A cross at Auschwitz and a mosque near Ground Zero
I have been aware of the controversy in the US about the proposal to build a mosque near Ground Zero but not following it all that closely. But a post by Maverick Philosopher has crystalised my thinking on the matter.
He cites a very useful analogy with Carmelite nuns taking over an abandoned building next to Auschwitz to pray for the souls. This ( Read more... )
He cites a very useful analogy with Carmelite nuns taking over an abandoned building next to Auschwitz to pray for the souls. This ( Read more... )
What arbitrary test would you like Muslims in America to pass before they can build a structure that is already legal for them to do so?
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The summary of that link, in case you find it all a bit TL;DR:
The Cordoba mosque was built on the site of a church... several hundred years after the area was conquered by Muslims, the Christians were allowed full use of the site in the mean time, and the site was bought of them legally after that.
And the mosque was not meant to be a statement to Christians, it was meant to be a fuck-you to other Muslims.
And the church was built on the site of a Pagan temple in the first place. Why no concern for the feelings of Pagans?
Maybe the funding could be better used for a multi faith building where everyone of every religion can pray and remember the lost? Muslim, Jew, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist Seikh and atheist.
I thought they're already doing that. On the actual site of the WTC. At what distance from the epicenter does it stop being holy ground?
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The name is causing offence, the building is causing offence, the failure to divulge the sources of funding beyond what everybody suspects is causing offence and the failure by anyone associated with the project, or by Muslims in general, to universally condemn terrorism is causing offence.
Of course to do so would be to contradict the common reading of the Koran, so don't hold your breath waiting for that condemnation.
And all this is supposedly going to bring about peace? Interfaith dialogue?
Really?
Sorry, I'm just not buying that.
At what distance from the epicentre does it stop being holy ground?
At the distance that nobody will care. Probably a pretty big distance right now, give it a few years and see what happens, it's been less than 10 years. In a generation no one will care.
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IS
NOT
A
MOSQUE
As far as the offence goes, it seems to be largely from people who already have a large ideological interest in finding offence in everything Muslims do, and the people who believe them.
The whole thing about naming it after Cordoba being offensive. Really? Really? Was it so insulting a month ago? Or, indeed, at any time before you started joining in the righteous outrage? Before Newt Gingrich lied about what the name ‘means’, were you in any way aware of the history?
Given that Cordoba was the university city where Sylvester II, Averroes and Moses Maimonides all studied, do you think that might have been the rationale behind the name?
If any city which the Muslims had conquered in their history is ipso facto a symbol of Muslim conquest per se, then that rules out such conquered cities as Medina, Mecca, Baghdad, Tangiers, Tripoli, and Cairo. So by that logic, there is a very limited number of places Muslims are allowed to name anything after, without causing offence.
And, let's face it, it will cause offence, ( ... )
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You and Erudito and Newt Gingrich and Andrew Bolt and Fox News and the Tea Party are the ones who keep claiming that it's on Ground Zero. (Actually, it's two blocks away, in the same building as a nightclub and a gym ( ... )
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I have a pretty dim view of SCA people as a general rule, I like finding exceptions to that rule. My old English is terrible, always was, even my Schwaben has sadly fallen to the point where I really have to work and double check everything I read. I've no Arabic at all. Can't even read the script.
Mosque is easier to type and you care, you're the one getting irritated and bolding things, never said it was on Ground Zero, WW2 - I can't believe you misunderstood my meaning. Never professed to have read Maimonides, just have a copy of some of the medical texts, somewhere.
I was pretty clear about New York, and amongst some New Yorkers Muslims of any stripe are not going to be welcome anytime soon.
Hence my stating that I think the mosque an appallingly misjudged attempt at reconciliation, which should have been canned when they realised the depth of feeling.
Muslims should try to make peace, maybe not within two blocks of Ground Zero though.
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What about Muslim New Yorkers? Did they cease to exist on 9/11? Did none of them die in the towers either?
You keep talking about Muslims and New Yorkers as if they were disjoint sets.
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I believe there's a memorial monument at GZ for everybody.
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So what? Is the outrage of some people sufficient to block the legal rights of others? Because it is a legal right that the group involved has had upheld to build that center, and if those people don't like it, then they should probably go and do something about those laws.
Otherwise it's mob ‘justice’, rule by the people who shriek the loudest, and the terrorists have won. No, really, if civil society has degraded to the point where shrieking vitriol overrides the rule of law, then bin Laden has actually and literally achieved his goal.
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And it isn't mob rule, it's common courtesy. There are lots of things that you can legally do but don't and if Daisy Khan was serious about her goals this is something she'd be thinking about.
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Meanwhile, blah blah Sharia Law, Wahabbist grab bag of... you know, you might have just yelled 'Islamofascist' a few times and left it at that.
Meanwhile, Republicans are busy fighting funding for 9/11 responder's health problems and America's monument to 9/11 on the wtc site is... a hole in the ground. Good job!
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Anyway, I'm sorry, did I upset you with some facts?
I'm hardly an Islamofascist, but hurling uninformed abuse does seem to be a fairly typical response by a liberal minded person to an argument they can't win with facts. In many Muslim cultures the person who retains a cool, level head and continues to argue his point quietly is seen as the victor of an argument or debate. This is an aspect of Islamic culture I wholeheartedly recommend to the West.
Here's the wiki on Wahhabi.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wahhabi
You may well be right about the dancing in the streets but I seem to remember that pretty clearly, in any case, what does "THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT" have to do with anything? There's countries with Muslim populations right around the world, I'm sure it'd be daylight somewhere.
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What does Wahabbism, Dhimmi taxes and Sharia law have to do with a Sufi Muslim Community Center being built in Manhattan?
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http://www.snopes.com/rumors/cnn.asp
At this point I normally expect;
a) the other party to completely ignore me and go on living a life of self-indulgent, self-righteous ignorance.
b) the other party to hurl abuse, typically something along the lines of "bigot" "racist" "homophobe" "sexist" or some other equally generic evil in the hope that it will keep me quiet before going on living a life of self-indulgent, self-righteous ignorance.
c) Outright lies and claims of misunderstandings before going on living a life of self-indulgent, self-righteous ignorance.
But I'm hoping for a different response.
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