reality you want to dela with, while leaving out what puts your thinking in doubt.
And I (and others) have repeatedly pointed out that things like Jihad need to be opposed, but unless the words are put into action then they are still protected speech. Just because you don't like what someone might do is not sufficient cause to change the laws. You want to stop people from destroying us by destroying what we are yourself. That makes you just as bad as they are.

Freedom that accepts freedom to the other to destroy freedom, is stupidity.
And stopping them by destroying freedom yourself is better how, exactly?

that building the mosque on the graves of the victims of 9/11 is pure mockery, has been said before.
Yes it is. But feelings and opinions do not supercede the law. Change the law if you like, but you will need to show how this can be justified. Otherwise it is indeed a Constitutional issue.

In the past two weeks, I read in random news reports always the same number: that roughly two thirds of Americans are against this mosque, and that not even one fifth is for it. Such numbers I randomly read both in German and British papers, over the past two weeks.
Totally irrelevant. The law applies equally to everyone. That you don't like it is why it's there in the first place.

In my country hate speech is protected - even yours.

Safe-Keeper

08-16-10, 08:40 AM

Let's test his love for the Constitution:hmmm:Oh, please, no more of that. Had enough from 2000-2008:nope:.

Time to build a large synagouge, and large Christian Church (pick your denomination) all next to each other. We can celabrate all faiths.You do realize churches and synagogoes (not to mention chuches and mosques) are built next to each others all the time without incident, right? Why and how? Because they're better people than you.

http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/images/Church%20and%20Mosque%20Beirut.jpg

So lemme see if I understand this.

The "big government should stay out of small businesses" people are now wanting the government to butt into a small business?Yes, the "Big Government is ruining America" people are seriously saying that the Muslims shouldn't be allowed to set up a business.

This is not about the constitution.Funny, that's what you guys said during the torture debacle, too, and still say during the gay debate. Let's uphold America's Constitution, except when the pesky thing doesn't say what we want it to say, then it's "not about the Constitution". How very convenient.

This is about stopping a mosque which will be led by a radical Imam from being built close to Ground Zero.This is about stopping a gigantic "**** YOU" from being built near "Ground Zero" Liberals so obessessed with "tolerance" of an intolerant religion are just ignorant of what this mosque actually is.Pretty much what is going on here.Muslims know they can't win be traditional methods, they are using our "tolerance" against us and it is just disgusting.I promise you our founding fathers would have found this unacceptable.Funny Obama pushes an unconstitutional health care law yet invokes the constitution in the video.Scum, nothing more.:damn:Here's a punching bag and a pair of boxing gloves. That's probably a better way to vent your anger.

Seriously, though, I don't see the problem with Muslims building a community centre to advance moderate Islam near a site where fundamentalist Islamists killed 3000 people. I honestly don't see how it's different from, say, the US military erecting a memorial near ground zero on Hiroshima.

Again I'm not shocked given Obama's muslim heritage.No I do not believe he is a practicing muslim but his backround certainly skews his view of whats right for the US.Of course he thinks there is something wrong with America anyway(other than the massive debt he continues to run up).First you say Islam is a violent religion opposed to freedom, then you turn around 180 degrees and state it's Obama's Islamic heritage that's causing him to defend these peoples' freedom of religion? Moo?

http://cdn.ihatethemedia.com/wp-content/uploads/bush-miss-me-yet.jpgNo, I don't.

SteamWake

08-16-10, 09:07 AM

You do realize churches and synagogoes (not to mention chuches and
mosques) are built next to each others all the time without incident, right? Why and how? Because they're better people than you.

How many of those churches had an extreme faction kill thousands of pepole (in the name of their religion) then erect a 'victorty flag' just so pepole wont forget their triumph.

Bilge_Rat

08-16-10, 09:36 AM

Say what you want about GW Bush but he loved America and would not support this crap as President.

President's Greeting for Ramadan - November 5, 2002

I send greetings to Muslims in the United States and around the world as you observe the holy month of Ramadan.

Islam is a peace-loving faith that is practiced by more than one billion people, including millions of American Muslims. These proud citizens contribute to the diversity that makes our country strong, and the United States is grateful for the friendship and support of many Muslim Nations that are vital partners in the global coalition to fight against terrorism.

The Qur'an teaches that Ramadan is a time for fasting, prayer, worship, and contemplation. Muslims observe this month by renewing their dedication to caring for those in need, doing good deeds, and strengthening family and community ties. These actions reflect many of the values that Muslims share with people of other faiths across our Nation and around the world, including courage, compassion, and service.

America remains committed to freedom, justice, and opportunity for all people. During this season of reverence and examination, we continue to work together for a future of peace, tolerance, and understanding.

Laura joins me in sending our best wishes for a blessed time. May you be well during Ramadan and throughout the coming year.

GEORGE W. BUSH

...whatever...:03:

Skybird

08-16-10, 09:52 AM

Because the original post is about exactly that, and nothing more.

So we should ignore what makes us "us" in the first place? Throw out the baby with the bathwater? Once again, I see you as being no different from them.

In our country the law is designed to protect the minority from abuses by the majority. You seem to be saying that we should remove our protections because they don't have the same values? We punish criminals for what they do, not what they claim to believe. You seem to think otherwise.

And I (and others) have repeatedly pointed out that things like Jihad need to be opposed, but unless the words are put into action then they are still protected speech. Just because you don't like what someone might do is not sufficient cause to change the laws. You want to stop people from destroying us by destroying what we are yourself. That makes you just as bad as they are.

And stopping them by destroying freedom yourself is better how, exactly?

Yes it is. But feelings and opinions do not supercede the law. Change the law if you like, but you will need to show how this can be justified. Otherwise it is indeed a Constitutional issue.

Totally irrelevant. The law applies equally to everyone. That you don't like it is why it's there in the first place.

In my country hate speech is protected - even yours.
I refer to our recent collision over the question of whether or not freedom must include the freedom for the other to destroy freedom (your position), or that freedom has the right to limit the freedom given to others at that threashold criterion where freedom gets abused to destroy freedom (my posiiton).

You can turn it any way you want - you are giving shelter and protection and safe harbour to an ideology that has sworn to destroy you for what you offer it, and that uses the freedom you give it to secure power and ultimate dominance for itself, by that destroying all those precious things you want to see being defended and protected, and installing pretty muczh the antithesis to your values and freedom instead. To allow that going on, is nothing but insane and self-destructive.

SteamWake

08-16-10, 09:59 AM

Hamas weighs in.

Looks like some of you have 'pleasent' comany.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/hamas_nod_for_gz_mosque_cSohH9eha8sNZMTDz0VVPI

A leader of the Hamas terror group yesterday jumped into the emotional debate on the plan to construct a mosque near Ground Zero -- insisting Muslims "have to build" it there.

"We have to build everywhere," said Mahmoud al-Zahar, a co-founder of Hamas and the organization's chief on the Gaza Strip.
"In every area we have, [as] Muslim[s], we have to pray, and this mosque is the only site of prayer," he said on "Aaron Klein Investigative Radio" on WABC.

Tribesman

08-16-10, 10:14 AM

Looks like some of you have 'pleasent' comany.

So that means if Christian Identity opppose the mosque you are in company with murdering racist scum who seek the to destroy the United States.:hmmm:
Well done Steamwake, your palling around with terrorists blows up in your face:rotfl2:

SteamWake

08-16-10, 10:21 AM

So that means if Christian Identity opppose the mosque you are in company with murdering racist scum who seek the to destroy the United States.:hmmm:
Well done Steamwake, your palling around with terrorists blows up in your face:rotfl2:

I'm not following you here. Christian racist scum whom seek to destroy the US? WTF where does that come from?

antikristuseke

08-16-10, 10:24 AM

A question to those who want to stop this building being built, what legal grounds do you have?

As far as I can tell you have none, hell, freedom of religion is even protected by your constitution.

Tribesman

08-16-10, 10:36 AM

I'm not following you here. Christian racist scum whom seek to destroy the US? WTF where does that come from?
Are you unfamiliar with some of the lunatic movements within the US?
Tough luck, if you support the same standpoint on an issue as some bunch of backwoods conspiracy nuts then in your own words you are keeping their pleasant company.

Unless of course you can now understand that what you wrote was pure rubbish that blew straight up in your face.

A question to those who want to stop this building being built, what legal grounds do you have?

None, which is why there was the lame attempt to seek historic preservation on the existing building.
Which wouldn't have stopped the building being used as a mosque anyway but would have added costs for the developer.

Skybird

08-16-10, 10:37 AM

Hamas weighs in.

Looks like some of you have 'pleasent' comany.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/hamas_nod_for_gz_mosque_cSohH9eha8sNZMTDz0VVPI

Yes. Compare to this (again, 5th time I think I link this now):

Feisal Abdul Rauf is the imam behind the “Cordoba Initiative” that is spearheading plans to build a $100 million Islamic center at Ground Zero, the site where nearly 3,000 Americans were killed by jihadists on 9/11. He is also the author of a book called What’s Right with Islam Is What’s Right with America.But the book hasn’t always been called that. It was called quite something else (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2549148/posts) for non-English-speaking audiences. In Malaysia, it was published as A Call to Prayer from the World Trade Center Rubble: Islamic Dawa in the Heart of America Post-9/11 (http://www.911familiesforamerica.org/images/RaufWTCcover.jpg).

Now it emerges that a “special, non-commercial edition” of this book was later produced, with Feisal’s cooperation, by two American tentacles of the Muslim Brotherhood: the Islamic Society of North America and the International Institute of Islamic Thought. The book’s copyright page tells the tale.

Both ISNA and IIIT have been up to their necks in the promotion of Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood’s ruthless Palestinian branch, which is pledged by charter to the destruction of Israel. In fact, both ISNA and IIIT were cited by the Justice Department as unindicted co-conspirators in a crucial terrorism-financing case involving the channeling of tens of millions of dollars to Hamas through an outfit called the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development. For the last 15 years, Hamas has been a designated terrorist organization under U.S. law.

Dawa, whether done from the rubble of the World Trade Center or elsewhere, is the missionary work by which Islam is spread. As explained in my recent book, The Grand Jihad (http://www.nationalreview.com/redirect/amazon.p?j=1594033773), dawa is proselytism, but not involving only spiritual elements — for Islam is not merely a religion, and spiritual elements are just a small part of its doctrine. In truth, Islam is a comprehensive political, social, and economic system with its own authoritarian legal framework, sharia, which aspires to govern all aspects of life.

This framework rejects core tenets of American constitutional republicanism: for example, individual liberty, freedom of conscience, freedom to govern ourselves irrespective of any theocratic code, equality of men and women, equality of Muslims and non-Muslims, and economic liberty, including the uses of private property (in Islam, owners hold property only as a custodians for the umma, the universal Muslim nation, and are beholden to the Islamic state regarding its use). Sharia prohibits the preaching of creeds other than Islam, the renunciation of Islam, any actions that divide the umma, and homosexuality. Its penalties are draconian, including savagely executed death sentences for apostates, homosexuals, and adulterers.

The purpose of dawa, like the purpose of jihad, is to implement, spread, and defend sharia. Scholar Robert Spencer incisively refers to dawa practices as “stealth jihad (http://www.amazon.com/Stealth-Jihad-Radical-Subverting-America/dp/1596985569/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1279900646&sr=1-5),” the advancement of the sharia agenda through means other than violence and agents other than terrorists. These include extortion, cultivation of sympathizers in the media and the universities, exploitation of our legal system and tradition of religious liberty, infiltration of our political system, and fundraising. This is why Yusuf Qaradawi, the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood and the world’s most influential Islamic cleric, boldly promises that Islam will “conquer America” and “conquer Europe” through dawa.

In considering Imam Rauf and his Ground Zero project, Qaradawi and the Muslim Brotherhood are extremely important. Like most Muslims, Rauf regards Qaradawi as a guide, and referred (http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/12/us/nation-challenged-religious-opinion-muslim-scholars-back-fight-against.html?scp=6&sq=Imam%20feisal%20abdul%20rauf&st=cse) to him in 2001 as “the most well-known legal authority in the whole Muslim world today.” And indeed he is: a prominent, Qatar-based scholar whose weekly Al Jazeera program on the subject of sharia is viewed by millions and whose cyber-venture, Islam Online, is accessed by millions more, including Muslims in the United States. Not surprisingly, his rabble-rousing was a prime cause of the deadly global rioting by Muslims when an obscure Danish newspaper published cartoon depictions of Mohammed.

Qaradawi regards the United States as the enemy of Islam. He has urged that Muslims “fight the American military if we can, and if we cannot, we should fight the U.S. economically and politically.” In 2004, he issued a fatwa (an edict based on sharia) calling for Muslims to kill Americans in Iraq. A leading champion of Hamas, he has issued similar approvals of suicide bombings in Israel. Moreover, as recounted in Matthew Levitt’s history of Hamas (http://www.amazon.com/Hamas-Politics-Charity-Terrorism-Service/dp/0300122586/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1279905704&sr=1-1), Qaradawi has decreed that Muslims must donate money to “support Palestinians fighting occupation. . . . If we can’t carry out acts of jihad ourselves, we at least should support and prop up the mujahideen financially and morally.”

Qaradawi’s support for Hamas is only natural. Since that organization’s 1987 founding, it has been the top Muslim Brotherhood priority to underwrite Hamas’s jihadist onslaught against the Jewish state. Toward that end, the Muslim Brotherhood mobilized the Islamist infrastructure in the United States.

The original building block of that infrastructure was the Muslim Students Association (MSA), established in the early Sixties to groom young Muslims in the Brotherhood’s ideology — promoting sharia, Islamic supremacism, and a worldwide caliphate. As Andrew Bostom elaborated in a New York Post op-ed (http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/behind_the_mosque_yXUJDCpszRLF9dG1heLU1H) on Friday, Imam Rauf, too, is steeped in this ideology.

In 1981, after two decades of churning out activists from its North American chapters (which now number over 600), the Brotherhood merged the MSA into ISNA. In its own words, ISNA was conceived as an umbrella organization “to advance the cause of Islam and service Muslims in North America so as to enable them to adopt Islam as a complete way of life.” That same year, the Brotherhood created IIIT as a Washington-area Islamic think tank dedicated to what it describes as “the Islamicization of knowledge.”

After Hamas was created, the top Brotherhood operative in the United States, Mousa Abu Marzook — who actually ran Hamas from his Virginia home for several years in the early Nineties — founded the Islamic Association for Palestine to boost Hamas’s support. One of his co-founders was Sami al-Arian, then a student and Muslim Brotherhood member, later a top U.S. operative of the terrorist organization Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which he helped guide from his perch as a professor at the University of South Florida. In 2006, al-Arian was convicted on terrorism charges.

Marzook and other Brotherhood figures established the Occupied Land Fund, eventually renamed the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF), to be Hamas’s American fundraising arm. The HLF was headquartered in ISNA’s Indiana office. As the Justice Department explained in a memorandum (http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/case_docs/623.pdf) submitted in the HLF case:
During the early years of HLF’s operation, HLF raised money and supported Hamas through a bank account it held with ISNA. . . . Indeed, HLF (under its former name, OLF) operated from within ISNA, in Plainfield, Illinois. . . . ISNA checks deposited into the ISNA/[North American Islamic Trust] account for the HLF were often made payable to “the Palestinian Mujahideen,” the original name for the Hamas military wing. . . . From the ISNA/NAIT account, the HLF sent hundreds of thousands of dollars to Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook . . . and a number of other individuals associated with Hamas.
Ultimately, the HLF raised over $36 million for Hamas. At the height of the intifada, this was not about the social-welfare activities Hamas touts to camouflage its barbarism. As the journalist Stephen Schwartz of the Center for Islamic Pluralism has observed, “Ordinary Americans should be shocked and outraged to learn that Hamas was running its terror campaign from a sanctuary in the U.S.” In addition, prosecutors showed that ISNA was central to a 1993 meeting of top Brotherhood operatives, who were wiretapped “discussing using ISNA as an official cover for their activities.”

Meantime, in 1992, the IIIT contributed $50,000 to underwrite an al-Arian venture, the World & Islam Studies Enterprise (WISE), a front for Palestinian Islamic Jihad that ostensibly employed several members of the PIJ governing board. IIIT has been under federal investigation since 2002 — and after his terrorism conviction, al-Arian went into contempt of court rather than honor a grand-jury subpoena in the probe.

In 1991, the Muslim Brotherhood’s American leadership prepared an internal memorandum for the organization’s global leadership in Egypt. It was written principally by Mohamed Akram, a close associate of Sheikh Qaradawi. As Akram put it, the Brotherhood
[I]must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.

The memorandum included a list described by Akram as “our organizations and the organizations of our friends,” working together to implement this sabotage strategy. Prominently included in that list were ISNA and IIIT.

The Ground Zero project to erect a monument to sharia overlooking the crater where the World Trade Center once stood, and where thousands were slaughtered, is not a test of America’s commitment to religious liberty. America already has thousands of mosques and Islamic centers, including scores in the New York area — though Islam does not allow non-Muslims even to enter its crown-jewel cities of Mecca and Medina, much less to build churches or synagogues.

The Ground Zero project is a test of America’s resolve to face down a civilizational jihad that aims, in the words of its leaders, to destroy us from within.

You guys are still sure you want to give this breed the freedom to unfold its activities unopposed, and errect symbols of its supremacist thinking at GZ?
Fostering a malicious evil like this is not what the founding fathers defined the term "freedom" for, I think.

antikristuseke

08-16-10, 10:39 AM

Skybird, in essence, what you are saying is that every muslim in the world is bat**** insane like the fundamentalists. Do you apply the same to every religion?

Aramike

08-16-10, 10:42 AM

Tenth Amendment. State and local laws are guaranteed precedence and protection against interference by the Federal Government. Hate them or not, these people have exactly the same right to build where they want that you or I do, as long as they don't break any law.The Tenth Amendment has absolutely nothing to do with any guaranteed right to construction whatsoever. Furthermore then Tenth Amendment isn't there to simply be applied to every single case where one "feels" there should be a freedom. Case law simply doesn't support that.

In any case, in your post you said that state and local laws carry precedence. Exactly. Thank you for agreeing specifically with my point that this case has nothing whatsoever to do with the Constitution.

Are your politics based upon nothing more than Obama-hating?Vapid comebacks out of thin air don't work with me. I responded to someone Bush-hating for no reason. Please give me an example of my "Obama-hating". (I'm actually pretty independant, so I'm really looking forward to the example of my argument based upon nothing other than me not liking Obama.)

Aramike

08-16-10, 10:48 AM

A question to those who want to stop this building being built, what legal grounds do you have?

As far as I can tell you have none, hell, freedom of religion is even protected by your constitution.What legal grounds to municipalities have to stop Walmart from building in their communities?

Answer that question and you'll figure it out.

(Hint: it's perfectly legal to withhold building permits in the interest of benefiting the peace of the public)

Tribesman

08-16-10, 10:52 AM

This case has absolutely NOTHING to do with the Constitution.
It does and that has been addressed, but as you are in the land of ignore you don't realise it so you are just demostrating your ignorance on the issue.:rotfl2:

(again, 5th time I think I link this now):

Perhaps your pet hate has diminished the credibility of the links you provide and the claims you make.
Still at least it wasn't a link about blacks and muslims ruining soccer:rotfl2:

mookiemookie

08-16-10, 11:00 AM

What legal grounds to municipalities have to stop Walmart from building in their communities?

Hint: None.

As for the Wal-Mart issue, Mayor Parker again emphasized that the city doesn't have jurisdiction on what a private land owner can build on the property.

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/local&id=7604107

Méo

08-16-10, 11:19 AM

@ Skybird

I'd like to see you having a debate with Malek Chebel http://www.africansuccess.org/visuFiche.php?id=561&lang=en

(Unfortunately there is some language barrier here)

----

Are your politics based upon nothing more than Obama-hating?

Jeez, I had the impression that at least half of this forum was based upon this.

----
Muslims know they can't win be traditional methods, they are using our "tolerance" against us and it is just disgusting. Try to replace the word ''Muslims'' with the word ''Jews'' in this ...just for the fun...

The Third Man

08-16-10, 11:23 AM

Government restricts construction all the time through zoning laws. Establishments which serve alcohol have to be a certain distance from schools, theoretically, the primary purpose of zoning is to segregate uses that are thought to be incompatible. Which may be the case with the NYC mosque idea.

AVGWarhawk

08-16-10, 11:44 AM

A question to those who want to stop this building being built, what legal grounds do you have?

As far as I can tell you have none, hell, freedom of religion is even protected by your constitution.

You are correct but the Constitution also affords us the right to complain, voice our opinions and be a general nuisance...within the law of course. Many are exercising that right under the Constitution.

I believe the objection to this building is based on a moral stance to be sure. Many feel that Islam is thumbing their nose at the US by building this structure very close to the World Trade Center grounds. Perhaps some are not seeing this as a religious house of worship but a political statement.

SteamWake

08-16-10, 12:18 PM

Heh I heard of a guy who wants to build a deli meat (including sausage) store accross the street from the Mosque. :haha: :har:

The Third Man

08-16-10, 12:21 PM

Heh I heard of a guy who wants to build a deli meat (including sausage) store accross the street from the Mosque. :haha: :har:

I presume he will be making pork sausage.

Take a look at the nature of the pig for example. The pig is naturally lazy and indulgent in sex, it is dirty, greedy and gluttonous. It dislikes sunlight and lacks the spirit and will to "fight." It eats almost anything, be it human excreta or anything foul and unwholesome. Amongst all animal flesh, pork is the favoured cradle of harmful germs. Pork also serves as a carrier of diseases to mankind. It is for this reason that its flesh is not suitable for consumption.

SteamWake

08-16-10, 12:28 PM

Not to get to far off topic but hey do you like Crab? how about Lobster?

You should see what they eat ;)

Back on topic, which do you think will be built first the Mosque or a Memorial?

The Third Man

08-16-10, 12:30 PM

AVGWarhawk

08-16-10, 12:46 PM

Moeceefus

08-16-10, 01:36 PM

Its legal even if distasteful. There isn't anything that can be done about it. Take solace in the fact that the place will likely be monitored 24/7 by government agents, putting all of its members on watch lists. If anything nefarious is going down there, it wont be a secret.

SteamWake

08-16-10, 01:43 PM

Isnt there already a Mosque in the neighborhood?

Oh and what about the Greek Orhtidox church that was denied?

It really is hard for me to grasp in any way how this is a good idea.

Moeceefus

08-16-10, 01:53 PM

Isnt there already a Mosque in the neighborhood?

Oh and what about the Greek Orhtidox church that was denied?

It really is hard for me to grasp in any way how this is a good idea.

Why is there 10 different churches within a mile of my house? Its the land of the free. You cant have your cake and eat it too they say, and whats good for the goose is good for the gander.

Bubblehead1980

08-16-10, 01:55 PM

...whatever...:03:

Oh thats his obligatory thing he had to do, shouldn't but he did.Whole different ballgame with Obama.

SteamWake

08-16-10, 01:55 PM

Why is there 10 different churches within a mile of my house? Its the land of the free. You cant have your cake and eat it too they say, and whats good for the goose is good for the gander.

Wholy crap you had thousands of innocent pepole murdered in your neighborhood? Man I am so sorry.

UnderseaLcpl

08-16-10, 01:56 PM

The idea of a mosque close to the attacks in NYC may very well be legal as it stands today. But it is a bad idea for a group hoping to spread good will and hoping to create a different relationship with the people and victims of the attacks perpetrated on September 11, 2001, as is often expoused by the Imam and his faithful.

I would have to agree on this. To me this proposed building looks to be a big 'ha ha'. There a other places to build such a building in NY. Why this spot? Were is the money coming from. It all seems very suspect to me.

I tend to agree and I have no doubt that there are at least some people are laughing about this. Nonetheless (and perhaps this is a bit naive of me) I see the preservation of freedom of religion and property rights as a slap in the face to Islam, not the other way 'round. My only regret is that we didn't decide to build even bigger towers on ground zero using money taxed from the private firms in Iraq. Now that would have been funny.

I'm not afraid of Muslims, I'm not afraid of bass-ackwards Islamic fundamentalists, and I'm not afraid of them building their mosques wherever they choose. I've seen first-hand just how effectively free choice can dismantle even rigid theocracy. Wealth, free choice, and social mobility can absolutely own just about any ideology. What I am afraid of is the Muslim church, or any church for that matter, being afforded a protected status of any kind. Protection breeds stagnation and stagnation is conducive to stratification of power; and we don't want churches ever having power over anything besides voluntary believers.

Aramike

08-16-10, 02:01 PM

Hint: None.

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/local&id=7604107Umm, wrong. Very much so.

We have zoning laws, for one. Do you honestly think someone would have, say, the Constitutional right to build a 50 story tower next door to an airport?

Here's a great line from Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoning
Theoretically, the primary purpose of zoning is to segregate uses that are thought to be incompatible. In practice, zoning is used to prevent new development from interfering with existing residents (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Residency_(domicile)) or businesses (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business) and to preserve the "character" of a community.Emphasis mine, of course.

The Supreme Court has ruled again and again in favor zoning laws, and only facial challenge has ever be brough. Zoning laws were upheld in that case as well.

There ARE special considerations given to land to be used for religious purposes, but quite frankly I find that unConstitutional and offensive, and should a challenge ever come, this would be one time I'd be happy to have a left-leaning Supreme Court (although I suspect that any SCOTUS would overturn that aspect of the RLUIPA if a major challenge were ever presented).

In any case, my point is simple: legally, this construction COULD be legally averted (it happens all the time), and to suggest otherwise is a mischaracterization of what SHOULD be the debate - that being whether or not issuing the permit was the right thing to do.

That in general is the problem I have with political hacks on both sides - they are always attempting to excuse their decision-making with this notion that they have no other choice. Sure, they had a choice and they made it.

Here, let's try another hypothetical: I want to start a new church. A church where nude women swing around on poles and offerings are taken in the form of dollar bills. I want to place that establishment in a location across from an elementary school that is commercially zoned.

Would you issue that permit?

Moeceefus

08-16-10, 02:01 PM

Wholy crap you had thousands of innocent pepole murdered in your neighborhood? Man I am so sorry.

Yes and it is a tragedy, and in a country founded on the notion of religious freedom, what better way to show these godless terrorists they haven't won?

Aramike

08-16-10, 02:02 PM

What I am afraid of is the Muslim church, or any church for that matter, being afforded a protected status of any kind. Ditto that, hence my opposition to RLUIPA law mentioned in the previous post.

Bubblehead1980

08-16-10, 02:03 PM

It does and that has been addressed, but as you are in the land of ignore you don't realise it so you are just demostrating your ignorance on the issue.:rotfl2:

Perhaps your pet hate has diminished the credibility of the links you provide and the claims you make.
Still at least it wasn't a link about blacks and muslims ruining soccer:rotfl2:

Tribesman, really going to say someone who majored in legal studies/pre law and begins law school in less than a month is ignorant of the constitution? get real.

This is not a constitutional issue as I see it.I see people who think the constitution is outdated and never invoke it unless it serves them, such as in this purpose , trying to make it a constitutional issue but it's not.This just about about gloating of radical muslims and using the ridiculous amount of "tolerance" we have for muslims etc against us.The liberal fools like Bloomberg etc are too blinded by their pc mentality to see it.

While we are at it lets build some type of Hitler memorial at Normandy or a Japanese shrine at Pearl Harbor, give me a f'n break.

Aramike

08-16-10, 02:04 PM

Yes and it is a tragedy, and in a country founded on the notion of religious freedom, what better way to show these godless terrorists they haven't won?Other than being a philosophical notion (albiet a well-thought out one), in a practical sense I don't see how this would matter.

Moeceefus

08-16-10, 02:07 PM

Other than being a philosophical notion (albiet a well-thought out one), in a practical sense I don't see how this would matter.

In a pratical sense, radicals will show up and our agents will be watching. It could very well become a boon for our intelligence network.

The Third Man

08-16-10, 02:10 PM

Yes and it is a tragedy, and in a country founded on the notion of religious freedom, what better way to show these godless terrorists they haven't won?

My understanding of Islamic worship is, that a mosque is not required to do a beliver well in his/her obligatory service of worship to Allah.

I could be wrong, but unlike Christian religions, Islam was and is designed for the nomadic people.

Beyond that a president by his remarks on friday last, may have delved into the unknown US field of state sponsored endorsement.

SteamWake

08-16-10, 02:17 PM

Yes and it is a tragedy, and in a country founded on the notion of religious freedom, what better way to show these godless terrorists they haven't won?

By telling them we simply dont think that this site is a good idea? Really how hard is that?

By letting them erect this Mosque is indeed showing them they are winning.

Moeceefus

08-16-10, 02:18 PM

My understanding of Islamic worship is, that a mosque is not required to do a beliver well in his/her obligatory sevice of worship to Allah.

I could be wrong, but unlike Christian religions, Islam was and is designed for the nomadic people.

Beyond that a president by his remarks on friday last, may have delved into the unknown US field of state sponsored endorsement.

All religion should be practiced in the privacy of ones home and mind in my opinion. Unfortunately, thats not how it is, hence most wars in human history.

Moeceefus

08-16-10, 02:20 PM

By telling them we simply dont think that this site is a good idea? Really how hard is that?

By letting them erect this Mosque is indeed showing them they are winning.

They haven't been told that many dont approve? How does becoming an intolerant police state hurt thier cause? Thats what the extremists want the world to be.

The Third Man

08-16-10, 02:22 PM

All religion should be practiced in the privacy of ones home and mind in my opinion. Unfortunately, thats not how it is, hence most wars in human history.

If you could extrapulate on your answer and tell us which wars were religious based, other than the obvious crusades, which could be called economic in nature, I would be forever grateful.

Cheers

Moeceefus

08-16-10, 02:30 PM

If you could extrapulate on your answer and tell us which wars were religious based, other than the obvious crusades, which could be called economic in nature, I would be forever grateful.

Cheers

LOL! Are you serious? If you are I will start compiling my list for you, but it may take a while. :haha:

The Third Man

08-16-10, 02:36 PM

LOL! Are you serious? If you are I will start compiling my list for you, but it may take a while. :haha:

Yep. Totally seriuos. I can only hope you include the social, political, cultural influences in your analysis of religious wars. Don't forget the byzantine and Russian empires in your discussion, and how atheism could have prevented the conflicts.

Yes, it will take you quite a while but it is neccessary research if you want to make the claim that religion caused so many wars.

Tribesman

08-16-10, 02:37 PM

Tribesman, really going to say someone who majored in legal studies/pre law and begins law school in less than a month is ignorant of the constitution? get real.

Thats someone who is going to start law school who recently berated someone finishing law school for paying attention to their studies.
Which is so surreal :rotfl2:

This is not a constitutional issue as I see it.
That is because you have problems seeing anything much.

I see people who think the constitution is outdated and never invoke it unless it serves them, such as in this purpose
:rotfl2:

While we are at it lets build some type of Hitler memorial at Normandy or a Japanese shrine at Pearl Harbor, give me a f'n break.
You mean like the ones at pearl harbour?

Umm, wrong. Very much so.

We have zoning laws, for one.
Oh dear, another entirely irrelevant attempt by Aramike who can't see the problem:har::har::har:
Any attempt to apply such laws in this case would be unconstitutional.

Heh I heard of a guy who wants to build a deli meat (including sausage) store accross the street from the Mosque.
A fool and his money are easily parted, given the number of delis and meat markets on the block is there any way it would pay?
Perhaps he could open a pub instead.....oh no too many of those already, how about opening a strip club as the nearest one is just round the corner.

Isnt there already a Mosque in the neighborhood?

You mean another one in addition to the one already at the site?

Oh and what about the Greek Orhtidox church that was denied?

What grounds was it denied on ?
Parking?

Moeceefus

08-16-10, 02:49 PM

The Third Man

08-16-10, 02:52 PM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Religion-based_civil_wars

Here is a link to just a few religious based civil wars. If you can refute religion as the major cause of any of these I will continue with this hilarity.

So you don't want to do the research. OK, then you live in the dark ages of neo-atheism. That is your decision of course but it certainly diminishes your authority as it pertains to history in general and why warfare has occured in particular.

Moeceefus

08-16-10, 02:54 PM

So you don't want to do the research. OK, then you live in the dark ages of neo-atheism. That is your decision of course but it certainly deminishes your authority as it pertains to history in general and why warfare occurs in particular.

It that the best you can do? Go ahead, refute even one.

The Third Man

08-16-10, 02:56 PM

It that the best you can do? Go ahead, refute even one.

When wikipedia is peer reviewed, your opportunity awaits, then I will comment. Besides many are muslim based civil wars which have nothing to to w/ religion. Most are power based, which is my argument.

You can make the argument that the church was the power . But there was mostly a secular power in the advancement of many wars, and the church was moral authority the king/prince required politically..

Moeceefus

08-16-10, 03:00 PM

When wikipedia is peer reviewed, your opportunity awaits, then I will comment.

Wow, ok then. I guess we see your limits. Perhaps you need a more reputable source before you can bother? What will be a good enough medium for you to start putting meat on your argument?

"Once started religious strife has a tendency to go on and on, to become permanent feuds. Today we see such intractable inter-religious wars in Northern Ireland, between Jews and Muslims and Christians in Palestine, Hindus and Muslims in South Asia and in many other places. Attempts to bring about peace have failed again and again. Always the extremist elements invoking past injustices, imagined or real, will succeed in torpedoing the peace efforts and bringing about another bout of hostility." Datuk Seri Dr Mahathir Mohamad, Prime Minister of Malaysia

The Third Man

08-16-10, 03:10 PM

Wow, ok then. I guess we see your limits. Perhaps you need a more reputable source before you can bother? What will be a good enough medium for you to start putting meat on your argument?

Prove your point about religion being the source of war. And then we will talk about limits. History is alwas more than the limits we place on it or the place we currently have within it. A study of the history on all levels will lead you to a different conclusion regarding war and religion. If it doesn't you haven't opened your mind.

An example is ...you only know what happened today based on what a/the media outlet you encountered. Does that mean that was all that happened today? Logic should tell you no,....more happened .

SteamWake

08-16-10, 03:16 PM

Oh my gawd I'm having a life crisis... I agree with Harry Reid :o

In a statement, Reid said the first amendment protects freedom of religion and he respects that, but the mosque should be built somewhere else.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hHYUXhXg36rpzKeUva55Llvea41AD9HKOTM04

Oh I forgot its an election year...

The Third Man

08-16-10, 03:17 PM

Oh my gawd I'm having a life crisis... I agree with Harry Reid :o

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hHYUXhXg36rpzKeUva55Llvea41AD9HKOTM04

Oh I forgot its an election year...

Suddenly Reid is smarter than Obama?

SteamWake

08-16-10, 03:29 PM

Suddenly Reid is smarter than Obama?

No he is the same old hard core progressive, its just that his is an election year for him so...

Someone should ask Pelosi too ;)

antikristuseke

08-16-10, 03:30 PM

You are correct but the Constitution also affords us the right to complain, voice our opinions and be a general nuisance...within the law of course. Many are exercising that right under the Constitution. I can understand and respect that. It is just that the thread has touched upon legalities so I wanted to clear things up for myself.
I am not opposed to bitching about things you don't like, that is a right as is responding to the bitching with counter bitching, turning it into a never ending cyclone of bitchage, which can either be bitching or more annoying than a bitch in heat (some dog owners can attest to that).

I believe the objection to this building is based on a moral stance to be sure. Many feel that Islam is thumbing their nose at the US by building this structure very close to the World Trade Center grounds. Perhaps some are not seeing this as a religious house of worship but a political statement.
And this is what I really take objection to, treating islam as if it was a single conscious entity. It is not, there are as many interpretations of islam as there are of christianity, just lumping it all into the same pot is far to great of a generalisation to be acceptable in my book.

Sailor Steve

08-16-10, 03:33 PM

The Tenth Amendment has absolutely nothing to do with any guaranteed right to construction whatsoever.
It guarantees that the Federal government can't stop it just because you don't like it.

Furthermore then Tenth Amendment isn't there to simply be applied to every single case where one "feels" there should be a freedom. Case law simply doesn't support that.
So if you feel like taking away my freedom to go outside on Tuesdays, you can? The Tenth keeps the Feds from interfering with the powers that properly belong to the States and to the People, which is exactly what some here seem to be advocating.

In any case, in your post you said that state and local laws carry precedence. Exactly. Thank you for agreeing specifically with my point that this case has nothing whatsoever to do with the Constitution.
Except where the Constitution guarantees equal rights and protections under the law for everyone. You would deny someone the right to build something where he wants to. Is that not about the Constitution?

Vapid comebacks out of thin air don't work with me. I responded to someone Bush-hating for no reason. Please give me an example of my "Obama-hating". (I'm actually pretty independant, so I'm really looking forward to the example of my argument based upon nothing other than me not liking Obama.)
I didn't accuse you of "Obama-hating". My response was aimed directly at yours, which seemed to me equally vapid.

Sailor Steve

08-16-10, 03:35 PM

Oh thats his obligatory thing he had to do, shouldn't but he did.Whole different ballgame with Obama.
And how exactly do you 'know' this. It looks like nothing more than your opinion.

Tribesman, really going to say someone who majored in legal studies/pre law and begins law school in less than a month is ignorant of the constitution? get real.
Get real? The problem is that you don't argue like a college graduate. You argue, and write, like the average trailer-park scholar whose only knowledge is what he's heard from Rush Limbaugh. You give your opinion, call it fact, and if somebody questions it you become defensive and cite your 'credentials'. If you don't like what somebody says, you call him "scum". Sorry, but you don't sound like you're ready to start high school, much less law school.

Everything I just said has nothing to do with who you are, but only with how you express yourself.

This is not a constitutional issue as I see it.I see people who think the constitution is outdated and never invoke it unless it serves them, such as in this purpose , trying to make it a constitutional issue but it's not.
Had any good 'Church and State' discussions lately? You're correct about people on the Left only supporting the Constitution when it suits them, but it's true of the Right as well, so you need to give more facts and less opinion.

This just about about gloating of radical muslims and using the ridiculous amount of "tolerance" we have for muslims etc against us.The liberal fools like Bloomberg etc are too blinded by their pc mentality to see it.
No, this is solely about the legal right to build a building, and people who want to stop it because they hate the people who want to build it.

While we are at it lets build some type of Hitler memorial at Normandy or a Japanese shrine at Pearl Harbor, give me a f'n break.
And there you go with the childish pseudo-swearing again. As for the memorials you mention, of course I would stand dead square against them, but in the case of Pearl Harbor, it's America, and if the local zoning commission approved it and it passed muster with the higher authorities, I would support it, on LEGAL grounds. If you're going to law school you'd better learn the difference between what you like and what is right, because they aren't always going to be the same. Call it PC if you like, but you are the one opposing the freedoms we stand for simply because you don't like the folks who want to build a building.

Skybird

08-16-10, 03:38 PM

Skybird, in essence, what you are saying is that every muslim in the world is bat**** insane like the fundamentalists. Do you apply the same to every religion?
I talk about an idelogy, and I insist on pointing out that ideologies tend to have the nasty habit of educating people to take on certain attitudes, to accept certain beliefs, to run their thinking under certain pre-assumptions and preconditions tjhat are confrom with said ideology, and even to become intolerant towards others. If ideologies would fail in doing all this, they would not survive for long.

Islam is a fundamentlist ideology by essence and nature. It is totalitarian by design - that is an inherent feature, and it is intentional in being so.

Islam is not like any other relgion, Islam is more policy and about social and cultural control than anything else. It is deeply "monoculturalistic" and supremacistic.

there are fundamentlaistrs in other relgions, yes. Fundamentalist christoians tend to be in violation of Christ's teachings that did not support intolerant and aggressive fundamentalism at all. But muhammad has taught intolerant and aggressive, supressive and supremacist fundamentlism for sure. That is why fundamentalism in islam, different to Christianity, is not a violation or aberation, but is nature and essence of it.

So, i have a problem with religion where it steps forward and tries to seize the public space, because then it is no more a private thing of the individual's intimmate relation to what he/she thinks szhe must believe in, but it becomes profane powerpolitics. If kept private, I do not care for it, if you want you can believe in the flying spaghetti monster or the maculate conception :): I honestely do not care. Keep thy relgion to thyself, do not dare to bother others with your precious thoughts, you have no right to demand other needing to take note of your beliefs. but when you want others to believe the same way like you do, when you want public education, löegal system and social rules being chnaged to match the content of your beolief - then you get problems with people like me: becasue we have no doubt that freedom is by far the more precious good to be defended, for the sake of the few and the sake of the many, and not just for the sake of some powerhungry self-declare elites and supremacist demagogues.

If you have a new model for the world you want others to pay triubute to, then you have to convince people in the way it is done in scientific hypothesis-, theory- and model-building: the classic heritage of ancient greek philosophy. That is the best strategy to do things that human mind has developed so far. Everything else is just random chance, blind believing in the fairy queen, and unchecked hear-say. And that is not what has brought our culture to the ammount of knowledge and freedom that we have today.

Sailor Steve

08-16-10, 03:39 PM

Would you issue that permit?
Whether he would or wouldn't, or I would or wouldn't, is irrelevant. What is relevant is that a particular zoning commission did issue the permit, and a great many people want them to reverse that decision. This is about whether the thing is legal, nothing more.

Actually the only thing relevant to this particular thread is whether Barack Obama is "scum".

Sailor Steve

08-16-10, 03:41 PM

Moeceefus

08-16-10, 03:44 PM

An example is ...you only know what happened today based on what a/the media outlet you encountered. Does that mean that was all that happened today? Logic should tell you no,....more happened .

So how does one know everything about everything? With this logic, wouldn't all sources be wrong or self serving? What information could be reliable? Did history even happen? Are we all living a lie? Does one need to know every single event that happened on any given day in order to claim one of those events accurate?

Moeceefus

08-16-10, 03:53 PM

I wonder how much easier a time the extremists would have recruiting if we were intolerant of Islam. I bet most extremists are upset over us allowing this.

Bilge_Rat

08-16-10, 03:59 PM

Oh thats his obligatory thing he had to do, shouldn't but he did.Whole different ballgame with Obama.

That is a disingenuous statement. President Bush and President Obama made the same statement, the only statement they could make as president of all Americans, including Muslims.

from the Politico:

The harsh Republican response to President Barack Obama's defense of a mosque near ground zero marks a dramatic shift in the party's posture toward Islam — from a once active courtship of Muslim voters to a very public tolerance after Sept. 11 to an openly aired sense of mistrust.

Republican leaders have largely abandoned former President George W. Bush's post-Sept. 11 rhetorical embrace of American Muslims and his insistence — always controversial inside the party — that Islam is a religion of peace. This weekend, former Bush aides were among the very few Republicans siding with Obama, as many of the party's leaders have moved toward more vocal denunciations of Islam's role in violence abroad and suspicion of its place at home.

The shift plays to a hostility toward Islam among many Republican voters, and it fits with traditional Republican attacks on Democratic weakness on security policy.

"Bush went against the grain of his own constituency," said Allen Roth, a political aide to conservative billionaire Ron Lauder and, independently, a key organizer of the fight against the mosque. "This is part of an underlying set of security issues that could play a significant role in the elections this November."

(....)

Bush is hardly remembered fondly by Muslim Americans, many of whom blame him for a wave of detentions and deportations immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks and for conflict with Muslims abroad. But a less-remembered element of his legacy is the battle he fought within the Republican Party on Islam's behalf.

By the day after the attacks, then-White House press secretary Ari Fleischer recalled, Bush had expressed his intense concern at the possibility of a backlash against American Muslims, and his aides had begun discussing "the need to balance getting America ready for war against the people who carried out the attacks without infringing on Muslims' right to practice their religion."

On September 17, 2001, Bush visited Washington's Islamic Center with a simple message: "Islam is peace."

Those words didn't sit well with key segments of the Republican base, including some Christian leaders. In June 2002, a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention suggested that the God of Muslims would "turn you into a terrorist that'll try to bomb people and take the lives of thousands and thousands of people."

Fleischer took public exception to the statement on Bush's behalf.
"It's something that the president definitely disagrees with. Islam is a religion of peace, that's what the president believes," he said.

Today, Fleischer says he thinks the mosque's organizers would be more sensible to go elsewhere, but that the GOP risks taking too hard a line on Islam as the 2012 elections approach.

"The real issue is going to be the rhetoric of presidential candidates in '11 and '12, and whether they try to strike a balance or whether is it much more vitriolic," he said. "We are at war with radical Islam; we are not at war with Muslims writ large, and we have to find that right balance."

Other former Bush aides backed President Obama's defense of the mosque. Former Bush consultant Mark McKinnon called Obama's Friday remarks an example of "bold and decisive leadership."

"An enormously complex and emotional issue — but ultimately the right thing to do. A president is president for every citizen, including every Muslim citizen," said former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson. "Obama is correct that the way to marginalize radicalism is to respect the best traditions of Islam and protect the religious liberty of Muslim Americans. It is radicals who imagine an American war on Islam. But our conflict is with the radicals alone."

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0810/41076.html

Ducimus

08-16-10, 04:00 PM

I'm split.

On one hand:
AARRRRHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

On the other hand:
Integrity is important and should be preserved.

Sailor Steve

08-16-10, 04:13 PM

I'm split.

On one hand:
AARRRRHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

On the other hand:
Integrity is important and should be preserved.
I'm right there with you. The people I trust the least, on either side, are the ones who are not split.

Aramike

08-16-10, 04:21 PM

So if you feel like taking away my freedom to go outside on Tuesdays, you can? The Tenth keeps the Feds from interfering with the powers that properly belong to the States and to the People, which is exactly what some here seem to be advocating.Your going outside on Tuesdays is quite different from a building being erected as an inciteful landmark of sorts. One impacts only you, the other impacts many others. Except where the Constitution guarantees equal rights and protections under the law for everyone. You would deny someone the right to build something where he wants to. Is that not about the Constitution?Excuse me, but please show me the Amendment protecting everyone's rights to build whatever they want wherever they want...

By your definition zoning itself is a violation of the 10th, yet SCOTUS has already said it is not. I didn't accuse you of "Obama-hating". My response was aimed directly at yours, which seemed to me equally vapid. Except that my comment had a basis in reality (someone Bush-hating with little grasp of the actual issue). Yours made no sense.

Aramike

08-16-10, 04:26 PM

Whether he would or wouldn't, or I would or wouldn't, is irrelevant. What is relevant is that a particular zoning commission did issue the permit, and a great many people want them to reverse that decision. This is about whether the thing is legal, nothing more.

Actually the only thing relevant to this particular thread is whether Barack Obama is "scum".I tend to try to avoid discussions categorizing a person as descriptors such as "scum" but rather steer towards the actual ideas.

My issue, and my point, is that sense should have prevailed and the permit not have been issued in the first place. However, now that it has, I believe the permit should be cancelled on the same basis that I would want the permit struck down if that stripper church of mine were being built.

UnderseaLcpl

08-16-10, 04:37 PM

I talk about an idelogy, and I insist on pointing out that ideologies tend to have the nasty habit of educating people to take on certain attitudes, to accept certain beliefs, to run their thinking under certain pre-assumptions and preconditions tjhat are confrom with said ideology, and even to become intolerant towards others. If ideologies would fail in doing all this, they would not survive for long.
You might as well describe human nature, Sky. People are notoriously vulnerable to ideologies, both religious and secular. They're also notoriously vulnerable to stereotyping and prejudice. It's not the fault of any particular group (though some are more predisposed than others), it's simple human nature. Evidence for this claim comes from the behavior of other apes in the natural world; they follow leaders, they fight, they form groups, and they make war. Chimps are infamous for such behavior. The human mind evolved from such as these, and we display these tendencies today.....

Islam is a fundamentlist ideology by essence and nature. It is totalitarian by design - that is an inherent feature, and it is intentional in being so......which is exactly what you are doing here. Islam is, in many cases, a bad religion. It is a bad ideology, but that doesn't mean it needs to be singled out for extermination. More importantly, it doesn't mean that the people who practice it need to be singled out or exterminated.

Islam is not like any other relgion, Islam is more policy and about social and cultural control than anything else. It is deeply "monoculturalistic" and supremacistic.

Actually, Islam is very much like other religions used to be. Hinduism Judaism, and Catholocism exhibited very similar tendencies when they were primitive religions. The problem with Islam is that it has not been forced to evolve in its home regions. Rather than being included in the global community it has been persecuted and excluded. We can debate that point forever, but what matters is the Islam sees it that way.

Islam is "tameable", as are all ideologies and religions. All it takes is a little mutually beneficial interaction and acceptance. Very soon, you would see an Islam, that is, a religion, that is so interdependent upon outsiders that it can't be fundamental or militaristic. It simply doesn't have the option anymore. Religions are made of people and they will behave like people.

Let me put it this way: I'm a follower of Christ. I believe in peace, tolerance, and forgiveness. I honsetly think that a man who existed 2000 years ago was the Son of the One True God and that he performed miracles and died for our sins. I believe that no man is closer to God than any other. My religion has survived and prospered because it is one of acceptance. But where it was persecuted, it fought back. If you came here today and told me that I couldn't practice my religion, I'd fight you, too. So is it any wonder that a primitive religion fights?

I daresay that you allow your general disdain for religion to be focused upon Islam as a whipping-boy. I'd even go so far as to say that you may allow your disdain for societal views that are not your own to be impressed upon religion, and from there to Islam. I could be wrong, and it is not my place to judge, but it is a question worth asking yourself.

there are fundamentlaistrs in other relgions, yes. Fundamentalist christoians tend to be in violation of Christ's teachings that did not support intolerant and aggressive fundamentalism at all. But muhammad has taught intolerant and aggressive, supressive and supremacist fundamentlism for sure. That is why fundamentalism in islam, different to Christianity, is not a violation or aberation, but is nature and essence of it.
Fundamentalist Christians, IMO, are just the evolved version of fundamentalist Muslims. Some still commit horrific acts, just not on such a broad scale and not so indiscriminately. Many are just blatantly stupid, and I have a hard time calling them fellows. As time passes, they, too, are being phased out.

So, i have a problem with religion where it steps forward and tries to seize the public space, because then it is no more a private thing of the individual's intimmate relation to what he/she thinks szhe must believe in, but it becomes profane powerpolitics. If kept private, I do not care for it, if you want you can believe in the flying spaghetti monster or the maculate conception :): I honestely do not care. Keep thy relgion to thyself, do not dare to bother others with your precious thoughts, you have no right to demand other needing to take note of your beliefs. but when you want others to believe the same way like you do, when you want public education, löegal system and social rules being chnaged to match the content of your beolief - then you get problems with people like me: becasue we have no doubt that freedom is by far the more precious good to be defended, for the sake of the few and the sake of the many, and not just for the sake of some powerhungry self-declare elites and supremacist demagogues.
As long as you can say that and as long as there are politicians, I reserve my right to present Jesus' teachings to any willing to listen. If you don't want to listen, that's fine, we'll pray for you anyway, but you don't get to silence us.

If you have a new model for the world you want others to pay triubute to, then you have to convince people in the way it is done in scientific hypothesis-, theory- and model-building: the classic heritage of ancient greek philosophy. That is the best strategy to do things that human mind has developed so far. Everything else is just random chance, blind believing in the fairy queen, and unchecked hear-say. And that is not what has brought our culture to the ammount of knowledge and freedom that we have today.

That sounds disturbingly translateable into eugenics, for many reasons, and I don't say that to take a jab at you. I guess the same could be said of me, since I champion a form of social-Darwinism, but at least I give everyone a chance.

It is in this point that we have another fundamental difference, Sky. I believe that society is best advanced by the spontaneous experimentation that freedom generates, while you seem to think there is some system by which it is best accomplished. I would no more readily condemn Islam, or religion in general, or Newtonian Physics, or Quantum mechanics to the dustbin of history any more readily than I would condemn you or myself.
You don't know whether or not there is a God, and neither do I. Neither one of us could even define such an entity; and where you see short-sightedness on my part for assuming that there is a higher intelligence, I see short-sightedness on yours for assuming there isn't Nobody knows what is out there.

What I can see is what is right in front of us. I see an inevitable system of little biological machines generated by an unimaginably vast array of laboratories that inevitably create ever more complex biological machines that all have the goal of producing greater order from leser order or disorder. I see divinity in life itself, and I see the divinity in the message of life that Jesus preached. I do not violate your freedom by telling you that, as you have the choice whether or not to believe it, or anything else that I say. At most you could arrogantly dismiss me as being annoying.

However, I see something else, as well. I see a perfectly good and large segment of the human population being labeled as worthy of destruction (in belief, if not in person) for the sole reason that someone sees it as a shortcut. Why not afford Islam the chances that have been given to us? Trade with them freely, let them integrate, and the destructive nature of their ideology will disappear. I guarantee you that.

Sailor Steve

08-16-10, 04:41 PM

Your going outside on Tuesdays is quite different from a building being erected as an inciteful landmark of sorts. One impacts only you, the other impacts many others.
But the question was about the Tenth Amendment and its impact on this particular freedom. The Muslims paid the fees, and got the permit. Now you show me where the Constitution gives you the right to stop it.

Excuse me, but please show me the Amendment protecting everyone's rights to build whatever they want wherever they want...
Ninth Amendment. James Madison specifically wanted that one to protect any right that he forgot to list in the first Ten. People have a right to do anything they want, as long as they don't break the law or harm other people's right to do the same. If McDonalds can build a building there then so can the Muslims. Equal protection under the law, it's called.

By your definition zoning itself is a violation of the 10th, yet SCOTUS has already said it is not. Except that my comment had a basis in reality (someone Bush-hating with little grasp of the actual issue). Yours made no sense.
My definition? When did I give a definition?

Actually Safe-Keeper's original statement slamming Bush had some validity, since he only accused Bush of not upholding the Constitution where it didn't suit him. Argue that all you like, but your reply had nothing to do with it. You instead upheld a time-honored tradition of accusing someone of holding his opinion due to preconcieved beliefs, whether you have evidence of that or not. My comment asked if you weren't doing the same? Wrong I may be, because I don't know you any more than you know Safe-Keeper, but within the context my retort to you made every bit as much sense as yours to him.

antikristuseke

08-16-10, 04:49 PM

....SNIP....
Read on previous page

Well said, I agree with almost everything you said and could not have worded it better myself.

UnderseaLcpl

08-16-10, 05:35 PM

I didn't say that.:06:

razark

08-16-10, 05:58 PM

I didn't say that.:06:
He snipped out your post so as not to spam the forum.

AVGWarhawk

08-16-10, 06:20 PM

Skybird

08-16-10, 06:36 PM

Edit: sorry for the many typos due to my extreme speed-typing. but I'm tired, and lazy anyway (as always), and it is late over here, so I do not take a second read now. and if I would not type typos anymore, some people maybe even would wonder what is wrong with me. :)

You might as well describe human nature, Sky.
No, I am not talking on human nature in this disucssion, and I refuse to do s, for in the context of this discussion'S topic it is not needed, therefore, I completely ignore it. I focus on: ideologies, not individuals, not human natures, ideologies are not all the same, some are more aggressively pushing than others, some ore more for the benefit of the many, some are more for the profit of the few, and some propagate more positive things, and others more negative things.

[/quote]
People are notoriously vulnerable to ideologies, both religious and secular.[/quote]

Again, there are differences. For example I have quoted in the past an essay by Bonhoeffer, who examined the nature of human stupidity in nthat text and mentioned that it is more a sociological (group) than psychological (individual) phenomenen and issue. He expresses the observation nthat in groups people tend to be more vulnerable to fall for the tendency the crowd is heading at, while isolated individuals seem to be more likely to withstand stupid mass phenomenons. I would say, no, I am convinced that it is the same with ideologies (as well as popular media culture).

They're also notoriously vulnerable to stereotyping and prejudice. It's not the fault of any particular group (though some are more predisposed than others), it's simple human nature. Evidence for this claim comes from the behavior of other apes in the natural world; they follow leaders, they fight, they form groups, and they make war. Chimps are infamous for such behavior. The human mind evolved from such as these, and we display these tendencies today.....
Ouh, let's leave this dangerous simplification of what a scientific evidence is out of here. The scientific working standard is a bit more strictly, and i also must point out that eye-witness reports of random chance witnesses or professional observers never have the status of a scientific theory, necessarily.

.....which is exactly what you are doing here. Islam is, in many cases, a bad religion. It is a bad ideology, but that doesn't mean it needs to be singled out for extermination.

No? Why is that, when it is a bigger threat to mnakind than any other ideology we know of, and when it claims global domination and extinction or subjugation of everything else as it's oltimate goal? BTW, extenrination is a word that I have NEVER used in any of these debates. I want to bring its spreading to a halt in hour home societies, and push it back. where it stays, it needs to be replaced, for I rule out the possibility that this ideology can be "modernised", "reformed", "tamed" or whatever.

More importantly, it doesn't mean that the people who practice it need to be singled out or exterminated.
When they support Islam as islam defines itself by its own scripture and self-understanding, than I do single them out for sure, and hold them respnsible for their belief, becasue thanks to the presence of every single individual, Islam is one head stronger in our home societies, and has one voice more to claim its goals. The same is true for fake-Muslims or apostates who just are to afraid to realsie that theay ar4e apostates, both groups may not be in active support of real islam, but nevertheless they help its cause by talking it nice and not standing up against it and giving it a big silent anonymous background that serves as a retreat area for the radical islamic claims. In German we call such people "Mitläufer", I am not sure I know the exact translation for that, I think my earli8er attempts were wrong, so I leave it to the german word. Mitlöufer are respnsible as well, becasue their passivity and silent support creates the space and opporutnity where the active idea can unfold. for example, only a minority of Germans were active Nazis, but very many were Mitläufer. Without these mitläufer, the Nazis would not have been able to rise.

Actually, Islam is very much like other religions used to be. Hinduism Judaism, and Catholocism exhibited very similar tendencies when they were primitive religions. The problem with Islam is that it has not been forced to evolve in its home regions. Rather than being included in the global community it has been persecuted and excluded. We can debate that point forever, but what matters is the Islam sees it that way.
Wrong. Islam pretty much saw itself as the climax oh human civilisation - until Napoleon löanded in Egyp and all that scientific and civilisational and military superirioty of the Europeans was revealed to the Muhammeddan world. Since then it tends to claim special rights for itself and wants to claim that the Wetsern acchievements in science and technoloy and so forth owe it to the muslim world to be given them for free, although the Muslim world did little, and often: nothing to gain and deserve them them, and it thinks the West owes it to them for the offence of being so superior that it has to submit to islam - so that Islam'S claim to be the peak of civilisational evolution would be correct again. but societies must be ready for technolgical and scientific modernisations, they must be ripe, or they get crushed or paralysed by the new. In case of islam, you have a medieval, primtive mind-world, depending on superstititon and submissive, fatalistic obedience, colliding head-on with the modern West and all the items and qualities that brings. even more, they got hit by a seocnd desaster, they found out that they had oil. It served as a wonderful excuse why they would not have to chnage and adapt to the nodern time at all. why should they, if they could become rich and simply buy all the wonderful foreign items, and the operators could be leased? for the muslim world, oil is as much a curse as it is for us. for us it is, because they have it but not us, for them it is, becasue it has prevented the realisation that the reason for their medieval, stagnating, porimtive society is not a conspiracy by the West, but islams own anti-intellectual nature, its inherent stagnation that seeks not creative modenrisation and developement, but a fundamentlaist, totalitarian fixiation on a far away past that dictates rules and habits that are no longer adequate for the creative flexibility of the modern world. the clash of civilisation - in reality is more a clash of times, more than anything else. Reason for it is the islamic ideology and the way it has educated the thinking patterns and cultural developement and social role-modelling islam is handicapped by so much - and terrorises peopole with nevertheless, especially women, and infidels. but of course it psychologically castrates muslim males as well. relations between family fathers and sons are a very critical conflict in the West, giving birth to more and more social explosives. Social workers ofteh describe family structures as "crippled", seriously ill, and "pathologic". In Germany we have two turkish female Islam critics, who time and again bring it to the formula that more than anything else the uslim world needa a global sexual revolution. Both women are right, an they get plenty of fire for that. And the Germans themselves? Have nothing better to do for attacking them as well, becaseu especially Frau Kelec is a very detemrined defender of Wetsern values and the western underatabding of freedom. Germans ask instead why this freedom could be claimed to be so precious, and that it remindsa of the Nazis claimed superiority to defend this freedom. when hearing such sick comments, I realise in what a hopeless mental asylum i am already living.

Islam is "tameable", as are all ideologies and religions. All it takes is a little mutually beneficial interaction and acceptance.
That is naivety resulting from total lack of understanding islam. You also seem to make the big, big mistake to think that what has worked in America necessarily works in all other cultures as well. You should know that better - you have seen your share of the mess created by this flawed assumption.

Very soon, you would see an Islam, that is, a religion, that is so interdependent upon outsiders that it can't be fundamental or militaristic. It simply doesn't have the option anymore. Religions are made of people and they will behave like people.
I'm sorry to say, but you will leanr better by painful experience. the question is not if, but when. Until then I only can recommend you get half a dozen of books on islamic scritpure (academic anaylsis, else you are lost), and history. for the world it will probably not make a difference. But maybe for yourself.

Let me put it this way: I'm a follower of Christ. I believe in peace, tolerance, and forgiveness. I honsetly think that a man who existed 2000 years ago was the Son of the One True God and that he performed miracles and died for our sins. I believe that no man is closer to God than any other. My religion has survived and prospered because it is one of acceptance. But where it was persecuted, it fought back. If you came here today and told me that I couldn't practice my religion, I'd fight you, too. So is it any wonder that a primitive religion fights?
Chriszinaity and Islam do not comlpare. I have compained so oftenm now why that is so, and i am in very good acadmeic comnpany with that opinion, that I will not do it once again, since it would be a waste of time anyway. Just realsie one thing, at least. you talked of self-defence of Christinaity (while it could be argued that in the past oit was very much in the offence, and today doesnot dare to defend itself, but that just as a side remark). Islam's understanding does not know a peace of mutual coexistence as you outlined it. the homo islamicus is the goal of evolution, it is ther will of allah that all and everything mist follow his law, that ois the direction at which natural evolution is developing anyway, and not acepting that, standing against iodslam, refusing it is thus an ogfence against Allah, and an attack omn nature and man himself. Therefore you have this strict divbison between the house of war and the house of Islam. Peace in islam means the absence of any potential challenger who could disturb the "peace" of Muslim monoculture and uniformity (uniformity=strength by being united), thus there cannot be peace as löong as the hopuse of war is not brought down. islam is not in self-defence, James. Like the russians after WWII, it only knows "forward-defense", attack, not preempti9vely, but to neutrlaise the offence that is given by the other, the non-muslim qulaity, simply existing. the concept of tolerance and coesitence that you just fantasised about, thus does not work with Islam. Islam only was brought to temporrary halts, where it wasx confronted by resistence that was stronger than it's own forces. but Islam prohibits to cement such a situation in peace treaties, but the Quran demand that only temporary seizefires get agree to, which should not last for longe rthan i think two years (Quran), so that the muslim army can regain strength , but on the other hand is not exposed to the risk of getting infested and blotted by the infidel's thoughts and habits. islam is the most successful military conquest operation of all uman history, it aism at nothing less than global rulership an thiknks that is a natural direction at which evolutuon is drifting anyway. One could realyl say that Muslim aggression is just an attempt to help nature to unfold in the way Allah has already decided anyway, you see.

daresay that you allow your general disdain for religion to be focused upon Islam as a whipping-boy. I'd even go so far as to say that you may allow your disdain for societal views that are not your own to be impressed upon religion, and from there to Islam. I could be wrong, and it is not my place to judge, but it is a question worth asking yourself.
Since years I am saying that Islam is not just any relgion, but that it is more politics and social control than anything else. My disdain for relgion comes due to it's anti-intzellectualism, the rejection of the human mind and dignity, and its lack of reason and logic. the method I prefer to deal with the world is that of our ancient greek heritage: Ratio, logic, the scientific methodology. Allm this can be targetted as an argument against islam, too, yes, but if you still have not understood that islam stands out from the crowd of religions, and that is does not know fundamentlistic lineages, but is fundamentalistic in its most original, natural form and essence, then I do not know how i could make that any more clearer to you or anybody else. As I see it our situation comopares to the era of Rome's fall, caused by the barabars by its gates, but also by econimic patterns and misdevelopements that are disturbingly similar to patterns we observe - if we want to see them - in the present as well. the parallels are stunning. For further info olin that I recommend the formidable anaylsis in Herfried Münkler's "Empires" http://www.amazon.com/Empires-Domination-Ancient-United-States/dp/0745638724/ref=sr_1_2/186-3642184-1637921?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1281999664&sr=8-2-spell. Over the years I had several books on the rise and fall of empires, but this is by far the best that I have ever read.

Fundamentalist Christians, IMO, are just the evolved version of fundamentalist Muslims. Some still commit horrific acts, just not on such a broad scale and not so indiscriminately. Many are just blatantly stupid, and I have a hard time calling them fellows. As time passes, they, too, are being phased out.
Simply wrong you are. I have explained, why. In this thread, any many times before.

As long as you can say that and as long as there are politicians, I reserve my right to present Jesus' teachings to any willing to listen. If you don't want to listen, that's fine, we'll pray for you anyway,
I love this bigot arrogance and haughtiness behind this remark that I hear time and again. what you say in reality, is this: "You may not believe in my god, but my god nevertheless is so right and so winderful that he even can love you still." Shove it.

If poeplöe approach and ask you aboiut it, it is okay you answer their questions. But oif oyu enter the npoublic sühere where I have the same right to be like oyu have, then we both have to behave in a way that the other must not bother our presence. That emasn, you keep yopur radio so silent that you do not interfere with the radion listenin of other people, and then the other people will do the same for you, and cointrol their radios. But when you seriously expect that just beasue you think the place is yours anybody not wanting tom loisten to aour radio needs to leave and shall not use this public sopace, then I'll set up a fight.

It is in this point that we have another fundamental difference, Sky. I believe that society is best advanced by the spontaneous experimentation that freedom generates, while you seem to think there is some system by which it is best accomplished.
My argument on freedom is that freedom ends where freedom is used to destroy freedom. This implies, in this context, that I reject the idea of unlimited freedom - with regard to this implication. See my exchange with Steve some days ago. I once again refer to Poppers tolerance paradoxon and freedom paradoxon as well, that I have quoted releatedly now.

I would no more readily condemn Islam, or religion in general, or Newtonian Physics, or Quantum mechanics to the dustbin of history any more readily than I would condemn you or myself.
do not comlare scientiifc theory-building and religious dogmas. and betetr do not even comolare islam and other relgions. It is absurd, it simply does not compare.

You don't know whether or not there is a God, and neither do I. Neither one of us could even define such an entity; and where you see short-sightedness on my part for assuming that there is a higher intelligence, I see short-sightedness on yours for assuming there isn't Nobody knows what is out there.
I again refer to the ancient Greek trsdition of scientific methodlogy that is beeing sued until today. It has brought us much more relief from misery and disease, than any religion ever has. It has given us a billion times more insight into the universe, than and relgious dogma ever has. And scientific methodlogy hardly has ever been the reason for cimmititing the worst atrocities and the biggest bloodblaths known in human history. You want to increase that status of relgion by trying to see equal the assumnption of God existing being the same like the assumption that God doies not exist. but you have one problem there. you are not even basing on an observation that god exists. Thus you cannot form a hypothesis oin any grounds.Thus no theory. And since you cannot form a theory in a scientific, nobody has any need to prove oyur theory wrong in orer to propve that God does not exist. Becasue you have no theory. I'm sorry, but your belief already disqualifies at the very first hurlde or scientifc, and i also would say: rational thinking. I must no prve anything, James. you are the one claimning that God exists. The burden of evidence is up to you, completely. I have not made any observation that there is a god or not. You make the claim, so you miust come up with observation, hypothesis, testing it, theory-buiolding and model-building, then using it for poredcitions and then check again if the model predicts correctly or not. You would need to undergo this process in order to be taken serious in your cliam or belief. but you cannot. On the other hand. I would not need to do the same for atheism, because I claim nothing. My obervation is that I observe nothing when looking for God. Since i lack any ohenomenenon to observe, I form no hypthesis on God existing or not exosting, I form no theory of non-God or god, and form no model to predict non-god or God. It simply is something that does not even exist as a question to me. I would only need to show that if you would be able to form a model to predict a phenomenon (and explaining it with god) thati can explain the facts of your theory in a better wy with a model of mine - that of science. And as a matter of fact, science has done that, not with relgion'S scinrtiifxc models (it has none), but with its mere claims.

Religion and science do not compare. Science is coinstantly checking temporary models and theories, and if needed, correcting or replacing them. Religion is claming eternal truths that should be lasting forever, unchecked, unquestioned, not rationally analysed, but simply believed.

I see an inevitable system of little biological machines generated by an unimaginably vast array of laboratories that inevitably create ever more complex biological machines that all have the goal of producing greater order from leser order or disorder. I see divinity in life itself, and I see the divinity in the message of life that Jesus preached. I do not violate your freedom by telling you that, as you have the choice whether or not to believe it, or anything else that I say. At most you could arrogantly dismiss me as being annoying.

However, I see something else, as well. I see a perfectly good and large segment of the human population being labeled as worthy of destruction (in belief, if not in person) for the sole reason that someone sees it as a shortcut. Why not afford Islam the chances that have been given to us? Trade with them freely, let them integrate, and the destructive nature of their ideology will disappear. I guarantee you that.

If you have read until here and indeed understood a bit what I tried to say, you understand why I do not even answer to this nonsense paragraph. You once again see islam as somethign that it simply is not.

Skybird

08-16-10, 06:52 PM

I think a few pole dancer establishments should be built across the street and on either side of the new mosque. Should not really offend anyone or disrupt anything on moral grounds. Perfect ok in my book. Got the permit and paid the fees. Why not? Sounds like fun!!!! Ha ha.....:doh:

In holland or germany, some years ago, a church gave property to a muslim community, right on the other side of the street, directly opposite to the church. The mosque was build. The Muslims then complained and said the church had to got, it would be an offence to Islam and a discmrination of devout muslims if they go to the mosque and mist watch the chruch while on their way.

A German brothel during the football championship four years ago had an advertising that showed all international flags and a football. First they got intimidating letters. Wheh that did not work, several men described as being looking arabic, started to visit them and intimidating, bullying and threatening girls and guests and the owner, demanding that the Saudi flag had to be removed . the police recommended to comply - in order to not provokate. That there was a serious breaching of he law and threats of violence going on, was totally ignored.

I do not take it for granted that your idea would work, warhawk. Things are worse in Europe, but in america you will be in some years where we already have been some years ago then. In america islam sees that advancing slowly and on the lath of smallest resistence is the best way to spread islam and lulling the natives. :) that's why things are a bit different in ameica and europe. But the relaxed impression in merica, is misleading. the nature of the group pushing the mosque at GZ-project should ring alarm bells. The project is a wanted, cooly calculated confrontation, nothing else.

Tribesman

08-16-10, 07:19 PM

By your definition zoning itself is a violation of the 10th, yet SCOTUS has already said it is not.
:har::har::har::har::har:
Aramike is still stuck.
Conditions on zoning have to be generally applicable, banning only mosques without banning all places of religious worship fail that so are unconstitutional on the basis that it is discriminating against a religion.
Its why his comparison with restrictions on strip joints is bogus as those conditions which apply to strip joints apply to all strip joints which means they pass the test of general application.

As for the memorials you mention, of course I would stand dead square against them, but in the case of Pearl Harbor, it's America, and if the local zoning commission approved it and it passed muster with the higher authorities, I would support it, on LEGAL grounds.
As for Pearl Harbour Steve I think you are missing something, in fact several things.
Funnily enough they are things which are the main basis for most of this website.
So what exactly is the legal status of the japanese boats in Hawaii and isn't the body responsible for these the same body that does the USS Arizona and USS Utah

My argument on freedom is that freedom ends where freedom is used to destroy freedom. This implies, in this context, that I reject the idea of unlimited freedom - with regard to this implication. See my exchange with Steve some days ago. I once again refer to Poppers tolerance paradoxon and freedom paradoxon as well, that I have quoted releatedly now.

Sky still doesn't realise that he is exactlty what was warned against

mookiemookie

08-16-10, 07:33 PM

UnderseaLcpl

08-16-10, 08:01 PM

Edit: sorry for the many typos due to my extreme speed-typing. but I'm tired, and lazy anyway (as always), and it is late over here, so I do not take a second read now. and if I would not type typos anymore, some people maybe even would wonder what is wrong with me. :)
Acceptable, of course.

No, I am not talking on human nature in this disucssion, and I refuse to do s, for in the context of this discussion'S topic it is not needed, therefore, I completely ignore it. I focus on: ideologies, not individuals, not human natures, ideologies are not all the same, some are more aggressively pushing than others, some ore more for the benefit of the many, some are more for the profit of the few, and some propagate more positive things, and others more negative things.

Perhaps, but you cannot ignore the role human nature plays in the creation and sustenance of ideologies. If you want to talk about science, let's do so in a format to which science is accustomed. You can't simply skip the human nature part of the equation and go straight to ideologies.

You tell me what I already know by saying that ideologies are different. Societies of lesser primates are also different depending upon their environment and the societies around them. My point is that they all work around the same basic principles. Every human society is formed by a collection of human minds, Sky, as are the ideologies they form. I think you're skipping a very important step in the understanding of human sociology; you can't fix a machine by knowing what it does, you must know how it works.

Again, there are differences. For example I have quoted in the past an essay by Bonhoeffer, who examined the nature of human stupidity in nthat text and mentioned that it is more a sociological (group) than psychological (individual) phenomenen and issue. He expresses the observation nthat in groups people tend to be more vulnerable to fall for the tendency the crowd is heading at, while isolated individuals seem to be more likely to withstand stupid mass phenomenons. I would say, no, I am convinced that it is the same with ideologies (as well as popular media culture).
I see no difference between Bonhoeffer's observations and studies of social primates by the likes of Goodall, Hrdy, and Short. You yourself have mentioned on many occassions where we disputed economics and social structure that "no man is an island" while I was defending individualism. So what is this, now? I don't understand what you intend to prove by this argument.

Ouh, let's leave this dangerous simplification of what a scientific evidence is out of here. The scientific working standard is a bit more strictly, and i also must point out that eye-witness reports of random chance witnesses or professional observers never have the status of a scientific theory, necessarily.

It's not a simplification, it's just observation by scientific minds. For every one source you can produce that says humans don't behave in a way similar to their primate ancestors, I'll give you five more credible sources with complete citations that support each other. In fact, I'll bet I can do that using only ten books.

I don't think you're looking deeply enough into the issue Sky, if you don't mind my saying so.

No? Why is that, when it is a bigger threat to mnakind than any other ideology we know of, and when it claims global domination and extinction or subjugation of everything else as it's oltimate goal? BTW, extenrination is a word that I have NEVER used in any of these debates. I want to bring its spreading to a halt in hour home societies, and push it back. where it stays, it needs to be replaced, for I rule out the possibility that this ideology can be "modernised", "reformed", "tamed" or whatever.

Now you make my case for me. You may not use the word "extermination" and i did not accuse you of doing so (though I see where it was implied, sorry), but look at the words you use; "halt", "replaced", "rule out the possibility that it can be modernized". What you are saying is that you believe Islam, and the people who follow it, cannot be redeemed other than conversion to a different set of beliefs. Do I need to tell you how much that sounds like a fundamentalist Islamic perspective?

When they support Islam as islam defines itself by its own scripture and self-understanding, than I do single them out for sure, and hold them respnsible for their belief, becasue thanks to the presence of every single individual, Islam is one head stronger in our home societies, and has one voice more to claim its goals.
I bet Mohammed would approve, if only you were a Muslim. Do you not see what you are saying?

The same is true for fake-Muslims or apostates who just are to afraid to realsie that theay ar4e apostates, both groups may not be in active support of real islam, but nevertheless they help its cause by talking it nice and not standing up against it and giving it a big silent anonymous background that serves as a retreat area for the radical islamic claims. In German we call such people "Mitläufer", I am not sure I know the exact translation for that, I think my earli8er attempts were wrong, so I leave it to the german word. Mitlöufer are respnsible as well, becasue their passivity and silent support creates the space and opporutnity where the active idea can unfold. for example, only a minority of Germans were active Nazis, but very many were Mitläufer. Without these mitläufer, the Nazis would not have been able to rise.

Mitlaufer means someone who is a follower or a hanger-on in English. I think it literally means "with loafers", or in English: silent consenters or somesuch. In any case, it means someone who does not form their own opinions.

Even so, I see a flaw in your logic. Most Christians, even Catholics, would not support the hegemony of the Pope. Most Muslims in developed countries would not support Islamic theocracy, either. They are not willing to go back to that life. That is why they have fled thei home nations.

Furthermore, there is little comparison between post-WW1 Germans and the Nazis. The Germans that fled the Nazi regime didn't go back. We should welcome the refugees of Islam. You're exacerbating the difficulty of assimilating them by attacking them. I see the Mitlaufer in Germany as being roughly analagous to the citizens of Iran or Syria today, they have nowhere else to go because they are poor and other countries refuse them.

Wrong. Islam pretty much saw itself as the climax oh human civilisation - until Napoleon löanded in Egyp and all that scientific and civilisational and military superirioty of the Europeans was revealed to the Muhammeddan world.
Strange they didn't realize that when the Macedonians and Romans conquered them.

Since then it tends to claim special rights for itself and wants to claim that the Wetsern acchievements in science and technoloy and so forth owe it to the muslim world to be given them for free, although the Muslim world did little, and often: nothing to gain and deserve them them, and it thinks the West owes it to them for the offence of being so superior that it has to submit to islam - so that Islam'S claim to be the peak of civilisational evolution would be correct again. but societies must be ready for technolgical and scientific modernisations, they must be ripe, or they get crushed or paralysed by the new.

I think you're making a big leap in logic, my friend, and if I may say so, a huge error in strategic thinking. Most of Islam does want to have what we have, that much is true, but you are willfully ignoring the human factor in the equation, not to mention the economic factor.

In fundamentalist Islam, the general rule has been that Sheiks and Caliphs control most of the wealth and have huge harems. That's human nature. That's what happens in primitive totalitarian societies. Need I cite examples?
The only reason the common people go along with this is because they know nothing else; but if we introduce the fruits of Western civilization to them, they will begin to leave the hardcore tenets of their faith, which is based entirely upon the baser elements of human nature. That much I will agree with you upon.

Persecuting them is not the answer. That will only generate more violence and more discord. We have better ways to undermine totalitarian ideologies. Use your head.

In case of islam, you have a medieval, primtive mind-world, depending on superstititon and submissive, fatalistic obedience, colliding head-on with the modern West and all the items and qualities that brings. even more, they got hit by a seocnd desaster, they found out that they had oil. It served as a wonderful excuse why they would not have to chnage and adapt to the nodern time at all. why should they, if they could become rich and simply buy all the wonderful foreign items, and the operators could be leased? for the muslim world, oil is as much a curse as it is for us. for us it is, because they have it but not us, for them it is, becasue it has prevented the realisation that the reason for their medieval, stagnating, porimtive society is not a conspiracy by the West, but islams own anti-intellectual nature, its inherent stagnation that seeks not creative modenrisation and developement, but a fundamentlaist, totalitarian fixiation on a far away past that dictates rules and habits that are no longer adequate for the creative flexibility of the modern world. the clash of civilisation - in reality is more a clash of times, more than anything else. Reason for it is the islamic ideology and the way it has educated the thinking patterns and cultural developement and social role-modelling islam is handicapped by so much - and terrorises peopole with nevertheless, especially women, and infidels. but of course it psychologically castrates muslim males as well. relations between family fathers and sons are a very critical conflict in the West, giving birth to more and more social explosives. Social workers ofteh describe family structures as "crippled", seriously ill, and "pathologic". In Germany we have two turkish female Islam critics, who time and again bring it to the formula that more than anything else the uslim world needa a global sexual revolution. Both women are right, an they get plenty of fire for that. And the Germans themselves? Have nothing better to do for attacking them as well, becaseu especially Frau Kelec is a very detemrined defender of Wetsern values and the western underatabding of freedom. Germans ask instead why this freedom could be claimed to be so precious, and that it remindsa of the Nazis claimed superiority to defend this freedom. when hearing such sick comments, I realise in what a hopeless mental asylum i am already living.

Longest. Paragraph. Ever.:DL:salute:

Good economic analysis in the first part. You are quite right about oil being as much of a curse to Islam as it is to us, but oil is only as good as what it can buy, and the non-muslim world has goods of every type imaginable in great abundance.

You take the argument to a new level by mentioning social workers. Yes, social workers often describe problems as being more severe than they really are, and they often prescribe social entitlements as the remedy, but then again, what would you expect them to do? They're social workers; like any workers, their entire livliehood depends upon identifying and solving problems to an acceptable degree within a society. What would you expect them to do? Do you realize that you're doing the exact same thing? You see a problem where there isn't one. You prescribe medications for the symptomns without recognizing the disease.

That is naivety resulting from total lack of understanding islam. You also seem to make the big, big mistake to think that what has worked in America necessarily works in all other cultures as well. You should know that better - you have seen your share of the mess created by this flawed assumption.

I make no mistake. I've seen economic freedom (as they jokingly call what Iraq has now) work first-hand. Even in that limited context, it works. It works brilliantly. Have you seen the lines of Shiite and Sunni Muslims and even Kurds who are willing to put aside their differences to make an honest dollar doing even menial work? I have. These people have been oppressed and impoverished and have lived under Islam all their lives, but they cooperated to provide for their families and themselves. I worked alongside them. I talked with them. They listened to my stories about the Bible and I listened to their stories about the Koran. I helped their children and they thanked me for it. We even fought together. There is a deeper meaning to human nature than simple ideology as you define it, Sky.

I'm sorry to say, but you will leanr better by painful experience. the question is not if, but when. Until then I only can recommend you get half a dozen of books on islamic scritpure (academic anaylsis, else you are lost), and history. for the world it will probably not make a difference. But maybe for yourself.

I've had my share of painful experience, and I believe these people are worth the effort.

Chriszinaity and Islam do not comlpare. I have compained so oftenm now why that is so, and i am in very good acadmeic comnpany with that opinion, that I will not do it once again, since it would be a waste of time anyway. Just realsie one thing, at least. you talked of self-defence of Christinaity (while it could be argued that in the past oit was very much in the offence, and today doesnot dare to defend itself, but that just as a side remark).

Not a side remark, but the mark of a religion that has evolved.

Islam's understanding does not know a peace of mutual coexistence as you outlined it....

Sorry for cutting your response short, but my point still stands in the face of it. Islam is a religion of people, and you do yourself and everyone else a disservice by assuming it to be otherwise.

That's all I have time for now, but I'll continue after work and a quick check f the boards.

SteamWake

08-16-10, 09:10 PM

Wholy smokes... wall of text :o

antikristuseke

08-16-10, 11:37 PM

I didn't say that.:06:

Sorry bout that, I didnt mean to imply uou said that, rather that I had sniped your post, I edited for clarity.

UnderseaLcpl

08-17-10, 01:16 AM

Sorry bout that, I didnt mean to imply uou said that, rather that I had sniped your post, I edited for clarity.

No worries. I was just confused for a minute, there. :salute:
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Okay, on to part two. Sky, if you're still reading, thanks for your patience. Please forgive me if I re-iterate some points by accident.

Chriszinaity and Islam do not comlpare........ but on the other hand is not exposed to the risk of getting infested and blotted by the infidel's thoughts and habits.

Sorry for cutting that whole paragraph down. I understand your point; Islam is offensive and pre-emptive in nature. Needless to say, I still think that is because it is a primitive religion that needs to be modernized, and the only way to modernize it is by throwing it into the modern world.

islam is the most successful military conquest operation of all uman history, it aism at nothing less than global rulership an thiknks that is a natural direction at which evolutuon is drifting anyway. One could realyl say that Muslim aggression is just an attempt to help nature to unfold in the way Allah has already decided anyway, you see.

That's an interesting way of putting it. Thought-provoking to be sure, and I think you are right to some degree. If Islam had its way, it probably would conquer the whole world. In fact, I think you'd enjoy Richard Bloom's book, The Lucifer Principle ( http://www.amazon.com/Lucifer-Principle-Scientific-Expedition-History/dp/0871136643/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1282021845&sr=1-1) ; it makes a good case for the same that includes an in-depth study of human nature and societal superorganisms.

However, fundamentalist Islam will not have its way because its anachronistic nature makes it incompatible with the modern world. It simply cannot survive and be militarily or societally successful without integration, and integration, as you mentioned, is anathema to fundamentalist Islam. The logistics just aren't there. Islamic countries that are not oil-rich are poor countries. Even the countries that are oil-rich are generally poor countries. Poor countries can't wage successful offensive wars, and they certainly can't maintain empires.

Even if fundamentalist Islam wasn't self-defeating, there are legions of Christians, non-Christians, and non-religious people who would utterly destroy an Islamo-fascist world state. You are correct in your indictment of religion as breeding fanaticism, but it works both ways, not just for Islam. I must admit, as a Christian and a soldier I half-wish they would try something, just so I could smite them for it; having an understanding (to some degree) of human nature does not make me immune to it.

Since years I am saying that Islam is not just any relgion, but that it is more politics and social control than anything else.
There you go lumping all Islam into one Islam again. They really aren't all like that, and they can be swayed.

My disdain for relgion comes due to it's anti-intzellectualism, the rejection of the human mind and dignity, and its lack of reason and logic. the method I prefer to deal with the world is that of our ancient greek heritage: Ratio, logic, the scientific methodology.
What makes you think that science is incompatible with religion? Most of the greatest scientific minds the world has ever known have been subscribers to one religion or another. Even Einstein believed in a higher power. I'm religious, but I study science and reason. Once again, you lump everyone who is religious into one of a few big groups, all of which are bad.

Allm this can be targetted as an argument against islam, too, yes, but if you still have not understood that islam stands out from the crowd of religions, and that is does not know fundamentlistic lineages, but is fundamentalistic in its most original, natural form and essence, then I do not know how i could make that any more clearer to you or anybody else. As I see it our situation comopares to the era of Rome's fall, caused by the barabars by its gates, but also by econimic patterns and misdevelopements that are disturbingly similar to patterns we observe - if we want to see them - in the present as well. the parallels are stunning. For further info olin that I recommend the formidable anaylsis in Herfried Münkler's "Empires" http://www.amazon.com/Empires-Domination-Ancient-United-States/dp/0745638724/ref=sr_1_2/186-3642184-1637921?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1281999664&sr=8-2-spell. Over the years I had several books on the rise and fall of empires, but this is by far the best that I have ever read.

I'll read "Empires" if you read The Lucifer Principle. I suspect the two books have much in common. TLP consistently makes a strong case for how empires have been toppled by the most unlikely source, barbarians, and it equates fundamentalist Islam with barbarism. It also makes a good case for the relationship between human nature and religion, the relationship between I would like you to see. Nonetheless, I think it is flawed. As Adam Smith observed, capitalist society is an inexorable force, driving civilization forward as surely as evolution. Notables such as Matt Ridley and Richard Dawkins have made the same observation.

Simply wrong you are. I have explained, why. In this thread, any many times before.
Then explain it again, because the message didn't stick, or I didn't get a chance to read it.

I love this bigot arrogance and haughtiness behind this remark that I hear time and again. what you say in reality, is this: "You may not believe in my god, but my god nevertheless is so right and so winderful that he even can love you still." Shove it.
What's to shove? Why so cynical? What is wrong with forgiveness and acceptance? It's not about haughtiness or bigotry; a dyed-in-the-wool Christian like myself knows that my invisible phantasm spaghetti-monster God would see right through that. You can hate my religion if you want to, I'd just like to know why. I mean really why, not because you think it is incompatible with science; not because religion consolidates power, which you don't seem to mind when done under different, and IMO, less favorable auspices.

If people approach and ask you aboiut it, it is okay you answer their questions. But oif oyu enter the npoublic sühere where I have the same right to be like oyu have, then we both have to behave in a way that the other must not bother our presence. That emasn, you keep yopur radio so silent that you do not interfere with the radion listenin of other people, and then the other people will do the same for you, and cointrol their radios. But when you seriously expect that just beasue you think the place is yours anybody not wanting tom loisten to aour radio needs to leave and shall not use this public sopace, then I'll set up a fight.

You said as much before, and I heard you, but my point still stands. If people are to be allowed to share any messages or thoughts or cares or desires, why not religious ones.....?

My argument on freedom is that freedom ends where freedom is used to destroy freedom. This implies, in this context, that I reject the idea of unlimited freedom - with regard to this implication. See my exchange with Steve some days ago. I once again refer to Poppers tolerance paradoxon and freedom paradoxon as well, that I have quoted repeatedly now.
......Oh, that's why. Well, in that case you have no reason to speak out against my religion, since it infringes upon noone's freedom. You might as well protest the idea of chocolate milk in the grocery store freezer. In fact, you might as well oppose every scientific, cultural, societal, or artistic development ever made. There is no reason why I should be silenced, and there is no reason why you should listen unless you are interested in discussion.

do not compare scientiifc theory-building and religious dogmas. and betetr do not even comolare islam and other relgions. It is absurd, it simply does not compare. I can, I will, and I will continue to do so, using the 99.9% of genetic code and the hundreds of millions of years of evolution and ten-thousand years of societal development behind it as the basis of my argument. People, whatever their beliefs, are people, Sky; and like people, they are never beyond redemption.

I again refer to the ancient Greek trsdition of scientific methodlogy that is beeing pursued until today. It has brought us much more relief from misery and disease, than any religion ever has.
Notwithstanding religious scientists, including Islamic ones, how can you quantify that?

It has given us a billion times more insight into the universe, than and relgious dogma ever has. And scientific methodlogy hardly has ever been the reason for cimmititing the worst atrocities and the biggest bloodblaths known in human history.
I disagree. Economics has been a major reason for every modern conflict, and it was brought about by scientific methodology. Science and reason are not seperable when it comes to men killing other men, both are excuses.

You want to increase that status of relgion by trying to see equal the assumnption of God existing being the same like the assumption that God doies not exist. but you have one problem there. you are not even basing on an observation that god exists.
Didn't I do that with my observation of billions of nanomachines that exist solely to create order, which just happens to be the fundamental concept of every religion and society on the planet, and a fundamental concept of every human society ever? Does being "created in His image" mean nothing to you at all? I suppose it wouldn't. I've already admitted that I don't know for sure, but neither do you. Even you, however, have to admit that there is some divinity in the essence of life and order, even if it isn't from a God; otherwise, why do you bother doing anything at all? Why reject the message of Jesus? Why not just die and put an end to this ridiculous charade?

If you want to know why, I'll tell you. It's because you can't. You can't destroy yourself any more than a healthy cell or bacterium can destroy itself. It's not in your programming. It's not what you were designed to do, whether by natural evolution or evolution designed by a God. Your genes won't allow you to self-terminate because they built you for the sole purpose of reproducing themselves. Consider that, and the inevitability of such a system being randomly created amongst billions of worlds, and tell me that there is no God and/or that there is no supreme Order. Even if there is no God, there is a divinity within life itself. Better yet, define the goals of a God that would create such a system.

How is it that you appreciate nature as much as you do and yet see no divinity in it? Non-biological nature is entropy, destruction, and disorder. The cosmos itself is no exception. Planets, solar systems, stars and galaxies swirl about in a dance of ultimate destruction, and you see no divinity in life and its capacity to escape that destruction?

Thus you cannot form a hypothesis oin any grounds.Thus no theory. And since you cannot form a theory in a scientific, nobody has any need to prove oyur theory wrong in orer to propve that God does not exist. Becasue you have no theory. I'm sorry, but your belief already disqualifies at the very first hurlde or scientifc, and i also would say: rational thinking. I must not prove anything, James.
Well, now you have my theory, as insubstantive as it is. Even if it is wrong, you still can't argue against Christianity and Jesus' message. You can't argue against the divinity of order, or mankind; the greatest order-creating agent known to, well, mankind.

you are the one claimning that God exists. The burden of evidence is up to you, completely. I have not made any observation that there is a god or not. You make the claim, so you miust come up with observation, hypothesis, testing it, theory-buiolding and model-building, then using it for poredcitions and then check again if the model predicts correctly or not. You would need to undergo this process in order to be taken serious in your cliam or belief. but you cannot. On the other hand. I would not need to do the same for atheism, because I claim nothing. My obervation is that I observe nothing when looking for God. Since i lack any ohenomenenon to observe, I form no hypthesis on God existing or not exosting, I form no theory of non-God or god, and form no model to predict non-god or God. It simply is something that does not even exist as a question to me. I would only need to show that if you would be able to form a model to predict a phenomenon (and explaining it with god) thati can explain the facts of your theory in a better wy with a model of mine - that of science. And as a matter of fact, science has done that, not with relgion'S scinrtiifxc models (it has none), but with its mere claims.

Then I would say that you have done nothing with what you have been given; or what you naturally obtained through pure happenstance. You might as well be a molecular biologist who does not presuppose the existence of atoms. Or an atomic scientist who does not presuppose the existence of neutrons and protons.

Religion and science do not compare. Science is coinstantly checking temporary models and theories, and if needed, correcting or replacing them. Religion is claming eternal truths that should be lasting forever, unchecked, unquestioned, not rationally analysed, but simply believed.

And I suppose that describes the constantly evolving nature of religions and the debates of theologists? Religion may not be science per se, but it is worth exploring as much as philosophy is.

If you have read until here and indeed understood a bit what I tried to say, you understand why I do not even answer to this nonsense paragraph. You once again see islam as somethign that it simply is not
And you see nothing where something may be. Moreover, you see nothing where a productive philosophy may be.

Skybird

08-17-10, 06:49 AM

My point is that they all work around the same basic principles. Every human society is formed by a collection of human minds, Sky, as are the ideologies they form. I think you're skipping a very important step in the understanding of human sociology; you can't fix a machine by knowing what it does, you must know how it works.

That is not true, the Nazi's ideology was basing on very different foci than the ideology of a democratic/humanistic state order. Also, the Nazis got fought against and overturned not by philosophical but military means. If all ideologies would base on the same human traits, then every man would show the same vulnerability for the same ideologies, and then we probably should talk in singular on ideolgoies, not in plural, because then there would be only one ideology - one size fits all. - I say different than you, that is that ideologies form their own climate in which people get influenced and manipulated and educated that way that they form a general preference for this culture and its ideologies, while refusing others. that is why you have the american way of life and value order in america, natural belief system of simple structure with naturalistic primitives in the jungle, and a conquering desert ideology in the desert with battling Arabs (muhammad's time). If then the ideology persists, it can disconnect itself from the additional influence of living environment and nature, enabling it's carriers to move into different surroundings that lack this basis - where they still stick to their ideology, not changing/losing it.

I see no difference between Bonhoeffer's observations and studies of social primates by the likes of Goodall, Hrdy, and Short. You yourself have mentioned on many occassions where we disputed economics and social structure that "no man is an island" while I was defending individualism. So what is this, now? I don't understand what you intend to prove by this argument.

There I was about what I just said again. You made a generalisation about all humans showing the same vulnerability for the same ideologies (I formulate it different than you said it, but that is the implication) and I here and there say why I do not buy this generalisation. Neither are all humans the same, nor are all ideology basing on the same human traits. And where they are not, I think it is better thinking to see that groups effect the indvidual in it'S attitude and opinion forming, the anonymous authority of the masses, so to speak. For Bonhoeffer this results in the phenomenon of stupidity. In the context of this discussion it results in the general acceptance of the same ideology by the many, no matter whether it is a good or bad one. Social interaction patterns amongstprimates, have little to do with this. It does not matter whether you have a tribe of chimps hunting other animals, some do, others dont, or if you refer to observations showing chimps behaving in a helpful, altruistic way because by altruism they receive a generally higher social benefit payback. That simply are things that do not touch this debate here.(Not to mention that there are also some chimps that show more and others that show less and finally chimps that show no altruistic behavior. but this just as a side remark.)

Strange they didn't realize that when the Macedonians and Romans conquered them.
Loosing track now of whom you mean by "they" - the Romans and Macedonians, the Europeans of the Romans' times, the Europeans of Napoleons time, Islam at Napoleon's time?

I think you're making a big leap in logic, my friend, and if I may say so, a huge error in strategic thinking. Most of Islam does want to have what we have, that much is true, but you are willfully ignoring the human factor in the equation, not to mention the economic factor.
In fundamentalist Islam, the general rule has been that Sheiks and Caliphs control most of the wealth and have huge harems.That's human nature.

No, that is result of a fatalism that is founded in islamic teaching. Quoting an old essay of mine from some years ago: "An interesting position Islam is holding on the question of material wealth. Earthly goods are not considered to be of evil, but their possession only can lead to any spiritual worth if it is understood as that man has to use them to do good deeds in the name of the Umma, and help it’s weaker members. Not possession of material wealth is sinful, but the sticking to it. The different distribution of wealth amongst rich and poor people is understood to be a „testing“ grade for man, so that the poor are challenged not to allow themselves to fall victim to greed and envy, and the rich shall not allow to get possessed by their possessions. The existence of material goods that way could lead to a behavior that is pleasing to God and will help for a more positive judgement of the individual life at the end of it’s days. " - Add this to the fatalism that results when all and everything happening is attributed to the will of Allah, and you have the reason why Muslim societies are so accepting and tolerant on brutal opressors ruling them: it is God's will, and as long as the tyrant at the top claims and acts as if he is doing his way for the sake of islamic interests, from a theological point of view his behavior is pretty much acceptable. Note that the islmic world has no tradition to run ffree,liberal, democratic societies, but has a tradition to be run by dictators (some being more, some being less brutal). Note that the socalled radicals and fundamentalists do not attack the Saudis, for example, for their wealth, but because they do not engage with their wealth enough in the propagating and spreading of Islam, and jihad, and allow social issues not being taken care of (! the Saudis, mind you: Wahabatism and all that). Terror organisations like Hamas understand this, and thus serve as terror brigades on the one hand, but anchor themselves in society by maintaining huge social aid networks as well (of course also to deceive the West and to gain ideological influence).

In 2005, i think I also wrote ": It needs not to be mentioned that the excessive waste of material wealth in the West, it’s almost pathologic level of materialism by which it is already destroying itself, as well as the financial corruption of most if not all Arab governments, namely Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, is a major target for critizism by fundamentalists like Osama Bin Laden because of Islam‘s concept of spiritual value of material wealth. Basically saying, one should not stick to material goods, for they are not lasting, and use their possession to acchieve something good, it is one of the few things in traditional Islam I feel sympathy for. That Muslim governments, especially the oil-rich nations, also show a very bad record in helping each other genorously whenever a Muslim place is hit by a natural desaster, and leave the financial aid mostly to the West while keeping their petrodollars for themselves (and jihad) mostly, is another major point of ideological attack for fundamentalists. The West should realize that these fundamentalists are absolutely in congruency with Islam in major parts of their critizism of contemporary Islam and muslim nations and governments. That way fundamentalists are giving the West a much more relastic picture of what Islam is, than the corrupted Muslim nations of today themselves. We are in real need to learn that not all what Osama is saying about Islam is nonsens. Much, but not all, of it is representative, and this is another reason for his popularity with the crowds and why they admire him for his „truthfulness“ . Since this partly true, but fundamentalistic understanding of Islam is creating the image of Islam beeing hostile to Western values, it is usually rejected, or supressed in the medias. Only the tolerant, peaceful face of Islam is the acceptable face of Islam the West wants to see. If we ignore the monsters under our beds, they surely are not there. But truth is – the space just gets increasingly crowded."

That's what happens in primitive totalitarian societies And modern capitalistic ones as well.

The only reason the common people go along with this is because they know nothing else; but if we introduce the fruits of Western civilization to them, they will begin to leave the hardcore tenets of their faith, which is based entirely upon the baser elements of human nature. That much I will agree with you upon.

Where do we agree here? I also remind you that Islam is not only so strong due to itself, but also is strong - because we are so weak now; old, aging, dying societies that have deeply corrupted their once democratic order, founded on noble hopes and utopias, exchanging that for a tyranny of bureaucrats and money-obsessed oligarchs and plutocratic elites trying their best to erode society from within to prevent the electorate from waking up and trying to gain even more profit-tailroed control for themselves. We do not have enough babies by our own, and we are lacking the dynamic of a young age structure in society. both are extremely relevant factors. I point, amongst others, at the work of Gunnar Heihnsohn, I have referred to him before, he is doing research on not much else than the influence of demographic factors on cultures and societies. His findings are empirically solid, and they are alarming.

Or: what happened with China - giving them our superior machines and technology, seeing them copying it, then producing it themselves, and then turning our market philosophies against us - all that happens with our values and ideals that our justice systems base upon, and Muslim subcultures as well. they get massive support from their home countries, in motivation and cultural indoctrination. they use the freedoms you grant them, and abuse them to work for destroying them. Some do it by active deed, others create the opportunity for it to happen by doing nothing. Only a very small minority stands up against the others doing so. And these minorities then get bashed - by the western islamophiles!

By historic example, I summarise it all by just this: Islamic societies have a much longer breath in running an oppressive tyranny, than hectic, shortminded western nations have to convert the (resisting!) world to the benefit of capitalistic corruption. Already in the medieval, islam was superior in patience and long breath, and fighting spirit and martyrdom, compared to the technically superior Christians knights. I add this to the consequences of the theologic influence of islam. and then I conclude that it is a bad idea trying to outsit Islam - in that kind of game, Islam is a master, and the West is an amateur.

Yes, social workers often describe problems as being more severe than they really are, and they often prescribe social entitlements as the remedy

That cleansweeping claim you would have to prove. I read more of your own unreflected ideologic preassumptions in this, than solid knowledge of social realities. Probably different to you, I know social workers in real life, due to my past, even if i'm am loosing contact to them. You probably neither had a realistic impression of workload and numerical pressure social workers often work under, nor do you realistically assess the motivation of such people, even more so when they work as streetworkers. I also smell the implied accusation of "they are all socialist nannies" in the air.

Let me tell you one thing: streetworkers tend to be among the most brutal realists I have ever learned to know. Because they are going right into the middle of the mess, and that is a job that many would not bear, or would not like to do at all. As an arrogant lecturer I once had put it in an especially nasty moment of his: "Before I work in the streets, i would prefer to clean the toilets, that is less depressing." Great statement by the man. We loved him very much... Some of such workers are chaotics, yes. Some are disconnected future academics that float over the dirt like Jesus lavitated over water, but many have a psychological stamina and a sense of reality you do not find in many people. and that is not by chance, becasue otherwise they would not be able to be efficient in what they try to do.

I make no mistake. I've seen economic freedom (as they jokingly call what Iraq has now) work first-hand. Even in that limited context, it works. It works brilliantly. Have you seen the lines of Shiite and Sunni Muslims and even Kurds who are willing to put aside their differences to make an honest dollar doing even menial work? I have. These people have been oppressed and impoverished and have lived under Islam all their lives, but they cooperated to provide for their families and themselves. I worked alongside them. I talked with them. They listened to my stories about the Bible and I listened to their stories about the Koran. I helped their children and they thanked me for it. We even fought together. There is a deeper meaning to human nature than simple ideology as you define it, Sky.

I just waited that you would come with your most favourite theme of free market again. I stayed a longer time in iran, amongst other nations. There I sometimes had the opportunity, when by boss was busy with interviews, to talk with aids of the person of interest, which often was a politician or a cleric. Of course I also learned private people as well, especially on a later trip when I was private. Sometimes I was asked what my faith was. In the beginning I was honest and replied with hinting to a mix of atheist and buddhist concepts. that gave me mixed reactions. Non-theistic relgions are suspisicous, and atheism even more. the imam of one mosque in Southern Teheran was very friendly and did not the smallest attempt to missionise me, although I was not only no muslim, but even no follower of the book (Jews, Christians). So, such things are possible. But they are just one of many impressions.

On other occasions I immediately was dealt with as if I had turned into the devil himself. This especially often happened in central and east-Turkish areas with rural populations. Compared to Turkey I prefer Iran any time.

I would not generalise the one or the other experience, not yours, not mine. After all, I just met SOME people, and you did meet just SOME people. The general influence of an ideology that runs a whole culture - that is still something very different, and in history you often have the pattern in Muslim countries that moderate tendencies seem to have been tolerated, and then all of a sudden they suddenly turned "radical" (true Islamic, that is). that has a simple reason, that I mentioned yesterday. Islam stands still when it cannot overcome opposing resistence, but it does not just sit and does nothing, but it collects additional power/forces. that were armies in the past, or higher birth rates that resulted in said new armies sooner or later, in this case here that was growing influence by the radicals/true muslims. When the critical mass has been reached, all that and humanism and coexistence suddenly becomes meaningless again. And strange enoiuzgh, you can also see the masses often cheering at that. Islamic crowds are used to be run by strong tyrants at the top. Like russians - many embrace the reviving of the stalin cult. Stalin is POPULAR again. Who cares for some dozen million people that died due to him? Nobody does. They run musicals, TV series gloryfying him, now, in the present. Putin uses him to install his own power, too. Saddam adressed old heroic myths, and do not be mistaken - he was quite popular with not only members of the Baath party (that he was feared, too, is true, but not in every case is that a contradiction).

Islam is a religion of people.
No, it is an idelogy that was tailored by just one man to serve his own political interest of self-justification for his own power-craving. This was casted into the Quran, and later distorted a bit by local and super-regional leaders to gain legitimation through the Quran for their own power interests. But even before the outbreak of the Isamic civil war and the shism, the quran already had been led back into just one form and format - and that is the one that is valid until today.

You see it too much through american glasses, trying to talk the problem into a format so that the tools in your american toolbox can "manage" it. But your tools are not sharp enough, because while lacking a hammer you try to bring that nail into the wall by using a saw, saying it is no nail but a piece of wood, cutting it would do the job. but the nail still would not be in that wall afterwards. Two pieces of wood do not change that. So - you better start looking where to get that damn hammer.

I understand your point; Islam is offensive and pre-emptive in nature. Needless to say, I still think that is because it is a primitive religion that needs to be modernized, and the only way to modernize it is by throwing it into the modern world.

the Eurocrats position that is: forming an "Euro-Islam. there have been threads before where i explained why I do not believe in that idea, but that the inner resistance of Islam to be changed and modernised and tamed is stronger than any western influence on it. It has to do with the way Quran and the tradition of Sharia are interwoven and linked to every aspect of human life: the individual's life, the family'S life, the communal life, the nation'S life. You cannot just delete passages in the Quran and abandon Sharia in parts and then think what is left would be a modern islam, Islam is not as modular as would be needed for doing so, it is pretty much monolithic indeed. Either you manage to scratch it and see the whole thing turning into sand, or you cannot - and then will not break a single bit out of it. that'S why I have said in said past threads that islam in europe must not be modernised (I have support for my position especially by apostates and Muslim critics of Islam, btw), but must be replaced. But for that a mental evolution is needed first, there are no shortcuts to such things, if the readiness to embrace such a radical chnage is not there, then you can offer whatever you want on the silverplate, it will be in vein at best, or gets abused at worst. the question is if a deeply corrupted, decadent society like what our democracies have degenerated into, has something to offer that could serve as such a powerful incentive when at the same time we time and again see that our democracies do not function anymore and our cultural value system partly is breaking down, party gets deconstructed by intention), and question also is if we have the needed ammount of time to try this strategy - my reply is a clear, sounding NO to that, we do not have that time. In order to convince the other by your own example, your position must be strong, your incentive must be convincing. But we are not that. what we are being seen as, is this: we are the prey, that finally has become so tired that it falls like a ripe fruit into the lap of islam, withoiut war, wiothiut need for conquest, after a thiusand years of cnstant confrontation. We have tried to convince by our example and liberties for almost 50 years now, since the early 60s, results: none. Effect on the integration level of islamic subcultures int he West: none, even more, the hope for effect is not only dissapointed, it even seems to work at the opposite direction: we see muslim communities in Germany, England and holland and Sweden becoming more radical and more orthodox and even more religious, basing on the real Islam, not this hallucination of a desired euro-islam that censors part of its identity. Since half a century, strong Muslim populations are present in the West, thousands of mosques have been build, billions of dollars have been invested by us and by them, most of these people enjoy greater freedoms in our countries than they ever learned to know in the muslim global sphere. The effect we acchieved by doing so, is thin, to put it very, very optimistic. We have invested enough time and resources to test the hypothesis. It's time to abandon the hpyothesis. It does not work, it never has worked, and there is nothing that indicates that it ever could work.

However, fundamentalist Islam will not have its way because its anachronistic nature makes it incompatible with the modern world. It simply cannot survive and be militarily or societally successful without integration, and integration, as you mentioned, is anathema to fundamentalist Islam.

First, islam IS fundamentalist in general. fundamentalism is not just one school lineage in it, it is the basis and fundament of Quran AND sHARIA. Second, as I see it, islam, this fundamentalist, orthodox islam is spreading, rapidly. You say it must fail because it is not compatible with the modern world. The observation is correct, but the conclusion is premature at best: because islam can also make the modern time failing (and indeed that is what is happening wherever it gains in influence). That is part of it's intention. Modern times are not what Allah wants. Allah wants sharia, and Sharia hates modern times. I do not have the link anymore, but one and a half year ago, roughly estimated, there was paper published that examined the going of democracies and tyrant or opressive regimes in the world. It showed quite convincingly, that on all continents, the principles of democracy are in decline, either by democracy getting pushed back by force, or by being eroded from within, while tyrannic regimes and dictatorships are blossoming and spreading worldwide in number and influence. I also remind of the fact that Rome fell to inferior barbars, who just had two advantages over the romans and their superior civilisation: they were more brutal and ruthless than the ro,mans of that time, and they were determined to use that ruthlessness of theirs for best effect. An inferior civilisational grade can very well topple a society of a higher civilisational grade, in fact that has happened quite often. the more complex something is, the more depending it is, the more vulnerable it is. Deconstruction of hierarchic structure happens at the reversed sequences of building them. That is true in physics. That is true in biology. That is true in human value system and forms of structuring communal living-together.

There you go lumping all Islam into one Islam again. They really aren't all like that, and they can be swayed.

Yes, they are not all like that, like not all Christians are real christians. But where they follow islamic teaching for sure, they are pretty much uniform in the way they are - that is the intention of islamci education, that was the intention by muhammad, and that is what you see reflected in Quran and Hadith and that is why sharia is so unforgiving on straying off from the only, the one, the single, the true path. that is what you see in the global behavior and effect of the Ummah - the ummah is not divided into sects and schools and different lineages - it is one anonmous mass of uniform people who all support the cause of islam. When will you finally stop to make this very big mistake to judge somethign that is not western by western ideas and value systems? you have to take the ideology for what it is. when you read the quran with its suras rearranged so that they reflect the original historic sequence of their creation, and when you keep in mind the abrogation principle that legitimately decides that contradicting passages are decided by using the younger statement of the two in conflict, a principle on which the Islamic world has consensus since the 9th century, then you see that "being islamic" leaves you much, much lesser degrees of freedom for interpretation and variation than all you wellmeaning, kind-hearted, reasonable western "useful idiots" (Lenin's term that I borrow) constantly try to see in it, read into it, interpret into it. yes, there are socalled muslims not sticking to it word for word. they are not Muslims. they are in principle apostates who do not know how far their apostacy already has led them. In a really muslim society, they would risk their lives. but many of them nevertheless do nothing and stay passive, and by that allow the opportunity for true Islam speaking in their name (the overwhelming majority of Muslim organisations interacting with our politicians in our countries are "radical" by nature, if you examine them closely and look behind their facade). The apostates that deny their apostacy may not be true muslims, but they are still Mitläufer. and for that I nevertheless hold them responsible, and I confront them over this.

Isklamic communities will never change if they are constantly saved from any confrontaiton and from any need to chanage. If they must not change, and see that we instead adapt to them, why should they want to chnage then...??? It is easier for them not to chnage - and still they get what they want, so...

What makes you think that science is incompatible with religion? Most of the greatest scientific minds the world has ever known have been subscribers to one religion or another. Even Einstein believed in a higher power. I'm religious, but I study science and reason. Once again, you lump everyone who is religious into one of a few big groups, all of which are bad.

Not before 1992 the Catholic church was willing to reestablish Galilei.

Religion and science do not compare, it is an offence to claim that. I have indicated that science is basing on a procedure that must be followed in order to make it a scientific one. the basis of this way of thinking reasonably leads back into our western history, 2500 years. In principle it is the old thing of trial and error, run in a specially formalised manner that must be strictly obeyed. It decides what is accepted in science as a theory, and what not. and since the ancient Greek, to be able to explain observations one has made without refering to any supernatural cause has been an inevitable characteristic of this tradition. You observe something, you build a hypothesis. the hpyothesis still is not verified and falsified, it is just a hypthesis. You make a prediction on basis of this hypothesis, and you examine whether your prediction is true, or not. If it is true, you make more predictions, and if they are true, you start to turn your hypohtesis into a model, a theory. If you cannot verifiy your hypothesis in experiment and observation, you need to change or abandon your hypothesis. Your results must be reproducable, in principle by everybody. - This are the criterions for what differs science from non-science or pseudo-science. Miss just one criterion, and you are already disqualified.

This and not more and not less is the essence of scientific methodology. I have learned it almost 20 years ago at university. I have read about it in books, and just days ago I once again read on it - in one of the best summaries of scientifc methodology i have have read - in the astronomy coursebook I have embarked on.

This methodology has implications. First, science never does and never claims to give final, absolute, ultimate, eternal answers. It does not and it cannot and it wishes not to do so. all what science does is trying to explain our observations of the perceived world in the way and manner that makes the most sense for us in the light of the knowledge currently available to us, causes the smallest friction between different theories, is of the most use for us in asking new questions and forming new hypothesis. Science constantly questions itself, and constantly tests its models and theories. It is empirical, and lives by strong self-doubt. Sometimes a theory gets so much confirmation, that it raises to the level of a paradigm, which has greater influence on future theory-building, and tends to have a longer life-span than just a theory. A paradigm could be thought of as a meta-theory, maybe.

The principle of simplicity in explanation, and criterion of testable, repeatable observation and experiments, and objectivity, are three inevitable ingredients of the scientific process.

Mere believing, mere claiming something, mere assuming, mere imagining something, has nothing to do with it. nor has believing, hear-say, wishful thinking, tradition. Imagination can be helpful in forming new hypothesis, but the hypothesis must be tested and proven nevertheless.

Religions are not like this. Religions do not question their dogmas (that would make you a heretic), they do not provide evidence or coinfirmation, and the deny the need for these. Nevertheless they claim that what they say is the ultimate, the final, the absolute truth. ironically religious zealots, also in this forum, occasionally accuse science of doing right this: claiming that it's theories are the ultimate, the final, the last word, and how arrogant science is when doing so. That is what psychologists call "projection" - accusing others to be guilty of what one does oneself. That also is a spectacular lack of understanding of the scientific process and methodology.

Einstein mocked about people believeing in god, i remind you. that famous last leter by him leaves no doubt on that.

In a former thread, I think talking to Frau Kaleun, I explained why science and spirituality is no contradiction to me, but that i see religion and spirituality as totally incompatabile antagonists. religion and science are also incompatible. either you see that in my explanations now, or you dont. If you want I can set up four pages where Astronomy and Astrology are compared, explaining why Astrology is no science at all although in the past it was seen as that. You could replace Astrology with religion, and the chapter still would be valid. the nature of science gets explained there, too, what i summarised here is given in just a bit more detail there, but in principal any book on scientific methodology and it's basis in Greek philosophy will do. Religion does not provide any supporting hints or evidence for its claims, and it does not obey the rule of scientific methodology, it just makes claims, and leaves it to that - that is what makes both incompatible, and that also is why religion itself must not be taken serious. All it does is this: it makes claims that are just that: claims. You ask why science and religion must be seen as different things. You could as well question that science and a glass of beer are not compatible.

when Ratzinger became Pope, I was dumb enough to buy his book on the life of Jesus, until then I thought of Ratzinger as a pointy thinker and well-educated intellectual. But on one of the very first pages he wrote black on white that for him the bible and the stories of wonders and about Jesus are to be taken literal. that spoiled it all from the beginning on. Reason and intellect and ratio, that from the begining on base on superstition and unproven hear-say, just corrupt their own instruments and necessarily can create only results that - base right on superstition and unproven hear-say. the basis from which these tools of mind started, was porked from the beginning on. because religion's claims only would be an option if scientific procedure would create evidence for it'S claims being true. but that so far has not been the case. All what science has created, when wishing to go for a mystic perspective, is the insight that the more answers we find, the more of the universe we understand - the more questions raise and the more we realise how small the part of the universe we live in really is. That can be a motivation for a spiritual reflection, in my understanding of spirituality: reflecting about one's own life and death, the nature of life and the universe, and why it all even is. since we are mortal, we ask such questions. Death makes us afraid. Asking these questions, is spiritual, and thus we are spiritual beings by definition (we cannot evade these questin from the day on we first realise that one day we will die). But religion is different. religion does not ask questions. It claims to give the final, the penultimate answers: unchecked, unquestioned, unproven, not even providing hints for its claims. It just: claims.

That's why i sometime describe myself as a "spiritual atheist". to me you cannot be spiritual and religious at the same time. For being the one, you necessarily must give up the other. If you accept the religious dogma, you stop asking questions. If you ask questions, you violate the dogma and become a heretic.

What's to shove? Why so cynical? What is wrong with forgiveness and acceptance? It's not about haughtiness or bigotry; a dyed-in-the-wool Christian like myself knows that my invisible phantasm spaghetti-monster God would see right through that. You can hate my religion if you want to, I'd just like to know why.

I do not hate your religion. Not yours or any other. Not even islam. I just hate followers of religions who think they may claim the right to constantly make others paying attention to their confessions and beliefs and that they can expect others to leave the place if they start to spill their sermon. Inside the four walls of your house you can do whatever you want. believe this, or believe that, drink tea or coffee - as long as I must not take note of you doing this or that or I do not get adressed by religious missionising. It is like with that radio volume. The analogy i love very much. It hits the nail on top, that's why I use it so often. keep the volumet such as that you do not bother your neighbours and they must not listen your program, and they will leave you peacefully alone and you can wallow in whatever your beliefs, your musical preferences are. Pump up the volume and start limiting the freedom of the others by claiming more than is yours, and be not surprised if angry people start to slam at your door.

That simple it is. With Christians. With Muslims. With atheists. Freedom is the word to watch out for - not missionising. Doesn't happen often anymore these days, but missionaries showing up on my doorstep I either have talked into a mocking experience, or I gave them the boot (to make sure they do not distgrub me again). I hate missionaries, as much as I hate moralists.

So pray for me as much as you want, or let it be, for me it makes no difference and makes no effect, and i could not bother less. Just spare me to bother me with your choice, whatever it is. You should have understood now at the latest that I take it very queer if I need to withness yolur relgious practices. Like oyu would take it queer if you need to witness me taking a showe, suing the toilet or cleaning my teeth - these are activities that better are undertaken alone, in private. I warned in threads before of my reaction to people who take it upon them to pray for my poor lost soul. To me it is pure arrogance and bigotery and haughtiness. Even when it comes from you.

You said as much before, and I heard you, but my point still stands. If people are to be allowed to share any messages or thoughts or cares or desires, why not religious ones.....?

Radio volume. If somebody asks you or visits you, okay, talk whatever you want. But just when you think you must carry it all into the public sphere without being asked, and bother others who have the same right to be there - but unobstructed by your radio noise - then it is your duty (because you are causing the noise) to reduce volume so much that others do not get limited in their freedom to enjoy the public space. your rights and freedoms are not greater than theirs, you have no right to make theirs smaller just to make yours bigger than theirs. Conflicts like you have with me right now are the result of bubbles whose outer spheres started to crank against each other. And in this case here i say it is not because I am here, but because you sat down on the bank I already sit on, and put your feet on my lap. If you just would have sit and keep your legs to yourself, it would have been fine with me - the whole bank is not mine alone.

......Oh, that's why. Well, in that case you have no reason to speak out against my religion, since it infringes upon noone's freedom. You might as well protest the idea of chocolate milk in the grocery store freezer. In fact, you might as well oppose every scientific, cultural, societal, or artistic development ever made. There is no reason why I should be silenced, and there is no reason why you should listen unless you are interested in discussion.

See above. With a grocery store offering choco drinks I have little problems. If they invite me to buy one and ignore me when saying No, then i have. And when it starts getting thrown after me, then i start giving them a problem.

Notwithstanding religious scientists, including Islamic ones, how can you quantify that?
I compare the developement of science, medicine, technology and culture in this and in that society. In other words: I start counting. BTW, many of those religious scientists you refer to, stated partially or completely wrong models and theories, because what the found violated their beliefs so much that they could not accept their findings, or were unable to intellectually understand them in full, since they were basing on religiously troubled preassumptions. If a scientist would be able to keep strictly separate his beliefs, and the scientific procedure, it would not be a problem. But that hardly is the way the human mind works in. And that causes conflicts that we must not want and must not tolerate in science. Said preassumptions are a problem, able to hinder full comprehension of a new discovery or theory ,leading into long time of dead ends.

I disagree. Economics has been a major reason for every modern conflict, and it was brought about by scientific methodology. Science and reason are not seperable when it comes to men killing other men, both are excuses

No, what you mention here is scientific results getting instrumentalised by other interests. But the scientific theory has not been tried to be spread by war. Nobody has launched an aggression because he wanted to bring the natives the the Cartesian paradigm. no war was lauched in order to spread quantum physics. I do not know a military mission that tried to fight for the establishing of Newton physics, and hardly has there been a conquest started to make the enemy converting to the superstring hypothesis. Wars were launched for economic and politic and religious motives. In all three cases, the effort made use of the results of scientific research, often via engineering. But that is not the same like waging a war in the name of scientific theory. Due to religious dogmas: yes: For economic claims: yes. Over personal political ambitions: yes. Becasue of interhuman relation between one man and one woman, love: yes. But in order to bring others a scientific paradigm? No, not that I know of.

Didn't I do that with my observation of billions of nanomachines that exist solely to create order, which just happens to be the fundamental concept of every religion and society on the planet, and a fundamental concept of every human society ever?
"Machines"...? Aristoteles and Descartes are dead.

Does being "created in His image" mean nothing to you at all?
No, but the phrase opens a nasty question, if we are created in His image - why are we being held responsible then for our design's behavioural results? When we only reflect his erratic nature when we fail, why do we get the spanking, but not him? And if we fail and deserve penalty - what does this tell us bout His infallibility when he created us in His image, then? :D He must be the same kind of poor sucker than we are, then. So why kneeling in front of this imperfect little fella? ;)

I suppose it wouldn't. I've already admitted that I don't know for sure, but neither do you.

science readily admits that the more it learns, the more questions arise. Yes, we do not know much, but we know more than before - at the price of realising that now there is even more that we do not know, too. But that we do not know many things cannot be an excuse to fantasize about just anything and then label that as hypothesis that just has not been proven and thus compares to scientific hypothesis as well. The two important details here are to note that a scientific hypothesis ALWAYS necessarily is not proven (else it would not be a hypothesis, but a theory, or it would have been given up when it could not be confirmed), and second: that even a hypothesis is basing on an initial objective observation of a phenomenon. if there is no phneomenen observed, there is not only no hypotheis, but also nothin that could be examined. ;) That's why you argue yourself deep into a dead end when saying that although god is not being proven, it is also not proven that he does not exist. As far as I am concerned, you could as well claim the existence of flying invisible pink elephants, and that their non-existence is not being proven either. You cannot even say why they should be pink, because since they are invisible you never have seen them. So please, save me. - A mere claim or an imagination is not a hypothesis. Also, a claimed witnesses observation report is no evidence, not at court, not in science. Never. that's why religion already fails at the very first hurdle of the scientific process.

Even you, however, have to admit that there is some divinity in the essence of life and order, even if it isn't from a God; otherwise, why do you bother doing anything at all? Why reject the message of Jesus? Why not just die and put an end to this ridiculous charade?
Why should I?

I see a tendedency in the universe we perceive, that forms arise from a void and have the potential to unfold an inherent structure that is constantly changing and is of limited time span, and that in a meaning of chaos theory is inside of them, but still not pre-determined. Such forms that arise from the void we call matter. I "believe" in the concept of matter's self-organisation, and that the phenomenons are of a hierarchical basic structure of increasing complexity when they form up, while doing the whole procedure in reverse order when they fall apart again. I "believe" that everything that is from beginning on holds the seed of its antithesis and own destruction inside its heart, and that thus it is fruitless to try to make just one set of wanted qualities everlasting: things, history moves in cycles, and what goes up, must come down when the wheel of time is turning - what we can do, though, is trying to make it move slowly, but it may come at a oprice that other, good things get delayed that way. I "believe" that in this understanding nothing comes for free and everything has its price. I "believe" that mathematics and science can explain - and are the only tool that could explain - any observed phenomenon sooner or later, even if it may take long time to do so, even if it may take the rise and fall of whole civilisations on planet Earth to form a society that finally has accumaulated the knowledge to explain it ( at the price of creating new questions by that). I "believe" that the price for gaining knowledge is accepting new uncertainty. I do "believe" there are no absolute, total, ultimate, final answers, I do "believe" the often sought-for "world formula" is a "blue flower" only, an utopic ideal that serves as a drive, but could never be found. I do "believe" that what is, is not by random chance, but that chaos theory means that degrees of complexity decide over the realisation of inherent potentials that are so hige (said degrees of complexity) that they necessarily must appear to our limited knowledge as being random chance. I know that the Big Bang is no ultimate answer, but just a theory in the very best meaning of this term. I know that the real question is not why we and the universe do exist, but that the question is: why is not simply nothing? I know that we do not know the answers, like we also do not know if and what there is beyond the border of the observable universe, whether there is an "antiverse", a void that is so much not even a void that a real "nothing" it is for sure, or if there are multiverses. Here is where science has to accept its limits. It probably will never be able to answer these last questions.

The point is - religions do not offer answers as well. even worse, where science admits to not know, religion claims to know nevertheless, and fills the space of our lacking knowledge with mere fantasies, labelling them a divine truth, and then demands that we should not ask anymore because if we trust in all this "truth", then we would be saved, no matter how, no matter why, no matter from what.

I think that man does not bear to live in a state of existential uncertainty for too long. scientists some months ago claimed to have found hints that the drive to religiuous belief maybe has a solid material correlate in certain brain areas, that may serve as a protective mechanism against existential despair (that indeed could make people ill, could even kill them). This does neither mean that a deity has made this brain structure so, nor does it mean that it makes us believe in a true thing - the object of a given religion. It only means that people desperately crave for finding a meaning in their life, and I know that it can effect a person's survivablity massively if he/she doe snot have such a meaning. Said brain structure may just make us believe in a folly - but maybe for us, with our limited understanding of the universe, it nevertheless is a necessary folly, even a vital one. If we are to step beyond this evolut9nary fetaure, than we must not take it as a given, but must try understand it and understand the implication it means for our relgions. The meaning of our existence, for some it is a casper in the sky. for others it is materialism and the comfort of material wealth. some find fulfillment in helping others. Others sit down and develope more and more complicated fantasies and hallucinations or esoteric nature. Very popüular in the West and it's youth cult: some try to escape the quesitons by pressuming to be forver young. But death is no salesman, he does not negotiate - he takes whom he wants, and basta. For us humans, just about everything seems to be better than facing this big, wide, empty, unforgiving cold, cruel, grim void that is the lack of an answer to this one question: Why am I here? Why is all this existing?

Book tip on these matters: Ken Wilber: Sex, Ecology, Spirituality. Not too easy, but rewarding.

to me, my self-studying of astronomy is a deeply satisfying affair. It is an old interest of mine, which never before I have embarked on as systematically as I have started to do now. Why this is so? Simply this. For me, and for almost all eras in human history, astronomy is a deeply spiritual affair, like is theoretic physics as well. Maybe it would be correct to think that all attempt to understand nature, is a spiritual effort. Astreonomy, it makes me ask questions that usually we are to fearful to ask. It confronts me with the big big abyss out there, with the total unimportance of myself. It makes my mind stop thinking but starting to dance when realising that the deeper I look into space, the more I look back in time, until the beginning that current paradigm thinks of as a Big Bang. I realise all that space out there, and I recall my own meditation experiences which were just empty space as well, and I remember that particle physics and subnuclear dimennsions also are about this: just empty space, forms in the void, no lasting substance. And then I wonder what makes the space out there and the space inside that and the space within me different from each other? What is the link between these obvious similiarities? Are these really three different types of a space - or rather just one space? what would it all mean if I, this tiny little human of total and absolute unimportance, would not look out there and look into space and time, and into myself, and into the atom?

Me - I am the link between all these things, I am what gives meaning and relevance to it all. Still microscopically small, still totally unimportant - but still having the grace and greatness to realise all this.

Meaningless? Unimportant? Really...?

Maybe through our eyes the universe looks out at itself, stunned and amazed, smiling and full of joy for all that unlimited potential that it is. Maybe that is the drive of what we call evolution: that the universe increasingly becomes aware of itself. Mind and matter are not different in principle, nor are space and time. Mind is dreaming, mind is dancing with itself. Gary Zukav wrote a very good book on physics back then, called "The Dancing Wu Li Masters". Wu Lik, he said, isn the Chinese word for what we call physics. It means something like "structures of organic energy". I like to think of it like this.

Maybe this helps you to understand why i feel no need and no appetite for religions. I have no use for them, I do not need them, they have nothing of value that they could offer me, they cannot calm my fear in the monents when I may be haunted by this existential terror i spoke about. This terror only goes away when I manage to remind myself that the spac eout there and the spoace inside all is just one and the same space. I may scare back at times from all this void out there - the universe still is a hostile, unforgiving place for human forms to live in. there is nothing romantic in the abyss between the stars and galaxies - it simply frightening, nothing else. The lack of interst it has in my fate, is intimidating at times. Nevertheless it is the one thing I came from, and go back into, and all what I see and all that I can learn, is what I once have been, and once will be. "We all are star stuff", said Carl Sagan. Fearing this would mean to be afraid of one's own home. Wouldn't that be stupid?

Well, now you have my theory, as insubstantive as it is.
Theory? I think I have laid out that it is not even that. theism is wild speculation at best, a guessing game, on the grounds of nothing.

Even if it is wrong, you still can't argue against Christianity and Jesus' message.
Oh, of course i can, and I have. Christianity i have ripped apart, and on Jesus i indicated that I think he was a reasonably man teaching ethic principles that remijnd of Buddhism and that could indeed help people to live without unneeded conflicts and start thinking about themselves, and why they are here. But I will not take the bible and stories of miracles and wonder literally, nor do I accept to ignore that Jesus spoke in the language and cultural symbols of his time and place, the cultural context. we all do. That's why the transmission code and the informational content of old books must be understood to be two different things. to me Jesus was like Siddharta maybe, or Platon. Reasonable teachers, reasonably ethical people, in brief: philosophers.

You can't argue against the divinity of order, or mankind; the greatest order-creating agent known to, well, mankind.

I see that for theistic believers, believing into the existence of theistic creators is kind of an obsession. :) However, it would be appreciated if you stop raising assumptions and speculations on what I can and what I cannot, and what I must and what not. One day i must die - that is all that I must. the rest of these lingual phrases - are serving the purpose of self-reassuring, it seems to me.

And I suppose that describes the constantly evolving nature of religions and the debates of theologists?

Theological debates are worth nothing. It is like two patients in a mental asylum comparing their latest hallucinations with each other. they may imagine rules and orders for sorting them and comparing them - it remains to be about hallucinations. the only thing that is worth being examined is to try to understand how religions have influenced history, and why. that understanding is to be desired, so that we hopefully one day will learn to avoid making the same mistake again and again and again and again.

Religion may not be science per se, but it is worth exploring as much as philosophy is.

Only in so far as a rational approach is used to rip of its mask and reveal its misleading lies and how it enslaves the free thinking of people. Or to reveal in how far the big misgoings of the past were dramatically caused and basing on religion's dogmas. I also must remind you that our understanding of philosphy in the West again is massively influenced and basing on the ancient Greek heritage. thats why it is said that we owe them so much, until today. and when you look at the Greek philosophers, you realise sooner or later that they seem to have based on similiar rules for philosophising than they did for thinking about science. the reason for that is simple. most of their scientists and philosophers were - both in one. there was no strict separation between science and philosphy, and both was conducted pretty much for the purpose of enjoying the anylsis and discussion, to enjoy the thought for the sake of thinking itself. and in the end, philosophy again tries to find a truth understood as something that is not already predetermined and fixed in outcome. religion only is interested in arguing why it must be like it says, and why straying off from that dogma is sinful.

And you see nothing where something may be.
Flying invisible pink elephants, for example.

Tribesman

08-17-10, 07:04 AM

Also, the Nazis got fougzht against and overturned not by philosophical but military means.
Nazi ideology still exists.

No, it is an idelogy that was tailired by just one man to serve his own poltical interest of self-justification for his own power-craving.
Really?
. This was casted into the Quran, an later distrorted a bit by local and super-regional leaders to gain legitimation thorugh the Quran
So its an ideology tailored by one man for his interests that was changed by other men to serve their own interests.
So that means Sky contradicts his own claims within the same passage:doh:

You see it too much through american glasses, trying to talk the problem into a format so that the tools in your american toolbox can "manage" it. But your tools are not sharp enough, because while lacking a hammer you try to bring that nail into the wall by using a saw, saying it is no nail but a piece of wood, cutting it would do the job. but the nail still would not be in that wall afterwards.

Wow , what a crock of.............

AVGWarhawk

08-17-10, 07:32 AM

Lower Manhattan isn't some holy sanctified ground either. Has anyone actually been there? It's filthy, grungy, dirty water hot dogs sold by a swarthy vaguely middle eastern guy, street vendors hawking Twin Towers garbage, plain ol' New York City. There's fast food joints, sushi restaurants, bodegas and crap just like any other downtown. I have no idea why people are trying to turn this into some kind of holy shrine. Build the damn mosque already, just like the million others in NYC.

I don't know bud. I was in lower Manhattan March 28th. I just buried my father in Flushing Cemetery Flushing NY. It was clean and a cop on every corner. There was no horn honking every two seconds. My kids even commented on the cleanliness. Sure, build the mosque but do it somewhere else. Try Harlem! That neighborhood could use a boost.

Your funny...."a swarthy vaguely middle eastern guy"...not stereotyping are ya? :doh:

AVGWarhawk

08-17-10, 07:35 AM

In holland or germany, some years ago, a church gave property to a muslim community, right on the other side of the street, directly opposite to the church. The mosque was build. The Muslims then complained and said the church had to got, it would be an offence to Islam and a discmrination of devout muslims if they go to the mosque and mist watch the chruch while on their way.

A German brothel during the football championship four years ago had an advertising that showed all international flags and a football. First they got intimidating letters. Wheh that did not work, several men described as being looking arabic, started to visit them and intimidating, bullying and threatening girls and guests and the owner, demanding that the Saudi flag had to be removed . the police recommended to comply - in order to not provokate. That there was a serious breaching of he law and threats of violence going on, was totally ignored.

I do not take it for granted that your idea would work, warhawk. Things are worse in Europe, but in america you will be in some years where we already have been some years ago then. In america islam sees that advancing slowly and on the lath of smallest resistence is the best way to spread islam and lulling the natives. :) that's why things are a bit different in ameica and europe. But the relaxed impression in merica, is misleading. the nature of the group pushing the mosque at GZ-project should ring alarm bells. The project is a wanted, cooly calculated confrontation, nothing else.

And that is my point Skybird. If we or anyone is to tolerate this mosque in this very spot then the Muslims should very well tolerate a strip joint across the street. If they wish to enjoy the protection of the Constitution in this matter the folks across the street who want to swing a butt or two would also like that advantage.

Skybird

08-17-10, 08:13 AM

And that is my point Skybird. If we or anyone is to tolerate this mosque in this very spot then the Muslims should very well tolerate a strip joint across the street. If they wish to enjoy the protection of the Constitution in this matter the folks across the street who want to swing a butt or two would also like that advantage.

what they should and what they would, are two very different things since 50 years now.

We have had many guest workers in ngermany, from many nations, and those who stayed, almost all of them integrated well and played by the rules.

Just not the Muslim groups.

Also note that the mosque at GZ has been planned as a wanted and intentional provocation from beginning on. I think I have linked that often enough now, and wasn't it you also setting up that NJP article, mentioning the same names and their radical background?

In these 50 years of - intended - reciprocal gamble, we have given them and given them and given them, all in good faith, and advanced trust. We got nothing back on equal terms. not in our countries, and not in theirs.

AVGWarhawk

08-17-10, 08:20 AM

I think I have linked that often enough now, and wasn't it you also setting up that NJP article, mentioning the same names and their radical background.

No it was not me. I do not care about the radical backgrounds, etc. The mosque in itself at this very location is enough to make me realize this is planned in one form or another. I truly do not feel this is coincidence. I did however mention that a mosque can be built in NY but just find a different less controversial spot. It is really simple. If this building is already drawing fire even before the first brick is layed imagine how it will be when the work does commence.

Tribesman

08-17-10, 08:27 AM

If we or anyone is to tolerate this mosque in this very spot then the Muslims should very well tolerate a strip joint across the street. If they wish to enjoy the protection of the Constitution in this matter the folks across the street who want to swing a butt or two would also like that advantage.
Have they objected to the strip joint round the corner?
After all if strippers, pubs and meat markets(not the strip club kind) are next door, across the street, round the corner and behind the existing mosque and they havn't objected then what is the basis for you saying they won't tolerate it?

Sure, build the mosque but do it somewhere else. Try Harlem! That neighborhood could use a boost.

Are you saying the Harlem mosque isn't big enough and needs to be bigger or that Harlem just needs another mosque.
But anyway Harlem is already in the process of gentrification so does it need an additional boost from downtown property developers?

AVGWarhawk

08-17-10, 08:35 AM

Have they objected to the strip joint round the corner?
After all if strippers, pubs and meat markets(not the strip club kind) are next door, across the street, round the corner and behind the existing mosque and they havn't objected then what is the basis for you saying they won't tolerate it?

Are you saying the Harlem mosque isn't big enough and needs to be bigger or that Harlem just needs another mosque.
But anyway Harlem is already in the process of gentrification so does it need an additional boost from downtown property developers?

Read Skybirds posts on mosques and strip joints. As far as Harlem...you bet it could use a boost. I'm sure from where your sitting you can see how Harlem is looking today. :hmmm:

It is a simple truth that this mosque at this particular location is creating hostilities. That in itself should be enough for anyone to realize something is very wrong with this picture. It seems to be very orchestrated. If the Muslims want to worship in peace...they will not find it at this particular site. Already there are issues and the first bachhoe has not even arrived on site. Just as hate crimes at Jewish Synagouges still happen today crimes of hate will be demonstrated at this mosque for a long time to come.

tater

08-17-10, 09:03 AM

I think the 1st Amendment protects the Mosque from government sanction based on the fact it is a mosque. Don't like it, repeal the 1st.

That said, there were plenty of way they could have avoided this without running afoul the 1st, and they chose not to. Zoning. Historical buildings, etc.

Bloomberg said that as long as the Mosque is not radical, he sees no problem. That's wrong-headed. Aside form the fact that the guy building it is already associated with radical muslims, this could always change—then what?

It's tough, it really is, because we are at war with a group of people who are themselves fighting a religious war against us, and our own laws disallow singling them out based on their misogynistic, regressive, violent religion—not to mention the radical versions of said religion (I was talking about Islam at large ;) ).

AVGWarhawk

08-17-10, 09:12 AM

It's tough, it really is, because we are at war with a group of people who are themselves fighting a religious war against us, and our own laws disallow singling them out based on their misogynistic, regressive, violent religion—not to mention the radical versions of said religion (I was talking about Islam at large ;) ).

This they know and are using this site as pawn. I think this is fairly easy to see.

Tribesman

08-17-10, 09:14 AM

Read Skybirds posts on mosques and strip joints.
Since Sky is bit of a conspiracy nut his claims don't merit much worth in terms of validity. Ever since his rant about blacks and muslims ruining the world cup his posts have near to zero validity.

So read my post, has the strip joint down there been closed or objected to by the current mosque?

I'm sure from where your sitting you can see how Harlem is looking today
Good point, its several weeks since I was in NY:har::har::har::har:

It is a simple truth that this mosque at this particular location is creating hostilities.
In that location?
Isn't it funny that Manhatten is the place where the majority of people surveyed have no objection to the mosque.:hmmm:
So the objections and hostility comes from sensationalist crap like in this topic and the other one about it being built at ground zero and being built
on the graves which is utter bull.
If the Muslims want to worship in peace...they will not find it at this particular site.
Have there been any attacks on the congrgation or building in the year it hads been there?
Should planning permission be denied because in the future perhaps some bigot will go crazy?

Already there are issues and the first bachhoe has not even arrived on site.
When they extended the existing mosque by taking down the walls between it and the neighbouring building when they got that lease too were there issues?

Just as hate crimes at Jewish Synagouges still happen today crimes of hate will be demonstrated at this mosque for a long time to come.
So are you suggesting that synagouges should be banned?
After all if you are comparing crazy bigots doing hate crimes with crazy bigots doing hate crimes in relation to applications for building permits you must be trying to say something.

Sailor Steve

08-17-10, 09:42 AM

Geez, Tribesman!

One time I'm complaining that you contribute nothing to a thread but what I see as an attack, and now you turn around and write one of the most reasoned, well-thought-out posts on this thread!

Be more consistent, so I can decide whether to love you or hate you!
:rotfl2:

Tribesman

08-17-10, 10:10 AM

Be more consistent, so I can decide whether to love you or hate you!

Hold on, you sound like my wife

Aramike

08-17-10, 10:15 AM

But the question was about the Tenth Amendment and its impact on this particular freedom. The Muslims paid the fees, and got the permit. Now you show me where the Constitution gives you the right to stop it.The Constitution doesn't allow for the charging of permit fees in the first place (although that's not unConstitutional). Neither does it mention anything about refunding said fees and revoking said permit.

As I have been saying, the question is not Constitutional.Ninth Amendment. James Madison specifically wanted that one to protect any right that he forgot to list in the first Ten. People have a right to do anything they want, as long as they don't break the law or harm other people's right to do the same. If McDonalds can build a building there then so can the Muslims. Equal protection under the law, it's called.
That's not correct. Euclidean zoning and emminent domain has been ruled Constitutional time and time again.

AVGWarhawk

08-17-10, 10:23 AM

So are you suggesting that synagouges should be banned?
After all if you are comparing crazy bigots doing hate crimes with crazy bigots doing hate crimes in relation to applications for building permits you must be trying to say something.

No, you are suggesting that. No were did I suggest to ban anything. I suggested this is not the best place to put a mosque. Find another less hostile environment in NY city. Please read my post in the beginning of this thread. Your last sentence makes no sense but for some reason Sailor Steve thinks it is great. As you run blindly into the night... if this was such a cut and dry deal why the controversy? Why is the White House involved? Why has Harry Reid trump Obama on this? Say what you like....the issue still remains....this will be an issue now and long after it is built. Then again you read that in the thread that was started about a week ago where I stated this will be an issue for a long time to come. Yes? :hmmm:

http://www.kansascity.com/2010/08/16/2154033/mosque-at-ground-zero-would-be.html

Tribesman

08-17-10, 10:42 AM

No, you are suggesting that.
If you are suggesting that a religious building would cause issues and should not be built because it may be attacked by bigots then hold up examples of bigots attacking religious buildings then you are saying religious buildings must not be built because of bigots.

No were did I suggest to ban anything.
So you are in fact saying the existing mosque can be redeveloped as a bigger mosque in its current location in Manhatten then.

Say what you like....the issue still remains....this will be an issue now and long after it is built.
Yeah like the Shinto shrine with the peace bell.

AVGWarhawk

08-17-10, 10:59 AM

If you are suggesting that a religious building would cause issues and should not be built because it may be attacked by bigots then hold up examples of bigots attacking religious buildings then you are saying religious buildings must not be built because of bigots.

So you are in fact saying the existing mosque can be redeveloped as a bigger mosque in its current location in Manhatten then.

Yeah like the Shinto shrine with the peace bell.

No, I believe that it would probably be in the best interest of those wanting to build this mosque at this particular site think about finding a different location. (I'm not alone on this nor is Obama going to comment on the wisdom of building at such a site...because there is none) I have always stated this building will be an issue for a long time to come. Second, nowhere did I say buildings should not be built because bigots. I posted that certain buildings will be attacked in hate crime activities and this mosque will probably suffer the same hate crime activity. Probably more so. Under the law they can build. I however can not support that mosque at this location. I do not care if it pre-existed. It is simply insensative. It has created controversy with the highest in the land.

So what are you suggesting? Insensativity does not play a roll here? Shove political correctness and just build?

Aramike

08-17-10, 11:02 AM

From AVG's link:
America is a free country where you can build whatever you want — but not anywhere. That’s why we have zoning laws. No liquor store near a school, no strip malls where they offend local sensibilities.

These restrictions are for reasons of aesthetics. Others are for more profound reasons of common decency and respect for the sacred. No commercial tower over Gettysburg, no convent at Auschwitz — and no mosque at ground zero.

Build it anywhere but there.

The governor of New York offered to help find land to build the mosque elsewhere. A mosque really seeking to build bridges, Rauf’s ostensible hope for the structure, would accept the offer. It was refused.Gotta love Krauthammer. :salute:

AVGWarhawk

08-17-10, 11:04 AM

A place is made sacred by a widespread belief that it was visited by the miraculous or the transcendent (Lourdes, the Temple Mount), by the presence there once of great nobility and sacrifice (Gettysburg), or by the blood of martyrs and the indescribable suffering of the innocent (Auschwitz).
When we speak of ground zero as hallowed ground, what we mean is that it belongs to those who suffered and died there — and that such ownership obliges us, the living, to preserve the dignity and memory of the place, never allowing it to be forgotten, trivialized or misappropriated.
That’s why Disney’s early ’90s proposal to build an American history theme park near Manassas Battlefield was defeated by a broad coalition fearing vulgarization of the Civil War. It’s why the commercial viewing tower built right on the border of Gettysburg was taken down by the Park Service. It’s why while no one objects to Japanese cultural centers, the idea of putting one up at Pearl Harbor would be offensive.
And why Pope John Paul II ordered the Carmelite nuns to leave the convent they had established at Auschwitz. He was in no way devaluing their heartfelt mission to pray for the souls of the dead. He was teaching them a lesson in respect: This is not your place, it belongs to others. However pure your voice, better to let silence reign.
Even Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who denounced opponents of the proposed 15-story mosque and Islamic center as tramplers on religious freedom, asked the mosque organizers “to show some special sensitivity to the situation.” Yet, as columnist Rich Lowry pointedly noted, the government has no business telling churches how to conduct their business, shape their message, or show “special sensitivity” to anyone about anything. Bloomberg was inadvertently conceding the claim of those he excoriates for opposing the mosque, namely, that ground zero is unlike any other place and therefore unique criteria govern what can be done there.
Bloomberg’s implication is clear: If the proposed mosque were controlled by “insensitive” Islamist radicals either excusing or celebrating 9/11, he would not support its construction.
But then, why not? By the mayor’s own expansive view of religious freedom, by what right do we dictate the message of any mosque? There’s no guarantee this couldn’t happen in the future. Religious institutions in this country are autonomous. Who is to say that the mosque won’t one day hire an Anwar al-Aulaqi — spiritual mentor to the Fort Hood shooter and the Christmas Day bomber, and one-time imam at the Virginia mosque attended by two of the 9/11 terrorists?
An Aulaqi preaching in Virginia is a security problem. An Aulaqi preaching at ground zero is a sacrilege.
Location matters. ground zero is the site of the greatest mass murder in American history — perpetrated by Muslims of a particular Islamist orthodoxy in whose cause they died and in whose name they killed.
Of course that strain represents a minority of Muslims. Islam is no more intrinsically Islamist than present-day Germany is Nazi — yet despite contemporary Germany’s innocence, no German of good will would think of proposing a German cultural center at, say, Treblinka.
Which makes you wonder about the good will behind Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf’s proposal. This man has called U.S. policy “an accessory to the crime” of 9/11 and, when asked whether Hamas is a terrorist organization, replied, “I’m not a politician. ... The issue of terrorism is a very complex question.”
America is a free country where you can build whatever you want — but not anywhere. That’s why we have zoning laws. No liquor store near a school, no strip malls where they offend local sensibilities.
These restrictions are for reasons of aesthetics. Others are for more profound reasons of common decency and respect for the sacred. No commercial tower over Gettysburg, no convent at Auschwitz — and no mosque at ground zero.
Build it anywhere but there.
The governor of New York offered to help find land to build the mosque elsewhere. A mosque really seeking to build bridges, Rauf’s ostensible hope for the structure, would accept the offer. It was refused.
© 2010, The Washington Post Writers Group

To reach Charles Krauthammer, send e-mail to letters@ charleskrauthammer.com.

Posted on Mon, Aug. 16, 2010 10:15 PM

Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2010/08/16/2154033/mosque-at-ground-zero-would-be.html#ixzz0wsbmIseZ

tater

08-17-10, 11:40 AM

I think that in fact this mosque is getting POSITIVE special treatment because of religion. THAT, I have a problem with.

Would, for example, the Westborough (sp?) Baptist Church have had any problems? (assuming their inbreed congregation could cobble up enough money to buy a hotdog stand in NYC, let alone a large parcel of land) That is the "god hates fags" church.

Think THAT would manage to get through zoning in NYC? Or would they have found SOME reason to disallow them—say in the same area as Stonewall in the Village.

My guess is that "god hates fags" in the Village would manage to get disallowed using the same legal methods used to ALLOW a mosque.

mookiemookie

08-17-10, 11:49 AM

When we speak of ground zero as hallowed ground, what we mean is that it belongs to those who suffered and died there — and that such ownership obliges us, the living, to preserve the dignity and memory of the place, never allowing it to be forgotten, trivialized or misappropriated. Oh give it a rest, Krauthammer. How much of Lower Manhattan needs to meet the approval of the 9/11 victims/families of victims? Does every bodega need to include a picture of an eagle crying over a burning twin towers for it to be built? Does the Subway sandwich shop need to give a portion of its proceeds to the NYFD?

Who is to say that the mosque won’t one day hire an Anwar al-Aulaqi — spiritual mentor to the Fort Hood shooter and the Christmas Day bomber, and one-time imam at the Virginia mosque attended by two of the 9/11 terrorists? What the hell does that have to do with anything? Whos to say the church that no one would have a problem with if it were built there would spawn another Timothy McVeigh? Whos to say!? We need to start using "Who's to say!?!?! OMG Think of the children!" as our basis for handing out building permits?

America is a free country where you can build whatever you want — but not anywhere. That’s why we have zoning laws. No liquor store near a school, no strip malls where they offend local sensibilities. And this place passed zoning. It's got city permits.

Barf.

tater

08-17-10, 11:58 AM

Yes, it passed NYC zoning. The point is should it have?

Again, as long as this didn't get special PC treatment because it's muslim, then you are right, NYC decided what they wanted, we should all get over it.

But I have to say that if it was some Christian hate-church (the worst Christian church like those "god hates fags" guys are pretty much in line with mainstream Islam, tolerance wise), it would not get permission in the Village, for example. They'd have found some reason to deny it.

As long as the Mosque didn't get special treatment (so NYC could look like they bend over backwards to be tolerant of the hateful religion responsible for 9-11), it's NYC's decision, and they clearly have spoken.

Tribesman

08-17-10, 11:58 AM

I however can not support that mosque at this location.
You don't have to support it, but unless you have some legal grounds to oppose it then tough luck on the opposition front.
But since it isn't actually at the WTC site how far from the site should mosques be prohibited, obviously a couple of blocks ain't enough. Would a ten block radius be sufficient? Maybe draw a line along Canal and say no Mosques below this ? Maybe close all mosques in Manhatten or in NYC.
Though of course any ofthat would be unconstitutional just like closing the shrines was when Pearl Harbour was still only part of a territory

nowhere did I say buildings should not be built because bigots. I posted that certain buildings will be attacked in hate crime activities and this mosque will probably suffer the same hate crime activity
You object to the building and say it will probably be attacked, bringing that aspect of thought into a topic where you are objecting to the building is saying part of your objection is because the building may be attacked.

I do not care if it pre-existed.
So you only care once the "liberal" media and politicians build a controversy.

It has created controversy with the highest in the land.
You mean the created controversy has created controversy which then feeds upon itself.

So what are you suggesting? Insensativity does not play a roll here? Shove political correctness and just build?
Of course insensitivity plays a roll, which is why it should be left to go ahead.

Gotta love Krauthammer.

Is that because he's as thick as pig excrement?
From AVG's link:
"That’s why we have zoning laws."
Point proved Krauthammer is dumb.:haha:
"It’s why while no one objects to Japanese cultural centers, the idea of putting one up at Pearl Harbor would be offensive."
Really dumb.:har::har::har:

Tribesman

08-17-10, 12:03 PM

Yes, it passed NYC zoning. The point is should it have?
What possible grounds can they have refused on without facing a constitutional challenge they would be bound to lose?

Skybird

08-17-10, 12:07 PM

No, I believe that it would probably be in the best interest of those wanting to build this mosque at this particular site think about finding a different location. (I'm not alone on this nor is Obama going to comment on the wisdom of building at such a site...because there is none)
But building it in tis and no other pqalce is the intention behind it. Ifd oyu think they do not know that they are raising an issue, then you most likely are wrong. the challenge is absolutely intentionally. It is no mispercpetion, and it is no niavety of theirs, and no misclaculation. It is a plan.

I have always stated this building will be an issue for a long time to come.
Yes. Right that is the purpose of that building, in that place, and in no other. ;)

tater

08-17-10, 12:17 PM

What possible grounds can they have refused on without facing a constitutional challenge they would be bound to lose?

Zoning? There would be no Constitutional issue. Building permits are statutory, not a "Right." Zoning could come up with any reason they wanted, they do so all the time. Zoning laws have plenty of wiggle to allow the city in question pretty broad control over what goes where. Really. In addition, the historical buildings guys made (and make, every day) 100% arbitrary rulings. They allowed the mosque because the extant building was not "architecturally interesting" and could therefor be torn down. That is 100% subjective. Had they wanted to deny, they'd have said the 1851 (whatever it is) building on the site is important. Game over. They do this all the time.

Anyone who has ever dealt with US zoning officials, or neighborhood associations, or historic preservation boards knows that what I'm saying is true. They can basically rule as they see fit, and you're beholden to them.

Again, my only problem is iof they gave the mosque a pass they would not give ALL other comers. IF they would have denied permits for anyone else, then they got special treatment---and that would violate the 1st Amendment (establishment).

Webster

08-17-10, 01:16 PM

no one opposes muslums from building a mosque, there are hundreds of them that were built all over new york but to those who support building this mosque at ground zero, IMO then you have to also support a nazi monument at the concentration camps celebrating the killing of the jews and you must support a monument being built at pearl harbor celebrating the attack on our base there since they would symbolise the exact same purpose for being built, to cellebrate a victory over your enemy. and you can deny it all you want but this mosque is being built at this site for the sole reason to become a monument to the terrorists victory over america at that site, the Imam said it himself that he chose that site specifically because it would overlook the site of 9/11

and as for the private money being used to build the mosque, they have no money as of this moment, the Imam has only $18,000 which probably isnt enough to even cover the building permits but it has been reported that the US goverment will give them several million dollars to help build it through a goverment grant program. the remaining money will almost certainly come from terrorist orginazations since the modderate muslum groups have denied to fund it saying it is in bad taste to build there.

do those who speak about this as a religeous tollerance issue really doubt that this building will not be a muslum extremists tourist attraction to come see the site of the great victory over the great satin America. "come to pray to Ala at the very site where our brothers martered themselves for our cause" will be the banner they will hang over the door.

if you cant see this then you should go bring your family on a vacation to Iran and see if your "tollerance" will keep you out of jail or from being beheaded just for being an American. see what the muslum extremists really think about your warm and fuzzy tollerance as they laugh at you.

Moeceefus

08-17-10, 01:17 PM

mookiemookie

08-17-10, 01:26 PM

Have you actually been there?

Yep.

AVGWarhawk

08-17-10, 01:34 PM

Webster

08-17-10, 01:48 PM

Oh come on Webster...it is a community center.

open your eyes AVG and look in to the background of this Imam and not just what he says in english but what he really says when he is talking to non americans.

if you still dissagree then i guess we dissagree on this but he tells the west what they want to hear but then says the opposite when speaking to others

i have no doubt this man wishes harm to america

AVGWarhawk

08-17-10, 01:51 PM

open your eyes AVG and look in to the background of this Imam and not just what he says in english but what he really says when he is talking to non americans.

if you still dissagree then i guess we dissagree on this but he tells the west what they want to hear but then says the opposite when speaking to others

i have no doubt this man wishes harm to america

I was kidding Webster! I see this a big HA HA at the US. Others not so much.

Tribesman

08-17-10, 02:31 PM

Zoning? There would be no Constitutional issue.
On what grounds can it be blocked?
None.
What are the reasons people want to block it...not legal ones are they.

Building permits are statutory, not a "Right."
It becomes an infringement of rights when you apply the laws in a manner that is not generally applicable, thats why the "but its zoning so it isn't the constitution" angle is a crock of crap as its the follow on stage which brings the constitution into play.
Simple steps ain't it , you can't keep saying but #1 isn't an issue as its only #1 in a situation where #1 must inevitably be followed by #2 and #2 will without doubt say that #1 is a violation of the constitution

there are hundreds of them that were built all over new york but to those who support building this mosque at ground zero,
errrrrrrr....hey breaking news, it isn't at ground zero:doh:

do those who speak about this as a religeous tollerance issue really doubt that this building will not be a muslum extremists tourist attraction to come see the site of the great victory over the great satin America.
Thats a material issue. I do find the weft to be unsuitable for a construction site though and if it is encouraged you may well end up with a great stain.

if you cant see this then you should go bring your family on a vacation to Iran and see if your "tollerance" will keep you out of jail or from being beheaded just for being an American.
I never realised Iran had a law which meant being American was a capital offence punishable by decapitation. you really should gather some examples of this and send it to the government so thay can act:up:

tater

08-17-10, 03:45 PM

The trick with zoning or historic places is that it is already arbitrary in many cases already. The latter board could absolutely have said the structure was "historic" with ZERO indication that the real motive might be something else. "it has unique moldings and must be preserved."

Done.

I'm not saying that would not be an abuse of the 1st, it would be. But it would be impossible to prove, so it would stand up.

As I said, such practice is already common.

Tribesman

08-17-10, 05:48 PM

The trick with zoning or historic places is that it is already arbitrary in many cases already.
Zoning may seem arbitary but unless its applicable it still fails the test.

The latter board could absolutely have said the structure was "historic" with ZERO indication that the real motive might be something else. "it has unique moldings and must be preserved."
Which wouldn't have shut down the mosque and wouldn't prevent the same people doing the redevelopment into a bigger mosque/communtiy center

So......
Done.
.......Not in the slightest.

I'm not saying that would not be an abuse of the 1st, it would be.
Well done for facing that:up:
Thats the problem, throwing the constitution out the window to deal with some hysteria whipped up over a pile of false representations would be an insult to the nation and a gift wrapped prize to the fundy nuts.
Several people have written that allowing the development is amounting to a victory for OBL or whoever runs that small silly organisation nowadays but the reverse is true, stopping the building would be a victory for al-qaida.

tater

08-17-10, 06:09 PM

(I've always said there is no way to ban that building because it is a mosque because of the 1st. In every thread/discussion here, I've been 100% consistent)

Stopping the building within the letter of the law would be just fine. If a historic preservation board---which is in effect given broad latitude to discriminate on any basis they feel like due to the 100% subjective nature of their rulings---said the building could not be demolished, then they'd have a 2 story mosque, or whatever the building is. Or they'd have to buy someplace else.

Zoning had some latitude as well to have a say I'm sure.

Since both (particularly neighborhood covenants and historic preservation boards) have some entirely subjective latitude, there is no constitutional issue (legally) without some proof of conspiracy. Failure to get approval isn't enough, you'd need proof they decided the way they did to cancel a MOSQUE.

Note that if instead, they let it slide BECAUSE it was a mosque, that will bite them in the ass, too. Someone with a similar building who ever gets denied can claim "you let the mosque tear down THAT 1851 building, why is my porno superstore being persecuted against!

Note that in NYC, such stores WERE persecuted in Times Squiare in the name of development.

I presume you must also be an enemy of "eminent domain" laws (I certainly am) to be consistent.

Anyway, as I've said, I don't like the idea of any mosque, frankly, they represent misogyny, and backwardness. That said, if they own the property, they can do with it as they please---as long as their existence in that place doesn't prevent anyone from using their, nearby property for anything that THEY please.

Tribesman

08-17-10, 06:45 PM

If a historic preservation board---which is in effect given broad latitude to discriminate on any basis they feel like due to the 100% subjective nature of their rulings---said the building could not be demolished, then they'd have a 2 story mosque
A ruling on historic preservation wouldn't mean the building couldn't be demolished, it would just mean that certain specific elements have to be included in any redevelopment, since the only remotely notable feature was the fascade on one section of the frontage of the properties it means that even if the lame attempt had succeeded you would have a big new mosque with a little brick and stone feature on one part of the front of it.

Zoning had some latitude as well to have a say I'm sure.
Can you think of any possibility of a district with zoning for mixed development being able to find some way of blocking a building on zoning grounds when it fits that zones criteria?

Someone with a similar building who ever gets denied can claim "you let the mosque tear down THAT 1851 building, why is my porno superstore being persecuted against!
Note that in NYC, such stores WERE persecuted in Times Squiare in the name of development.

Remember how much of a dump times square was.
Besides which all those evictions were down to usage weren't they, generally applicable so its all hunky dory and legal and nowhere near unconstitutional.
The only way that could work in this case and avoid the constitutional pitfall would be to ban all religious establishments from the district.....which itself opens up another big constitutional pitfall.

I presume you must also be an enemy of "eminent domain" laws (I certainly am) to be consistent.

Where would eminent domain even enter this issue?

The Third Man

08-17-10, 09:46 PM

As a counter point if you aren't muslim you cannot enter the entire city of Mecca.

Not trying to compare the US to the Saudi state but.....sinse when is my political left in favor of religious freedom?

Sailor Steve

08-18-10, 12:50 AM

you must support a monument being built at pearl harbor celebrating the attack on our base there since they would symbolise the exact same purpose for being built, to cellebrate a victory over your enemy.
Already answered that one, and you're way off base.

and you can deny it all you want but this mosque is being built at this site for the sole reason to become a monument to the terrorists victory over america at that site, the Imam said it himself that he chose that site specifically because it would overlook the site of 9/11
Has anyone here actually tried to deny that? You're barking up the wrong tree.

and as for the private money being used to build the mosque, they have no money as of this moment, the Imam has only $18,000 which probably isnt enough to even cover the building permits but it has been reported that the US goverment will give them several million dollars to help build it through a goverment grant program. the remaining money will almost certainly come from terrorist orginazations since the modderate muslum groups have denied to fund it saying it is in bad taste to build there.
If the grant program is legitimate then they have to give it to whoever applies. That's the law. That the other money will "almost certainly" come from a terrorist organization is reprehensible. The problem is that we don't issue permits based on where money "might" come from, or even where it does come from.

do those who speak about this as a religeous tollerance issue really doubt that this building will not be a muslum extremists tourist attraction to come see the site of the great victory over the great satin America. "come to pray to Ala at the very site where our brothers martered themselves for our cause" will be the banner they will hang over the door.

if you cant see this then you should go bring your family on a vacation to Iran and see if your "tollerance" will keep you out of jail or from being beheaded just for being an American. see what the muslum extremists really think about your warm and fuzzy tollerance as they laugh at you.

And that's what I meant when I said you're barking up the wrong tree. Has one person here claimed it was about religious tolerance? Not that I've read. What it's about is whether the New York zoning commission has the legal right to issue the permit. Should they have? Not my call, or yours.

But since you raised the question of tolerance, what do you suggest we do? Drive all muslims from our shores? Act the way they do? Throw out what made America in the first place?

We react to acts that hurt us, not to beliefs that might. We have to prevent attempts on our freedoms, and be vigilant, but do you suggest that include denying religious freedom to those who disagree with us? If they turn violent, fight them. Otherwise you destroy the very thing you're trying to protect.

I oppose this mosque as much as any of you, simply because I agree the motivations of the people who want to build it are evil. But the law provides equality, no matter how we dislike it. Find a legal reason to deny it? Sure. And if that happens I'll support it. But for now the law has said they can build it, and for now that's what we have to live with.

Aramike

08-18-10, 02:30 AM

Oh give it a rest, Krauthammer. How much of Lower Manhattan needs to meet the approval of the 9/11 victims/families of victims? Does every bodega need to include a picture of an eagle crying over a burning twin towers for it to be built? Does the Subway sandwich shop need to give a portion of its proceeds to the NYFD?Wow, I can hardly believe you're serious...

So let's straighten this out, shall we? You wish to equate a sub sandwich shop with a monument to the religion which spurned the attach on the WTC?

Really?

Can you get over your party-line liberalism for just one second and be a decent human being and American??? When did your ability to independently understand an issue cease? Or better, do you even like the nation you live in? Does the Constitution factor into that?

And finally, do you believe that if the Constitution were completely destroyed due to Constitutional means, that would be okay because the Constitution allows it and who's to argue with the spirit of the law when the letter of it is so clearly more important?

You post was one of the most disgusting rants I've ever read on here - moreso than some of the obvious flames because yours was written with the malice of foresight that somehow believes that building a sandwich shop equates to an icon of a religion which by and large celebrated the attacks of 9/11.

The greatest threat to this country are not those who openly wish to destroy it - it is those, apparently like yourself, who wish to extend them the protections as those who embrace it ... and for what? Just to believe that you're progressive?

Again, wow. At least those such as Sailor Steve had the decency to approach the issue from a legal standpoint rather than a "you shouldn't be taken seriously if you're on the other side" opinion.

I happen to think that the victims of 9/11 have a right to be sensitive to this issue. Apperantly sensitivity to you ceases if it doesn't involve gays getting married or pregnant minors desiring abortions.

Unbelievable. I bet you didn't even bother to actually consider the article in question because you were too busy formulating a poorly conceived response.

Tribesman

08-18-10, 02:32 AM

Not trying to compare the US to the Saudi state but.....
You are comparing it to the Saudi state.

Aramike missed out on using the "why do you hate freedom?" line.
He is kinda right about the independantly understanding the issue, as he is demonstrating how independant of understanding the issue he is.
I suppose his lack of independant understanding prevents him from seeing how crap Krauhammers article really was

Aramike

08-18-10, 02:33 AM

Skybird

08-18-10, 03:41 AM

We react to acts that hurt us, not to beliefs that might. We have to prevent attempts on our freedoms, and be vigilant, but do you suggest that include denying religious freedom to those who disagree with us? If they turn violent, fight them. Otherwise you destroy the very thing you're trying to protect.

Infiltration tsctics thus are totally acceptable to you since they are not violent and are not causing riots, and getting destroyed over several decades from within is something you readily submit to.

Have you ever taken into account that their tactics have been choosen right because of this willingness of you and others to let things slide?

They tell your what they are doing right in your face. They publish it in their home countries. And your reaction is to tell them that they are free to do so.

Get real. You are under a legalised siege. Which means the legals rules themselves are a problem in this case. And I have explained why this is so: that constitutions and law systems that base on a separation between religion and politics are totally helpless against the attack of somebody who does not subscrbe to this separation and actiovely denies it, that way pusihing his poltical goals under protection of relgious freedom, making his poltiical ambitions unavailable from criticsm and opposition that way.

And you are the perfect illustration for this explanation being true, Steve.

Come to your senses. You often gave the impression that you are more reasonable than this. This is not the founding time of your nation. This is the present. And the present is such that you are already under attack and are losing the future. Not your future, but that of your children and children's children.

-----

On ground zero, there is a solution how it can be stopped. Hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers could rally and seize the place, day for day. If the police disperse them, thexy can come back from the other direction. Day for day. Civil disobedience. Having the single letter of the laws on your side, is one thing. Being able to implement it, is something different - and the latter can be prevented, if the people want it. Twenty years ago, a certain tyranny in Eastgerman brought down to its knees and finally got overthrown this way, peacefully. Becasue the thousands and thisuands who first assembled regularly every Monday, later marched in and bloicked the streets every day, were absolutely right when they shouted the slogan of theirs: "Wir sind das Volk" - We are the people. Americans (as well as Europeans regarding problems with Islam ineurope) should rally in the streets and block this thing from happening - at least when they are real about "defending freedom".

Becasue this is what the ongpoing buolding of Islamic presence in the West is about: destroying western concepts of freedom - not by weapons and wars, but smiles - so that the victim does not dare to resist: that would be uncivilised, that would be unreasonable.

Come to your senses. Wake up. A friendly, smiling, polite, well-dressed bully - still is a bully.

Moeceefus

08-18-10, 03:53 AM

We have the advantage here Sky. Its not infiltration. They are already here and have been. We can give the appearance of acceptance and tolerance while keeping a watchfull eye. This site is likely to bring in all kinds of undesirables we've been looking for. Its like keeping your friends close and your enemies closer. I'd rather them have a gathering spot out in the open rather than being scattered and elusive. I'm willing to bet this community center will lead to many more arrests and foiled plots. Besides, if we did as you suggest and go all out war against a religion it would only benefit them and we'd lose many of our powerful friends. This war will/can only be won through intelligence, diplomacy, and modernization.

Tribesman

08-18-10, 04:11 AM

On ground zero, there is a solution how it can be stopped. Hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers could rally and seize the place, day for day.
:har::har::har::har::har::har::har::har::har::har:

errrrrrr...it isn't at ground zero .

It is however in Manhatten and thats the one place where people are not all hysterical over the hyped up bull people have been fed.
So what is called for is for a bunck of people not from Manhatten to go there and piss of the locals by blocking major streets and hundreds of business premisis.

Earth calling skybird, return to reality.

BTW anyone see the latest crazy "Muslims spit in the face of 9/11 victims" crap from that hate filled bigot who runs "Americans against hate" that was broadcast on FoxNews?

mookiemookie

08-18-10, 07:56 AM

Wow, I can hardly believe you're serious...

So let's straighten this out, shall we? You wish to equate a sub sandwich shop with a monument to the religion which spurned the attach on the WTC?

Really?

Can you get over your party-line liberalism for just one second and be a decent human being and American??? When did your ability to independently understand an issue cease? Or better, do you even like the nation you live in? Does the Constitution factor into that?

And finally, do you believe that if the Constitution were completely destroyed due to Constitutional means, that would be okay because the Constitution allows it and who's to argue with the spirit of the law when the letter of it is so clearly more important?

You post was one of the most disgusting rants I've ever read on here - moreso than some of the obvious flames because yours was written with the malice of foresight that somehow believes that building a sandwich shop equates to an icon of a religion which by and large celebrated the attacks of 9/11.

The greatest threat to this country are not those who openly wish to destroy it - it is those, apparently like yourself, who wish to extend them the protections as those who embrace it ... and for what? Just to believe that you're progressive?

Again, wow. At least those such as Sailor Steve had the decency to approach the issue from a legal standpoint rather than a "you shouldn't be taken seriously if you're on the other side" opinion.

I happen to think that the victims of 9/11 have a right to be sensitive to this issue. Apperantly sensitivity to you ceases if it doesn't involve gays getting married or pregnant minors desiring abortions.

Unbelievable. I bet you didn't even bother to actually consider the article in question because you were too busy formulating a poorly conceived response.

I'm sorry you feel that way.

I was living in Connecticut when 9/11 happened. I donated blood and money to the Red Cross on 9/12. I have sympathy for those that were affected by the murders that day.

What I do not have sympathy for is people that use the 9/11 victims to push their political and ideological agendas. You (the general "you" not you specifically) hate Muslims. Fine. You'd rather see Islam banned from America. Alright. Don't disguise that by hiding behind the 9/11 victims. Don't say you're doing this out of sensitivity towards them. Be honest with yourself and your arguments. People like Krauthammer are deserving of all the snark and scorn and disdain I can muster because people like him are the ones using the 9/11 murder victims as a way of tearing down liberals or whoever else he's politically opposed to in order to sell column space.

If you want to talk outrage and insensitivity towards 9/11 victims, start by writing your congressmen (both R and D) and telling them that you're disgusted by their bullpucky vote to not extend medical benefits to 9/11 first responders who are now suffering respiratory and all other kinds of health problems due to the conditions that day. No? Well, I guess hero worship only goes so far when you're using it as a political drum to beat.

I seem to recall it was you who stuck to the "they want special rights" argument when it came to gay marriage. Well how is it that 9/11 victims get special rights to veto the zoning laws of New York City? How is that they get special rights to say that the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment doesn't apply if you're Muslim?

Of course I like the nation I live in. I'm trying to keep it the nation that I love, also. And in order to do that, you follow the laws of the land. You don't get to throw them out when they don't suit your particular caprices. This is what folks like the Tea Party are the joke they are - they scream about the Constitution being the supreme law of the land, but yet they want to discard it and worm around it when it comes to an issue that doesn't suit their spun up political issue of the day. It doesn't work that way. You either stick to the Constitution at all times, or you're an intellectual hypocrite.

I don't like the idea of there being this mosque built 2 blocks from the WTC site. I do believe it's being done as an "in your face". But are you going to shred the Constitution to see that it doesn't get built? Burn down the village to save it? I don't happen to buy into that.

SteamWake

08-18-10, 09:21 AM

Careful what you say ;)

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, called for an investigation of those who are protesting the building of the Ground Zero Mosque on Tuesday. She told San Francisco's KCBS radio.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/watercooler/2010/aug/17/audio-rep-pelosi-calls-investigation-wtc-mosque-op/

Wonder if She and Reed had words :haha:

mookiemookie

08-18-10, 09:40 AM

Careful what you say ;)

http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/watercooler/2010/aug/17/audio-rep-pelosi-calls-investigation-wtc-mosque-op/

Wonder if She and Reed had words :haha:

I wonder if she thinks before she speaks. My guess is no. What a maroon.

SteamWake

08-18-10, 10:32 AM

;)

Demos said the stalled church plans are an "outrage," considering New York City's Landmarks Preservation Committee vote in early August to deny historical status protection to the building where the mosque is set to be built, clearing the way for the project to move forward.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/08/17/ground-zero-church-archdiocese-says-officials-forgot/

Tribesman

08-18-10, 10:39 AM

Demos said the stalled church plans are an "outrage,"

Yet knows its completely unrelated yet tries to link it at every oppertunity

Tchocky

08-18-10, 11:14 AM

I don't think it helps at all that the area is still being called "ground zero". Talk about raising emotions that aren't helping.
It's hard to shake the idea that it's not a smoking pile of rubble when I hear about ground zero this and ground zero that.

Think I'm somewhere in the middle here, I don't like the idea of doing it, but the US would be doing itself a disservice by using extraordinary measures to stop it. If this means you're under siege, then so be it. Pass the ration basket, Ma.

Tribesman

08-18-10, 01:55 PM

I don't think it helps at all that the area is still being called "ground zero". Talk about raising emotions that aren't helping.

But its that element that makes the hysteria which makes it an issue.
Possibly the reason many people in Manhatten are not joining with the media fueled outrage is that they have known for months that the "ground zero mosque" isn't at ground zero.

AVGWarhawk

08-18-10, 02:17 PM

But its that element that makes the hysteria which makes it an issue.
Possibly the reason many people in Manhatten are not joining with the media fueled outrage is that they have known for months that the "ground zero mosque" isn't at ground zero.

If the atom bomb was off by three blocks when dropped on Hiroshima would it have made a difference? :hmmm:

antikristuseke

08-18-10, 02:27 PM

A mosque is not a nuclear demolition device:doh:

AVGWarhawk

08-18-10, 02:43 PM

A mosque is not a nuclear demolition device:doh:

I never said it was. It was an analogy.

Skybird

08-18-10, 03:22 PM

A mosque is not a nuclear demolition device:doh:

It is a cultural demolition device.

Skybird

08-18-10, 03:26 PM

I don't think it helps at all that the area is still being called "ground zero". Talk about raising emotions that aren't helping.
It's hard to shake the idea that it's not a smoking pile of rubble when I hear about ground zero this and ground zero that.

Yep. Let's ignore history, and relativise the horror of the past. that way lessons must not belearned, but wishful imaginations can be taken for real. Pearl Harbour is a pearl amongst Japanese harbours, and Ground Zero is the starting line for peace and freedom coming by the new multicultural world order of Islam. :up:

In the end, terror and mass murder is just an invitation for bilateral communication. :yeah:

Moeceefus

08-18-10, 03:30 PM

Yep. Let's ignore history, and relativise the horror of the past. that way lessons must not belearned, but wishful imaginations can be taken for real.

Isn't that what they do in Germany? :O:

Skybird

08-18-10, 03:38 PM

Isn't that what they do in Germany? :O:
Yes. In 80 years we had two totalitarian dictatorships, first the Nazis, then the Soviets. Nevertheless many are eager two embrace totalitarian tyrannies No. 3 and 4: the EU, and Islam.

There is nothing new under the sun - just things that got forgotten.

Tribesman

08-18-10, 03:51 PM

If the atom bomb was off by three blocks when dropped on Hiroshima would it have made a difference?
If someone was building in Yamagushi and called it Hiroshima for sensationalist effect would it be clearer to you?

Yes. In 80 years we had two totalitarian dictatorships, first the Nazis, then the Soviets.
And Sky wants a third, his own personal dreamland:rotfl2:
but wishful imaginations can be taken for real
Like magic non existant legislation that really exists if you make up the words yourself.:doh:

Aramike

08-18-10, 09:11 PM

I don't like the idea of there being this mosque built 2 blocks from the WTC site. I do believe it's being done as an "in your face". But are you going to shred the Constitution to see that it doesn't get built? Burn down the village to save it? I don't happen to buy into that. At least you can admit to having a feeling about it rather than hiding behind some Constutionality which doesn't exist, or rhetoric implying that only a bunch of flag-waving hicks are against this construction. The courts have ruled again and again that zoning and restricting building for the public's interest is completely Constitutional.

Here's one: should NAMBLA be allowed to build a headquarters across from a boy's school? What if they were issued permits?

By the way, the fact that you think this is nothing more than a bunch of political hacks attempting to push an agenda doesn't jive. Polls have shown an overwhelming majority of New Yorkers do not want this built. Considering that the politics of New Yorkers are anything but a right wing, anti-Islam agenda, calling it political makes little sense.

This is about decency.

mookiemookie

08-18-10, 09:24 PM

At least you can admit to having a feeling about it rather than hiding behind some Constutionality which doesn't exist, or rhetoric implying that only a bunch of flag-waving hicks are against this construction. The courts have ruled again and again that zoning and restricting building for the public's interest is completely Constitutional.

Here's one: should NAMBLA be allowed to build a headquarters across from a boy's school? What if they were issued permits?

By the way, the fact that you think this is nothing more than a bunch of political hacks attempting to push an agenda doesn't jive. Polls have shown an overwhelming majority of New Yorkers do not want this built. Considering that the politics of New Yorkers are anything but a right wing, anti-Islam agenda, calling it political makes little sense.

This is about decency.

My friend, it boils down to this: you don't like it, and I don't like it. But we can't take the easy way out. You either believe in freedom of religion and freedom of speech or you don't. It's easy to support those when they agree with your beliefs. Its hard to support them when they don't. But that's what makes us strong in our convictions - supporting our constitutional ideals even when they're at odds with our personal beliefs. Our Constitution and our nation are indeed strong enough to survive extending those freedoms to all. The founding fathers would not have ensured those freedoms if they believed it wouldn't. This is what ultimately makes us great.

And New Yorkers agree with that:

When asked if they "support or oppose the proposal to build the Cordoba House," New Yorkers said they oppose the facility, which is expected to cost $100 million, by a 63-27 percent margin. At the same time, by a 64-to-28 percent margin, New Yorkers say Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf has the constitutional right to build it.

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2010/08/18/poll-new-yorkers-oppose-mosque-recognize-constitutionality/

Sailor Steve

08-18-10, 11:53 PM

Aramike

08-19-10, 12:39 AM

You want to oppose it. That's your right as well, but you keep arguing that they shouldn't have been allowed to make that decision. On what legal grounds do you base that judgement?Where have I argued that?

My argument is that they made the WRONG decision, and a reversal should be considered.Completely separate question. Again it would the the decision of a zoning board, not of you or me.How is this separate?

I'm taking the EXACT same situation, giving different conditions, and asking whether or not consideration in said scenario should be given towards overturning a zoning boards decision.Your opposition is about decency. Whether it happens or not is about the law. You seem to be equating the two, and that's what doesn't jive. Only half right. Yes, my opposition is about decency and therefore the decision should be reconsidered. Somewhere along the way your side has decided that since the board has made such a decision, it would be Constitutionally impossible to reverse it, which is rubbish.

Am I saying that a zoning commission does not have the legal right to make the decision? No. Please provide where. My point is that, in my opinion, it was the wrong decision and, also in my opinion, it should be reconsidered.

Somewhere along the way you've decided to apply a Constitutional argument which, according to decades of caselaw, doesn't apply.

Aramike

08-19-10, 12:53 AM

My friend, it boils down to this: you don't like it, and I don't like it. But we can't take the easy way out. You either believe in freedom of religion and freedom of speech or you don't. It's easy to support those when they agree with your beliefs. Its hard to support them when they don't. But that's what makes us strong in our convictions - supporting our constitutional ideals even when they're at odds with our personal beliefs. Our Constitution and our nation are indeed strong enough to survive extending those freedoms to all. The founding fathers would not have ensured those freedoms if they believed it wouldn't. This is what ultimately makes us great.The Constitution is not a license for subversion. What makes us great is that as a society we've by and large understood the difference between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law, and have generally judged according to the latter.

Freedom of speech and religion does not apply here (I happen to strongly believe in both). I also happen to believe that the 1st Amendment doesn't permit one to yell "fire" in a movie theatre.

Our Constitutional ideals needn't be twisted to meet every situation that arises. The founding fathers never ensured any freedoms - the Constitution can be amended. They allowed for unforeseen circumstances, and there is just enough leeway to allow common sense to prevail (wouldn't you agree regarding, say, Roe V Wade?).

What makes is great is not the blind reliance upon a singular document, but the understanding the spirit in which that document was written and interpretting said spirit into case-law. That which is fundamental to this country need not necessarily allow that which is antithetical of it to openly practice its disdain.

In any case, as I've said many many times, this isn't really a Constitutional issue. My problem with your original post was that you equated those who opposed this construction with both political hacks and redneck flag-wavers, rather than those who would have legitimate cause to see this as an affront to their ideals. You minimized people who deserved sympathy rather than trivialization, and that I find revolting and purely politically motivated (ironic, right?), as ultimately you stated that you agree with their belief that this construction goes against what you believe would be the right thing to do.

nikimcbee

08-19-10, 02:03 AM

So the solution is obvious. Let them build the mosque, then send in armies of Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons in to plaster the place with copies of "The Watchtower" and the Book of Moroni. Annoy the Muslims into tolerance. Hell, maybe we can get Fred Phelps and his church to show up.

:haha: Ha, my thoughts exactly. My mom and I argued about this this morning. I just can't escape this subject.:shifty: The thing that makes me laugh the most at this whole subject is the left's (since they are in charge of everything) new found love of protecting religious rights.

So when christmas time rolls around we can put a big nativity scene there right? The ACLU will have no issues, right?

Do they have the right to: Yes
Should they: No

I wonder if there are any muslims that are against this?

Tribesman

08-19-10, 03:58 AM

Here's one: should NAMBLA be allowed to build a headquarters across from a boy's school? What if they were issued permits?

Thats easy.

'm taking the EXACT same situation,
No you are not, and if you were not choosing to live in the land of ignorance perhaps you would know.

My argument is that they made the WRONG decision, and a reversal should be considered.
There are no real legal grounds for that arguement.

I also happen to believe that the 1st Amendment doesn't permit one to yell "fire" in a movie theatre.
Errrrrr....that would be generally applicable :rotfl2:
ingnorance is bliss:up:

The founding fathers never ensured any freedoms - the Constitution can be amended
Fine, amend the constitution.

Somewhere along the way you've decided to apply a Constitutional argument which, according to decades of caselaw, doesn't apply.
Aramike has not the faintest idea whatsoever.

I wonder if there are any muslims that are against this?
All Muslims are the same so they all are in favour, just ask Skybird.:rotfl2:
Though some fundys are against it due to its outreach and cross community angle.
Some sufis are against it because they don't go for the big buildings thing.
Shias are a bit funny about it as its the wrong version.
The Ahmadiyya are probably really pissed off as they get grief over their mosques too everytime someone brings mosques back into the news.

Perhaps your question needs some examination as it the whole story isn't really a support or oppose issue is it.

Platapus

08-19-10, 07:52 AM

Tchocky

08-19-10, 11:45 AM

Interesting post from The Daily Dish on this Imam fellow.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/08/a-flip-in-perspective.html

Insofar as this conversation is unrealistic, it's because every actual radical Islamist would know perfectly well that an imam who works with the FBI (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/17/ground-zero-imam-helped-f_n_685071.html), tours on behalf of the State Department, denounces terrorism, defends the US constitution in an Arabic exchange with radicals from Hizb ut-Tahrir, has a good relationship with New York City rabbis, and preaches on behalf of women's rights isn't on their side. In fact, he is exactly the kind of imam that Islamist radicals target and kill when they dare to do these sorts of things in other countries.

krashkart

08-19-10, 11:57 AM

That's a breath of fresh air. :)

SteamWake

08-19-10, 12:13 PM

Oh ... lord.. cant.. stop ... laughing...

CAIR isn't the only one looking for the former president to weigh in on the mosque debate. Even some of Bush's most vocal critics during his years in the White House - New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd and Washington Post writer Eugene Robinson just to name a couple - expressed admiration, and even a touch of wistfulness, for Bush's steadfast support of American Muslims.

David Sherzer, spokesman for President George W. Bush, said they had "no comment."

http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/08/18/prominent-muslim-group-asks-bush-weigh-mosque-controversy

Hey by the way where are the Clintons on this matter??

Moeceefus

08-19-10, 12:28 PM

Hey by the way where are the Clintons on this matter??

Dont expect their opinion unless there is something in it for them.

SteamWake

08-19-10, 12:43 PM

Dont expect their opinion unless there is something in it for them.

I dont, I know what there up to.. simply waiting to pick up the pieces.

Tribesman

08-19-10, 01:07 PM

In fact, he is exactly the kind of imam that Islamist radicals target and kill when they dare to do these sorts of things in other countries.
But hold on Sky keeps saying he is a fundamentalist terrorist supporter who wants to overthrow the United States and the western world.

AVGWarhawk

08-19-10, 01:31 PM

What if they built a mosque and no one came? :hmmm:

Sailor Steve

08-19-10, 01:52 PM

Where have I argued that?

My argument is that they made the WRONG decision, and a reversal should be considered.
Fair enough, but you argue with everyone who says the board had the legal right to do this. Maybe what you mean and how people percieve it are not the same.

How is this separate?

I'm taking the EXACT same situation, giving different conditions, and asking whether or not consideration in said scenario should be given towards overturning a zoning boards decision.
But you seem to be arguing that that decision should be made to go away by other than legal means. That you haven't said something directly is a good fallback when someone contests, it, but now you're saying you didn't mean what everyone assumes you meant. Blame me for that if you like, but at the very least you weren't very clear on where you were going with your argument.

Only half right. Yes, my opposition is about decency and therefore the decision should be reconsidered. Somewhere along the way your side has decided that since the board has made such a decision, it would be Constitutionally impossible to reverse it, which is rubbish.
And now you misunderstand what I've been trying to say. Earlier you thanked me for agreeing that the state and local laws supercede the Constitution, but failed to see that I pointed out that the Constitution makes that so.

This is a local matter, yes, but you seem to feel that the Federal courts should order it to change, which is where the Constitutional arguments come in.

Am I saying that a zoning commission does not have the legal right to make the decision? No. Please provide where. My point is that, in my opinion, it was the wrong decision and, also in my opinion, it should be reconsidered.

Somewhere along the way you've decided to apply a Constitutional argument which, according to decades of caselaw, doesn't apply.
Fair enough, and I don't disagree on that. But if they don't reconsider it someone else has to do it for them, and that involves the Feds, and that involves the Constitution. And if you're going to cite "caselaw", please show some of the cases involved.

SteamWake

08-20-10, 11:26 AM

One more thing to overcome before the Hamas approved, radical Imam directed, questionably funded 'well intentioned' Mosque gets built.

A growing number of New York construction workers are vowing not to work on the mosque planned near Ground Zero.

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/08/20/2010-08-20_we_wont_build_it_hardhats_say_no_way_they_will_ work_on_wtc_mosque.html

Tchocky

08-20-10, 11:31 AM

Radical?

SteamWake

08-20-10, 12:20 PM

Radical?

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2010/08/19/ground-zero-mosque-imams-controversial-60-minutes-interview

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/international/imam_unmosqued_0XbZMwCvHAVdRZEKgx29AK

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.6766/pub_detail.asp

http://www.cultureandmediainstitute.org/articles/2010/20100803163553.aspx

Aramike

08-20-10, 05:11 PM

But you seem to be arguing that that decision should be made to go away by other than legal means. That you haven't said something directly is a good fallback when someone contests, it, but now you're saying you didn't mean what everyone assumes you meant. Blame me for that if you like, but at the very least you weren't very clear on where you were going with your argument.No, I've said, very clearly several times that the board should reconsider its decision, and my argument was the it was not unConstitutional for that reconsidering to occur.

On the other hand, failing the board doing that, my argument is verysimple: their decision was wrong. And now you misunderstand what I've been trying to say. Earlier you thanked me for agreeing that the state and local laws supercede the Constitution, but failed to see that I pointed out that the Constitution makes that so.

This is a local matter, yes, but you seem to feel that the Federal courts should order it to change, which is where the Constitutional arguments come in.Apparently neither of us are understanding one another completely and are perhaps framing our arguments through the lens of that misunderstanding, because in some way we're saying the same thing.

Do I believe the Federal courts should order this to change? I wish they could, but I see no legal grounds for doing so.

In any case, I stand by that this is not a Constitutional issue - by your definition, ultimately every municiple issue would ultimately be considered that, and for practical purposes while the extension is certainly valid, it is pointless.Fair enough, and I don't disagree on that. But if they don't reconsider it someone else has to do it for them, and that involves the Feds, and that involves the Constitution. And if you're going to cite "caselaw", please show some of the cases involved. I'll cite cases later when I have some more time. If you wish to find some quickly, Google "US Euclidean Zoning court challenges". Emminent domain would also be relevant.

mookiemookie

08-20-10, 06:11 PM

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2010/08/19/ground-zero-mosque-imams-controversial-60-minutes-interview

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/international/imam_unmosqued_0XbZMwCvHAVdRZEKgx29AK

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.6766/pub_detail.asp

http://www.cultureandmediainstitute.org/articles/2010/20100803163553.aspx

He supported a humanitarian aid mission to bring food and medicine to Palestine? Well heck, I guess that makes him a regular Mullah Omar.

yubba

08-20-10, 07:03 PM

beatin off the illegals and dealling with a drug war that is spilling into the US and the government doesn't want to do a thing about it. Sure haven't heard nothing about improving our economy or new jobs , let them build the damn thing might put some people too work then we can blow it up.

Sailor Steve

08-21-10, 12:52 AM

No, I've said, very clearly several times that the board should reconsider its decision, and my argument was the it was not unConstitutional for that reconsidering to occur.
No, it's not in the least.

In any case, I stand by that this is not a Constitutional issue - by your definition, ultimately every municiple issue would ultimately be considered that, and for practical purposes while the extension is certainly valid, it is pointless.
And I agree that the decision itself has nothing to do with the Constitution. My argument was that if the decision were to be overturned by a court, and challenged, it would ultimately lead back there, since the higher you go the closer you get.

Actually I don't like this thing very much myself, but it seems to me that a lot of the opposition is of the "we won't stand for it, no matter what" variety, and that scares me as much as anything. So we all need to phrase ourselves very carefully to avoid that connection - "Tarring with the same brush" and all that.

Tribesman

08-25-10, 10:39 AM

Tchocky

08-25-10, 10:53 AM

Sorry to bump back , but someone told me today that your daily show over there showed that the evil terrorist financiers of the ground zero mosque that isn't at ground zero as exposed by Faux new are really the Republican linked financiers who are partners of Fox news?

Mmm, not quite. I'f you're in Galway you probably won't be able to see this, but here's the link to the segment - http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-august-19-2010/extremist-makeover---homeland-edition

The FOX clip was mostly a guest on the show holding a card with RAUF at the top, followed by a list of unfriendly organisations with question marks drawn beside them. The guy with the card basically went throught the list, saying "we know there are questions regarding his association with X, remember X are the people who did Y" etc.

My favourite line "he's not a good guy...he has questionable ties....whether he has ties with Perdana or not". Bloody hell, guy, how about a fact or two. Also, "Iran...where are they in all of this?". Between Iraq and Afghanistan, dude.

JS then applies the same treatment to Rupert Murdoch, more specifically the Saudi prince who owns 7% of News Corp.

Good segment, I thought. Stuck together a screencap of what happened.

http://imgur.com/kXH5m.jpg

AVGWarhawk

08-25-10, 10:54 AM

Tribesman

08-25-10, 11:11 AM

Mmm, not quite. I'f you're in Galway you probably won't be able to see this,
Yep, the middle of the west don't get access on that link.

Please tell me CNN(Clinton News Network) and MSNBC is not the money for the Dems?
Errrrrr....the alledged link made was to the wahibi fundamentalist Islamic overthrow of the western world by building a victory mosque at ground zero to spit in the face of all families of the victims of sept 11...... not to the alledged "liberal" media bias towards the democratic party.
Can you see a very subtle difference?

SteamWake

08-25-10, 11:12 AM

that isn't at ground zero as exposed by Faux new

The fact that the existing building was condemmed due to the fact that a section of the planes landing gear tore through the roof seems to escape alot of pepole.

AVGWarhawk

08-25-10, 11:15 AM

Yep, the middle of the west don't get access on that link.

Errrrrr....the alledged link made was to the wahibi fundamentalist Islamic overthrow of the western world by building a victory mosque at ground zero to spit in the face of all families of the victims of sept 11...... not to the alledged "liberal" media bias towards the democratic party.
Can you see a very subtle difference?

Nope.

AVGWarhawk

08-25-10, 11:16 AM

The fact that the existing building was condemmed due to the fact that a section of the planes landing gear tore through the roof seems to escape alot of pepole.

Ever talk to a wall?

Tribesman

08-25-10, 11:16 AM

The fact that the existing building was condemmed due to the fact that a section of the planes landing gear tore through the roof seems to escape alot of pepole.
Is it at ground zero?
If it was condemned then how in hell have they been using it for prayer meetings since they bought the lease?
What the hell is that bar doing remaining open in a condemned building just so the financiers can ogle a bit of tit after work?

Skybird

08-25-10, 11:20 AM

but it seems to me that a lot of the opposition is of the "we won't stand for it, no matter what" variety, and that scares me as much as anything.

I can imagine things in the world where it is even more scary to imply that whether to accept them or not is a question of negotiating them. Not everything must and should be open to negotiation, and tolerance. Some things are unacceptable by the rule of our cultural values per se.

But there you are again in that dead end of your thinking on "total freedom, else it is no freedom", and time and again you seem to not care for your head crashing into that wall at that road's end. I have a very hard time to even imagine reasons why somebody could think like this. That tolerating what does not tolerate you means your tolerance being destroyed, and freedom for those abusing it to destroy freedom, necessarily lead to you seeing your freedom getting destroyed - that is so simple to see and understand, that even the 8-year old daughter of a good girlfriend of mine has already understood that (I learned in a recent report of her on a dispute she had at school with some girls).

Some things - speaking generally - must be confronted and never are acceptable and thus can never be considered negotiable. That might be a small limitation of that desired unlimited, borderless, total, absolute freedom - but if that helps to secure freedom in general, to still very large ammounts, for the community and the overwhelming majority of it's people - than I'm for it. Because 95% of existing freedom is more than 100% of a freedom non-existing.

Must yor really experience the loss of freedom first, before you understand this...? That would be too bad, because then it would be too late.

Some people seem to take pride in referring to that popular quote saying something like "I may not agree with you but I will always fight for your right to not agree with me". I would subscribe to that only if there is an amendement made, saying something like "I defend your right to disagree with me only if that disagreement does not lead you to the claim that I must be destroyed for not agreeing with you". When the other does not tolerate me, I must not tolerate him. When the other claims the freedom to take freedom away from me, I support all effort that freedom is taken away from him first (else would voluntary to hand myself over in slavery). When the other concludes that because I do not agree with him, I must be overthrown, then I do not owe to him (or to me or to any ideal) that I even must defend him when he does so. No, certain peoples' freedom I will not defend, and certain peoples' right to disagree with me I therefore do not stand up for and would not defend.

Maybe you think, to come back to your quote, that that makes me scary. I say you better should be scared by those people that I refuse to defend for the reasons explained above. I do not deny my support to them for no reason. ;)

Tribesman

08-25-10, 11:26 AM

Nope.
That you cannot see the difference speaks volumes about yourself.
Then again as earlier you had thought you could speak for the families its really no surprise that you can't view anything due to myopia

AVGWarhawk

08-25-10, 11:30 AM

Is it at ground zero?
If it was condemned then how in hell have they been using it for prayer meetings since they bought the lease?
What the hell is that bar doing remaining open in a condemned building just so the financiers can ogle a bit of tit after work?

Let me make it real easy for you...there are some that will not agree with you no matter how you attempt to beat them into submission. It is the simple fact that the mosque being 2-3 block away (IMO) is insensative and uncaring for what has happened with the towers. Maybe in your world that does not mean one iota of crap but in some peoples world who are living with the aftermath of the attack it does. Sorry if people are going to have opinions concerning this structure that differ from yours.

I will however say that protesting such a building in this particular area does raise concerns and some how affirms the feeling of anti-islamic sentiment from the USA. This speaks volumes in the Islamic community. Then again...I can understand were this sentiment stems from. It is certainly not unfounded.

AVGWarhawk

08-25-10, 11:33 AM

That you cannot see the difference speaks volumes about yourself.
Then again as earlier you had thought you could speak for the families its really no surprise that you can't view anything due to myopia

It is really no surprise that you continue attempting to brow beat people into seeing things your way and as the only way. Then again this is your one way street and modus operandi. Shove your myopia.

SteamWake

08-25-10, 12:01 PM

Is it at ground zero?
If it was condemned then how in hell have they been using it for prayer meetings since they bought the lease?
What the hell is that bar doing remaining open in a condemned building just so the financiers can ogle a bit of tit after work?

Sigh.. so much semantics....

It was struck by a piece of the plane.. to me that means it was invollved and damn close to if not a piece of 'ground zero'.

It was condemmed immediatly after the strike pending assesment and removal of the debrie. After it was inspected repaired and deemed structuraly sound it re-opened. :doh:

But I also know trying to point out things like this is pointless so carry on with your discussion.. have fun.

Sailor Steve

08-25-10, 12:07 PM

IBut there you are again in that dead end of your thinking on "total freedom, else it is no freedom", and time and again you seem to not care for your head crashing into that wall at that road's end.
And once again you fail to see that to some of us you're words are as frightening as theirs are to you.

It's simple really: You say that extending freedom to someone who wants to take it away is dangerous. I say that you want to protect freedom by denying it to some that you are afraid of. The problem I have is that YOU BOTH want to take away my freedom. You just couch it in the language of doing it to protect me from someone else.

I have a very hard time to even imagine reasons why somebody could think like this.
That's because you already know that you're right, and there is no tolerance in your thinking for anyone who might disagree with you.

That tolerating what does not tolerate you means your tolerance being destroyed, and freedom for those abusing it to destroy freedom, necessarily lead to you seeing your freedom getting destroyed - that is so simple to see and understand, that even the 8-year old daughter of a good girlfriend of mine has already understood that (I learned in a recent report of her on a dispute she had at school with some girls).
And what she doesn't see (and apparently you can't either) is that you want to destroy freedom in the name of protecting it. You are no different in that respect. You both want to destroy freedom, just for different reasons.

Some things - speaking generally - must be confronted and never are acceptable and thus can never be considered negotiable.
Very true, and I don't negotiate with anyone who wants to take away my freedom, including you.

We have an old saying here: "Your freedom ends where my nose begins." Since that is somewhat self-centered, I like to reverse it: "My freedom ends where your nose begins." What it means is that I have a natrural right to do anything I want, short of the point where it interferes with your right to do the same. In my country we guarantee the right to say what you want, do what you want and yes, build what you want, as long as it doesn't actually affect my equal rights. If that building is used for some illegal or dangerous purpose, then we'll deal with it. Until then, if we deny equal protection to them, I might be next.

Yes, it's a fine line, but one that must be protected, or we all lose. One of the most important figures of the American Revolution, Thomas Paine, wrote:

"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his own enemy against oppression."

That you don't understand that is what makes your way of thinking dangerous in my eyes.

[addendum] You keep saying I preach absolute freedom. Actually that comes with a qualification: I don't have the right to do anything that takes away your rights. I don't have the right to take your life, your liberty, your property or your pursuit of happiness.

I don't say that freedom itself is absolute, but only because of those limitations. But I do stand by what I actually have said all along, because as I see it it is absolute: Either you have freedom or you don't. There is no in-between.

mookiemookie

08-25-10, 12:16 PM

...

Bravo, Steve. :yep:

Skybird

08-25-10, 01:48 PM

And once again you fail to see that to some of us you're words are as frightening as theirs are to you.

It's simple really: You say that extending freedom to someone who wants to take it away is dangerous. I say that you want to protect freedom by denying it to some that you are afraid of. The problem I have is that YOU BOTH want to take away my freedom. You just couch it in the language of doing it to protect me from someone else.
No, that is not what I said, the difference seems to be small, but is vital. I do not take away freedom from people of whom I am afraid. I, like Popper, talk of people who are deliberately determined to use that freedom I give them to destroy freedom itself, and thus mine and yours and everyone else's. You still have not said how you would prevent this somebody from doing so if oyu grant him all the freedoms he needs to follow his idea and make his vision true. In principle you are a complice in his crime, helping him to destroy freedom becasue you only know two modes: one, and zero. Freedom, and no freedom at all. Black, and White.

That's because you already know that you're right, and there is no tolerance in your thinking for anyone who might disagree with you.
Or it is becasue you are not convincing. the major contradiction in your thinking i have repeatedly pointed at, and asked you how you would solve your dilemma, your paradoxon. This must be the third or fourth thread. And stil you hve not shown a convincing answer. Because it is a paradoxon. And it wopuld not be a paradoxon if there would be a solution to the problem.

And what she doesn't see (and apparently you can't either) is that you want to destroy freedom in the name of protecting it. You are no different in that respect. You both want to destroy freedom, just for different reasons.
And there again is your absolute black-white thinking, 0% or 100%, black or white. How to make your freedom not getting destroyed by the one who uses that freedom to destroy it, you still have not answered.

Very true, and I don't negotiate with anyone who wants to take away my freedom, including you.
and more black-white-thinking. It either is total freedom for all (even those using it to destroy it), or it is no freedom at all.

Check the laws and social conventions in your country. You are constntly confronted every day with situations where your total freedom is being stopped. In no way yopu are free to do everything you want. You can claim that right, do something violating the rules, and possibly get shot. That is the only total freedom you have.

We have an old saying here: "Your freedom ends where my nose begins." Since that is somewhat self-centered, I like to reverse it: "My freedom ends where your nose begins." What it means is that I have a natrural right to do anything I want, short of the point where it interferes with your right to do the same.

Correction, you have a right to do most of the things you want, but not all. If you want to be free to murder people, you will run into problems. If you threaten the state, FBI, NSA or whomever will take care of you and show you that your nose is not too long indeed. If you violate the law, police will have a word with you, and a juidge, and a prison director.

Man, get real. Would you claim that all thes example sindeed should mean that we should abandon laws and law enforcement, becaseu it limits freedoms? Tell you what, your country nevertheless is one of the most free countries in the world. but that it only is becasue it accepted to grant people a very big ammount of freedoms, but not a totally unlimited ammount of freedom. In order to protect the state order that guarantees that huge ammount of freedom.

In my country we guarantee the right to say what you want, do what you want and yes, build what you want, as long as it doesn't actually affect my equal rights. If that building is used for some illegal or dangerous purpose, then we'll deal with it. Until then, if we deny equal protection to them, I might be next.

I doubt that. What will happen instead is that the unwelcomed reality will be rejected, and when it cannot be rejected anymore, it will be covered and deceived. Slowly, the normality will shift it's routines and definitions, incredibly slowly so that it is not to be seen by many. Slowly, normality will include a slow growing of tolerance for not beeing tolerated, and the demand of the enemy will slowoly creeping into what defines norms and defintions of normality, and slowly, so slowly so that nobody cares, the enemy's thunling becomes mroe and more influential and wide-spread, and slowly, so very ver yslwoly this limits your freedoms for sure, a bit here, a bit there, and you will still live in the illusion that you are so very free. and then 40 years are over, you look back and remember how things have been half your life ago, and you wake up in shock and ask "Hell, what happened, where have we lost it, where has it gone to?" - This mechanism of slow-changing normality is a known phenomenen in social sciences. In German it is sometimes referred to as "Landschaftsgedächtnis". It means that you do not note the changes in the landscape yround from one day to the next, or from one year to the next. but when you see old photos from 60 years ago - then suddenly the scaring difference jumps into your eyes. islam knows this phenomenon too, and has turned it into a strategy in order to spread in the West while minimising resistence to it.

Yes, it's a fine line, but one that must be protected, or we all lose. One of the most important figures of the American Revolution, Thomas Paine, wrote:

"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his own enemy against oppression."

I wonder if he would have told that to the German people 80 years ago. Thinkling like this assisted in Hitler's rise and that he was not confronted while he maybe still could have been prevented. But Hindenburg legitimised him, and a majorty of people refused to stand up against him while he still was weak. see what happened. Was that - freedom...?

However, that is a noble-sounding, pathetic quote. It is a generalisation that ignores quite many mind experments oyu can now set up where doing like this quote advises would speeol utmost disaster. And perosnally thinking, i think it simply is stupid and wrong. I again counter it by the freedom-paradoxon as Popper called it. If oyu give freedom to the bully wanting to destroy the very idea of freedom, then he will destroy freedom,. becasue that is what he wants to do - and you gave him the freedom and opporutnity to be successful. Maybe it gives a masochistic satisfaction of that it is noble and honorable to be a defeated victim, and that that is better than to defend yourself and by that confronting the other in conflict. But I see nothing honourable and noble in victimhood. If you become somebody else's victim, then all that means is: he was successful in his intention, and you failed to stop him. and that smells more of weakness than noblesse.

You deal and think in absolutes (total, unlimited freedom - or no freedom it is at all), and that is why you fail to adress reality. Because total, absolute freedom, would be a form of perfection. but the world is not perfect. The world only presents you situations of needs where oyu must decide, whether you want it or not: you must choose. Choose to not adress a growing problem in time, and it will overwhelm you later on. The wise man, says Lao Tse, solves problems by solving them while they are still small and not waiting until they are too big to be solved. That way problems get solved so easily and without so small effort that most people do not even see that there was a problem.

That you don't understand that is what makes your way of thinking dangerous in my eyes.
To a thinking like yours, I am. I would not allow you to create the opportunity for our enemies to destroy freedom, and to hinder us to defend ourselves against themk becasue that would villate your seriously flawed concvept of a total, a perfect, an absolute "freedom". One Third Reich was bad enough. I do not want another one. I have seen some places in the ME - and that has healed me from any romantic illusions about what Islam does to a culture, the freedom of people, and the creativity of man.

You keep saying I preach absolute freedom. Actually that comes with a qualification: I don't have the right to do anything that takes away your rights. I don't have the right to take your life, your liberty, your property or your pursuit of happiness.
Now you have totally encircled yourself. If I would borrow your argument, I would reply: you have very well the right to kill me, because if I tell you that youb are not free to do so, then I would violate your freedom to do it, and that is bad. You also have the right to enslave me, Steve, or to deny me a free vote, or legal justice, or to kidnap me, if you want. Because you are a free man, a totally free man. Denying you these freedoms to do as described, would mean to limit your freedoms in a way that in your thinking strips you of all the very freedom alltogether. Let'S assume, Steve you would be a mixture of a KKK racist, a scientologist and a Nazi, all in one. just a mindgame, I know you are not any of these. You thus would claim the freedom to call blacks as "******s", you would be in favour of slavery, you support the psychic manipulation of people to strip them of their money and lead them into total pathologic dependency from yourself, you let them work for free for your own wealth, and as a Nazi you would support the agenda of establishing KZs in america and sending the Jews into gas chambers and turn the FBI into a Gestapo, replace the legal system with a Volksgerichtshof, and wage wars of expansion against Canada and Mexico. You would want to do that, becasue that is your agenda as a KKK guy, a scientlogist leader and a Nazi.

Now here comes little Skybird, borrowing argument from the real Steve, and saying: I do not like all that what you want, but I defend your freedom to want it. I would violate the very idea of freedom if I would hinder you to realise these things that are your agenda. therefore, you are free to destroy the freedom in our society, I will leave you the freedom you need to succeed in that. I know that you want all these bad things, but you bought that place legally and yoiu have any right like any other, so go ahead, build your oarty centre, your propaganda minstry, your secret service HQ, your recruitment centre and carry on telling people what they want to hear, or tell them what yiu really want. The first people will beoieve becasue it is what they want to hear, and the second they will just ignore and not believe becaseu it is not what they want to hear, so it makes no difference. In freedom we are united! In freedom we see freedom falling! As free people we become unfree!

I don't say that freedom itself is absolute, but only because of those limitations. But I do stand by what I actually have said all along, because as I see it it is absolute: Either you have freedom or you don't. There is no in-between.
Oh, i prefer freedom, too. That's why I do not give that freedom to anybody whose deliberate intention is to destroy it. Because then - he would destroy it, and I and many others, inclduing you, would not have it anymore.

I have a slightly different slogan, though. "Freedom cannot be given, if you accept it to be given to you, you are not free from the someone giving it. Freedom needs to be taken." And once gained, I follow, but also demand the other to follow, Kant's categorical imperative. But that imperative I accept as a valid rule only on a basis of reciprocity . where the other does not follow it, I do not bind me to it as well, if he violates my freedoms and rights. My tolerance ends where he does not tolerate me. I defend his freedom where he defdns mine. Where he wants to take freedom away from me in favour of his, I do not defend his right to do so, but I fight against him to render him so weak and powerless again so that he cannot put my and our freedom into danger anymore.

Freedom is a give and take. It is no card blanche for just one side.

Sailor Steve

08-25-10, 02:34 PM

No, that is not what I said, the difference seems to be small, but is vital. I do not take away freedom from people of whom I am afraid. I, like Popper, talk of people who are deliberately determined to use that freedom I give them to destroy freedom itself, and thus mine and yours and everyone else's.
You say a small but vital distinction. I say you still will take away freedom. I'm not talking about the freedom to destroy freedom, I'm talking about the freedom to talk about it. You would deny even that, which is what I consider dangerous.

You still have not said how you would prevent this somebody from doing so if oyu grant him all the freedoms he needs to follow his idea and make his vision true.
I have said that I cannot deny his right to say what he wants, or else I would be just as bad as he is. If he proves dangerous, I will take action. Otherwise it's just talk on his part. Watch him carefully, yes. Fight him if need be, certainly. Silence him by making it illegal to say something I don't like? Never. That seems to be your answer, and you fail to see how dangerous it is.

In principle you are a complice in his crime, helping him to destroy freedom becasue you only know two modes: one, and zero. Freedom, and no freedom at all. Black, and White.
Not at all. I could respond by saying you wish to stop his crime by becoming a criminal yourself. Do you want to silence him by killing him before he has taken any action at all? Lock him up before he has commited a crime? Maybe, maybe not; but you do want to take away his freedom to express his ideas, which makes you a totalitarian in my eyes.

Or it is becasue you are not convincing. the major contradiction in your thinking i have repeatedly pointed at, and asked you how you would solve your dilemma, your paradoxon. This must be the third or fourth thread. And stil you hve not shown a convincing answer. Because it is a paradoxon. And it wopuld not be a paradoxon if there would be a solution to the problem.
What dilemma do you mean? What paradox? That if I allow it he will certainly take away my freedom. I have said, on every occasion, that it is a tricky problem, and I don't have a complete answer. But your answer is as evil as the evil you claim to fight, and you can't see that you are the enemy of freedom as much as he is. And in all of this you have carefully avoided that accusation, and that is your dilemma and paradox. Do you have an answer for that?

and more black-white-thinking. It either is total freedom for all (even those using it to destroy it), or it is no freedom at all.
Thorny, isn't it? But again, you haven't told us how you will save our freedom by destroying it. You are just as much a destroyer as they are.

Check the laws and social conventions in your country. You are constntly confronted every day with situations where your total freedom is being stopped. In no way yopu are free to do everything you want. You can claim that right, do something violating the rules, and possibly get shot. That is the only total freedom you have.
I never said that wasn't true. In fact I just explained to you where freedom truly begins and ends. We make governments to protect our rights. We make laws to protect us from each other. I have no right to harm another human being. I have no right to break the laws, unless they are in themselves dangerous. And I can't take away the right of another to express himself, however distasteful I find his speech, without endangering my own right to the same.

Correction, you have a right to do most of the things you want, but not all. If you want to be free to murder people, you will run into problems. If you threaten the state, FBI, NSA or whomever will take care of you and show you that your nose is not too long indeed. If you violate the law, police will have a word with you, and a juidge, and a prison director.
Didn't I say that exact thing? I have no right to infringe anyone else's rights. This includes the right to free speech. And it includes the right to equal protection under the law, which includes the right to build a building in a place I don't like.

Man, get real. Would you claim that all thes example sindeed should mean that we should abandon laws and law enforcement, becaseu it limits freedoms? Tell you what, your country nevertheless is one of the most free countries in the world. but that it only is becasue it accepted to grant people a very big ammount of freedoms, but not a totally unlimited ammount of freedom. In order to protect the state order that guarantees that huge ammount of freedom.
You're creating your own straw man here, arguing against what you claim I've said while paralleling exactly what I did say.

Yes, it's a fine line, but one that must be protected, or we all lose. One of the most important figures of the American Revolution, Thomas Paine, wrote:

I wonder if he would have told that to the German people 80 years ago. Thinkling like this assisted in Hitler's rise and that he was not confronted while he maybe still could have been prevented. But Hindenburg legitimised him, and a majorty of people refused to stand up against him while he still was weak. see what happened. Was that - freedom...?
Perhaps, but you had no way of knowing just how bad Hitler would get before the fact. That's one of the risks of living in the real world.

However, that is a noble-sounding, pathetic quote. It is a generalisation that ignores quite many mind experments oyu can now set up where doing like this quote advises would speeol utmost disaster. And perosnally thinking, i think it simply is stupid and wrong.
And Paine's reality was that when he said that, he had enemies on every side. People threatened his life for his religious beliefs, yet he wrote that in the midst of it all.

That you find that pathetic and stupid shows me just how different we really are.

You deal and think in absolutes (total, unlimited freedom - or no freedom it is at all), and that is why you fail to adress reality.
And again you ignore the part where I said that's not strictly true.

I got tired of trying to answer every accusation you make, so I'll just repeat this:

You say I avoid reality, and you say I don't give an answer to my paradox, or dilemma. I say that you have studiously avoided my one challenge to you - that you are also an enemy to freedom. Rather than another long-winded philosophical explanation, can you show me why I should not be afraid of you, or treat you as an enemy for the same reasons?

yubba

08-25-10, 03:19 PM

In my simple little world , he who has the biggest stick has the most freedom. If you don't like hearing the truth quit doing stupid s--t.

Platapus

08-25-10, 03:25 PM

In my simple little world , he who has the biggest stick has the most freedom.

I believe that is called Tyranny and is probably not a good model to base a society on. :nope:

yubba

08-25-10, 03:47 PM

Welcome to America ,Like Spydy {Spider Man} says , with great power comes great responsibility. I think they should let them build the mosque but, on the very top of the building if there is a dome should be a Cross and the Star of David, then it can be called a bridge. Also, there should be a hall of shame showing all the atrocitys of radical islam.

Konovalov

08-25-10, 04:40 PM

My first post in this thread and that being after 14 pages. That must be almost a record. :oops: And just for everyone's info I have followed this thread from the beginning and read the whole 14 pages top to bottom.

Firstly I have to agree fully with Sailer Steve regarding the actual right of those to re-build at this location. What has occurred is fully within the laws and all requirements have been met. I also agree with Steve regarding the freedoms debate with Skybird. I do not want to live under or in a totalitarian society. The ideas to which Skybird has espoused are the antithesis to the very ideals of what the United States of America were founded on.

Now to the mosque debate itself I come to. Off the bat I will disclose that my views come from one who is an Australian Muslim. When I first heard about this story when it came under the media spotlight I felt uncomfortable about it. I wasn't convinced that this was the right thing to do. It was clearly within the law and indeed was their constitutional right. But my gut and heart felt that it was to say the least an unwise decision.

As the days have past and the mosque controversy has intensified and rumbled on more information has filtered out into the public domain. I was not originally aware that the actual site is at this time a functioning mosque but is cramped and in a poor state. Apparently there is also a mosque also nearby Ground Zero named Masjid Manhatten that has been there since the 1970's. Should the community centre and mosque being proposed be smaller? Should it be moved to another location and if so how far away from Ground Zero? Does that also mean that Masjid Manhatten (catchy name by the way), need to be pulled down and or re-located as it is so close to Ground Zero?

Another thing is that the rhetoric and emotion has been ratcheted up on both sides. Speaker Newt Gindrich and Governor Sarah Palin were loose with inflammatory words and President Obama was also clumsy in speaking out. Then you have those crazy loons on the far right thorwing verbal bombs out there to crank up the atmosphere even more. The results of which will only be discovered with time.

Needless to say I would rather not read stories such as this New York taxi drivers experience (http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/muslim-question-leads-cabbie-stabbing-hate-crime-charge/story?id=11480081)or the pipe bomb attack in a Florida mosque (http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/local/news-article.aspx?storyid=156012&catid=3)just before Jammat (congregassion) Isha (nightime) prayers. And also I saw video of the protest that took place over the weekend. There was some footage of a really big black man wearing what I would describe as a tight beanie within the crowd and apparently some in the crowd thought that he was a muslim and suddenly the guy was surrounded by people on all sides He had to be escorted out of the crowd and thankfully it didn't escalate. Turned out the guy wasn't muslim at all.

As I have said earlier both sides should take a step back and take a breather for a moment before then coming to the table to seek a compromise that is in the best interests of all US citizens. American Muslims are not the 5th column. Al Qaeda muredered 3000 citizens of the world on that terrible morning in September. Most were American and some of those (approx 300) were American Muslims.

Gotta go now as need my beauty sleep as will be getting up at the uncivilized time of 3am to have breakfast before beginning the 15th day of Ramadhan and fasting. Only 16.5 hours without food or drink tomorrow. :88)

Tribesman

08-25-10, 05:05 PM

Let me make it real easy for you...there are some that will not agree with you no matter how you attempt to beat them into submission.
Let me make it absolutely ******* clear to you, you don't speak for those families and attempting to do so spits in our faces.
Simple isn't it.
Understand yet?
I am sick of gob****es pushing their bloody agenda on the empty graves of the innocent of that day, it angers me to levels you cannot possibly comprehend as it nothing but an insult to their memory.

Maybe in your world that does not mean one iota of crap but in some peoples world who are living with the aftermath of the attack it does. Sorry if people are going to have opinions concerning this structure that differ from yours.

yeah its amazing I deal with them people regularly, I been dealing with them since the day, so don't you dare talk for them .

If a nice reasonable fella from Great Neck says he wants to nuke the whole middle east I can understand him. If a regular guy from Tribeca says he wants every muslim in the world slaughtered I can understand him.
But you, you ain't even on the same platform so shut the hell up about sensitivities for the families.
How many friggin empty caskets did you go to after the attack?

Though on another note, if the city wants to honour someone then please don't name a street after a real party animal when the street doesn't have a single bar on it.

Skybird

08-25-10, 05:19 PM

You say a small but vital distinction. I say you still will take away freedom. I'm not talking about the freedom to destroy freedom, I'm talking about the freedom to talk about it. You would deny even that, which is what I consider dangerous.
You try to distract attention for what you said about freedom in this and past discussions. In the recent such debates you strictly and totally refused that theose destroying freedom maybe should not be given the opportunity(=the freedom) to do so. Your implication, you cannot avoid it, is that it is better to leave them the freedom and see them abuzsing it, than to deny them this freedom they need to abuse and by that abuse to destroy that. That is what you have said time and again, you indicated, it, you implied that, and if you did not mean it, then you wording has been extremely unprecise.

Now you just refer to the freedom to talk about freedom. That has been different in the past. Well then, let's talk about freedom. First, I did not indicate that I want to ban talking abiout freedom. second I nevertheless ask if we really need a debate about freedom with somebody or with an ideology that is in explciit rejection of freedom and in explciiut demand for totalitarian control, under the explicit exclusion of freedom. What do you hope to gain from such a "dialogue", if oyu know that the other will tell you whatver you want to hear in order to make oyu giving him the oppoetunity, time and freedom to nevertheless destroy your freedom? At best it is a waste of time and energy.

That claim that you now want to talk about freedom, I assume with said enemies of freedom, reminds of a debate we have just had in Germany. Politicians and lawyers have triggered a debate on the quesiton if visiting terror camps where you get training in terrorism, bomb cinstuction, assassination, mass murder and such, should be put under penalty, or if that should be considered as free travel activity that means nothing and the criminal energy just manifests itself in the moment when the terror bomb of the adventure tourist is being triggered and people get killed. So, there were people that argued that visiting a terror camp of ideological fanatics and learning how to kill as many people as possible with maximum PR effect, possibly could have had another interest than just joining said ideology's forces and learning to kill as many people as possible for maximum PR effect inorder to actually kill as many people as possible for maximum PR effect. These people argued that the preparation, the training for and the learning of needed knoweldge for suich a terror strike copuld not be persecuted, because there is the chance that somebody embarks for Pakistan and gets trained as an islamic terrorist becasue it is summer holiday and he has nothign else to do and is bored and just wants to see how it is to train as if one were a terrorist. when a tewrrorist prepares an attack, that is pretty much okay and not to be objected, just after the bodies have been collected from the street the terrorist actually is a terrorist.

What I think of all this oh so sohisticated reasoning?

Gequirlte Babykacke.

Similiarly, I am not accepting that we just sit and watch when our rights and freedoms get turned against us in order to destroy them and to make us hostages of our own ideals. I have explained it in several threads, either you missed them or you do not understand the dangeorus imploication: in the special case of islam, or anarchists as well, you are delaing with a thuinkling that explciitly denies the valdity of your claimed values, as well as the validity of the legal system, and the separation of religion and politics, state and church. islam doe snot know such a separation, and it refuses such a separation for itself. The consxequence is that it cts poltiically and pushes political intentions for which it claims the guaranteed freedom for religious practicing as written in our constitutions that base oin the separation of poltics and relgion. that now means that islam claism untouchability for its poltics - under the umbrella of religious freedom. Said politics are explicitly desiogned to replace freedom with the rule of sharia, and to repalce our legfal sytem and laws with those of Sharia as well. By design of our legal systems and constitutions and the separation of church and state in them, both are almost helpless to defend us against the policy of islam to repalce these laws and constitutions with Sharia.

And you accept that - that is the implication of what you say. I can only wonder while giving you the benefit of doubt, if oyu really are fully aware of these implications of your demand that we must give them the freedom they need to destroy us innorder to be hionest and true in our claim to defend freedom. as a matter of fact, and in perfect confomrity with the explanation of Popper as well, we destroy our own freedom. In the name of freedom, but still we destroy it. If we follow your way of thinking, at least.

Wjhat we see is that more and more laws and policies get designed in favour not of our freedoms, but in favour of islamic demands. In Euroland, criticising religion now is a criminal offence and a hate crime that could bring you to court. That means that not supporting relgions is a crime now. This was not brouzght in due to demands by the churches, or the Jews, or the buddhists. It were muslim lobby groups, and leftist gutmenschen. Our freedom to be critical of relgion - or Islam, to be more true - already has been reduced for the very reason you defend you bitterly: total freedom for them.

I also point to this thread. http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=174036 ,
the matter pointed at there, also touches the issue here.

I have said that I cannot deny his right to say what he wants, or else I would be just as bad as he is. If he proves dangerous, I will take action. Otherwise it's just talk on his part. Watch him carefully, yes. Fight him if need be, certainly. Silence him by making it illegal to say something I don't like? Never. That seems to be your answer, and you fail to see how dangerous it is.
This restriction you introduce now at least is a small progress, although I so far did not memntion freedom of speech explicitly. I am about conspiracies aiming at overthrowing the constitutional order. And that is somethign that you must not check and watch for anymore, it already is happening, and in germany for example since many years the intellogence authorites time and again wqarn of the anti-cinstitutional actiivites of oh so very many islamic "culture centres" and mosques, espeically those financed by Saudi arabaia, Marocco, pakistan and Turkey. the orgnaisaiton beiond the GZ project also is no unknown faction, but a known radical ultra-porthodox organisation with it's top names lined to internal jihad and radcial muslim supranatiponal organisations. You may not be aware of it, although i linked according info five times in three threads, info that was supoported by different source slinked by one or two other board members as well. but you already could and should know whom you are dealing with. you say you want to react not before they started to act holstile. they already do since many years, if only you would taker a closer look!what else are you waiting for? what else must happen? You say you consider an umbrella not before it starts to rain - that you alrready are swimming in a deep, wide river is something that escaopes you for some reason. an umbrella is your smallest problem now, really.

Not at all. I could respond by saying you wish to stop his crime by becoming a criminal yourself. Do you want to silence him by killing him before he has taken any action at all? Lock him up before he has commited a crime? Maybe, maybe not; but you do want to take away his freedom to express his ideas, which makes you a totalitarian in my eyes.
What is wrong in taking him by his word? What is wrong in watching what he does, seeing that his preparations support what he says, and draw the consequence and take him oput BEFORE he has had the time to raise his knife to my throat? why do you think you must know it better than he knows himself? When there is somebody and his teachings he is preaching say that he wants to destroiy your value system and your freedom, and you comlare that to how his faciton has done in the past and oyu find: yes, that is what they were doing - what is the problem then in takling him by his word - and act accordingly on him...??? Must the roof really fall down on your head before you maybe start to be willing to onsider the chance that the noise in the wall indicated a proiblem with the house?

I cannot help but must assume that for you the demand to always collect more and more and more info and never using it, just is anexcuse for not doing anything and just letting the thing slide until it is too late. reminds me of the apttern we have seen in global warming debates - that there is no evidence and no data and that more decades of research must be spend before we could know if something like GW does exist, and earlier any action is just an irresponsible wasdte of money etc etc etc. Sounds pretty much like the same pattern, really.

In other words: do not prevent murder, just clean the scene of the crime and then spend the murderer a drink. That's how it reaches me.

What dilemma do you mean? What paradox? That if I allow it he will certainly take away my freedom. I have said, on every occasion, that it is a tricky problem, and I don't have a complete answer.
Have you? Where? I nailed oyu on that so-called tolerance-dilemma and freedom paradoxon several times, and linked to the original formulation of them several times, and at least two times just in debates with you. A consistent reply you have not produced. Just a counterattack that when putting into doubt that it already is a complete taking away of freedom if one questions the wqisdom to give somebody who wants to destroy freedom the chance and opprtunity (in freedom) to actually succeed with that. the paradoxon is that you cannot have that ultimate, absolute, total fereedom that in these debates you demanded time and again. You can secure a very hiuge ammount of frfeedom only when accepting to sacrifice the general validity of a principle of total, unlimited freedom. The dilemma is that if oyu want to defend the chnace to be tolerant of others, you also must be aware of that there are things that you cannot afford to tolerate, else those not tolerating you will destroy you when you tolerate them doing so.

You have encircled oyurself with your fomrer statements on freedom, and now realsie that you cannot escape the contradictions in your psoition, and try to escape. That can be good - but do not hold me responsible for yourself doing so. I just stubbornly pointed out the basic misconception, the inner contradiction in your position.

Oh, and the criminal you mentioned. A crime is not similiar to any other crime. some are minor, asome are serious, thats whwy there are different penalties. However. A soldier defending his country and it'S order, or a policeman chasing a criminal, both do not become criminals in themselves just becaseu they arrest some crimnals, enemies of the state, gangsters, fraudsters, terrorists. Yiu cannot fight against your enemies and defend your side against them if you refuse to - well, to fight against them. and the defintion of fight includes the use of force (preferrably not more than needed but as much as necessary), and limiting the freedom of the enemy, even denying him certain rights and freedoms that citizens of your side enjoy. Citizens have a right to defend their state, too, btw, i would even say if a citizen wnats to benefit from the priviligesof laws and freedoms that his state guarantees, than it even is his moral duty, a manadotry service, that he stands up in defence of this state, land, country, state order, legal system. Yiuj do not only take from your country. you also have to give back. and the German constitituion even guarantees every German the constitutional right to resist to everybody who wants to overthrow the constitutional order. I have linked for you some key articles of the Basic Law some weeks ago, maybe you remember, where this was said and also the limitaiton of basic laws were illustrated if peopole abuse these laws in order to propagate their destruction. The general layout and the federal structure of the modern Germany - has been hammered out in the basic law last but not least by pressure of the United States after the war. So it cannot be so much in violation of american thinkoing on these things. And I am pretty confident that comparing articles can be found in American laws and the constitution as well - even before Bush cracked down on certain civil liberties and before the Patriot Act.

But your answer is as evil as the evil you claim to fight, and you can't see that you are the enemy of freedom as much as he is. And in all of this you have carefully avoided that accusation, and that is your dilemma and paradox. Do you have an answer for that?
The policeman uses force, but that does not make him the same like the gangster. In the last thread we had I gave several very pragmatic ideas of what to do. i do not all repeat that, you cahn read it yourself if you want. I just reiterate two things. that we need an amendement in wetsrn constitutions that rule adamantely that only persons and ideologies (=relgions) fully subscribing to the non-negotiable principle of strict separation of church and state, can claim the protection of free religion. This is to give our legal system the chance to defend against being hijacked by supremacist actors/ideologies for political purposes that are claimed to be relgion and thus: untouchable. And the second point is: I pointed out that every citizen has the right, and I even say: the duty to act with civil disobedience and public protest and boycott and practiced unloyalte to the state, if he sees the state or it's bodies acting against the communal interest and against the will of the people. In other words: if the people of america indeed would care for that osque not beign errected, they could as a mater of fact march the place over and over and break every police cordon
and render the officials helpless. no mosque must be built anymore if the people would raise and stand up against it.

If people are too lame and lazy for that, or even like islam, well, then there chilkdren'S children will get what their grandparents deserved: more and more of islam.

Migration also is a problem linked with islam, but okay, let'S keep this focussed a bit.

yubba

08-25-10, 06:04 PM

If you want to be free, and not be a subject to tyranny, you're going to either shed blood or run ,when they catch you they will kill you. Less we forget our buddy Stalin. Talking nicely to tyranny won't stop it.

The Third Man

08-25-10, 06:17 PM

If Obama said it it must be correct, and I support it.

My previous posts are all wrong. Only Mr. Obama can speak for me.

Subnuts

08-25-10, 06:36 PM

yubba

08-25-10, 06:48 PM

The perp was a Liberal Democrat, I was listening to Mark Levin on the radio, it's a mad world after all.

Takeda Shingen

08-25-10, 06:54 PM

Keep this debate classy, folks. :stare:

What?!?! GT? Classy?

Sailor Steve

08-25-10, 06:57 PM

You try to distract attention for what you said about freedom in this and past discussions.
I don't try to distract anything. You now say I've changed when I mention the freedom to talk about freedom. Freedom of speech and the freedom to build this thing is all I've ever talked about.

I agree with you on a lot of subjects, but in this you sound to me like you want to "protect" freedom by denying it to other people, at any cost, and the cost I see is frightening. In this you are my enemy, period. Not opponent in a philosophical discussion - enemy. When you finally figure out how much you frighten me, maybe we can talk.

Platapus

08-25-10, 06:58 PM

Keep this debate classy, folks. :stare:

What?!?! GT? Classy?

Perhaps he meant keep it gassy?

AVGWarhawk

08-25-10, 08:11 PM

Let me make it absolutely ******* clear to you, you don't speak for those families and attempting to do so spits in our faces.
Simple isn't it.
Understand yet?
I am sick of gob****es pushing their bloody agenda on the empty graves of the innocent of that day, it angers me to levels you cannot possibly comprehend as it nothing but an insult to their memory.

yeah its amazing I deal with them people regularly, I been dealing with them since the day, so don't you dare talk for them .

If a nice reasonable fella from Great Neck says he wants to nuke the whole middle east I can understand him. If a regular guy from Tribeca says he wants every muslim in the world slaughtered I can understand him.
But you, you ain't even on the same platform so shut the hell up about sensitivities for the families.
How many friggin empty caskets did you go to after the attack?

Though on another note, if the city wants to honour someone then please don't name a street after a real party animal when the street doesn't have a single bar on it.

Judging by this diatribe you need to get a grip. Really, if the thread is to much for you then do not participate. If you are looking for a pat on the back from me....keep on looking. Let me make this absolutely clear, in my opinion I think the mosque in that area is insensative. How simple is that. I said it from the start and I repeat myself now. So keep your platform...I do not want to be on it anyway I do not care for the way it is operated.

AVGWarhawk

08-25-10, 08:13 PM

On a vaguely related note, an Islamic New York cab driver was repeatedly stabbed last night after his passenger asked him if he was a muslim.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-08-25-cabbie-stabbing-muslim_N.htm

Keep this debate classy, folks. :stare:

A Latino was killed in Baltimore two days ago simply because he was Latino. Do you think the news might be sensationalizing this because of the mosque issue? :hmmm:

AVGWarhawk

08-25-10, 08:15 PM

Perhaps he meant keep it gassy?

Maybe glassy? :hmmm:

gimpy117

08-26-10, 01:19 AM

Skybird

08-26-10, 04:29 AM

I don't try to distract anything. You now say I've changed when I mention the freedom to talk about freedom. Freedom of speech and the freedom to build this thing is all I've ever talked about.

Since three or four debates I put the finger on the words and their implictions that YOU were using, Steve. If you do not mean what you said, then maybe try to say more precsiely what you mean. The same wobbly precision you use when "interpreting" what I should have meant, in your opion, not realising that I base on a fundament of that it makes little sense to just differ between "all freedom" or "no freedom at all". As a matter of fact our societies are most most free places on Earth today, and ever been known in all history. And that is why we already have accepted to nevertheless limit the individual freedom for the sake of freedom in general. In parts you now have started to accept that, which makes your extremist concept of total freedom nevertheless even more self-contradicting and confusing. If your logic would be true, then we would need to admit that we live in a slavery any tyranny due to the minor limitations that everyone of us accepts every day. And that would hardly be a balanced assessment.

I agree with you on a lot of subjects, but in this you sound to me like you want to "protect" freedom by denying it to other people, at any cost, and the cost I see is frightening. In this you are my enemy, period. Not opponent in a philosophical discussion - enemy.

Thank you, dear enemy. You see, that extremist, polarising thinking of yours by which you know only total freedom or no freedom with regard to the issue being debated here, is no typical American thing due to "American freedom" or your history, it is present in the europe of lately, too, and in some fields it even may be more present over here than in America. It has already done a tremendous ammount of damage, having allowed Islam to fundamentally influence the legislation of the EU in certain references to legal codes that are binding for the european nations to implement. In many countries, the problems linked to Islam are growing and already have started to cause serious friction and conflict in many places, and still growing. The cultural climate, the climate of communication already is being poisened, brandmarking any opposition to Islam, any critical question, and analytical confrontation as an offence, as racism and hate-speech. All this is being encouraged and even actively assisted in the name of "freedom", and that we must allow Islam to continue if we want to describe ourselves as a free society, and that we must tolerate it when Islam teaches the destruction of our freedom, and that we must live with mosques and "culture centres" engaging in hate-preaching and supporting terrorism or home-grown stealth-jihad, for allowing them to work on our destruction would be the price of freedom, etc etc. And islam does not only tlak, it acts, it actively pushes and supports the goals it is planning for and motivated by. The gagging of public criticism, it'S brandmarking as hate-speech, the creation of a self-censoring cultural climate that fears to not obey Islamic demands in word and deed, for that would be "racist" - all that is last but not least the result of "Gutmenschen", and nation-hating self-deconstructors who time and again argue the same way like you did: that we must want to be a totally free society, and that thus we must allow islam to spread even more and eroding the fundaments of our culture and society in the hidden, and sometimes even in the open. That our freedom, inclduing the freedom of free speech and free press, already is limited by this brandmarking of opposition to islam as "racism", escapes the very same people'S minds.

He who wants to defend everything, will lose everything. If the price for still the highest ammount of freedom a human society has every enjoyed is that said freedom is in parts withheld from those who want to destroy that freedom, then this is a price not too high, and a rasonable price. It simply is a clever thing to do. It is a hopelessly dualistic, extremist, polarised concept of freedom you have, and that is the reason why it does not work as intended and produces right the opposite of what it claims to defend.

And stop talking as if I said to take away "freedom itself", all of it, in its complete entity, from you and others and all of us. All I say is that if somebody tries to kill me, then freedom does not include the demand that I must even hand him the knife by which he will do it. Maybe it is a more clever thing not to give him the knife and not to tell him that it is there. maybe it even is clever to use the knife and keep him in check until he is being taken away.

That moment he is not free anymore, yes. - BIG DEAL.

I have not thought of you as an enemy so far, but maybe you are: if considering that this your way of thinking already has done a very high ammount of damage that will by kind of a self-dynamic create even more damage in the future, and taking into account that the influence of this way of self-damaging thinking and practicing must be stopped and it's defenders must be rendered powerless so that they cannot continue with their self-deconstruction that destroys all others as well, and when I think that this must be assured at all cost, else our children'S children will be seriously screwed - well then maybe you are what could be labelled an enemy indeed. It's just that I do not feel for you that way. For some reason I still like oyu, although you drive me crazy and although you have some extremely dangerous bees in your bonnet, heading for a solid wall at max speed with your head first. But sympathy yes or no, I am convinced that you do not realise a dangerous self-contradiction in your arguments, and that if this mislead concept of extreme freedom - that simply does nothign else but creating the opportunity for our enemies to destroy freedom - is not brought to a full stop and overcome, that then we all can pack our things and leave, since we will loose all and everything.

Including our freedom.

For preventing that - by withholding some parts of freedom from our enemies whose declared intention it is to destroy our freedom - is a price so small that it even is not worth to have such a long debate about it. I would even say it is the most logical, reasonable, natural and clever thing to do.

One clould even point at that in the field of crime that is what the police already doing day in, day out. and nobody would accuse them to be lowering themselves to the level of the gangsters they catch, when they chase them.

Skybird

08-26-10, 04:47 AM

Obama HAS to support it. It's their constitutional RIGHT to be able to build a place of worship as long as it does not violate any laws. We can't just go around saying you can't build this, or you can't build that simply because 9 years ago somebody that you have no connection to other than religion committed horrible acts.
that is one pof the points. The organisers HAVE connections of highly dubious nature, to radical jihadi groups and ultra-orthodox brotherhoods that in other parts of the world do not hide at all their jihadist intention. Links to that have been proivided by me5 or 6 times by now. They got ignored by all of you, since it was not what you wnated to learn. One or two other guys provided their own links to news that mentioned the same names, the same connections to the same groups - and again you ignored, incapable to comment on it since there wa snothing to say indeed.

Some of you guys remind me of a deer in a searchlight. And some of you will not move the small finger in order to defend what you claim to be so precious to you. "Risking conflict? What - me...?"

AVGWarhawk

08-26-10, 08:38 AM

Obama HAS to support it. It's their constitutional RIGHT to be able to build a place of worship as long as it does not violate any laws. We can't just go around saying you can't build this, or you can't build that simply because 9 years ago somebody that you have no connection to other than religion committed horrible acts.

Very true but in this world of touchy feely political correctness it would seem any of that notion is thrown out the window concerning this mosque. Obama did not want to comment on the wisdom of building this mosque in this location. Rightly so because I do not believe this is any wisdom to building this mosque at this location. IMO it is insensative.

Disclaimer : This opinion is soley my own and I'm not speaking for anyone but myself.

SteamWake

08-26-10, 08:40 AM

Obama HAS to support it.

No he doesent it is a state matter.

He was foolish to even opine on the matter. It is a no win situation. Why his advisors told him to do so is beyound me. Then again remember who is running the show.

He should have followed Bush's example and refrain from comment.

AVGWarhawk

08-26-10, 08:43 AM

No he doesent it is a state matter.

He was foolish to even opine on the matter. It is a no win situation. Why his advisors told him to do so is beyound me. Then again remember who is running the show.

He should have followed Bush's example and refrain from comment.

I think someone asked him the question about the mosque. Constitutionally he has to support it however he did not have to answer the question. But, if he kept silent he would have been damned. If he says anything he would be damned. He was damned if he did and damned if I didn't. It was his comment on the lack of commenting concerning the wisdom to build at that site that is key to me. There is no wisdom to build this mosque there.

tater

08-26-10, 08:51 AM

I don't think anyone argues the constitutionality at all. The question is one of propriety. The mosque builders claim it is to foster understanding, to show a good face of Islam, etc. If so, they are making a PR mistake.

There's nothing to do, really. The reality is that even "moderate" Islam is immoderate by normal, Western standards. Translations of Arabic language interviews with people involved show them to be less moderate than their english press conferences lead you to believe.

Again, the solution is unbending separation of church and state. No tax breaks for religions. No religious schools (that includes so-called "arabic schools" that are in fact government paid madrassas). No special zoning for churches, nothing. Church groups that support foreign militaries (terrorist organizations, like Hamas) should be dealt with as any crime ring would be.

Sailor Steve

08-26-10, 09:08 AM

Since three or four debates
What happens is this: Someone says something. Rather than discuss it you immediately jump on that and launch into a huge lecture about how that person doesn't know what they're talking about, and an even bigger lecture about how you're right and they're wrong and that's the fact. If anyone tries to argue with you, you attempt to shout them down with even more lecturing. Your problem is that there is no room in your world for debate - you're right and everyone else had better listen.

Thank you, dear enemy. You see, that extremist, polarising thinking of yours by which you know only total freedom or no freedom with regard to the issue being debated here, is no typical American thing due to "American freedom" or your history, it is present in the europe of lately, too, and in some fields it even may be more present over here than in America.
It's all a matter of attitude. I've tried to show that for me the absolute is just a starting point. If you believe that freedom is an absolute you can start from there and work on it. If you don't, then you start believing that you can tame the beast and have it both ways.

In the one case you run the risk of, as you say, allowing the bad guys to misuse and abuse it against you. But in the other you run the risk of, as I've said, becoming the very thing you hate. It's a fine line - so fine sometimes that it is invisible, and too far on either side of it is a danger to everyone.

You say I'm absolute in my thinking. I say the same about you. For me the "absolute" is a starting point - the defining idea to be worked from. I don't know about your "absolute" because you never discuss it - you just jump on people and try to lecture them into submission.

In this discussion I only ever said that these people have the legal right to build a building, nothing more. You took that and jumped on my "absolutism" to prove a point. Your point seems to be that this must be stopped at any cost. It's what that cost may turn out to be that scares me, and your absolute insistence on it that makes me stand against you.

As I see it, you think your motives and goals are better than theirs, but yet again the bottom line is the same: you both are enemies of freedom.

Skybird

08-26-10, 11:06 AM

What happens is this: Someone says something. Rather than discuss it you immediately jump on that and launch into a huge lecture about how that person doesn't know what they're talking about, and an even bigger lecture about how you're right and they're wrong and that's the fact. If anyone tries to argue with you, you attempt to shout them down with even more lecturing. Your problem is that there is no room in your world for debate - you're right and everyone else had better listen.

Quatsch. You exposed yourself with a defintion of total freedom that ignored a vital inner contradiction, whzich I pointed out in my onw words as well as the descritpion of that same porblem in Popper's work entitled "The Free Society". That contradiction that you are unable to solve, is vital, and most important. But now you accuse me of lecturing - while you time and again have fallen back to that dogma of yours "if you take away the smallest ammount of freedom away from freedom for those who seek to destroy it, then you are not free yourself anymore". Not before yesterday you managed to get yourself moving at least a little bit, very slightly away from that dead end of thinking.

In the one case you run the risk of, as you say, allowing the bad guys to misuse and abuse it against you. But in the other you run the risk of, as I've said, becoming the very thing you hate. It's a fine line - so fine sometimes that it is invisible, and too far on either side of it is a danger to everyone.

you overlook one thing. Popper in his formulation refers to the the mnaifestation of the inention to destroy freedom, the intention to destroy it is real in his formulation. I also do not refer to just a potentially dangerous thing, or to just a suspicion that there might be a potential chance of the other (Islamic ideology and radcial Islamic organisations)
possibly trying to destroy freedom - I made it clear time and againt uhat it already is proving this intention by acting according to it. I am neither the total destroyer of a free society that you try to label me as, nor am I easymindedly want to act in preemptive action. both Popper and me base in our advise that the attekpt of the other to abuse freedom in order to destroy it, is a proven fact. maybe that is what you have not understood so far. If it only would be an irrational fear of eventually, maybe, possibly, damage might be done if freedom for the opposiunf side is not limited, then I would agree with you in so far that I would say: a suspicion alone is not enough, it needs to be proven before we act against them in order to defend ourselves. But in Popper's formulation of the tolerance-dilemma and freedom-dilemma as well as in my argument agaisnt islam and especially the initiators of the Cordoba initiave you should see that the agenda of destryiung freedom is a give, proven fact, that must no longer just be assumed to be like that.

You say I'm absolute in my thinking. I say the same about you. For me the "absolute" is a starting point - the defining idea to be worked from. I don't know about your "absolute" because you never discuss it - you just jump on people and try to lecture them into submission.

As I see it, you think your motives and goals are better than theirs, but yet again the bottom line is the same: you both are enemies of freedom.
and again you demosntrate that you only know total, absolute freedom, or no freedom at all: you say I take away freedom in general. The implication of that would be that i mean to make them as well as us total slaves, totally unfree. As a matter of fact I lined out just this all the time, and will you finally, finally after this long time please please please understand this: Your absolute, total freedom that you intend to give even to those who try to use that freedom in order to indeed destroy all freedom means that you necessarily accept in your conception of freedom that oyu must be overwhöemened by them, and freedom taken away from you. And i did not suggest more than to maybe withhold these others those freedoms that they need to crush our all very freedom and replace it with their ideology that knbows no freedom at all. nowehere I said that I want to take away all freedom. Nowehere i said that I want to keep freedom away from you or us. I talk about withholding some freedom for some people - those freedoms that aloow them to become successful, and those people who run the project of destroying freedom. If you only argue in absolutes, in all-or-nothing-at-all, and cannot differ between "us" and "them", then I understand that it might be impossible for you to understand me. But I would insist on that this would be a problem deriving from your thinking, not mine. As I pointed out: I am in conformity with principles of our own constitution, principles of law enforcement and police's moral basis of work, and I strongly, l very strongly must assume that if I would examine american laws and constitutional texts carefully, then I would find similiar pendants there as well. Becasue your nation uses to protect itself and defend itself agaimnst extremnists trying to destroy it or to limit the rule of law or federal government as well, and you cannot tell me that all this is running on a basis of illegality since two hundred years! ;)

Tribesman

08-26-10, 01:32 PM

Judging by this diatribe you need to get a grip. Really, if the thread is to much for you then do not participate. If you are looking for a pat on the back from me....keep on looking.
You need to get a grip on reality You know what I want and it isn't a patronising pat on the back. I asked you politely in the other topic to change your portrayal of your views on this subject.
Yet you went and did it again in this one.

So keep your platform...I do not want to be on it anyway I do not care for the way it is operated.
Fine, so you will no longer comment on the mosque then.
After all as its all about the people involved and their sensitivities you ain't got nothing to say have you?

Disclaimer : This opinion is soley my own and I'm not speaking for anyone but myself.
So much better.

AVGWarhawk

08-26-10, 01:51 PM

You need to get a grip on reality You know what I want and it isn't a patronising pat on the back. I asked you politely in the other topic to change your portrayal of your views on this subject.
Yet you went and did it again in this one.

No you asked me politely to STFU because for some reason you think I'm speaking for people who were there and I do not see eye to eye with you. You like to bait and push people. Your brow beat. Then you spend the rest of your time posting that others in the thread are some sort of lunatic who sniffs glue for fun. I said in my opinion I find it insensative. What part of 'my opinion' is befuddling you?

Tribesman

08-26-10, 01:55 PM

No you asked me politely to STFU
Nope.

You don't speak for those people so if you don't mind please don't try to speak for them.

yubba

08-27-10, 06:51 PM

In the end, the 1st Amendment not only prevents the establishment of a national religion, but it also prohibits government aid to any religion, even on an non-preferential basis, as well as protecting the right of the individual to choose to worship, or not, as he or she sees fit. So what is the State Department doing.

The Third Man

08-27-10, 07:07 PM

Lets keep the first amendment in perspective as it pertains to individuals. Which after all the US Constitution was meant to protect.

As Mr. Obama has stated the Consitution is a list of negative rights for the government. Let us forget for a moment that is not what they were meant to be. Rights are not absolute in any case. Most negate congress from making a law.

Denying a mosque be built in the shadow of the 9/11 attacks, neither establishes a law respecting a religion, nor denies the worship of those who expose that religion. It does place limits on the establishment of a place of worship. That is not prohibited under the law or constitution.

yubba

08-27-10, 08:03 PM

It also prohbits government aid to any religion. So why is taxpayer money going to this emome. :hmmm: hmmmm Islam let's see oh I know it's a religion and a mosque is like a church and the emome is like a priest. If it looks like a duck ,quackes like a duck
EDITORIAL: Tax dollars to build mosques

U.S. underwrites fundraising tour for Islamic shrine at Ground Zero

By THE WASHINGTON TIMES (http://www.washingtontimes.com/staff/the-washington-times/)
-
The Washington Times
7:46 p.m., Tuesday, August 10, 2010

http://media.washtimes.com/media/image/2010/07/06/mosques_2047_s160x97.jpg?919d5c9d70e7c7f38eb0b8ddc d94ec205af188fdImam Feisal Abdul Rauf, executive director of the Cordoba Initiative, addresses a gathering as groups planning a proposed mosque and cultural center near Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan to be named Cordoba House showed and spoke about their plans for the center at a community board meeting in New York Tuesday, May 25, 2010. Community members both for and against the plan spoke during the meeting. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

The State Department (http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/department-of-state/) is sending Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf (http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/feisal-abdul-rauf/) - the mastermind of the Ground Zero Mosque - on a trip through the Middle East to foster "greater understanding" about Islam and Muslim communities in the United States (http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/united-states-of-america/). However, important questions are being raised about whether this is simply a taxpayer-funded fundraising jaunt to underwrite his reviled project, which is moving ahead in Lower Manhattan.
Mr. Rauf (http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/feisal-abdul-rauf/) is scheduled to go to Saudi Arabia (http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/saudi-arabia/), Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain (http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/bahrain/) and Qatar (http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/qatar/), the usual stops for Gulf-based fundraising. The State Department (http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/department-of-state/) defends the five-country tour saying that Mr. Rauf (http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/feisal-abdul-rauf/) is "a distinguished Muslim cleric," but surely the government could find another such figure in the United States (http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/united-states-of-america/) who is not seeking millions of dollars to fund a construction project that has so strongly divided America.
By funding the trip so soon after New York City's Landmarks Preservation Commission (http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/new-york-citys-landmarks-preservation-commission/) gave the go-ahead to demolish the building. Let's see isn't the State Department part of Government?

yubba

08-27-10, 08:37 PM

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a4/Text_document_with_red_question_mark.svg/40px-Text_document_with_red_question_mark.svg.png (http://www.subsim.com/wiki/File:Text_document_with_red_question_mark.svg)
This article includes
The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment refers to the first of several pronouncements in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution (http://www.subsim.com/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution) , stating that "Congress (http://www.subsim.com/wiki/United_States_Congress) shall make no law (http://www.subsim.com/wiki/Law) respecting an establishment of religion (http://www.subsim.com/wiki/Religion)". Together with the Free Exercise Clause (http://www.subsim.com/wiki/Free_Exercise_Clause) ("... or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"), these two clauses make up what are commonly said as the "religion clauses" of the First Amendment.
The establishment clause has generally been interpreted to prohibit 1) the establishment of a national religion by Congress, or 2) the preference of one religion over another. The first approach is called the "separation" or "no aid" interpretation, while the second approach is called the "non-preferential" or "accommodation" interpretation. The accommodation interpretation prohibits Congress from preferring one religion over another, but does not prohibit the government's entry into religious domain to make accommodations in order to achieve the purposes of the Free Exercise Clause.

Tribesman

08-28-10, 03:20 AM

Denying a mosque be built in the shadow of the 9/11 attacks, neither establishes a law respecting a religion, nor denies the worship of those who expose that religion. It does place limits on the establishment of a place of worship. That is not prohibited under the law or constitution.
Might I suggest you try looking at he Shinto shrines around the Pearl Harbour area and the cases brought when attempts were made to prevent them as that limit and denial on the establishment of places of religion was deemed to be prohibited under law as it was unconstitutional:hmmm:

yubba

08-28-10, 07:56 AM

It is unconstitutional for government too aid said religion.:damn:

tater

08-28-10, 08:31 AM

Wonder if they'd deny a billboard across the street that said "muhammad ****** little girls" across the street.

Or just this image and caption:

http://i35.tinypic.com/2cz8ro5.jpg
Muhammad, why don't you take a seat over there.

Factor

08-28-10, 10:57 AM

Takeda Shingen

08-28-10, 11:10 AM

This whole thing (and this entire week on GT) reminds me of a cartoon posted on this forum a few years ago by, I believe, bradclark1 (I could be wrong, it could be someone else). In it, political discourse was depicted as two mountain goats on two different peaks; separated by a chasm large enough to prevent the settlement of whatever issue they had with each other, but vainly bleating away none-the-less.

Sailor Steve

08-28-10, 11:49 AM

But now you accuse me of lecturing - while you time and again have fallen back to that dogma of yours "if you take away the smallest ammount of freedom away from freedom for those who seek to destroy it, then you are not free yourself anymore". Not before yesterday you managed to get yourself moving at least a little bit, very slightly away from that dead end of thinking.
You're right; anyone who holds a different opinion is wrong; my thinking has no merit at all - it is "dead-end".

How is that not a lecture?

You sound to me just like a guy I talk with every now-and-then. He's a devout Communist, but the idealogy is unimportant. What is important is that every time I see him the first thing he says is "Have we reached a consensus yet?" I have to remind him that I'm not blind to the fact that he's not really interested a consensus. What he's really asking is "Have you come around to my way of thinking yet?"

You're the same. There is no question but that you are right, and anybody who disagrees is wrong, and needs to be taught the truth. So yes, you do lecture.

you overlook one thing. Popper...
And another interminable tribute to the greatest man who ever lived.

and again you demosntrate that you only know total, absolute freedom, or no freedom at all: you say I take away freedom in general.
And of course all this came about because I support the legal right of someone to erect a building.

The implication of that would be that i mean to make them as well as us total slaves, totally unfree As a matter of fact I lined out just this all the time, and will you finally, finally after this long time please please please understand this:
Lecturing again. I don't think you mean to make us total slaves. What I do think is that your mindset will lead to exactly that, and you don't see it. That is what makes you dangerous to my mindset.

Your absolute, total freedom that you intend to give even to those who try to use that freedom in order to indeed destroy all freedom means that you necessarily accept in your conception of freedom that oyu must be overwhöemened by them, and freedom taken away from you.
Your idea of what I said, not what I actually ever said. I allow that they must be allowed to speak, and to build. I allow that the law must not be changed specifically for them, but that they must be watched closely, as should all who would take away freedom. What you don't see is that to my mind that applies to you as well.

You have consistently railed against my thinking and lectured me on how wrong I am. What you have not done once is defend yourself against my accusation that you are as bad as them. I don't see you as any different. Show me that I'm wrong on that.

And i did not suggest more than to maybe withhold these others those fredoms that they need to crush our all very freedom and replace it with their ideology that knbows no freedom at all. nowehere I said that I want to take away all freedom. Nowehere i said that I want to keep freedom away from you or us. I talk about withholding some freedom for some people - those freedoms that aloow them to become successful, and those people who run the project of destroying freedom.
And you apparently fail to see that every dictator, every tyrant who has betrayed, destroyed and crushed people has at some point said exactly the same thing: "It's only a little freedom." "It's only for someone else, not you." "I'm doing it for your own good."

Do you start to see it now? Can you show me that I'm wrong on this one? Can you show me that you are not a danger to everything I believe in?

Konovalov

08-28-10, 11:55 AM

Wonder if I could get a permit to build a BBQ restaurant right beside this mosque. Hopefully the mosque would be downwind, ya know, to really get the swines aroma swirling around this proposed center for Islam.

I would have specials going everyday on around the time the muslims were praying.:yeah:
Sorry to disappoint you but we Muslims don't get easily offended over such things that you describe. I don't have a problem sitting next to my mate while he enjoys his bacon butty roll. The local mosque and halal butcher seems to get by and exist happily next to the Chinese restaurant. Have you ever been to a Chineese restaurant that doesn't have pork on the menu? Jews and Muslims have heard it all before over the centuries regarding pork. It's old news. :zzz: Now do you have anything contructive to add to the debate? If not then your post borders on spam if you will pardon the pun. :spammm:

Factor

08-28-10, 12:22 PM

I'm glad you can speak for all the 1.6 billion muslims out there.......

Konovalov

08-28-10, 12:24 PM

I'm glad you can speak for all the 1.6 billion muslims out there.......
I've never spoken for all, just those I know in the community in addition to myself of course. :)

Tchocky

08-28-10, 05:15 PM

Sorry to disappoint you but we Muslims don't get easily offended over such things that you describe. I don't have a problem sitting next to my mate while he enjoys his bacon butty roll.

Moved into a house with a few colleagues last week, one of whom is Muslim. I stuck my head around the door on the second day.

"Making lunch if you want any, mate."

"Ah, Ramadan?"

"....oh"

"aaaand, it looks like you're making bacon sandwiches"

".....ah"

He wasn't offended or anything, and we had a good laugh about it. But lord I felt stupid.

Bubblehead1980

08-28-10, 07:44 PM

You shouldnt feel stupid, he should:arrgh!: Will never get the guilt some people get over things like that.

Skybird

08-29-10, 06:50 PM

You're right; anyone who holds a different opinion is wrong; my thinking has no merit at all - it is "dead-end".

How is that not a lecture?

You sound to me just like a guy I talk with every now-and-then. He's a devout Communist, but the idealogy is unimportant. What is important is that every time I see him the first thing he says is "Have we reached a consensus yet?" I have to remind him that I'm not blind to the fact that he's not really interested a consensus. What he's really asking is "Have you come around to my way of thinking yet?"

You're the same. There is no question but that you are right, and anybody who disagrees is wrong, and needs to be taught the truth. So yes, you do lecture.

And another interminable tribute to the greatest man who ever lived.

And of course all this came about because I support the legal right of someone to erect a building.

Lecturing again. I don't think you mean to make us total slaves. What I do think is that your mindset will lead to exactly that, and you don't see it. That is what makes you dangerous to my mindset.

Your idea of what I said, not what I actually ever said. I allow that they must be allowed to speak, and to build. I allow that the law must not be changed specifically for them, but that they must be watched closely, as should all who would take away freedom. What you don't see is that to my mind that applies to you as well.

You have consistently railed against my thinking and lectured me on how wrong I am. What you have not done once is defend yourself against my accusation that you are as bad as them. I don't see you as any different. Show me that I'm wrong on that.

And you apparently fail to see that every dictator, every tyrant who has betrayed, destroyed and crushed people has at some point said exactly the same thing: "It's only a little freedom." "It's only for someone else, not you." "I'm doing it for your own good."

Do you start to see it now? Can you show me that I'm wrong on this one? Can you show me that you are not a danger to everything I believe in?
Sigh. :dead:

As long as you cannot show wrong the reason and sane argument in the statement in my sig, it is impossible for me to take you serious, and I have nothing more to say to you on this. Either you get it, or you do not get it.

I short-quoted the title of the book by Popper in the past. The title is not "The Open Society". The title is "The Open Society And Its Enemies." You may want to meditate a bit on why that is so.

But honestly said - one does not need to read a book to understand that tolerating the intolerant necessarily leads to the destruction of the tolerant. even little kids at elementary school already form an understanding of this.

Sailor Steve

08-29-10, 10:10 PM

Sigh. :dead:

As long as you cannot show wrong the reason and sane argument in the statement in my sig, it is impossible for me to take you serious, and I have nothing more to say to you on this. Either you get it, or you do not get it.
And you still haven't shown how you're going to accomplish this tightrope walk without destroying everything you claim to be protecting.

You want to take something I said in the old 'Gay Marriage' thread - "You either have freedom or you don't", and claim I feel that way about everything. Can you tell me how many times I've said things like "I go into every discussion assuming I might be wrong", "I don't know anything", "Nothing is ever black and white" and "Nothing is absolute"? No, you pick that one out of a crowd just so you could attack one statement.

The fact is that everything needs a starting point. When I say something like "All taxation is evil", it's a starting point, not a final answer. Same with my comment on freedom. How many times have I said in this discussion that I recognize that everything has limitations, including freedom? Yet you keep coming back to the same lecture - that I don't understand, and need you to save me.

I know that the radical Islamists are dangerous. Here in America we lock up people for what they do, not for what they say.

You still haven't explained why I shouldn't be frightened of you. You still haven't explained why they shouldn't be allowed to build a building. You still haven't explained why I shouldn't see you as the enemy of freedom just as much as they are. Mostly what you have done is preach.

Sigh loudly all you want. You like to lecture, you like to be right, and you like to talk down to people, and you like to tell my how stupid I am over one thing I said while ignoring everything else I've ever said as well.

yubba

08-29-10, 10:25 PM

Where's Murphysville ? didn't catch the state apparently they don't want one built there either. http://www.13wmaz.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=88301&catid=175

gimpy117

08-29-10, 10:44 PM

Where's Murphysville ? didn't catch the state apparently they don't want one built there either. http://www.13wmaz.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=88301&catid=175

thats sad. Thats something that would happen in Iran if you tried to build a church. This is the U.S.A where we should be better than that.