It’s so maddening when I read these comments to a Reuter’s news story about the Ground Zero Mosque controversy. I think about 80% of the comments are opposed to the mosque, but no one seems to understand the key point. That key point is, This mosque is not intended as a place of worship. I want to shake everyone who is commenting on this story! Can’t you think for yourselves? They’re all treating this as a case of a peace-loving imam who wants to build bridges of understanding, but he wants to build this mosque in a place that is offensive to the 9/11 families, so they want him to go build it somewhere else. Think people! If all he really wanted to do was worship, he would build it somewhere else. Dig just a little deeper into the news, and you’ll find comments by other Muslims who are truly peace-loving, who understand this, and who are telling us that this mosque is a trophy mosque. He is poking his finger in the eye of the 9/11 families. Do you think he is deaf, that he can’t hear the uproar he is causing? A reasonable man, who truly wanted peace and brotherhood, would back off. He wants to rub salt in the wound because he wants it to hurt, and hurt bad. How naive can you be?
But I understand. The comments are from people who trust Reuters as their news source, so we can’t expect too much independent thought from them.
‘Religious’ tolerance?
The privileges of being classed as religion should be withdrawn from Islam.
If Hitler had claimed that ‘Mein Kampf’ was dictated by God, would we be forced to tolerate the Nazi Party as a religion? Islam is first and foremost a mind-destroying, totalitarian political ideology that spreads through the Body Politic like a virus.
Winston Churchill gave the correct diagnosis over a century ago, when he compared Islam to a contagious virus or meme – ‘as dangerous in a man as rabies in a dog’ http://crombouke.blogspot.com/2010/01/islam-murder-meme-and-rabies-of.html
Consequently, Islam should be reclassified from ‘RELIGION’ to ‘PUBLIC MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEM’ – a virulent contagious mental illness. It could then be contained by the methods used to prevent the spread of typhoid and other lethal epidemics: enforced exclusion and quarantine of carriers, eradication of foci of infection, immunization of the susceptible population etc.
Response from David Hall –
Thank you for your comment, but I disagree. In my role with public affairs for the LDS Church in eastern Iowa, I had a chance to work with Muslims on the local interfaith council and became good friends with a local imam and his family. I respected them as another religion and found that we shared some common values. I think we need to draw a distinction between those Muslims who believe in peace and tolerance and those who believe in hate or violence.