Ground zero Mosque

[saddle-tramp]

WTF.....

[Moonbat]

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The USA. Founded on the belief in a deity.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

With a belief in the right to freely exercise one’s choice of religion:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof

An ostensibly Christian country.

Respectfully that is utter rubbish of the kind pedaled by historical revisionists at Wallbuilders.

If you had actually read any of the writings of the Founding Fathers or the documents in their entirety, or the history of the men involved in founding the USA you would realize that while the majority of the signatories were men of faith, at least a third were Freemasons (including the most well known) and one was a well known atheist (Thomas Paine) and the writer of the Bill of Rights, and the Constitution, James Madison, and the main author Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, believed in a firm wall of separation between Church and State. The "Creator" spoken of in those documents is without a doubt, the creator spoken of in the Deist sense only. Anyone who knows these men, the period of the Enlightenment and the nature of the religion practiced at this period in history considers this common knowledge.

I am sure the unlettered and unfamiliar with these facts might assume some unbroken "evangelical Bible believin'" that goes all the way back to "Bible story land" just like the colored books in the doctors waiting room...but sad to say, it just ain't so. Those of us who graduate to the big boy books in the library actually found those secrets being hidden from people like you there...its called real historical fact.

Meanwhile back at the topic...

I don't believe anything should be built on the spot except a memorial to the dead. And certainly not another sky scraper. And A mosque would be ok...if its a Shia mosque...or a Sufi mosque...or any mosque that openly repudiates violent Islam, subjugation of women, or non-ecumenical practices.

Not all people who follow Islam are driven to commit acts of violence or hate. Generalizations are dangerous...so is fear, xenophobia, and that sense of the "other"... and that's what allowed us as a people to rape the Middle East (for starters...its a long list) blind, and make them hate us so much.

[Jo van]

Probably also wildly 'off-topic', (But I'd give you a good argument for it's inclusion), I don't think I know enough about the 'Founding Fathers', or their beliefs, to give you an argument, your use of the words "creator spoken of in the Deist sense only. " still seems to be a "religious belief", regardless of the 'secular enlightenment' of the age. A "Creator" is a "creator".
They were still 'hedging their bets',( although, admittedly they were working with "less information" than we have today.)

I think it's interesting that polls seem to show that overall in the US., those who believe in God are around 60%, but in Congress, it's around 99% .. (I can't remember where I read this, so correct me if I'm wrong..?)
I think I'll start another thread to talk about the 'sociological drivers' for "belonging" to a religion.

I'm not a 'believer' myself, so I see the emotional attachment that believers feel about these buildings, whichever religion it is, as a strange form of 'self-hypnosis'. (To be diplomatic.. )

But I fully sympathise with the grief that people feel at the senseless loss of loved ones.
And maybe their 'beliefs' help them to deal with that grief.
The earlier post mentioned a small church, where "christians" left their tributes.
10% of those who died were "muslims", do their grieving kin not deserve the same facility of a place of "worship" nearby, where they can practice their own versions of "dealing with it" too..?
And wouldn't that actually be a more "Christian" response...?

Ironically, there were no atheist perpetrators.

[Moonbat]

I just had to head off that revisionist history nonsense that IMHO is in the same category as Holocaust denial. America was not founded as a "Christian Nation" and in fact those selfsame founders signed a document called the Treaty of Tripoli which states outright that "as America is in no way a Christian nation" only a few years later to no public outcry...

The intent was to create a nation where any man might practice his religion of choice unhindered by law as a private act of conscience without fear of government interference. The Deist view of a creator is of a "prime mover" that sets the ball rolling but does not interfere in the affairs of men...not a personal God. The inclusion of "by their Creator" can be seen to give universality to the document but to infer any specific religiosity from it would require more proof than the evangelikooks tend to have.

That being said I have no issue with a mosque in the neighbourhood in the same way I would have no issue with any other holy place in the neighbourhood provided it is a mosque not preaching Wahabbism or any other form of radical Islam.

[belinda]

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The USA. Founded on the belief in a deity.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

With a belief in the right to freely exercise one’s choice of religion:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof

An ostensibly Christian country.

Respectfully that is utter rubbish of the kind pedaled by historical revisionists at Wallbuilders.

If you had actually read any of the writings of the Founding Fathers or the documents in their entirety, or the history of the men involved in founding the USA you would realize that while the majority of the signatories were men of faith, at least a third were Freemasons (including the most well known) and one was a well known atheist (Thomas Paine) and the writer of the Bill of Rights, and the Constitution, James Madison, and the main author Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, believed in a firm wall of separation between Church and State. The "Creator" spoken of in those documents is without a doubt, the creator spoken of in the Deist sense only. Anyone who knows these men, the period of the Enlightenment and the nature of the religion practiced at this period in history considers this common knowledge.

Respectfully, did i actually say anything other than that the writers of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution believed that there was a divine Creator and that all Americans had the right to freely worship in their religion?

Given recent debate over the separation (or not) of Church and State in the USA, i find nothing wrong with my statement that the nation is ostensibly Christian.

A Freemason might also take exception to being disassociated with Christianity and certainly with exclusion from the Old Testament divinity, by the way.

If you had actually read any of the writings of the Founding Fathers or the documents in their entirety, or the history of the men involved in founding the USA

Respectfully, i have read the Declaration of Independence in its entirety. i have read the Constitution in its entirety. i have also read several commentaries on the Constitution and its history. i have read "Common Sense". i have some knowledge of the history of at least the Adams family (oh dear, sounds like a comedy horror show ) and a little about Jefferson. Respectfully, i point out this has been private study from choice in my adult years and not school-level American history.

Not all people who follow Islam are driven to commit acts of violence or hate. Generalizations are dangerous...so is fear, xenophobia, and that sense of the "other"... and that's what allowed us as a people to rape the Middle East (for starters...its a long list) blind, and make them hate us so much.

Respectfully, i rather think we are on the same side...

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[Moonbat]

Given recent debate over the separation (or not) of Church and State in the USA, i find nothing wrong with my statement that the nation is ostensibly Christian.

Respectfully, i rather think we are on the same side...

We may be, but I cannot grant the point that the "nation" is ostensibly Christian. This may be a semantic issue but it is an important distinction. While the majority of the population today may be adherents of some form of Christianity, and even in the day the nation was founded, the majority of the citizenry and Founders were also practicing some form of Christianity, saying the "nation is ostensibly Christian" implies a continuity of belief and implicit state preference of the belief that simply does not exist.

The types of Christianity practiced during the Enlightenment are not historically comparable to today's Christianity - most certainly not the kind of evangelical Christianity that frequently makes this claim.

Now perhaps I have overstated/knee-jerked my reaction to your post as you are from Mother England and not aware of the deep and dangerous nature of the conflict that is taking place behind the scenes with an ultra right wing religious group tantamount to a Christian Taliban, fighting a war of culture in North America, the Dominionists/Reconstructionists, who seek to subvert mainstream Christianity while politicizing religion. So I tend to get a little touchy at references to a "Christian Nation" and seek extreme specificity...

A Freemason might also take exception to being disassociated with Christianity and certainly with exclusion from the Old Testament divinity, by the way.

One of the hallmarks of Freemasonry is the universality of the Divine. While individual Freemasons may believe in the Christian God, they may also believe in the God of Abraham via Judaism or Islam...they may even be pagan, so long as they acknowledge a God of some kind. Catholics are only barred by the Vatican, not by the Lodge. You are not required to be Christian or Jewish nor accept that deity even though the rituals stem from that tradition...they also stem from even older traditional symbolism in Egyptian and Semitic lore.

I won't continue to argue church/state in this thread as it deserves a thread all it's own.

[belinda]

Moonbat, I “hear what you are saying”, as the phrase goes.

A few points in answer to your previous post before i move on:

You know as well as i do that there is a difference between implication and inference.

“Ostensibly Christian” implies nothing about the form that Christianity takes. As an “outsider” i see a nation (I take care not to capitalise the word in the debate as I comprehend the fact of Church / State separation) in which about three-quarters of the population self-identify as Christian of one flavour or another – from ultra-right-wing to, say, Quakers (Society of Friends). As an “outsider”, i also see a nation that is unlikely to elect a President who could not take the Oath of Office on anything other than a Christian New Testament (despite the use of the more universal phrase “So help me God”.)

The use of “ostensible” was, like all of my words in the Debate Forum, chosen carefully and specifically. From that ostensible nature of the USA i moved on to quote from the Lord’s Prayer about forgiveness which was the main point i was moving towards. The majority of the members of the nation that declare themself to be Christian surely should hold to ALL the tenets of that faith.

I won't continue to argue church/state in this thread as it deserves a thread all it's own.

The argument that you have built from my words certainly may deserve a thread of its own, but i also feel that it reaches to the heart of the debate about the centre for understanding and the mosque that is being proposed for the vicinity of Ground Zero.

Perhaps the question more to be resolved is to reach a consensus on the First Cause behind the September 11th attacks. Has the USA determined that? i don’t know, i ask as a genuine enquiry.

Were they political attacks? Taking action in response against other sovereign nations would seem to be a political response, especially (in my view) as the action has not been directed against ALL Muslim states. As a political entity with no official attachment to any faith other than a stated belief in a divine Creator, the USA as a State (or New York under City Ordinances?) surely can have no objection to any legal purpose of a building close to Ground Zero.

Or is there a disconnect between the actions of the State and the perceptions of the people of the nation? Again, as an “outsider” i cannot declare on that question.

If the people see the September 11th attacks as religious in nature, the the argument i put forward about forgiveness surely should be accepted by the 76% (in 2008) who stated they were Christian, and there should be no objection from them to an Islamic-based institution near Ground Zero.

So where are the protests coming from? i have found the testimonies from affected Americans in this thread to have been very moving.

As the “outsider” looking in i see that “In God We Trust” has failed the nation and a resolution hasn’t yet been reached. What the bereavement counsellors call “closure” hasn’t been achieved. What will bring that about?

i suggest that it is an understanding of the individual motives that motivated the terrorists and a forgiveness, allowing that forgiveness does not mean forgetting, that hasn’t yet been realised that will restore the USA to wholeness. A centre of understanding would go some way to helping that process.

In my opinion, as always.

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[Moonbat]

Or is there a disconnect between the actions of the State and the perceptions of the people of the nation? Again, as an “outsider” i cannot declare on that question.

This is particularly well stated...and as you noted before, we are really not that far apart on our POV's. And as the above poster points out, considering the presence of an existing mosque, this is another tempest in a teapot, likely cooked up by the wingnuts at Faux News.

[apple]

The USA in my opinion has never been a Christian nation. It is a melting pot of all cultures and religions to single out any one for a 9/11 memorial to begin with.
A mosque as a New Yorker is an insult to me not because of it being Muslim but because of the Islamic ties to the terrorist act itself.
Most NYC residents feel the same way.

[belinda]

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Please excuse une étrangere asking questions here, but i would like to explore your statement a little further, if i may. If i ask questions about the USA here, please accept that i am not pointing a finger nor implying in any way that Britain does things better, they are asked as genuine enquiries. Nor do i wish to appear as a main protagonist here, i wish some other posters outside the USA would join in!

The USA in my opinion has never been a Christian nation. It is a melting pot of all cultures and religions

The USA is what then, if not Christian? A secular State would be implied by the Church / State separation, but the majority of the State's inhabitants profess Christianity and the Oath of Office (is that its official title?) of the President is based on a religious belief of some nature ("So help me God")

It seems that both you, Margo, and Moonbat argue against the idea of the USA being regarded as a Christian nation despite Christian activists within the State. Is that internal perception echoed abroad, though? From where i stand, the USA was first settled by Christians and shows evidence of still being a people mainly rooted in Christianity. Perhaps from where i stand, in a country with an Established Church, it is hard for me to disentangle the Church and the State and comprehend a non-secular Nation. From where you stand, could this be my problem of perception?

i also see reported a strong Jewish influence on foreign policies. Is that a sentimental affiliation, a political affiliation or a monetary affiliation on the part of (any) Party or Government?

Do you, as an insider, see many Muslims in any influential position? Or before September 11th? How far down "the food-chain" does one have to look to see visible evidence of acceptance of the USA putting Muslims into the melting pot? (Please remember my initial disclaimer here, Britain isn't necessarily on the side of the angels in this respect.)

the Islamic ties to the terrorist act itself.

As a New Yorker you are saying that you see the September 11th attack as having Islamic ties. Therefore do you see it as a religious attack? Or do you see it as a political attack but because the terrorists were from Islamic States, it also had a religious basis because they aren't secular States?

In asking these questions i think i have unwittingly stumbled upon an interesting difference between the UK and the USA.

i live in a non-secular State. The Head of my State is also the Head of the Established Church.

This bit following is my opinion and not necessarily that of other Britons.

The Muslim terrorists who set off bombs in London, however, were seen, i believe, as political activists. We believed the attack to be not against the Church, but against the State - we seemingly make a separation in our heads even though the Law says differently. If, Heaven forfend, they had killed the Queen i think that we still wouldn't have seen it as an attack against the Church, the Protestant Christian Established religion, but as a political act.

In the USA it seems to me that the politics of the attack have become inseparably entwined with the religious adherence of the attackers. Perhaps this is because the USA doesn't have experience of religious sentiment being part of the fabric of the State (the State, not the people of the nation) and so cannot see how people can and do disentangle the two when living within those non-secular States.

i think i am beginning to understand why the mosque and centre for understanding close to Ground Zero is being so hotly debated. Thank you for allowing me to explore this.

And to Loser_Ville who said that there was already a mosque near Ground Zero - as i have read, part of the objection is because the plans for the new one include a high golden dome that would be visible from Ground Zero. Is that right?

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