Just in case anyone thought that the Taliban or al-Qaida doesn’t really care about the mosque issue, a Newsweek article gives us this quote:

“By preventing this mosque from being built, America is doing us a big favor,” Taliban operative Zabihullah tells NEWSWEEK. (Like many Afghans, he uses a single name.) “It’s providing us with more recruits, donations, and popular support.”

“We received many e-mails asking for advice on how Muslims should react to the hijab ban, and how they can punish France.”) This time the target is America itself. “We are getting even more messages of support and solidarity on the mosque issue and questions about how to fight back against this outrage.”

Zabihullah also claims that the issue is such a propaganda windfall—so tailor-made to show how “anti-Islamic” America is—that it now heads the list of talking points in Taliban meetings with fighters, villagers, and potential recruits. “We talk about how America tortures with waterboarding, about the cruel confinement of Muslims in wire cages in Guantánamo, about the killing of innocent women and children in air attacks—and now America gives us another gift with its street protests to prevent a mosque from being built in New York,” Zabihullah says. “Showing reality always makes the best propaganda.”

I’m sure the Taliban will be ecstatic to hear that we’re also burning mosques now.

Oh, and we’ve all heard about how the polls for the number of Americans who believe Obama is a Muslim are rising. Huffington Post did something like I did earlier and compares this number to other crazy beliefs accepted by some 1 in 5 Americans.

Most people would put two and two together and assume this rise reflects the growing anti-Islamic fervor surrounding the very successful fake mosque controversy. Kevin Drum at Mother Jones shows that the increase is almost completely with Republicans who are more highly educated (and therefore watch more Conservative-based news).

But Glenn Beck says it’s Obama’s fault. He says he doesn’t think that people believe that because, as the Left thinks, “Americans are just stupid, ignorant, or racist.” No, they aren’t stupid, just “confused.” Thanks Beck, that’s so much nicer.

So why they are they “confused”? It’s because Obama didn’t bring the kind of change they thought. He’s a Christian but it just isn’t the Christianity anyone recognizes. Obama supposedly bashed America’s arrogance towards Europe during his “apology tour” and so I guess apologizing is inherently Muslim or something. Oh, and Obama said he “submitted to God’s will,” and submission is Islam.

In that case, Beck will be shocked to find out that he and all Mormons are in fact Muslim since, as the Book of Mormon says, people must be “willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict” (Mosiah 3:19).

Here’s the proof Beck gives: The people who took the poll say they got the information regarding Obama’s religion from: 16% television, 7% internet, 6% newspapers, 3% magazines, and 11% from his behavior.

That’s it. One in ten people claim to base their opinions on Obama’s words and deeds, and to Beck that’s proof it’s Obama’s fault.

But wait, add those up and it’s only 43%! Well, Beck forgot to mention that “Media or News” was 36%, and all together, the media constitutes 60%.

So let’s break this down: 60% of people who think he’s a Muslim because of what they got from the media and 11% claim they got the idea from something Obama actually himself said or did, and this proves it it’s Obama’s fault. After all, it’s only a 6-to-1 ratio! (or 3-to-1 if you accepted Beck at his word.) I guess Americans are stupid only when they accept false beliefs based on propaganda over actual words and deeds to a 15-to-1 ratio.

So more news on the Cordoba Islamic Center in New York:

Turns out that the Cordoba imam Feisal Abdul Rauf worked with both the FBI and the Bush White House in an outreach program. The program, of which Rauf was only one of some 50 projects, sought to “bring a moderate perspective” to foreign audiences about Muslims living in the United States. The effects were so positive the Bush State Dept. requested the program be expanded in 2003. The imam even wrote a book called “What is Right With Islam is What is Right With America.” You’d think since the conservative media is always claiming they’re “looking” for moderate Muslims but can never find any, that he might have been good example to feature for their audience.

Instead, the Conservative media is lying about his beliefs, calling him a radical, and are characterizing another trip scheduled for the imam as an idea cooked up by Obama so that the imam can raise funds to build the “Ground Zero Mosque.” Never mind the fact that program strictly forbade raising any money for alternative means. One might ask Bill Kristol if he thinks Rauf is such a radical, why didn’t he bring up this problem when the imam was working for Bush? If it’s the proximety to Ground Zero, why not bring up the fact that Muslim services are given every week at the nondenominational chapel right on Ground Zero? To ask it is to answer it. This “issue,” which some Conservatives have been trying to press since April, would never have existed under the Bush presidency. But now that it does exist the right-wing noise machine is going to stoke the flames as much as possible. Here’s the latest reactions to the fake controversy:

Christian Conseravtive Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association, an invited speaker at the Values Voter Summit next month along with Michele Bachmann, Mitch McConnell, Newt Gingrich and Bobby Jindal, says that “Permits should not be granted to build even one more mosque in the United States of America” because “each Islamic mosque is dedicated to the overthrow of the American government.” No doubt if he had lived in Rome he would have called for all Christian churches to be banned because of what some Jews did protesting Roman interference in Israel.

Obama at first defended the Islamic Center but then walked back the statements by saying he wasn’t commenting on the “wisdom” of it. Jon Stewart did a pretty good job lambasting him for that as well as calling out Beck for his hypocritical attacks on the imam behind it. As Michael Gerson points out, “Obama managed to collect all the political damage for taking an unpopular stand without gaining credit for political courage.”

Compare this to Joe Scarborough, who has valiantly taken on his own party for this, saying he “prays to God” that another Republican “will have the courage to call Newt Gingrich out.” If only Obama had half the courage as Scarborough.

Fareed Zakaria returned the award given to him by the ACLU for their wishy-washy response to the Cordoba Center. I think he should be commended for that.

Josh Barro points out that it makes little sense that Conservatives want the Burlington Coat Factor “preserved” while the government throws a ton of money at financing the redevelopment of the rest of it.

Howard Dean says that since the imam wants to help heal the nation, Dean wants to find a compromise in moving the Cardoba House. Bryan brilliantly tears it into pieces.

Former Bush advisor Mark McKinnon said: “Usually Republicans are forthright in defending the Constitution. And here we are, reinforcing al Qaeda’s message that we’re at war with Muslims. ”

Some people were actually surprised Pat Buchanan reprimanded Newt as a “political opportunist” and that anti-Muslim fervor has gone “too far” but I knew someone who tried to defend not entering World War II is not the kind of person who would sell out.

Andrew Sullivan called out Palin but that’s hardly news.

The Libertarian think tank CATO published a post linking several articles criticizing the GOP, but the article is gone today for some reason. However, Gene Healy dismisses the issue as a red herring, saying: “It’s a bogus issue seized by the GOP establishment to distract the rank-and-file from the party’s reluctance to shrink government.”

The conservative NewsBusters took the news that there are other mosques near Ground Zero to mean building an “additional mosque” (that is, a cultural center) is a “needless exercise in dividing New Yorkers.”

Erick Erickson, a Redstate journalist and CNN contributor, tweeted: “Paging the Church of Satan: Our founding principles demand Barack Obama support your rights to human sacrifice. Carry on.”

The right-wing group Stop Islamization of America has announced that it will be hosting a rally against the proposed Cordoba House Islamic community center on September 11, with confirmed speakers John Bolton, Andrew Breitbart, and, the far-right Dutch Parliamentarian Geert Wilders. Newt Gingrich has reportedly bowed out.

Laura Ingraham, who recently got in trouble for discussing the word “nigger” on her radio show, decided that the building of the Islamic Center would mean “the terrorists win”:

There’s a disconnect, George, between the elites and the way they think about this, and, I think most New Yorkers, and most of the country. I know Michael Bloomberg was out there saying, “Well, our values need to be properly represented to the world, and if this mosque isn’t going to be built, what is that going to say? The terrorists win!” Well, I say the terrorists have won with how this has gone down. 600 feet from where thousands of our fellow Americans were incinerated in the name of political Islam, and we’re supposed to be cheering this?!

Yet she was actually had the imam’s wife on her show back in December. Not only did she not say anything against it, she actually backed the construction of the center!!! Here’s the quote:

I can’t find many people who really have a problem with it. [Mayor] Bloomberg is for it. Rabbis are saying they don’t have a problem with it. [...] I like what you’re trying to do and Ms. Khan we appreciate it and come on my radio show some time.

Seems like the “disconnect” is really between the Laura Ingraham that wants to pretend she’s tolerant of other faiths and the Laura Ingraham that wants to jump on the Conservative bandwagon and bully innocent Muslims.

The controversy is getting so big, some Muslims outside the U.S. are beginning to take note of it.

A Time poll says that 61% of those polled oppossed the construction while 70% believes that building a mosque is an insult to the victims of 9/11.

This pretty much proves that people are stupid.

Maybe stupid is the wrong word. Bobby Fischer denied the Holocaust. So maybe crazy, but probably both.

Think I’m being insensitive? Well it also says 32% of Americans think Muslims should be barred from being president.

But, hey, that’s only 8% more than the percentage of people who think the current president is a Muslim. Those are just the crackpots.

Then explain why only 58% of people believe he was born in the United States while another 23% are unsure. Why did Hawaii have to enact a state law just so they could start ignoring the repeated demands for Obama’s birth certificate?

Tell me why 55% of likely voters think Obama is a Socialist, while only 39% think he is not.

Explain how almost half of Americans think Obama initiated TARP and the bailouts, with only a third knowing that it was Bush.

Well, you could say that that is all a product of a propaganda crusade. Roosevelt was also called a Communist. People will sometimes say things they don’t really believe to show support for the policies they support.

Okay, then explain why one in three Birthers actually supports Obama.

Tell me how tax bills for 2009 were the lowest in 60 years while only 12% of Americans know this and twice as many believe taxes have gone up.

Maybe people just pay more attention to politics than their checkbook.

All right. Then explain this one: 26% of Americans do not know what country we declared our independence from.

Yeah, we are THAT fucking stupid.

We have 18% of our older, whiter, richer, and more educated Americans trying to re-enact the Revolution and apparently some of them don’t even know what the original revolt was about.

But, admittedly, the majority of the truly stupid things are political. The polls get even worse when you look at Republicans alone. When we poll them we find that almost half are sure Obama wasn’t born in the U.S. (45%), that more than half believe Obama is a socialist (67%), that he wants to take away Americans’ guns (61%), is a Muslim (57%), has done “many” things that are not constitutional (55%), wants to turn the country over to a one world government (51%), that he’s a “domestic enemy” (45%), that he’s itching to “use an economic collapse or terrorist attack as an excuse to take dictatorial powers” (41%), yet at the same time “wants the terrorists to win” (22%), that he is “doing many of the things that Hitler did” (38%), and that he may be the Anti-Christ (24%).

Yeah, one in four Republicans are half-expecting Obama to call upon Satan to enslave the world and possibly re-enact some kind of Left Behind-style death and resurrection thing to fool the world into thinking he’s the Second Christ.

Even the conservative periodical Human Events did a piece pointing out that for a Socialist, Obama sure doesn’t have a lot of Socialist support. They even manage to print some rational quotes from the Socialist Party such as: “A socialist program (even a reformist one) would not be a program that props up capitalism when it fails, but one that transforms the economy. None of Senator Obama’s proposals do that. Senator Obama’s tax plan is regressive and even less ‘progressive’ than programs put forward under such conservative administrations like the one of Richard Nixon.” F.N. Brill, National Secretary of the World Socialist Party is quoted as saying, “Obama is as much a socialist as the Pope is an atheist.”

I think a big part of the problem is Liberals don’t like lying. Conservatives don’t care. It’s just about winning. They’ll throw anything and just hope it sticks. We’ve had a streak of fake conservative outrages now; where’s the fake liberal outrages? Democrats would probably do a lot better if they made up stuff like “birth certificate,” “death panels,” and “Ground Zero mosque” because buzz words like that get thrown around so much, people who aren’t interested in politics just start believing them because they hear them. Conservatives either say Obama is from Kenya or they simply say that it no longer resonates or that it was a “primary argument.” There’s not even a consideration about how there’s no facts behind it; it doesn’t matter. Truth is irrelevant. What’s relevant is if it sticks with the public.

A series of scientific studies have also shown how anxiety from the economic crisis is probably feeding this rash of xenophobia. NewScientist explains:

Across all studies, anxious conditions caused participants to become more eagerly engaged in their ideals and extreme in their religious convictions. In one study, mulling over a personal dilemma caused a general surge toward more idealistic personal goals. In another, struggling with a confusing mathematical passage caused a spike in radical religious extremes. In yet another, reflecting on relationship uncertainties caused the same religious zeal reaction.

Paul Krugman makes a similar explanation saying:

When the economy plunged into crisis, many observers – myself included – expected a political shift to the left. After all, the crisis made nonsense of the right’s markets-know-best, regulation-is-always-bad dogma. In retrospect, however, this was naive: Voters tend to react with their guts, not in response to analytical arguments – and in bad times, the gut reaction of many voters is to move right.

That’s the message of a recent paper by the economists Markus Bruckner and Hans Peter Gruner, who find a striking correlation between economic performance and political extremism in advanced nations: In both America and Europe, periods of low economic growth tend to be associated with a rising vote for right-wing and nationalist political parties. The rise of the tea party, in other words, was exactly what we should have expected in the wake of the economic crisis.

So I guess as long as this economic crisis, which was caused by rich bankers wanting to be even richer, we’re going to continue to see social issues get crazier and crazier, until even Democrats have to pretend to be tolerant of intolerance while enacting policies that increasingly makes rich people even richer because poor people are stressed out and easily manipulated into voting against their interests by social issues that don’t affect them.

Design concept for the Cardoba “Mosque”

Carl Paladino, developer, attorney, CEO of the Ellicott Development Company, and tea party activist is running for governor of New York and has pledged:

“As governor I will use the power of eminent domain to stop this mosque and make the site a war memorial instead of a monument to those who attacked our country.”

Of course this plan to circumvent the laws of private property flies right in the face of what conservatives supposedly hold dear. Susette Kelo was given the 2006 Ronald Reagan award by CPAC for her role in fighting eminent domain in Kelo v. New London, when she was threatened with eviction by eminent domain so that her property could be turned over to developers.

And that eminent domain stuff wasn’t just some off the cuff remark. No, it’s his TV ad. By the way, the same “conservative values” let’s-protect-marriage-from-the-gays preacher kept his extramarital love child a secret from his family for 10 years. Nice guy I’m sure.

Bill Keller, a Florida pastor, Birther infomercial host, and son of the former CEO to Chevron, said that even though he’s never been to New York, he’s proposing a $1 million project next door that he dubs “the 9/11 Christian Center at Ground Zero.” In describing the project, which he said should be up by the first of January 2011, Keller said that, “This is not to be confrontational with the Muslims, it really isn’t.” When asked about the center’s website, which calls Islam a “false religion” whose 1 billion adherents “are going to Hell,” Keller said it was not intended as confrontation but rather “telling the truth.”

In order to stop the “Islamist cultural-political offensive designed to destroy our civilization,” Newt Gingrich suggested that, were he president, he would “declare the area around the World Trade Center a national military battlefield because that was a battle and it part of a real war.” Oh yeah, and Gingrich also said of the Axis of Evil: “We’re one out of three.”

It was bad enough when these demagogues wanted to block them with a cynical attempt at declaring the Burlington Coat Factory a historical landmark (and then accuse the Commission of political bias), now they just come out and say, “Vote for me and I’ll steal the private property of a random cleric of a religion you don’t like and replace their community center with a monument to how awesome our two perpetual wars are.”

What does it tell Muslims who are now watching this debate? It tells them that Osama Bin Laden is right: that the War on Terror is just a euphemism for a war on Islam, not Islamic terror, not violent Islamic sectarians, but Islam in general. That’s telling the Arab community in New York: “Remember the fear and anger you felt when the twin towers fell and your neighborhood got blanketed in toxic dust? Well, that was nothing compared to the fear and anger felt by the Christians — the real Americans — who were watching those attacks on television. In fact, that was not an attack by terrorists against you, that was an attack by you against us.”

There’s another 40-year-old pre-WTC mosque sitting just four blocks away from Ground Zero. Why not complete the circle and just force this mosque to move out, break their windows, and spray paint slogans equating Islam with fascism without realizing that you’re basically parroting part what the SS did to the Jews?

Backers of the “Ground Zero Mosque” that isn’t really at Ground Zero and isn’t really just a mosque (it includes a gym and a swimming pool) pledged to incorporate a memorial to 9/11 victims and possibly an interfaith chapel, but that’s a ridiculous gesture because it assumes that the people doing the complaining want to reach a compromise. What they want is more festering wounds so they can howl and rage until a Republican is in office again.

As for those calling them to just move it a few blocks away, Jon Stewart points out this isn’t the only place where Islamic cultural centers and mosques are being picketed. Even if they found a place where people wouldn’t have a problem, certainly they would lose tons of money and time, and for what, to placate the irrational proposition that Muslims shouldn’t pray in their own pre-WTC community?

If no mosque should be built within two blocks of Ground Zero, does that mean no church should be built within two blocks of anywhere America has bombed?

The Anti-Defamation league sadly posted a mixed message condemning the bigotry involved in the controversy while also complaining that building the Islamic Center “in the shadow of the World Trade Center will cause some victims some pain — unnecesarily — and that is not right.” Paul Krugman poignantly remarks: “It causes some people pain to see Jews operating small businesses in non-Jewish neighborhoods; it causes some people pain to see Jews writing for national publications (as I learn from my mailbox most weeks); it causes some people pain to see Jews on the Supreme Court. So would ADL agree that we should ban Jews from these activities, so as to spare these people pain? No? What’s the difference?”

The Philadelphia-based Shalom Center are among the leaders vocally opposing the Anti-Defamation League. Imam Feisal Abdul-Rauf’s wife Daisy Khan said: “Your support is a reflection of the great history of mutual cooperation and understanding that Jewish and Muslim civilizations have shared in the past, and remains a testament to the enduring success of our continuing dialogue and dedication to upholding religious freedom, tolerance and cooperation among us all as Americans.”

Fox News is trying to paint the Sufi leader of the Community Center as a radical because he refuses to call HAMAS a terrorist organization. The accusation is certainly in line with the Republican strategy of goading Jewish American voters to abandon Democratic politicians for their perceived lack of devotion to Israel. But the reason for this is because the Sufi imam sees his role as trying to bridge Muslim and American communities together and calling the Democratically-elected Palestinian government group would not be helpful in that respect. It’s sort of like how in the Synoptic gospels the Pharisees tried to trap Jesus between cultural perceptions by asking if Roman taxes were legitimate. The imam’s philosophy is actually very Unitarian and he believes that American democracy is an embodiment of Islam’s ideal society.

Don’t expect the “liberal media” to fight too hard about it. CNN just recently fired their Senior Middle East News Editor, Octavia Nasr, for tweeting a lament for the death of the mainstream Shi’ite cleric Sayyed Mohammed Hussein, who was the religious guide for our ally, Iraq’s Dawa Party. The Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki even took the very unusual step of leaving Iraq to attend Fadlallah’s funeral.

Most of the mainstream media seemed more interested in the fact that Palin mispronounced another word, and then tried to compare herself to Shakespeare in response to the media circus. This led to a very entertaining Twitter meme, #ShakesPalin, in which participants revamped classic Shakespeare quotes, Palin-style. The funniest entry came from The Cato Institute’s Julian Sanchez: “To suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous liberals, or to quit halfterm, and by opposing, rake in speaking fees.”

Bryan at YouAreDumb.Net did a much better job of defending it:

Also, can we get the fuck over 9/11 already? It’s nine years later. The number of people who should have strong passions and keen sensibilities at this point is small enough that they shouldn’t be granted carte blanche to run roughshod over the lives of the hundreds of millions of us who have moved on. You don’t hear the Pearl Harbor Families and Newt Fucking Gingrich raising a ruckus every time someone opens a sushi restaurant near Pearl Harbor.

Hell, it’s not even all the families who are feeling anguish over 9/11 that are in play here. There are a few, sure, but they’ve been shamelessly co-opted by Newt and Sarah and Fox and everyone else who thinks it’s excellent for the 2010 elections if they can demonize some brown people that are outside Arizona for a change. And that demonizing has become so prevalent that not only are hardly any Democrats willing to go to bat for the Cordoba House (site of the proposed community center), but it’s given Joystick Joe cover to throw a little of his patented gentle Arab-hate into the mix.

“Well, I guess I’d say I’m troubled by it. But I don’t know enough to say it ought to be prohibited. But frankly I’ve heard enough about it, and read enough about it, that I wish someone in New York would just put the brakes on it for a while and take a look at this.” - Joe Lieberman.

So you don’t know enough to say it ought to be prohibited, but you’ve heard enough to wish that New York had prohibited it. Makes sense to me. Or at least as much sense as condemning the bigotry of people opposing the community center then blaming the community center for inciting it.

And in case there was any doubt in your mind that the right was just using this bullshit to position themselves for future political runs, Tim Pawlenty weighed in on it. Tim Pawlenty. Barely even governor anymore of a state so geographically and culturally distant from NYC that we wonder why delis put sesame seeds on donuts. And Timmeh was his usual loquacious self.

“I’m strongly opposed to the idea of putting a mosque anywhere near ground zero — I think it’s inappropriate. I believe that 3,000 of our fellow innocent citizens were killed in that area, and some ways from a patriotic standpoint, it’s hallowed ground, it’s sacred ground, and we should respect that. We shouldn’t have images or activities that degrade or disrespect that in any way.” – Timmeh, delicately fluffing the cock of wingnut site RealClearPolitics.

It must be pretty hallowed ground. That’s why they haven’t actually built anything there. But how far does hallowed ground extend? Do we kick the existing mosque near Ground Zero out? Who gets to decide what images or activities degrade or disrespect our patriotic hallowed ground? Tim Pawlenty? He’s running for President, which is about as disrespectful to America as you can get.

So the Republicans are picking on a minority to score political points, the Democrats are unwilling to spend the political capital to defend the minority because they don’t want to lose the votes of fiscally liberal bigots, and the media keeps it all going for the sake of ratings. Business as usual, in other words.

Actually, in reference to Bryan’s remark about “a sushi restaurant near Pearl Harbor”, there actually is a Shinto shrine right around the bend from Pearl Harbor.

Before its destruction in 2001, the World Trade Center featured a prayer space, where hundreds of Muslims would gather every Friday to practice their faith. The number of Muslims who died during the 9/11 attack is estimated as being between 28 and 75. We shouldn’t let Osama Bin Laden prove that he was right when he said: “The West is incapable of recognizing the rights of others. It will not be able to respect others’ beliefs or feelings. The West still believes in ethnic supremacy and looks down on other nations. They categorize human beings into white masters and colored slaves.”

If it isn’t one spite-filled act of race-baiting it’s another.

Fresh from their embarrassing the crap out of themselves with the Sherrod mess, wingnut pundits are now whining incessantly about the “Ground Zero Mosque,” a community center being planned by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf to be built two blocks away from where the twin towers used to be. Many 9/11 families are protesting the community center with signs. I’ve heard it told to me that this is part of Muslim plot to build over the ruins of America’s secular temple just like the Dome of the Rock was built over where the Jerusalem Temple once stood. In reality, you can’t even see Ground Zero from where the “Ground Zero Mosque” would be.

Many, including Rush and Beck, are falsely claiming it’s going to be opened on 9/11/2011. Newt Gingrich quoted Winston Churchill, at the peak of the Battle of Britain, saying, “Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization” and claimed that there should be no mosques near Ground Zero as long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia. No doubt if Iran outlawed churches like our ally Saudi Arabia does, he would have used that instead.

So the protesters pushed for the 152-year-old Burlington Coat Factory to be torn down in it’s place to be declared a landmark to stop them. It somewhat echos the time in the 1950s when the village of Sands Point in Long Island, New York, tried and failed to block the conversion of a property known as The Chimneys to a synagogue. The committee decided by unanimous decision not to declare it a landmark. I heard Rush claim on his radio show that every building on the block had been given landmark status or was “pending” to suggest the decision made by the 11-commissioner committee was politically motivated. Since the building had itself been “pending” with a hold since 1989 before the application was reinstated, I’m guessing that the majority of the buildings on the block have the same “pending” status.

Time illuminates the myth behind the lies in their article “The Moderate Imam Behind the ‘Ground Zero Mosque’”:

“Ironically, Islam’s roots in New York City are in the area around the site of the World Trade Center, and they predate the Twin Towers: in the late 19th century, a portion of lower Manhattan was known as Little Syria and was inhabited by Arab immigrants — Muslims and Christians — from the Ottoman Empire.”

With city authorities now out of the way, it is the people spearheading the project who must bear the enormous pressure to give up their plans and scrap the building. They are being accused of sympathizing with the men who crashed the planes on 9/11 and of designing the project as, in Newt Gingrich’s reckoning, “an act of triumphalism.”

And yet Park51′s main movers, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and his wife Daisy Khan, are actually the kind of Muslim leaders right-wing commentators fantasize about: modernists and moderates who openly condemn the death cult of al-Qaeda and its adherents — ironically, just the kind of “peaceful Muslims” whom Sarah Palin, in her now infamous tweet, asked to “refudiate” the community center. Rauf is a Sufi, which is Islam’s most mystical and accommodating denomination. (See the very best #Shakespalin tweets.)

The Kuwaiti-born Rauf, 52, is the imam of a mosque in New York City’s Tribeca district, has written extensively on Islam and its place in modern society and often argues that American democracy is the embodiment of Islam’s ideal society. (One of his books is titled What’s Right with Islam Is What’s Right with America.) He is a contributor to the Washington Post’s On Faith blog, and the stated aim of his organization, the Cordoba Initiative, is “to achieve a tipping point in Muslim-West relations within the next decade, steering the world back to the course of mutual recognition and respect and away from heightened tensions.” His Indian-born wife is an architect and a recipient of the Interfaith Center Award for Promoting Peace and Interfaith Understanding.

As it says, Sufism is the most peaceful of Islam’s three main sectsSufism and actually holds to some Gnostic teachings. William Kristol instead claims that he is a Wahabist, the violent subsect of the Sunnis that Osama belongs to.

If the Muslim Arab-Americans can’t build a mosque there, is it all right for the Christian Arab-Americans to build a church there? If so, wouldn’t that be breaking the First Ammendment that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . .” Can Muslim Arab-Americans build a school that teaches religion courses? Can they build a library that includes religious literature? Where does it end? If these people against the community center care so much about symbolism, why don’t they try to push for something to be built on Ground Zero itself like everyone was saying when the towers came down? What happened to being the beacon of freedom to the world?

So I was listening to a homily in the Lady of the Lake Catholic Church yesterday (file this one under religious rant). The priest starts off by asking for everyone who was head of the household to raise their hand and then asked how they would like it if someone came in and started telling them how to run their family. Then he had those who were head of a business to raise their hand and asked how they would like it if someone came in and started telling them how to run their business (I believe they call that “customer feedback”). The priest then goes on to explain that the same thing is happening where certain people who were trying to tell the church how to run it’s own business. He then went on a spiel about how when he was a boy he couldn’t wait to be a priest because then everyone would love and respect him and how he was disappointed that that wasn’t the case. Maybe it’s just me, but it’s hard to be living in 2010 and be sympathetic to the plight of those who desire resepct and admiration due to their position alone. And I can understand how easy it is to make the mental assocaition between “church” and “business,” but businesses in fact have to cater to the public at large to avoid losing business and ultimately failing, while pretty much nothing short of a nuclear holocaust will stop the church from outliving all of us.

But what really got me was after repeating the part of the gospels about blessing your enemy, the guy went on to talk about how the church had enemies too and told everyone that they should go check out SaveOldMandeville.com because “if anything is a hate site, it is.” Although he didn’t explain why, you can see as soon as you go to the site: it’s against an expansion of the church because the plans have a large steeple rising above the tree line. The page starts off explaining what an important part the church has been for it’s 170 years of history in the community and claims that the expansion is unwanted by many in Old Mandeville, both Catholic and non-Catholic.

To call this a “hate site” only shows how overpoliticized the general public has become and how easy it is to move the general vocabulury of “left vs. right” into the more boring and individualized local politics. I sincerely doubt this site would have been given such a title 10 years ago before “hate site,” “murder-bomber,” and “socialist” entered the common vernacular. I admit I’ve become a product of it as well, using the term “hate radio” to describe the morning bitch-fest Savage, Limbaugh, Beck, and all the others who monopolize the air waves with, but at least in this case I can point to a decade ago when the radio was about making dirty jokes. Local arguments over building expansions have been going on forever.

I wouldn’t be too surprised that priests (or anyone really) think like this when it comes to their own personal local problems, but for him to even introduce the subject in a homily and to label it as an enermy of the church shows how self-absorbed he is, and to relate it to a Bible verse about forgiving your enemies just goes to show how clueless he is about how the gospel message relates to our own time.

One of the interesting aspects of studying higher criticism of the Bible is the way you can find multiple stories combined in Genesis to make a larger, completely different story. There’s many interesting examples of how stories are combined and retold in a way that make them more than the sum of their parts.

Take a look at this story and see if you can find anything missing or any logical inconsistencies in it:

Yahweh saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. Yahweh was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. So Yahweh said, ‘I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth—men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air—for I am grieved that I have made them.’ But Noah found favor in the eyes of Yahweh. Yahweh then said to Noah, ‘Go into the ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation. Take with you 7 of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and 2 of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, and also 7 of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth. And 7 days from now I will send rain on the earth for 40 days and 40 nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made.’ And Noah did all that Yahweh commanded him. And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives entered the ark to escape the waters of the flood. Then Yahweh shut him in. For 40 days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the waters increased they lifted the ark high above the earth. The waters rose and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered. The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than 15 cubits. Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died. Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; men and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds of the air were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark. And the rain had stopped falling from the sky. The water receded steadily from the earth. After 40 days Noah opened the window he had made in the ark. Then he sent out a dove to see if the water had receded from the surface of the ground. But the dove could find no place to set its feet because there was water over all the surface of the earth; so it returned to Noah in the ark. He reached out his hand and took the dove and brought it back to himself in the ark. He waited 7 more days and again sent out the dove from the ark. When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the water had receded from the earth. He waited 7 more days and sent the dove out again, but this time it did not return to him. Noah then removed the covering from the ark and saw that the surface of the ground was dry. Then Noah built an altar to Yahweh and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. Yahweh smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: ‘Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done. ‘As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.

Now read story #2 and see if there are any problems with it:

Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with Elohim. Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth. Now the earth was corrupt in Elohim’s sight and was full of violence. Elohim saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. So Elohim said to Noah, ‘I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide and 30 cubits high. Make a roof for it and finish the ark to within a cubit of the top. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks. I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you. You are to bring into the ark 2 of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive. You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them.’ Noah did everything just as Elohim commanded him. Pairs of clean and unclean animals, of birds and of all creatures that move along the ground, male and female, came to Noah and entered the ark, as Elohim had commanded Noah. And after the 7 days the floodwaters came on the earth. In the 600th year of Noah’s life, on the 17th day of the second month—on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. And rain fell on the earth 40 days and 40 nights. On that very day Noah and his sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, together with his wife and the wives of his 3 sons, entered the ark. They had with them every wild animal according to its kind, all livestock according to their kinds, every creature that moves along the ground according to its kind and every bird according to its kind, everything with wings. Pairs of all creatures that have the breath of life in them came to Noah and entered the ark. The animals going in were male and female of every living thing, as Elohim had commanded Noah. Every living thing that moved on the earth perished—birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind. The waters flooded the earth for 150 days. But Elohim remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded. Now the springs of the deep and the floodgates of the heavens had been closed. At the end of the 150 days the water had gone down, and on the 17th day of the 7th month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. The waters continued to recede until the 10th month, and on the 1st day of the 10th month the tops of the mountains became visible. And he sent out a raven, and it kept flying back and forth until the water had dried up from the earth. By the 1st day of the 1st month of Noah’s 601st year, the water had dried up from the earth. By the 27th day of the 2nd month the earth was completely dry. Then Elohim said to Noah, ‘Come out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and their wives. Bring out every kind of living creature that is with you—the birds, the animals, and all the creatures that move along the ground—so they can multiply on the earth and be fruitful and increase in number upon it.’ So Noah came out, together with his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives. All the animals and all the creatures that move along the ground and all the birds—everything that moves on the earth—came out of the ark, one kind after another.

Neither of these stories are in the Bible. Both have been interwoven into one larger story which can now be found in Genesis. The first story was written by an author known as J, who wrote most of Genesis. The second one was written by P, who wrote most of Leviticus and Numbers. Now try this with any other story and see if you can get the same effect.

J: Gen. 6:1-8; Gen. 7:15,7,16b-20,2-23; Gen. 8:2b-3a,6,8,-12,13b,20-22; Gen. 9:18-27
P: Gen. 6:9b22; Gen. 7:8-16a,21,24; Gen. 8:1-2a,3b-5,7,13a,14-19
Redactor: Gen. 6:9a
Other: Gen. 7:6

Notice also how the two stories are actually more consistent now that they have been separated:

* J uses the name Yahweh and P uses the name Elohim. This is because P consistently uses the name Elohim in the story until Elohim tells Moses, “I am Yahweh. And I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as El Shaddai” (Ex. 6:2). This narrative device of switching the name at the time of Moses was also used by an earlier source, E, who did the same thing 3 chapters earlier (Ex. 3:14). After this point, all three sources use the name Yahweh consistently.

* J says says that everything “died” (7:22) while P uses a different Hebrew word meaning “destroy” or “expire” (6:17, 7:21).

* J has Noah send out a dove. P has Noah send out a raven.

* J says the rain lasted 40 days and 40 nights. P envisions the flood lasting a year (370 days).

* J has 7 pairs of clean animals and one pair of unclean animals while P has only one pair of each animal. That was because the clean animals were needed for the sacrifice after the flood. But this also matches the theological differences of J and P. J consistently shows Biblical characters making sacrifices at many different places and times before Moses. P has none of the other patriarchs before Moses make sacrifices because it undermines his argument that Jerusalem is the one and only place where sacrifices are legitimate.

* Unlike J, P is concerned with ages, dates, and measurements. This same obsession is found in P’s long descriptions of the temple, the ark of the covenant, the priestly garbs and duties, etc. in his story. P’s penchant for statistics is why the fourth book of the Torah is called “Numbers.”

* J describes Yahweh in very human terms: having regrets, personally closing the ark, and smelling Noah’s sacrifice. P describes Elohim as being more transcendent.

* Throughout the entire Torah, the euphemism “to know” meaning sex, occurs 5 times and only in J. “To lie with” occurs 13 times, and 11 are in J. The term “Sheol” as a place for the dead, as in Hades, occurs 6 times and only in J. The term “to suffer” occurs 7 times and only in J.

* Throughout the entire Torah, the terms “gathered to his people”, “fire came out from before Yahweh”, “he fell on his face”, “be fruitful and multiply”, “property”, “expire”, the root ” ‘dp”, and over 100 references to “congregation” appear only in P.

* Linguistic analysis has confirmed that J and E use an older form of Hebrew than P, and P uses an older form of Hebrew than Deuteronomy. This has been shown in books and papers written by Robert Polzin, Gary Rendsburg, Ziony Zevit, Jacob Milgrom, Avi Hurvitz, and Ronald Hendel.

If you look at Gen. 5, it begins with the sentence “This is the Book of Records of Adam,” indicating it’s the beginning of a different source. The style of repeating exactly how many years were lived before and after the birth of each son is nothing like the way J writes when he gives a geneology from Cain to Lamech in Gen. 4:17-24. If you take out chapter 5, then you have a much smoother, more readable narrative that goes from Cain to Lamech to Noah. Having the Book of Records of Adam inserted into the narrative instead makes this Lamech out to be a different man with the same name from the line of Seth. Lining these two genealogies up shows that they are very similar to one another:

Seth: Cain
Enosh: Enoch
Cainan: Irad
Mahalalel: Mehuya-el
Jared
Enoch
Methuselah: Metusha-el
Lamech: Lamech
Noah

Now let’s look at the story of Joseph:

Story 1:

Joseph, a young man of seventeen, was tending the flocks with his brothers, the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives, and he brought their father a bad report about them. And he made a richly ornamented robe [of many colors] for him. Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more. He said to them, “Listen to this dream I had: We were binding sheaves of grain out in the field when suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright, while your sheaves gathered around mine and bowed down to it.”His brothers said to him, “Do you intend to reign over us? Will you actually rule us?” And they hated him all the more because of his dream and what he had said.Then he had another dream, and he told it to his brothers. “Listen,” he said, “I had another dream, and this time the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.” When he told his father as well as his brothers, his father rebuked him and said, “What is this dream you had? Will your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow down to the ground before you?” His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind. “Here comes that dreamer!” they said to each other. “Come now, let’s kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns and say that a ferocious animal devoured him. Then we’ll see what comes of his dreams.” So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe—the richly ornamented robe he was wearing. they looked up and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead. Their camels were loaded with spices, balm and myrrh, and they were on their way to take them down to Egypt. Judah said to his brothers, “What will we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood? Come, let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him; after all, he is our brother, our own flesh and blood.” His brothers agreed. And they sold him for 20 shekels of silver to the Ishmaelites, who took him to Egypt. Then they got Joseph’s robe, slaughtered a goat and dipped the robe in the blood. They took the ornamented robe back to their father and said, “We found this. Examine it to see whether it is your son’s robe.”He recognized it and said, “It is my son’s robe! Some ferocious animal has devoured him. Joseph has surely been torn to pieces.”Then Jacob tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and mourned for his son many days. All his sons and daughters came to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. “No,” he said, “in mourning will I go down to Sheol [Hades] to my son.” So his father wept for him.

Story 2:

Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age. When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him. Now his brothers had gone to graze their father’s flocks near Shechem, and Israel said to Joseph, “As you know, your brothers are grazing the flocks near Shechem. Come, I am going to send you to them.” “Very well,” he replied. So he said to him, “Go and see if all is well with your brothers and with the flocks, and bring word back to me.” Then he sent him off from the Valley of Hebron.When Joseph arrived at Shechem, a man found him wandering around in the fields and asked him, “What are you looking for?” He replied, “I’m looking for my brothers. Can you tell me where they are grazing their flocks?” “They have moved on from here,” the man answered. “I heard them say, ‘Let’s go to Dothan.’ ” So Joseph went after his brothers and found them near Dothan. But they saw him in the distance, and before he reached them, they plotted to kill him. When Reuben heard this, he tried to rescue him from their hands. “Let’s not take his life,” he said. “Don’t shed any blood. Throw him into this cistern here in the desert, but don’t lay a hand on him.” Reuben said this to rescue him from them and take him back to his father. And they took him and threw him into the cistern. Now the cistern was empty; there was no water in it. As they sat down to eat their meal. So when the Midianite merchants came by, his brothers pulled Joseph up out of the cistern. When Reuben returned to the cistern and saw that Joseph was not there, he tore his clothes. He went back to his brothers and said, “The boy isn’t there! Where can I turn now?” And the Medanites sold Joseph in Egypt to Potiphar, one of Pharaoh’s officials, the captain of the guard.

Here’s how these stories were combined:

J: Gen. 37:2b,3b,5-11,19-20,23,25b-27,28b,31-35
E: Gen. 37:3a,4,12-18,2122,24-25,28a,29-30,36
Redactor: Gen. 37:2a

Notice the differences between these stories:

* J uses the name Jacob; E uses the name Israel.

* In J, Joseph is sold to Ishmaelites; In E, he is sold to Midianites (although the last sentence instead refers to them as Medanites). The original person who combined J and E made it appear that the Midianites sold him to the Ishmaelites, but he leaves a contradiction in that Potiphar is said to have bought them from Medanites.

* In J, Judah tries to save Joseph; In E, Reuben tries to save Joseph. This fits with J’s favoritism towards Judah.

* In the Blessing of Jacob in Gen. 49 passes up the older brothers Reuben, Simon, and Levi in order to bless Judah: Reuben for “ascending your father’s bed” and Simon and Levi for their “implements of violence”, which roughly correlate to Reuben sleeping with his father’s concubine and the J story of Simon and Levi massacring prince Shechem (the original capital of Israel) in revenge for the defiling of their sister Dinah. But in Gen. 48, E has Israel bless Joseph and his sons instead, in particular Ephraim, north of Jerusalem, corresponding to E’s location in Shiloh. The prophet Ahijah from Shiloh instigated Jeroboam’s rebellion against Solomon, but then felt betrayed when Jeroboam failed to make them the sole priests of Israel and instead set up the golden calves.

* In order to get the blessing intended for Esau, Jacob deceives his father by using his brother’s cloak and the meat and hide of a goat (Gen. 27). We know this earlier narrative is a J story because it also uses J words like Yahweh and Jacob. Thus, Jacob’s sons using the blood of a goat is ironic retribution for Jacob’s own deception, which is very characteristic of J’s strong reoccuring themes on family deceptions.

* In J, the brothers (not the Midianites) sell Joseph for 20 weights of silver. Later, Joseph will arrange to have 20 portions of silver returned to their grain sacks (9 brothers come back on the first return, and 11 come back on the 2nd return), again hinting at an ironic payback for the brother’s deception.

* J is also the main author of Judges and 2 Samuel. By reading J in it’s original version (which can be found in Richard Friedman’s “The Hidden Book in the Bible”), it’s much easier to see the many correlations that J makes between the patriarachs and the Court of David. The way the Bible is set up now, having to plow through the tedium of Leviticus and Numbers makes most readers completely forget the things they read in Genesis by the time they get there. For example, the destruction of Sodom in Genesis 19 directly mirrors the destruction of the Benjamanite city of Gibeah in Judges 19. The story of Levi and Simon avenging their sister while Jacob does nothing is mirrored in the story of Absalom avenging his sister while David does nothing. All of these connections are almost impossible to remember reading the Bible from front to back.

* What’s even more fascinating is the way J effectively brings his story full circle when he ends his story at 1 Kings 2:37-46, with Solomon telling the rebellious Shimei “In the day you go out of Jerusalem, you will die!”, mirroring Yahweh’s words in Eden, “In the day you eat from it: you will die!” Much of the same words like “knowledge”, “good”, “bad”, and “death” are repeated numerously both at the beginning and ending of the story.

“The words left behind are ironically what the books are about, but not in the way their authors intended. The evangelical/fundamentalists, from their crudest egocentric celebrities to their “intellectuals” touring college campuses trying to make evangelicalism respectable, have been left behind by modernity. They won’t change their literalistic anti-science, anti-education, anti-everything superstitions, so now they nurse a deep grievance against ‘the world.’ This has led to a profound fear of the ‘other.’”

http://www.alternet.org/politics/143232/why_republicans_are_in_the_grip_of_an_apocalyptic_rapture_cult_centered_on_revenge_and_vindication

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/6256173/Mahmoud-Ahmadinejad-revealed-to-have-Jewish-past.html

http://conservapedia.com/Conservative_Bible_Project

“First Example – Liberal Falsehood

The earliest, most authentic manuscripts lack this verse set forth at Luke 23:34: Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

Is this a liberal corruption of the original? This does not appear in any other Gospel, and the simple fact is that some of the persecutors of Jesus did know what they were doing. This quotation is a favorite of liberals but should not appear in a conservative Bible.”