New York Ad Depicting 9/11 Attacks Beside Mosque Approved

By Pelliciari on August 11, 2010 in News 31

mosque_banner_100810b Where would a religious/racial influenced debate be without advertisement? You know the ad sends a powerful message when you have to sue MTA to get it approved. Is there really an argument against an Islamic temple being close to ground zero when Masjid Manhattan mosque already exists a couple of blocks from the proposed site? From AP News:

New York City’s transit agency has approved a bus advertisement that depicts a plane flying toward the World Trade Center’s towers as they burn along with a rendering of a proposed mosque near ground zero.

The ad was paid for by the American Freedom Defense Initiative, an organization that opposes radical Islamic influence in the United States. The group’s executive director says she doesn’t find the ad offensive.

The group sued the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to demand it accept the ad, which was approved Monday.

MTA spokesman Kevin Ortiz says the agency doesn’t endorse the ad’s views.

The plan for a mosque just blocks from the World Trade Center site has ignited a national debate about the limits of tolerance and the symbolism of ground zero.

9/11, Advertisement, American Freedom Defense Initiative, Ground Zero, Islam, Metrolpolitan Transportaion Authority, MTA, World Trade Center, WTC

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Matt

I know it's wrong, but all I can think of when it comes to this subject is “King Me! King Me!” (checkers reference)
Haystack

It's arbitrary to say that “Muslims” took down the trade center. You could just as easily say that “religious fundamentalists” committed the attack. Philosophically Osama bin Laden has more in common with the American religious right than he does with mainstream Muslims. In that case, instead of lumping peaceful, tolerant Muslims together with the hijackers, you'd be lumping the hijackers in with Sarah Palin & co, and the question would become “Should we allow religious extremists to continue practicing intolerance on the site of the buildings they destroyed?”
- Your Mom
  
  “It's arbitrary to say that “Muslims” took down the trade center.”
  
  No, it isn't. If you want to say that _some Muslims_ destroyed the WTC, I wouldn't quibble. But it's entirely accurate, not arbitrary, to say that Muslims took down the WTC.
  
  “Philosophically Osama bin Laden has more in common with the American religious right than he does with mainstream Muslims.”
  
  What do prominent Americans on the Religious Right (say, Pat Robertson or James Dobson) have in common with Sayyid Qutb? I mean, _precisely_, such as a line-by-line comparison between Robertson's sermons and Qutb's manifesto “Ma'alim fi al-Tariq.” Or, can you cite reputable evidence that Dobson calls for worldwide Sharia? Or, can you prove that Oral Roberts University have a degree in creating a Revolutionary Vanguard in Jahiliyyah?
  - 5by5
    
    I would argue that saying “religious extremists took down the towers” is more accurate, only because the problem of religiously inspired terrorism is in no way exclusive to Muslims, even if this particular incident was related to them. Religious extremists who are Christian do things like bomb abortion clinics or the Olympics to get their wackjob message out there. Indeed, Christian religious extremists were plotting to detonate cyanide bombs in NYC — they were just caught before they could successfully execute their plan. Religious extremists who are Jewish bulldoze people's homes and bomb the length and breadth of other countries like Lebanon. Religious extremists who are Hindu have engaged in massacres in India of other religious sects like Sikhs, and Muslims, and vice versa. So I see no real difference.
    
    And to be wigging out over the prosepct of a mosque near Ground Zero is especially douchey, because all people are doing by that, is proving all of Osama Bin Fuckwit's propaganda about the West correct, rather than sticking up for the ideals that make this a BETTER place than Saudi Arabia — namely religious liberty.
    
    Also, freaking out over a mosque on a block where there are also adult entertainment venues strikes me as particularly hypocritical. That ground ain't all that holy, and really has never been treated as such if you look further back to the slaves and Indians who also died in the same area earlier in our history.
    
    So enough with the irrationalism about the Muslims already. Religious extremism is an equal opportunity thing.
  - Hadrian999
    
    if you count all the islamic terror attacks on us soil and all the the christian acts of terrorism on us soil i think
    you'll find there are far more christian terror attacks
    - David Frost
      
      If you add up all the terror attacks from muslims and all the terror attacks throughout the world it becomes wildly lopsided.
      
      This religous fundamentalist view was created completely for the idea of political correctness.
      
      Think about it…since when did a christian strap a bomb to himself and try to take out a few innocents, when did a christian last stone a woman to death for adultery, since when did a christian, and where does it say in the new testiment that a person should kill others for any reason (new testiment is the defining book that defines christianity).
      
      All this Dawkins wannabe speech is nothing but a bunch of trendy hipsters begging for acceptance. You don't get any further from thinking for yourself than stuff like that.
      - Hadrian999
        
        I'm not an athiest either but christian extremism by virtue of their numbers are a much greater threat
        to people in America than muslim extremism, maybe they don't stone people but they do represent a majority of white supremacists, militia movement people, clinic bombers, they do assassinate doctors, they do assault and sometimes kill homosexuals, they did bomb the OKC federal building, they do like to use intimidation to get their way politically, as an american christian extremism is much more likely to have a tangible effect on your life than ihadism ever will.
      - David Frost
        
        I can see what your saying, and I also wanted to say I might have said a little much, sorry about that. My argument is that while that may be true it's true because statistically christians make a huge portion of the population. As far as the crazy folks that bomb abortion clinics and join militias, its a combination of mental illness, nationalistic pride, and carrying things way out of the context that they claim to believe in. For the most part christians in America do things like; feed the homeless, give perscriptions medication to people that normally couldn't afford it, build homes for needy people, etc. Sometimes you end up with nut cases like Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church turning it into a vehical of hate. That has less to do with christianity and more to do with attention getting behaviours though. Then a lot of conservatives and other right wingers like to claim christianity because of its cultural ties, which is less belief system and more about grandpa being buried in the back of the church in question. As far as killing gays and abortionists, yeah it is true that things like that aren't viewed favorably by christians, but neither is murder.
        
        I'll agree with you on the last sentence near whole heartedly though. I grew up southern baptist, and I refuse to ever step foot on the property of a southern baptist church ever again. The reason being; I am a successful underground artist and musician that votes democrat, to them, that far outweighs the fact that I'm a decent person and even (…..wait for it!….) a US Navy veteran (so much for all this support our troops crap that the pro Iraq war crowd says right). I usually like more intellectual churches though, they are definitly inspiring and a strong motivator for me.
      - David Frost
        
        …..and as far as the last paragraph they definitly made my life a living hell until I left, for those reasons. So I know where that opinion comes from.
      - Gemmarama
        
        muslim, christian, whatever. is the point not that all organised religion is nothing but a form of bullshit social control? there's no point discriminating. “religious nuts” would do.
      - David Frost
        
        Well studies have shown that people who adhere to a religious belief of some sort have a better quality and more quantity of life and generally do more to improve the community. I don't see whats so wrong with that.
      - Gemmarama
        
        they have a longer, easier life because they conform, which is less stressful than the alternative. and i'd say “improving” the community is entirely a matter of opinion…
      - David Frost
        
        ….some….I'm a pretty far cry from a conformist, and I'm not the only one like that either.
        
        Like I said before athiests are close minded to the point of closing themselves off from very vital information. Technically my favorite psychologist of all time, Albert Ellis, gives this mindset that you are portraying the name “generalization” which leads to higher anxiety and depression levels and prevents learning new things as certain things are stereotyped as a negetive and avoided outright.
      - David Frost
        
        Here ya go…exellent article on the subject
        http://www.cracked.com/article_15759_10-things-…
      - Gemmarama
        
        you assume that because i'm not into organised religion i'm an atheist and not at all interested in spirituality. i'm open to all manner of stuff mate. i'm a (self-taught) student of theology, mythology and anthropology. i just don't feel the need to align myself with any established tribes. there are other paths. try reading up on these:
        
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosticism
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Jung
        
        thanks for the link though. interesting stuff.
      - David Frost
        
        Thats awesome then!!! Yeah I have no problem with being open minded and coming to that conclusion. I studied mostly psychology, sociology,, philosophy, and theology. Actually it took a while for me to start going to Christian church, basically because I've seen them act pretty crazy. I experimented for a while with Neo-Paganism and eastern religious practices. Me switching sides or whatever happened because the more I lived life and learned a lot of lessons the more the bible made sense to me, i still don't get along with many people in church though.
        
        The main reason I get annoyed like that is my wife and her whole side of the family and all her friends are militantly athiest. We usually get along perfectly but that is the one thing we can never ever bring up around each other. Me and my family (which I am not at all close too, if your wondering) and friends aren't always Christian but everyone has some belief in something. I have a lot of divirsity in there, anything from Christians, to Jewish, to Wiccans, to other Neo-Pagans, to Buddists, to Hindus, to even Muslims in a couple of people.
        
        Not only that but, while I was in college, no one really experimented with religion by experimenting with atheism. Instead, everyone I hung out with, the authers that I enjoyed reading from, the professors that I liked the most, etc. liked to quote confucius or the bible (usually both), learn interesting meditation techniques, and things like that. While not all of them where Christian, all of them embraced some sort of belief system. Christianity wasn't really the majority religion either when you count all of what everyone was into. When I was in the military it was a repeat of the same kind of thing. Actually I didn't even know one single atheist at all when I was in the military. In a spiritual perspective I thought it was wonderful time to be young. When it comes to things like that I never really felt oppressed, actually the exact opposite, it was fascinating stuff.
        
        From a morality perspective it was different times then as well. Two of my closest friends where very avowed vegan straight edges. They weren't preachy or oppressive to anyone. Instead, they where two of the most mature and interesting people I knew. These days I have gotten into the straight edge lifestyle and most everyone I know takes strong offense to it. Almost everyone I know drinks, smokes, and uses weed, (everyone I know does at least one of the above) but thats beside the point, I have this philosophy that they can live life there way and I'll live life mine. What I hate most is being told I do it for social reasons because at this point in my life I am literally the only person I know like that. Pretty far from being a conformist if you ask me.
      - David Frost
        
        …if anything closed minded is going on within my mind maybe it's the fact that I'll turn 29 in a couple months and maybe I'm turning into an old fart and missing my younger days, but I can't think of anything else.
      - Gemmarama
        
        yeah i pretty much started out as a militant atheist as that's how i was raised. my mum's pretty much a commie by american standards (old-school british socialist), and my dad's dad was a church of scotland minister who didn't actually believe in god (long story) so they were both rather cynical about religion in general. but then life has a habit of letting you know all about it when you're headed down the wrong path. ever get that gnawing feeling that something just isn't right? so when i hit personal rock-bottom in my early 20s and was pretty much staring into the abyss… i realised it wasn't there, and that it didn't really matter if i lived or died (a coupla of friends and i were later to graf “there is no abyss” in three-foot high letters in a prominent location in our home town).
        
        after that my eyes were opened and i started to see things i'd never noticed before. at first this manifested itself in an interest in symbology (why did the nanotechnology lab at the uni have a pyramid, an all-seeing eye and a serpent eating its own tail carved into the side of the building?!), and then i started reading up on mythology, ancient history, religion, the origins of consciousness etc.
        
        i have respect for straight-edgers but personally i believe in the weed. like all paths to enlightenment, it's not for everyone, but it worked for me. that's exactly it though – we all need to find our own way, and for me smoking pretty much from the minute i wake up to the minute i hit the sack, and the intellectual stimulation of like-minded friends that i still feel extraordinarily lucky to have met, are the tools that worked. i'd say studying classics for a while at uni, and rediscovering an interest in nature were probably triggers too. funny how the things we are interested in as children can come back to us in a more significant context in later life. i am currently living in the wilderness of northern scotland and enjoying the opportunity to visit 5000-year-old burial chambers and stone circles and the like. i also love churches (especially the isolated ancient ruins you get up here) and the bible – it's a crackin read. if you haven't already you should track down “the other bible” (published by harpercollins), which is a compilation of the gnostic scriptures, kabbalah, book of enoch, etc.
        
        my favourite quote from jung was his response when asked why he still believed in god. he said, “i don't believe, i know”. i still wouldn't say i believe in “god” as such, but i think it is foolish to think appollonian rationality is the only way of looking at things. as the sun illuminates some things, so others only become apparent in the dark (read “the white goddess” by robert graves).
        
        is there anyone who posts on this site who was NOT in the military at some point?! it's encouraging to see that some of you escaped the brainwashing! keep on keepin on.
Peter_Griffin

This is the modern version of the temple mount – replace one “holy site” (in this case a holy site to western capitalism) with that of a muslim.
Hadrian999

i say someone should just make a huge center there, have one of those obscene mega-churches, a mosque,
a grove, a kindred, hell even throw in whatever a group of Scientologists call themselves, have it all in one compound and see what kind of hissyfit that causes for the glennbough teaparty drones.
- oman28
  
  Don't forget to include a small space out the back for atheists who smoke.
  - Hadrian999
    
    can you even smoke in new york anymore?
    - 5by5
      
      No. No smoking in bars, and soon, no drinking or talking.
    - Connie Dobbs
      
      You can do whatever you want in New York. It's a big town, and there aren't enough nannies. You just have to know where to go. I don't mind not being able to smoke at the Times Square Red Lobster because you'll never catch my hipster ass in there.
Hadrian999

so if a mosque should be banned from “ground zero” should churches also be banned from places the LRA has operated?
GoodDoktorBad

New York is home to a thousand religious buildings. Islam is one of the “big three” of religions aren't they?

If Jews and Christians have places to mumble there incantations of misery, why not Muslims? Lunacy should be an equal opportunity…..
Synapse

Historically, a Mosque means religious domination to Muslims. They destroy a country or a place and turn it's major centers of significance into religious Islamic expressions, part to show dominance, and part to subliminally create acceptance as the religion to become. They did this in the beginning with Mecca when Muhammed walked in to the center of pagan worship, the kabaa, and turned it into the holiest site in his religion. They did it when they came to Israel and built a Mosque (not the Shrine) on top of the temple mount. They converted many major churches into mosques in Arab/Turkish countries. They did it to many many buddhist and hindu temples in India. They also love to build them at the sites of major battles as proof of victory.

At the end of the day, Radical Islam specifically has no qualms about using our freedoms to their benefit. This is one of many such cases. They will say they just want to build a mosque, and in 10 years it will be a major Islamic tourist destination. It may even be a totally peaceful, yes, but it will stand as a testimony to how they “fought back” against the United States and won, and it will be recognized as such by Muslims across the world.

Also, as much as I also dislike other religious fundamentalist movements, few are in the stage that is as dangerous as where the religion of Islam is right now. If a christian bombs an abortion clinic, a significant number of christians (including most churches) will outright say that's wrong. If a muslim commits a suicide bombing, few Muslims ever condemn the attack. Most will either vocally rationalize it as legitimate, many will say it is a good thing, and the leaders will praise it. Until there is some reformation in Islam as a religion to disavow violence, it will continue to be a far more dangerous religious fundamentalism than any other.
- Connie Dobbs
  
  You assume a LOT of stuff here. I guess the rest of us can assume that you know 2 muslims, and they both work at gas stations and are terrorists.
  - Synapse
    
    Actually I currently live in a non-American country with many Muslims around (who tend to be more traditional than American Muslims). I am friends with some of them, and they certainly have interesting things to say. For example, I asked one friend about the instruction in the Quran about killing non-Muslims when the “end of days” comes about. His response was that “Until then we can be friends.” This guy is not what I would call an extremist and, as far as I'm aware, not a member of any terrorist group.
    
    I'm not certain what assumptions you mean. Everything can be seen in the daily attitude of Islam, or even simply by asking a Muslim. The Quran is begging Muslims to subjugate non-musilms and is very explicitly about it. These people simply take their religion and prophecy a lot more seriously than you do.
Doug E.

I think using the image of a already burning WTC as another plane is another to crash into it to protest the construction of a mosque more offensive then the actual mosque itself. And I think using these images to SCARE people into FEARing Muslims is something we call TERRORism. Just my opinion though.
Gemmarama

yeah i pretty much started out as a militant atheist as that’s how i was raised. my mum’s pretty much a commie by american standards (old-school british socialist), and my dad’s dad was a church of scotland minister who didn’t actually believe in god (long story) so they were both rather cynical about religion in general. but then life has a habit of letting you know all about it when you’re headed down the wrong path. ever get that gnawing feeling that something just isn’t right? so when i hit personal rock-bottom in my early 20s and was pretty much staring into the abyss… i realised it wasn’t there, and that it didn’t really matter if i lived or died (a coupla of friends and i were later to graf “there is no abyss” in three-foot high letters in a prominent location in our home town).

after that my eyes were opened and i started to see things i’d never noticed before. at first this manifested itself in an interest in symbology (why did the nanotechnology lab at the uni have a pyramid, an all-seeing eye and a serpent eating its own tail carved into the side of the building?!), and then i started reading up on mythology, ancient history, religion, the origins of consciousness etc.

i have respect for straight-edgers but personally i believe in the weed. like all paths to enlightenment, it’s not for everyone, but it worked for me. that’s exactly it though – we all need to find our own way, and for me smoking pretty much from the minute i wake up to the minute i hit the sack, and the intellectual stimulation of like-minded friends that i still feel extraordinarily lucky to have met, are the tools that worked. i’d say studying classics for a while at uni, and rediscovering an interest in nature were probably triggers too. funny how the things we are interested in as children can come back to us in a more significant context in later life. i am currently living in the wilderness of northern scotland and enjoying the opportunity to visit 5000-year-old burial chambers and stone circles and the like. i also love churches (especially the isolated ancient ruins you get up here) and the bible – it’s a crackin read. if you haven’t already you should track down “the other bible” (published by harpercollins), which is a compilation of the gnostic scriptures, kabbalah, book of enoch, etc.

my favourite quote from jung was his response when asked why he still believed in god. he said, “i don’t believe, i know”. i still wouldn’t say i believe in “god” as such, but i think it is foolish to think appollonian rationality is the only way of looking at things. as the sun illuminates some things, so others only become apparent in the dark (read “the white goddess” by robert graves).

is there anyone who posts on this site who was NOT in the military at some point?! it’s encouraging to see that some of you escaped the brainwashing! keep on keepin on.