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The mosque near ground zero would be insulting... That's pretty much under the same thinking that all Muslims are extremists.

For one, the mosque wasn't going to be just a religious building. The people behind the project compared it to a YMCA (which was originally a Christian organization, for those who don't know). It was more of a community meeting place. Conference rooms, auditorium, a swimming pool, athletic equipment. It was going to be an office building. Not some minaret-studded piece of ancient architecture. There was going to be a small mosque situated in the building, yes, but religious meetings were not the sole purpose of this building.

"There would be education forums, conferences and basically it would become a place where ideas can be exchanged but tolerance, mutual respect can be extended."

Yeah... real insulting.

To me, it was more insulting that Americans protested it being built. For a country that preaches equality, toleration of other religions and races, and freedom, we sure live up to those words, huh?

And the extremists ate all that debate and protest up happily. They simply had to preach "I told you so," and point to America isolating Muslims and rejecting their religion. Personally, I think we did a great job in supporting the extremist cause in that little debacle...

Muslim is a peaceful religion. The extremists are VASTLY outnumbered by the modernist and traditional members. But, as always, its the loudest, most violent voice that gets heard. And people always associate that voice with the face of the group.

lolrant

This video, starting at around 4 minutes in and on, basically sums up what I think about stuff like this.

I love Jon Stewart. <3

~tilllllts head~

~tillllts head other way~
...
I...suppose I can kind of see what you're thinking. But non-extreme muslims use mosques as well.

So we should ban all Christian churches from Poland?

After all, Poland was the country most affected by the Holocaust, which took the lives of six million Jews and countless others.

Hitler was Christian. He did it in the name of an Aryan Christ.

The Crusades? Spanish Inquisition? Christians. If you refused to convert to Christianity, you were tortured. Brutally. Horrendously. If you refused, still? Death (typically by being burned alive).


People say it's "the mosque at Ground Zero," which really isn't accurate.

It's a multi-faith community center several blocks away from Ground Zero.

There's a strip club closer to the site. :/

Well...yes...but fanatical Christians will use any church in the country, crazy scientologists will use any, uh, whatever-you-call-their-gathering-places-anyways...

It just seems like if we follow that to it's logical conclusion, every gathering place of any kind should be closed down, because crazies can use it.

Just to put things in perspective:

Two comments.

One - the greatest tragedy of the last decade? Okay, it was big and bad, I'll grant you that. But are you sure about that? I'm sure some of the natural disasters we've had since then claimed far more lifes.

Two: If they did plan for it to be built there...so what? It's not like they were trying to build a missile silo. It honestly could have been a symbol of peace and understanding if completed...instead of becoming this thing of hatred and fear that it's been turned into.

Edit: Double checked. 9/11 killed 2,977 people. Compare that to something like the earthquakes in Haiti that killed over 316 000 and, well... =/