Thoughts on the proposed Project 51 Cultural Center that may be built in New York in relatively close proximity to the site of the 9/11 collapse...

To start out my little blog, I will begin porting over some of my thoughts from Facebook. But in keeping with the spirit of this blog, I am going to have to change a lot of the wording, (for those of you who know me well, this comes as no big surprise) the following are some responses, and links I posted on my Facebook profile

First, some links. As a suggestion, avoid the responses on the links themselves. They are pretty depressing no matter which side of this issue you are on.

Hallowed Ground

Truly a mosque? (From politifact.com, one of the best sites out there for forming fact finding)

Where is the outrage now?


For those who condemn the religion of Islam and everything associated with it, (including a cultural center that includes a restraunt, retail spaces, gymnasium, and yes, a mosque... how many men, women and children have been and continue to be killed in the name of Christ? How many Christian faiths teach intolerance of different races, different beliefs, different sexual orientations? How many times is violence mentioned, advocated, and commanded by God in the Bible, the Holy Book of the Christian religion? A small percentage of the Muslim faith preaches and follows the idea of murdering infidels, and yet alarmists and hate mongers, while claiming to be followers of The Christ (He who said love thy neighbor, love thy enemy, pray for those that hurt you) would have you believe that the 33% of the world that IS Muslim wants to kills us peace loving Christians, and that we need to murder those sons of bitches before they can murder us. The words and actions of the these extremest Christians saddens and frightens me, the same as the words and actions of those extremest Muslims frightens you. But it would be ignorant and hateful of me to say that all Christians are like Timothy McVey, or David Coresh, or the Knights of the Crusades. When we let that fear overcome us, to justify our hate of our fellow man, and to oppress them and destroy them and treat them as animals, what right do we have to claim we are any better? Extremism exists in all religions, but despite what Beck or Limbaugh or Hannity of our pastor or bishop ma say to us, the vast vast majority of those of the Muslim faith do not wish us harm. If 33% of the world wanted us dead, we would be dead. It saddens me to see those claiming to follow Christ spew forth hatred on their fellow man. Can you not see the hypocrisy in that? Christ never said "Love thy fellow man.. unless he is *fill in the blank*" He just said "Love thy fellow man." When we are motivated by hate and fear, we have lost, we have become like those we rage against.

And what of those who say that religion is the cause of all pain and agony in this world, and then immediately spout hatred against religion, and those that follow a religion. Again, can you not see they hypocrisy in his statement? The cause of all the pain and suffering in this world is us, the human race, and while we continue to let our fears and hatred control our actions, this world will continue to be a place where there will be pain and suffering.

Those are my musings.

Why Jones, why?

I have found myself having many thoughts on politics, religion, and many other thing... the type of things that I don't think are appropriate for our family blog. I find myself wanting to communicate these thoughts to my friends and family, and have been trying through channels like Facebook. Unfortunately, Facebook doesn't lend itself to the type of discussion I would like to have: intelligent, thoughtful, and non hateful. I wanted to have more control as to who reads and responds to my musings, and the manner in which I will accept those responses. So I have created this blog, and will be inviting you, my friends and family, to read my thoughts on diverse subjects. I invite you to respond with your thoughts. There will be some ground rules.

1) I feel very strongly that the key to having an intelligent stance on any issue is to first research the facts before coming to a conclusion. I will do my best to research my thoughts, to provide a factual basis for my opinions and stances. There, of course, may be some subjects that this is not possible (issues of faith or religion being an obvious one), but I will do my best. I ask you to do the same.

2) I feel that having an intelligent conversations hinges on being respectful toward each other. With that in mind, hateful, insulting or demeaning attitudes, and postings will not be tolerated, by myself or by anyone else. I will warn an individual once, and that is all. After that, you will no longer be welcome here.

3) I feel that sometimes, oftentimes, people simply can not agree with one another. I also feel that there is nothing wrong with this. To try and force our thoughts or feelings onto our fellow man demeans them and us. I will not demand that you agree with me on any issue, and I ask that you do me the same courtesy.

So, yeah, that's it. It's an experiment, and we will see how it works.