Obama backs mosque near ground zero

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This has all got out of hand. I care not if a mosque is built near ‘ground zero’. It is beyond my comprehension to understand why others do.
 
estesbob said:
They absolutely have a right to the mosque there just as we absolutely have a right to vehemently criticize it.
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Absolutely, I agree people have the right to criticize it.
This is not about freedom of religion, rather it is about conflicting views as to what constitutes fostering understanding and tolerance.
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But in the end it is really a property rights issue. Does a landowner have the right to build whatever he wants on his property or does the government have the right to limit those rights. In my opinion there is no legitimate use of government police power here. Sure it is offensive, but in a free society people have the right to be offensive.
The legal tactics used to try and stop the building this mosque are no different than the legal strategies used to try to keep Wal-Mart out of supposedly progressive communities.
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And those legal tactics are an improper violation of property rights in each case. If we had a Supreme Court with backbone both the mosque builder and Walmart should be entitled to compensation if their property rights are taken away through such government regulation.
 
Excerpt from more commentary at America’s Right blog:

"Thy Will be Done

…I also find it rather interesting that our president chose to deliver this pronouncement at the conclusion of a ceremonial dinner given for a group of Muslims at the White House. I’m understandably curious, because in 1952 President Truman established one day a year as a “National Day of Prayer”, and then in1988, President Reagan designated the first Thursday in May of each year as the National Day of Prayer. In June 2007, though, (then) Presidential Candidate Barack Obama declared that the USA was “no longer a Christian nation.” This year, President Obama canceled the 21st annual National Day of Prayer ceremony at the White House under the ruse of “not wanting to offend anyone.”

Um, Mr. President? I’m really, really, really, REALLY offended. Something tells me, however, that you don’t really care.

This is even more significant, I think, since on last September 25, from 4 am until 7 pm, a National Day of Prayer for the Muslim religion was held on Capitol Hill, beside the White House. There were over 50,000 Muslims that Day in D.C.

Yet, no National Day of Prayer, and he is injecting himself into an issue in which he has no legal or political business, the construction of a mosque at the very place where admittedly radical members of that faith viscously murdered over 3,000 innocent Americans."…

Entire entry: americasright.com/?p=5296
 
TheTrueCentrist said:
How comfortable would you be if someone were to judge your religion based on, say, the crusades, the inquisition, or even St Bartholomew Days Massacre. What if someone said: “Catholics have a long history of intolerance, just look at how they forced people to convert during the Inquisition, and where do you think the phrase ‘kill them all and let God sort them out’ comes from? A monk in the Crusades.”

You would say: those actions were based on bad interpretations of Catholicism, and took place hundreds of years ago! But why should they listen to you, you are an intolerant Catholic.

This is what you are doing to the Muslims. Refusing to listen to what they say just because they are Muslim.
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I am so sick of this moral swamp that you people drag us into. This is absolutely the worst reasoning I have ever seen, and people actually buy it.

Here’s the problem: atrocities litter the history of Christianity. Therefore, when anyone points out the even more heinous atrocities committed everyday by Muslims, and which seem to characterize Islamic practice, our muddle-headed opponents simply point at the darkest points in Christianity’s past and argue that both religions carry the same moral weight.

Here’s a possible solution:
(1) What we’re actually interested in here is, to what extent do these acts characterize something essential about the faith. So, for instances in our Church’s history where the Church was society or in the cases where the Vatican still had temporal vestiges (usually pre-Tridentine), there is reason to talk about Catholic Christianity as a faith as distinct from what Catholic Christians–even prelates, now–actually did.
(2) In order to separate the essential (spiritual) aspects of our faith, then, from the temporal acts phrase the question this way: Does this act or event chalk up to a ‘success or failure’ of Christianity (or any given ideological system)?
(3a) So, for an event like the auto de fe of the Inquisition or the St. Bartholomew Day’s Massacre, these would constitute failures on the part of Christianity, which is to say that they were un-Christian even though committed in Christian society. No justification for these events can be found in the Gospel, and–in fact–they are contrary to the essence of our Lord’s message.
(3b) On the other hand, even an act as heinous as the September 11th attack can still be justified as ‘success’ for Islam. The fact that jurists can have conflicting opinions on it is enough to say that it has been ‘justified’ by some, based on Qur’anic readings, hadith, and traditional practice. It does not in any way conflict with the heart an soul of Islam as a faith, in short. And, might I add, the clerics who do have favorable attitudes towards these events are actually holding closer to real Islamic traditions.

Now, a final statement on his use of the Inquisition and the Huguenot massacres. These are actually glaringly bad examples–both involve the two most nationalized churches in Christendom ‘cleaning house’ and re-establishing social homogeneity. Both the Spanish and Gallican churches have a long history of being co-opted and used by national powers as a pillar of social order–it would take a true idiot to argue that these events say anything meaningful about Catholicism as an ideology. So if anyone wanted to point to an act committed predominantly by Catholics using Catholic forms to disguise secular, un-Christian political maneuvering, it would be these two cases.
 
jjdrury81 said:
This has all got out of hand. I care not if a mosque is built near ‘ground zero’. It is beyond my comprehension to understand why others do.
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Please travel in an Muslim-majority country or neighborhood and find out why, then.
 
ChristopherBJ5,

You are correct in saying that Islam is dying. It is under assault from the modern world. Every year, 6 million Muslims convert into Christianity and countless others become atheist. People who can leave Islam, leave. Islam is the revenge of traditional society against the encroaching empires - originally against the Eastern Roman Empire - which threaten the life of the tribes. Under Islam the tribes unite in the ummah, retaining their customs and character. The delicate task of clerical leadership in Islam is to regulate the most intimate details of daily life within the old tribal norms, while keeping the ummah intact. As strange as this may appear to Western eyes, it is a difficult job to execute. Islam’s prospects for survival outside of traditional society are poor.

On the website of First Things magazine (www.firstthings.com), the premier journal of conservative religious opinion in the US and perhaps the world, for example, Father Edward T Oakes clicks his tongue over “the asymmetry between Western and Islamic values”. By way of elaboration he quotes the columnist Mark Steyn as tothe final words of Mohammed to his disciples: “I was ordered to fight all men until they say, ‘There is no god but Allah.’” … Mohammed is saying fight all men until they submit to your truth: It’s not a plan for converting an existing empire (as Christianity did) but for establishing a new empire. Islam was born and spread as a warrior’s creed and, while that can be sedated, the intensity of anger of today’s Western Muslims suggests that the Mohammedan fighter endures at the heart of their faith, albeit significantly augmented by greater firepower.
 
Seems to me tolerance has to be a two way street. “Tolerance” flowing always in just one direction is capitulation.
 
This has seemed exceptionally “tone deaf” to me, politically. However, Obama may figure the Muslims (and they do raise political campaign money) will not forget his position by 2012, while the rest of us will.

And he might be right.
 
Ridgerunner said:
This has seemed exceptionally “tone deaf” to me, politically. However, Obama may figure the Muslims (and they do raise political campaign money) will not forget his position by 2012, while the rest of us will.

And he might be right.
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Or possibly there’s an important principle at stake here?
 
tjm190 said:
…If you had donated money to fund the Cordoba House’s construction, would you want your name out there?
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If it is an upstanding institution dedicated to mutual-understanding, tolerance, and reparations for the violence wreaked by radical Islam… uh, yeah.

Maybe that gives everyone some insight into the institute’s true character.
 
I believe this is a good move, although unfavorable, for America to make. Even though I disagree with a majority of Pres. Obama’s decisions, I see this is a step towards acceptance and allows religious diversity to grow. It is important to realise that these are not the same radical people who supported the acts of al-qaeda on America in 2001.
 
Darryl1958 said:
I guess for some that would make 7 out of 10 Americans nothing more than anti-Muslim bigots.
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Apparently this country no longer believes in the 14th Amendment. I find it un-American and un-Christian to deny some one the right to assemble and to practice their religion.

Furthermore, in my opinion, anyone who divides Mulism and Christians, supports bin Laden’s goal to divide Muslims and Christians.

These are truly sad times in the U.S.
 
josephdavid said:
Apparently this country no longer believes in the 14th Amendment. I find it un-American and un-Christian to deny some one the right to assemble and to practice their religion.

Furthermore, in my opinion, anyone who divides Mulism and Christians, supports bin Laden’s goal to divide Muslims and Christians.

These are truly sad times in the U.S.
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It is indeed sad times when all legitimate dissent is mischaracterized as bigotry. I oppose the proposed casino in Gettysburg Pennsylvania. That does not mean I oppose gambling or that I hate Casino owners-it just means I don’t think it’s appropriate place for it to be built, it is interesting that in my opposition to the casino no one calls me a bigot or claims I’m trying to overturn the 14th amendment. Charges of racism and bigotry are nothing more than a futile attempt to shut the discussion down.
 
estesbob said:
It is indeed sad times when all legitimate dissent is mischaracterized as bigotry. I oppose the proposed casino in Gettysburg Pennsylvania. That does not mean I oppose gambling or that I hate Casino owners-it just means I don’t think it’s appropriate place for it to be built, it is interesting that in my opposition to the casino no one calls me a bigot or claims I’m trying to overturn the 14th amendment. Charges of racism and bigotry are nothing more than a futile attempt to shut the discussion down.
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Agreed!

I opposed a walmart at Gettysburg… that means I am a saving money bigot.
 
I saw part of the announcement on cnn the other day. Did they or did they not say that obama had just celebrated a muslim dinner or event? Please tell me am wrong.
 
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