The Planned Islamic Center Near Ground Zero and a History Lesson
Politicians, pundits and conservative Christians are aghast that Muslims would want to build an Islamic Center near where nine Muslims in the name of Allah flew planes into buildings on 9/11. No one seems to question their legal right to build this center. They have that right. What is questioned is whether it should be built. The argument is that building this center would be offensive to the people who lost loved ones on that day and should not be built.
I just want to put this into perspective, since we're talking about what we think Muslims should do, not whether they have the Constitutional right do so.
The fact is there have been a number of sites from the Inquisition to the Crusades to the Civil War to the Jewish Holocaust where Christians killed people in the name of their God upon which they have built their churches, their centers, and held memorial services. Is that not offensive? I think so.
Why the hypocrisy? Why the double standards?
In any case, here's what President Obama should have said about building it.
I just want to put this into perspective, since we're talking about what we think Muslims should do, not whether they have the Constitutional right do so.
The fact is there have been a number of sites from the Inquisition to the Crusades to the Civil War to the Jewish Holocaust where Christians killed people in the name of their God upon which they have built their churches, their centers, and held memorial services. Is that not offensive? I think so.
Why the hypocrisy? Why the double standards?
In any case, here's what President Obama should have said about building it.
10 comments:
I love this blog, and am an agnostic like most here, but this is where Loftus loses me? Everything has to be brought back around to the evils of christianity. And also, I was not aware that America's conservative christians are building churches on touchy sites in the Middle East. I sometimes feel like John hates christianity so much, he loses track of other things.
I for one agree with Christians on this one. I don't like christianity any more than Loftus, but just because Christians think something I will not automatically think the opposite. Is it fair that Christian Americans associate Islam with 9/11? Maybe, Maybe not, I would lean towards Maybe.
I feel like this would be like a bunch of white americans buying some ral estate in Anacostia Maryland (a black area), or Coney Island in New York and building a "White History Museum". Now, No one alive today had a slave, and I have never done a racist thing to a black person, but I am sensitive enough to their feelings to not build a white history museum in a predominantly black area.
Leonidas, did you read the link I added to what President Obama should have said while you were commenting?
I read it, but just like you said, no one is advocating the federal government step in and stop this process. This is just a "do you think it is OK or not" question. I am siding with Christians (and most Americans, BTW) in saying I don't think they should.
I have always said the group of people who just do not understand public relations at all on this planet are the muslims. Seriously, as much as people defend them, you talk to even a western muslim and they will not come right out and say murdering Theo Van Gogh was wrong. They will pretzel their arguments in hyperbole.
I don't think Jesus was the son of God, and will not even pretend the history of christianity is not bloody, but right now, Islam is Bloody. And to pretend there were not alot of worldwide muslims cheering the downing of the towers on 9/11 is absolutely ludicrous to me. And to turn around and allow the guilding of a mosque two blocks from ground zero?? come on?
Again, is it really OK to build a white history church in the middle of a black neighbourhood?
I recognize their right to build the mosque, but personally I think civilization should move beyond building monuments to ignorance, and sanctuaries of ignorance. I oppose the building of the mosque in the same way that I oppose the spread of any religion; the proliferation of religious artifacts, rituals, and practices; and the building of any religious sanctuaries.
have tried to stay away from publicly commenting on this issue because it seems to be a minefield. However, let me make several observations:
First, it seems to me that many atheists/agnostics have come to their conclusions on this matter as a knee jerk reaction to the fact that people such as Newt Gingrich, Bill O'Reilly and other outspoken conservatives have been opposed to the Mosque. It seems that anything that the conservative are against, they must be in favor of.
Second, the question is not about the legality but the propriety of building a mosque so close to ground zero. Many of the victim's families have said this is an offense to them.
Third, regarding the parallel some have made between 9/11and the attack on Hiroshima, if the US were to build some type of military museum in Hiroshima, I am sure there would be a protest by the Japanese people and it would be totally inappropriate and insensitive of the US to do so ( As a personal note some years ago my wife and I went to Hawaii. We were in the Arizona memorial which is a shrine to those sailors whose bodies are still entombed in the ship below the memorial. There were many people of Asian descent (not certain they were Japanese) who were laughing and "cutting-up" and in my opinion acting disrespectful in this memorial. I doubt they were doing so with malice intent but it bothered me nonetheless).
Fourth, I agree that many Christians who oppose the mosque are doing so due to their religious beliefs and I reject their arguments because I reject their religion. Their beliefs are just as aberrant as the Muslims in my opinion.
Fifth, I agree that many conservative politicians are using this issue for their own political gain and playing off certain prejudices that their consitutencies have. This is understandable (since everything seems to be fair in politics) but not admirable.
Sixth, the Muslim terrorists on 9/11 made it clear that they were doing what they were doing in obedience to Allah (at least their understanding of Allah). Jihad is not a political act; it is essentially a religious act. Whatever wrongs (and I know there have been many)the US military has committed against other countries has not been due to a religious motivation (at least not corporately, perhaps certain individual soldiers were motivated on religious grounds).
Seventh, the Muslim community has not been outspoken against the terrorist acts committed in the name of their religion. I grant that most probably do not support the actions of Al-Qaeada but they could certainly be more vocal about it. If the people who want to build the mosque near ground-zero would agree to have a room dedicated to denouncing the terrorism that took place a few blocks away, that would go a long way to silencing the opposition to the mosque.
My aunt sent out a mass email containing this link to a video by outspoken atheist Brit, Pat Condell, in which he voices his outrage at the building of the Islamic Center.
Ironically, my aunt is a good Christian woman, who probably had no idea she was associating herself with an atheist.
As for me, I don’t see why another Center for the Appreciation of Imaginary Friends should be any more offensive to me than all the other ones built by Christians and Jews on every street corner in America.
leonidas
loftus has to focus on the few bad christians and ignore the millions of good christians and all the great, selfless things they do in order to perpetuate his mischaracterization of it. furthermore, where is the outcry from him about immorality among nontheists, hindus, buddhists, etc? seems hypocritical. he has been notified that his criticism of christianity is built on some flaws. he has not addressed this that i'm aware of.
I'm not arguing against the mosque on religious grounds - I argue against it on the grounds of taste and respect. Building a mosque on Ground Zero is like cracking a pedophile joke at Michael Jackson's funeral - it's horrifically disrespectful to the dead and in very poor taste.
Building it a few blocks down the road is ok though. I don't mind that.
But TBH, I think a nice memoriel garden would be appropriate. It's not going to offend anyone (unless there's some jerkass out there who hates flowers) and it's not going to disrespect anyone. And it will look much nicer too.
(However...has anyone considered what's in the soil at Ground Zero? I'm surprised it hasn't been declared contaminated ground.)
That would have been a better statement. Good link.
Sam Harris on the Mosque:
The first thing that all honest students of Islam must admit is that it is not absolutely clear where members of al Qaeda, the Taliban, al-Shabab, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Hamas, and other Muslim terrorist groups have misconstrued their religious obligations. If they are “extremists” who have deformed an ancient faith into a death cult, they haven’t deformed it by much. When one reads the Koran and the hadith, and consults the opinions of Muslim jurists over the centuries, one discovers that killing apostates, treating women like livestock, and waging jihad—not merely as an inner, spiritual struggle but as holy war against infidels—are practices that are central to the faith. Granted, one path out of this madness might be for mainstream Muslims to simply pretend that this isn’t so—and by this pretense persuade the next generation that the “true” Islam is peaceful, tolerant of difference, egalitarian, and fully compatible with a global civil society. But the holy books remain forever to be consulted, and no one will dare to edit them. Consequently, the most barbarous and divisive passages in these texts will remain forever open to being given their most plausible interpretations.
Thus, when Allah commands his followers to slay infidels wherever they find them, until Islam reigns supreme (2:191-193; 4:76; 8:39; 9:123; 47:4; 66:9)—only to emphasize that such violent conquest is obligatory, as unpleasant as that might seem (2:216), and that death in jihad is actually the best thing that can happen to a person, given the rewards that martyrs receive in Paradise (3:140-171; 4:74; 47:5-6)—He means just that. And, being the creator of the universe, his words were meant to guide Muslims for all time. Yes, it is true that the Old Testament contains even greater barbarism—but there are obvious historical and theological reasons why it inspires far less Jewish and Christian violence today. Anyone who elides these distinctions, or who acknowledges the problem of jihad and Muslim terrorism only to swiftly mention the Crusades, Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, the Tamil Tigers, and the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma, is simply not thinking honestly about the problem of Islam.
What one doesn’t generally hear from Western Muslims is any frank acknowledgment of these unpleasant truths. In response to serious concerns raised over Islamic doctrines related to jihad, martyrdom, apostasy, and blasphemy—along with their incontrovertible link to terrorism, threats of violence, cartoon “controversies,” and the like—one generally meets with petulance, feigned confusion, half-truths, and non sequiturs. Apologists for Islam have even sought to defend their faith from criticism by inventing a psychological disorder known as “Islamophobia.” My friend Ayaan Hirsi Ali is said to be suffering from it. Though she was circumcised as a girl by religious barbarians (as 98 percent of Somali girls still are) has been in constant flight from theocrats ever since, and must retain a bodyguard everywhere she goes, even her criticism of Islam is viewed as a form of “bigotry” and “racism” by many “moderate” Muslims. And yet, moderate Muslims should be the first to observe how obscene Muslim bullying is—and they should be the first to defend the right of public intellectuals, cartoonists, and novelists to criticize the faith.
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