Proposed Mosque Near Ground Zero

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by FeminineAllure

I was simply offering anothers opinion and point of view. I am not scared of Muslims. And thank you, as I see who I am dealing with as well.

I hope you will take this in the spirit in which it is given, FA. You say you see who you are dealing with but I wonder if you do. Most everyone here arguing the other side simply wants a cogent, coherent, *reason* to oppose this community center that doesn't rely on stereotypes, breathless accusations of Muslim triumphalism or other non-evidence based arguments. I know that's all I want.

Look, I get it that you oppose this community center being built. I also understand that it can be lonely arguing a contrary opinion on a message board. However, if you say you oppose this community center and your opposition is based upon the idea that this is inappropriate then the rest of us are perfectly within reason to ask why it is inappropriate. But, unless I missed a post of yours, I haven't really read an argument why this center shouldn't be built. I certainly haven't had one that met the Kantian imperative that one should never back a law, ethic or principle that one would not want to see applied universally without prejudice.

So let's say, for instance, that you were to wake up tomorrow morning and find that an a Christian church in, say, Indonesia (the largest Muslim country in the world) had been burnt to the ground. The BBC, doing 'man on the street', interviews in Jakarta shows person after person saying "we burned this church to the ground because of all the Muslims who have been killed by Christians". Would you shrug your shoulders and say "well, of course" or would you feel an injustice had been done? What if, the day after that, you saw a headline that Indonesia had passed a law saying you could not practice Christianity in that nation? Again, the BBC interviews the average Indonesian and again you hear that it is insensitive for Christians to be in a Muslim nation given all the demonstrable blood shed by Christians. Would you agree, at least in principle, with the passage of said law or would you, again, think an injustice had been done? The following day you wake up and you see an American soldier, his face is bruised and bloodied, his lips are swollen. The man in the face mask, standing just behind him with a pistol to his head, says that this soldier is the first but not the last who will pay with his blood for deaths of all the Muslims who died in Iraq and Afghanistan. Would you think that this was a reasonable act? On another day, there is footage of a mass Bible burning. Would you think that this was fine because the Bible is the book of Christians and the people setting the book to the torch are Muslims.

I doubt that any of those would sit well with you. So is this principle of "its insensitive" one that you would want applied universally without favor or prejudice?

Cheers
Aj