toldailytopic: How do you feel about building a mosque at ground zero?

[Town Heretic]

Your conception of ethnocentricity is not the lowest common denominator. The lowest common denominator is our shared inner lies.

See what I mean about that need to trump the pointy headed. If I had said exactly what you followed with I've no doubt your response would have begun with some contrary notion. :chuckle:

Supporting our inner lies is the fallacy of secular Interfaith.

See (and this will get tricky for you) the ethnocentric principle is a demonstrable, factual address of an actual human condition. What you're doing is speculative, assumptive and other. I didn't create it, but it is at the root of unreasoned bias, which is precisely what we're talking about here...only you're still mistaking it for a virtue, or at least the appeasement of it as such.

You do not appreciate that our inner lies deny the possibility of what you describe.

Hooey. What "inner lie or lies" mandate that men of differing beliefs live in enmity and strife? Self apparently contradicted by example. There have been any number of times in the history of man where people of disparate faiths have done exactly that. It's people like you who inevitably send the business crashing down, not those who desire and attempt to live in respectful disagreement.

It sounds wonderful but is not practical because it is based on the habitual exchange of lies:

Baloney. Again, what lies about our nature are exchanged and prevent peace between men and women of good conscience and honest difference. No, again, it's the paranoid, the angry, blinkered arbiters of everyone's truth who manage to foul the works.

The "highest common factor" is the objective potential for human "being:" to become ourselves or the reality that is free of inner lies.

Which is a meaningless statement absent a set out on what you mean, precisely, by lies and how they impact an attempt at coexistence.

America is a country built on ideas that further striving towards the highest common factor and the spiritual goal of freedom. That is why it was founded on principles rather than laws.

:sigh: Principles are always the framework of law. The question then becomes are the principles just and do the laws follow them. And spiritual freedom has nothing to do with government and everything to do with God.

One of these principles requires respecting individuality, family, community, and country. Positive patriotism is really just the experience of a vulnerable extended family.

I'll agree that respect for one another is vital to the well being of our social compact.

Though we are incapable of these ideals, it is the process of admitting them and striving towards them that allows a person to experience of our obligations to these ideals that guarantee "rights."

Smaller sentences. You really fall apart when you over reach. After "experience" it spins off the rails. I don't agree we are incapable of living up to our ideas in the limited sense of respecting one another, though it is an ongoing process (and one your latest parade undermines at every point). And I'd say respecting the principles of our compact is at least as important as respecting the person impacted by them.

Though we have the right to impose ourselves upon others, we have the obligation to consider the consequences of doing so.

Except that we don't actually have that right.... I'm entitled to the quiet enjoyment of my property and can seek an injunction if you decide to use your property in a way that interferes with my right. Now building a mosque works no imposition on anyone unless it is the knowledge of the presence of the mosque that causes offense. If that's the case we're back to why and is it rational, reasonable, and right. The answer to all three, as I've set out prior and exhaustively, is no.

This is the essence of the mosque controversy. The developers have the right to build it but is it in the spirit of American ideals that make us feel the obligations we have to others and a community?

We have no obligation to bigotry, paranoia, or unreasoned emotionalism that approaches both.

How do we find the balance between obligations and rights? For America to survive as a free country, we must restore this balance.

Which isn't what you're doing at all. You're advocating the submission of right to an errant understanding that is at its core as anti American a notion as any torch bearing mob could be.

I respect the space that is symbolic of the national tragedy requiring it to be free of political manipulation.

Then stop siding with people who are doing exactly that, waiting until an election cycle to decry something in the works and partially functioning for a year. And ask yourself why the cry went up so late...well, you should, but I don't expect you to.

You think the rights of the developers are what is important and the feelings of others you believe to be unfounded, must be ignored.

That's not remotely true. I've clarified on this point more than once. Now try to hold up your end of things honestly. I've noted repeatedly that this has nothing to do with a right that no one is arguing. It has everything to do with principle. And I've been clear on the remarkably narrow focus of your feeling argument and the people it omits from consideration prior to making an unreasoned demand upon innocent American citizens. One that denigrates their faith by inference and should by no means be conflated with compassion.

Will it just die or can it remember its unique value. I don't think it can. Just this obvious denial of respect for hallowed ground and what it means to the psych of people over political rights proves we are on the way out.

Hallowed ground that contains strip clubs and gambling dens? Were this remotely connected to that idea you're outrage would be more widely dispersed. No, wrap your odious internal difficulty in any flag that suits you. The smell still gives it away.

The ideas America is built upon require the positive side of ethnocentricity.

So you don't understand that principle either then...we are drawn to like and repelled by the other. That's the nutshell. If we concentrate on being bound by our better commonality, to live peacefully and with respect, then we approach a positive use of the principle by subjugating the lesser values and differences that would drive us apart. That's the ecumenical spirit in play.

I omit the continuing, vague use of hidden lies until you make the phrase meaningful in particular and by example.

The area around ground zero has an effect on many.

Well, at least you're coming closer to seeing what it is and isn't geographically speaking.

Do we profit from it by keeping it clear of political manipulation for the sake of objective self awareness or do we sacrifice it to those seeking to take advantage of its vulnerabilty. It is our choice.

I agree it's your choice and the people like you who have turned a plan long in the making into a political football. So cut it out already.

 

[Nick_A]

TH

You do not understand what is meant by our inner lies because you are not yet able to admit the human condition. You are not the only one. It is the biggest offence to secular Interfaith. However, virtually all the great traditions admit to it in one way of another. consider for example:

http://www.unification.net/ws/theme048.htm

Religions have conceptualized the infirmity of the human condition as an interior war between two opposing natures, one good and the other evil. As long as people experience this state of contradiction, they can neither realize their divine self nor achieve a state of unity and wholeness. Paradoxically, while people immersed in worldly affairs may not always recognize the war within themselves, it is precisely in leading a conscientious life, when striving to do good and be good, that this conflict comes to the fore.

This is the human condition. We are in opposition to ourselves. There are many following quotes to appreciate how the great traditions have expressed it.

I know what is good
but I am not inclined to do it;
I know also what is bad,
but I do not refrain from doing it;
I just do as I am prompted to do
by some divine spirit
standing in my heart.

18. Hinduism. Mahabharata

I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. So then it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me.

So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?

19. Christianity. Romans 7.15-24

The spirit is indeed willing, but the flesh is weak. Matthew 26: 41

Man prays for evil as he prays for good; man is ever hasty.
9. Islam. Qur'an 17.11o

These examples of the human condition assert that we are in opposition to ourselves. It is a politically incorrect observation and bad for self esteem, but it is what it is. This will appear shocking but it is only through inner lies that the human condition remains tolerable for us. Our inner lies associated with forms of pride and vanity allow us to justify our objectively wretched inner condition. Christianity invites us with the help of the Spirit, to heal the inner condition so we can live without inner lies and become what man is capable of or the "New Man."

To make a long story short, the fallacy of secular Interfaith is that it assumes the lies necessary to justify and tolerate our human condition, are real. That is why people can sit together at wine and cheese parties spouting the most glorious platitudes but when conditions warrant they can become the opposite of what they preach. It is the human condition and naive to assume anything different for society as a whole.

Baloney. Again, what lies about our nature are exchanged and prevent peace between men and women of good conscience and honest difference. No, again, it's the paranoid, the angry, blinkered arbiters of everyone's truth who manage to foul the works.

It sounds good. Because of the human condition and what has become our innate hypocrisy, it is a pipe dream. It would require a sense of inner morality that we've become closed to in favor of our inner lies. Conscience is a word with profound meaning that we've degraded into a type of cultural conditioning. Conscience is related to inner morality. What good is speaking of men and women of good conscience if they are not expressions of inner morality? It is like the alcoholic who swears in good conscience that they will not drink again and then get drunk the next day. What does good conscience mean in reality?

Serious people try to open to inner morality because they have the ability to admit the human condition. That is a lot different than people spouting wonderful platitudes at a secular Interfaith gathering. The sad truth is that what Man as a collective does is a result of our collective "being," what we ARE. Any improvement cannot come from more clever platitudes but from the willingness to change what we ARE.

That is real "higher education." It teaches how to leave the cave so that knowledge can be put into a human perspective rather then a creature within Plato's cave. Before that, it is only cultural conditioning. Simone Weil lamented that education had become no more than "an instrument manipulated by teachers for manufacturing more teachers, who in their turn will manufacture more teachers." rather than a guide to getting out of the cave. Getting out of the cave is a quality of higher education that allows us to become ourselves rather than culturally conditioning the human condition.

You have trouble with the expression: "highest common factor." It is only because you have not allowed yourself to ponder what life could be like without inner lies and the freedom it would offer from acquiring greater inner unity. It is meaning of metanoia in Christianity. It is the realization that the problem is us and the solution comes from within with the help of the Spirit.

Principles are always the framework of law. The question then becomes are the principles just and do the laws follow them. And spiritual freedom has nothing to do with government and everything to do with God.

Spiritual freedom and the development of consciousness in man requires help from above. For humanity in general it requires a society capable of furthering the development of individuality. Rather than society furthering the development of man, it has devolved to the extent that conscious individuality is sacrificed to serve the collective and its collection of automatons. From the Declaration of Independence:

"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."

Does this mean equality in serving the collective which would be Interfaith or with equal opportunities for individuality at the expense of sacrificing the delights of justifying the human condition?

Except that we don't actually have that right.... I'm entitled to the quiet enjoyment of my property and can seek an injunction if you decide to use your property in a way that interferes with my right. Now building a mosque works no imposition on anyone unless it is the knowledge of the presence of the mosque that causes offense. If that's the case we're back to why and is it rational, reasonable, and right. The answer to all three, as I've set out prior and exhaustively, is no.

If the problem were the mosque itself, the site wouldn't matter. The problem is the site. You insist that rights are of primary importance. I assert that for a free society to maintain itself it requires a sense of obligations where rights are sacrificed for something more important.

We have no obligation to bigotry, paranoia, or unreasoned emotionalism that approaches both.

Which isn't what you're doing at all. You're advocating the submission of right to an errant understanding that is at its core as anti American a notion as any torch bearing mob could be.

A person can demand their right to sit on a seat on a bus and make an elderly person stand, or they can sacrifice this right for the sake of a need. You don't recognize the needs of the people that have directly endured the effects of Ground Zero so degrade them. I do. That is why I support keeping Ground Zero free of this political mosque.

It has everything to do with principle. And I've been clear on the remarkably narrow focus of your feeling argument and the people it omits from consideration prior to making an unreasoned demand upon innocent American citizens. One that denigrates their faith by inference and should by no means be conflated with compassion.

What is the principle. Should a person open up a porn shop next to a school? If no, why not. It isn't fair to the teachers that like porn or to the locals that like to buy it. why not consider their rights?

Are Muslims being denied prayer? No, there are mosques all over the place. People just don't want a Sharia cultural center with a swimming pool in it built on the remains of a building damaged by terrorists influenced by Sharia. Is this really an intolerable sacrifice or just something that would be normal for an American citizen?

Hallowed ground that contains strip clubs and gambling dens? Were this remotely connected to that idea you're outrage would be more widely dispersed. No, wrap your odious internal difficulty in any flag that suits you. The smell still gives it away.

You don't know what hallowed ground is. It isn't defined by what is around it but rather what happened on it. If you don't understand this, there is nothing I can say.

So you don't understand that principle either then...we are drawn to like and repelled by the other. That's the nutshell. If we concentrate on being bound by our better commonality, to live peacefully and with respect, then we approach a positive use of the principle by subjugating the lesser values and differences that would drive us apart. That's the ecumenical spirit in play.

No. that is feelgoodism in play. Because we are as we are, everything is as it is. We are not attracted to commonality. When we are, it is because of fear rather than a conscious perception. We are motivated by prestige. No amount of feelgoodism can change it.

I agree it's your choice and the people like you who have turned a plan long in the making into a political football. So cut it out already.

The plan is repulsive. It is the intent to build a structure at a site that makes it symbolic of a victorious attack on America. If it were not the case, there would be no objection to moving the mosque.

 

[Town Heretic]

You do not understand what is meant by our inner lies because you are not yet able to admit the human condition.

Rather I don't know what you mean by "inner lies" and suspect you might have a condition. lain:

This is the human condition. We are in opposition to ourselves.

Well anyone who ever understood Paul's conflict between the good he would do and didn't and the evil he detested but did understands that. What the Sam Hill does that have to do with your new catch phrase, which didn't impart any sense of that?

Why not simply say man is conflicted, torn between the good he can recognize and his nature. Now that doesn't really have anything to do with lies and less to do with an ecumenical spirit.

It is a politically incorrect observation and bad for self esteem, but it is what it is.

I don't know a single Christian who would be surprised by it. I don't know what it has to do with self esteem or how you plan to relate any of this to the issue at hand.

Our inner lies associated with forms of pride and vanity allow us to justify our objectively wretched inner condition.

Well, no. Not if you're a Christian with the least understanding of grace. :squint:

To make a long story short, the fallacy of secular Interfaith is that it assumes the lies necessary to justify and tolerate our human condition, are real.

Horse feathers. That's an assertion. Now connect the dots. How so? In what manner? Secular interfaith is another bit of silly nonsense. Rather, the ecumenical spirit is both an earnest reflection of man's better nature and entirely possible. In fact, it's been done with great success for most of this country's history.

...What good is speaking of men and women of good conscience if they are not expressions of inner morality?

That's nearly babbling. Who demonstrated the absence of "inner morality" which will doubtless soon become some other thing the way "inner lies" found an identity when I noted the absence of meaning as it stood. You use language for the opposite reason most people do, apparently.

So, to cut the absurd twists and turns of usage you resort to in an attempt to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear: men and women have done a decent job of doing exactly what the ecumenical efforts have been aimed at accomplishing. Given the abuse of religion by some Christians and even more Muslims of late, ramping up that effort seems like a sensible idea.

You have trouble with the expression: "highest common factor."

Not particularly, no. I have trouble with the way you slap language together, which is another thing altogether.

It is only because you have not allowed yourself to ponder what life could be like without inner lies and the freedom it would offer from acquiring greater inner unity. It is meaning of metanoia in Christianity. It is the realization that the problem is us and the solution comes from within with the help of the Spirit.

You really think this is mysterious? What Christian doesn't understand this? :think: Maybe I was spoiled by the Anglicans, but this is fairly basic stuff...doesn't have anything to do with the point under consideration, your torturing notwithstanding, but it's foundational Christianity.

Does this mean equality in serving the collective which would be Interfaith or with equal opportunities for individuality at the expense of sacrificing the delights of justifying the human condition?

Apples and razor blades. Just complete nonsense. It's only technically a sentence. Equality serving the collective somehow equals the ecumenical efforts? Preposterous. And the last is equally disconnected. Bizarre.

If the problem were the mosque itself, the site wouldn't matter. The problem is the site.

No, the problem is your attempt to drape a fairly old human failing in the pretense of respectability and nobility for the reasons I've set out prior. It isn't and you aren't fooling anyone who pays attention.

You insist that rights are of primary importance.

I haven't argued from the idea of legal right at all. I just went out of my way, again, to set that straight. So what is it you think you accomplish by setting out a thing you know isn't true? Again, bizarre.

I assert that for a free society to maintain itself it requires a sense of obligations where rights are sacrificed for something more important.

Then you're the most dangerous sort of ignorant that still has enough self awareness to breath. Rights are what we sacrifice to protect and what we founded a nation in recognition of...

I'd quote Franklin here, but there's been enough of that.

A person can demand their right to sit on a seat on a bus and make an elderly person stand,

No, doofus. What gives the demander a right that isn't possessed by the woman seated? For pity's sake at least represent your nonsense coherently.

You don't recognize the needs of the people that have directly endured the effects of Ground Zero so degrade them.

Untrue. Again. A habit with you...I believe in compassion, I just don't confuse it with the ugly thing you wrap the word around. Now your compassion is apparently reserved for those who agree with your position, since you pointedly ignore the suffering of Muslim victims or the wishes of some of the non Muslim victims' families, the same way your moral outrage apparently begins and ends at the doors of a house of worship while passing over gambling dens and strip clubs.

But you understand that, don't you.

I do. That is why I support keeping Ground Zero free of this political mosque.

And it still isn't Ground Zero...

People just don't want a Sharia cultural center with a swimming pool in it built on the remains of a building damaged by terrorists influenced by Sharia.

Some people. Many people. And they're just as unreasoned and incapable of addressing my point as you appear to be. Safety, not truth, is found in numbers.

The plan is repulsive.

You're confusing the plan with your reflection in it.

It is the intent to build a structure at a site that makes it symbolic of a victorious attack on America.

Because they're Muslims and you "just know" all Muslims are the same. Bigot. They told you why they named it and want to build it. But you don't believe them, because they're Muslims. And all Muslims are the same to you...

If it were not the case, there would be no objection to moving the mosque.

No objection to bigots suggesting they give credence to the notion that all Muslims bear the sins of a few fanatics? :nono:

 

[ThePresbyteers]

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[ThePresbyteers]

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[bybee]

Indeed

Indeed

I am appalled that so many of my friends are against the mosque near Ground Zero. We should allow it in order to promote tolerance. I propose that a gay nightclub be opened next door to the mosque to promote tolerance in the mosque. We could call it "The Turban Cowboy" or "You Mecca Me Hot". Then on the other side could be a butcher shop that specializes in pork. And a shop across the street; a very daring lingerie store called " Victoria Keeps Nothing Secret". Then we will find out how tolerant they are…

Freedom is freedom after all.

 

[Town Heretic]

I am appalled that so many of my friends are against the mosque near Ground Zero. We should allow it in order to promote tolerance. I propose that a gay nightclub be opened next door to the mosque to promote tolerance in the mosque. We could call it "The Turban Cowboy" or "You Mecca Me Hot". Then on the other side could be a butcher shop that specializes in pork. And a shop across the street; a very daring lingerie store called " Victoria Keeps Nothing Secret". Then we will find out how tolerant they are…

And let's put an adult bookstore right next to your church while we're at it. :thumb: And maybe a strip club next to your children's school. Because that's exactly the same as building a place for prayer and worship near the scene of a tragedy, right?

It's so parallel it's creepy.

Well, it's creepy anyway. lain:

 

[The Barbarian]

I am appalled that so many of my friends are against the mosque near Ground Zero. We should allow it in order to promote tolerance. I propose that a gay nightclub be opened next door to the mosque to promote tolerance in the mosque. We could call it "The Turban Cowboy" or "You Mecca Me Hot". Then on the other side could be a butcher shop that specializes in pork. And a shop across the street; a very daring lingerie store called " Victoria Keeps Nothing Secret". Then we will find out how tolerant they are…

Some yokel in Plano, Texas tried that approach when a mosque opened in his neighborhood. He set up a track in a lot he owned near the mosque and started having pig races weekly.

A bemused Muslim told a reporter; "Someone should tell him that we don't hate pigs; we just don't eat them."

 

[Nick_A]

Rather I don't know what you mean by "inner lies" and suspect you might have a condition. lain:

Well anyone who ever understood Paul's conflict between the good he would do and didn't and the evil he detested but did understands that. What the Sam Hill does that have to do with your new catch phrase, which didn't impart any sense of that?

Why not simply say man is conflicted, torn between the good he can recognize and his nature. Now that doesn't really have anything to do with lies and less to do with an ecumenical spirit.

I don't know a single Christian who would be surprised by it. I don't know what it has to do with self esteem or how you plan to relate any of this to the issue at hand.

Well, no. Not if you're a Christian with the least understanding of grace. :squint:

Horse feathers. That's an assertion. Now connect the dots. How so? In what manner? Secular interfaith is another bit of silly nonsense. Rather, the ecumenical spirit is both an earnest reflection of man's better nature and entirely possible. In fact, it's been done with great success for most of this country's history.

That's nearly babbling. Who demonstrated the absence of "inner morality" which will doubtless soon become some other thing the way "inner lies" found an identity when I noted the absence of meaning as it stood. You use language for the opposite reason most people do, apparently.

So, to cut the absurd twists and turns of usage you resort to in an attempt to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear: men and women have done a decent job of doing exactly what the ecumenical efforts have been aimed at accomplishing. Given the abuse of religion by some Christians and even more Muslims of late, ramping up that effort seems like a sensible idea.

Not particularly, no. I have trouble with the way you slap language together, which is another thing altogether.

You really think this is mysterious? What Christian doesn't understand this? :think: Maybe I was spoiled by the Anglicans, but this is fairly basic stuff...doesn't have anything to do with the point under consideration, your torturing notwithstanding, but it's foundational Christianity.

Apples and razor blades. Just complete nonsense. It's only technically a sentence. Equality serving the collective somehow equals the ecumenical efforts? Preposterous. And the last is equally disconnected. Bizarre.


No, the problem is your attempt to drape a fairly old human failing in the pretense of respectability and nobility for the reasons I've set out prior. It isn't and you aren't fooling anyone who pays attention.

I haven't argued from the idea of legal right at all. I just went out of my way, again, to set that straight. So what is it you think you accomplish by setting out a thing you know isn't true? Again, bizarre.

Then you're the most dangerous sort of ignorant that still has enough self awareness to breath. Rights are what we sacrifice to protect and what we founded a nation in recognition of...

I'd quote Franklin here, but there's been enough of that.


No, doofus. What gives the demander a right that isn't possessed by the woman seated? For pity's sake at least represent your nonsense coherently.

Untrue. Again. A habit with you...I believe in compassion, I just don't confuse it with the ugly thing you wrap the word around. Now your compassion is apparently reserved for those who agree with your position, since you pointedly ignore the suffering of Muslim victims or the wishes of some of the non Muslim victims' families, the same way your moral outrage apparently begins and ends at the doors of a house of worship while passing over gambling dens and strip clubs.

But you understand that, don't you.

And it still isn't Ground Zero...

Some people. Many people. And they're just as unreasoned and incapable of addressing my point as you appear to be. Safety, not truth, is found in numbers.

You're confusing the plan with your reflection in it.

Because they're Muslims and you "just know" all Muslims are the same. Bigot. They told you why they named it and want to build it. But you don't believe them, because they're Muslims. And all Muslims are the same to you...

No objection to bigots suggesting they give credence to the notion that all Muslims bear the sins of a few fanatics? :nono:

TH

Well anyone who ever understood Paul's conflict between the good he would do and didn't and the evil he detested but did understands that. What the Sam Hill does that have to do with your new catch phrase, which didn't impart any sense of that?

Why not simply say man is conflicted, torn between the good he can recognize and his nature. Now that doesn't really have anything to do with lies and less to do with an ecumenical spirit.

This is typical secular psychobabble. It exists only because people are unwilling to participate in inner empiricism: the effort to "know thyself" rather than the usual introspection. All you are doing is expressing imagination. That is why you do not appreciate the effects of inner lies.

Your "ecumenical spirit" is just people exchanging imaginary concepts on "right and wrong." You cannot appreciate this since you are not included in your analysis. You have not verified anything in yourself but only speak of others. If you become open to experience your inner lies, then you will understand their effect on you. It is our inner lies that make and justify the exchange of psychobabble possible.

A person can come to experience they are a slave to inner conflicts. If they continue to sincerely attempt to "know thyself," they may come to see that it is inner lies that both allow them not to concern us and keep a person as a creature trapped in Plato's cave in psychological slavery,

I don't know a single Christian who would be surprised by it. I don't know what it has to do with self esteem or how you plan to relate any of this to the issue at hand.

A Christian would. An exponent of Christendom would not.

Horse feathers. That's an assertion. Now connect the dots. How so? In what manner? Secular interfaith is another bit of silly nonsense. Rather, the ecumenical spirit is both an earnest reflection of man's better nature and entirely possible. In fact, it's been done with great success for most of this country's history.

You belong on Oprah. The reality is that a person has several natures. They can kill one day and heal on the next. It is a matter of circumstances.

Why do you think Jesus warned of the effects of the Pharisees in question? It was because they were expressing the typical BS of their day. They were telling everyone else what to do but didn't "feel" the essence of the law. What good is this ecumenism? It is ignorant feelgoodism in the light of the human condition.

So, to cut the absurd twists and turns of usage you resort to in an attempt to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear: men and women have done a decent job of doing exactly what the ecumenical efforts have been aimed at accomplishing. Given the abuse of religion by some Christians and even more Muslims of late, ramping up that effort seems like a sensible idea.

You are defining a person's moral worth by conditioning. What is conscience. If someone asked you what conscience is, what would you say?

You really think this is mysterious? What Christian doesn't understand this? Maybe I was spoiled by the Anglicans, but this is fairly basic stuff...doesn't have anything to do with the point under consideration, your torturing notwithstanding, but it's foundational Christianity.

"Only the descent into the hell of self-knowledge can pave the way to godliness." -Immanuel Kant -

A Christian is willing to make the descent into this hell. Are you?

Apples and razor blades. Just complete nonsense. It's only technically a sentence. Equality serving the collective somehow equals the ecumenical efforts? Preposterous. And the last is equally disconnected. Bizarre.

Yes. These ecumenical efforts are just part of life in Plato's cave without appreciation of striving for the individuality necessary to leave the Plato's Cave.

You do not understand the dynamics of social force.

No, the problem is your attempt to drape a fairly old human failing in the pretense of respectability and nobility for the reasons I've set out prior. It isn't and you aren't fooling anyone who pays attention.

No. The problem is your inability to appreciate the importance of respecting the site of an attack on America that has killed so many to be considered hallowed ground.

Then you're the most dangerous sort of ignorant that still has enough self awareness to breath. Rights are what we sacrifice to protect and what we founded a nation in recognition of

This is probably the most ignorant thing you've written.

No, doofus. What gives the demander a right that isn't possessed by the woman seated? For pity's sake at least represent your nonsense coherently.

This is just silly. If a man sees an open seat on a bus, he has a right to sit in it. If he notices there is an elderly person not fast enough to beat him to the seat, he has a choice. He can remain seated or give it to the elderly person. If you can't see this, it is time to hang it up.

Untrue. Again. A habit with you...I believe in compassion, I just don't confuse it with the ugly thing you wrap the word around. Now your compassion is apparently reserved for those who agree with your position, since you pointedly ignore the suffering of Muslim victims or the wishes of some of the non Muslim victims' families, the same way your moral outrage apparently begins and ends at the doors of a house of worship while passing over gambling dens and strip clubs.

But you understand that, don't you.

No. It means you do not appreciate American values that seek to sustain a healthy "metaxu" for the sake of sustaining a free society and what it offers those striving towards individuality.

And it still isn't Ground Zero...

keeping your head in the sand, doesn't change the fact that the building was damaged and Burlington forced to leave as part of the attack.

Some people. Many people. And they're just as unreasoned and incapable of addressing my point as you appear to be. Safety, not truth, is found in numbers.

That is why they are considered unworthy of the vote. They have yet to be conditioned into politically correct silliness.

Because they're Muslims and you "just know" all Muslims are the same. Bigot. They told you why they named it and want to build it. But you don't believe them, because they're Muslims. And all Muslims are the same to you...

No it is you that see all the people capable of preserving quality as bigots.

No objection to bigots suggesting they give credence to the notion that all Muslims bear the sins of a few fanatics?

Do yourself a favor. Get as far away as possible from all this Interfaith feelgood superiority. Your sanity may depend upon it.

 

[Nick_A]

I am appalled that so many of my friends are against the mosque near Ground Zero. We should allow it in order to promote tolerance. I propose that a gay nightclub be opened next door to the mosque to promote tolerance in the mosque. We could call it "The Turban Cowboy" or "You Mecca Me Hot". Then on the other side could be a butcher shop that specializes in pork. And a shop across the street; a very daring lingerie store called " Victoria Keeps Nothing Secret". Then we will find out how tolerant they are…

You seem to understand the issue. Do you sense a difference between the concept of tolerance and mutual respect in the cause of of becoming oneself?

I'm not asserting that this mutual respect exists other than as an American ideal, but just asking how you distinguish between the two concepts.

 

[Arthur Brain]

Please noooooo! Not someone else who quotes Kant! Aaaaaarrrrrgggghhhhhhhh

Do you listen to Metallica as well Nick?

PS: ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

:e4e:

 

[Nick_A]

Please noooooo! Not someone else who quotes Kant! Aaaaaarrrrrgggghhhhhhhh

Do you listen to Metallica as well Nick?

PS: ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

:e4e:

Please noooooo! Not someone else who quotes Kant! Aaaaaarrrrrgggghhhhhhhh

I can but you Kant.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Subpart ZZZZ—National Emissions Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants for Stationary Reciprocating Internal Combustion Engines

If you are suggesting that TH is nothing but educated hot air, I would tend to agree.

 

[WizardofOz]

If you are suggesting that TH is nothing but educated hot air, I would tend to agree.

Does that makes you uneducated hot air?

Congrats on that.

 

[Nick_A]

Dear Dr. Jasser,

There are the educated elite here as well as in real life that believe anyone not falling for Iman Rauf's con job are racists who see all Muslims as bad creatures.

I'd like to include your article here just to show that people who are also Muslims, do see through Imam Rauf.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704644404575481882969581708.html

By M. ZUHDI JASSER

After a long absence while controversy over the mosque near Ground Zero smoldered, Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf finally held forth this week both in the New York Times and on CNN.

Imam Rauf and his supporters are clearly more interested in making a political statement in relation to Islam than in the mosque's potential for causing community division and pain to those who lost loved ones on 9/11. That division is already bitterly obvious.

As someone who has been involved in building mosques around the country, and who has dealt with his fair share of unjustified opposition, I ask of Imam Rauf and all his supporters, "Where is your sense of fairness and common decency?" In relation to Ground Zero, I am an American first, a Muslim second, just as I would be at Concord, Gettysburg, Normandy Beach, Pearl Harbor or any other battlefield where my fellow countrymen lost their lives.

I must ask Imam Rauf: For what do you stand—what's best for Americans overall, or for what you think is best for Islam? What have you said and argued to Muslim-majority nations to address their need for reform? You have said that Islam does not need reform, despite the stoning of women in Muslim countries, death sentences for apostates, and oppression of reformist Muslims and non-Muslims.

You now lecture Americans that WTC mosque protests are "politically motivated" and "go against the American principle of church and state." Yet you ignore the wide global prevalence of far more dangerous theo-political groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and all of its violent and nonviolent offshoots.

In your book, "What's Right With Islam," you cite the Brotherhood's radical longtime spiritual leader Imam Yusuf Qaradawi as a "moderate." Reformist American Muslims are not afraid to name Mr. Qaradawi and his ilk as radical. We Muslims should first separate mosque and state before lecturing Americans about church and state.

Imam, tell me if you can look into the eyes of children who lost a parent on 9/11 and convince them that this immodest Islamic center benefits them. How will it in any way aid counterterrorism efforts or keep one American any safer? You willfully ignore what American Muslims most need—an open call for reformation that unravels the bigoted and shoddy framework of political Islam and separates mosque and state.

There are certainly those who are prejudiced against Muslims and who are against mosques being built anywhere, and even a few who wish to burn the Quran. But most voices in this case have been very clear that for every American freedom of religion is a right, but that it is not right to make one's religion a global political statement with a towering Islamic edifice that casts a shadow over the memorials of Ground Zero.

As an American Muslim, I look at that pit of devastation and contemplate the thousands of lives undone there within seconds. I pray for the ongoing strength to fight the fanatics who did this, and who continue their war against my country with both overt violence and covert strategies that aim to undo the very freedoms for which so many have fought and died.

Imam Rauf may not appear to the untrained eye to be an Islamist, but by making Ground Zero an Islamic rather than an American issue, and by failing to firmly condemn terrorist groups like Hamas, he shows his true allegiance.

Islamists in "moderate" disguise are still Islamists. In their own more subtle ways, the WTC mosque organizers end up serving the same aims of the separatist and supremacist wings of political Islam. In this epic struggle of the 21st century, we cannot afford to ignore the continuum between nonviolent political Islam and the militancy it ultimately fuels among the jihadists.

Dr. Jasser, a medical doctor and a former U.S. Navy lieutenant commander, is the founder and president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy based in Phoenix, Ariz.

 

[Town Heretic]

This is typical secular psychobabble.

Sweet, you're giving your work a disclaimer now. :thumb: But you really needed a colon after that statement. lain:

It exists only because people are unwilling to participate in inner empiricism: the effort to "know thyself" rather than the usual introspection.

I think you know yourself. I just wish you knew something else that made that bit worthwhile.

Your "ecumenical spirit" is just people exchanging imaginary concepts on "right and wrong."

Well, no. It's people doing what we've been good at in this country more often than not, which is why we don't have Catholics and Protestants killing one another over doctrinal distinctions, or Christians running the street screaming "Christ killers!" at Jews, and so on.

You cannot appreciate this since you are not included in your analysis. You have not verified anything in yourself but only speak of others.

I know you "feel" that way, but that's a great bit of your problem. It's not rational or based in anything sustainable beyond your noggin.

You belong on Oprah.

And you should write copy for Glenn Beck...assuming anyone does.

The reality is that a person has several natures. They can kill one day and heal on the next. It is a matter of circumstances.

Actions aren't natures. They're expressions of our nature. A person is capable of doing whatever their understanding allows. Again, not a revelation or pertinent.

Why do you think Jesus warned of the effects of the Pharisees in question? It was because they were expressing the typical BS of their day. They were telling everyone else what to do but didn't "feel" the essence of the law.

No one "felt" the essence of the law. That wasn't its purpose or his criticism.

What good is this ecumenism? It is ignorant feelgoodism in the light of the human condition.

Simply not true. I've set out what it is...how anyone feels about not acting as though the Crusades, Reformation bloodbaths, or Muslim conquests of Christian bastions were pretty good ideas is up to the individual.

You are defining a person's moral worth by conditioning.

No. That's just you saying something because it suits you. You can't begin to illustrate/support it. And you won't. You'll just move on to the next unsupportable point all the while circling the larger bit of nonsense these distractions keep you from having to defend.

What is conscience. If someone asked you what conscience is, what would you say?

I'd say conscience is the understanding of good and evil in relation to our conduct and thoughts that directs/guides our decisions of how to act and what to entertain. But first I'd ask them why they don't own a good Merriam-Webster's.

A Christian is willing to make the descent into this hell. Are you?

Every Christian who comes to the point of confession and reliance on grace must necessarily do exactly this. Asking that of any Christian either illustrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the faith or an underhanded attempt at insult. So which of those is you...

Yes. These ecumenical efforts are just part of life in Plato's cave without appreciation of striving for the individuality necessary to leave the Plato's Cave.

:yawn: That's highly imaginative (well, his work was at any rate) but it isn't demonstrably more than that. And I don't hold with Plato's notions, as we've already established. So bringing that perspective up as though anything could be rationally settled on its points is...well, pointless.

You do not understand the dynamics of social force.

Rather, you fail to grasp the rudiments of constructing and supporting argument. These declarations sans anything else aren't it.

No. The problem is your inability to appreciate the importance of respecting the site of an attack on America that has killed so many to be considered hallowed ground.

Said the fellow who only respects some victims while drawing a peculiar map of hallowed ground that looks like a Twister contest.

This is probably the most ignorant thing you've written.

Keep phoning it in. Nokia may sponsor you yet.

This is just silly. If a man sees an open seat on a bus, he has a right to sit in it.

Actually, it is silly, but part of the problem was an element of ambiguity in the original construction of your sentence. Now that you've clarified:

If he notices there is an elderly person not fast enough to beat him to the seat, he has a choice. He can remain seated or give it to the elderly person. If you can't see this, it is time to hang it up.

Right. He he can give his seat in consideration to the frailty of age or out of respect for his elders. Doesn't alter anything in relation to the actual argument we're having though. Muslims shouldn't respect someone who suggests that by being Muslim they offend. That's undeserving bias at best and bigotry at worst.

No. It means you do not appreciate American values that seek to sustain a healthy "metaxu" for the sake of sustaining a free society and what it offers those striving towards individuality.

No. It by and large means I think you're attempting to promote the very thing that destroys a social compact and are, as I've said, attempting to make it appear to be that which it in no part is: virtuous.

keeping your head in the sand, doesn't change the fact that the building was damaged and Burlington forced to leave as part of the attack.

Something I've never denied at any point. Doesn't make it ground zero any more than a bit of falling debris that hits a car transforms that into a mobile form of the same piece.

...you that see all the people capable of preserving quality as bigots.

Preserving quality? You're like an infant making noise because that's what he believes his parents are doing...there's no "quality" to the inequitable offense of suggesting that the actions of a minority, taken without the license or agreement of the majority, should taint that majority.

Do yourself a favor and get a better education and a broader association.

 

[Granite]

I can't pop into this thread anymore. Every time I do I want to take TH and Nick and knock their heads together. Both of you should just walk away. This is easily the most infuriating thread I've seen here in a while.

BROTHER.

 

[zoo22]

I can't pop into this thread anymore. Every time I do I want to take TH and Nick and knock their heads together. Both of you should just walk away. This is easily the most infuriating thread I've seen here in a while.

BROTHER.

To each his own... I've been enjoying it.

Though difficult to keep up with for sure... But yeah, you might want to stop popping in. I could understand that

 

[ThePresbyteers]

This message is deleted and closed.

 

[Nick_A]

I can't pop into this thread anymore. Every time I do I want to take TH and Nick and knock their heads together. Both of you should just walk away. This is easily the most infuriating thread I've seen here in a while.

BROTHER.

That is a good sign. It should be infuriating. It is a basic tension between someone like TH who values bottom up thinking in the cause of truth and someone like me that values top down thought in the same cause. It creates a tension that can be infuriating for those seeking simple conclusions.

TH seeks to create a better human mindset through associative thought, while top down contemplation helps us to remember what has been forgotten.

The question of conscience is a good example. We normally define it as the knowledge of subjective conceptions of right and wrong. Conscience as I've come to understand it, is a quality of human emotion that allows one to "feel" objective right and wrong.

Where secular conscience is learned (bottom up,) objective conscience is emotionally remembering what has always been (top down.)

A conscious person is one who is capable of both rather than imagining it. They are able to give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's.

 

[Nick_A]

I'll need to stop being a hypocrite myself. The muslim real estate guy has a point. Why are we bickering about the site while we have sinful stores or bars all around ground Zero?

Why strive for quality? It is a good question. If everybody is doing it, why shouldn't we do it. A person can justify a lot of what they do through this idea.