WTC Mosque Part Four!!!

[ParadigmShifter]

You try reading the Bible, and start getting some forgiveness, turning the other cheek, etc.

 

[useless]

Like: Learning to hate women, to hate gays, that slavery is okay, that incest is okay

 

[MobBoss]

A church lives and dies by its community presence... but you'll be hard-pressed to make an argument decreeing the church would die when there's so much demand for the church from believers that they seriously need an expansion/rebuilding, just because there are a bunch of people with wrong opinions protesting against this expansion/rebuilding.

Well, perhaps my opinion is biased in that the people I know and have gone to church with wouldnt prefer to be that controversial. I have certainly seen people leave churches for far less.

That's certainly one of its missions. I would say a more primary mission would be to facilitate church services to the believers. People don't go around building churches for non-believers. They do it for the believers that want a place of worship, and a community of their own.

Outreach ministry is how churches maintain and grow. Its been my experience that churchs that dont do this simply go stagnant and fail even with their little 'community of their own'.

You also have to consider your demographic. Who are you appeasing? Is it relevant people?

According to Jesus, everyone is relevant....

You try reading the Bible, and start getting some forgiveness, turning the other cheek, etc.

While I do admit that my mercy quotient needs some work, I do endeavor to improve upon it all the time. Arent we all simply works in progress?

 

[useless]

appart from sodomites and women or of course anyone who believes in a different faith

 

[Traitorfish]

Try actually reading the bible. Its amazing what you can learn by doing that.

I meant Christianity-as-is, not your particular interpretation. Obviously, some churches are more interested than others, but it is not universal, and, seems, if anything, to represent a relatively small minority. The same, in my experience, is true of Islam, which, like Catholicism, is often tied heavily to a particular ethnicity or group of ethnicities.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

While I do admit that my mercy quotient needs some work, I do endeavor to improve upon it all the time. Arent we all simply works in progress?

I decided to be a pacifist 22 years ago and have never looked back (despite being beaten up several times).

Keep working on your improvement though. I'm trying to stop trolling.

 

[Mr. Dictator]

Not related to the ground zero mosque, but you guys got the thread over the mosque in my neck of the woods closed down so I'll mention this here.

Yesterday shots were fired near the mosque here in Murfreesboro, and the rhetoric I'm hearing is starting to scare me. Everyone thinks the Muslims set the fire themselves and the sheriff who came to the community center told them something along the lines of, "I don't think we'll really investigate these 'shots' too much, because you're probably just imagining things."

 

[ParadigmShifter]

The other thread should be reopened and people shouldn't troll it, IMHO.

EDIT: This is the troll thread. The 4th one.

 

[Ajidica]

Nobody noticed my article?

Newsweek just had an article about Park51:

“By preventing this mosque from being built, America is doing us a big favor,” Taliban operative Zabihullah tells NEWSWEEK. (Like many Afghans, he uses a single name.) “It’s providing us with more recruits, donations, and popular support.”

Zabihullah also claims that the issue is such a propaganda windfall—so tailor-made to show how “anti-Islamic” America is—that it now heads the list of talking points in Taliban meetings with fighters, villagers, and potential recruits. “We talk about how America tortures with waterboarding, about the cruel confinement of Muslims in wire cages in Guantánamo, about the killing of innocent women and children in air attacks—and now America gives us another gift with its street protests to prevent a mosque from being built in New York,” Zabihullah says. “Showing reality always makes the best propaganda.”

Here is the link:
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/08/30/taliban-using-mosque-controversy-to-recruit.html

It looks like the Islamophobes are aiding the enemy.
I seem to remember the people who aren't opposed to Park51 have been saying this almost since the get-go.

 

[useless]

I thought America was supposed to be free, tolerant and open? Why is there an exception for Muslims?

 

[Mr. Dictator]

I thought America was supposed to be free, tolerant and open? Why is there an exception for Muslims?

Because freedom ain't free, every group has to earn it.

 

[useless]

Black people haven't earnt the same freedoms as Whites, or so i am led to believe in America.

 

[Japanrocks12]

You are simply pointing out what I have been saying for 4 threads now. What other muslims outside the USA think its immaterial....so, the ones planning the mosque should be cognizant of their immediate non-muslim neighbors and reconsider building this thing in the interest of keeping the peace.

Why should we bow down to threats of mob violence from people emotionally riled up by the mere mention of Islam? Isn't that cowardice?

 

[Theige]

I thought America was supposed to be free, tolerant and open? Why is there an exception for Muslims?

America is free, tolerant, and open. There have always been intolerant, conservative and reactionary people though.

Sometimes they are more vocal, and this is one of those times, and as a people, they're making us look very bad.

 

[useless]

Why should we bow down to threats of mob violence from people emotionally riled up by the mere mention of Islam? Isn't that cowardice?

They won't admit it, but the reality is that opposistion is scared of Islam and the "Muslim", scared of the proverbial foreigner, comming to "Change" their way of life. This "Change" is obviously constantly implied to be negative. It's nothing more then the old immigration debate, with a smidgeon of religion and racial undertones to it.

 

[Cutlass]

A 30 minute drive is nothing. You weird city people who think it's a long drive are just goofy in the head

I know. I drove from Chicago to Hartford one day. And it took the day. All of it.

 

[Japanrocks12]

They won't admit it, but the reality is that opposistion is scared of Islam and the "Muslim", scared of the proverbial foreigner, comming to "Change" their way of life. This "Change" is obviously constantly implied to be negative. It's nothing more then the old immigration debate, with a smidgeon of religion and racial undertones to it.

Even if all of these things are true, and I suspect that some or all of them aren't or are merely exaggerated, there is literally no reason that any of this should prevent the right thing from being done.

 

[Traitorfish]

America is free, tolerant, and open. There have always been intolerant, conservative and reactionary people though.

It is rather unwise, I feel, to wave away America's long and sordid history of institutionalised bigotry as the work of a few bad apples.

 

[useless]

Even if all of these things are true, and I suspect that some or all of them aren't or are merely exaggerated, there is literally no reason that any of this should prevent the right thing from being done.

True, but the reality is that people, either out of ignorance or bigotry, equate the normal average Muslim to that of a terrorist. They believe that Islam inherently fosters terrorism and as such this makes them more prone to unrationally labelling or treating them as 2nd rate citizens, requiring them to prove their loyalty to America.

 

[Ajidica]

Are people blind?
I posted an article saying the Taliban will prefer that Park51 isn't built so they can show American Islamophobia, and you guys are just ignoring it?
I produced an article showing the Islamophobes are helping the Taliban, and nobody even refered to it in passing?