Obama backs mosque near ground zero

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With all this talk of Park 51, I wonder about the sensitivities of the survivors of soldiers who fell to Muslim extremists when they have to visit the gravesites of their loved ones in cemeteries that hold symbols of the Muslim faith. Or of those non-Muslims present in the Pentagon when Friday prayers are held? Guess the military is different, they’re trained to defend innocent Muslims with their lives while under threat by Muslim extremists and to grin and bear it with pride… or maybe we’re just insensitive to demand that of them.
 
If this has been noted in the previous posts, I apologize for the reiteration. But if not, I feel compelled to note that it is NOT TRUE that the building in question (the one that would be torn down to erect the mosque) was “not involved” in 9/11.
  • First, it has been reported (sorry, don’t have a cite since I heard it, not read it on the internet) that the LANDING GEAR of one the planes that hit the World Trade Center landed, and descended to some point, within the building in question. So this building WAS INVOLVED, albeit tangentally, but it WAS INVOLVED.
  • Next (this is just an argument as compared to other World Trade Center plans) the planned construction of the new Mosque will be so high that it will LOOK DOWN on the World Trade Center site. Building higher has not been a plan allowed for the Eastern Orthodox church that was DESTROYED by the 9/11 attacks. Why should one group be allowed to build so high and another group NOT be allowed?
 
Norminha said:
Friend, for 2.000 years the Catholic Church is having Her share of public criticism and it’ll continue until the end of times, Christ Himself said it.

On the night Christ was betrayed, He chose 12 MEN (Peter, John, James….) commanded them to continue from that moment on the celebration of the Holy Eucharist Christ did not call Mary, Martha or any other woman to be ordained. For this reason, since Christ was born of the woman as a MALE and who is the Highest Priest, not even the Holy Father (Pope) can change this principle, simply because a priest acts in the person of Christ and Christ is MALE. It doesn’t matter you and I don’t like it, this is the way it is.
The child abuse thing, uh! The fact that a man is called by God to be a priest it does NOT mean this man will sin no more. Our priests have more temptation than you and me precisely because they have been set apart by God and the devil is not happy about it.
Last week the case in KY filed against the Holy See dropped the case, alleging that the accusers have already been compensated years ago for the abuses by the respective Archdiocese. By the way, please make your research correctly as to find out the percentage of priests who fell short their promise to serve God. We have the majority of our priest striving daily for holiness.

Condoms –wow, another biggy- For the same reason that for 2.000 years the Church has and will maintain the ordination of PRIESTS (male), the same Church condemns the use of condoms between husband and wife who when decided to get marry, accepted to co-operate with God to pro-create. A man and a woman got together in matrimony to receive all the children God sends them as gift otherwise, they would remain single. Did you know that the Church LOVES sex? Oh yes, She does, within the marriage -sex is a gift from God.

Finally, the Servant of God John Paul II, publicly asked for forgiveness to the entire world for all the sins the Catholic Church has committed. The current Holy Father Benedict XVI did the same in reference to the scandalous in the Church of Christ.

We the Catholics admit we ARE sinners, but our hearts are at peace when we trust in the infinite Mercy of our God, we repent, confess and make penance. We don’t presume our salvation. 😉
In Jesus, Mary and Joseph, praying for you!
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The non-Catholic public doesn’t care about any of that. All they see is a monolithic organization stuck 2000 years in the past. My point was that just as we do not cave to public pressure, neither should the Muslims.
 
TheTrueCentrist said:
The non-Catholic public doesn’t care about any of that. All they see is a monolithic organization stuck 2000 years in the past. My point was that just as we do not cave to public pressure, neither should the Muslims.
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Awhile back, about the time I joined this forum here. I was a person who was raised in a fairly strict Church of Christ, I was actually reading up on athiests, and agnostics more than I was religion. I was the non-Catholic public, never knew any Catholics nor did I know what they even believed.

Then for some reason, I stumbled upon partial birth abortion…I can remember the night pretty well. Now, I’m a big tough guy but I’ve always had a big heart too. I don’t cry, and I mean I really do not cry. But when I started reading about abortion and educating myself, I somehow found myself reading about Catholicism.

Now, I’m proud to know what I have learned, I have stopped even thinking about athiest and agnostics, that thought just doesnt even cross my mind anymore. I have gone to a few masses, but I still have a lot to learn.

My point, after all the rambling, is that there are a lot of non Catholics out there who just don’t know anything about it. I see some protestant bashing here and there on this forum, but I think that is mainly from ignorance as well. I’ve met, online, many people who were just like me at one time.

Anywho, back to your regular public broadcasting.
 
scipio337 said:
But the implications are that opposition to the mosque = racial segregation. Its a false analogy.

He has refused to call Hamas, [so designated by the EU and US State Department] or the Muslim Brotherhood [inindicted co-conspirators the HLF Trial] terrorist organizations.

Not exactly, but

It would do well to understand who these two outfits are:

The amount of terrorist activity tied to the International Institute of Islamic Thought, is too long to post. It starts here, and goes on:

If you like, I can provide some of the Muslim Brotherhood documents siezed, and used as evidence in the Holyland Foudation trial.

Just because these organizations funded an edition of his book does not he has similar views, but it should raise some concerns. If the Institute for Historical Review approached me and offered to publish a book of mine, I’d have to turn them down…
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These are all related. He is, as he states, a bridge builder. For him to condemn Hamas would burn the bridges he has tried to build with organizations such as the ISNA. I bet in private he would say that the ISNA and brotherhood represent a much more radical interpretation than he himself takes. Speculation aside, in order to dialog with organizations like those, it helps to not set yourself up as their enemy through such condemnations. This is exactly the reason he gave when he refused to make a statement:

“I am a peace builder. I will not allow anybody to put me in a position where I am seen by any party in the world as an adversary or as an enemy,” Rauf said, insisting that he wants to see peace in Israel between Jews and Arabs.

In his book he says: “Through increasing our understanding of how the relationship between the Muslim world and the West went wrong, we can begin to discover ways to rebuild it.” That mission requires dialog with the organizations that feel the west is corrupt. What he was doing with the book was finding areas where those Islamic organizations and western ideals coincide so that we can begin building bridges.
 
TTC, I gotta ask. Are you just playing devil’s advocate? I mean, really.
 
Mr_Skeptic said:
People like you scare the hell out of me. Anything under the sun, anything, can always be justified. :eek:

Then again, that’s a major problem with religions.
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It takes all kinds to make a world. If my problem is over-justifying things, then yours is intellectual complacency.
 
TheTrueCentrist said:
If my problem is over-justifying things, then yours is intellectual complacency.
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Say what??

I never said you are “over-justifying”. I said people like you scare the hell out of me because you can justify anything under the sun. On the other hand, I’ve given several lines of reason, logic, and plain old common sense. So, don’t even try it with your “intellectual complacency” horse hockey.

Spare us from all the disingenuous courtroom tactics and legalistic maneuvers. Please.
 
CatholicGerman said:
and accept their collective guilt,
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Muslims do not have ‘collective guilt’ for 9/11. This is like how Nazis accused Jews of collective guilt for Bolshevism, you would do well to avoid demonising entire groups of people like this.
 
Hislittlelady said:
You are correct. I need plenty of convincing. I’m scared to death. Is Allah and our God one and the same. If so, then that means we have a very violent God. I was under the impression that he was loving and kind, but just. I thought God said “Thou Shalt not kill.” That means that their God is not our God because killing is not only permitted by them, but absolutely encouraged. Until these people can tell me this is not true, I will continue to be in fear. God protect us all and change the hearts of those who are against you.
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I believe, as are a good number of Americans scared. As I have said earlier on…they don’t seem to “walk the talk”. Radical Islam is all about “converting the world” to Islam. Some of them “by the sword” if necessary. This is a very well known fact, and no secret to America. The question is: Is this Imam a sympathizer to the radicals? If there is any indication or proof that he is, this Mosque deal needs to be tabled. He needs to be exposed one way or the other.
 
Kadaveri said:
Muslims do not have ‘collective guilt’ for 9/11. This is like how Nazis accused Jews of collective guilt for Bolshevism, you would do well to avoid demonising entire groups of people like this.
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I just love how you came out to protect the Muslims. I’m sure you would have been in Allied Germany, insisting that the Germans were not collectively responsible for Jewish extermination. I’m sure you would have been in active in the civil rights era, insisting that white people were not collectively responsible for slavery or Jim Crowe.

I’m sure. I’m quite certain of it.
 
No I do not believe all Germans are guilty for the Nazi genocides or that all white people are guilty for slavery, I consider the idea grotesque. All you’re doing is repeating a bizarre trend prevalent in German philosophy of holding entire groups of people collectively responsible for crimes committed by members of that group; such as holding all Jews collectively guilty for ‘killing Christ’ or what was called “Judeo-Bolshevism”. That you continue with this vulgarity shows that you’ve learnt nothing from the Holocaust, since such thinking naturally leads to genocide.

Note also that this principle is selectively applied where convenient. Do you also think Americans have collective guilt for the countless crimes committed by their government? If you do then you might as well say the 9/11 attacks were justified, as all Americans would be collectively guilty of mass-murder and thus deserving death. In fact this has far more going for it; since Americans actually voted their governments into power, whereas Muslims have never chosen Osama bin Laden or anyone remotely him to representative us.
 
Kadaveri said:
No I do not believe all Germans are guilty for the Nazi genocides
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Well, I do. Not the Germans alive today, but the ones alive and living in Germany at the time. Likewise, I do not consider all white people today responsible for slavery or Jim Crowe, but white people alive and living in the South at that time were most certainly partially-culpable for the actions of their fellow citizens. That was the moral basis for affirmative action and school bussing, after all. The idea that one group of citizens had wronged another group, and had to make restitution. The same idea behind land reform in the southern hemisphere, or black empowerment after apartheid.

This all didn’t bother anybody until the group being called to restitution were Muslims. I find this absolutely intriguing.

In a functioning democracy or community, a significant minority of the population cannot commit mass-crimes without the complicity of the majority. That makes everyone who is aware of the crime (as all Germans and Southerners were), but did not specifically and roundly speak out against the crime, complicit. Most Muslims had heard numerous reports of their brethren committing terrorist attacks, starting wars, and conquering their neighbors, and they remained silent, or even saw the actions as positive.
since such thinking naturally leads to genocide
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That is your opinion, not mine. I didn’t notice Germans being pushed into mass-graves during the post-war decades. Please correct me, if I am wrong. Asking for formal apologies, renunciations, and restitution is not the same thing as demanding that people die in retaliation.
 
When grievous harm has been done against a people by our co-religionists, often in the name of our God, as an act of decency, many would take upon themselves the responsibility of acknowledging that harm, expressing our deepest regret for it on behalf of the evil ones among us, and assuring the injured party that we stand strong with them against our co-religionists who have perpetuated the harm in the first place.

Such was the case at Auschwitz. There was no question that the Carmelite nuns were acting in the best of faith with their convent, with no malice of internet toward Jews. there was no question that they were in any ways responsible for the Shoah that Auschwitz represents. Even so, when the alarm bells were raised that the location of their convent was not showing the proper respect for the uniquely Jewish aspects of the Nazi genocide, the Pope, in an act of voluntary decency, did the right thing. The convent was moved to a location that was deemed by all the show the proper respect. It was moved to a location that gave Jews adequate space to grieve on their own terms.

That is what decent people do. They begin to rebuild the relationship by honoring the feelings of the injured party and demonstrating compassion for the pain that is being experienced. Whether or not the complaint was entirely reasonable does nothing but make the gesture of moving the convent an act of greater magnanimity. The demands of pain are not always reasonable anyway. They are cries for help, cries for assurance that the other party still cares enough to go out of their way to accommodate, to stand with them, and to stand against the evil ones of their own faith.
This was an opportunity for solidarity with the Jewish people on behalf of Catholics, and the pope demonstrated great wisdom by taking the course that he did.

Only the indecent will insist on their rights being primary in every situation. Only the indecent will insist on taking no responsibility to repair relationships for the crimes that were done in their name.

Where there is suffering, there is God. That is where God’s people need to be too, offering our compassion and healing.
We are all children of the same God. That is where we all ought to be, standing strong with those who suffer, assuring them that they are not alone, that we are with them, that we care, that we are with them and not the evil ones who caused them great harm.

And that is the true story about the Carmelite Nuns at Auschwitz. The pope led them to exactly where they needed to be, standing strong with the Jewish people and against the evil of Auschwitz.
 
TheTrueCentrist said:
The non-Catholic public doesn’t care about any of that. All they see is a monolithic organization stuck 2000 years in the past. My point was that just as we do not cave to public pressure, neither should the Muslims.
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You’re right -they shouldn’t cave to public pressure. Like John Paul II did with the convent at Auschwitz they should recognize that there proposed mosque is causing serious problems. They should gracously accept a compromise -which would do much more to foster the understanding they claim to want to foster than build a mosque that the majority of Americans believe, rightly or wrongly, is a snub to 9/11 victims
 
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