Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When I pass that mosque, do you know what I see?

I see lots and lots of people going to pray to God multiple times a day. Something that most of us wouldn't even bother to do.

I see a group of people who, long before 9/11, had to face locals determined to kick them out of the neighborhood, despite their Constitutional rights to freedom of religion and assembly.

Anwar al-Awlaki was imam there for about a year out of its entire history. It is wrong to forever brand an entire community with a scarlet letter because of one bad apple. The scary history is one man, not the mosque.

Lastly, if we want peaceful relations with Muslims in America, the worst possible thing we can do is to persecute them.

Yes they do pray a lot. And the main Friday prayer kicked off by the imam is " Victory to Muslims over Qawm al-Kafirun" aka all non-Muslims. Every Friday in nearly every mosque around the world.

I'm really tired of saying the only way to be peaceful with those that follow the "religion of peace" is to overlook the inconsistencies altogether.

How many mosques have you been to?

I don't do bunkers, guns, food and water - that simplistic reply doesn't do anything but show you aren't a very deep thinker. I also don't do Ativan. But good luck to you.

Anonymous wrote:I don't think we know what they may be thinking about us. That's the point, Jeff. I have lost my ability to be think everyone has each other's best interests at heart.

Better start stocking up your bunker with food, water and guns. Or try some Ativan.

I don't think we know what they may be thinking about us. That's the point, Jeff. I have lost my ability to be think everyone has each other's best interests at heart.

Anonymous wrote:Let's not debate the Bible vs the Quran in this forum.
I am the OP and I know I don't have the ability to control the course of the discussion. I just want to say that my original premise was that I am paying more attention to world events, reading more, watching the news, learning more and trying to understand what's going on in the area in which I live. And, for any of us who think we are immune to the world's larger issues, we're not. Whether you think the police are just protecting pedestrians or whether you think something else, it's a tough time to be compassionate and understanding all the time.

If you think it is tough for you to be compassionate and understanding, imagine what it is like for the people you see crossing the street to pray. At least they are not looking at you and thinking you might be a potential terrorist.

Let's not debate the Bible vs the Quran in this forum.
I am the OP and I know I don't have the ability to control the course of the discussion. I just want to say that my original premise was that I am paying more attention to world events, reading more, watching the news, learning more and trying to understand what's going on in the area in which I live. And, for any of us who think we are immune to the world's larger issues, we're not. Whether you think the police are just protecting pedestrians or whether you think something else, it's a tough time to be compassionate and understanding all the time.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cops aren't at my episcopal church on Palm Sunday when we process from one location to another, crossing a busy street without a traffic light. They aren't at the Catholic church in my neighborhood on Easter. They aren't at the Mormon church in Alexandria on their holy days.
Not saying it's because of radicalization, but it's certainly not just to escort people across a street that has a streetlight to stop traffic.

Many large churches in this area use police to assist with traffic before and after services.

Please get out more.

My synagogue often has Ffx County police out to help with traffic for Hebrew school mornings, Sabbath services and High Holy Days.

Anonymous wrote:Cops aren't at my episcopal church on Palm Sunday when we process from one location to another, crossing a busy street without a traffic light. They aren't at the Catholic church in my neighborhood on Easter. They aren't at the Mormon church in Alexandria on their holy days.
Not saying it's because of radicalization, but it's certainly not just to escort people across a street that has a streetlight to stop traffic.

Many large churches in this area use police to assist with traffic before and after services.

Please get out more.

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:8:51, I believe the Bible is full of horrible statements, too.

PP have YOU read the entire Bible and the entire Koran? How could you make any comparison otherwise? The old testament is chock full of crazy stuff (see my favorite 2 Kings 2:23), but people IGNORE it. That is the fundamental difference.

I feel like we have had this argument 100 times, but you are simply wrong. Christians who believe that homosexuality is wrong justify their belief on Old Testament verses. Clearly, not everyone ignores the Old Testament. The Quran is interpreted in various ways. Understanding how it is understood in daily life requires more than just reading it, just as is true with the Bible.

Respectfully, Jeff, that is incorrect. St. Paul specifically mentions homosexuality in Romans 1:24:

24 Therefore aGod gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them.
25 For they exchanged the truth of God for 1a alie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed 2forever. Amen.
26 For this reason aGod gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is 1unnatural,
27 and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, amen with men committing 1indecent acts and receiving in 2their own persons the due penalty of their error.
28 And just as they did not see fit 1to acknowledge God any longer, aGod gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper,
29 being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips,
30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents,
31 without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful;
32 and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also bgive hearty approval to those who practice them.

I guess we can interpret scripture differently, but that seems like a clear rebuke of homosexuality to me.

My overall point, which I hope was clear but probably wasn't, is that Islam can be practiced differently, and more modern, tolerant interpretations can become more prominent. I hope.

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:8:51, I believe the Bible is full of horrible statements, too.

PP have YOU read the entire Bible and the entire Koran? How could you make any comparison otherwise? The old testament is chock full of crazy stuff (see my favorite 2 Kings 2:23), but people IGNORE it. That is the fundamental difference.

I feel like we have had this argument 100 times, but you are simply wrong. Christians who believe that homosexuality is wrong justify their belief on Old Testament verses. Clearly, not everyone ignores the Old Testament. The Quran is interpreted in various ways. Understanding how it is understood in daily life requires more than just reading it, just as is true with the Bible.

This.

In that neighborhood, the mosque isn't the scary part, it's the surrounding neighborhood of Culmore.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:8:51, I believe the Bible is full of horrible statements, too.

PP have YOU read the entire Bible and the entire Koran? How could you make any comparison otherwise? The old testament is chock full of crazy stuff (see my favorite 2 Kings 2:23), but people IGNORE it. That is the fundamental difference.

I feel like we have had this argument 100 times, but you are simply wrong. Christians who believe that homosexuality is wrong justify their belief on Old Testament verses. Clearly, not everyone ignores the Old Testament. The Quran is interpreted in various ways. Understanding how it is understood in daily life requires more than just reading it, just as is true with the Bible.

Anonymous wrote:8:51, I believe the Bible is full of horrible statements, too.

PP have YOU read the entire Bible and the entire Koran? How could you make any comparison otherwise? The old testament is chock full of crazy stuff (see my favorite 2 Kings 2:23), but people IGNORE it. That is the fundamental difference.

We cannot pretend that Christianity and Islam are two sides of the same coin. People are practicing Christianity in a completely different way than people are practicing Islam. It doesn't even matter what their actual books say because Christians don't really follow anything in the Bible anyway.

Christians don't even follow seemingly innocuous, specific rules that are in the New Testament. For example, in the new testament of the Bible (which most practicing Christians would tell you is the part of the Bible that we "really" have to follow) St. Paul specifically states that women have to cover their hair in church and not speak out. How does this play out in practice? The vast majority of churches in the world do NOT force or even pressure women to cover their hair, and the ones that do, women end up wearing wispy little scarves or fancy hats, sometimes only during parts of the service. There are women preachers and pastors all over the place. Another example: the Bible specifically mentions homosexuality as a sin, and there are now tons of churches who will marry gay people. You might say "oh that's St. Paul." How about what Jesus says about divorce? Jesus says specifically to divorce ONLY in the case of adultery. How many Christians do you know who follow or believe that?

So essentially, Christians are mostly not really following the Bible, and I would argue that's a really good thing.

Meanwhile, the Koran simply suggests modesty for women, and the result: hijabs covering every little wisp of hair and clothes covering every bit of skin other than hands and feet, women covered in black sheets from head to toe.

It just seems like a difference in practice- the standard interpretation seems a lot more strict in Islam.

I don't know if this speaks to a fundamental difference in the essential truths of the two religions because I do not know enough about Islam.

But at this point, it is hard to defend Islam. But I am not going to criticize it as a religion, either, because I do not know enough. And I don't think there is a damn thing any of us can do about radical Islam, or terrorism. It is going to be a global, diffuse threat that exists for a long time. And the only people that can reform Islamic practice is Muslims themselves. It can be done- look a the Mormons!

Good luck, Muslims, and God speed.

Anonymous wrote:Cops aren't at my episcopal church on Palm Sunday when we process from one location to another, crossing a busy street without a traffic light. They aren't at the Catholic church in my neighborhood on Easter. They aren't at the Mormon church in Alexandria on their holy days.
Not saying it's because of radicalization, but it's certainly not just to escort people across a street that has a streetlight to stop traffic.

Perhaps if these churches had hundreds of people crossing a multi lane highway on a weekly basis they would.

Could those of you who think that the police are present at the crosswalk for reasons other than preventing pedestrian injury come out and articulate what those reasons are?

You sound like paranoid xenophobes but that can't be true, right?

By Tarek Fatah:
One of the reasons I avoid attending Friday congregations at mosques is a specific invocation uttered by mosque imams just prior to the formal Friday congregation prayer we Muslims refer to as the Juma’a. In the prayer, the clerics ask Allah to give “victory to Muslims over the ‘Qawm al-Kafirun,’ the Arabic phrase that lumps all non-Muslims, that is Jews, Hindus, Christians, Atheists, Buddhists and Sikhs into one.

Even on the day Islamist Jihadi Terrorists killed four Jews in Paris in the name of Islam, and just two days after the Charlie Hebdo massacre, an Imam in a downtown Toronto mosque could not resist the urge to pray to Allah for Muslim victory over Christians and other non-Muslims.

http://tarekfatah.com/mosque-imams-around-the-world-continue-to-pray-to-allah-to-grant-victory-to-muslims-over-non-muslims/