Be Tolerant at ground Zero

[benidict]

If someone sincerely extends a hand of friendship, then whose fault is it if the other person views that extended hand to be a slap in the face?

This community center project was a non-issue when it was first announced and once this election season is over, then I expect that public opinion against this project will change just as quickly as it did when the politicians and the media got their cue from people like Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer and started to fan the flames to further their own agenda.

Public opposition against the project cannot last long once the politicians and FOX News leave the scene.

extending a hand in frindship? really? is it the same hand of friendship the muslims extend in iraq, when they tore down Catholic Churches in the past, and build a mosque over it? more to it than meet the eye, and you know this my friend. its the same thing islam has done for millenia. after destroying something of an enemies, they build a mosque over it. also when territory is gained it is never to be given up in islams view. i think the community center should be scrapped. forget tolerance. the American public needs to study, and educate themselves as to the real reasons muslims do what they do. i think a study of what happened to the Coptic Church in egypt would be a good start.

 

[benidict]

Trust me, if Muslims on a large scale were out to get us, we’d have a huge problem on our hands. Our country would look like what we did to Iraq by now. Speaking of Iraq, don’t we Americans look kind of dangerous to the civilized world? We were attacked by 19 Saudis and took it out on well over 100,000 Iraqis. You know, you can argue this stuff with me until you turn blue, but I will never understand the sense in any of it. I choose no part in any of it. I extend my hand in friendship to all, and if it’s rejected or if I get hurt or injured for it, I am still the happier for what I did.

Your friend
Sufjon

your right. only a small percentage hate us. only 10 million 100000 iraqi? doubtful. we are fighting iranians and syrians over here. only a very very small number of militants are iraqi. im over here, so i wont argue with you about it. and you have no clue at the good we do here. if you want no part of it, fine. i dont care. let us do our jobs, and get out of our way. sit back in comfort with your six pack and t.v. while the rest of us do the work. we have many good civilians working over here as well. they work very hard. helping teach these people about farming, industry, buisness, etc. what have you done? i for one, think iraq is a better place for us being here, and i dare say, many iraqis feel the same. no more rape rooms, no more people going through plastic chippers. no more kids being picked up and tortured just for the former leaders amusment. shall i go on? id love to say something else to you, but this is a family forum. have a nice day.

 

[John_Paul_Jones]

Trust me, if Muslims on a large scale were out to get us, we’d have a huge problem on our hands. Our country would look like what we did to Iraq by now.

Don’t you mean what happened to the Kurds could happen to the Americans?

 

[Sufjon]

Americans sacrificed lives and treasure to liberate Iraq from a brutal and tyrannical regime that had systematically tortured and killed the population for decades.

You preferred Saddam?

I think that killing is killing. Systematic torture and killing is not excused because of which flag you are waving while you do it, or what cause we convince ourselves that we are serving while we do it.

Your friend
Sufjon

 

[Sufjon]

your right. only a small percentage hate us. only 10 million 100000 iraqi? doubtful. we are fighting iranians and syrians over here. only a very very small number of militants are iraqi. im over here, so i wont argue with you about it. and you have no clue at the good we do here. if you want no part of it, fine. i dont care. let us do our jobs, and get out of our way. sit back in comfort with your six pack and t.v. while the rest of us do the work. we have many good civilians working over here as well. they work very hard. helping teach these people about farming, industry, buisness, etc. what have you done? i for one, think iraq is a better place for us being here, and i dare say, many iraqis feel the same. no more rape rooms, no more people going through plastic chippers. no more kids being picked up and tortured just for the former leaders amusment. shall i go on? id love to say something else to you, but this is a family forum. have a nice day.

Dear benedict: You are right, I have done nothing to participate and I don’t plan to.

Your friend
Sufjon

 

[Sufjon]

I won’t turn blue arguing with you. You addressed nothing in my post.

The danger from islamic terrorists is real, and clear to anyone who looks at it fairly (including peaceful muslims). Despite your assertion to the contrary, many non-muslims believe that islamic terrorism enjoys the tacit approval of, or at least a blind eye from the “millions” of muslims throughout the world. Non-muslims would be reassured if they heard more from peaceful muslims denouncing islamic terror, and if conversations with them did not include veiled threats (i.e., “believe me, if muslims were out to get us, we’d have a huge problem…”).

If I addressed everything in your post you would still be convinced of the same things you are convinced of now. What would be the point? I addressed what I felt was in my own heart, not to appeal to anyone’s intellect.

Your friend
Sufjon

 

[hamba2han]

The people at FOX News like Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck have on numerous occasions announced that the proposed Islamic community center near Ground Zero is planned to open on Sept. 11 of next year i.e the 10th anniversary of the event.

This is nothing but an ill-intent and bare-faced lie and if any of the FOX News presenters like Beck and Hannity had even an ounce of professional integrity and decency within them, they would apologize for helping spread this brazen untruth.

And is there another example of a bare-faced lie that the opponents of the Park51 project have manufactured out of thin air?

Well, I would say that the story that part of the landing gear of an airplane fell on the Burlington Coat Factory building on the morning of Sept. 11 is another example of their shameless lies.

People like Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer have continually spread this story without even giving a shred of evidence to support their claim that a part of the landing gear fell on the building… and sadly, the media and many others seem to have swallowed this story hook, line and sinker.

I do not believe a word of this story and I think that it is a complete fabrication without an iota of truth which has been manufactured and spread by people who have an agenda to stop the Park51 project.

 

[CHESTERTONRULES]

I think that killing is killing. Systematic torture and killing is not excused because of which flag you are waving while you do it, or what cause we convince ourselves that we are serving while we do it.

Your friend
Sufjon

Fighting to defeat tyranny and oppression is just. Fighting to spread tyranny and oppression is not just.

Saddam killed a minimum of 1 million people during his reign and he ruled with brutality.

Why would you want this to continue indefinitely?

 

[JHow]

If I addressed everything in your post you would still be convinced of the same things you are convinced of now. What would be the point? I addressed what I felt was in my own heart, not to appeal to anyone’s intellect.

Your friend
Sufjon

You posted some statistics to purportedly demonstrate that Americans had more to fear from Latino terrorists than islamic terrorists. The report in fact shows that we have plenty to fear from islamic terrorists. Instead of listening to your heart, perhaps you should use your head.

 

[jakasaki]

…
Did you know that all terrorists in the United States are Muslim…except for the 94% that aren’t? According to the FBI, the breakout is as follows:

…
Islamic extremists: 6%

…

A list of each individual act can be found on the FBI website: fbi.gov/publications/terror/terrorism2002_2005.htm

…

If there are approximately 2.5 million muslims in the US alone,

6% of them are “potential” terrorists/extremists the result is 150,000 muslims in the US are “extremists”

The number is way too high for my comfort & I get no warm & fuzzie feelings about it.

The problem is that we do not record peoples religion here in the US -

CAIR claims there are 7 million muslims here
PEW claims there are 2.5 million muslim here

If CAIR is correct with their 7 million muslims, @ 6% = 420,000

 

[KathleenGee]

What people don’t understand is that it is the tiny minority of Militant Muslims that have defeated Christian countries in the past.

And one of the worst things to do to victims of murder and abuse is to act as if nothing happened or ‘get over it’…which can drive some people to consider suicide. We should – always, always, always – be sensitive and caring to people who had their lives or likelihood lost to murder or misrepresentation or fraud.

Syria was home to the great desert fathers, one in particular, St. John Climacus. Palestine, Egypt…all these had teeming Christian populations. There was Northern Africa…we have many early saints and church fathers we still draw on today who originated in that part of the world. Where are they ? How could this have happened?

Mohammed called on plunderers to help in his plan…10,000 of them There were the 4 caliphs who overran these countries, Northern Africa began to grow lukewarm and the population decimated by bubonic plague. Mohammed only saw Jerusalem by the distance and had no interest in it.

The Syrian Umayyids created a new stake by saying Mohammed went to Jerusalem in a dream, when in fact he only went between the farthest mosque which in his time was inside Saudi Arabia. If he had done so, he would have rose to heaven next to the Catholic Byzantine Church, St. Mary Major of Justinian! This church continued to stand until early 800 noting documents of the presence of a preacher…after that it was totally destroyed.

The Arabs conquested the area surrounding Jerusalem and then went in coming as bearers of peace and tolerance. Sharia was enacted there on Jewish and Christian believers. Only 400 years later after the rising of a Muslim despotic ruler who began destroying Christian sites, and the deaths of pilgrims by Suljak Turk converters of Islam, did the Christian church finally rise up to take back the Holy Land.

You notice the great brutality of the Bosnian war of the early 90’s…in times past, how the Serbs chased hundreds of thousands of Muslims over a cliff…the kicking of dead bodies on the streets?..it was horrific…you look back to how Serbia was taken…it was an Orthodox Christian country…how did this happen…? The Turks came in, fought a bloody war and overcame the people. And for those who resisted…reading this in our local secular newspaper then, the Turks took long spears put them in the oral cavities of the Serb resistance, have the spear run through the body and out through the buttocks, and then staked them along the roads as a sign to not do oppose them.

Constantinople was the head of the Orthodox believers in the Eastern part of the world. Why in the world did it suddenly become Muslim? There was such intense fighting in the streets to defend the Christians’ faith that blood was knee deep in the streets. St Sophia is now staked by 4 towers on each quarter.

I do not think God is happy seeing this church like that. Just as He was not happy seeing His churches closed or turned into museums in the Soviet Union.

Looking at the Soviet Union – it was only 10% communist…look at our country…we have may be 10% atheists who control our media, judges, and current government policies while the vast majority of Americans are theists. They do it through character assassination and marginalization with little possibility of advancement unless you are a business and in a fraternal organization.

It only takes 10% of a brutal and demonstrative force to rule an entire nation. And our Christianity is the greatest block, but we are divided by what? the Sacred Word of God.

How ironic.

If you hear modern day Muslim militant speaks, they do the typical psychopathic behavior —beating their breasts and claiming themselves victims when in fact there are both Christian and Muslim Arabs who prefer to be under Jewish rule. Sacred Scripture prophesized the return of the Jews to the Holy Land and so for people to fight them, they are fighting God Himself. And there are Jews in Israel who are just as intolerant.

Some day the militants who hate the Jews will be accountable to God Himself.

But people having been living there now for 1,500 years and you can’t turn back the clock. What is frightening now is that the Christians are fleeing…and the faith they hold is Jesus…and these Christians are the peace bearers – the sign of true religion among the other religions there.

The imams worldwide discreetly opposed the building of this mosque at the WTC because it is a symbol of conquest over an economic military defeat. What is very disturbing is that these individuals are hell bent to do this…right away a give away of blocking their ears to the sensitivity to American citizens clear across our country, and this war going on overseas with our troops, and the eradication of Christians in the South Sudan, the Holy Land, and mistreatment of Christians in many indigenous, agricultural regions throughout the world.

Don’t be insensitive to the murder of thousands of people, one of the most sadistic crimes in history…using innocent people on a passenger plane to kill other innocent people. This is a grave mark against Islam and all the muslims who celebrated it…because it shows there is something poor and very wrong in some of the thinking in Islam and there is no central authority to correct it except through more war and battles.

In the end, some day, the entire world will be so fed up with militant Muslim arrogance, decimation of other faith, and the use of terror and slaughter, that it will finally unite to stop it.

 

[Light1111]

What I am struck with is this: “Be tolerant at Ground Zero” is universally and automatically assumed to be aimed at the US and those folks who are protesting the building of this mosque.

…when in reality, the phrase would be better aimed at the Muslims who are contemplating issuing this insane example of intolerance and insult by even thinking about building a mosque there and dedicating it then.

It’s also ironic; nobody is surprised that we would be asked for tolerance. The plea is published, broadcasted…heard and read all over the place, and the only thing that happens to the writers and speakers is either pats on the back, or expressions of verbal/written disaproval.

What would happen to anybody who wrote 'Be tolerant at Ground Zero," aimed at MUSLIMS in a Pakistani newspaper? Assuming, of course, that any newspaper would publish such a thing?

I wasn’t quite as interested in who is right – Muslems or individuals in the U.S. (among whom we do count Muslems, might I add). Instead, I was concerned that in a Catholic forum, we find such obvious distaste, even hatred, pointed at anyone, however “deserving” we might feel them to be. Certainly it is the case that “all Muslems” haven’t been active participants in the decision to erect a Mosque at Ground Zero–I know that if I were in the shoes of a Muslem, I’d feel frustrated that I was personally being blamed for something I might also disagree with. Who has been in charge, here? Have “Muslems” been given a voice? Has each member of that faith tradition weighed in, expressing support of this decision? Just as it’s uncomfortable for “All Catholics” to be blamed for the few priests who molested children, it’s also unfair anytime we blame a whole category of people for the behaviors, thoughts or feelings of a select few. The reason why racism, classicsm, and sexism is so stupid, is because we can never relegate all members of any category to one standard truth that applies to each one of them. It’s not possible. If you think of all the categories to which you belong – by your gender, your ethnicity, your nationality, your religion, etc. – you certainly would not wish to be lumped into a massive stereotype, one by one, as it would never truly represent the human being you are. It’s never fair, and in any case, it’s never Christian, to exhibit such behavior. That’s what I was hoping to remind the posters . . . Jesus never exhibited an example that would lead His followers to condemn an entire group of people . . .or even one person.

 

[dianaiad]

I wasn’t quite as interested in who is right – Muslems or individuals in the U.S. (among whom we do count Muslems, might I add). Instead, I was concerned that in a Catholic forum, we find such obvious distaste, even hatred, pointed at anyone, however “deserving” we might feel them to be. Certainly it is the case that “all Muslems” haven’t been active participants in the decision to erect a Mosque at Ground Zero–I know that if I were in the shoes of a Muslem, I’d feel frustrated that I was personally being blamed for something I might also disagree with. Who has been in charge, here? Have “Muslems” been given a voice? Has each member of that faith tradition weighed in, expressing support of this decision? Just as it’s uncomfortable for “All Catholics” to be blamed for the few priests who molested children, it’s also unfair anytime we blame a whole category of people for the behaviors, thoughts or feelings of a select few. The reason why racism, classicsm, and sexism is so stupid, is because we can never relegate all members of any category to one standard truth that applies to each one of them. It’s not possible. If you think of all the categories to which you belong – by your gender, your ethnicity, your nationality, your religion, etc. – you certainly would not wish to be lumped into a massive stereotype, one by one, as it would never truly represent the human being you are. It’s never fair, and in any case, it’s never Christian, to exhibit such behavior. That’s what I was hoping to remind the posters . . . Jesus never exhibited an example that would lead His followers to condemn an entire group of people . . .or even one person.

The problem is…

…I haven’t seen any widespread public disaproval of this proposal from Muslims.

(shrug)

 

[Light1111]

The problem is…

…I haven’t seen any widespread public disaproval of this proposal from Muslims.

(shrug)

True while that may be, one has to remember: We live in a “free country,” but one still must have power, in order to have their voice be heard. I for one have been very much against the two wars we are fighting overseas, but my voice was never heard. I attended anti-war rallies, and witnessed the many tens of thousands who joined me in our march. On TV and in the newspapers, they showed the faces of teenagers with mohawks, who were texting on their cell phones, as the representatives of the march. It was tactical; it made the whole purpose seem trivial, even wasteful. I don’t tend to look down on those teenagers, but the purpose of showing them instead of the formally-dressed professorial types was evident.

You don’t always have a voice; you need a platform in order to be heard. I doubt very much the media is eager to provide Muslems with such a platform.

At the end of the day, whether “All Muslems” agree with the erection of a Mosque at Ground Zero, or not – it’s still not Christlike to speak negatively about this group of individuals. Another thing to consider is this: Muslems have obviously faced terrible persecution since 9/11. Why would they willingly (as a group) invite further contention? I’ve heard many Muslems express a desire to be seen as the peace-keeping people they are, when holding true to the value system of their religion. The terrorists hold a skewed view of the Koran–one that is not shared by the mainstream members of that faith.

 

[Zosimas]

You don’t always have a voice; you need a platform in order to be heard.

You always have a voice, but you rarely have power to influence, or to make decisions, or to shape the destiny for an entire people.

That, indeed, is why such a mosque is being protested to begin with: the question is who has power over whom. Tolerance does not come into it.

 

[Sufjon]

Fighting to defeat tyranny and oppression is just. Fighting to spread tyranny and oppression is not just.

Saddam killed a minimum of 1 million people during his reign and he ruled with brutality.

Why would you want this to continue indefinitely?

So, when are we headed to North Korea or a dozen other places that don’t have oil but do have plenty of tyranny and brutality?

Your friend,
Sufjon

 

[Publisher]

You always have a voice, but you rarely have power to influence, or to make decisions, or to shape the destiny for an entire people.

That, indeed, is why such a mosque is being protested to begin with: the question is who has power over whom. Tolerance does not come into it.

fcnl.wordpress.com/2010/08/24/christians-need-the-islamic-center-at-ground-zero-more-than-muslims/

 

[Zosimas]

fcnl.wordpress.com/2010/08/24/christians-need-the-islamic-center-at-ground-zero-more-than-muslims/

Indeed.

I have Muslim friends whom I absolutely adore. I mean this completely, I’m not making it up to prove some sort of point.

But do you know why I think this is? We, as people, have things in common, and personalities which enjoy the company of the other. Religion does not come into it. Some of them I have known for years, and the greatest religious observation I have been able to make is how fervently they believe that Christmas is a Christian holiday, and how bizarre it is that non-Christians should celebrate it.

Why does someone need to build a mosque in this particular area? For the purpose of ‘getting to know’ other people who do not adhere to their own religion? Hm. Of course not.

Any Muslim wishing to become friendly with any non-Muslim, and vice versa, should do so not on the basis of their religious perception, but, following King, on the content of their character, which may or may not be formed by their religion.

 

[JHow]

If there are approximately 2.5 million muslims in the US alone,

6% of them are “potential” terrorists/extremists the result is 150,000 muslims in the US are “extremists”

The number is way too high for my comfort & I get no warm & fuzzie feelings about it.

The problem is that we do not record peoples religion here in the US -

CAIR claims there are 7 million muslims here
PEW claims there are 2.5 million muslim here

If CAIR is correct with their 7 million muslims, @ 6% = 420,000

Actually, this is a little off. The FBI stat is showing something like 6% of persons partcipating in domestic terrorist incidents have been classified as islamic terrorists. July 2009 Census estimates show US population at aobut 307M. If we take the Cair or Pew numbers above, we would have between 2% and .8% of the population being muslim, in either case far below 6%. Assuming all islamic terrorists are muslim, this would indicate that muslims are disproportinately represented in the ranks of terrorists.

When you get into the report, you find that the impact of terrorist incidents varies greatly. Not all of the events described were lethal. The list includes a lot of events from Puerto Rico and groups like ELF, plus a lot of one-off incidents (like Eric Rudolph). When you look at the casualties caused, such as by events in 1993 (WTC #1) and 2001 (WTC #2), the impact of islamic-inspired events has been catastrophic - far more deadly than the other groups. Only the McVeigh incident in 1995 comes close to having the same impact (And there are those who have posited an islamic link to that event: see Jayna Davis).

The report also only includes incidents up to 2005, so recent guys like Major Nadal Hassan are not included. The lethality of muslim terrorism would most certainly rise if you included him.

The list does not anlayze international incidents - so attacks on US embassies and servicemean overseas (of which there are many in the time period covered - from Phillipines to Africa and the Mid-East) are not analyzed.

Does anyone doubt that when these are considered islamic terrorism poses a particuarly acute problem for America?

 

[CHESTERTONRULES]

So, when are we headed to North Korea or a dozen other places that don’t have oil but do have plenty of tyranny and brutality?

Your friend,
Sufjon

You mean like Kosovo, where we liberated muslims?

North Korea is too risky because they have thousands of missiles pointed at millions of our allies in South Korea.

Are you claiming that you would prefer Saddam’s rule in Iraq?