Mosque at Ground Zero

[Lord Mhoram]

Is it just me? Or is everybody ignoring LM's point (good posts LM) that this particular guy has been cleared by the FBI? Shouldn't that be evidence that he's not a radical?

Thanks, Av. And don't forget the State Department speaking tour he's on right now, and Scot's point about the Daniel Pearl funeral. He has also been a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and has spoken at the World Economic Forum at Davos -- the former the most prominent and mainstream think-tank in the United States (all Presidential candidates speak there and all the Beltway who's-who publish there; Rauf published a paper for the CFR in 2005 called "Arab Reform Final Report" with nobody less than Madeleine Albright, former secretary of state, as his co-author), and the latter the biggest capitalist conference on the planet. No radical would be caught dead at these institutions. Unless of course they were trying to fool us. And the FBI.

He also condemns Hamas on Park51's website as a "political movement and a terrorist organization"; "Hamas commits atrocious acts of terror. Imam Feisal has forcefully and consistently condemned all forms of terrorism, including those committed by Hamas, as un-Islamic." He clears up his other political views there, too.

The Board of Directors and the committee of advisors contain numerous non-Muslims.

The more I read about this organization, the less radical it becomes.

[shadowbinding shoe]

I'm still catching up on this thread but I wanted to make a few points:

1) Zarathustra's is accused of using questionable sources espoused by 'fringe far-right groups' (not exact quote). I kind of see this the other way though. When a big mainstream source like the NYT or Fox-News gives us info we can assume it might quite possibly have gotten professional editing be it by photoshopping, selective editing or censoring for mainstreamability. They have agendas too and truth in reporting is often bent out of shape. Seen plenty of it even in the best sources, not that they usually bother to hide it that well.

Z's sources on the other hand are a-priori suspect so we give them a closer look and being on the rough as they are we can be reasonably sure that they won't manage to fool us. We can separate the Stuff from the Chuff with greater ease. Would Fox News articles be better sources?

2) I'm still not clear on what Imam Rauf's stance on terrorist groups and terrorism is. I suppose I can understand these people too, to a degree, on an intellectual basis. Their purpose, grievances, history, background and narrative. I'd probably even agree that many times they have been wronged by such institutions as the USA government for example and have reason to feel angry.

If that's all he's saying I'd have no problem with him. If on the other hand he uses these things to justify their actions or excuse them, then I have no sympathy with him. Turning yourself into a monster because 'the world' was monstrous to you is a despicable thing. Terrorists pick the easy route, the unethical route, to achieve their goals not because they have to but because it's easier (for them) and because they don't care.

So any clarifications on this subject would be appreciated.

3) I think I had more points but I forgot them by now (except the one censoring Aliantha for not making much effort to remedy the wrongs I understand she did to Ki and Z.)

[aliantha]

Feel free to start a thread about anti-Semitic hate crimes in the US, Weez.

I believe anybody has the right to believe anything they want to believe. And I have the right to try to talk them down off the ledge when they begin to believe that any .6% of the people in America is a real and present danger to the other 99.4%. And those people have the right to ignore me.

On a side issue, "Christianityophobe" doesn't exactly trip off the tongue, does it? Does "Christophobe" work better? "Jesus hater"? C'mon, work with me here...

EDIT:

except the one censoring Aliantha for not making much effort to remedy the wrongs I understand she did to Ki and Z.

I apologized publicly. Did you have something else in mind?

[High Lord Tolkien]

Lots of info and interviews here.
This Imam sounds like an a-hole.
I know it's a conservative site but they have all the quoted text and live interviews.
Draw your own conclusions.

atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/

[Zarathustra]

Is it just me? Or is everybody ignoring LM's point (good posts LM) that this particular guy has been cleared by the FBI? Shouldn't that be evidence that he's not a radical?

I looked at the "evidence," (it was Huffington Post opinion piece) which said nothing about the FBI clearing this man. I'm not even sure what that means. Why would he need FBI clearance? He was never given a job within the FBI. This is all the opinion piece had to say on the issue:

In March 2003, federal officials were being criticized for disrespecting the rights of Arab-Americans in their efforts to crack down on domestic security threats in the post-9/11 environment. Hoping to calm the growing tempers, FBI officials in New York hosted a forum on ways to deal with Muslim and Arab-Americans without exacerbating social tensions. The bureau wanted to provide agents with "a clear picture," said Kevin Donovan, director of the FBI's New York office.

Brought in to speak that morning -- at the office building located just blocks from Ground Zero -- was one of the city's most respected Muslim voices: Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. The imam offered what was for him a familiar sermon to those in attendance. "Islamic extremism for the majority of Muslims is an oxymoron," he said. "It is a fundamental contradiction in terms."

He gave a sermon at a forum. You don't need FBI clearance to do that. Saying that this article is evidence that he has been granted FBI clearance is an exaggeration, at best. A fabrication at worst.

As for the Muslims saying this is a poke in the eye for America, it's no different from Christians who say that the invasion of Iraq/Afghanistan is "gods judgement" on unbelievers, or that AIDS is a "judgement" on gays. Just because some people see it meaning one thing, doesn't mean it does. (To anybody but them of course.)

My point was that you don't have to be an Islamophobe to oppose the mosque, not unless you claim that Muslims themselves (including professors of Islamic Studies) can be Islamophobes, which is ridiculous.

Finally, I really don't see Islamic supremacists taking over your culture. Don't you think your culture is stronger than that?

Have you noticed what's happening in Europe at all? Just google swimming pools and Muslims. White nonmuslims are being turned away from pools simply because Muslims don't believe in swimming with nonmuslims. That's taking over a culture, bit by bit. Why do you think South Park had to censor its cartoon about Muhammed? We have freedom of speech, and yet that happened. Why do you think we have Sharia compliant stock trading on Wall Street? Have you not noticed all my posts about Dearborn? Wherever they gain critical mass, they absolutely start imposing intolerant restrictions on everyone else. And we are not immune. Rather than being strong enough to resist it, we are making excuses for it happening, and attacking/making fun of me for pointing it out. Strength has nothing to do with it if we're going to let it happen.

LM, I've read through the Cordoba Initiative FAQ, too. It sounds great. But I find it troubling that Rauf equivocates on these issues, and contradicts the rosy picture presented by that website. As recently as this year, he contradicted your claim of denouncing Hamas:

During an interview on New York WABC radio in June 2010, Rauf declined to say whether he agreed with the U.S. State Department's designation of Hamas as a terrorist organization. Responding to the question, Rauf said, "Look, I'm not a politician. The issue of terrorism is a very complex question... I am a peace builder. I will not allow anybody to put me in a position where I am seen by any party in the world as an adversary or as an enemy."[25]

I also provided a quote from him where he says he finds it hard to tell victims of collateral damage that their terrorism isn't justified. If he's unequivocably against terrorism, then why the difficulty in condemning it?

Unless of course they were trying to fool us.

From one of the Muslims I quoted earlier:

Sufism has many sides to it, including the Koranic injunction to spread Islam one way or another, and it has a rich history of waging war, too. Could it be that one of the frequently used tools of war, lying to the enemy, explains the contradiction between Rauf's image as reconciler of religions and his sympathies and associations with terrorists?

[rusmeister]

I am intolerant about some things, and am reasonable in doing so.

According to your own definition, of course. I'm pretty sure most other bigots could make a similar case for their own unreasonable prejudices.

But we've been down this road several times.

Well, Ali, obviously you think the person who discriminates against the poisonous mushrooms is a bigot. By your logic, there must be no thing as reasonable intolerance.

And this is the rub. We have all been schooled to understand "discrimination" and "intolerance" as unqualified evils, and "tolerance" and "diversity" as unqualified goods. The concept that there might be positive forms of discrimination and tolerance, etc, never seems to cross anyone's mind - because the rhetoric drills into people's minds the automatic response of non-thought.

If my discrimination and intolerance is rational - if it actually prevents bad results, then it is not bigotry, but good sense. Please note the "if".

[aliantha]

I am intolerant about some things, and am reasonable in doing so.

According to your own definition, of course. I'm pretty sure most other bigots could make a similar case for their own unreasonable prejudices.

But we've been down this road several times.

Well, Ali, obviously you think the person who discriminates against the poisonous mushrooms is a bigot. By your logic, there must be no thing as reasonable intolerance.

I've been telling myself to do this for awhile now, since you keep using this analogy. I guess today's the day.

The difference between choosing among mushrooms and choosing among people is stark. Choose the wrong mushroom and it will kill you -- or at least make you very sick. Choosing among people almost never will.

Humans naturally notice similarities and differences between themselves and others. That's discernment.

When humans arbitrarily decide that a trait of mine is *better* than a trait of yours, and start treating people with your trait unfairly, that's discrimination.*

Discrimination is the direct result of dichotomous thinking, i.e., that just about everything can be classified as either good or bad. Lumping poison mushrooms and Protestants together as equally bad, and *priding* oneself on doing it, is a prime example of this thinking style.

*I recognize that there's another, more benign, definition for "discrimination", and that you prefer that one. But the definition I've given above is a viable definition as well, and widely understood. I'm tempted to say that the inability to accept more than one definition of a given word is another example of dichotomous thinking...

[SoulBiter]

When humans arbitrarily decide that a trait of mine is *better* than a trait of yours, and start treating people with your trait unfairly, that's discrimination.*

For a basketball team a person who is short is discriminated against. Doorways are created 3ft wide which discriminates against fat people and they are 6ft 8in which discrimates against those that are taller than that. We discriminate all the time.

It is possible to have a different opinion and one of those opinions be wrong. Regardless of how many are for or against.

Russ's discrimination could be right (or wrong), regardless of how many people disagree with him. For him to stick to his beliefs doesnt make him right but it does make him consistant.

[Lord Mhoram]

Zarathustra,

I looked at the "evidence," (it was Huffington Post opinion piece) which said nothing about the FBI clearing this man. I'm not even sure what that means. Why would he need FBI clearance? He was never given a job within the FBI. This is all the opinion piece had to say on the issue:

1. It was most definitely not an opinion piece; opinion pieces are not hosted in the news sections of a website, and are clearly delineated as opinion.
2. I never said he was given a job with the FBI; he acted as a consultant and lecturer at an FBI seminar on counterterrorism operations.
3. I ask you again: do you think the FBI would hire a radical to lecture to their agents on counterterrorism? Do you really think the FBI would hire a man without a background check?
4. What do you think about his State Department-sponsored speaking tour? His association with mainstream organizations such as the CFR and the World Economic Forum at Davos? What do you think about his co-writing papers with a secretary of state?
5. What you call equivocation I would call nuance. As I mentioned earlier, his stated views on Islamist terror are mainstream in virtually all respects.
6. What do you think about non-Muslims on Park51 leadership councils? Where do they fit in to the conspiracy to plant an Islamic flag in Manhattan?

I really dislike repeating myself.

[aliantha]

Russ's discrimination could be right (or wrong), regardless of how many people disagree with him. For him to stick to his beliefs doesnt make him right but it does make him consistant.

Can't argue with that -- he is indeed consistent.

[Zarathustra]

Zarathustra,

I looked at the "evidence," (it was Huffington Post opinion piece) which said nothing about the FBI clearing this man. I'm not even sure what that means. Why would he need FBI clearance? He was never given a job within the FBI. This is all the opinion piece had to say on the issue:

1. It was most definitely not an opinion piece; opinion pieces are not hosted in the news sections of a website, and are clearly delineated as opinion.

Look again. The link which you gave, news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/685071, was in the opinion section. Do you really think a sentence like this has any place in a news story: "For those who actually know or have worked with the imam, the descriptions are frighteningly -- indeed, depressingly -- unhinged from reality." Who the hell writes news stories which read the minds of other people? How does this author know if the people who know the imam are depressed and frightened? There's not a single quote to back up that psychoanalsis. Not to mention the condescending, insulting judgment of those who oppose the mosque: "unhinged from reality." That's not news; it's editorializing.

2. I never said he was given a job with the FBI; he acted as a consultant and lecturer at an FBI seminar on counterterrorism operations.

True. But you said (or others took you to mean) he was given FBI clearance. The opinion piece which you gave as evidence said nothing about "clearance." It only said he gave a sermon at a forum they hosted.

3. I ask you again: do you think the FBI would hire a radical to lecture to their agents on counterterrorism? Do you really think the FBI would hire a man without a background check?

I have no idea whether they have background checks for people invited to give a sermon. Not everything attached to the letters, "FBI," involve background checks. Seems like that's an assumption you made, not evidence provided.

4. What do you think about his State Department-sponsored speaking tour? His association with mainstream organizations such as the CFR and the World Economic Forum at Davos? What do you think about his co-writing papers with a secretary of state?

I'm deeply troubled by those examples.

5. What you call equivocation I would call nuance. As I mentioned earlier, his stated views on Islamist terror are mainstream in virtually all respects.

In your opinion (which isn't mainstream, by looking at the polls on this issue). I don't think it's mainstream to have trouble telling someone that terrorism isn't justified. Nor do I think it's mainstream to refrain from calling Hamas a terrorist organization. Nor do I think it's mainstream to say America has more blood on its hands than Al Qaida. Nor is it mainstream to say that America was an accomplice in 9/11.

d6. What do you think about non-Muslims on Park51 leadership councils? Where do they fit in to the conspiracy to plant an Islamic flag in Manhattan?

Cover? Plausible deniability? Maybe they're Islamic appeasers, too?

I really dislike repeating myself.

Then don't. There's a lot in this thread for me to respond to it all. I've made entire posts, numerous posts in fact, that went completely ignored. I really dislike your whining as some passive-aggressive attemtp to berate me into responding to you.

[Lord Mhoram]

I think we're at the agree to disagree stage. I don't think a man with the professional credentials of this imam could be any kind of meaningful radical; the organizations which have worked with him and for whom he has worked are of the most eminent caliber and completely in the mainstream. His associations do indeed speak for themselves. The Cordoba Initiative's membership affirms its interfaith credentials (despite ungrounded fears about "Islamic appeasers," whomever they are). Statements he has made about terrorism and US foreign policy are echoed all over the world.

The fact that you or anyone disagrees with them is no grounds for suspicion; consider all the avenues he's used to express his views. A Manhattan community center run an ex-CFR member, State Department endorsee, FBI lecturer, and Davos speaker is a forum for discussion, not a haven for radicalism. He's a distinguished man with a venerable mission and no ties to terrorism. The grounds for blocking his community center are nil.

Point of clarification on my source: its original posting is in the political news section of the Huffington website; in any event, news articles have cited the same fact, too.

[shadowbinding shoe]

Question: Has the imam (or others involved in the project) made statements as to why they shouldn't comply with requests to move the location of their center in consideration to the people hurt by the 9/11 attack? Why it is the right thing to do to build their center in the proposed spot?

[Lord Mhoram]

shadowbinding shoe,

Question: Has the imam (or others involved in the project) made statements as to why they shouldn't comply with requests to move the location of their center in consideration to the people hurt by the 9/11 attack? Why it is the right thing to do to build their center in the proposed spot?

Why are you building "a mosque near Ground zero?"
Strictly speaking, it will not be a “mosque,” although it would have a prayer space on one of its 15 floors. At the beginning, no one considered the fact that Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf Abdul Rauf’s current mosque is 12 blocks from the Ground Zero site, while the Park51 Community Center location is only 2 and one-half blocks away. We never discussed wanting to be close to Ground Zero; our goal was to find a good real estate opportunity for a community center. 51 Park seemed to fit the bill.

But why so close to Ground Zero?
We were always close to the World Trade Center. Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf has been the Imam of a mosque twelve blocks from the Twin Towers for the last 27 years. American Muslims have been peacefully living, working and worshipping in this neighborhood all along and were also terribly affected by the horrific events of 9/11.

We wanted to build a community center in our old neighborhood, and the Park51 location became available. (In our part of lower Manhattan, it’s hard not to be close to Ground Zero.) As Muslim New Yorkers and Americans, we want to help and be part of rebuilding our neighborhood. It is important for everyone to show the world that Americans will not be frightened or deterred by the extremist forces of hatred.

source

[rusmeister]

According to your own definition, of course. I'm pretty sure most other bigots could make a similar case for their own unreasonable prejudices.

But we've been down this road several times.

Well, Ali, obviously you think the person who discriminates against the poisonous mushrooms is a bigot. By your logic, there must be no thing as reasonable intolerance.

I've been telling myself to do this for awhile now, since you keep using this analogy. I guess today's the day.

The difference between choosing among mushrooms and choosing among people is stark. Choose the wrong mushroom and it will kill you -- or at least make you very sick. Choosing among people almost never will.

Humans naturally notice similarities and differences between themselves and others. That's discernment.

When humans arbitrarily decide that a trait of mine is *better* than a trait of yours, and start treating people with your trait unfairly, that's discrimination.*

Discrimination is the direct result of dichotomous thinking, i.e., that just about everything can be classified as either good or bad. Lumping poison mushrooms and Protestants together as equally bad, and *priding* oneself on doing it, is a prime example of this thinking style.

*I recognize that there's another, more benign, definition for "discrimination", and that you prefer that one. But the definition I've given above is a viable definition as well, and widely understood. I'm tempted to say that the inability to accept more than one definition of a given word is another example of dichotomous thinking...

Hi Ali!
(You are one of my 'more favorite' people to disagree with... :Smile: )

I admit that analogies only go so far, and that they are not intended to be identical in every way to the thing they are compared to. So I do not intend at all to say that Protestants are equal to bad mushrooms. Most of my friends and family in the US are Protestant (and human, too, by the way :Razz: ).

The purpose of my analogy (and it was intended to be a simple one, to keep things as simple as possible) was to get across that there IS such a thing as proper objects to discriminate against and to not tolerate. That intolerance of a thing and discrimination against it CAN be a virtue and that the tolerance of it can be the vice - the evil.

If that's clear, then that is all I intend to communicate by the mushroom analogy - to break the conditioned thinking that has us all reflexively responding to those words without reflection on them - "Discrimination - BAD!!!" (Dogs snarl and bark)... "Tolerance - GOOD!!!" (Dogs pant and wag their tails) That is what I believe that modern schooling and the media have done to us all and it is absolutely how the words are used here and everywhere - unconditionally.

Once we have stripped these words of their conditioned associations, we can consider the true question - which things should and should not be tolerated - and on what basis "should" we anything.

Hope that clarifies my intent.

On your comments not related to that issue...
First of all, without common definitions, people are talking apples and oranges, and imprecise thinking and imprecise understandings of what the other people are saying must be the result. So common definitions are important. Reducing it to "dichotomous thinking" is a dangerous intellectual play that threatens genuine communication.

If you would indulge me in a little stream-of-consciousness musing:

When humans arbitrarily decide that a trait of mine is *better* than a trait of yours, and start treating people with your trait unfairly, that's discrimination.*

Key words:
arbitrarily
better
unfairly

I would agree with "arbitrarily", only suspect that we have different definitions. I think "subject to arbitration by authority that I accept". My sense (which could be wrong) is that you mean "randomly". That would be a significant gap in common understanding.

On what is better, we must first define what is good. If we disagree on that, we will naturally disagree on what is better. And then the question remains "Can a trait be better than another trait?" Is a trait of viciousness towards more helpless creatures (say, pulling the wings off flies) better than compassion for all living things? Is lust for other men than your husband, or other women than your wife, better than committed monogamy? Are blue eyes better than brown eyes?

I imagine that we agree on the first and third, the one being obviously moral and the other a mere matter of preference, and may disagree on the morality of the second. But that comes down to "What is good?"

Finally, on what is "fair", we have a similar problem. If we do not agree on what is good, we will necessarily disagree on what is fair. Is it unfair to deny recidivist drunk drivers a license? Or "gay" couples a marriage license? Or to take a seat in a bus ahead of another person? And again, the answers boil down to "What is good?"

Finally, a little etymology, if I may:

discriminate (v.) Look up discriminate at Dictionary.com
1620s, from L. discriminatus, pp. of discriminare "to divide, separate," from discrimen (gen. discriminis) "interval, distinction, difference," derived noun from discernere (see discern). The adverse (usually racial) sense is first recorded 1866, Amer.Eng. Positive sense remains in discriminating. Related: Discriminated. Also used 17c. and after as an adjective meaning "distinct."

www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=dis ... hmode=none

discern Look up discern at Dictionary.com
late 14c., from O.Fr. discerner (13c.) "distinguish (between), separate" (by sifting), and directly from L. discernere "to separate, set apart, divide, distribute; distinguish, perceive," from dis- "off, away" (see dis-) + cernere "distinguish, separate, sift" (see crisis). Related: Discerned.

www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=dis ... hmode=none
In my study of languages, and most especially English, I've come to realize the dreadful importance of etymology in explaining word evolution, and how changes in language can blur or clarify understandings; iow, enhance truth or falsehood, correct understandings and misunderstandings of a concept.

Point is, the positive sense remains.

Thanks again! :Wave:

[aliantha]

(You are one of my 'more favorite' people to disagree with... :Smile: )

My problem with the mushroom analogy might be that it's *too* simplistic. You'd have to be an idiot to eat a mushroom you know to be poisonous -- and, I gather, it's relatively easy to figure out which ones are which, if you know what you're doing. Bigoted thinking can be just as poisonous -- and, moreover, more insidious -- and yet people engage in it every day, and get all worked up if you point it out to them. If you stopped somebody who was about to eat a poison mushroom, they'd probably thank you. If you try to prevent someone from being a bigot, they're liable to snarl at you. And I don't know of anyone in his/her right mind who would hold onto a mistaken belief that a certain type of mushroom is harmful; but when we're talking about bigoted thinking, ah, people will defend their stinkin' thinkin' to the death.

I think the problem is that mushroom safety is, well, scientific in a way -- poison or not? Yes/no? You can form a hypothesis and test it: give a chunk of mushroom to a rat; if the rat dies, it's poison. But bigoted thoughts and behavior -- well, this thread certainly proves that it's largely in the eye of the beholder. We can agree as a society (political or religious or both) that certain behavior is bigoted and that we won't tolerate it. But then there's that pesky opposing view.

You and I *do* come from differing worldviews when we talk about "what is good?" My religion has no Hell, no Satan, no concept of sin. Good vs. evil has very little meaning for me; in fact, I think the concept of evil was invented by the church. Yet my moral guidance goes farther than the Golden Rule. It's not just "do unto others what you would have them do unto you;" instead it's "whatever you do to another will come back on you threefold." That's a powerful incentive to behave, don't you think?

Finally, a little etymology, if I may:

discriminate (v.) Look up discriminate at Dictionary.com
1620s, from L. discriminatus, pp. of discriminare "to divide, separate," from discrimen (gen. discriminis) "interval, distinction, difference," derived noun from discernere (see discern). The adverse (usually racial) sense is first recorded 1866, Amer.Eng. Positive sense remains in discriminating.Related: Discriminated. Also used 17c. and after as an adjective meaning "distinct."

Thanks for the etymology lesson. I changed your emphasis a trifle; while the positive definition remains (and I never said it had gone away), the adverse definition has been around for about 150 years. In fact, it predates GKC.

[Avatar]

I looked at the "evidence," (it was Huffington Post opinion piece) which said nothing about the FBI clearing this man. I'm not even sure what that means. Why would he need FBI clearance? He was never given a job within the FBI.

Point taken. I don't think anything I've seen so far points to his radicalism either though.

My point was that you don't have to be an Islamophobe to oppose the mosque

Fair enough, you don't have to be Islamophobic to oppose the mosque.

Strength has nothing to do with it if we're going to let it happen.

I just don't think it's something you have to worry about. Right now, it's a period of imbalance due to all the politics involved. The more you worry and fight about it, the bigger an issue it appears (and becomes). The balance will reassert itself after a while, if you all will just let it. Stick to the principles of law and constitution and you can't go too far wrong.

Abandoning them because of an emotional reaction is going to do more harm in the long run.

I think that all attempts to safeguard some idealised version of society by maintaining the status quo are ultimately doomed. Society evolves, just like everything else. If it didn't, we wouldn't be where we are today. And inevitably, where we are today is not where we will be tomorrow. You might be able to guide that change, but you can't control it. (Not you personally of course.)

--A

[shadowbinding shoe]

I think that all attempts to safeguard some idealised version of society by maintaining the status quo are ultimately doomed. Society evolves, just like everything else. If it didn't, we wouldn't be where we are today. And inevitably, where we are today is not where we will be tomorrow. You might be able to guide that change, but you can't control it. (Not you personally of course.)

--A

So you just have to let things you disapprove or don't like slide and take root? That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Even when something is inevitable (atheism is doomed to be subsumed by religion and irrationality) you should struggle for what you believe. And remember that we are refined by struggles, we are defined by struggles, we are changed and made anew by the struggles we face.

In the current case the struggle this mosque has gone through to (re)gain legitimacy has changed it and made it more open and inviting to the outside world.

[rusmeister]

(You are one of my 'more favorite' people to disagree with... :Smile: )

My problem with the mushroom analogy might be that it's *too* simplistic. You'd have to be an idiot to eat a mushroom you know to be poisonous -- and, I gather, it's relatively easy to figure out which ones are which, if you know what you're doing. Bigoted thinking can be just as poisonous -- and, moreover, more insidious -- and yet people engage in it every day, and get all worked up if you point it out to them. If you stopped somebody who was about to eat a poison mushroom, they'd probably thank you. If you try to prevent someone from being a bigot, they're liable to snarl at you. And I don't know of anyone in his/her right mind who would hold onto a mistaken belief that a certain type of mushroom is harmful; but when we're talking about bigoted thinking, ah, people will defend their stinkin' thinkin' to the death.

I think the problem is that mushroom safety is, well, scientific in a way -- poison or not? Yes/no? You can form a hypothesis and test it: give a chunk of mushroom to a rat; if the rat dies, it's poison. But bigoted thoughts and behavior -- well, this thread certainly proves that it's largely in the eye of the beholder. We can agree as a society (political or religious or both) that certain behavior is bigoted and that we won't tolerate it. But then there's that pesky opposing view.

I would never suggest that there is no thing as unreasonable intolerance. Of course there is, and this is where you and I agree on bigotry.
What you seem to consistently deny is that there can be such a thing as reasonable intolerance - I only bring up the mushroom as an illustration. You deny that I can possibly be reasonable in having come to a conclusion that some things - and this thing among them - must not be tolerated. It seems that you would lump me in with people that I do think are bigots, and do unreasonably hate - something I strenuously deny.

If you stop someone from eating a mushroom that you know is poisonous but they do not - perhaps being convinced that pretty = yummy, they might well NOT thank you, but give you a black eye. Or snarl at you.

(A cultural aside) I live in Russia, where there is a strong and widespread folk tradition of picking wild mushrooms and teaching children - even formally in school - to distinguish between the variety of mushrooms one will find here. It really is serious business, and it is we Americans who are totally ignorant about them, thinking that they grow in the 3rd aisle of the supermarket.

The trouble with suggesting the testing of mushrooms on rats misses two things - one, that much of what humans learned about poisonous mushrooms undoubtedly came from people being poisoned and dying, and two, that we can't perform a lab test on whether we can create a homosexual sub-culture among rats and whether that will destroy a ratly society, never mind the mistake of identifying human and rat social behavior. We can only perform the experiment on ourselves, with a fatal error being, well, fatal. There are some genies that you can't put back into their bottles. That's why I think the story of Sodom and Gomorrah to be such an important warning. I see that once one accepts shifts in moral standards, then there is no reason to stop shifting them, and that human sinful nature guarantees that the shifting will be in one direction - towards decay - decadence, which translates also as "fall". When I read the Genesis account I see a deeply degraded society, and it seems entirely plausible to me that bodily destruction was the only way to prevent further spiritual destruction. As much as people would laugh at the idea and treat it as an irrelevant cliche, it really IS a slippery slope, and once the angle has shifted enough, we won't be able to stop it even if we want to.

You and I *do* come from differing worldviews when we talk about "what is good?" My religion has no Hell, no Satan, no concept of sin. Good vs. evil has very little meaning for me; in fact, I think the concept of evil was invented by the church. Yet my moral guidance goes farther than the Golden Rule. It's not just "do unto others what you would have them do unto you;" instead it's "whatever you do to another will come back on you threefold." That's a powerful incentive to behave, don't you think?

Yet the so-called "Golden Rule" is not the ultimate law of Christianity. We have something still more profound and admirable - you might even say altruistic (although I wouldn't): Love God with all your heart, soul and mind, and love your neighbor the same as you love yourself. THAT is the Christian ideal, and it is darn difficult - but if implemented, it WOULD bring about heaven on earth.

The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.

GKC, "What's Wrong With the World" 1910

Finally, a little etymology, if I may:

discriminate (v.) Look up discriminate at Dictionary.com
1620s, from L. discriminatus, pp. of discriminare "to divide, separate," from discrimen (gen. discriminis) "interval, distinction, difference," derived noun from discernere (see discern). The adverse (usually racial) sense is first recorded 1866, Amer.Eng. Positive sense remains in discriminating.Related: Discriminated. Also used 17c. and after as an adjective meaning "distinct."

Thanks for the etymology lesson. I changed your emphasis a trifle; while the positive definition remains (and I never said it had gone away), the adverse definition has been around for about 150 years. In fact, it predates GKC.

Of course, the moral teachings I refer to predate both GKC and the Civil War. GKC himself lamented:

No one can think my case more
ludicrous than I think it myself; no reader can accuse me here
of trying to make a fool of him: I am the fool of this story,
and no rebel shall hurl me from my throne. I freely confess
all the idiotic ambitions of the end of the nineteenth century.
I did, like all other solemn little boys, try to be in advance
of the age. Like them I tried to be some ten minutes in
advance of the truth. And I found that I was eighteen hundred
years behind it. I did strain my voice with a painfully
juvenile exaggeration in uttering my truths. And I was
punished in the fittest and funniest way, for I have kept my
truths: but I have discovered, not that they were not truths,
but simply that they were not mine. When I fancied that I
stood alone I was really in the ridiculous position of being
backed up by all Christendom. It may be, Heaven forgive me,
that I did try to be original; but I only succeeded in inventing
all by myself an inferior copy of the existing traditions of
civilized religion. The man from the yacht thought he was the
first to find England; I thought I was the first to find Europe.
I did try to found a heresy of my own; and when I had put the
last touches to it, I discovered that it was orthodoxy.

But the other thing, and my big and perennially ignored complaint, is that no one ever ever ever talks about the positive definition. The assumption, universally and in all speech and rhetoric, is that discrimination and intolerance must be negative. The rhetorical trained knee-jerk reflex response. In shifting the emphasis back to what everybody parrots all the time, and to which of course, there is some truth, only it is a truth that everybody knows and nobody disputes, you avoid my effort to point out the thing that nobody seems to know whatsoever (although you say you know about it) - that intolerance and discrimination can be the right things. But if everyone is conditioned to react automatically to those words with the unspoken assumption that they are not, and cannot be, then the thought will never cross their minds. And that is the very thought I insist people think about, agree or disagree.

[Zarathustra]

‘Secularism can never enjoy a general acceptance in an Islamic society.” The writer was not one of those sulfurous Islamophobes decried by CAIR and the professional Left. Quite the opposite: It was Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Muslim Brotherhood’s spiritual guide and a favorite of the Saudi royal family. He made this assertion in his book, How the Imported Solutions Disastrously Affected Our Ummah, an excerpt of which was published by the Saudi Gazette just a couple of months ago.

This was Qaradawi the “progressive” Muslim intellectual, much loved by Georgetown University’s burgeoning Islamic-studies programs. Like Harvard, Georgetown has been purchased into submission by tens of millions of Saudi petrodollars. In its resulting ardor to put Americans at ease about Islam, the university somehow manages to look beyond Qaradawi’s fatwas calling for the killing of American troops in Iraq and for suicide bombings in Israel. Qaradawi, they tell us, is a “moderate.” In fact, as Robert Spencer quips, if you were to say Islam and secularism cannot co-exist, John Esposito, Georgetown’s apologist-in-chief, would call you an Islamophobe; but when Qaradawi says it, no problem — according to Esposito, he’s a “reformist.”

And he’s not just any reformist. Another Qaradawi fan, Feisal Rauf, the similarly “moderate” imam behind the Ground Zero mosque project, tells us Qaradawi is also “the most well-known legal authority in the whole Muslim world today.”

Rauf is undoubtedly right about that. So it is worth letting it sink in that this most influential of Islam’s voices, this promoter of the Islamic enclaves the Brotherhood is forging throughout the West, is convinced that Islamic societies can never accept secularism. After all, secularism is nothing less than the framework by which the West defends religious freedom but denies legal and political authority to religious creeds.

It is also worth understanding why Qaradawi says Islam and secularism cannot co-exist. The excerpt from his book continues:

As Islam is a comprehensive system of worship (Ibadah) and legislation (Shari’ah), the acceptance of secularism means abandonment of Shari’ah, a denial of the divine guidance and a rejection of Allah’s injunctions. It is indeed a false claim that Shari’ah is not proper to the requirements of the present age. The acceptance of a legislation formulated by humans means a preference of the humans’ limited knowledge and experiences to the divine guidance: “Say! Do you know better than Allah?” (Qur’an, 2:140) For this reason, the call for secularism among Muslims is atheism and a rejection of Islam. Its acceptance as a basis for rule in place of Shari’ah is downright apostasy.

Apostasy is an explosive accusation. On another occasion, Sheikh Qaradawi explained that “Muslim jurists are unanimous that apostates must be punished.” He further acknowledged that the consensus view of these jurists, including the principal schools of both Sunni and Shiite jurisprudence, is “that apostates must be executed.”

Qaradawi’s own view is more nuanced, as he explained to the Egyptian press in 2005. This, I suppose, is where his vaunted reformist streak comes in. For private apostasy, in which a Muslim makes a secret, personal decision to renounce tenets of Islam and quietly goes his separate way without causing a stir, the sheikh believes ostracism by the Islamic community is a sufficient penalty, with the understanding that Allah will condemn the apostate to eternal damnation at the time of his choosing. For public apostasy, however, Qaradawi stands with the overwhelming weight of Islamic authority: “The punishment . . . is execution.”

The sad fact, the fact no one wants to deal with but which the Ground Zero mosque debate has forced to the fore, is that Qaradawi is a moderate. So is Feisal Rauf, who endorses the Qaradawi position — the mainstream Islamic position — that sharia is a nonnegotiable requirement. Rauf wins the coveted “moderate” designation because he strains, at least when speaking for Western consumption, to paper over the incompatibility between sharia societies and Western societies.

Qaradawi and Rauf are “moderates” because we’ve abandoned reason. Our opinion elites are happy to paper over the gulf between “reformist” Islam and the “reformist” approval of mass-murder attacks. That’s why it matters not a whit to them that Imam Rauf refuses to renounce Hamas: If you’re going to give a pass to Qaradawi, the guy who actively promotes Hamas terrorists, how can you complain about a guy who merely refuses to condemn the terrorists?

When we are rational, we have confidence in our own frame of reference. We judge what is moderate based on a detached, commonsense understanding of what “moderate” means. We’re not rigging the outcome; we just want to know where we stand.

If we were in that objective frame of mind, we would easily see that a freedom culture requires separation of the spiritual from the secular. We would also see that sharia — with dictates that contradict liberty and equality while sanctioning cruel punishments and holy war — is not moderate. Consequently, no one who advocates sharia can be a moderate, no matter how well-meaning he may be, no matter how heartfelt may be his conviction that this is God’s will, and no matter how much higher on the food chain he may be than Osama bin Laden.

Instead, abandoning reason, we have deep-sixed our own frame of reference and substituted mainstream Islam’s. If that backward compass is to be our guide, then sure, Qaradawi and Rauf are moderates. But know this: When you capitulate to the authority and influence of Qaradawi and Rauf, you kill meaningful Islamic reform.

There is no moderate Islam in the mainstream of Muslim life, not in the doctrinal sense. There are millions of moderate Muslims who crave reform. Yet the fact that they seek real reform, rather than what Georgetown is content to call reform, means they are trying to invent something that does not currently exist.

Real reform can also be found in some Muslim sects. The Ahmadi, for example, hold some unorthodox views and reject violent jihad. Witness what happens: They are brutally persecuted by Muslims in Pakistan, as well as in Indonesia and other purported hubs of moderation.

Meanwhile, individual Muslim reformers are branded apostates, meaning not only that they are discredited, but that their lives are threatened as well. The signal to other Muslims is clear: Follow the reformers and experience the same fury. As Qaradawi put it in the 2005 interview, public apostates are “the gravest danger” to Islamic society; therefore, Muslims must snuff them out, lest their reforms “spread like wildfire in a field of thorns.”


Today, “moderate Islam” is an illusion. There is hardly a spark, much less a wildfire. Making moderation real will take more than wishing upon a star. It calls for a gut check, a willingness to face down not just al-Qaeda but the Qaradawis and their sharia campaign. It means saying: Not here.

— Andrew C. McCarthy, a senior fellow at the National Review Institute, is the author, most recently, of The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America.

link

This is the problem. In its zeal to appear open-minded and tolerant, the intellectual Left is willing to embrace Muslim leaders who advocate sharia, including the very extreme belief that people who leave Islam should be executed. I'm not willing to take the word of the intellectual Left on what is "moderate." That certainly is not.