I really don't like the sound of doing this. Yes we live in an era of tolerance for one another and open Ideas but I know some history and this can be interpreted to resemble different things. pending on your view of course.
Several posts back said its like 2 blocks away or something? that is a huge factor to consider.
But none the less in history its not an uncommon practice to put up a place of worship to commemorate a major victory or just battle in general.
Using some logic like that you can make and interpretation that would offend new yorkers and others, hence why I think its a bad idea in general. I do admit I'm stretching the details a little to make my point.
Except, again, there doesn't seem to be any evidence that this is their intention.
I absolutely agree that having a group that is pro-Jihadist would be incredibly offensive to say the least, but this is a group that seems to denounce extremist violence, and since that is the case, I fail to see the problem with letting them build a mosque there. Should Islamists not be allowed to mourn the dead of 9/11?
Until someone tells me that this group is advocating anything other than peace, and that any actual desecration of the victims of 9/11 and their memory is happening, all we're seeing is baseless accusations in the naysaying posts, which means that every post and statement against this mosque being built only emphasizes the need for this mosque to be built. Right now, I'm seeing fear and ignorance towards people who are different, and such fear and ignorance fueling people to make rash accusations towards people without attempting to understand them at all. I cannot imagine anything more fitting for Ground Zero than a building dedicated to helping to dispel this and promote understanding, tolerance, and peace amongst one another, nor anything more fitting to the memory of those who died there.
...every post and statement against this mosque being built only emphasizes the need for this mosque to be built. Right now, I'm seeing fear and ignorance towards people who are different, and such fear and ignorance fueling people to make rash accusations towards people without attempting to understand them at all. I cannot imagine anything more fitting for Ground Zero than a building dedicated to helping to dispel this and promote understanding, tolerance, and peace amongst one another, nor anything more fitting to the memory of those who died there.
+1, this is very well put and I completely agree.
Even if it wasn't dedicated to dispel the prejudice, I think there's no need to worry about it if it was built just as a place of Islamic worship (as long as the building's purpose isn't malevolent).
Edit: @ TheCadet and Mystery: I do agree that there may very well be some blowback. But I do think that building it is a step forward.
I agree 100%, However the difference is christianity changed and people began seeing the how it was suppose to be praticed not by some power hungery people wearing a priests uniform but what was actually written in the book.
if you look at islam as a whole it hasn't changed much in the past several thousand years and is still practiced today almost the same as it was back then except for a few things. just take a look at the middle east. where honor killings and other things still occur today.
That feels completely inaccurate. It is almost like saying that the crazy white supremacist movement(Whites are what the bible was for RAR!), somehow means Christians in general need to change seems off?
I fail to see the problem with letting them build a mosque there. Should Islamists not be allowed to mourn the dead of 9/11?
sure they are allowed to but lets do it in a way that doesn't create strife in the community yes?
they can put a plaque or a monument with the names or people that died or just one monument for everyone. why build a huge building that people identify with something negative?
that isn't how you win friends and influence people.
That feels completely inaccurate. It is almost like saying that the crazy white supremacist movement(Whites are what the bible was for RAR!), somehow means Christians in general need to change seems off?
Actually the bible was for everyone. In fact countless ethnic groups were invited and present during biblical times. it wasn't written for the crazy white supremacist movement. they might have tried to hijack it but that isn't who it was written for.
i can count 2 instances off the bat and i am sure there are more.
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I agree 100%, However the difference is christianity changed and people began seeing the how it was suppose to be praticed not by some power hungery people wearing a priests uniform but what was actually written in the book.
if you look at islam as a whole it hasn't changed much in the past several thousand years and is still practiced today almost the same as it was back then except for a few things. just take a look at the middle east. where honor killings and other things still occur today.
sure they are allowed to but lets do it in a way that doesn't create strife in the community yes?
they can put a plaque or a monument with the names or people that died or just one monument for everyone. why build a huge building that people identify with something negative?
that isn't how you win friends and influence people.
Actually the bible was for everyone. In fact countless ethnic groups were invited and present during biblical times. it wasn't written for the crazy white supremacist movement. they might have tried to hijack it but that isn't who it was written for.
i can count 2 instances off the bat and i am sure there are more.
Is that overly relevant? The Koran wasnt written for jihadist either, it has simply been used as a means to an end, much like the crusades, white power movement etc etc.
Is that overly relevant? The Koran wasnt written for jihadist either, it has simply been used as a means to an end, much like the crusades, white power movement etc etc.
All i am saying is that the practice of christianity has evolved through the years. yes during the dark ages it had its major problems as the church hijacked it and did things that were just not correct nor was preached in the bible.
islam not so much. more so if you look at middle east countries.
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islam not so much. more so if you look at middle east countries.
Well, to be fair, Christianity had like a 600-year head start (even if you say "Christianity started after the 4th century"), so we should expect an Islamic Reformation... sometime in the next century, actually (~1517 + 600 = 2117). Wheeee?
In general, I'd like to point out that I don't think it's even a mosque...?
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Do I Contradict Myself? Very Well Then I Contradict Myself.
If run right, there is no better place for a mosque.
Islam is a religion of peace. And innocent Muslims died in the towers. Muslims have every right to build a place of memorial for the dead, both their coreligionists and all the rest, just as Christians have a right to build churches at sites where other Christians have done great evils.
And though those already radicalized are undoubtedly beyond such messages, acceptance of the mosque just might say to the rest of the Muslim world that America does not see Islam as its enemy. (For that matter, some Americans seem to need this message, too.)
Of course, if the mosque becomes a place for militants to gather and celebrate the 9/11 attacks, that is as unacceptable as Fred Phelps protesting at funerals. But something tells me that is not what will happen.
[...]every post and statement against this mosque being built only emphasizes the need for this mosque to be built. Right now, I'm seeing fear and ignorance towards people who are different, and such fear and ignorance fueling people to make rash accusations towards people without attempting to understand them at all. I cannot imagine anything more fitting for Ground Zero than a building dedicated to helping to dispel this and promote understanding, tolerance, and peace amongst one another, nor anything more fitting to the memory of those who died there.
This, every word of it. [/end thread] How can one disagree with that?
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sure they are allowed to but lets do it in a way that doesn't create strife in the community yes?
The strife in the community is due to people being unable to tolerate the presence of Muslims by Ground Zero.
In other words, I don't see how you can accuse the people building the mosque of being the ones creating strife.
why build a huge building that people identify with something negative?
To get people to stop identifying it with something negative. It's called religious tolerance and perspective.
"People not liking it because they're intolerant" is not a valid reason for not building this mosque, I'm sorry.
Were the people building the mosque intolerant, thus making their building a symbol of intolerance, that would be a valid reason. This does not seem to be the case, and in fact, an effort towards exactly the opposite seems to be in effect. Lest that proves otherwise, I fail to see any valid reason for not building the mosque (aside from any kind of building code or zoning violations, obviously).
The strife in the community is due to people being unable to tolerate the presence of Muslims by Ground Zero.
In other words, I don't see how you can accuse the people building the mosque of being the ones creating strife.
in a way can you honestly blame them? a bit heavy handed maybe but there is a reason more so after the last few attempts that have been thwarted before they could happen.
They are putting a symbol of a religion that 9 years ago attacked this country. Do you not see how that would make some people that experience that feel? I don't think it is about in tolerance but about respect for what happened.
There are tons of things that could be done to represent the innocent muslims that died. while building a mosque is one of them it isn't a very good one.
I find it kinda funny that they are accusing people of being intolerant when it really isn't about tolerance in a way. it is about respect for what happened and the events that took place.
To get people to stop identifying it with something negative. It's called religious tolerance and perspective.
sorry i don't see that happening for a while. just like we don't see japanese shrines around pearl harbour for all the innocent japanese people that died there. somethings are better not done at all. this would be one of those things given the nature of NY right now.
It isn't so much religious intolerance as it is respect for the events. like i said they could do a million other things than build a mosque. to me that shows a bit of intolerance on their part wanting to build something knowing what the reaction is going to be.
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They are putting a symbol of a religion that 9 years ago attacked this country.
This is exactly the sort of misconception that we are saying needs to be dispelled. No religion attacked anyone. Extremist jihadists attacked this country.
They are putting a symbol of a religion that 9 years ago attacked this country.
And Christianity is a religion that has committed acts of terrorism within the last year. It doesn't mean we stop building churches. The only reason we don't have public outcry about Churches is because most Americans are Christian. Religious tolerance means we don't let the whim of the majority dictate what others can believe.
- On a religious level, I think this is a very good idea. It's essentially meant as a public apology by moderate Muslims, a way of demonstrating that the people who committed 9/11 and other acts of terrorism were not and are not representative of their faith. As a statement of peace and goodwill, this is entirely appropriate and commendable.
- On the other hand, I'm seriously concerned about the public response. Sadly, many people in America just aren't tolerant and progressive enough to understand the intention of the mosque or accept its presence. Even in New York, which is known for being open-minded and cosmopolitan. I'm worried that the mosque could be attacked by Christian fundamentalists - which, ironically, would actually go a long way in proving the point of the people who built the mosque. There are insane, violent elements in every religion.
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Look, once again, I think that anyone who says, "I don't see why the protesters see this as a big deal" is astoundingly myopic. I do understand where they're coming from.
I don't think any of us would not understand why a person who was attacked by a dog as a young child would develop a fear of dogs. However, we WOULD regard his fear as a phobia, defined as an irrational fear, note the key word "irrational". And the advised method that the parents should proceed to help assuage the child of such fears? Get that child a dog. Exposure forms perspective, and perspective will help to teach him that that particular instance was just that, a particular instance, and not a general truth to be applied in every circumstance.
Once again, I fail to see why the protests behind this mosque don't show all the more the need to build it. It is a holy building built by a group of American Muslims to honor the dead of 9/11 and to promote peace and a peaceful expression of Islam, how is such a building NOT a victory?
No, I can't. What if this group were promoting violence? Sure, then I could not honestly blame them, but they aren't.
They are putting a symbol of a religion that 9 years ago attacked this country.
This is exactly the root of the problem.
No RELIGION attacked America on 9/11. Islam does not have written within its holy text, "attack America". What attacked America was a group of violent extremists who use a religion as a means of promoting their violence.
This group is clearly trying to promote the voice within the Islamist community trying to condemn such violence. Why would you punish them, the very people who want exactly the opposite of what the attackers of 9/11 wanted?
I don't think it is about in tolerance but about respect for what happened.
How is stopping an attempt at mutual understanding amongst those who believe different things for the purposes of promoting peace supposed to honor the people who died in 9/11, who died specifically because one group of people decided to reject any attempts at understanding or peace amongst those they perceived as different?
Also, if you'll read the article, apparently members of this particular Muslim community were among the casualties in 9/11. You want to tell me how you're honoring their memory by promoting anti-Islamist sentiment?
I find it kinda funny that they are accusing people of being intolerant when it really isn't about tolerance in a way. it is about respect for what happened and the events that took place.
Once again, HOW are you respecting the people who died by promoting an inability to tolerate people different from you?
this would be one of those things given the nature of NY right now.
I just wanted to highlight this. "Right now"? "The nature of NY right now"?
So when is the cut off date then? At what point is the quarantine for Muslims over and is anyone who is Muslim allowed near Ground Zero? At what point does it become ok to allow Islam to be near Ground Zero?
When does it become a good time for New York to acknowledge that you're not supposed to judge all people for what one group did? Really, you're attempting to honor the memory of people who died as a result of prejudice and ignorance and intolerance BY PROMOTING prejudice and ignorance and intolerance. How does this register as a good idea?
It isn't so much religious intolerance
It IS religious intolerance, mystery, how can you argue it's not? You're saying all Muslims are the same!
One group of people promotes suicide bombings, another group of people condemns them and actually had people within its group killed by the former causing suicide bombings. Taken in a vacuum, how can you argue these two are similar? But apparently because they both hold the same religion, clearly not the same beliefs, but the same religion, any differences between these two magically disappear and we should judge them solely on the actions of one extremist group of Muslims.
like i said they could do a million other things than build a mosque.
Yes, but they're building a holy building to honor those that died. That is a pretty remarkable gesture.
to me that shows a bit of intolerance on their part wanting to build something knowing what the reaction is going to be.
Martin Luther King lead a fight against intolerance and prejudice knowing what the reaction was going to be too, and I think we're all pretty thankful he did.
- On the other hand, I'm seriously concerned about the public response. Sadly, many people in America just aren't tolerant and progressive enough to understand the intention of the mosque or accept its presence. Even in New York, which is known for being open-minded and cosmopolitan. I'm worried that the mosque could be attacked by Christian fundamentalists - which, ironically, would actually go a long way in proving the point of the people who built the mosque. There are insane, violent elements in every religion.
I feel that if people choose to believe their religious beliefs and to honor American values, despite the risk that people who are intolerant might use violence in an attempt to get them to stop, that will indeed honor the people who died at 9/11.
Religious freedom is one of the fundamentals on which America is built.
Not allowing the construction of a mosque near ground zero would strenghten the position of islam extremists and terrorists. The message to the normal majority of peaceful muslims would not be good or smart. ("for us, you're all terrorists")
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Religious freedom is one of the fundamentals on which America is built.
Not allowing the construction of a mosque near ground zero would strenghten the position of islam extremists and terrorists. The message to the normal majority of peaceful muslims would not be good or smart. ("for us, you're all terrorists")
One thing I love is all the "I Heart my religion" and "I heart founding fathers" and "I heart the constitution" less educated americans spam like a broken record. One could get lynched for telling them the founding fathers ended up in america because they wanted to leave europ and its over emphasis on religion. How ironic.
sorry i don't see that happening for a while. just like we don't see japanese shrines around pearl harbour for all the innocent japanese people that died there. somethings are better not done at all. this would be one of those things given the nature of NY right now.
It isn't so much religious intolerance as it is respect for the events. like i said they could do a million other things than build a mosque. to me that shows a bit of intolerance on their part wanting to build something knowing what the reaction is going to be.
Dr. Whitehurst is professor of religion at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington. This article appeared in the Christian Century November 21, 1984, p. 1100. Copyright by the Christian Century Foundation and used by permission. Current articles and subscription information can be found at www.christiancentury.org. This material was prepared for Religion Online by Ted & Winnie Brock.
by James Whitehurst
Dr. Whitehurst is professor of religion at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington. This article appeared in the Christian Century November 21, 1984, p. 1100. Copyright by the Christian Century Foundation and used by permission. Current articles and subscription information can be found at www.christiancentury.org. This material was prepared for Religion Online by Ted & Winnie Brock.
An American flag waves briskly in the breeze beside a Shinto shrine on the major freeway leading from Honolulu to Pearl Harbor. Just five miles away is the spot where Japanese planes dropped their bombs on the American fleet. Few tourists rushing between Pearl Harbor and Waikiki realize the deep irony that flag symbolizes. But for those who fought in World War II or know the history of that encounter, the sight of an American flag at a shrine so closely associated with the adversary calls forth a whole complex of reactions.
It was Shinto, the native religion of Japan, that had not only given its wholehearted support to the war machine but had provided its very rationale: the myths and legends that led directly to the kamakazi pilots. Shinto taught that the emperor was a descendant of the very gods who had created their islands and that Japan thus had a mandate to rule the “world under one roof” (Hakko Ichiu).
The idea that such a religion could ever find a home in America would have seemed preposterous in the 1940s. In fact, at the close of the war one of the arguments used against statehood for Hawaii was that the Japanese population in Hawaii was so great and their loyalties so questionable that it would be risky to include them in our commonwealth.
Suspicion about the Japanese was building up long before Pearl Harbor, of course. In the 1930s, when Japan was invading China, Japanese women solicited funds on the streets of Honolulu for good-luck headbands for the soldiers. Imported films glorified Japan’s conquests; when Hankow and Canton fell, victory services were held in Shinto shrines in Hawaii. The emperor’s birthday was celebrated each year, and it was rumored that the Shinto god of war, Hachiman, was worshiped in one of Honolulu’s shrines.
Once Hawaii was attacked, all of this changed. Japanese leaders, including Shinto priests, were rounded up and deported. It was impossible to resettle all of the Japanese, as California had done, for they constituted nearly one-third of the population. The people of Hawaii simply had to learn to live together despite their qualms. Suspicions continued for a while: Shinto shrines were considered a hotbed of subversive activities by some and were vandalized; Japanese maids were thought to be spies; Japanese fishermen were believed to have directed the pilots of the emperor to their targets.
Nisei (second-generation Japanese) were eager to allay such suspicions. The 100th Reserve Officers Training Corps unit at the University of Hawaii was eager to fight in the war and prove that Japanese were loyal citizens of the territory. They soon got their opportunity as part of the much-decorated 442nd Battalion (all Japanese) that fought in Italy and France and, on VE Day, led the parade of Allied Forces.
Elderly Japanese did not find it so easy to shift allegiances. For years, their hopes had been pinned on the invincibility of the emperor; never in its 2,000-year history had Japan been conquered. One small group, the Doshikai, even refused to believe that the empire had collapsed in the summer of 1945. In October of that year, rumors surfaced in Honolulu that Japan had really won and that Prince Takamisu was on his way to Hawaii to negotiate a surrender. It was even whispered that President Harry Truman was going to Tokyo to apologize for the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
In light of the persistence of such beliefs among a people nurtured with Shinto myths, it is understandable that many Americans felt it necessary to crush the Shinto faith once and for all. General Douglas MacArthur was in a quandary. Though he believed firmly in the freedom of religion, he saw the hold that fanatical Shintoism had on the Japanese mind. He pondered the matter for weeks; the solution finally came in the Allied Directive of December 15, 1945. Shinto was to be completely disestablished: it could not be taught in Japan’s public schools, state funding would be eliminated, and the emperor would be persuaded to denounce his divinity (to “de-god” himself, as the GIs called it). On January 1, 1946, Emperor Hirohito shocked Japan with a radio announcement -- broadcast repeatedly, so there could be no misunderstanding -- stating that it was a mistake to think of him as a descendant of the gods or that the Japanese were a superior people.
That such a nationalistic religion could be found on American soil was a shock to me when I first encountered it 20 years ago, shortly after Hawaii became a state. I discovered that Shinto had come to Hawaii with Japanese workers looking for jobs on the sugar plantations a little more than a century ago. When they found they liked Hawaii and decided to stay, the workers sent word home for brides. Parents arranged marriages, and soon boatloads of “picture brides,” as they were called, landed in Honolulu. Although marriages had been meticulously planned, the missionary-educated Hawaiians had qualms about their legality. To satisfy the public outcry, hasty weddings were arranged. At the Izumo Tai Shi shrine in downtown Honolulu, there were as many as 100 weddings a day. From these unions issued a population explosion that soon flooded the islands.
The immigrants brought with them their godshelves (kamidana) and the numerous festivals (matsuri), primarily associated with the agricultural cycle. As they became prosperous and moved to the cities, they constructed Shinto shrines. Their celebrations, especially the New Year’s festival, became a part of the Hawaiian landscape.
America prides itself on its religious pluralism, its hospitality to all races and religions. But how did a religion which was so much a part of the distinctive Japanese way of life manage to survive on U.S. soil?
My search for an answer took me first to an investigation of the postwar status of Shinto in Japan. In an interview with Professor Naofusa Hirai at the Kokugakuin University (a Shinto institution) in Tokyo, I learned that Shinto is a religion of nature; its deities (kami) are personifications of natural forces such as rivers, seas, mountains, fire and wind -- powers that create a sense of awe and wonder in the human spirit. Professor Hirai regrets the way Shinto became a tool of the state, apart of the war cult. “Shinto is eager,” he said. “to shake off these nationalistic accretions and move strongly in the direction of internationalism.’’ He, with other Shinto leaders, would interpret the phrase Hakko Ichiu (the world under one roof) as pointing to the goal of democratic world government. Far from being supernationalistic, Shinto priests today are often active in peace movements.
In returning to Hawaii, I wanted to see how this new interpretation was working in the States. I interviewed Bishop Kazoc Kawasaki, head priest of the Daijingu Shrine on Pali Highway in Honolulu. Kawasaki was himself a victim of wartime prejudice and spent most of the war years in the relocation center at Camp McCoy in Wisconsin. From him I learned how easy it is for Shinto to adapt to new situations, since one of its major teachings is just that: to blend with the social and cosmic environment. Kawasaki, a skillful communicator, employs numerous Western teaching methods such as flip charts and object lessons to get his point across. Although Shinto has generally been viewed as polytheistic, Kawasaki’s flip charts show a decidedly monotheistic emphasis, which undoubtedly communicates better to a Western-educated audience. One Creator God, Hitori Gami. is shown as the source of all lesser kami manifestations.
Kawasaki held up a fun-house mirror at the center of the sanctuary near the large, round mirror that symbolizes Amaterasu, the sun goddess. “We should be perfect mirrors, clean and without blemish,” he said, “and not distort things as this fun-house mirror does.’’ Later he displayed a group of billiard balls in a triangular rack and showed how each ball moves in relation to the others. Comparing them with a display of square blocks, he said. “These cubes are too individualistic: they can’t move well with their surroundings.” A beautiful illustration of accommodation!
In the shrines of Hawaii, I found many examples of survival through adaption. Shinto has not yet succumbed to the Sunday-morning service, as has Buddhism; it celebrates in the evenings on specified days of each month, such as the 10th, 15th and 29th. But a sermon has been added to some services; wooden chairs often replace tatami mats with rounded pillows on the floor: tape-recorded music sometimes replaces the sound of drums, wooden blocks and bamboo flutes. Instead of a bamboo dipper at a basin of flowing water for purification at the entrance to a shrine area, one finds a water faucet, paper cups and a paper-towel dispenser! So far, there is no sign of Bingo, but shrines do regularly have their raffles. Stacks of rice flower, sake and fruit are often placed at the altar; after the gods have consumed the “essence,’’ the food is given away at the end of the services as door prizes.
Through such adaptions, Shinto has made itself at home in its American setting. But Americanization is usually a two-way street. Is there anything to be learned from a religion as alien as Shinto?
Through the years, I have come to respect and appreciate it in ways that would seem impossible for one who grew up during World War II. For one thing, Shinto offers a needed corrective to our domineering attitude toward nature; it maintains a fine-tuned sensitivity to the “ground of Being,” an intuitive awareness of the mystery which created and sustains us. Shinto shrines, with their unpainted surfaces and natural beauty, conjure up a feeling of sacred space as well as provide a place for quiet withdrawal. Passing under a torii arch and washing one’s hands creates an atmosphere of readiness and receptivity. And when one arrives at the portal of the shrine, the simple clapping of the hands and bowing deeply helps one to restore a cosmic balance. Note that it is not an attuning of oneself to nature, as though nature is something outside the self; the Japanese have no word for “nature’’ in that sense. Yet it would be overly romanticizing to say that everything in modern Japan shows a perfect blending of humans and the environment; that is more likely a private achievement, expressed more in one’s enclosed garden than in the public arena -- witness the beer bottles littering the pilgrim’s path up Mt. Fuji!
Is nature mysticism impossible in a secular age then? Alfred Bloom of the University of Hawaii’s religion department thinks not. He insists that Shintoists. for all their love of nature, are still firmly grounded in the mundane world of business and economics. A Shinto priest sees nothing incongruous about waving his harai-gushi (purification wand with paper streamers) over the nose cone of a Boeing 747 and blessing it for secular use. Even in the machine he senses something that is more than just machine, since the divine is at the heart of all matter, even the technological products humans create. Perhaps there is something here that Westerners can appropriate.
If there is something to be gained from Shinto, there is also a pitfall to beware of: the peril that comes from too closely associating religion and culture. Shinto now regrets its close wartime associations with an imperialistic state, when it was used as a tool by the warlords.
I grew up in a church in Ft. Wayne. Indiana, where a prominent stained-glass window portrayed a cross before an American flag -- as though there were no conflict between the two. And as a young pastor in Rockford, Illinois, I found that an American flag simply could not be removed from the sanctuary without splitting the church. My experience tells me that in a good many churches it would be easier to remove the cross. Are our temptations really so different from those that faced Shinto? We have our own myths of divine origin as a nation blessed by God with a “manifest destiny” to bring a large share of this continent ‘‘under one roof.” A better knowledge of Shinto’s history might save us from a ‘‘cultural Christianity’’ which tells people only what they want to hear.
In my youth, “Japs” were pictured as slant-eyed terrorists with bombs in their hands and daggers between their teeth; today the former enemy has become a friend. In wartime Hawaii, Japanese leaders were deported: today, the nisei Daniel Inouye represents our 50th state in the US. Senate. And in the short period of 25 years, the despised religion of Shinto has become domesticated; it is just another sect listed in the Yellow Pages of Hawaii’s telephone books.
An American flag flying beside a Shinto shrine on the freeway to Pearl Harbor! An incredible sight one can encounter only in America. And only in Hawaii could it happen at such breathtaking speed.[/quote]
Of course you can make the argument that "5 miles from Pearl Harbor is different from Ground Zero," however I'd challenge that since Pearl Harbor is still an American base of operations that such a shrine built there isn't extremely practical. However, since New York City is a high density city, it is understandable to build near there.
Community centers that are open like the YMCA do raise property value in the vicinity, and can be extremely useful for neighborhoods to keep youth from falling into the hands of violence or stupid antics. I'm not a big fan of organized religion myself, but frankly to deny that organized religion, even Islam, doesn't do anything useful for communities is counter productive.
Besides, Imam Fesial Abdul Rauf's mosque is 12 blocks from the area built prior to the attacks, anyway. Should we force them to move the mosque, too?
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Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.
Individualities may form communities, but it is institutions alone that can create a nation.
Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success.
Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.
Highroller, I guess you are just not understanding the point of why these people are protesting. It isn't about religious intolerance as mosque's are built other places in NY with no problem would you not agree?
So if they are built in other places in NY with no problem then evidently there isn't any anti-islamic voice out there.
I ask why build a building that they know is going to tick off the community as a whole? to me that is pretty insensitive. again there are a million other ways to honor the dead and people killed so why build a mosque?
Islam does not have written within its holy text, "attack America".
I don't have time but there are dozens of passages in the koran that promote the killing of non-believers of jews and other people. unfortuantly this type of stuff is preached everyday.
Why would you punish them, the very people who want exactly the opposite of what the attackers of 9/11 wanted?
I am not wanting to punish them at all. i am simply asking the question as to why build a mosque when there are millions of other options that would do the same thing and not tick off the local community.
HOW are you respecting the people who died by promoting an inability to tolerate people different from you?
this tells me you are only reading what you want to read and not understanding what i am saying.
If they really really wanted to promote the community or something else then they would a build a neutral building not a mosque. it isn't about tolerating people different from me. it is about recognizing the sensitivity of the situation.
again just the other day another bomb attack was thwarted in NYC. the guy caught and arrested before he could get the bomb off. just more wounds.
it is about not rubbing salt in an open and still sore wound. the effects of 9/11 are like the effects of pearl harbour they are slow to heal. this doesn't help heal the wound but just opens it up again.
there is one more panel that it has to go through before it can be built. we will see whether or not that it makes it through but that won't be until like july or august.
12 blocks
12 blocks is a bit different than 2 would you not agree?
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If it was up to me, there would be no mosques in the states, or anywhere else.
At least it's constant. If you're going to complain about it being 2 blocks away, you might as well pick any arbitrary number.
You just feel justified in complaining about 2 blocks. You WISH you could make it infinity. (I don't mean to pick on you mystery45, this was more of a general "you," not a you you.)
I mean, is there some set distance where people stop caring?
When I hear people complain about it being 2 blocks I really have to wounder why 2 matters so darn much.
As much as I disagree with this statement:
At least it's constant. If you're going to complain about it being 2 blocks away, you might as well pick any arbitrary number.
You just feel justified in complaining about 2 blocks. You WISH you could make it infinity. (I don't mean to pick on you mystery45, this was more of a general "you," not a you you.)
out of sight out of mind comes into play here. if i can't see it then i don't worry about. if i have to walk by it ever friggen day then that is a different story. (i am just being general here).
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out of sight out of mind comes into play here. if i can't see it then i don't worry about. if i have to walk by it ever friggen day then that is a different story. (i am just being general here).
I can understand why someone might have issues with Muslims after what happened on 9/11. But that doesn't mean I have to accept it. Whatever the jihadists did, if this person has trouble simply walking by a mosque, this is absolutely his problem, not that of the mosque's congregation. There is no excuse for an American city to cave in to bigotry, whether it be the bigotry of Muslim zealots or emotionally-battered New Yorkers. People are just going to have to learn to channel their pain and anger towards those who actually deserve it; it's better for everyone (except the terrorists, but ☺☺☺☺ 'em).
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candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
out of sight out of mind comes into play here. if i can't see it then i don't worry about. if i have to walk by it ever friggen day then that is a different story. (i am just being general here).
No you don't have to accept it, but calling other people bigots and saying they are committing bigotry is well not very cool in my book.
to a point they have a legimate complaint. I am almost 100% postive that if they were just building a community center without the mosque part and that it was going to be dedicated to the people that were killed etc.. i doubt there would be an outrage.
that isn't what is going on. the claim to be trying to bridge the gap yet it is doing the exact opposite. unfortuantly i see a blacklash of some kind happening. how bad the backlash is i don't know but i wouldn't put it past some people.
the saying goes you don't kick a bear in the rump while it is sleeping yet that is exactly what they are doing.
like i said there are a million of other things they could put at the site besides a mosque that would actually generate and create a sense of easement in the city, and yet they don't do that.
not really so much as like i said before. there have been other mosques built since 9/11 in NY. yet no outrage on those. people in the city see it has a slap in the face. agree with them or not they have a legimate complaint.
the people building it own the land it is private land they can do whatever they want with it. i guess my opinion would be to build something that doesn't rub salt in a sore wound causing it to burn again.
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the people building it own the land it is private land they can do whatever they want with it. i guess my opinion would be to build something that doesn't rub salt in a sore wound causing it to burn again.
It's called acclimation, people get upset and then they get used to something being there and move on to accept it. It's what most minorities have to do to be accepted, shove something some what provocative yet normal in people's face for them to eventually accept it. Then the provocation is met with outreach from the people involved in the change for good relations, while sidelining negative reactions over time.
Minority's job is not to make people feel okay in their own skin by hiding, the job is to create bonds together and break certain taboos. It's been nine years since 9/11, it's time for people to move on about religious sensitivity. Besides, there's more converts by lonely white people on the internet for these schemes. Perhaps having converts be in a real mosque rather than the internet being fed a line of propaganda, we'd have a more integrated society.
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No you don't have to accept it, but calling other people bigots and saying they are committing bigotry is well not very cool in my book.
to a point they have a legimate complaint. I am almost 100% postive that if they were just building a community center without the mosque part and that it was going to be dedicated to the people that were killed etc.. i doubt there would be an outrage.
Well, I'm skeptical about that myself, but let's say you're right and it's just the "mosque" part that people are objecting to. What is a mosque? A place for Muslims to worship according to their traditions. How is objecting to a building because it's a mosque not religious bigotry?
that isn't what is going on. the claim to be trying to bridge the gap yet it is doing the exact opposite. unfortuantly i see a blacklash of some kind happening. how bad the backlash is i don't know but i wouldn't put it past some people.
I agree with you, backlash might happen, and that would be bad. But if we stop a building from being built because of the potential backlash, the terrorists win - and these terrorists are homegrown American citizens, and all the more revolting for it.
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Except, again, there doesn't seem to be any evidence that this is their intention.
I absolutely agree that having a group that is pro-Jihadist would be incredibly offensive to say the least, but this is a group that seems to denounce extremist violence, and since that is the case, I fail to see the problem with letting them build a mosque there. Should Islamists not be allowed to mourn the dead of 9/11?
Until someone tells me that this group is advocating anything other than peace, and that any actual desecration of the victims of 9/11 and their memory is happening, all we're seeing is baseless accusations in the naysaying posts, which means that every post and statement against this mosque being built only emphasizes the need for this mosque to be built. Right now, I'm seeing fear and ignorance towards people who are different, and such fear and ignorance fueling people to make rash accusations towards people without attempting to understand them at all. I cannot imagine anything more fitting for Ground Zero than a building dedicated to helping to dispel this and promote understanding, tolerance, and peace amongst one another, nor anything more fitting to the memory of those who died there.
+1, this is very well put and I completely agree.
Even if it wasn't dedicated to dispel the prejudice, I think there's no need to worry about it if it was built just as a place of Islamic worship (as long as the building's purpose isn't malevolent).
Edit: @ TheCadet and Mystery: I do agree that there may very well be some blowback. But I do think that building it is a step forward.
That feels completely inaccurate. It is almost like saying that the crazy white supremacist movement(Whites are what the bible was for RAR!), somehow means Christians in general need to change seems off?
Yes i am the same guy who trades/sells on MOTL AND Wizards of the Coast and i trade on POJO.
sure they are allowed to but lets do it in a way that doesn't create strife in the community yes?
they can put a plaque or a monument with the names or people that died or just one monument for everyone. why build a huge building that people identify with something negative?
that isn't how you win friends and influence people.
Actually the bible was for everyone. In fact countless ethnic groups were invited and present during biblical times. it wasn't written for the crazy white supremacist movement. they might have tried to hijack it but that isn't who it was written for.
i can count 2 instances off the bat and i am sure there are more.
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Is that overly relevant? The Koran wasnt written for jihadist either, it has simply been used as a means to an end, much like the crusades, white power movement etc etc.
Yes i am the same guy who trades/sells on MOTL AND Wizards of the Coast and i trade on POJO.
All i am saying is that the practice of christianity has evolved through the years. yes during the dark ages it had its major problems as the church hijacked it and did things that were just not correct nor was preached in the bible.
islam not so much. more so if you look at middle east countries.
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Well, to be fair, Christianity had like a 600-year head start (even if you say "Christianity started after the 4th century"), so we should expect an Islamic Reformation... sometime in the next century, actually (~1517 + 600 = 2117). Wheeee?
In general, I'd like to point out that I don't think it's even a mosque...?
Very Well Then I Contradict Myself.
This, every word of it. [/end thread] How can one disagree with that?
The strife in the community is due to people being unable to tolerate the presence of Muslims by Ground Zero.
In other words, I don't see how you can accuse the people building the mosque of being the ones creating strife.
To get people to stop identifying it with something negative. It's called religious tolerance and perspective.
"People not liking it because they're intolerant" is not a valid reason for not building this mosque, I'm sorry.
Were the people building the mosque intolerant, thus making their building a symbol of intolerance, that would be a valid reason. This does not seem to be the case, and in fact, an effort towards exactly the opposite seems to be in effect. Lest that proves otherwise, I fail to see any valid reason for not building the mosque (aside from any kind of building code or zoning violations, obviously).
in a way can you honestly blame them? a bit heavy handed maybe but there is a reason more so after the last few attempts that have been thwarted before they could happen.
They are putting a symbol of a religion that 9 years ago attacked this country. Do you not see how that would make some people that experience that feel? I don't think it is about in tolerance but about respect for what happened.
There are tons of things that could be done to represent the innocent muslims that died. while building a mosque is one of them it isn't a very good one.
I find it kinda funny that they are accusing people of being intolerant when it really isn't about tolerance in a way. it is about respect for what happened and the events that took place.
sorry i don't see that happening for a while. just like we don't see japanese shrines around pearl harbour for all the innocent japanese people that died there. somethings are better not done at all. this would be one of those things given the nature of NY right now.
It isn't so much religious intolerance as it is respect for the events. like i said they could do a million other things than build a mosque. to me that shows a bit of intolerance on their part wanting to build something knowing what the reaction is going to be.
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This is exactly the sort of misconception that we are saying needs to be dispelled. No religion attacked anyone. Extremist jihadists attacked this country.
I thought that was worth repeating.
Edit: In case anyone was curious, the corner of Church & Park to Church & Vesey is 492 ft, according to Google Maps.
- On a religious level, I think this is a very good idea. It's essentially meant as a public apology by moderate Muslims, a way of demonstrating that the people who committed 9/11 and other acts of terrorism were not and are not representative of their faith. As a statement of peace and goodwill, this is entirely appropriate and commendable.
- On the other hand, I'm seriously concerned about the public response. Sadly, many people in America just aren't tolerant and progressive enough to understand the intention of the mosque or accept its presence. Even in New York, which is known for being open-minded and cosmopolitan. I'm worried that the mosque could be attacked by Christian fundamentalists - which, ironically, would actually go a long way in proving the point of the people who built the mosque. There are insane, violent elements in every religion.
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I don't think any of us would not understand why a person who was attacked by a dog as a young child would develop a fear of dogs. However, we WOULD regard his fear as a phobia, defined as an irrational fear, note the key word "irrational". And the advised method that the parents should proceed to help assuage the child of such fears? Get that child a dog. Exposure forms perspective, and perspective will help to teach him that that particular instance was just that, a particular instance, and not a general truth to be applied in every circumstance.
Once again, I fail to see why the protests behind this mosque don't show all the more the need to build it. It is a holy building built by a group of American Muslims to honor the dead of 9/11 and to promote peace and a peaceful expression of Islam, how is such a building NOT a victory?
No, I can't. What if this group were promoting violence? Sure, then I could not honestly blame them, but they aren't.
This is exactly the root of the problem.
No RELIGION attacked America on 9/11. Islam does not have written within its holy text, "attack America". What attacked America was a group of violent extremists who use a religion as a means of promoting their violence.
This group is clearly trying to promote the voice within the Islamist community trying to condemn such violence. Why would you punish them, the very people who want exactly the opposite of what the attackers of 9/11 wanted?
How is stopping an attempt at mutual understanding amongst those who believe different things for the purposes of promoting peace supposed to honor the people who died in 9/11, who died specifically because one group of people decided to reject any attempts at understanding or peace amongst those they perceived as different?
Also, if you'll read the article, apparently members of this particular Muslim community were among the casualties in 9/11. You want to tell me how you're honoring their memory by promoting anti-Islamist sentiment?
Once again, HOW are you respecting the people who died by promoting an inability to tolerate people different from you?
I just wanted to highlight this. "Right now"? "The nature of NY right now"?
So when is the cut off date then? At what point is the quarantine for Muslims over and is anyone who is Muslim allowed near Ground Zero? At what point does it become ok to allow Islam to be near Ground Zero?
When does it become a good time for New York to acknowledge that you're not supposed to judge all people for what one group did? Really, you're attempting to honor the memory of people who died as a result of prejudice and ignorance and intolerance BY PROMOTING prejudice and ignorance and intolerance. How does this register as a good idea?
It IS religious intolerance, mystery, how can you argue it's not? You're saying all Muslims are the same!
One group of people promotes suicide bombings, another group of people condemns them and actually had people within its group killed by the former causing suicide bombings. Taken in a vacuum, how can you argue these two are similar? But apparently because they both hold the same religion, clearly not the same beliefs, but the same religion, any differences between these two magically disappear and we should judge them solely on the actions of one extremist group of Muslims.
Yes, but they're building a holy building to honor those that died. That is a pretty remarkable gesture.
Martin Luther King lead a fight against intolerance and prejudice knowing what the reaction was going to be too, and I think we're all pretty thankful he did.
I feel that if people choose to believe their religious beliefs and to honor American values, despite the risk that people who are intolerant might use violence in an attempt to get them to stop, that will indeed honor the people who died at 9/11.
Religious freedom is one of the fundamentals on which America is built.
Not allowing the construction of a mosque near ground zero would strenghten the position of islam extremists and terrorists. The message to the normal majority of peaceful muslims would not be good or smart. ("for us, you're all terrorists")
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One thing I love is all the "I Heart my religion" and "I heart founding fathers" and "I heart the constitution" less educated americans spam like a broken record. One could get lynched for telling them the founding fathers ended up in america because they wanted to leave europ and its over emphasis on religion. How ironic.
http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=1437
[quote=Hawaii’s Domestication of Shinto
Dr. Whitehurst is professor of religion at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington. This article appeared in the Christian Century November 21, 1984, p. 1100. Copyright by the Christian Century Foundation and used by permission. Current articles and subscription information can be found at www.christiancentury.org. This material was prepared for Religion Online by Ted & Winnie Brock.
by James Whitehurst
Dr. Whitehurst is professor of religion at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington. This article appeared in the Christian Century November 21, 1984, p. 1100. Copyright by the Christian Century Foundation and used by permission. Current articles and subscription information can be found at www.christiancentury.org. This material was prepared for Religion Online by Ted & Winnie Brock.
An American flag waves briskly in the breeze beside a Shinto shrine on the major freeway leading from Honolulu to Pearl Harbor. Just five miles away is the spot where Japanese planes dropped their bombs on the American fleet. Few tourists rushing between Pearl Harbor and Waikiki realize the deep irony that flag symbolizes. But for those who fought in World War II or know the history of that encounter, the sight of an American flag at a shrine so closely associated with the adversary calls forth a whole complex of reactions.
It was Shinto, the native religion of Japan, that had not only given its wholehearted support to the war machine but had provided its very rationale: the myths and legends that led directly to the kamakazi pilots. Shinto taught that the emperor was a descendant of the very gods who had created their islands and that Japan thus had a mandate to rule the “world under one roof” (Hakko Ichiu).
The idea that such a religion could ever find a home in America would have seemed preposterous in the 1940s. In fact, at the close of the war one of the arguments used against statehood for Hawaii was that the Japanese population in Hawaii was so great and their loyalties so questionable that it would be risky to include them in our commonwealth.
Suspicion about the Japanese was building up long before Pearl Harbor, of course. In the 1930s, when Japan was invading China, Japanese women solicited funds on the streets of Honolulu for good-luck headbands for the soldiers. Imported films glorified Japan’s conquests; when Hankow and Canton fell, victory services were held in Shinto shrines in Hawaii. The emperor’s birthday was celebrated each year, and it was rumored that the Shinto god of war, Hachiman, was worshiped in one of Honolulu’s shrines.
Once Hawaii was attacked, all of this changed. Japanese leaders, including Shinto priests, were rounded up and deported. It was impossible to resettle all of the Japanese, as California had done, for they constituted nearly one-third of the population. The people of Hawaii simply had to learn to live together despite their qualms. Suspicions continued for a while: Shinto shrines were considered a hotbed of subversive activities by some and were vandalized; Japanese maids were thought to be spies; Japanese fishermen were believed to have directed the pilots of the emperor to their targets.
Nisei (second-generation Japanese) were eager to allay such suspicions. The 100th Reserve Officers Training Corps unit at the University of Hawaii was eager to fight in the war and prove that Japanese were loyal citizens of the territory. They soon got their opportunity as part of the much-decorated 442nd Battalion (all Japanese) that fought in Italy and France and, on VE Day, led the parade of Allied Forces.
Elderly Japanese did not find it so easy to shift allegiances. For years, their hopes had been pinned on the invincibility of the emperor; never in its 2,000-year history had Japan been conquered. One small group, the Doshikai, even refused to believe that the empire had collapsed in the summer of 1945. In October of that year, rumors surfaced in Honolulu that Japan had really won and that Prince Takamisu was on his way to Hawaii to negotiate a surrender. It was even whispered that President Harry Truman was going to Tokyo to apologize for the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
In light of the persistence of such beliefs among a people nurtured with Shinto myths, it is understandable that many Americans felt it necessary to crush the Shinto faith once and for all. General Douglas MacArthur was in a quandary. Though he believed firmly in the freedom of religion, he saw the hold that fanatical Shintoism had on the Japanese mind. He pondered the matter for weeks; the solution finally came in the Allied Directive of December 15, 1945. Shinto was to be completely disestablished: it could not be taught in Japan’s public schools, state funding would be eliminated, and the emperor would be persuaded to denounce his divinity (to “de-god” himself, as the GIs called it). On January 1, 1946, Emperor Hirohito shocked Japan with a radio announcement -- broadcast repeatedly, so there could be no misunderstanding -- stating that it was a mistake to think of him as a descendant of the gods or that the Japanese were a superior people.
That such a nationalistic religion could be found on American soil was a shock to me when I first encountered it 20 years ago, shortly after Hawaii became a state. I discovered that Shinto had come to Hawaii with Japanese workers looking for jobs on the sugar plantations a little more than a century ago. When they found they liked Hawaii and decided to stay, the workers sent word home for brides. Parents arranged marriages, and soon boatloads of “picture brides,” as they were called, landed in Honolulu. Although marriages had been meticulously planned, the missionary-educated Hawaiians had qualms about their legality. To satisfy the public outcry, hasty weddings were arranged. At the Izumo Tai Shi shrine in downtown Honolulu, there were as many as 100 weddings a day. From these unions issued a population explosion that soon flooded the islands.
The immigrants brought with them their godshelves (kamidana) and the numerous festivals (matsuri), primarily associated with the agricultural cycle. As they became prosperous and moved to the cities, they constructed Shinto shrines. Their celebrations, especially the New Year’s festival, became a part of the Hawaiian landscape.
America prides itself on its religious pluralism, its hospitality to all races and religions. But how did a religion which was so much a part of the distinctive Japanese way of life manage to survive on U.S. soil?
My search for an answer took me first to an investigation of the postwar status of Shinto in Japan. In an interview with Professor Naofusa Hirai at the Kokugakuin University (a Shinto institution) in Tokyo, I learned that Shinto is a religion of nature; its deities (kami) are personifications of natural forces such as rivers, seas, mountains, fire and wind -- powers that create a sense of awe and wonder in the human spirit. Professor Hirai regrets the way Shinto became a tool of the state, apart of the war cult. “Shinto is eager,” he said. “to shake off these nationalistic accretions and move strongly in the direction of internationalism.’’ He, with other Shinto leaders, would interpret the phrase Hakko Ichiu (the world under one roof) as pointing to the goal of democratic world government. Far from being supernationalistic, Shinto priests today are often active in peace movements.
In returning to Hawaii, I wanted to see how this new interpretation was working in the States. I interviewed Bishop Kazoc Kawasaki, head priest of the Daijingu Shrine on Pali Highway in Honolulu. Kawasaki was himself a victim of wartime prejudice and spent most of the war years in the relocation center at Camp McCoy in Wisconsin. From him I learned how easy it is for Shinto to adapt to new situations, since one of its major teachings is just that: to blend with the social and cosmic environment. Kawasaki, a skillful communicator, employs numerous Western teaching methods such as flip charts and object lessons to get his point across. Although Shinto has generally been viewed as polytheistic, Kawasaki’s flip charts show a decidedly monotheistic emphasis, which undoubtedly communicates better to a Western-educated audience. One Creator God, Hitori Gami. is shown as the source of all lesser kami manifestations.
Kawasaki held up a fun-house mirror at the center of the sanctuary near the large, round mirror that symbolizes Amaterasu, the sun goddess. “We should be perfect mirrors, clean and without blemish,” he said, “and not distort things as this fun-house mirror does.’’ Later he displayed a group of billiard balls in a triangular rack and showed how each ball moves in relation to the others. Comparing them with a display of square blocks, he said. “These cubes are too individualistic: they can’t move well with their surroundings.” A beautiful illustration of accommodation!
In the shrines of Hawaii, I found many examples of survival through adaption. Shinto has not yet succumbed to the Sunday-morning service, as has Buddhism; it celebrates in the evenings on specified days of each month, such as the 10th, 15th and 29th. But a sermon has been added to some services; wooden chairs often replace tatami mats with rounded pillows on the floor: tape-recorded music sometimes replaces the sound of drums, wooden blocks and bamboo flutes. Instead of a bamboo dipper at a basin of flowing water for purification at the entrance to a shrine area, one finds a water faucet, paper cups and a paper-towel dispenser! So far, there is no sign of Bingo, but shrines do regularly have their raffles. Stacks of rice flower, sake and fruit are often placed at the altar; after the gods have consumed the “essence,’’ the food is given away at the end of the services as door prizes.
Through such adaptions, Shinto has made itself at home in its American setting. But Americanization is usually a two-way street. Is there anything to be learned from a religion as alien as Shinto?
Through the years, I have come to respect and appreciate it in ways that would seem impossible for one who grew up during World War II. For one thing, Shinto offers a needed corrective to our domineering attitude toward nature; it maintains a fine-tuned sensitivity to the “ground of Being,” an intuitive awareness of the mystery which created and sustains us. Shinto shrines, with their unpainted surfaces and natural beauty, conjure up a feeling of sacred space as well as provide a place for quiet withdrawal. Passing under a torii arch and washing one’s hands creates an atmosphere of readiness and receptivity. And when one arrives at the portal of the shrine, the simple clapping of the hands and bowing deeply helps one to restore a cosmic balance. Note that it is not an attuning of oneself to nature, as though nature is something outside the self; the Japanese have no word for “nature’’ in that sense. Yet it would be overly romanticizing to say that everything in modern Japan shows a perfect blending of humans and the environment; that is more likely a private achievement, expressed more in one’s enclosed garden than in the public arena -- witness the beer bottles littering the pilgrim’s path up Mt. Fuji!
Is nature mysticism impossible in a secular age then? Alfred Bloom of the University of Hawaii’s religion department thinks not. He insists that Shintoists. for all their love of nature, are still firmly grounded in the mundane world of business and economics. A Shinto priest sees nothing incongruous about waving his harai-gushi (purification wand with paper streamers) over the nose cone of a Boeing 747 and blessing it for secular use. Even in the machine he senses something that is more than just machine, since the divine is at the heart of all matter, even the technological products humans create. Perhaps there is something here that Westerners can appropriate.
If there is something to be gained from Shinto, there is also a pitfall to beware of: the peril that comes from too closely associating religion and culture. Shinto now regrets its close wartime associations with an imperialistic state, when it was used as a tool by the warlords.
I grew up in a church in Ft. Wayne. Indiana, where a prominent stained-glass window portrayed a cross before an American flag -- as though there were no conflict between the two. And as a young pastor in Rockford, Illinois, I found that an American flag simply could not be removed from the sanctuary without splitting the church. My experience tells me that in a good many churches it would be easier to remove the cross. Are our temptations really so different from those that faced Shinto? We have our own myths of divine origin as a nation blessed by God with a “manifest destiny” to bring a large share of this continent ‘‘under one roof.” A better knowledge of Shinto’s history might save us from a ‘‘cultural Christianity’’ which tells people only what they want to hear.
In my youth, “Japs” were pictured as slant-eyed terrorists with bombs in their hands and daggers between their teeth; today the former enemy has become a friend. In wartime Hawaii, Japanese leaders were deported: today, the nisei Daniel Inouye represents our 50th state in the US. Senate. And in the short period of 25 years, the despised religion of Shinto has become domesticated; it is just another sect listed in the Yellow Pages of Hawaii’s telephone books.
An American flag flying beside a Shinto shrine on the freeway to Pearl Harbor! An incredible sight one can encounter only in America. And only in Hawaii could it happen at such breathtaking speed.[/quote]
Of course you can make the argument that "5 miles from Pearl Harbor is different from Ground Zero," however I'd challenge that since Pearl Harbor is still an American base of operations that such a shrine built there isn't extremely practical. However, since New York City is a high density city, it is understandable to build near there.
Community centers that are open like the YMCA do raise property value in the vicinity, and can be extremely useful for neighborhoods to keep youth from falling into the hands of violence or stupid antics. I'm not a big fan of organized religion myself, but frankly to deny that organized religion, even Islam, doesn't do anything useful for communities is counter productive.
Besides, Imam Fesial Abdul Rauf's mosque is 12 blocks from the area built prior to the attacks, anyway. Should we force them to move the mosque, too?
Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.
Individualities may form communities, but it is institutions alone that can create a nation.
Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success.
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So if they are built in other places in NY with no problem then evidently there isn't any anti-islamic voice out there.
I ask why build a building that they know is going to tick off the community as a whole? to me that is pretty insensitive. again there are a million other ways to honor the dead and people killed so why build a mosque?
I don't have time but there are dozens of passages in the koran that promote the killing of non-believers of jews and other people. unfortuantly this type of stuff is preached everyday.
I am not wanting to punish them at all. i am simply asking the question as to why build a mosque when there are millions of other options that would do the same thing and not tick off the local community.
this tells me you are only reading what you want to read and not understanding what i am saying.
If they really really wanted to promote the community or something else then they would a build a neutral building not a mosque. it isn't about tolerating people different from me. it is about recognizing the sensitivity of the situation.
again just the other day another bomb attack was thwarted in NYC. the guy caught and arrested before he could get the bomb off. just more wounds.
it is about not rubbing salt in an open and still sore wound. the effects of 9/11 are like the effects of pearl harbour they are slow to heal. this doesn't help heal the wound but just opens it up again.
there is one more panel that it has to go through before it can be built. we will see whether or not that it makes it through but that won't be until like july or august.
12 blocks is a bit different than 2 would you not agree?
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I mean, is there some set distance where people stop caring?
When I hear people complain about it being 2 blocks I really have to wounder why 2 matters so darn much.
As much as I disagree with this statement:
At least it's constant. If you're going to complain about it being 2 blocks away, you might as well pick any arbitrary number.
You just feel justified in complaining about 2 blocks. You WISH you could make it infinity. (I don't mean to pick on you mystery45, this was more of a general "you," not a you you.)
out of sight out of mind comes into play here. if i can't see it then i don't worry about. if i have to walk by it ever friggen day then that is a different story. (i am just being general here).
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I can understand why someone might have issues with Muslims after what happened on 9/11. But that doesn't mean I have to accept it. Whatever the jihadists did, if this person has trouble simply walking by a mosque, this is absolutely his problem, not that of the mosque's congregation. There is no excuse for an American city to cave in to bigotry, whether it be the bigotry of Muslim zealots or emotionally-battered New Yorkers. People are just going to have to learn to channel their pain and anger towards those who actually deserve it; it's better for everyone (except the terrorists, but ☺☺☺☺ 'em).
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
So, would you be applying the Categorical imperative to that?
Anyway, that's kinda what I was getting at by "infinity blocks."
No you don't have to accept it, but calling other people bigots and saying they are committing bigotry is well not very cool in my book.
to a point they have a legimate complaint. I am almost 100% postive that if they were just building a community center without the mosque part and that it was going to be dedicated to the people that were killed etc.. i doubt there would be an outrage.
that isn't what is going on. the claim to be trying to bridge the gap yet it is doing the exact opposite. unfortuantly i see a blacklash of some kind happening. how bad the backlash is i don't know but i wouldn't put it past some people.
the saying goes you don't kick a bear in the rump while it is sleeping yet that is exactly what they are doing.
like i said there are a million of other things they could put at the site besides a mosque that would actually generate and create a sense of easement in the city, and yet they don't do that.
not really so much as like i said before. there have been other mosques built since 9/11 in NY. yet no outrage on those. people in the city see it has a slap in the face. agree with them or not they have a legimate complaint.
the people building it own the land it is private land they can do whatever they want with it. i guess my opinion would be to build something that doesn't rub salt in a sore wound causing it to burn again.
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It's called acclimation, people get upset and then they get used to something being there and move on to accept it. It's what most minorities have to do to be accepted, shove something some what provocative yet normal in people's face for them to eventually accept it. Then the provocation is met with outreach from the people involved in the change for good relations, while sidelining negative reactions over time.
Minority's job is not to make people feel okay in their own skin by hiding, the job is to create bonds together and break certain taboos. It's been nine years since 9/11, it's time for people to move on about religious sensitivity. Besides, there's more converts by lonely white people on the internet for these schemes. Perhaps having converts be in a real mosque rather than the internet being fed a line of propaganda, we'd have a more integrated society.
Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.
Individualities may form communities, but it is institutions alone that can create a nation.
Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success.
Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.
Well, I'm skeptical about that myself, but let's say you're right and it's just the "mosque" part that people are objecting to. What is a mosque? A place for Muslims to worship according to their traditions. How is objecting to a building because it's a mosque not religious bigotry?
I agree with you, backlash might happen, and that would be bad. But if we stop a building from being built because of the potential backlash, the terrorists win - and these terrorists are homegrown American citizens, and all the more revolting for it.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.