There may have been fewer people reacting negatively, but I think the people with the most negative reactions wouldn't have been swayed. I'd be willing to bet that the people most strongly opposed to this community center being built are very anti-Obama as well.
Muslim-born Miss USA says she opposes Ground Zero Islamic center Freedom, freedom! <object width="853" height="505"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/fpDUXKkYvYE?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/fpDUXKkYvYE?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="853" height="505"></embed></object>
True but when you lead, truly lead and inspire the majority, it's hard to the radical element to gain traction. They may not have been swayed, but he could have left them with very little to say.
And I can respect you opposing it. But my only point is that by the same token, shoudl they not build it just for the sake of image? In this case the image that it appears to be spitting on 9/11? Because that's an image too you realize? And if images don't matter to you, than why oppose this mosque in the first place?
That's their call... there is no right or wrong answer there, the right answer is the one they come up with. There are good and bad consequences to both building and not building. As far as image, I think the image I portray by opposing Islam, but defending the right to practice it peacefully, is a good image. It's not that images don't matter to me, I just don't care if they are unreasonable in their view of me. If they hate me because I disagree with their religion, then why should I concern myself with wanting to appease them? I am not concerned with maintaining my image amongst people with such attitudes... that is irrational, violent, dangerous thinking. If they cannot respect me for supporting their rights, while disagreeing with their conclusion, then that's a lost cause.
I can't really relate because I'm an atheist so religion really seems rather irrational - a means to cope with the fear of death. But we live in an absurd universe - so I respect people's beliefs and figure people believe whatever makes them happy. But I don't oppose anyone's religion. Not the evangelicals, not fanatics. They almost seem like insanely loyal fans. Perhaps that's where it all comes from....just another form of nationalism - a desire to find a common bond in something to create an identify and uniqueness relative to the rest of the world, something to be proud of. In any case, I'd suggest you ask why oppose Islam. Afterall, Hakeem was a Muslim, so were many great peaceful people. Many people point to the atrocities committed under Islam. Well...I wonder if that's a function of Islam or that those areas are still living in the middle centuries. You never hear about that stuff happening in metropolitan areas. And you have some messed up stuff happing in rural America. But I digress - I just think withholding judgement can sometimes be helpful, but as you say, you have every right to do what you want.
How is that relevant to the actual situation? <object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Mo-ddYhXAZc?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Mo-ddYhXAZc?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>
There have been lots of great Christians and Muslims throughout history, and each religion has made some pretty nice contributions to society here and there. However, it is my position that society and humans in general could still accomplish all those things, and possibly more, without any religion. Thus eliminating the clear and present danger that religion presents to the stability society and progress of man, while allowing people to still achieve their full potential and accomplish all those great things, both individually and collectively.
You are seeking something impossible. We just don't inherit religion and the concept of god from our parents and society....we are born with it. Every society. Every culture. It is literally in our genes. We are programmed to be religious. It's natural selection. Religion allows us to tolerate suffering and pain a whole lot better, it improves our outlook, and thus a higher chance to survive and reproduce.
We are programmed to seek answers. When we don't find answers, we are programmed to create answers to fill the void, no matter how crappy they are. Guess 20% of the world is programmed wrong? Even more of Europe's programming must be broken, eh? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_atheism
I'm not making a philosophical argument here. It's scientific. Religion, superstition, magic - it's all hardwired into our brains. There are studies that have been done to confirm this. It was first proposed by Carl Jung but many different studies confirm this is the case. We can over come our programming obviously and as anything in evolution, there's a broad phenotype of expression. Just like you have tall and short people. But the element of god is in us all. God literally exists in each of our DNA.
I am not making a philosophic argument either. People are predisposed to believe in a creator, since they themselves were created and know their creators. I have seen the studies. People seek answers to questions. They want to explain the unknown. This is where the concept of religion came from. All of them. As we learn more, we demystify our world, and the influence of religion on our society shrinks, as will our evolutionary predisposition and need to believe religions.
We shouldn't be too quick to let the numbers define our thoughts and perception. After emerging from the 20th century, the conclusion should be that wars could be fought for whatever reason or idea and that religion can sometimes be just a silly pretext to get things rolling. We're trending deeper into an age where individuality and spirituality is colliding head on with an increasingly crowded and impersonal society. The sense of community and belonging is fragmenting into focused and deliberate niches. I doubt science can answer those intensely social and complex problems. A good deal of some religions is accepting the unknown. Science is a noble pursuit, but the idea that it can be taken absolutely and accurately as truth is faith in itself, albeit a monochromatic one.
Your argument above IS a philosophical one. Do you understand what that means? And no...people don't want to believe in a creator - our brains have evolved to believe in a creator. It's in our genes itself. That's what the science is saying now.
Another homerun by Sam Harris. http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/...harris/2010/08/silence_is_not_moderation.html In a recent Wall Street Journal article, terrorism analyst Evan Kohlmann said that anti-Muslim rhetoric in America is bad news for anti-terrorism efforts: "We are handing al Qaeda a propaganda coup, an absolute propaganda coup." By many accounts, the man who could blunt the power of that coup is Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the religious leader behind the planned Islamic Center near Ground Zero. The imam has been surprisingly mum on the issue while he travels in the Middle East. What message of faith could he offer to Muslims and non-Muslims alike that could turn this moment of division into a time of healing? As many have pointed out, the controversy over the "ground zero mosque" is a false one. The project is legal to build, and it should remain legal. That does not mean, however, that any concern about building a mosque so close to ground zero is synonymous with bigotry. The true scandal here is that Muslim moderates have been so abysmally lacking in candor about the nature of their faith and so slow to disavow its genuine (and growing) pathologies--leading perfectly sane and tolerant people to worry whether Muslim moderation even exists. Despite his past equivocations on this issue, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf could dispel these fears in a single paragraph: These are the sorts of sentiments that should be the litmus test for Muslim moderation. Find an imam who will speak this way, and gather followers who think this way, and I'll volunteer to cut the ribbon on his mosque in lower Manhattan.
Saudi Prince opposed to Ground Zero mosque in New York and not just any Saudi Prince. to paraphrase a commenter at JOM: We live in a world where a Saudi Prince better understands and has more empathy for Americans than the NYTimes, Mike Bloomberg and The President of the United States. Unbelievable. [rquoter]PTI, Oct 30, 2010, 03.02pm IST DUBAI: Saudi Arabia's Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud has said he is against the construction of a mosque close to the 9/11 site in New York and also he had no part in financing the controversial project. "I am against putting the mosque in that particular place. And I'll tell you why. For two reasons: first of all, those people behind the mosque have to respect, have to appreciate and have to defer to the people of New York, and not try to agitate the wound by saying 'we need to put the mosque next to the 9/11 site'," he was quoted as saying by the 'Arabian Business'. "I heard and saw a lot of news about me being associated with it and this is all wrong. We did not finance this thing," he added. "The wound is still there. Just because the wound is healing you can't say 'let's just go back to where we were pre-9/11'. I am against putting the mosque there out of respect for those people who have been wounded over there," he was quoted as saying. The Prince also warned that Dubai's property market faces substantial further falls, and will take several years to reach its bottom. "There are new buildings coming out, I think we have not seen the bottom in real estate [in Dubai], there are years to come. I don't believe you are there [the bottom] yet because more supply is coming," he said. Read more: Saudi Prince opposed to Ground Zero mosque in New York - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/6841465.cms?prtpage=1#ixzz14MYNczp2[/rquoter]
You understand that this is the same person who owns a large amount of News Corp. Also gave millions of dollars to Palestine families that were victims of Israel attacks, yet some went to families of suicide bombers......yeah great person to want to take advice from. But you bring up a very good point. Let's listen to a person who is not American and take his advice about where an American building should go. Why don't we ask Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad where he would but the center.
