There is already howling over no convenient open thread. I spoil some people. đ
106 Thoughts to “Open Thread Mid-week September 8”
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BoyThree is wrong. The imam did not threaten to instigate such violence himself. He only warned us that, if we refused the current proposed location of the mosque, we coud well pay a price in retaliatory radical violence. From the AP of 9 September: “NEW YORK – The man behind the proposed Islamic community center near Ground Zero cautioned Wednesday that moving the facility could cause a violent backlash from Muslim extremists and jeopardize national security.” The imam said it. He said it to Soledad O’Brien on CNN on 8 September. He also said it on Larry King.
I would say that this is an example of using a veiled threat in pursuit of an objective, with the person expounding on that threat making every effort to distance himself from those who might actually perpetrate it. Either way, it is a “You had better do what I want or someone else could make you pay for the refusal.” A very common tactic.
Let me make a correction to that last. The imam said it to Soledad O’Brien ON “Larry King Live.”
I would wonder how the imam knew about the potential for retaliatory violence. Who told him?
I guess you are known by the company you keep.
such a tenacious guy, this imam. after all the brouhaha and controversy, if his intent was really to foster understanding and tolerance or whatever the pablum du jour, why wouldn’t he just compromise and concede maybe a different location would be preferable.
Emma, No one had to tell him. The radicals will use ANY excuse to threaten or cause violence. THAT’S their job.
cargo, I have a question for you. Since our troops in Iraq have now been classified as “noncombat,” what happens if they die in what Obama would now refuse to call a combat situation? Does it impact their benefits or honors in any way? Just curious.
I don’t think Obama is refusing to call it a combat situation. Obviously if they are fighting, they are fighting.
I have absolutely no idea, Emma. Good question.
I donât think the whole Muslim brouhaha is all that big a deal â if there was any teabagger cred to be garnered Corey or Stirrup would have introduced a PWC resolution and Cooch would have filed a lawsuit.
It is my understanding that this blog (or the anti-bvbl blog) was begun as a place to organize and voice resistance to a wave of intolerance that was overtaking your community. I would like to respond, as a Manhattan resident, to what we are experiencing in New York City as a gigantic blast of intolerance directed at Islamic residents. I live in Manhattan. A member of my church community died in 9/11. I support the building of the Cordoba House, as do most downtown Manhattan residents where the Center will be built. We see a distinct difference between the extremist terrorists who attacked on 9/11 and people of Islamic faith who are our neighbors and friends, just as you saw a difference in the people you knew to be your good Hispanic neighbors and the ugly criminals the blvd site described.
The Imam behind the Cordoba House is a known, loved and trusted community figure, just as your sheriff was in the 9500 Liberty film. He has strong ties to religious leaders of every faith in our city and is as far from a terrorist as is possible to be. What he said, regarding an extremist reaction to moving the proposed Cordoba House, was that Islamic radicals would use any evidence of American intolerance towards Islam as a tool for recruiting impressionable youth to their cause. This is what he wrote in the NY times:
“The wonderful outpouring of support for our right to build this community center from across the social, religious and political spectrum seriously undermines the ability of anti-American radicals to recruit young, impressionable Muslims by falsely claiming that America persecutes Muslims for their faith. These efforts by radicals at distortion endanger our national security and the personal security of Americans worldwide. This is why Americans must not back away from completion of this project. If we do, we cede the discourse and, essentially, our future to radicals on both sides.”
I don’t disagree with you that they are scum bags, Hello. Why would I defend people who are participating in nepotism and basically stealing from poor kids?
Not going to happen.
Tell us more about the CBC college scholarship program. I had never heard of it before this hit the fan.
Perhaps the good imam should have the wisdom and grace to tell the American people that he understands their sensitivities about that sacred soil at Ground Zero and that, in order to pursue true peace amongst us all, he will voluntarily withdraw his proposal and build the mosque and cultural center in a location not so sensitive. That, in my opinion, would end this entire thing and truly restore peace. It could also be a large step forward in building those bridges of which the imam often speaks.
In case you missed it, this blog, and, indeed, much of America, came out strongly against the idea proposed by that Christian pastor in Florida to burn the Koran. Most of us already understood or have gotten to understand of how much Muslims revere their Holy Book and how much agony and antagonism would be created amongst all Muslims if we desecrated that book. We have deferred strongly to your sensibilities and wishes in that case and have widely condemned one of our own for even proposing such a thing. In the interest of concluding a peace between us, I suggest that you consider returning this deference on the subject of that mosque and cultural center without expecting us to act out of fear of either attacks from or giving an edge to the radical jihadists.
If âunderstands their sensitivities about their sacred soilâ is a euphemism for âaccepts the fact weâre bigotsâ then yes, the center should relocate. Itâs like saying Rosa Parks should have been more sensitive to the fact that whites were uncomfortable with her sitting in the front row ⌠maybe 5 or 6 or 7 rows towards the back of the bus would have made them more comfortable, although I suspect they would have preferred that she and her kind werenât present on the bus at all. How far away is far enough? And if itâs all just sensitivity about proximity to the WTC site then why are Muslims getting hassled about building plans in several other places hundreds or thousands of miles away from NYC? There was a Muslim prayer room in the South Tower of the WTC (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/11/nyregion/11religion.html) and some of the victims of the 9/11 attacks were Muslim. Is it not insensitive to their families to say their religion is unwelcome within ___ distance of where their loved ones used to pray and where they ended up dying? And if this is âsacred soilâ then why is the off-track-betting site on the next block okay and why is it showing due respect for men to go into the adjacent nudie bar and slip a $5 tithe into the g-string of a naked woman whoâs on stage with her ankles behind her ears and a pair of man-made twin towers poking in the air? Is that how weâre supposed to commemorate 9/11 and honor the sacred soil by getting a lap dance at Ground Zero? Come on, isnât there a big pile of hypocrisy in the âsacred groundâ canard? Itâs really just that we think Muslims are all evil and we donât want them around. We could at least be honest. (And in the interest of full disclosure, Iâve bought lottery tickets and lap dances before and do not mean to disparage either one … they both create false dreams of what might be.)
Iâm a Christian and a Baptist. Iâm just glad I donât automatically get lumped in with the nut jobs from Westboro Baptist (the a***oles that protest at fallen service member funerals) and that moron with the wacky mustache down in Florida whose gotten intoxicated on his 15 minutes of fame that put our troops in greater danger. Applying the same standard many are using to stereotype Muslims there is no difference in me (and all other Christians) and the so-called-reverends Jones and Phelps and their followers.
How can you possibly compare the actions of an innocent woman staging a quiet protest against some of the most egregious discrimination against her race with the actions of radicals who threaten violence unless we cede to their will?
Even before a single Koran came close to being burned, they were burning our flag in protest. And the Ground Zero mosque imam has already stated clearly that there will be violence if we do not allow the mosque exactly where they want it to be located. They don’t like a political cartoon? They threaten violence. They don’t like an American cartoon comedy that basically skewers everyone equally? Threaten the lives of the producers. They don’t get what they want, they threaten violence. We don’t cede our First Amendment rights? They threaten violence. There seems to be a pattern here.
Your comparison is a real slap in the face to Rosa Parks’ legacy.
@Morris Davis
Thank you, Moe. Those are definitely some good words to think about.
I think the fact is that there are 1 billion Muslims in the world. Some of them hate us and all western thinking. What do we do about it?
Obviously, it would be better if they didn’t hate us. Then there would not be any terrorism if no one wanted to kill us.
We can threaten them and treat them like they are a second class religion or we can continue to be egalitarian as mandated by our Constitution and not favor any religion over another. Neither come with guantees. Since you can’t out-power all of them I think diplomacy might be a better road to take.
If you aren’t sure you are going to win the whup ass way, better try the way you have a better chance of winning.
And as a person who, as a child, rode in the front of the bus, I could get real sensitive about the description of the adults in my life. But I am not that sensitive. I don’t think it was insensitive at all to use Rosa Parks as a comparison.
I think the Imam was not threatening…I think he was warning. He knows that there are radical muslims. I know that there are radical Christians. I have been bullied by a few in my day and I have had a family friend killed by someone in the name of Christianity. I don’t blame all Christians for this behavior.
Are there more radical Muslims than radical Christians? It sure seems like it.
Americans burn their own flag in protest. I simply don’t believe that we have to go tit for tat with negative bad radical behavior to make a point. Most Americans are better than that.
I felt he was speaking for radical Muslims. It would be easy to interpret his words as, “You don’t give me what I want, I will sic the radicals on you.” I’m having a hard time seeing bridge-building in this imam’s words and actions. Either he’s talking out of two sides of his mouth, or his PR skills are seriously lacking.
I will be honest…I got sort of tired of the subject and just backed off it. I seriously believe that it is New Yorkers who should ultimately decide what they want to be at the Ground Zerio area, whether is it strip joints, camera shops, gambling, Islam Centers or park benches.
After rewatching the history channel today, even briefly, it reinforces the idea that they were actually the people under attack, at least with me. The Pentagon was sort of different. Yes, we were all attacked. But New Yorkers were directly attacked. I was not. I believe all New Yorkers know friends and neighbors who died in 9-11.
So as for this Imam….I have just not listened in great detail, just encapsulations of his words on cable channels. I don’t have strong opinions about him.
I am 100% with Morris.
Rosa Parks said, “I would like to be known as a person who is concerned about freedom and equality and justice and prosperity for all people” and she added, “I was a person with dignity and self-respect, and I should not set my sights lower than anybody else just because I was black.â
I never met her, but I don’t think when she used the phrase “all people” she included caveats that carved out exceptions to divide people into “us” and “them.” And I believe when she talked about not setting her sights lower because of the color of her skin that she would condone stereotyping an entire religion based on the actions of a few and holding one group to a separate and unequal standard. I don’t think that reflects the ideal of the freedom and equality and justice she spoke of.
Fla. pastorâs son: Church wonât burn Quran on 9/11
RELIGION Âť Eleven Afghanis injured in protests of plan
By ANTONIO GONZALEZ
The Associated Press
GAINESVILLE, Fla. â The son of a pastor who suspended plans to burn copies of the Quran to mark the 9/11 anniversary says Islamâs holiest text will not be torched at their Florida church today, while Muslims in Afghanistan protested the churchâs plans Friday.
Luke Jones, the son of the Rev. Terry Jones, told reÂporters Friday that the event will not take place Saturday. But he says he canât speak about whether there will be a future event. The pastor called off the Quran-burning event after claiming he had commitÂments from Muslim leadÂers that a mosque would not be built near ground zero in New York. When that was met with denials, the minister said the burnÂing event was suspended.
The pastor says he will to fly to New York to meet with the imam overseeing the mosque project there.
In Afghanistan, at least 11 people were injured FriÂday in protests.
Police in the northern province of Badakhshan said several hundred demonstrators ran toward a NATO compound where four attackers and five poÂlice were injured in clashes. Protesters also burned an American flag at a mosque after Friday prayers. In western Farah province, police said two people were injured in another protest.
Speaking to NBCâs âToÂdayâ show, the Rev. Terry Jones said if he meets with the imam in New York, he wonât burn the Quran. It wasnât clear if he meant the burning would be halted indefinitely or just for SatÂurday.
Well, sure enough, someone had to try to play the “bigot card” again. That is getting mighty tiresome. And I agree, Emma, that the attempt at an analogy between the Rosa Parks protest and the issue currently at hand was absolutely ludicrous. Actually, one might consider that an attempt to label all dissenters as bigots is a form of bigotry itself.
My comment wasnât an expectation that anyone âact out of fearâ in support of the Cordoba House. It was an attempt to clarify that the Imam wasnât making a veiled threat, and was, in fact, trying to emphasize the power of human love and support rather than the destructive force of intolerance. Opposition to Koran-burning isnât a âdeferenceâ that warrants applause. Itâs a proper response that shouldnât require a pat on the back. The point of the Cordoba House defense is that all people of Islamic faith are not extremist terrorists and didnât fly into the towers any more than Christians or Jews or Buddhists did. They don’t have anything to apologize for and shouldn’t be shunned and vilified for the actions of violent people they don’t support. Terrorists, and terrorist alone, are the ones who attacked. Casting the building of Cordoba House as âinsensitiveâ is the same as saying that all Islamic people are terrorists, which is simply untrue. Either you can make the distinction between good people of Islamic faith and terrorists, or you canât. And the people who want to build Cordoba House are American citizens, not enemies of the state. The Imam actually works for the US State department as an emissary of good will. It seems that people who had the guts to stand up for the rights of hispanic immigrants in their communities could see the correlation between this issue and that one. Casting good people as “other” and demonizing them is a rotten business to be avoided in EVERY instance. This one is no different.
I really appreciate the comments of Moon-howler. They display an earnest desire to understand and fall on the side of justice, and I am greatly heartened by them.
BoyThree…a true voice of reason…I have enjoyed reading your posts. Hope you stick around.
TWINAD — I strongly urge you to read “Londonistan” by Melanie Phillips. There is in that book an interesting take on the tossing about of the words “bigot” and “Islamophobe” and how they are used deliberately to cast aspersions upon people who express dissent because they are wary of ultimate purposes and wish to practice vigilance. I say read this book not because it coincides with my own views but because it gives one real lessons on the deceptions one faces in an international struggle, including the use of apparently innocent and non-threartening people and organizations of self-professed goodwill as a front for advancing the real cause. The book was not an eye opener for me, just a reminder. I fought that battle of deception and counter-covert action for decades, first against the masters of the trade known as the KGB, the GRU, and the East German Stasi and later against their very skillful imitators, international terrorists. I’m not saying that BoyThree or even that imam are knowingly a part of such deception; but there are enough questions about this issue, including the semblance of this being a totally manufactured crisis, to make an old warrior start sniffing around for what may be under the floor boards.
Not to change the subject or anything, but I would like to give HUGE kudos to the Liberia Ave. Chick Fil-A for sponsoring a 9/11 fundraising event today to honor public service employees. Area high-school marching bands showed off their talents, fire and rescue folks were therewith their trucks and gear, and Chick-fil-a, gracious as always, kept order, gave the musicians free food and a percentage of their proceeds to benefit the fallen. One of many reasons I have always been a loyal customer.
On to the “Evening Under the Stars” tonight. Charity events can really be a blast sometimes, even for us supposed “bigots” who like to do good works just as much as anyone else.
And Morris, I will certainly try to be more tolerant of those who threaten us with violence if they don’t get their way in curtailing our freedoms. I find it a huge stretch to imagine that Rosa Parks acted on their behalf, but if you say so…
BoyThree, no one is demonizing “good” Moslems here. I find it very strange that some of us are being accused of intolerance on the very day in which intolerance took the lives of thousands of innocent Americans and foreigners….yes, including some Muslims. You are in a country to which many, many people, including many of my own ancestors, came in the search of religious freedom and tolerance. They found it. The road was not always without bumps and still isn’t, but we have seemed to make our way through somehow.
As a self-proclaimed “moderate” Muslim who says he does not support jihad and wants to make peace among all of us, let me then put you on the spot. In June of 2004, the New London Muslim Centre opened in East London. This is a huge facility with room for thousands of worshippers. A participant in the Friday prayers at the opening of this facility was one Sheikh Abd al-Rahman al-Sudais, a gentlemen known to have expressed sentiments which were strongly anti-Christian, anti-Jew, anti-Hindu, and anti-American. This is part of what he has said about the Jews: They are “calf-worshipers, prophet-murderers, prophecy-deniers…the scum of the human race whom Allah cursed and turned into pigs and apes…These are the Jews, a continuous lineage of meanness, cunning, obstinancy, tyranny, licentiousness, evil, and corruption.”
Mind you, this man had an important role at the opening of the star attraction of Islam in Britain, a facility which is probably larger than any other in Europe. No one in the “moderate” Muslim community protested the invitation to this man or even bothered to research his radical sentiments and no one bothered to register a complaint afterwards. To me and others, this man represents a height of religious intolerance operating not in the mountains of Waziristan or the back country of Yemen but right among us.
In 1980, the Islamic Council of Europe pubished a book called “Muslim Communities in Non-Muslim States.” That book addressed the theological problems faced by Muslims living as minorities. The book advised Muslims to organize themselves by setting up mosques, community centers, and Islamic schools. O.K. no problem. Many immigrant minorities in this country have done the same things. But the ultimate goal advocated by that book is to make Muslims a majority and to ensure that the host state is governed according to Islam. “Sharia-compliant” comes immediately to mind as a part of that program.
Now, BoyThree, I do not know you and cannot judge the validity of your blog statements of moderation, goodwill and religious peace. However, if you are a “moderate” as you say and a true seeker of religious peace, let me ask you and those around you to “screw your courage to the sticking place” and show us your efforts to confront those who practice intolerance in the name of Islam — confront them directly and fight them openly in order to preserve the good name of your common religion. Right now you seem focused on pointing the finger of bigotry at me and others like me, using the warnings of some future jihadist violence if we do not comply with your program. That says to me that the real intolerance is among the jihadists, people who share with you reverence for the Koran. Our acceptance of your program and our meeting in that cultural center with magnanimous expressions of love and peace are is not going to make those jihadists go away. The time is long past for that. You speak their religious language and most likely share many aspects of their culture. Time then for you to overcome your own fears and get into this fight on all fronts.
“
I need to correct the assumption that I am Moslem. I’m a practicing Christian who believes that God has many names, and who has experienced the vitality, joy and shared love of interfaith communion.
I do believe that practicing love and interfaith understanding is the best way to fight fundamentalist extremism of any sort. The quote I cited from the Imam is an eloquent expression of how it does, indeed, diminish the effectiveness of extremist recruitment. I’ve tried very hard to clarify that no one is “using the warnings of some future jihadist violence if we (you) do not comply with your (our) program.” but you either don’t understand or won’t accept the inaccuracy of that repeated claim. I don’t see a need to continue a discussion that rests on this false premise. I hope you will have an opportunity to experience a revelatory appreciation for the people you now discount.
Cindy participates in interdenominational services regularly. Perhaps she will share more of her experieinces.
BoyThree, thanks for clarifying you position.
Maybe we should attempt to define what/who we are calling good mulims, Would those be the muslims who don’t want to kill us? Would those be those to stand up to the radicals?
Here’s an interfaith event coming up that Imam Abu Nahidian of Manassas Mosque, as well as many others, are planning to participate in:
Unity in the Community is celebrating our fourth annual International Day of Prayer for Peace on Sat., Sept. 25 from 5 to 9 p.m. at Wat Lao Buddhavong of Washington, D.C., a Buddhist Temple located at 3043 Catlett Road off Route 28 in Catlett, Virginia. The theme is âA Place to Call Home,â emphasizing that our community is home to many peoples, cultures, races and religions. Each offering of songs, skits, dances, readings or stories of service from many participating faith organizations will focus on youth leadership and participation. The event includes a shared meal. Guests are asked to dress modestly and remove shoes when entering the Temple. Parents/caregivers are asked to supervise their children at all times. Admission is free, but donations of canned food for SERVE and ACTS is encouraged. All are welcome to attend this interfaith gathering.
In 2007, Unity in the Community celebrated at the Peace Pole on the corner of Grant and Lee Ave in Manassas. In 2008, the celebration gathered at Dar Al Noor, one to two masjids in our area. Last year, we were hosted by Congregation Ner Shalom, our communityâs only synagogue. The International Day of Prayer for Peace (IDPP) began as a vision of the World Council of Churches (WCC). Here in the United States we share resources with On Earth Peace (OEP), a peace initiative of the Church of the Brethren.
Unity in the Community is grateful for the hospitality of Wat Lao Buddhavongâs Abbot, Venerable Phra Maha Bounmy Kittithammavanno; Vice Abbot, Venerable Phra Maha Chandaphone Chakkavarro, and Bounheng Inversin, who is facilitating the event.
For more information, contact Illana Naylor at 703-975-3737 or [email protected].
Thank you for that report, Cindy. Has Unity in the Community only been in existence for 4 years?
Any time we can have events that lead to better understanding of one and other, a community improves.
Unity is at least 13 years old.
I can give you an example, Moon. Seven years of living and working with Muslims abroad, sometimes as the only Western Christian among thousands of Muslims. Given BoyThree’s admission, I probably have had close relationships with more Muslims than he even knows. We have just seen the end of Ramadan. Imagine trying to teach multiple classes of teenagers who are allowed no food or liquid from sunup to sundown for an entire month in countries where the sun is blazing hot all day long and the dust is stifling — kids already malnourished by economic under-development. Where I was you could not even swallow your own spittle without violating the precepts of Ramadan. Conversation in that time period was spit to your left and spit to your right and Blessed be Allah, but I can hardly wait for the sun to go down. And, as the sun finished its nightly eclipse, they would gather around huge pots of rice and sauce and wait for the moment when they could relieve their hunger and thirst, digging rabidly and communally at the appointed hour into those pots. At their invitation I would on occasion sit with them and eat with them. Yes, I had to get over the communal pot thing psychologically; and, when I did, I got one horrendous case of dysentery that laid me up for several weeks. I paid a price then for sensitivity and diplomacy. And I recall sitting with them as they hunched over their shortwave radios waiting for that official clerical voice from Cairo telling them the day when Ramadan began and the day Ramadan ended. And, to tell the truth, I have rarely seen more joyous occasions than the Eid — even counting that time late in that period when I found my five-year-old daughter watching in fascination as my nearest neighbors were slitting the throat of a festive sheep. As different as they were in most ways from me, I came to love those people; and I count those years as some of the most informative and educational of my entire life. Imagine a foreign Christian being trusted enough by the very chief Islamic leader of an entire region to ride the man’s prized and beloved stable of horses. I was walking on the clouds. I was, in effect, an “infidel” stranger among friends.
These people I would classify as “good” Muslims. Their demographic turf had been carved out centuries ago by conversions, migrations and battles with pagans. In the most recent centuries they were introduced at colonial direction to accommodation of both the colonial and converted indigenous Christian elements without engaging in violence and recrimination. This continued even into the initial phases of the post-colonial era. In some places that was fairly easy — especially when I was the only Christian they knew, apart from a possible handful of Lebanese Maronites. In other places the events of colonial history led to some migrations of indigenous Christian converts into Muslim territory. These Christians set up enclaves in overwhelmingly Muslim areas and concentrated largely on certain occupations. They were tolerated, even after independence. There was not a mingling of these communities but there was a live and let live, with everybody more or less minding their own business. I would call that a community of “good” Muslims or, for a better term, “moderate” Muslims. Most of them practiced the peace of the Koran. I never, ever walked in fear among them.
However, over the past couple of decades there has been a change in some places I knew. The purveyors of radical Islam arrived and, in my opinion, poisoned the atmosphere. Now, where I once walked in safety and without fear, one reads and hears from time to time of violent clashes between communities of Muslims and Christians who lived side by side in comparative peace and tolerance for a very long time. Whenever I tap into the internet and see news photos of the slaughtered people in some towns in Northern Nigeria, for example, my heart is torn between anger and the lost memories of the fine and peaceful Muslim people I once knew. And, all I can ask is why someone has not stepped in and put a stop to this, why some in those moderate elements, as fearful as they might be of retaliation, do not group together and tell those radicals face to face to look at the misery they have caused and to cease placing a black mark on their common sacred book and beliefs.
How do you put a stop to that hatred? You can’t. I am not sure who profits from hatred. Someone must.
There are all sorts of religious practices I think are barbaric. Ramadan would certainly be one. Not allowing kids to have Christmas presents would be another. Still another would be young girls having to marry older men who already have several wives. Those are just practices in this country….
On CBS News from Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy:
“…we Muslims have to do more work to separate spiritual Islam of the faith we love from political Islam that creates the Nidal Hassans [Fort Hood]…This isn’t a fight between Islam and Christianity or between Islam and the West, it’s a fight within the house of Islam we need to focus on, not just focus on victimology.”
Jasser herpahs had identified a solution. How will or could it be implemented?
Sadly, there are lots of Americans who want our laws based on Christianty. I want my church and state very separate.
There is always someone who says ues but….NO. No compromise here. I believe the idea is to keep the camel’s nose out from under the tent.
Moon,
“who want our laws based on Christianity”
I’ve seen that phrase so many times that it passes unseen now. What exactly does that mean? Our laws ARE based on the precepts of Christianity and Judaism. Now, if you mean a theocracy, that’s different. I mean, what part of our laws about not stealing, killing, lying, adultery, etc is NOT based on basic Judeo-Christian ethos?
And the problem with the statement above is that a law based upon Christianity would therefor be based on Christ’s teachings and sole commandment: Love one another.
Are we now to have laws about adultery? Who gets punished? The man or the woman? Let me guess…..
Let’s not try to water down what I am saying. Interestingly enough, those laws involving stealing, lying and killing really aren’t exclusive to Christianity unless Moses secretly a Christian several thousand years before its time.
I don’t want anyone’s religion fused into public policy, including my own.
Since it’s an open thread, I will announce that today is my 41st birthday. đ
Have a wonderful birthday, Pink!
Most religions share the same values. Heck, match up Roe v. Wade with Islamic law. The point in which the soul enters the fetus is when the fetus’ rights rise. Sometime between 40 and 120 days.
Would you like the Islamic version of adultery?
You can’t lay things at Christian beliefs since so many are shared. Cargo is right, stop singling out Christianity when it is common to all religions.
KG, happy birthday.
Happy birthday, youngster!
Actually, I don’t feel I have singled out Christianity and more than any other religion. The majority religion in the United States is Christianity. I haven’t seen any Buddists trying to impose their religious laws on anyone else.
I am aware of the Islamic laws on adultry. Why should there be any laws on adultry in this country? Why is adultry the state’s business? It seems like a personal issue to me. Perhaps it might involve one’s church but that’s as far as it should ever go. EVER.
And actually, I am not talking about the laws that are common to all religions (don’t rape, steal, kill, etc) , I am talking about the ones that are someone’s pet project. And I seriously am not going to back off those issues. I will continue to call them out every time I see them.
Let’s start with anti gay taboos in the United States. Odd, even the Israeli army allows for gays in the military. On to gay marriage….book content….censorship….abortion rights, contraception availability, hanging religious works in public classrooms…..
Thanks for the birthday greetings. Had fun, relaxation and sweets. Now it’s off to work to be rid of the calories!
I leave you more serious minded people to stabilize the world order in my absence.
Ok. I knew that putting adultery in there was going to raise hackles. So lets leave that one out. Lying, stealing, killing. The basics. So, basically those are based on Judeo-Christian ethos. Lying, stealing, and killing are NOT frowned upon in the Koran, as long as you do it to an infidel. Heck, killing is legal. Look at the honor killings in Islamic society. However, one cannot base law on Christian teachings. Christ only had one commandment. Love one another.
We haven’t done such a hot job at that, if He meant in the agape sense of the word.
That aside, since both Christianity and Islam are Abrahamic religions, I don’t see why Lying, stealing and killing (which actually means murder) aren’t a major taboo in the Koran. I haven’t read parts of it for years so I can’t speak to KNOWing this. I would have to take someone else’s word for it.
I did just check the Koran for Dummies. (which is as good as anything else for someone at my level) All three ‘people of the book’ are grounded in the 10 commandments. The Koran just doesn’t list them and give them a cardinal number. That covers lying, stealing and murder.
As with Judaism and Christianity, man gets in there and interprets the holy books. When this happens, someone invariably gets it wrong. Proof: Hassidic, Orthodox, Conservative, Reform Jews. More proof: Catholics, Baptists, snake handlers, Old Regular Baptists, Church of God, Assemblies of God, Episcopalian, Presbyeterian……and the list of Denominations goes on endlessly.
Calling Obama a prick gets you banned from the US for LIFE.
http://www.myfoxdc.com/dpp/news/offbeat/uk-teenager-banned-from-america-for-life-over-obscene-obama-email-091310
@cargosquid
“Christ only had one commandment. Love one another.”
… to clairify, when Jesus was asked what is the greatest commandment of them all, he said “Love the Lord you God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind.” (and “strength” in some versions). The 2nd greatest commandment after that is to “love you neighbor as yourself.”
If the global population of Christians only lived their life simply according to these 2 commandments, there would be little to no violence in the world, but as is the case with so many people, the question pops up “Why Me, why do I have to change my ways when everyone else gets to do what they want?”
or more recently, “Why can’t I hurt them? see how they hurt me?”
I have walked in both Christian shoes and Muslim sandles. I have witnessed enough selfless acts of virtue, charity and love on the part of both faiths to know that the radical stories brought to you in perfect color corrected high definition on the major corporate news outlets do not represent the majority of the people.
That said, I find worldly greed often brings out the worst in everyone and just as often is the root of most bloody conflict.
The higher the rate of consumption, the bloodier the fight over the few remaining resources.