A simple view on having a Mosque near the 9/11 site from a Christian guy

[The Straight Story]

If you are going to judge an entire faith based on the actions of a few then you best shut up and realize that others will judge you and your faith by the actions of some of your few as well.

I adhere to a faith and ideal - not a church, not to the ideals of the fundies of my faith, but to the golden rule and the ideal of love for one another. But others who claim to be of my faith have done some really evil things.

I sure as hell don't like it when others here judge the many people of my faith based on the bad things done using Christianity throughout history - because I know there have been many millions of people of my faith that have worked their butts off to help others.

The only press some religions seem to get is negative press. Try going to http://www.usnpl.com/ and reading the small local papers in many states and you will see that there are many churches helping out the poor and hungry. There are many pastors and congregations who do a lot for others. But the things which get the most press are when people relating to churches fail.

We chide the RW for their hatred and bias against Muslims and others, but I think we on the left also need to see that sometimes we do the same thing - and while some may justify it here, so do those one the right when it comes to other faiths.

Maybe we need to step back and put things into perspective.

If we are going to complain about how the right is painting this whole thing in a negative light maybe we need to look at ourselves and how we also let our biases get in the way at times. When a rw'er says "Them Muslims are evil" we tell them they are being ignorant, but when someone says "Catholic priests molest kids" or "Christians are evil" we just nod and say "I know a Christian like that"

How is it any different? We condemn the bigotry on one hand and then endorse it on another.

Treat others how you you want to be treated. Or in the words of Jesus "Do unto others as you would them do unto you."

[Rage for Order]

1. That's ridiculous

Everyone knows that only a very small minority of Muslims holds extremist views, but all Christians were (and are) responsible for the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition.

[unblock]

2. why did we even decide the religion was the basis on which to discriminate in this case?

the 19 hijackers were all male. should we hate all males and no females?
the 19 hijackers were all brown-haired, i'm guessing. should we hate all brown-haired people and not blonds?
probably the 19 hijackers were all between the ages of 25 and 45. should we hate every in that age range but no one older or younger?

much as the right wing loves painting this as a religious war, religion is being used by the unscrupulous leaders ON BOTH SIDES as a motivator of the masses and as cover for the real motives. the terrorists want more power for themselves where they live, and they want the u.s. out of their area so they would be free to do as they please. killing americans wouldn't be a priority if we weren't over there in the first place propping up governments and getting our mitts on all the oil we can find. but not everyone there is pursuaded by the idea of violence or overthrow of government and so on, so they use religion to pursuade more and to cover their true intentions.

similarly here, they stir pro-christianity (we're being persecuted) and anti-islam feelings to disguise the fact that we're over there for economic reasons, not defensive or ideological ones.

so we care that the 19 hijackers were presumably all islamic, even though we now know more about how these terrorist organizations recruit. it isn't all, or even mostly, based on religion. it's mostly based on economics and threats. join us and kill for us and we will pay you and spare your family. do this suicide bombing mission and we will pay your family quite a lot. THAT's how they recruit. it is NOT by promissing 77 virgins. emphasizing their religion is part of OUR tactic so we think they're "other" and impossible to reason with and hence war is the only choice.