<p>A mosque being built should have more support than a church being built if you want to compare holy books and speak about morals. </p>
<p>If I built a memorial to Osama Bin Laden, then you can say that its disrespectful to the victims of 9/11. Saying that building a mosque near Ground Zero is disrespectful is another way of saying that Islam preaches terrorism. Don’t deny it.</p>
<p>I also love how all of a sudden people and politicians care about respect. Is it respectful to give observant muslims a hard time at airports? No. Is it respectful to invade countries unlawfully? No. Yet when people want to build a community center, respect comes up. WOW.</p>
<p>Romani, why should I have to say again and again: quote me the Vulgate! The Latin, or the Greek! Not some fundamentalist-edited version! And same to you konig! </p>
<p>Well, irritation aside. Explain sharia law to me.</p>
<p>Look, konig, go read my other posts. I will not repeat myself a thousand times. And they are not building a mosque. It’s a community center.</p>
<p>And sorry romani. I never took the time to learn how to spell your name on an online forum. I apologize.</p>
They did not kill because Christianity told them to kill non-christians… there were other reasons. Native Americans were killed because their land was wanted by settlers, who happened to be christian. Evangelists have gone all around the world and killed, yes, but not for the sole reason of the enemy being not christian.</p>
<p>@RAlec- I am not saying that they were all killed because of Christianity. But to say that none of them were killed solely because of Christianity is just plain wrong. </p>
<p>OTOH- to say that the Islamic extremists killed solely because of religion is completely false as well.</p>
<p>Romani, yes. I happen to be able to read Latin, and have read some of the Vulgate. I am completely sure many Catholics who teach doctrine (theologians) can indeed read both Latin and Greek, and do so. Why not? That shows you are not as familiar with Catholicism as you would like everyone to believe. Again, you leaving the argument is hardly convincing to me or really to anybody, and neither is randomly selecting quotes of of context from fundamentalist Bibles. </p>
<p>The last time I checked the 5th commandment was “thou shall not kill”. </p>
<p>RAlec114 is basically right. Why is he wrong? Give me evidence. Doubtless Islamic terrorists have some secular / temporal motives for their actions. Islam, through sharia law (which you have not yet accounted for), does teach as doctrine the killing of infidels. </p>
<p>Now, can this thread please get back on topic? Anybody can PM me if they like.</p>
<p>There are phrases in the bible that say something within the vein of “kill non christians”. </p>
<p>I never really read the whole bible. </p>
<p>I don’t like to believe that Christianity or Islam, both religions which generally promote goodness, would blatantly promote such violence. However, I do believe that certain passages in either the bible or quran are usually read out of context to do so.</p>
<p>Circular-
I, too, can read Latin and have read Latin translations of the Bible. </p>
<p>The only “true” (if you even want to call it that) version of the Bible would have to be 2nd century Greek editions before they were heavily edited by the Church.</p>
<p>@ romani: Even if in the Old Testament God says to do something, whether that be sacrificing bulls to him or killing others (that quote was entirely taken out of context, rendering it invalid as proof), this no longer applies to us men. What does apply are the fulfilled teachings of Christ on earth. </p>
<p>Do you have evidence that the Church “heavily edited” the Bible? In reality, what happened was that the New Testament was written by the Apostles and Disciples who knew Jesus Christ on Earth and who formed the early Church. Therefore, how could the Church have “heavily edited” the Bible if the Bible was written by the founders of the Church? Unless you can prove the Greek is significantly different from the Latin, you are factually wrong.</p>
<p>@La Tina: Look it up. I don’t think we are allowed to post links here. You are now getting into relativism. That’s a different topic. PM me if you want an answer. </p>
<p>@MIT Hopeful16: read my other posts, paying attention to the perception vs. facts concept.</p>
<p>this is like one guy in class getting in trouble and the teacher punishes the whole class- it’s unfair but sometimes that’s what needs to be done
this isn’t necessarily my view but i’m saying this stuff isn’t out of nowhere, it happens quite a lot</p>
<p>^ Actually, no, it’s nothing like that. When a teacher punishes the whole class instead of an individual it’s to create peer pressure to not do whatever the first kid did. In this case, the people that would be using the community center are extremely unlikely to engage in terrorist activities.</p>
I completely agree. But would you also agree that there is something a bit gut-wrenching about it at the same time? What I find myself disagreeing with are the people who see this as a friendly gesture.</p>
<p>That may be the case. But nothing has been built yet, there’s no money to build anything yet, and nobody has even hired any architects. And if the mayor offered to sit down and explore options, well, why reject that before you even know what the other options are? I assume the city would have a way of greasing the skids to find another location, and may get a lot of cooperation from the private sector as well to make other sites available. Refusing to even explore that option with the city sort of weakens the impracticability argument.</p>
<p>That being said, if the difficulties really are that big, then I think that POV should be articulated. Part of the problem is that it looks right now like they don’t even care about any possible offense or emotional costs, which I think strengthens the opposition. For myself, if there was a decent case made showing that there really isn’t anywhere to move it, I probably wouldn’t oppose it.</p>
<p>^ If that is a reference to me- then I would ask you to remember that Muslims died as well.</p>
<p>Look, I did not lose anyone in 9/11, but I have lost loved ones in the subsequent “war”. I have lost people who were killed by Islamic extremists. They DIED to bring freedom to another country and they died thinking they were protecting our rights. </p>