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Hokomai
Guest
Did someone say this?
NYC Mayor Criticized for Decision to Exclude Clergy From 9/11 Ceremony
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Hokomai
Guest
So when people say they are acting in the name of the Muslim, Jewish and Christian God, prepare in specifically religious ways, pray beforehand, and shout the name of god as they carry out their terrorist act, can they not reasonably be said to have been acting as religious people, for religious reasons?
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Flavius_Aetius
Guest
Ok admittedly this is all just Politically Correct bull and the mayor doesn’t want to offend anyone, but that doesn’t excuse that essentially his actions are insulting all theists and stroking the egos of all atheists and most sinisterly the militant atheists who believe Religion is nothing but a harvester of evil…
So your saying Islam is the source of 9/11, not how it was interpreted but purely the tenements of Islam is the reason 9/11 happened? Does that mean the billions of other Muslims who don’t blow themselves up or commit terrorism are just bad Muslims?
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Tantum_ergo
Guest
They can say it but they would be wrong.
Suppose, for example, you are a registered Democrat. You prepare yourself for the upcoming election by attending all the rallies, talk up the Democratic candidate to the skies, post nothing but praise for the Democrats, drive little old ladies to the polls on election day. . .
And vote straight Republican yourself, because you just KNOW that your support of the republicans is actually going to aid the Democrats, because you erroneously believe that if you personally vote Republican it will magically ‘kill’ all the other Republican votes and only the Democratic votes will register.
See, you are doing everything in the name of "democrats’, you are performing in ‘democratic ways’, ALL the WAY UP TO YOUR ACT, but because of your ERRONEOUS REASONING, you actually do not DO the action of voting for Democrats but something COMPLETELY DIFFERENT in the NAME supposedly of getting a Democratic win.
THAT is what the terrorists did. Completely misunderstood the NATURE of religion and God while using the same attitudes, prayers and actions that a FAITHFUL religious Muslim would use.
And you know that’s true, I’m sure, because you have seen people perhaps in a group where one person is a loud supporter of say vegetarians who burble (in the group) about the joys of vegetarianism, and then at night all alone chow down on beefy burgers. The actions in public where this person APPEARS to be as staunch a vegetarian believer as the other people aren’t a true gauge of what is in his heart. . .
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jam070406
Guest
Anyone that commits a violent act of terror is not following God.
It’s against the very nature of God.
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Hokomai
Guest
Does this apply to Joshua and his genocidal actions after the fall of Jericho?
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Hokomai
Guest
No, I am saying that the religious beliefs of the group which carried out the attacks are the source of 9/11. I accept that these beliefs are fused with political beliefs, but religion is manifestly at their core. So answers to the next questions - no, no, and no. I am only saying what I am saying.
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Hokomai
Guest
All evidence points to the attackers being honest in their religious beliefs, to the poit of death. You can postulate that they are only pretending, but you do so without a shred of evidence.
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Tantum_ergo
Guest
You can be honest about thinking that, say, Judaism requires you to stone a man and woman caught in adultery. You won’t find many (if ANY) Jews today who do so, because they understand that the Torah is not written word for word literal you must do this whether it is 4000 B.C. or AD 2000.
So IF you find one person who claims to be a practicing Jewish person who goes over to his neighbors and stones them to death and cites Leviticus. . .you can CLAIM that he is ‘acting on his religious beliefs’. . .but oh wait. The people who ALSO CLAIM TO FOLLOW THAT SAME RELIGION do NOT practice the same things this one man does and claims as a religious practice. Isn’t that INTERESTING? So if you have one man doing something and saying, “G-d” demands this, but not a single other practicing Jewish person supporting him, and in fact being APPALLED by his claim, then HOW are you going to say this person’s behavior is RELIGIOUS? What religion? Not the religion that every other Jewish person practices, is it now? So it is not RELIGIOUS behavior, it is behavior for which the person attempts to USE religion (which he has misinterpreted or defied or whatever) as a justification.
So, the next time that somebody decides to take out a city block of people because they are all Christians and as an atheist he feels they are a grave danger to himself all atheists and so he kills them ‘first’, what will you say about atheists? That their POINT OF VIEW is responsible for terrible crimes? I’ll bet you won’t. . .but strangely enough you’ll blather all about ‘religion’ being evil when it is not the religious beliefs which are responsible for violent acts but the free choice of the individuals, many of whom do those actions for a great variety of reasons, and NONE of whom are in actual fact, if they choose an evil action, obeying the God they claim to be doing it for.
So like I said, if that atheist kills a bunch of Christians solely because as an atheist he determines they are vermin and a danger to all atheists everywhere, are you going to claim that it is the ATHEISM which is responsible for that person’s actions?
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Hokomai
Guest
Yes.
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Tantum_ergo
Guest
And you don’t see that that is irrational and illogical?
The OTHER atheists (like the many other Christians, Jews, Muslims etc. who do NOT go about claiming God is telling them to kill people) are in fact following the authentic ‘religion’ they profess (and yes, atheism is a belief system and thus religious in nature).
How can you MISS the incredible DISCONNECT between the fact that 99.9% plus percent of Christians, Jews, Muslims, atheists, pagans etc. do not go around claiming that God tells them to kill people. . . and that it is maybe 0.1% of these Christians, Jews, Muslims, atheists, pagans etc. who are going against their other co-religionists and defying the actual BELIEFS of their co-religionists.
If you were in a group of 1000 math teachers, and ONE of them told you that 2 + 2 = 5, would you go around and claim that 'math teachers teach 2 + 2 = 5? At MOST you could say ‘one’ out of 1000 teachers said it. . .while the other 999 are saying, "No you moron, 2 + 2 = 4!!! And you CERTAINLY couldn’t claim that all those teachers, plus any other teacher ever in the history of teaching, was TAUGHT 2 + 2 = 5.
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Darryl1958
Guest
This is the Islamist religion of Qutb and other such twentieth century thinkers. Ironically, it is the reformed religion of the Islamic religion that grew under the same secular grounds that nurtured the other totalitarian systems that sprang up in these years, namely Communism and fascism. When modern freedom is rejected, this is what results. Totalitarianism is totalitarianism under any other name.
This is a twentieth century variant of the religion that is every bit as virulent and malignant as the other two totalitarian systems were. It may not be as militarily powerful, but it what it lacks in technological sophistication it makes up for in numbers.
It is the rising star in the House of Islam. It gains prominence with each and every popular revolt that comes to pass. It feeds off of the fight of Muslims for freedom, just as Bolsheviks consumed the Mensheviks, Nazis consumed Nietzsche.
The answer to Islamism nevertheless lies with the religion of Islam. It cannot be defeated from without, but must be defeated from within, from within the belief system of Muslims themselves.
It is as narrow-minded on behalf of atheists to blame religion as it is for theists to not recognize that these Islamist acted authentically according to some of the worst tenets of that faith. Jihadi tribalist methods that were effective to the sixth century are acts of idiocy when enacted into the modern world of today.
This is not the trouble with religion. It is the trouble with Islam.
Only a leftist who cannot see past the goal of equality would consider that if Muslims are invited to the ceremony then every Wiccan, Buddhist and Shinto variation must be invited to speak to.
And it is the singular failure of American politicians to not give a platform to the American Muslim organizations that despise the Wahhabi Islamist jihadis more than anyone else. The appeal to CAIR and other Islamist fronts by the American politician has been a pathetic response by American politicians of all stripes. Better to turn their back on Islam completely than to give a platform to organizations such as those.
If no Muslims can be found who will not stand up and declare their own jihad against the Islamists of 911 in clear and unequivocal terms on this occasion, then of course no Muslims should be invited to speak at the anniversary event. In a world of a billion Muslims, and a significant American population, if no such Muslims can be found, this is a very bad sign.
As for Christians in a nation which is eighty percent Christian, and Jews, who the Islamists would like to exterminate, it is prejudice pure and simple that shuts them out.
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Darryl1958
Guest
If militant Islam is the problem, then moderate Islam is the solution.
— Daniel Pipes
— Daniel Pipes
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Hokomai
Guest
Religion is clearly the proximate and dominating motivation of the 9/11 attackers. when I say this, Tantum Ergo, I am not thereby saying the other things you attribute to me. specifically, I do not think that most, or even many religious people are likely to do similar things. To do so, as you point out at some length and with many capital letters, would be illogical. You seem to want me to argue from the particular to the general, because you have a set of arguments which are useful when people do that. However, I am not arguing in that way.And you don’t see that that is irrational and illogical?
The OTHER atheists (like the many other Christians, Jews, Muslims etc. who do NOT go about claiming God is telling them to kill people) are in fact following the authentic ‘religion’ they profess (and yes, atheism is a belief system and thus religious in nature).
How can you MISS the incredible DISCONNECT between the fact that 99.9% plus percent of Christians, Jews, Muslims, atheists, pagans etc. do not go around claiming that God tells them to kill people. . . and that it is maybe 0.1% of these Christians, Jews, Muslims, atheists, pagans etc. who are going against their other co-religionists and defying the actual BELIEFS of their co-religionists.
If you were in a group of 1000 math teachers, and ONE of them told you that 2 + 2 = 5, would you go around and claim that 'math teachers teach 2 + 2 = 5? At MOST you could say ‘one’ out of 1000 teachers said it. . .while the other 999 are saying, "No you moron, 2 + 2 = 4!!! And you CERTAINLY couldn’t claim that all those teachers, plus any other teacher ever in the history of teaching, was TAUGHT 2 + 2 = 5.
My view on the original issue is simply that a non-religious ceremony is an appropriate thing for a Mayor to hold, especially when the terrorists were motivated by religion. I am not even saying that it would be wrong or bad to involve religious people in such a ceremony, just that it seems to me it would be better, and have greater potential for unity, without their presence.
Once again, Tantum ergo - it would be good to debate with you what I say, not what you attribute to me.
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Flavius_Aetius
Guest
You seem to want it both ways, so just because the terrorists were motivated by religion how they defined it that means it should become a religious free ceremony? Your goal for a greater potential for unity already fails because you are agreeing to have a certain kind of people (Clergy)barred from attending or talking within the ceremony. To me personally that sounds like if it was an Italian terrorist acting in the name of their race then you’d be satisfied with the Mayor barring Italians from the ceremony. Yeah that sounds like a real unified ceremony.
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At_Trent
Guest
Yep, schedule a memorial the same day and time and invite family and clergy.
Watch how fast Bloomberg changes his tune.
Watch how fast Bloomberg changes his tune.
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Hokomai
Guest
No, not ‘just because’. I think that in general it is better for large disparate gatherings to concentrate on things that unite, rather than divide them. I have no trouble with clergy attending as citizens. But I cannot see why they should have any particular role in such an event. Race is different from religion in that you have little choice about your race, and you cannot easily express it sometimes and sometimes not.
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brumano
Guest
What is that you don’t necessarily disagree with? Secular Jews are those who do not admit of any convictions that are based on the existence or any relationship with God or a higher being of any sort; and of course many of them are professed Atheists, some I’d conjecture are Agnostics and some probably have certain religious beliefs that they hold as either secondary, or far less in importance than any nonreligious philosophies they might entertain; so called secular humanism, existentialism, materialism, Marxism, utilitarianism, capitalism…I’m sure they run they gamut but I’d have stop and note about the Atheists that they are conciously members of a religion, and it is a Satanic religion that seeks to gain world dominance over all others especially but not limited to Catholicism.
How it is they desire to capitalize on the 911 tragedy, you would really have to ask them I’m at a loss to explain for them or anyone for that matter that could be so arrogant, insulting, heartless, and offensive as to exclude representation of Christian belief at a ceremonial remembrance of an event in which the majority of victims were Catholics or Christians of other denominations.
Now if you ask me how are they capitalizing on the 911 tragedy ceremony that I can tell you.
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