From a discussion over at NZ Conservative on the Ground Zero Mosque. Reprinted here in all its glorious stupidity:
‘Melva said…
Andrei,
So you’re basing your understanding of the intent of this mosque on a few other events… would love to see how Muslims would respond in a tit-for-tat about Christianity.
To determine the intent of this mosque I’d be more comfortable going to the source and hearing from those actually wanting to build it. Moderates and extremists are not the same people and I find it a little disturbing that you swept aside my whole argument with a spurious assumption.
Where this conversation has pointed out a lack of criticism from moderate Islam towards extremists a clear lack of research is evident. It doesn’t take much to find Muslims and Islamic organisations dedicated to undermining the views and activities of extremism. This link takes you to the declaration from the Federation of Islamic Associations in New Zealand: http://www.fianz.co.nz/pressreleases/declaration_content.php It also wasn’t too long ago that I was watching a great article on a former Egyptian extremist who now travels the world speaking out against the doctrines of Islamic extremism and painting a very clear picture of its destructiveness. I am not a Muslim, I am Christian and therefore I hold to an entirely different world-view – one that I think is better and leads to life as it is intended to be, but I am also not naive enough to come at one of the world’s largest religions and believe that all are the same, with the same motivations and agenda. I refuse, out of basic human decency to look at the building of one mosque as ‘triumphalist’ or as a ‘calculated offense’ because of the actions of some other Muslims. If I were to approach such matters in that way I would have kicked Christianity to the curb many years ago… there is more than one sin that flows through the veins of the historical and present adherents of Christianity which if taken as a rule of thumb to represent all of our activities would give most of humanity ample right to call our faith and all of our pursuits an abomination. I refuse to do that with Islam. My encounters with Islam have, so far on every account and in a few different countries now, been encounters full of grace, humility, hospitality and true expressions of friendship – admirable considering our differing world-views. I am fully aware that amongst Islam, as amongst Christianity, there are those who wish to incite violence and to dominate the world, but I’m also well aware that such a sentiment exists within portions of Christendom, except often it is more subtle, less blatant and more insidious because it is preached with a veneer for the concern of humanity. If I wish for people to not tar me with the dirt of the brush caused by the ill actions of some carrying the name of Christianity, then I must extend that same grace to those who call themselves Muslim. I will not engage a culture war, one where Islamic extremism views of all the west and Christianity as the same entity by doing the same in return.’
