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Author Topic:   Obama supports Ground Zero mosque. Religious freedom or is he being too PC?
Rahvin
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Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


(1)
Message 75 of 406 (575379)
08-19-2010 6:45 PM
Reply to: Message 27 by slevesque
08-15-2010 1:48 PM


Predictable answer, but it is a bit irrelevant.
Ask a muslim terrorist about his justification and he will say his religion
ask a catholic priest and he will not quote scripture (unless you can show me one that does).
Maybe the bible and christianity could be used to justify pedophilia by a very twisted mind, but as far as I know it isn't. So as I said, in my first post, the source for those priests actions isn't their religion. The same cannot be said for muslim terrorists.
Priests weren't a perfect analogy. A better on would be abortion clinic terrorists.
Ask an Islamic terrorist why he is a terrorist, and he'll usually refer to his religion (not always - many militants just don't like America dicking around in their back yard, especially when said dicking around involves dropping bombs and killing civilians).
Ask an abortion clinic terrorist why he's a terrorist, and he'l refer to his faith, too.
Clearly by the same logic that leads to banning mosques near Ground Zero, we should also ban churches near any medical facility that might possibly perform an abortion.
The whole thing is patently absurd on its face to anyone who actually thinks about it for a moment, and who legitimately values religious freedom.
Unfortunately, as is most often the case in America, it would seem that Constitutional rights only apply when one is defending one's own actions; freedom of religion obviously ceases to apply if you're the wrong religion.
It's not a "slap in the face." It's not a "victory mosque." It does function, intended or otherwise, as a test of America's true commitment to its professed ideals, just like the various tests of free speech. It's really, really easy to say you believe in the freedom to worship according to the dictates of your own conscience and to be free from discrimination based on the expression of that freedom when everybody's religion is the same, or at least enjoys public approval. It's easy to believe in the freedom to say what you want without legal consequence when everybody says the same things.
The Constitution rights we all claim to believe in and uphold were not made for the easy decisions. They were not made for the majority. They were made to protect unpopular minorities of faith and opinion. If you cannot build a building representative of an unpopular faith, then religious freedom does not actually exist. Freedom is, by definition, the ability to dissent from the majority, to be different from others.
This is America's biggest failure - the failure to actually stand up for what we say we believe in.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 27 by slevesque, posted 08-15-2010 1:48 PM slevesque has not replied

Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


(2)
Message 195 of 406 (576564)
08-24-2010 2:30 PM
Reply to: Message 191 by jar
08-24-2010 2:06 PM


I'm sorry but the evidence does not support that. Have you seen the signs being carried in the demonstrations or read all the copy published about the demonstrations or listened to the rhetoric of the demonstrators?
The are being allowed to show and say very offensive things.
The difference is in who's doing the allowing. The government has no ability to block offensiveness like showing an image of a prophet or a protest sign until the expression of speech crosses the line into inciting violence or other such issues.
Comedy Central is under no obligation to air the offensive speech of their writers. They're even free to hold a double-standard, blocking images of Mohammad while showing offensive images of Jesus or other religious figures.
Comedy Central became a poor supporter of free speech by censoring images and themes that it has otherwise allowed (and made fantastic profits from) based solely on the specific group that would be offended. I agree with oni that there is something very wrong about saying "it's okay to poke fun at a, b, and c, but hands off of d, treat them with total respect." Either all of it's okay, or none of it is...but Comedy Central is under no legal obligation to agree.
For media outlets like Comedy Central or CNN, censorship is less about free speech or Constitutional rights and more about ratings and publicity and concerns about the safety of their employees.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 191 by jar, posted 08-24-2010 2:06 PM jar has replied

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 Message 196 by jar, posted 08-24-2010 2:34 PM Rahvin has not replied

Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


(1)
Message 219 of 406 (576911)
08-26-2010 12:05 PM
Reply to: Message 213 by riVeRraT
08-25-2010 8:34 PM


Re: Listen
Listen, there is nothing wrong with questioning the motives of Muslims, since it was Muslims who declared Jihad on us. Of course I do not believe that every Muslim believes that all infidels should die. But they are taught to lie to us, and keep the truth to themselves. What does that leave us to think about them? How do we differentiate?
Your statement is self-contradictory. You state that there is nothing wrong with questioning the motives of Muslims, and then contradict that statement by saying that not every Muslim believes that all infidels should die.
All Muslim terrorists are Muslim. Not all Muslims are Muslim terrorists.
Saying we should question the motives of Muslims because of the actions of a small minority of Muslims is like suggesting that we should question the motives of Christians because of Christian abortion clinic murderers.
There are precisely two reasons to stigmatize all Muslims and suggest that it's difficult to "differentiate" or that it's okay to "question their motives:" bigotry and fear. I understand that it's extremely tempting and even easy to blanket all Muslims for the actions of a few - the terrorists make their religion such a focus as a justification of their actions that I'd even agree that it's difficult not to associate the religion in its entirety with terrorism.
But that's only because you and I are third parties, looking in from the outside. It's very easy to paint a minority that's different from yourself as "them."
Christian abortion clinic terrorists make a similarly strong focus on their religion as justification for their actions. The primary differences are lower body counts due to a more specific focus for victims to be terrorized, and the fact that the Christians are not an easily separated minority - White American English-speaking Christians cannot easily identify other white American English-speaking Christians as a "them" to be feared, reviled, and discriminated against.
Be very, very careful that you don't fall into that trap. Al Qaeda does certainly use their interpretation of the Koran as a justification for their vile acts...but the vast majority of Muslims would no more follow religious instructions to kill an infidel than your average Christian would stone a rebellious child to death.
The more we allow fear to broaden and generalize the identity of our enemies through association, the more we give peaceful, normal people a legitimate reason to feel disenfranchised and fearful themselves.
You cannot question a person's motives simply because they share the name of their religion with a bunch of lunatic murderers, for the same reason I can't question your motives simply because you share the name of your religion with another bunch of lunatic murderers.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 213 by riVeRraT, posted 08-25-2010 8:34 PM riVeRraT has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 271 by riVeRraT, posted 09-02-2010 11:49 PM Rahvin has not replied

Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


Message 310 of 406 (579040)
09-03-2010 12:19 PM
Reply to: Message 309 by jar
09-03-2010 11:51 AM


Re: Who is the enemy?
Well, I can't. Sorry Charlie.
The guy may well be a bad person, may well be someone that the Dutch or even the Australian authorities might want to watch, but he is certainly no threat to the US.
I dunno, I'd say that anyone who actively calls for the beheading (or other form of murder) of another human being is an enemy of civilized society in general.
That said, it's far too easy to point at some violence-inciting Muslim cleric and say "that's the enemy," and completely ignore equivalent or worse threats elsewhere. For all that people call this a "war," the global reaction to international terrorism is nothing whatsoever like wars of the past. Iraq is not the enemy. Afghanistan is not the enemy. Saudi Arabia is not the enemy. We could bomb cities all day long and never "win."
The biggest mistake made since 9/11 has been the mentality that the "war on terrorism" is about killing the "enemy." It's not. You cannot and will not stop terrorism that way. The real war is the battle to hold onto our cherished principles and way of life in the face of minor but extremely frightening attacks - and of course I say minor because in any objective analysis, driving is more of a threat to the United States than international terrorism, as you'd need a 9/11 event almost daily to cost the same number of lives as those lost each year in car wrecks. The difference between international terrorism and obesity is that terrorism has a lower body count, but is far more scary. And in the war against our own fear, the struggle to retain our freedoms and promote freedom and tolerance throughout the world...well, we're losing, because collectively we're cowards without the courage to take a tiny amount of risk for the sake of what we say we value most.
So while I'd certainly say that Mr.-behead-that-government-official is an enemy, the real enemy is our fear of the next attack, the irrational fear that causes us to take irrational action.
After all...we killed far more people in Iraq and Afghanistan than any number of terrorists could ever do. We destroyed more infrastructure than any terrorist has ever managed to interrupt. Our response to international terrorism has been not only to strike back at terrorists, but to strike out at anyone who makes us even think about terrorists. And in doing so, we've not only created more of what we call the "enemy," we've also steadily lost battle after battle in the war to retain our values.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 309 by jar, posted 09-03-2010 11:51 AM jar has replied

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 Message 311 by jar, posted 09-03-2010 12:44 PM Rahvin has not replied

Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


(1)
Message 352 of 406 (580049)
09-07-2010 12:14 PM


Koran burning in Fl
As reported by CNN:
quote:
The pastor of a Florida church planning to burn Qurans told CNN Tuesday while the congregation plans to go through with the action to protest the September 11, 2001 attack on the United States by al Qaeda, the church is "weighing" its intentions.
Terry Jones, pastor of Dove World Outreach Church in Gainesville, Florida, who was interviewed on CNN's "American Morning, said the congregation is taking seriously the warning from the U.S. military that the act could cause problems for American troops.
"We have firmly made up our mind, but at the same time, we are definitely praying about it," said Jones said.
The "Dove World Outreach Church" plans to reach out to the world on 9/11/10 by holding a good old-fashioned book-burning, and their target is specifically the Koran. Their pastor is the author of a book titled "Islam is of the devil." They sell t-shirts and coffee mugs with the book's title.
I think I've made clear in previous posts in this thread that I typically agree that offensiveness is basically inevitable, and in fact shouldn't be avoided for the most part. I've expressed that unpleasant speech is the only speech that actually requires protection, and that unless you are free to say things that everyone else disagrees with or even hates, then there is in fact no Freedom of Speech.
At the same time, this makes me freaking sick. Between major US religious leaders saying that America should ban the construction of any new mosques, the massive opposition to the Islamic center a few blocks from Ground Zero, and now a special event to burn Korans (on not only the 9th anniversary of 9/11, but also on a day that just so happens to coincide with the end of Ramadan this year)...
Aren't Americans basically telling Muslims worldwide that, despite the words of our leaders, we do consider ourselves to be engaged in a religious war? That this is another Crusade? How is all of this significantly different from Muslim demonstrators in Iran burning American flags and effigies of Presidents? America is the Great Satan, and Islam is of the devil?
Maybe I feel so disgusted because it's specifically a book-burning. I don;t know. But while I still say that this church has every right to express themselves even in such an offensive way, I can't imagine many forms of free expression that would be in worse taste, more offensive, and just outright more disgusting. This is right up there with a KKK cross-burning to me.
I value free speech. I think we need to take the bad with the good. I thinkw e are stronger overall because we tolerate the expression of opposing views so that nobody needs to fear imprisonment or other reprisals for simply following their conscience, and so that all points of view can be openly considered. I think free speech is the only way to prevent a society from stagnating, and in fact I think those nations who have the freedom of speech have proven that to be true when compared to those that do not.
I really, really don't like the message this sends. I don't think a worse course of action could be taken short of rounding up Muslims for concentration camps in terms of how Muslims in other countries will view us, and I really don;t like the fact that Americans as a whole are likely to be considered to be anti-Muslim Islamophobic Crusaders due to the actions of only a portion of our population - much like Americans tend to view Muslims as a whole based on the actions of only a portion of theirs.
I don't think that legally or ethically (if one values free speech) the book burning can be stopped unless the church congregation changes their minds. But I can't see many more effective methods to ensure America remains the Great Satan in the eyes of the Muslim world.
I hate that this country is so filled with idiots and bigots.

Replies to this message:
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