How close is too close?

[BearCat204]

No you haven't or you would NEVER equate the teachings of the NT with the teachings of the Quran.

Just wondering if you are limiting the Bible and the teachings of Christianity to just the NT?

 

[OrangeEmpire]

What??!!

You've completely shattered the internet image I had of you. :cray:

Don't know why, I am consistant, I love freedom over any thing!

 

[DC Vol]

Though I would not defend the perversion of the NT religion known as a the Holy Roman Empire... the Crusades were a response to Muslim military expansion.

Did you just say the Nazi's were Christian?... and you just got through chastising others for ignorance?

The Nazi's were Progressives taken to the logical extreme. The Nazi's and American Progressives of the same period shared eugenics, humanism, and economic ideals. The justification for genocide was NOT significantly religious... it was Hitler's attempt to help evolution along by eliminating lower races.

Christianity in its fundamental biblical form IS a shining beacon. Islam in its fundamental form IS an evil entity.

That can be disproved when this mass of supposed moderates rise up and throw off those who are supposedly perverting their cause.



While we're at it... let's discuss more "humanistic/materialistic/evolutionary" products in politics. Say communism... how many millions were killed in the USSR for dissent? How about Cambodia? Vietnam? China? North Korea? FACT IS that atheistic philosophical/political thought has led to far more killing in a single century than ALL religious killing since the beginning of recorded history.

My point was said at the end of that paragraph that I'm going to assume you looked over:

It doesn't matter, however, that none of that was religious at heart but a power-struggle.

There are fringe events that can be directly related to a zealot that takes their beliefs too far. Outside of that almost all occurrences are a small group of people that use an ideology (religion, political, cultural, etc) as a cause to go to war. Some wars only use some of them... the Nazis absolutely did use all of them as part of their propaganda machine.

Bush let a gem slip when he called OIF a Crusade. That alone could easily be construed as the US government using religion as a tool of manipulation and justification for war... not to mention Rumsfeld's use of Bible quotations. That certainly would not give Muslims cause to declare a Holy War to defend their land.


I have a sincere question for you:

Does Westboro represent your view of Christianity at all?

 

[gsvol]

When one of the buildings where the mosques is proposed
had the landing gear of one of the jihadist planes crash
through two floors, that pretty well qualifies the address
as being PART of ground zero itself.

In March 1785, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams
went to negotiate with Tripoli’s envoy to London,
Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdrahaman (or Sidi Haji Abdul
Rahman Adja). Upon inquiring “concerning the ground
of the pretensions to make war upon nations who had
done them no injury”, the ambassador replied:

It was written in their Koran, that all nations which
had not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners,
whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to
plunder and enslave; and that every muslim who
was slain in this warfare was sure to go to paradise.

He said, also, that the man who was the first to
board a vessel had one slave over and above his
share, and that when they sprang to the deck of
an enemy’s ship, every sailor held a dagger in each
hand and a third in his mouth; which usually struck
such terror into the foe that they cried out for
quarter at once.

Two hundred years later not one word of the Koran
has changed, nor has it's interpretaion by islamic
scholars and their plan is still the same.

Our shame is that, collectively, we are so ignorant of
history and that so many are so willing to accept defeat
and dhimmitude so easily and seem so vindictive toward
the more wise among us.

"It is easier to resist in the beginning than in the end."
Leonardo Da Vinci

Pictured above is a Greek Orthodox Church that was
destroyed on 9/11, it is still trying to get approval to
be rebuilt while it's members celebrate certain ceremonies
in a tent. The latest mandate from the port authority
is that the new church can't be taller than the proposed
9/11 memorial.

This is an important concept in Islam, in any place it is
forbidden for a church or synagog to be taller than a
mosque, which indicates the surperiority of islam over
all other religions.

If the Ground Zero memorial is anything like the Flight 93
Memorial, it will be a tribute to islam and point the way
to mecca, where no one but a devout muslim may tread.

Many are calling the Flight 93 memorial; "the cresent of betrayal."

The Allahu Akbar Foundation wants to erect the memorial
comprising three figures:
Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden,
9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta,
together with an unknown martyr
(with wires hanging out of his clothing
and his thumb on a switch) at the entrance
to 1 World Trade Center (due for completion
in 2013).



Islam is not a religion. It’s a theocratic political system,
which is a system where the religious law governs civil
society as well and where the supreme government is
its clergy. It is a rival political system and cannot
coexist with democracy and the US Constution.

It’s time to declare Islam a rival political system and
get it out of this country.

There is precedent for this. Remember, Mormonism
is a syncretist religion dreamed up by a “prophet”
like Mohammed, and was originally planned to be a
theocracy, that is, a society ruled by clergy and
governed by religious law established by its founder.
The US decided this could not coexist with the US
system, and the Mormons (who had been very
aggressive and violent) backed down and accepted
US law and set their religious practices apart,
abandoning those that conflicted with our law,
such as polygamy and their own theocratic court
system.

 

[RockyTopVol]

Don't know why, I am consistant, I love freedom over any thing!

Admitting to agree with lg.

 

[sjt18]

Just wondering if you are limiting the Bible and the teachings of Christianity to just the NT?

The NT is foundational for Christian doctrine and character/behavior. There are differences between the OT and NT. For instance the OT establishes a theocracy. The OT is not discarded but rather perfected in Christ. It is given for example, prophecy, and moral instruction. The "types" and imagry in the rituals given in the OT were fulfilled in Christ.

FWIW, I'm not limiting the teachings of Christianity to the NT... the NT itself defines how the OT applies to Christianity.

 

[sjt18]

I have a sincere question for you:

Does Westboro represent your view of Christianity at all?

Thanks for getting us back on track.

This is an excellent illustration of my point. Some of the loudest voices against Westboro are Christians and particularly Baptists. I am a political libertarian so I'm torn between protecting military families and the rights of idiots to demonstrate they are unloving idiots.

IIRC, Falwell was a very, very harsh critic of Phelp's hateful treatment of homosexuals. I have NEVER met a fundamental/conservative Baptist that did not very willingly state opposition to Westboro. Many if not most want a law passed to prevent their military funeral protests. I've never run across one who approved of Phelp's "God hates ****" non-sense.

If he or his cult committed an actual act of terrorism, would he find safety among Christians in America and in particular Baptists? No. Would Baptists demand that he be brought to justice as loudly as anyone? You bet.

That is the problem I have with the idea that 90% of Muslims are peace minded moderates. If that is really their conviction then why aren't they stopping those who are tarnishing their religion?

I think Eric Rudolph provides a better example. There are some Christians who sympathize with his anger if not his methods... but even then they were unwilling to tolerate his terrorist act.

My basic point is this- for a Christian to approve of or even assent to Rudolph's crime, they would have to struggle against direct NT commands. For a Muslim to disapprove of the actions of the extremists... the have to struggle against things that their scriptures allow or even command.

 

[gsvol]

According to this message board, anywhere inside the borders of the United States is too close.

You catch on quick!

Don't lose any of your polished fingernails trying to grasp the concept!

My point was said at the end of that paragraph that I'm going to assume you looked over:



There are fringe events that can be directly related to a zealot that takes their beliefs too far. Outside of that almost all occurrences are a small group of people that use an ideology (religion, political, cultural, etc) as a cause to go to war. Some wars only use some of them... the Nazis absolutely did use all of them as part of their propaganda machine.

Bush let a gem slip when he called OIF a Crusade. That alone could easily be construed as the US government using religion as a tool of manipulation and justification for war... not to mention Rumsfeld's use of Bible quotations. That certainly would not give Muslims cause to declare a Holy War to defend their land.


I have a sincere question for you:

Does Westboro represent your view of Christianity at all?

You fail to understand the basic pretext of islam itself.

Islam teaches there are two parts of the world.

Dar al islam and dar al harb or;
the world of submission to allah and the world of war, ie;
any portion of the world that isn't in submission to the will
of allah as interpreted by designated muslim imans.

There is nothing 'fringe' about that philosophy, it is central
to islam, no matter what you may have been told.

Evidently you have been the victim of 'taqiyya' or lying to
decieve the infidel.

There is no need to defend any islamic homeland but there
is the requirement to all muslims to endeavor to conquer
dar al harb.

Since America is considered dar al harb, at least before
obimama, then America is defined as being at war with
islam, even if it just sat on it's hands and did nothing.

Why in the hell you would try to introduce westboro into
the conversation is beyond my understanding, maybe you
can explain.

That's like comparing a pissant to an elephant.
Even worse really.

If you are worried about anti-gay rhetoric from Christian
groups, perhaps you should study the koran which indicates
beheading or stoning to death of homosexuals.

 

[XtennesseeX]

If it were up to you, what would be the outer limit for something that offends the sensibilities of most in the community?
Posted via VolNation Mobile

For me, there wouldn't be an outer limit for something that offends the sensibilities of most in the community.

I'm not sure why Obama commented on this subject. It's a losing situation for him. Republicans, and Democrats are all over the place on this issue. In FL, you have former Republican and Gov. Charlie Crist in support of the mosque, all the while Democrat Jeff Greene said he was opposed to the mosque and bashed Crist for agreeing with Obama.

 

[CSpindizzy]

For the defenders of Islam, would you see a synagogue or Christian church in Mecca? Would the Muslims object to the Jewish Temple being rebuilt on the Temple Mount? Or even if a "cultural center" built by either Jews or Christians in these two areas. Somehow if these would manage to even be built, one can imagine the "peace and love" that would result of having such buildings there.

 

[utvolpj]

For the defenders of Islam, would you see a synagogue or Christian church in Mecca? Would the Muslims object to the Jewish Temple being rebuilt on the Temple Mount? Or even if a "cultural center" built by either Jews or Christians in these two areas. Somehow if these would manage to even be built, one can imagine the "peace and love" that would result of having such buildings there.

pulling out a joevol/justin line to start your post? Nice.

The comparison might work if we were all governed by the same laws. I like to think of the US as a bit more advanced

 

[CSpindizzy]

It's not about government. I'm not talking about rights, constitutions, governments. It is about response. And if Islam is 'peaceful' why bring in that the US is more advanced? Shouldn't a peaceful faith have as equal a response? If we are truly talking about tolerance and peace and good will, shouldn't the scenario I painted be a favorable one?

 

[lawgator1]

The Greek Orthodox Church issue has been floated by the right wing hate machine. Heard it on Limbaugh and Fox yesterday -- they are all over that -- so clearly there is organized communication going on here solely to try to undermine the administration on this.

The problem is that the REASON that the Greek church is having a problem is because of disagreements over the architecture of it, size, those sorts of issues, that have to do with zoning requirements.

The mosque versus the proposed Greek Orthodox Church are UTTERLY different and TOTALLY incomparable.

So of course that is becoming the issue.


It is a shame that the right wing fear machine is bastardizing the facts so much just to try to embarras Obama and appeal to the bigotry of their base. But, its is par for the course over the last few years. Isn't going to change any time soon.

 

[CSpindizzy]

The Greek Orthodox Church issue has been floated by the right wing hate machine. Heard it on Limbaugh and Fox yesterday -- they are all over that -- so clearly there is organized communication going on here solely to try to undermine the administration on this.

The problem is that the REASON that the Greek church is having a problem is because of disagreements over the architecture of it, size, those sorts of issues, that have to do with zoning requirements.

The mosque versus the proposed Greek Orthodox Church are UTTERLY different and TOTALLY incomparable.

So of course that is becoming the issue.


It is a shame that the right wing fear machine is bastardizing the facts so much just to try to embarras Obama and appeal to the bigotry of their base. But, its is par for the course over the last few years. Isn't going to change any time soon.

Harry Reid must've had his fax lines crossed up and spouted racist right wing talking points rather than his racist left wing talking points. One week it's all about stupid right wing Hispanics and now it's stupid intolerant Muslims....somebody better uncross the lines going into his talking points fax.

 

[utvolpj]

It is a shame that the right wing fear machine is bastardizing the facts so much just to try to embarras Obama and appeal to the bigotry of their base. But, its is par for the course over the last few years. Isn't going to change any time soon.

that's just a funny post. Do you really think it takes a concentrated effort to embarrass Obama? Just let the man speak and he'll do it for them. It's not bigotry when he's called clueless.

and on the fear tactics
http://www.volnation.com/forum/politics/106673-obama-pleads-voters-dont-give-fear.html

 

[lawgator1]

Harry Reid must've had his fax lines crossed up and spouted racist right wing talking points rather than his racist left wing talking points. One week it's all about stupid right wing Hispanics and now it's stupid intolerant Muslims....somebody better uncross the lines going into his talking points fax.

Harry Reid's comments were hardly backing off of what Obama said. Obama said they can build where they want and we should be diligent in our faithfulness to the First Amendment, even when it hurts.

Reid said the same thing, and added that they should build it somewhere else. The two are not inconsistent.

that's just a funny post. Do you really think it takes a concentrated effort to embarrass Obama? Just let the man speak and he'll do it for them. It's not bigotry when he's called clueless.

and on the fear tactics
http://www.volnation.com/forum/politics/106673-obama-pleads-voters-dont-give-fear.html

The mistake was in Obama backing off of his original comments. Should have stuck to his guns because he's right.

 

[CSpindizzy]

The mistake was in Obama backing off of his original comments. Should have stuck to his guns because he's right.

You really don't get it do you? No one is arguing whether it is legally or Constitutionally right or wrong. Obama if anything took the coward's way out of it by even making this statement in the first place trying to score points with his audience. But this is typical for this president. Put him in front of an audience and he will placate them. Put him in front of an opposing audience and he will placate them as well.

This is all too often the problem with Dem leaders. They are so worried about pleasing to win votes, they have no consistent principles to stand on. They are all over the place with their views and are easy to pin the hypocrite label on.

As for your comparison between Reid and Obama - Reid is actually in line with the 'racist right' on this one. Nothing inconsistent with the fringe as you describe in saying they have the right to build here but should do so somewhere else. It's actually no different than what I've said. Obama made his statements solely on as if the argument was a legal and constitutional one. He gave his view on the 'right' issue and left it at that. This was after Gibbsy even said the President would NOT weigh in on the local issue. So the President went off his own reservation and made this argument into something that was not even the focus. Only after realizing he shot himself in the foot did he begin backpedaling.

 

[CSpindizzy]

Chuck Schumer had something interesting to say back during the Dubai Ports World deal in 2006:

“Let’s say skinheads had bought a company to take over our port,” he said. “I think the outcry would have been the same.”

Now this was about a 'right wing racist' like Bush allowing Middle Eastern business to essentially have access to US ports. Schumer isn't exactly some periphery member of the left. I wonder if the generalizations made about conservatives will include the left as well.

 

[gsvol]

Amazon.com: The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage…

Excerpts:

Non-Muslims are barred from entering the cities of Mecca and Medina — not merely barred from building synagogues or churches, but barred, period, because their infidel feet are deemed unfit to touch the ground. This is not an al-Qaeda principle. Nor is it an “Islamist” principle. It is Islam, pure and simple.

“Truly the pagans are unclean,” instructs the Koran’s Sura 9:28, “so let them not . . . approach the Sacred Mosque.” This injunction — and there are plenty of similar ones in Islam’s scriptures — is enforced vigorously not by jihadist terrorists but by the Saudi government. And it is enforced not because of some eccentric sense of Saudi nationalism. The only law of Saudi Arabia is sharia, the law of Islam.

As Sunni scholarly commentary in the version of the Koran officially produced by the Saudi government explains, only Muslims are sufficiently “strict in cleanliness, as well as in purity of mind and heart, so that their word can be relied upon.” Thus, only they may enter the holy cities. Authoritative Shiite teaching is even more bracing. As Iraq’s “moderate” Ayatollah Ali Sistani — probably the world’s most influential Shiite cleric — has explained, the touching of non-Muslims is discouraged, because they are considered to be in the same “unclean” category as “urine, feces, semen, dead bodies, blood, dogs, pigs, alcoholic liquors, and the sweat of an animal who persistently eats [unclean things].”

These teachings are worth bearing in mind as we listen to the staunch defenses of religious liberty that have suddenly become so fashionable among proponents of the Cordoba Initiative, a planned $100 million Islamic center and mosque to be built on the hallowed ground where remains of the nearly 3,000 Americans killed by Muslim terrorists on 9/11 continue to be found. The most prominent proponent of the project, President Obama, was in high fashion Friday night, as one would expect at a White House gala in observance of Ramadan. “This is America,” he intoned, “and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakable.”

The president’s commitment is to a vacant abstraction, not to actual liberty. If his resolve to defend religious freedom were truly unshakable, the last thing he would endorse is the construction of a gigantic monument to intolerance in a place where bigots devastated a city they have repeatedly targeted because of the pluralism and freedom it symbolizes. You can’t aspire to religious freedom by turning a blind eye to the reality of sharia.

Saudi Arabia, the country from which 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers hailed, abides no pluralism or religious freedom. Sure, the Saudis will tell you they allow Christians, Jews, and other non-Muslims to visit their country, which is awfully big of them. Still, the regime prohibits these infidels from polluting the kingdom with their Bibles, crucifixes, and Stars of David.

Second and more significant, the comparison of what is permitted in Manhattan and what is permitted in Mecca is not about the Saudis: It is about Islam. Saudi Arabia does not have any law but sharia. Non-Muslims are discriminated against in the kingdom, not because that’s how the Saudis want it. They are discriminated against because that is how the Koran says it must be. Sura 9:29, the verse of the Koran that immediately follows the commandment to exclude non-Muslims from holy sites, instructs: “Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the last day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the Religion of Truth, from among the people of the Book [i.e., Jews and Christians], until they pay the jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.”

The jizya is a poll-tax imposed on dhimmis. Those are non-Muslims permitted to live in Islamic territories. The concept is that all the world will eventually be under the thumb of sharia authorities, with dhimmis tolerated so long as they accept their subordinate legal and social status (“and feel themselves subdued"). The alternative for dhimmis is war or death.

Nevertheless, Muslims understand that this global mission cannot be completed in a day. In an Islamic country like Saudi Arabia, where they are in a position to impose sharia in full, that is exactly what they do. In other places, the degree of imposition depends on relative Islamic strength, and it increases as that strength increases. Thus, the standard Muslim position on “Palestine,” where Islamic strength is growing but not yet dominant: Muslims are to be permitted to live freely within the Jewish state, but all Jews must be purged from Palestinian territories. Again, that’s not an al-Qaeda position; it’s the mainstream Islamic view.

To the extent there is a mainstream dissenting view, it is that the Jewish state should be annihilated immediately — not that the two sides should live in reciprocally tolerant harmony.

In the United States, there is no threat to religious liberty . . . except where there are high concentrations of Muslims. Not high concentrations of al-Qaeda sympathizers — high concentrations of Muslims. As Muslims have flocked to Dearborn, Mich., for example, Henry Ford’s hometown has become infamous for its support of Hezbollah. Recently, four Christian missionaries were arrested by Dearborn police for the crime of handing out copies of St. John’s gospel on a public street outside an Arab festival. The police called it disturbing the peace. But the peace was disturbed only due to the foreboding sense that Muslims might take riotous offense, because sharia forbids the preaching of religions other than Islam.

In Minneapolis, where thousands of Somalis have settled, taxpayers are being forced to support sharia-compliant mortgages and at least one Islamic charter school. Meantime, taxi drivers refuse to ferry passengers suspected of carrying alcohol, and a student in need of a dog’s assistance for medical reasons was driven from school due to threats from Muslim students against him and the animal — because sharia regards canines as unclean.

This aggression is a deliberate strategy, called “voluntary apartheid.” The idea, as explained by influential Sunni cleric Yusuf Qaradawi (the Muslim Brotherhood’s spiritual guide), counsels that Muslims in the West must push political leaders to indulge what he claims is their “right to live according to our faith — ideologically, legislatively, and ethically.” It is what imam Feisal Rauf means when he urges America to become more sharia-friendly by allowing “religious communities more leeway to judge among themselves, according to their laws.”

This is not the promotion of religious liberty. In America, President Obama observed, religious liberty welcomes “people of all faiths.” Contemporary Islam, by contrast, is counseling supremacism. It rips at our seams, demanding that Americans accept parallel Islamic societies, because Muslims must reject the mores of non-Islamic societies.

This same thinking undergirds Islam’s rejection of freedom of conscience, including the Koran’s prescription, in Sura 4:89, of the death penalty for those who renounce their Islamic faith (“They would have you disbelieve as they themselves have disbelieved, so that you may be all like alike. Do not befriend them. . . . If they desert you seize them and put them to death wherever you find them.”) Again, this is not an al-Qaeda doctrine. As the scholar Ibn Warraq observes, it is the interpretation shared by all classical schools of Muslim jurisprudence.

Moreover, the same theory that considers every Muslim to be a Muslim forever — whether he wants to be one or not — analogously holds that if a given inch of land has ever been under Islamic domain, it is Islam’s property in perpetuity. There is a reason Islamic maps of Palestine do not reflect the existence of Israel and that Spain is called al-Andalus.

This president, uniquely, could have framed that question in the right way. He could have called on Muslims who claim to be moderate to reject Hamas, Hezbollah, and al-Qaeda explicitly, by name and without equivocation. He could have called for them to support freedom of conscience, to support the right of Muslims to leave the faith. He could have called for Muslims to reject the second-class citizenship to which sharia condemns women and non-Muslims. He could have demanded that they accept the right of homosexuals to live without fear of persecution. He could have called for a declaration that sharia is a matter of private contemplation that has no place in the formation of public policy.

The president may not have noticed, but the commitment of the Saudis and the Muslim Brotherhood to religious intolerance is utterly unshakable.

 

[Oldvol75]

2,800 miles, east or west!

 

[rjd970]

I can't find a single post in this thread that I 100% agree with. Everybody has good points, but I disagree in part with everybody as well. Here is my stance:

All religion is bogus. Muslim, Christianity...whatever.

Implying parts of Islam have been perverted just like parts of Christianity have been perverted is nonsense. By every measure, Islamic doctrine is worse. I can cite several hundred passages in the Qu'ran alone that overtly endorse violence against non-believers and implicitly endorse terrorism. This is not an endorsement of Christianity. It has its own problems as well. But let's face it, not all religions are created equal.

Given the above statement, it is safe to assume there is a higher proportion of radical believers in Islam than other mainstream religions.

The muslim group has every right to build a Mosque wherever they want.

They absolutely should not build it so close to ground zero. The fact that they want to implies other motives (propaganda, validation of beliefs, etc).

In the end, I honestly don't care either way, but I can empathize with those who lost loved ones on 9/11.

...anybody in here agree with all that?

 

[BeecherVol]

I can't find a single post in this thread that I 100% agree with. Everybody has good points, but I disagree in part with everybody as well. Here is my stance:

All religion is bogus. Muslim, Christianity...whatever.

Implying parts of Islam have been perverted just like parts of Christianity have been perverted is nonsense. By every measure, Islamic doctrine is worse. I can cite several hundred passages in the Qu'ran alone that overtly endorse violence against non-believers and implicitly endorse terrorism. This is not an endorsement of Christianity. It has its own problems as well. But let's face it, not all religions are created equal.

Given the above statement, it is safe to assume there is a higher proportion of radical believers in Islam than other mainstream religions.

The muslim group has every right to build a Mosque wherever they want.

They absolutely should not build it so close to ground zero. The fact that they want to implies other motives (propaganda, validation of beliefs, etc).

In the end, I honestly don't care either way, but I can empathize with those who lost loved ones on 9/11.

...anybody in here agree with all that?

I agree with the bold.:good!:

 

[BeecherVol]

ooops.

Didn't see the "all" that.

Carry on.