Ground Zero Mosque

Nodin

old_aussie wrote: »

I'm not going to have some muslim tell me what to do in my own country and tell me that I have to change the Australian culture to suit him.

He can adapt to and accept the Australian culture or piss-off back to mussyland if he doesn't like the Australian culture.

You said yourself that you deliberately sat with the sole of your foot pointing at a man to annoy him, and that when he eventually reacted, you and some others attacked him. I think, therefore, that its nothing whatsoever to do with Australian culture, and a great deal to do with you.

(to whomever - offtopic I know, but I think its best we know where people are coming from)

Overheal

old_aussie wrote: »

I'm not going to have some muslim tell me what to do in my own country and tell me that I have to change the Australian culture to suit him.

That's not what we're discussing at all.

This is the construction of a mosque.

They are not asking you, a non-muslim, to start reading the Koran and praising Allah. No more than a church can force me to read the Bible and accept the love of Jesus ****ing Christ.
This has absolutely nothing to do with culture.

Unless the Australian culture is already antithetic of the freedom of religion - then yes, it's an affront on your culture.

old_aussie

Nodin wrote: »

You said yourself that you deliberately sat with the sole of your foot pointing at a man to annoy him, and that when he eventually reacted, you and some others attacked him. I think, therefore, that its nothing whatsoever to do with Australian culture, and a great deal to do with you.

(to whomever - offtopic I know, but I think its best we know where people are coming from)

That's right, I was sitting on the train and wasn't even aware that sitting the way I was, was an insult to him till he started going berserk and threatening me. I just kept my foot where it was and when he started grabbing me and threatening me with his fist, that's when I reacted and people that I didn't even know told him to feck off. When he continued to threaten me I said that's it I've had enough and clobbered him. Other people grabbed him and threw him off the train at the next station.

From then on I sit how I want to, as it's within the law to do so.

Black Swan

It appears to be Marching Season on Ground Zero. Only the colours and religions have changed, but the underlying hatred that contributes to division, discrimination, and war is alive and well among the human race.

No wonder that Will Durant reported in his The Lessons of History that “in the last 3,421 years of recorded history only 268 have seen no war.”

Overheal

old_aussie wrote: »

That's right, I was sitting on the train and wasn't even aware that sitting the way I was, was an insult to him till he started going berserk and threatening me. I just kept my foot where it was and when he started grabbing me and threatening me with his fist, that's when I reacted and people that I didn't even know told him to feck off. When he continued to threaten me I said that's it I've had enough and clobbered him. Other people grabbed him and threw him off the train at the next station.

From then on I sit how I want to, as it's within the law to do so.

Jimmy, Roll Two-Twelve:


http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=65243133&postcount=32

old_aussie wrote: »

When I'm on the train and see a muslim I always put one leg up so that the sole of the shoe on that foot faces the muslim.

I've had some of them get so upset that they actually started abusing me and several have actually attempted to physically assault me.

Last one who put his hands on me got a hiding and was arrested by police at the next station.

When he went to court for assault, he said what I was doing was an insult to islam and that he had the religious right to act against me as he did. Violence is their answer to most things that they don't approve of.

muslims don't assimilate onto the community, they try to change it to their way.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=65243331&postcount=44

old_aussie wrote: »

It's supposed to achieve a comfortable sitting position.

Also to show a muslim the sole of your shoe is an insult to them.

It's not against the law to sit as you want in Australia, and i don't see why I should change to accomodate a religin that I don't give a damn about.

They want to come to Australia, let the abide by our culture

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=65243398&postcount=52

old_aussie wrote: »

I got the satisfaction that I can do anything in Australia that is not against the law, islam is not the law and has no respect as such in Australia.

The muslim got a hiding from me and several people who tried to intervene(that he also attacked) and he also got a suspended jail sentence

Old_Aussie you are quite the little liar aren't you. Trying to re-present something you already told boards.ie

Did you forget Google? It wasn't hard to find. You admit explicitly to changing your seating position when you see a muslim to deliberately provoke them. Your rationale being This is a Free Country where Im free to sit how I want but F*CK YOU if you think you can build a mosque here. So when I see a muslim I'll exercise my freedom to be a ____________.

That about right? More importantly you try now to make the claim that this was one isolated incident where one muslim just went completely apesh*t on you with no warning. However, that would be an outright lie, wouldn't it bud.

Iwasfrozen

old_aussie wrote: »

I'm not going to have some muslim tell me what to do in my own country and tell me that I have to change the Australian culture to suit him.

He can adapt to and accept the Australian culture or piss-off back to mussyland if he doesn't like the Australian culture.

Aren't you guys descended from criminals?

Anyway, showing the sole of your shoe to a muslim is an insult and you know it. He had every right to attack you after you insulted him. I would have done the same thing.

irishconvert

old_aussie wrote: »

That's right, I was sitting on the train and wasn't even aware that sitting the way I was, was an insult to him till he started going berserk and threatening me. I just kept my foot where it was and when he started grabbing me and threatening me with his fist, that's when I reacted and people that I didn't even know told him to feck off. When he continued to threaten me I said that's it I've had enough and clobbered him. Other people grabbed him and threw him off the train at the next station.

From then on I sit how I want to, as it's within the law to do so.

How many times are you going to rehash that old story? You are like a boy who has taken his first sip of beer, or had his first kiss and wants to impress his friends by telling the story over and over.

As you know, I am an Irish Muslim, and turning the soul of your shoe towards me would not insult me in the slightest. So knowing that, if you were sitting opposite me in the train would you try to insult me in another way? If so, what would you do?

metrovelvet

Blue_Lagoon wrote: »

Oh I do worry about it, as you should too. This ground zero mosque controversy does not just concern New Yorker's (even if some do live on an island). It has been reported around the world, and is a world concern that can have future consequences.

Sarah Palin is not a New Yorker either, but she plays on this controversy to keep her name in the news.

It contributes to the creation of an "Us" vs "Them" division by faith, Christians vs Muslims, Jews vs Muslims, etc., etc. I thought that the Crusades ended long ago, but the hateful sentiments continue to fester today.

When the ground zero mosque controversy hit the world media and web, Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida would have cause to jump up-and-down for joy! Their terrorist action 9 years ago on NYC continues to "divide and conquer" America, as well as to hurt their foreign relations with many nations that have large Islamic populations.

What does living on an island have to do with anything? You live on an island.

Look. It will go up. What more do you want? You cant control other people's feelings about it. To expect them to be happy is a disproportionate expectation.

MagicMarker

I posted this in the AH thread but it should probably go here too....

An article from Sam Harris.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-08-13/ground-zero-mosque/

After weeks of dodging the issue, at a White House Ramadan dinner Friday night, President Obama came out in support of Park51, the planned Muslim community center and mosque two blocks away from the World Trade Center site.The President says he wasn't endorsing the ground zero mosque—only defending the right to build it. Sam Harris on his failure to acknowledge that Islam is different than other faiths.

Should a 15-story mosque and Islamic cultural center be built two blocks from the site of the worst jihadist atrocity in living memory? Put this way, the question nearly answers itself. This is not to say, however, that I think we should prevent our fellow citizens from building “the ground zero mosque.” There is probably no legal basis to do so in any case—nor should there be. But the margin between what is legal and what is desirable, or even decent, leaves room for many projects that well-intentioned people might still find offensive. If you can raise the requisite $100 million, you might also build a shrine to Satan on this spot, complete with the names of all the non-believing victims of 9/11 destined to suffer for eternity in Hell. You could also build an Institute of “9/11 Truth,” catering to the credulity, masochism, and paranoia of the 16 percent of Americans who imagine that the World Trade Center was intentionally demolished by agents of the U.S. government. Incidentally, any shrine to conspiracy thinking should probably also contain a mosque, along with a list of the 4,000 Jews who suspiciously declined to practice their usury in the Twin Towers on the day of the attack.
The erection of a mosque upon the ashes of this atrocity will also be viewed by many millions of Muslims as a victory—and as a sign that the liberal values of the West are synonymous with decadence and cowardice.

The New York Times has declared that the proposed mosque will be nothing less than “a monument to tolerance.” It goes without saying that tolerance is a value to which we should all be deeply committed. Nor can we ignore the fact that many who oppose the construction of this mosque embody all that is terrifyingly askew in conservative America—“birthers,” those sincerely awaiting the Rapture, opportunistic Republican politicians, and utter lunatics who yearn to see Sarah Palin become the next president of the United States (note that Palin herself probably falls into several of these categories). These people are wrong about almost everything under the sun. The problem, however, is that they are not quite wrong about Islam.

In his speech supporting the mosque, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said: “We would betray our values—and play into our enemies' hands—if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else.” This statement has the virtue of being almost true. But it is also true that honest, freedom-loving Muslims should be the first to view their fellow Muslims somewhat differently. At this point in human history, Islam simply is different from other faiths. The challenge we all face, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, is to find the most benign and practical ways of mitigating these differences and of changing this religion for the better.

It is both ironic and instructive that at the very moment that the path was finally smoothed for the construction of the ground zero mosque, the Hamburg mosque that nurtured the 9/11 hijackers was shut down by the German government. No doubt there were German Muslims who felt their religious liberty was shamefully abridged. However, after a decade of treating this mosque as a monument to tolerance, the Germans were forced to admit that it was actually an incorrigible incubator of jihadism and anti-Western values. And so, the question must be asked: Which of these sister mosques represents the true face of Islam?

In his speech, Mayor Bloomberg said, “It is my hope that the mosque will help to bring our city even closer together and help repudiate the false and repugnant idea that the attacks of 9/11 were in any way consistent with Islam.” He has since said that anyone opposed to this project “ought to be ashamed of themselves.” This, incidentally, is the same Mayor Bloomberg who could not bring himself to publicly condemn the practice of “oral suction” used by Orthodox mohels during the ritual of circumcision, despite the fact that it spreads herpes to infant boys, causing occasional brain damage and even death. Such failures of secular nerve can be given a general description: Tolerance of religious stupidity has a way of making liars and cowards of people who should have nothing to fear from the fruits of honest reasoning.

And honest reasoning declares that there is much that is objectionable—and, frankly, terrifying—about the religion of Islam and about the state of discourse among Muslims living in the West, and it is decidedly inconvenient that discussing these facts publicly is considered a sign of “intolerance” by well-intentioned liberals, in part because such criticism resonates with the actual bigotry of not-so-well-intentioned conservatives. I can see no remedy for this, however, apart from simply ramming the crucial points home, again and again.

The first thing that all honest students of Islam must admit is that it is not absolutely clear where members of al Qaeda, the Taliban, al-Shabab, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Hamas, and other Muslim terrorist groups have misconstrued their religious obligations. If they are “extremists” who have deformed an ancient faith into a death cult, they haven’t deformed it by much. When one reads the Koran and the hadith, and consults the opinions of Muslim jurists over the centuries, one discovers that killing apostates, treating women like livestock, and waging jihad—not merely as an inner, spiritual struggle but as holy war against infidels—are practices that are central to the faith. Granted, one path out of this madness might be for mainstream Muslims to simply pretend that this isn’t so—and by this pretense persuade the next generation that the “true” Islam is peaceful, tolerant of difference, egalitarian, and fully compatible with a global civil society. But the holy books remain forever to be consulted, and no one will dare to edit them. Consequently, the most barbarous and divisive passages in these texts will remain forever open to being given their most plausible interpretations.

Thus, when Allah commands his followers to slay infidels wherever they find them, until Islam reigns supreme (2:191-193; 4:76; 8:39; 9:123; 47:4; 66:9)—only to emphasize that such violent conquest is obligatory, as unpleasant as that might seem (2:216), and that death in jihad is actually the best thing that can happen to a person, given the rewards that martyrs receive in Paradise (3:140-171; 4:74; 47:5-6)—He means just that. And, being the creator of the universe, his words were meant to guide Muslims for all time. Yes, it is true that the Old Testament contains even greater barbarism—but there are obvious historical and theological reasons why it inspires far less Jewish and Christian violence today. Anyone who elides these distinctions, or who acknowledges the problem of jihad and Muslim terrorism only to swiftly mention the Crusades, Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, the Tamil Tigers, and the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma, is simply not thinking honestly about the problem of Islam.

What one doesn’t generally hear from Western Muslims is any frank acknowledgment of these unpleasant truths. In response to serious concerns raised over Islamic doctrines related to jihad, martyrdom, apostasy, and blasphemy—along with their incontrovertible link to terrorism, threats of violence, cartoon “controversies,” and the like—one generally meets with petulance, feigned confusion, half-truths, and non sequiturs. Apologists for Islam have even sought to defend their faith from criticism by inventing a psychological disorder known as “Islamophobia.” My friend Ayaan Hirsi Ali is said to be suffering from it. Though she was circumcised as a girl by religious barbarians (as 98 percent of Somali girls still are) has been in constant flight from theocrats ever since, and must retain a bodyguard everywhere she goes, even her criticism of Islam is viewed as a form of “bigotry” and “racism” by many “moderate” Muslims. And yet, moderate Muslims should be the first to observe how obscene Muslim bullying is—and they should be the first to defend the right of public intellectuals, cartoonists, and novelists to criticize the faith.

There is no such thing as Islamophobia. Bigotry and racism exist, of course—and they are evils that all well-intentioned people must oppose. And prejudice against Muslims or Arabs, purely because of the accident of their birth, is despicable. But like all religions, Islam is a system of ideas and practices. And it is not a form of bigotry or racism to observe that the specific tenets of the faith pose a special threat to civil society. Nor is it a sign of intolerance to notice when people are simply not being honest about what they and their co-religionists believe.

The claim that the events of September 11, 2001, had “nothing to do with Islam” is an abject and destabilizing lie. This murder of 3,000 innocents was viewed as a victory for the One True Faith by millions of Muslims throughout the world (even, idiotically, by those who think it was perpetrated by the Mossad). And the erection of a mosque upon the ashes of this atrocity will also be viewed by many millions of Muslims as a victory—and as a sign that the liberal values of the West are synonymous with decadence and cowardice. This may not be reason enough for the supporters of this mosque to reconsider their project. And perhaps they shouldn’t. Perhaps there is some form of Islam that could issue from this site that would be better, all things considered, than simply not building another mosque in the first place. But this leads me to a somewhat paradoxical conclusion: American Muslims should be absolutely free to build a mosque two blocks from ground zero; but the ones who should do it probably wouldn’t want to.

Nodin

It's amazing how Hamas blowing up a Synagogue (Jews=Israel) is rightly seen as an example of their barbarous mentality, but associating all muslims with 9/11 is somehow "respectable".

Black Swan

Republican leaders Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin are playing off the ignorance, fears, and hatreds that many Americans have about people who are not Christians or Jews to win votes when they run for president in 2012.

In their Ground Zero Mosque Crusade they are implementing the old political maxium: “The best thing for ingroup unity is an out-group threat.” If they can paint all the believers of Islam as the enemy, they hope to unify many American Christians and Jews behind them, irrespective of their political registration as Republican, Democrat, or Independent.

Is the Ground Zero Mosque Crusade the tip of the hatred iceberg? Are Gingrich and Palin ushering in yet another era of McCarthyism-like scare tactics grounded upon ignorance, religious intolerance, and fear, this time about the threats of Islam to America, replacing the Communist scare tactics of the 1940s and 1950s?

Does anyone see the craic in how America’s Communist arch enemies of yesterday are now America’s trading partners of today; e.g., the Peoples Republic of China and The Socialist Republic of Vietnam? “Made in America” is being replaced by “Made in (Communist) China.”

If Palin or Gingrich win in 2012, to what extent does their Ground Zero Mosque Crusade foreshadow their attitudes towards nations with large Muslim populations? Will they continue to muster support by fanning the flames of religious intolerance, bigotry, and fear to launch yet another war in the Middle East, as GW Bush did with the 2nd Gulf War (Iraq II)? Gosh, has anyone found the weapons of mass destruction claimed by GW Bush and Dick Cheney used to scare the US Congress and the American people into a war of Shock and Awe against Iraq?

My Da in Galway has the ultimate answer to these often recurring political and religious hate problems when he sings the lyrics from an old 1950s Kingston Trio song in a pub after too many Guinness (Oh, if you wish to sing along, it helps to have a pint to swing back-and-forth and drink!):

They're rioting in Africa.
They're starving in Spain.
There's hurricanes in Florida,
And Texas needs rain.

The whole world is festering with unhappy souls.
The French hate the Germans, the Germans hate the Poles.
Italians hate Yugoslavs, South Africans hate the Dutch.
And I don't like anybody very much!

But we can be tranquil and thankful and proud,
For man's been endowed with a mushroom-shaped cloud.
And we know for certain that some lovely day,
Someone will set the spark off...
And we will all be blown away!

They're rioting in Africa.
There's strife in Iran.
What nature doesn't do to us...
Will be done by our fellow man!

**Blue raises her pint and yells "Cheers!"**

metrovelvet

If you think building a mosque near ground zero is going to bring about peace and love and happiness you are very much mistaken. It will only confirm New Yorks suspicion that they are obsessed with the financial district.

oscarBravo

metrovelvet wrote: »

If you think building a mosque near ground zero is going to bring about peace and love and happiness you are very much mistaken.

Unfortunately, it's been hyped to the point where there can't be a happy outcome from it. If it's built, the fundie Christian haters will feel that their right to carve out a Muslim-free zone has been trampled on; if it's not, it will entrench the perception that America promotes freedom of religion, as long as it's the right religion.

It will only confirm New Yorks suspicion that they are obsessed with the financial district.

It won't confirm anything of the sort, except in the minds of people who are open to believing that type of thing in the first place - and they're not exactly open to rational persuasion anyway.

metrovelvet

oscarBravo wrote: »

Unfortunately, it's been hyped to the point where there can't be a happy outcome from it. If it's built, the fundie Christian haters will feel that their right to carve out a Muslim-free zone has been trampled on; if it's not, it will entrench the perception that America promotes freedom of religion, as long as it's the right religion. It won't confirm anything of the sort, except in the minds of people who are open to believing that type of thing in the first place - and they're not exactly open to rational persuasion anyway.

Look. You have it wrong.

Legally, technically, yes if they have the money to build there, then they have the right to do that. Just like the neo nazis had the right through the first ammendment to have a parade through a town full of of holocaust survivors. But that doesnt mean it is not offensive and going to step on toes.

Eventually people will get over it. But yes, given the trade centers, given the plot to blow up the new jersey tunnel [which connects new jersey to the financial district] people do think they are obsessed with the financial district, and not racist OTT nut jobs, but your regular working run of the mill New Yorker.

wes

metrovelvet wrote: »

Look. You have it wrong.

Legally, technically, yes if they have the money to build there, then they have the right to do that. Just like the neo nazis had the right through the first ammendment to have a parade through a town full of of holocaust survivors. But that doesnt mean it is not offensive and going to step on toes.

Eventually people will get over it. But yes, given the trade centers, given the plot to blow up the new jersey tunnel [which connects new jersey to the financial district] people do think they are obsessed with the financial district, and not racist OTT nut jobs, but your regular working run of the mill New Yorker.

So, the people building the Islamic Center were behind these attacks? Thats the only way they wouldn't not be a bunch of bigotted morons.

Secondly, the people building the Islamic Center, are not trying to offend anyone, and the opponents are going out of there way to be offended, and we can see this by the mere fact that they claim they are bulding a Mosque, when it is an Islamic Center, and claim it is being built at Ground Zero, when it is not being built there. The opponents seem to have issues with basic facts.

oscarBravo

metrovelvet wrote: »

Legally, technically, yes if they have the money to build there, then they have the right to do that. Just like the neo nazis had the right through the first ammendment to have a parade through a town full of of holocaust survivors. But that doesnt mean it is not offensive and going to step on toes.

You just conflated Muslims with Nazis...

Eventually people will get over it. But yes, given the trade centers, given the plot to blow up the new jersey tunnel [which connects new jersey to the financial district] people do think they are obsessed with the financial district, and not racist OTT nut jobs, but your regular working run of the mill New Yorker.

...and Muslims with Islamist terrorists.

This is the problem. Like it or not, as long as you and others continue to tacitly equate Islam with evil, it will continue to be the problem.

wes

BTW, didn't Sam Harris call for nuking the ME? Seems a bit rich of him to complain about violence then, IMHO.

[sarcasm]Also, if some claim I am taking him out of context, well I don't see the issue, as Mr. Harris is happy to do the exact same thing in regards to Islam .[/sarcasm]

Joking aside, even with the the various excuses offered by Sam Harris, in his statements about nuking the ME, I still think the man doesn't have a leg to stand on, as pretty much every mass murderer will come up with various excuses as to how there mass murder of a lot of people is the right thing to do.

Nodin

metrovelvet wrote: »

Look. You have it wrong.

Legally, technically, yes if they have the money to build there, then they have the right to do that. Just like the neo nazis had the right through the first ammendment to have a parade through a town full of of holocaust survivors.

Another ridiculous analogy?

I asked a question here, which is pertinent....
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=67465071&postcount=238

metrovelvet

oscarBravo wrote: »

You just conflated Muslims with Nazis... ...and Muslims with Islamist terrorists.

This is the problem. Like it or not, as long as you and others continue to tacitly equate Islam with evil, it will continue to be the problem.

Well, people do. Like it or not there is a series of associations. The attacks were done in the name if Islam, jihad so what do you expect? You just think that symbolic power will go away?

I dont know what people here want. The mosque will go up. Its within legal parameters. There is nothing illegal about it. That is the price you pay for living in NYC. YOu have to put up with other people's crap that you don't like. What I dont understand is how you can expect people to be happy about it?

You have to realie NYC history is full of racial and religious conflict. The blacks hate the jews. The jews hate the blacks. The italians hate the chinese. The blacks hate the irish. And so on and so on. Why do you expect Islam to be exempted from these tensions? [Except for the bleeding heart liberals at NYU. They love everybody. That is of course after buying up all the affordable property so that these groups like the chinese, the italians, the middle easterners cant afford to live there anymore.]

MagicMarker

wes wrote: »

BTW, didn't Sam Harris call for nuking the ME? Seems a bit rich of him to complain about violence then, IMHO.

[sarcasm]Also, if some claim I am taking him out of context, well I don't see the issue, as Mr. Harris is happy to do the exact same thing in regards to Islam .[/sarcasm]

How many people have to believe something for it not to be taken out of context? Is there a specific number?

wes

MagicMarker wrote: »

How many people have to believe something for it not to be taken out of context? Is there a specific number?

So if enough people take Sam Harris out of context, it stops being out of context?

oscarBravo

metrovelvet wrote: »

Well, people do. Like it or not there is a series of associations. The attacks were done in the name if Islam, jihad so what do you expect?

I expect people to understand that there's a difference between nutjobs who do something evil, nominally in the name of a religion, and the genuine adherents of that religion.

I realise it's a lot to ask of an angry mob, but I live in hope.

I dont know what people here want. The mosque will go up. Its within legal parameters. There is nothing illegal about it. That is the price you pay for living in NYC. YOu have to put up with other people's crap that you don't like. What I dont understand is how you can expect people to be happy about it?

I would like people to be rational about it, so that they can see there's no reason to be unhappy.

You have to realie NYC history is full of racial and religious conflict. The blacks hate the jews. The jews hate the blacks. The italians hate the chinese. The blacks hate the irish. And so on and so on. Why do you expect Islam to be exempted from these tensions?

I would rather people stopped hating each other for stupid reasons, rather than pre-existing stupid hatred being used as a rationalisation for a new stupid hatred.

metrovelvet

oscarBravo wrote: »

I expect people to understand that there's a difference between nutjobs who do something evil, nominally in the name of a religion, and the genuine adherents of that religion.

I realise it's a lot to ask of an angry mob, but I live in hope. I would like people to be rational about it, so that they can see there's no reason to be unhappy. I would rather people stopped hating each other for stupid reasons, rather than pre-existing stupid hatred being used as a rationalisation for a new stupid hatred.

You're expecting too much.

Nodin

metrovelvet wrote: »

You have to realie NYC history is full of racial and religious conflict. The blacks hate the jews. The jews hate the blacks. The italians hate the chinese. The blacks hate the irish. And so on and so on.

There is a song along those lines, I seem to remember
http://www.lyricsfreak.com/t/tom+lehrer/national+brotherhood+week_20138394.html

Any answer to that question, btw?

oscarBravo

metrovelvet wrote: »

You're expecting too much.

I know. I'm an idealist. I prefer to be a disappointed idealist than someone who uses old hatreds as justification for new hatreds.

MagicMarker

wes wrote: »

So if enough people take Sam Harris out of context, it stops being out of context?

Can you provide a straight answer to my question?

At the moment we have two groups of people who have absolute faith in what they believe. Who are you to say one is right and one is wrong? Who are you to say the word of Allah is taken out of context? Does the majority automatically take precedence?

Personally, I think they're both wrong, but that's another matter.

wes

MagicMarker wrote: »

Can you provide a straight answer to my question?

I gave an answer the question deserved. Now, to make it clearer, I believe any such number to be irrelevant to the actual meaning of a piece of text, and hence why I responded with the comment, I did, which I taught was clear enough.

MagicMarker wrote: »

At the moment we have two groups of people who have absolute faith in what they believe. Who are you to say one is right and one is wrong? Who are you to say the word of Allah is taken out of context? Does the majority automatically take precedence?

Well clearly Sam Harris, is taking a side in that regard, as per the article you posted.

MagicMarker wrote: »

Personally, I think they're both wrong, but that's another matter.

Fair enough.

MagicMarker

wes wrote: »

I gave an answer the question deserved.



Well clearly Sam Harris, is taking a side on that debate, as per the article you posted.



Fair enough.

So because Sam Harris has provided these passages he automatically applies that line of thinking to every Muslim?

Well that means this conversation is over, I suggest you look up some of Sam Harris' debates and/or lectures to see what he really thinks, you might learn something.

wes

MagicMarker wrote: »

So because Sam Harris has provided these passages he automatically applies that line of thinking to every Muslim?

Clealy you are reading a completely different article to the one I read, but lets take a look at some of what he said:

Yes, it is true that the Old Testament contains even greater barbarism—but there are obvious historical and theological reasons why it inspires far less Jewish and Christian violence today. Anyone who elides these distinctions, or who acknowledges the problem of jihad and Muslim terrorism only to swiftly mention the Crusades, Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, the Tamil Tigers, and the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma, is simply not thinking honestly about the problem of Islam.

I personally love the apologetics for the violence within Judaism and Christianity. Its shows a great deal of hypocrisy imho. Islam is uniqely violent and all that crazy stuff in the Bible can be explained away by "historical and theological reasons why it inspires far less Jewish and Christian violence today." (I would like Mr Harris to say that to the people of Iraq, those guys behind the Jerry Springer Opera and Palestinians living under the boot heel of Israeli occupation), but apparently these reasons don't matter, when it comes to Islam. Seems to me that the man has one hell of a double standard....

What one doesn’t generally hear from Western Muslims is any frank acknowledgment of these unpleasant truths. In response to serious concerns raised over Islamic doctrines related to jihad, martyrdom, apostasy, and blasphemy—along with their incontrovertible link to terrorism, threats of violence, cartoon “controversies,” and the like—one generally meets with petulance, feigned confusion, half-truths, and non sequiturs.

"Incontrovertible link to terrorism.", well I don't know about you, but that seem to tell us exactly what the man opinion is, in regards to Islam, and he has clearly taken a side on the issue, which you have chosen to ignore.

Plenty more of that sort of thing in the article you posted, and I find it funny that you are so quick to dismiss it. Sam Harris see's Islam as uniquely violent, and is happy to offer apologetics for other faiths to promote this view.

MagicMarker wrote: »

Well that means this conversation is over, I suggest you look up some of Sam Harris' debates and/or lectures to see what he really thinks, you might learn something.

Well, you don't seem to have read his stuff yourself, so I think I won't listen to you recommendation...

wes

A great article from Salon, that details how the "outrage" was manufactured by a fringe group, and is now being embraced by the main stream right wing nutjobs:

How the "ground zero mosque" fear mongering began