Ground Zero mosque wins approval !!

[Vinod2070]

Wild goose chase is not a valid argument. More than 50 percent of American hold somewhat covert negative thoughts about the Jewish population. Many belief that Jews have siphoned off $100s of billion dollars to Israel and caused the meltdown in 2008.

How is it related to this discussion? What do you want to convey here?

I have personally seen many Indians in USA calling President Obama "Kala or Kallu." Some have shown strong disdain towards him. I don't take those out of context.

I have no way of confirming your personal anecdotes. I know that Obama won a large percentage of Indian-American community votes and in general he is well liked in Indian community.

For example, appears to me you certainly find it enjoyable to write against the Mosque for no reason at all. If anything, its about Islam and USA , and none of this should concern you. Yet you have no problem churning out your uncalled attention.

I have not written anything against the mosque. Try reading again!

You are no one to tell me what should concern me or not. Islamic terrorism is a worldwide problem and every human being has suffered to some degree or the other because of it.

Anyway this is a debating forum and you are free to skip over anything you don't like.

As I said before I am not trying to take your post out of context.

Good for you.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

No. That is not what I meant.

I have formed my opinion through various sources. Also it was not fiction and you know it.

He was reflecting the statements of a very large number of people and this is something easy to verify. Look at the reviews of the book in the Pakistani and international media.

Again no. My opinions have been formed based on my observations and study over several years. I didn't say anything about the numbers or even "American Muslims". It is not only about "American Muslims" and you know it. Why spin the issue?

Your opinions are based on a handful of anecdotes and your claims and your interpretations - that does not qualify as any sort of empirical or factual justification for anything, especially given your biases which I am familiar with given our history of debating on this forum.

Extending your arguments from American Muslims to all Muslims makes your claims, based on a handful of anecdotes and your own interpretations, even more suspect since you go from generalizing a very large and diverse group (America Muslims) to an even larger and more diverse group (all Muslims).

I didn't make any accusations. I only replied to your post and you can try to read it again without mixing it with posts from other people. I just said that a large number of Muslims (living in West and East) were happy with those attacks. Sufficient empirical evidence exists for this. At least for those who don't have put on the blinkers.

Well then, provide that empirical evidence substantiating your claims and quantifying this 'large number of Muslims'.

It would be just like saying that there are many supporters of TTP in Pakistan. You know that, you have seen them, you can see their youtube videos, visit their extremist forums (Al ansar?) etc. You can't claim that such people don't exist.

Those people (and their ability to hijack the agenda) has created a problem and youa re free to deny that.

And those people are in the minority, and the majority of those that do support the TTP don't believe that the TTP is responsible for terrorist attacks in Pakistan or elsewhere - that is an important distinction that gets overlooked when looking at polling data about public support for various groups and individuals.

But the minority cannot define the majority, and the minority is at different levels and holds different opinions depending upon which part of the Muslim world is being looked at - so you cannot pass judgment on American Muslims based on what Afghans think, or on Pakistani Muslims based on what Saudis think - each community has its own dynamics and viewpoints.

This is totally unrelated to the topic at hand. I am not sure how you arrived at tens of thousands. I can show you tens of thousands of posts by Pakistani Muslims who support the massacre of PA because they are fighting for the great Satan BTW.

If you can show me tens of thousands of posts on mainstream Pakistani papers that reflect the depravity of the posts seen on mainstream Indian media outlets, that would indeed prove your claim.

Absurd and unrelated. Anyway, I have told you that the official toll in that decade old riots is 784 Muslims and 280 Hindus (obviously kaffir lives are cheap for the final and perfect people and don't count).

This is not the first time you have used that phrase (or similar ones) since you were unbanned, towards Muslims and towards Pakistan. If you cannot call us Muslims and Pakistan, I would appreciate you not posting period. Snide denigration of a people and a nation is not appreciated.

What is the toll in Pakistan at the hands of Muslim terrorists? What about Karachi tolls? What about Shia murdered over the last few decades in sectarian murders?

But you miss all that with your blinkers and keep harping on that decade old riot started because of the ghastly train burning that your PTV was celebrating that night!

PTV was celebrating or covering? Yet more evidence of your bias that leads to absurd interpretations and conclusions on your part, and yet you want us to believe in your 'years of studying Muslims'.

And the whole point of raising the massacres of non-Hindus by Hindus in India was to point out it is not just Islam that is distorted to achieve political gains through violence, terror and mayhem, but various other religions, including Hindusim, offer the same opportunity to leaders who wish to do so.

Nope. You brought in Pew/Gallup. They are meaningless to this issue.

You are also mixing the context from several other unrelated issues/posts. We need to just reply to the issues raised by the particular member and not mix with others.

I am mixing nothing - you made a claim about Muslims, I am asking you to justify it empirically. If you cannot justify it, aside from your claimed 'anecdotal evidence and years of study' then your claims are worthless, given your clearly exposed bias.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

So every one in the world is wrong except Muslims.

Why do you say that? If you saunter over to the Ahmadi thread (amongst others) you will find many Pakistani Muslims strongly criticizing Pakistani laws against minorities and social attitudes against minorities.

On other threads you'll find the same people also blasting the Saudis and Iranians.

Yet more negative generalizations about someone, without knowing what they stand for, do not improve your argument.

 

[waraich66]

It's people like you that bring a bad name to Islam.. did you even bother looking at her website or her articles? I doubt it instead people like you put out half assed comments like angrazoon ki chamhi... very enlightening indeed.

Chour Ki Dari me tinka

You dont have sense to analyse that Muslims as nation has no involvement in 9/11 tragedy .We dont consider these terrorist Muslim or Human who were involved .

Building Mosque close will give message of love to people effected by 9/11 and US general public.

I appreciate US law which is allowing building Mosque.

 

[Vinod2070]

Your opinions are based on a handful of anecdotes and your claims and your interpretations - that does not qualify as any sort of empirical or factual justification for anything, especially given your biases which I am familiar with given our history of debating on this forum.

You are assuming too much, bringing in too much unrelated stuff and that is not going to help too much.

I see that you tend to put on your blinkers, disregard the obvious facts, make everything into a "legal" argument and then start blaming everyone. Not everyone has those blinkers however and they are free to perceive the reality as they see them, based on their experiences.

Extending your arguments from American Muslims to all Muslims makes your claims, based on a handful of anecdotes and your own interpretations, even more suspect since you go from generalizing a very large and diverse group (America Muslims) to an even larger and more diverse group (all Muslims).

You are welcome to think so. I think you are choosing to ignore obvious facts. Not the first time it is happening.

Well then, provide that empirical evidence substantiating your claims and quantifying this 'large number of Muslims'.

And those people are in the minority, and the majority of those that do support the TTP don't believe that the TTP is responsible for terrorist attacks in Pakistan or elsewhere - that is an important distinction that gets overlooked when looking at polling data about public support for various groups and individuals.

I didn't claim they are a majority. I also agree that the minority should not define the majority.

However, this knowledge doesn't prevent you from doing the same to Indians and Hindus. Even though they are not related to this topic directly, some are only offering their opinions here. You still pulled your anecdotes of "tens of thousands comments", used vocabulary like "bastards" (does conversion make a bastard legitimated BTW?), brought in decade old riots and so on.

If you can understand schadenfreude on the part of Muslims living in the West or East, how hard it is to understand the same on the part of others? Especially those who have been at the receiving end earlier.

You don't want anyone to say that you need to criticize Islamic terrorists more than others, why do you expect different from others?

Also whenever the topic of Pakistani media, textbooks and general discourse denigrating Hindus (and other kaffirs as well) in general is brought up, you seem to have little issues other than pointing to some survey that shows it has no negative effect. Why expect different from others?

But the minority cannot define the majority, and the minority is at different levels and holds different opinions depending upon which part of the Muslim world is being looked at - so you cannot pass judgment on American Muslims based on what Afghans think, or on Pakistani Muslims based on what Saudis think - each community has its own dynamics and viewpoints.

You are assuming that I am passing judgments. I agree with this part broadly.

If you can show me tens of thousands of posts on mainstream Pakistani papers that reflect the depravity of the posts seen on mainstream Indian media outlets, that would indeed prove your claim.

May be you can start by proving your claim of tens of thousands of comments by Indians in mainstream Indian papers. You claimed this, not me.

This is not the first time you have used that phrase (or similar ones) since you were unbanned, towards Muslims and towards Pakistan. If you cannot call us Muslims and Pakistan, I would appreciate you not posting period. Snide denigration of a people and a nation is not appreciated.

OK. you don't like this and I will avoid it. It is not my claim though.

PTV was celebrating or covering? Yet more evidence of your bias that leads to absurd interpretations and conclusions on your part

I saw the PTV news that day and the lady anchor was almost besides herself with joy when she claimed that Hindu extremists had been burned in the train. There were kids and women among those burned!

and yet you want us to believe in your 'years of studying Muslims'.

I didn't claim to "study Muslims" specifically!

You need to get the context right.

And the whole point of raising the massacres of non-Hindus by Hindus in India was to point out it is not just Islam that is distorted to achieve political gains through violence, terror and mayhem, but various other religions, including Hindusim, offer the same opportunity to leaders who wish to do so.

Opportunity may come from anywhere the opportunists exist.

The difference is in scale. You can't compare a one off incident (riot) with tens of thousands of terror attacks per year, ongoing for years and years.

I am mixing nothing - you made a claim about Muslims, I am asking you to justify it empirically. If you cannot justify it, aside from your claimed 'anecdotal evidence and years of study' then your claims are worthless, given your clearly exposed bias.

As I said, this is not something that can be "proved" in a court of law, not by me anyway.

This is something that people perceive based on their observations.

We all have biases. You are biased to ignore and filter out plain facts or become apologist or justify the worst deeds by giving example of X or Y doing the same. The others may have a different bias.

The issue is not of bias but of truth.

 

[Ras]

Not really. It wasn't up to the jews or the blacks to show the Americans that the Americans were wrong about them.

If a minority is disliked, it's not up to them to show their real side. It's up the majority to get rid of their biases and bigoted ways of thinking.

Not exclusively...it is a two way street.

Jews used to be hated once but not any more. Any lingering resentment can be put down to pure jealousy considering the achievement of the Jewish community in the US.

Blacks are another story...they are their own worst enemy.

So if you look at both the examples above..one community raised itself to the cream of society while the other remains at the bottom.And both started from the bottom due to prejudice.

 

[CAPTAIN AMERICA]

I respect individuals until I learn they dont deserve my respect, with groups, countries, religions they have to earn my respect, its not a given. I also think we are responsible for the actions of any group we belong (Race, Religion, Nation, Family, etc) when they do things we disagree with and we dont speak out and make an effort change our groups behavior.

I agree: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." (Edmund Burke)
So much of the history of the struggle between good and evil can be explained by Edmund Burke's observation. Time and again those who profess to be good seem to clearly outnumber those who are evil, yet those who are evil seem to prevail far too often. Seldom is it the numbers that determine the outcome, but whether those who claim to be good men are willing to stand up and fight for what they know to be right.
http://www.padfield.com/1997/goodmen.html

 

[chauism]

I respect individuals until I learn they dont deserve my respect, with groups, countries, religions they have to earn my respect, its not a given. I also think we are responsible for the actions of any group we belong (Race, Religion, Nation, Family, etc) when they do things we disagree with and we dont speak out and make an effort change our groups behavior.

I agree: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." (Edmund Burke)
So much of the history of the struggle between good and evil can be explained by Edmund Burke's observation. Time and again those who profess to be good seem to clearly outnumber those who are evil, yet those who are evil seem to prevail far too often. Seldom is it the numbers that determine the outcome, but whether those who claim to be good men are willing to stand up and fight for what they know to be right.
Edmund Burke, When Good Men Do Nothing, The Triumph Of Evil

Here is a better quote.

They say, "Evil prevails when good men fail to act." What they ought to say is, "Evil prevails."--"Lord of War"
After thousands of years of history in human civilization what evil had actually been eradicated from human nature itself? Evil prevails because evil prevails. Human history are not short of people fighting evils, but have they succeeded in eliminate the evils? Why people are so fond of superheros? Because they are the only ones that have enough power to fight evil that normal people cannot fight themselves. If you hold that notion that any group is responsible for the evil there is because of someone that affiliated with that group, then be prepared to be up against the whole humanity.

Also if you want to blame a group of people for certain individuals' own actions, then common Americans will be the whipping boys for everyone's problem in the whole world.

 

[gambit]

Well stop talking in riddles then, because I have no clue what you are asking for.

Am not the one who is making any 'riddles'. Here is my original question...

What is your opinion if the local muslims in Srebrenica objects to any kind of non-muslim 'cultural centers' at or near the 8000 massacre site ? Would you object to their objections like you do here for US ?

So if the local muslims in Srebrenica considers the ground to be so emotionally sensitive that they object to any non-muslims intrusions, do you:

1- Denounce their objections like you do here for US?
2- Support their objections and denounce any non-muslims intrusions.

I articulated my own position on such a scenario, that I would support the construction of a cultural center or Church by non-Muslims (though not Serbs, for reasons already mentioned), and I pointed out to you that there would likely be far lower outcry against such a decision, primarily because of the lack of connection to Sebrenica - beyond that your question is hypothetical that I cannot possibly answer on behalf of millions of Muslims. My own views I have conveyed, and you can pursue the same question with others on this forum or start a poll.

It really does not matter if it has any Serb connections or not.

POPE ORDERS NUNS OUT OF AUSCHWITZ - NYTimes.com

WARSAW, April 14— In a last-minute letter apparently intended to defuse the controversy on the 50th anniversary of the Warsaw ghetto uprising, Pope John Paul II told Roman Catholic nuns today to move from their convent at the Auschwitz death camp.

The Pope's letter, made public by the Polish news agency here today, said the 14 Carmelite nuns must move to another convent within the diocese in the Auschwitz area or return to where they came from nine years ago.

Kalman Sultanik, the vice president of the World Jewish Congress, said he had been informed by Bishop Tadeusz Rakoczy of the diocese of Bielsko-Biala, where the convent is situated, that the sisters had agreed to move.

So here we have a prominent religious leader ordered his followers to remove themselves from a ground considered emotionally sensitive BY a group. No government compelled him to act that way. No government can compel any muslim leader, high or low, to remove his proposal to build this mosque so near an emotionally sensitive area -- Sept 11, 2001 Ground Zero. But if a religious leader, in this case a high one, can act on his conscience to be sensitive to local feelings, why not this imam?

I am not asking YOU, or any muslim reading this, to speak on behalf of 1+ billion worldwide muslims. Am asking you to speak for yourself on that if local Srebenica muslims object to any non-muslim presence near their 'hallowed' ground, the place where 8000 muslims were murdered, would you support their objections? Or would you denounce them?

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

You are assuming too much, bringing in too much unrelated stuff and that is not going to help too much.

I see that you tend to put on your blinkers, disregard the obvious facts, make everything into a "legal" argument and then start blaming everyone. Not everyone has those blinkers however and they are free to perceive the reality as they see them, based on their experiences.

I am bringing in no 'unrelated stuff'- you made a derogatory claim about Muslims, and I would like to see any evidence you have to justify it. Its as simple as that. Since you have no evidence to provide, and are off on making your usual anti-Muslim comments based on 'years of study' and base your claims on some nonsensical conspiracy theory of 'secret sentiments' and 'closed groups and conversations', your claims have no validity.

You are welcome to think so. I think you are choosing to ignore obvious facts. Not the first time it is happening.

I am ignoring no facts since you have not presented any to back up your POV. You have merely provided your opinion and your interpretation of some 'secret Muslim sentiment', and that is quite plainly an absurd and desperate position on your side.

I didn't claim they are a majority. I also agree that the minority should not define the majority.

Good, and since there are always minorities in any communities that take negative positions - racists amongst Caucasians and Christians, extremist Evangelicals, Pedophile Catholic Priests, murdering Hindu leaders and mobs, and terrorist Muslims - I fail to see why you insist on labeling the majority in one community in particular (a community against which you harbor an existing bias (your snide derogatory references to them and your prior post history establish that clearly) by focusing on one particular minority.

All communities have black sheep - Muslims are not alone in that.

However, this knowledge doesn't prevent you from doing the same to Indians and Hindus. Even though they are not related to this topic directly, some are only offering their opinions here. You still pulled your anecdotes of "tens of thousands comments", used vocabulary like "bastards" (does conversion make a bastard legitimated BTW?), brought in decade old riots and so on.

When did I 'do the same to Hindus'? Now you are being downright dishonest and distorting my posts. You need to go back and read the context of my comments since you obviously have no clue - The examples of Hindu violence and of the 'tens of thousands of comments' was used to make the point that Islam alone does not lend itself to religion based violence, and that your argument of 'anecdotal evidence and online comments' establishing anything backfires when you consider the amount of hate-filled comments and posts Indians leave on the Web, or for that matter hate-filled comments by Americans and other Westerners on sites like the WAB and LWJ. You cannot merely ignore your own sides flaws and the 'anecdotal evidence' implicating them in hate-mongering, but blame Muslims using the same yardstick.

If you can understand schadenfreude on the part of Muslims living in the West or East, how hard it is to understand the same on the part of others? Especially those who have been at the receiving end earlier.

And so should you understand the sentiment of Pakistanis and Kashmirs who have suffered through Indian support for terrorism in East Pakistan, Baluchistan, and Indian occupation and oppression in Kashmir.

You don't want anyone to say that you need to criticize Islamic terrorists more than others, why do you expect different from others?

Where have I expected any different from others?

Also whenever the topic of Pakistani media, textbooks and general discourse denigrating Hindus (and other kaffirs as well) in general is brought up, you seem to have little issues other than pointing to some survey that shows it has no negative effect. Why expect different from others?

Yes, the surveys show no negative effect, primarily because the textbooks are not a Pakistani version of Nazi ideology. The issues most academics find with them are issues they dig up after going through the texts with a fine tooth comb, and much of what they criticize is over how characters are portrayed etc. There is no direct 'kill the Hindus, Hindus abd, evil blah blah blah' nonsense as many Indians like to distort the issue to be.

And beyond that I have no idea of what you mean by 'expect different from others' since I have raised no issue over Indian texts or American texts in this thread (talk about dragging in irrelevant issues and manufacturing positions to attribute to others)

May be you can start by proving your claim of tens of thousands of comments by Indians in mainstream Indian papers. You claimed this, not me.

If you have read the comments sections on the ToI, HT etc. you know what I am talking about and you know where to find it. Pay attention to comments by your countrymen and women on those sites next time a terrorist attack happens in Pakistan.

OK. you don't like this and I will avoid it. It is not my claim though.

Whether it is a claim or not does not change the fact that your usage is meant to be derogatory.

I saw the PTV news that day and the lady anchor was almost besides herself with joy when she claimed that Hindu extremists had been burned in the train. There were kids and women among those burned!

That is your bias and interpretation that the 'anchorwoman was besides herself with joy' - have you acquired the ability to read minds over the TV set now? I often find the attitudes of news anchors pretty crass in many events of disasters and tragedies that they cover.

I didn't claim to "study Muslims" specifically!

You need to get the context right.

Well whatever you do, it is obviously quackery and nonfactual - 'Secret sentiments and closed circles' and the other conspiratorial nonsense.

Opportunity may come from anywhere the opportunists exist.

The difference is in scale. You can't compare a one off incident (riot) with tens of thousands of terror attacks per year, ongoing for years and years.

Not a one off incident - religious violence by Hindus (and other communities in India) has along history. I just provided the three most recent events in my memory that killed a combined several thousand people.

As for the larger number of attacks in the Muslims world - many parts of the Muslim world are in conflict, and when you have conflict their will be violence, and that allows those who wish to distort religion to achieve political goals the perfect mix to do so. Islam has not inherent issues much like the thousands killed by Hindu extremists does not point to Hinduism having any inherent issue, the problem lies with the broader dynamics of political upheaval, conflict and socio-cultural attitudes in various parts of the Muslim world.

As I said, this is not something that can be "proved" in a court of law, not by me anyway.

This is something that people perceive based on their observations.

We all have biases. You are biased to ignore and filter out plain facts or become apologist or justify the worst deeds by giving example of X or Y doing the same. The others may have a different bias.

The issue is not of bias but of truth.

If you cannot provide evidence to support your argument then your argument is invalid. Racists and bigots perceive a lot of things about the 'other' - that does not make their impressions about the other any more valid. Only facts can establish whether X,Y or Z is true or not, and you have not provided any.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

So if the local muslims in Srebrenica considers the ground to be so emotionally sensitive that they object to any non-muslims intrusions, do you:

1- Denounce their objections like you do here for US?
2- Support their objections and denounce any non-muslims intrusions.

If the legal situation is identical to the one in the US, and the group advocating the Center/Church is not related to the Serbs, then yes, I would denounce their objections since at that point the objection would be against a faith and people unrelated to those complicit in the genocide of Bosnians.

It really does not matter if it has any Serb connections or not.

POPE ORDERS NUNS OUT OF AUSCHWITZ - NYTimes.com

So here we have a prominent religious leader ordered his followers to remove themselves from a ground considered emotionally sensitive BY a group. No government compelled him to act that way. No government can compel any muslim leader, high or low, to remove his proposal to build this mosque so near an emotionally sensitive area -- Sept 11, 2001 Ground Zero. But if a religious leader, in this case a high one, can act on his conscience to be sensitive to local feelings, why not this imam?

I am not asking YOU, or any muslim reading this, to speak on behalf of 1+ billion worldwide muslims. Am asking you to speak for yourself on that if local Srebenica muslims object to any non-muslim presence near their 'hallowed' ground, the place where 8000 muslims were murdered, would you support their objections? Or would you denounce them?

Connections matter - because people take a greater interest in issues that they feel a stronger association with, positive or negative. Given the large diaspora from various Muslim nations living in the US and UK, and the prominence of both in global affairs, you'll have a lot more vocalization on issues related to Muslims, by Muslims, in those nations than you would in others. Take for example the minaret or burq bans in some nations in Europe - there was little interest as far as I could tell on the threads related to them. I personally don't remember posting much there at all.

As for the pope ordering the nuns out of Auschwitz, I cannot comment on the decision or the Popes rationalization without understanding the history and rationale behind the opposition.

In any case, that was his decision, I don't agree that a similar decision is necessary in the case of the NYC mosque, and quite frankly, seeing the patently racist attitudes on display at many of these protests and the nationwide 'allergy' to mosques, it really isn't about 'hallowed ground, respect' and the rest of that poppycock. It is about vilification of Muslims and bigotry.

 

[gambit]

...seeing the patently racist attitudes on display at many of these protests and the nationwide 'allergy' to mosques, it really isn't about 'hallowed ground, respect' and the rest of that poppycock. It is about vilification of Muslims and bigotry.

Are you saying being a muslim qualify one as a distinct 'race'? Anyway...Americans do not need this mosque to vilify muslims. We could have done it long before Sept 11, 2001. And if we did have these hostile attitudes against muslims, after 9/11, we would have rounded up every muslim we can find and intern them the way we did to the Japanese-Americans while we take over Afghanistan and Iraq 'for oil'. You should entertain the possibility that the current 'allergy' to mosques nationwide is a reaction of ordinary Americans fed up with the insensitivity of this proposal. Remember that those same ordinary Americans never gave much thought about Islam and muslims before 9/11.

 

[Vinod2070]

I take a timeout from this particular discussion. It is getting circular and too "talkh" and personal for my liking.

 

[jeypore]

I take a timeout from this particular discussion. It is getting circular and too "talkh" and personal for my liking.

Yes because the polls shows that majority of Americans do not support this, so why are the Muslims communities trying to prove themselves, Instead they should be proving to the American public of there fears of Muslim Religion...

I do not get it, but Muslims are showing antagonism where they should have not been. Durran3 gave a perfect example of polarization between religion to terrorism, but the Muslims are not showing or acting based on this effect, meaning the polarization between religion and terrorism.

Let me give a perfect example of this, When Pakistanies says that a Afgani Taliban is good Taliban, this is the perfect example for Americans to look at Muslims, as a religion, associating with Terrorist views. So in Conclusion the moderate Muslims are not getting any headway towards expressing there peace with the world, and the Rest of the people are getting Confused!!!

There has to be this Polarization period.... Which Iman is out there to lead!!!

 

[jeypore]

AGNO:
Good, and since there are always minorities in any communities that take negative positions - racists amongst Caucasians and Christians, extremist Evangelicals, Pedophile Catholic Priests, murdering Hindu leaders and mobs, and terrorist Muslims

And Can you explain the same from the Majority ruled Muslim Countries, where the minorities fare the same as you eloquently explained.. Please give the same passion, as you have done above... That will really help!!!