Tag Archives: ground zero mosque

September 17th, 2010: International Have a Meal with a Muslim Day

In response to the Florida pastor who recently called people to an “International Burn a Koran Day,” I thought I’d set my own International event, a siren call, not to hate, but to love and dialogue: September 17, 2010: International Have … Continue reading

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Islam is Not a Religion of Peace, But Cordoba House Should Be Built Anyway: Leon Wieseltier on Islam’s Responsibility for 9/11

At the New Republic today, Leon Wieseltier, the magazine’s literary editor and one of my all-time favorite essayists, makes an excellent distinction that I would endorse: he writes that, while he is prepared to release Muslims of collective guilt for 9/11, he is not prepared to … Continue reading

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Herderian Religious Cleansing, 1930s style, in Malaysia and the United States

Here’s an image of a book burning in Berlin, May 10, 1933: And here’s an image of a burned out synagogue after Krisallnacht (November, 1938): These two images are what anti-Enlightenment Herderian political action so readily devolves into. And now here … Continue reading

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Tea Party Herderian Terrorism? Mosque Building Site Fire in Tennessee Ruled an Arson

This at CBS News last night: Federal officials are investigating a fire that started overnight at the site of a new Islamic center in a Nashville suburb. Ben Goodwin of the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Department confirmed to CBS Affiliate WTVF … Continue reading

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The Ground Zero Mosque: Jason Rosenhouse on Muslim American Collective Guilt for 9-11

At EvolutionBlog, Jason Rosenhouse weighs in on the proposed mosque at ground zero: The notion that somehow there is a radius around Ground Zero that is now a Muslim-free zone is obscene and bigoted. This isn’t even an issue of … Continue reading

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Muslim Americans and the Ground Zero Mosque: Countering Stereotypes

This recently at the American Prospect website: A 2007 Pew Study on Muslim Americans found “them to be largely assimilated, happy with their lives, and moderate with respect to many of the issues that have divided Muslims and Westerners around the … Continue reading

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The Ground Zero Mosque: Are We a Judeo-Christian Country or a Jeffersonian Country?

Muhammad Al-Zekri, a Muslim who is also a Bahraini anthropologist, gets it. He thinks that the ground zero mosque debate is good for America. This today in the New York Times: ‘What’s happening in America is very healthy,’ said Muhammad Al-Zekri, a … Continue reading

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Mosque NIMBY (Not in My Backyard) Spreading from Ground Zero to Other Parts of America

We all like for the lights to come on, but we don’t necessarily want to look out of our kitchen windows and see a nuclear power plant alongside what was once a pristine bay. Likewise, we all like the First … Continue reading

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Maureen Dowd on Some Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Anti-Muslim Crowds

In a recent New York Times column, Maureen Dowd tracks some of the Herderite stupidity swirling around the so-called ground zero mosque: The dispute over the Islamic center has tripped some deep national lunacy. The unbottled anger and suspicion concerning ground zero show … Continue reading

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Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin Have No Jeffersonian Clothes: Ron Paul Favors the Building of the Ground Zero Mosque and Castigates Its Opponents

The so-called ground zero mosque is generating a rift between Jeffersonian libertarian conservatives and those who identify with the Herderite Tea Partiers. The latest evidence of this split can be found in a statement released by the libertarian congressman, Ron Paul, who wrote … Continue reading

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Confounding Al Qaeda and Affirming America: Aziz Poonawalla on the Ground Zero Mosque

At BeliefNet, a Muslim American, Aziz Poonawalla, weighs in on the ground zero mosque debate: My general take on the debate is that it really does boil down to an issue not just of religious freedom but also a means of putting into practice … Continue reading

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Head Scarves, Mosque Hysteria, and the New Antisemitism

Above: a sixteenth century British woman wearing a wimple. Source: Wikipedia Commons. The wimple appears in the King James Version of the Bible as one of the civilizing garments that women wear (Isaiah 3:22). Isaiah suggests that it would be … Continue reading

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Toward Muslim American Citizens, Sarah Palin Plays the Dolchstoss Card (the Dagger Thrust from the Enemy Within)

Above: a 1919 postcard image of a Jew stabbing a German soldier in the back. Source: Wikipedia Commons. The dolchstoss  (dagger thrust) legend was a canard perpetrated by German conservatives after the first World War. The claim was that the German … Continue reading

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Amy Goodman on the Ground Zero Mosque: This is Not a Time for Silence

At TruthDig, Amy Goodman bemoans those who have fallen silent over the mosque near ground zero and asks a good question: [There is an] absence of people in the U.S. in leadership positions in every walk of life, of every political stripe, … Continue reading

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Chris Hedges and the Ground Zero Mosque

Earlier in the summer, one of my favorite writers, Chris Hedges, offered an incisive and scathing critique of Anti-Enlightenment Christian nationalism in America. And, in light of the ground zero mosque controversy, it seems all the more timely: Tens of … Continue reading

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Keith Olbermann on Ground Zero Mosque Hysteria

Keith Olbermann deconstructs the bigotry, lies, and demagoguery surrounding the so-called ground zero mosque:

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Three Casualties of the Ground Zero Mosque: The Enlightenment, the American Constitution, and the Bill of Rights?

It has hit me forcefully this past weekend that the United States is facing a challenge to the very character of its existence: will we continue to be an Enlightenment-based Jeffersonian nation committed to treating people as individuals with universal reason and … Continue reading

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Fareed Zakaria Says No to Muslim American Collective Guilt for 9-11 and Yes to the Ground Zero Mosque

Rafiq Zakaria, a politician and Islamic scholar in India, was a voice of moderation in Islam, and raised an extraordinary son, Fareed Zakaria. Fareed Zakaria is a Yale and Harvard trained political scientist, and has become a prominent voice for reason and the Enlightenment in the … Continue reading

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Newt Gingrich, Kristallnacht, and the Ground Zero Mosque

The so-called Ground Zero mosque is actually blocks from Ground Zero and blocked from view at Ground Zero by larger buildings. But never mind. Herderite Republicans like Newt Gingrich smell blood in the water and are earnestly rallying their Tea Party Brown Shirts … Continue reading

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“Improvised Explosive Devices”: Bryan Fischer Says No to the Ground-Zero Mosque—and All Mosques

Here’s Bryan Fischer, a Herderian Christian nationalist from the American Family Association, attributing to American Muslims collective guilt for 9-11 and calling all mosques in America “improvised explosive devices”: Permits should not be granted to build even one more mosque in the … Continue reading

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