Spain is home to Cathedrals that were once mosques, and European Muslims are asking for their houses of worship back. I'm sympathetic to their cause. After all, the Christians aren't using them, except as musty museums that attract tourist dollars.
American Christians are unusual in that their churches rarely occupy sites sacred to other faiths. But throughout history new religions often appropriated older sacred places for their own purposes. London's St. Paul's Cathedral stands over the remains of a pagan temple, and the Metropolitan Cathedral in Mexico City is within the sacred precinct of Aztec Tenochtitlán. Invaders normally assumed that dominant religions should by right occupy the greatest buildings, and they grabbed sites accordingly.
Such displacements are much in evidence across Europe and the Middle East, where Christians and Muslims often battled each other and where frontiers shifted frequently. (Whose Holy Ground)The non-practicing Europeans who won't cede ground to Muslim worshipers remind me of an older child stubbornly clinging to a toy even though he has outgrown it. Here's an idea. Hold a contest to see who can get more people to show up to the building, Catholics or Muslims. Whoever produces the bigger crowd wins the property.
The author of the article just wants to let sleeping dogs lie, and ends with a question...
And what would happen if Christians tried to recover the many former churches in the Middle East that are now Islamicized?What would happen? The Islamists would cut their heads off.
And that’s the difference between us and them. It is telling that while Christians cower in fear all over the Muslim world, prey to burnings, bombings and murder, Muslims in the west freely exercise their religion and bring their cultural and religious practices to the public square without fear of violence.Meanwhile, here's a cool story about a brave Muslim Voice for European Christianity.
50 comments:
And that’s the difference between us and them.
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Yeah, thank a liberal.
The Moors or the Berbers conquered Spain and ruled the entire contry for 400 years and parts of the country for 700 years before the Christian finally drove the last of the Moors out. So the old mosgues are spoils of war. So, give the buildings back to the Muslims? I don't think so. The Muslims should offer to buy them, in my opinion.
I keep waiting to hear from the so called "moderate Muslims" who are supposedly more tolerant. While reading a business piece concerning a muslim woman, she stated that she has made an exception to her faith and will shake a man's hand.We have miles to go to understand these people. Then again, maybe we do.
"Yeah, thank a liberal
Correction. Thank a classical liberal, which bears no resemblance to today's doctrinaire, dictatorial, didactic and outrageously mis-named liberals.
she stated that she has made an exception to her faith and will shake a man's hand
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Wonder if a fundamentalist Jew would make the same concession.
Is it possible to understand any fundamentalists or are you obsessed by Muslims?
I might go along with this idea on the day, actually the very minute any and all Moslem's vacated the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem and it be summarily torn down.
If these cultists want their so-called property back, well then they should lead by example.
Good post. Yes, it is the difference between us and them. We don't cut head off. Unless it is George Zimmerman of course.
Ducky: Israel has ultra-Orthodox Jews and it is also home to houses of worship for Christians and Muslims. You're slipping.
While as semi-amusing intellectual exercise, this whole concept is ridiculous.
Give it back to the Muslims?
Sure, when they give back Byzantium.
Might as well give it back to the Italians, as the Roman claim predates the Islamic one and certainly exceeds it in span of control. How about the Carthaginians who predate the Romans, or the Phoenicians who predate the Carthaginians? Or the Celts, whose claim predates the all three, or the Iberians whose claims predate the Celts.
How many of these Muslims can claim Umayyad heritage? For if they are from the middle east, they have no claim at all.
Perhaps we should give Great Britain back to the Irish, deport all the Normans back to France, all the Anglo-Saxons back to Germany, and all the Vikings back to Scandinavia.
Meanwhile the rest of us can shag our sorry white asses back to Europe.
My great grandfather X 89 pissed on that rock outcropping over there in 213 BC , 335 years before that damned Hadrian built his wall, it's mine!
ENOUGH”?
Unfortunately a blog is like preaching to the choir or to the Stupid idiots who are either too blind or too dumb, or both to understand the consequences.
It has become clear that he now believes he can do anything he wants including forced socialism without the slighted bit of resistance from the media, the Republicans, or the stupid, asinine people who elected him in the first place. And because of this, this inept and unqualified occupant of the White House has a very good chance of being re-elected. And id he is, we are in for a long bumpy ride.
I don’t hate him because he is Kenyan we all have to be from somewhere. In fact I don’t hate him at all. I am disappointed with the social engineering and unfathomable debt that this administration allowed to become law.
But I’m having trouble right now differentiating complacency from stupidity.
Idiots have been elected to government positions, where they pass dumb laws. They have also appointed puppets to the supreme court to do their bidding if anyone dares buck one of their dumb laws. Like this obamacare BS? Well America, you brought it on yourselves. We allowed this man to be elected and without the typical process of examination and evaluation that we know as “Vetting” So we have had to reap what we have have sown. Of course, you’ll drag the rest of us who didn’t vote for this crap, but we got it regardless. And if we are not careful we are going to get it again.
It wasn’t the fault of Sarah Palin, or Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh or Tea parties. It was the idiots who voted for this man. And it was the PC people who wanted to put a black man in office so badly it didn’t matter who it was, so what we got is a Clown show along with a wife who dodn’t know when to stop spending.
Andrew Breitbart uncovered video and the ” brainwash people” discarded it as if it were yesterdays garbage. and it went nowhere.
We have a president who is looking backwards. His policies are going to deprive us of electrical generating power so that we have brown outs. He disregards the chance of a pipeline that would rid us of a great percentage of Arab oil. He thinks he is technologically advanced because he can use an iPhone. He is only an “intellectual” by liberal standards.
But you can’t argue with a clown, you’ll just get pie in your face. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the media did do its job?? But I won’t hold my breath. If anything, the press will cover up the lies and the mendacity of this “Man Child”
WHEN THE HELL DO WE SAY, “ENOUGH IS ENOUGH”?
Huh?
LOL
Andrew Breitbart's video? I'm going to freaking hurt myself laughing.
When do they release it?
His policies are going to deprive us of electrical generating power so that we have brown outs.
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Where do these people come from?
Ducky: Israel has ultra-Orthodox Jews and it is also home to houses of worship for Christians and Muslims. You're slipping.
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I'm talking about Crown Heights, NYC.
Lubavitchers cutting off heads in Crown Heights? Who knew...
Ducky: "Where do these people come from?"
IDK. Ask Lib-Mann
No Silverfiddle,unmarried fundamentalist women refusing to touch a man.
What you don't understand is ho similar the doctrines are.
Of course few nations cut off hands. As I said, it's necessary to state which conception of shari you ar referring to.
Good to hear from you, Pixy, even if it was a bit "off-topic!" Where have you been all our lives?
I sympathize and basically agree with just about everything you said with this exception:
" ... And it was the PC people who wanted to put a black man in office so badly it didn’t matter who it was ..."
That is not completely true. The PC crowd would never accept a CONSERVATIVE black man.
Why is that?
Because their concern for the plight of 1. blacks, 2. Jews, 3. Women, 4. cripples, 5. homosexuals, 6. Hispanics, 7. Muslims, 8. "The Poor," 9. You-Name-It is and has always been entirely disingenuous.
The aim of this quasi-oligarchical elite is -- and always has been -- to destroy White, Protestant-Christian, Capitalist Ascendancy in the guise of promoting "EGALITARIANISM," and in so doing gain and hold DICTATORIAL POWER.
In street parlance Progressives don't give a shit about the various 'victim groups" they pretend to champion. They just USE these people -- and their brainwashed minions in the "intelligentsia" -- as pawns in their perpetual war against Whiteness, Christianity and Economic Independence, Individuality and Personal Freedom.
So, despite all the loud noise in favor of "Minorities," it's only a pretext for usurping the power and prerogatives of the majority to hand -- not to Victim Groups -- but to the Marxist-Progressive- Liberal-quasi-Bolshevik-DICTOCRATS who want to turn YOU and all the rest of us into their SLAVES.
The handwriting is on the wall. Too bad more than half the populace -- including the "intelligentsia" have been rendered morally blind as well as functionally illiterate.
~ FreeThinke (who is seriously considering the possibility of changing his name to "CASSANDRA")
Ducky: ...and my answer is... So what?
Refusing to touch a man's hand is a far cry from religiously-inspired murder.
If you can show that Jewish Kosher-compliant killings are even a tenth of the Sharia variety, we'll have a basis for discussion. Until then, you're just quacking in the wind.
As for today's post -- interesting and politically provocative though it be -- I wish some concern and consideration for the historic, architectural and artistic significance of the buildings in question had been shown.
Significant pieces of architecture have an importance that transcends the function for which they were ostensibly constructed in the first place. There's nothing "musty" about showing love and respect for and taking good care of Edifying Edifices. ;-).
It reminds me of all the politically-motivated fracas about the British having "stolen" The Elgin Marbles from Greece. Let's face it The Elgin Marbles would very probably no longer EXIST if the British hadn't gotten their hands on them and taken great care to show them the respect they deserve as important historic works of art.
Contemporary Greece has about as much kinship with The Golden Age of Pericles as the Central and South Americans of today have with the Aztec and Incan empires. The same holds true for modern Egypt's relationship with Cheops, Hatshepsut, Ahmenhotep and Tutankhamen.
I's too bad the Sphinx and the Great Pyramids were in no way portable. Had they been transported to Britain or the United States, they'd probably be in a lot better shape today.
Art Treasures from Antiquity properly belong where they are most appreciated, safely housed and expertly preserved.
Without great Art, Architecture, Literature, Horticulture and Music humanity would likely be on a par with colony of apes -- or a pack of wolves.
~ FreeThinke
I'm for renaming Granada to Matamoros...
Way to pick up "The White Man's Burden" and run with it FT.
I don't trust religions that meet in buildings with doors that lock.
A Mosque or a Church?
How about making a compromise and calling it either a Chursque or a Murch?
The EVERYBODY could be EQUALLY offended. How jolly!
WHOOPEE!
Who knows, we might even see Synagosques and Moscathedra in The Holy Land?
What about the poor suffering atheists and their newfound spirit of Complaint and Demand?
I say, give them a few acres of heavily-salted, sandy desert with no vegetation, no access to water and no view of Civilization.
Barrenness and Sterility is what they worship and the apparent source of their inspiration. By all means let them have it.
~ FreeThinke
I am for bringing back the bodies of the American Servicemen who died and were buried in that rat hole dessert during WWII, and now are descratiing. We are worried about U.S soldiers in Afghanistan not showing proper resepct?
@ Thersites: I'm for renaming Granada to Matamoros...
Good one!
Yeah, Freethinker, we should move the Taj Mahal stone by stone to Las Vegas or Orlando, those great American monuments of taste.
FT, there are Christians who are said to be celebrating a kind of CHRISLAM, having congregants read the koran so they can show they're open minded and accepting. Rick Warren's one of those.
I have no problem with lectures on other religions, I think that's fascinating, but this during worship time when they say Jesus is the only way to God and then ...
really?
Alright I'm going to throw in a curve ball and make an extremely nutty suggestion, that Muslims and Catholics share the building. I doubt that would work since Muslims are the most intolerant group of people on the planet. Or the Catholic Church could sell the building to the Muslims for a pretty penny. This could be the beginning of operation bankrupt the Muzzies. Heck, maybe we avoid another terrorist attack by simply outrageously overpricing the old Muslim Mosques/ buildings which the Muslims want so badly?
Is God's church only in the physical place we designate it to be?
Letting them have their buidling doesn't make Christians cowardly. Perhaps those that would let them have the buidling realize that there's more to Christianity than these earthly things we try so hard to cling to.
I would imagine that the bickering between religions is something that God would view as being ridiculously human. I can see him saying "*sigh* they just don't get it, do they?"
Jack, I think 'letting them have the building' says a lot more about other things than it does strictly about religion. "Let them have foot basins in universities...because, for years, muslims could study without clean feet, but they can't now, for some reason" "Let muslim cab drivers turn away dogs...they didn't before, but they do now.." "Let Muslim butchers refuse to cut pork now.."
Why now? All the Ohio prisons now can't serve pork because it might come into contact with the Halal meals they feed muslim inmates...odd, the Jews get kosher food and don't complain that the pork's 'fumes' might contaminate their kosher meal.
"let them have the church"......
I don't think so.
During my years in the Middle East I had many a pork meal cooked and served by Muslims. I always thought it was funny, and half expected to come down with some kind of poisoning, but here I am...
"Let muslim cab drivers turn away dogs...they didn't before, but they do now..."
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Absolute bullshit.
Refuse to take dogs or alcohol and you lose your license.
Happened in Minneapolis when drivers refused to carry parcels containing wine or other alcohol. They were told to cut the shit or lose their license.
Couple guys at Logan refused guide dogs and they lost their license. Simple, nobody stands for that crap.
As far as having a space to perform oblution, that does nothing to interfere with your rights and you're just being a whiner
Ducky, wake up. Did you read your comment? Thanks for the confirmation. Muslim cab drivers refused. That they were told to stick it might or might not be true, but my point's made.
You often miss nuance, but let me just say it again; the schools suddenly have to pay for foot basins. When did muslims suddenly become unable to study with dirty feet? REALLY? or agenda?
Quotations from Comments on the Sayeeda Warsi article with which I concur”
1. ” ... It is great that there are moderate Muslims out there like Ms Warsi who are defending Europe’s religious tradition in general and Christianity in particular. But let’s be frank; they are lone voices being drowned out by a cacophonous debate. There won’t be a large number of moderate Muslim voices out there until these voices are no longer stilled by the threat of violence from more hardline Islamists. The fact that the Church of England is more committed to worshipping at the alter of multiculturalism and to making excuses for the radicals is evidence that for all of Ms Warsi’s eloquence, her battle is already lost.”
2. ”’I love the idea that the old party of Colonel Blimp may now be headed by a Jew and a Muslim.’
The great Victorian Conservative leader D’Israeli was a Jewish convert and I believe the first Catholic to lead a major British political party was Ian Duncan Smith.”
[NOTE: Proudly anomalous, anachronistic old Tory that I am -- Benjamin Disraeli notwithstanding -- I find the quote from the article, itself, heartily endorsing the idea of Conservatives in Britain being led by a Muslim and a Jew very disturbing -- further evidence that Britain has given up her unique character and singular identity to blend into some vague, amorphous, internationalized, utopian dreamworld.]
3. ” ... Professor Bergen writes that “Most Muslims in Europe want to become an integral part of their several societies. The notion of “Eurabia”, an Islamized continent, is at this point an improbable dystopia.” I am not sure why various authors keep making this atatement — there is no empirical evidence to substantiate such a claim. Indeed, polling repeatedly (and in several countries) shows the opposite, that large proportions of Muslims in Europe do not want to adopt Western values, expect Western societies to accomodate Islamic beliefs and practices, and are largely disdainful of what we might call Western civilisation. And that proportion does not just include those who would be considered extremist in their outlook.”
Yes. Yes. Yes. Nice as all his may sound to some ears Professor Bergen must be just another self-loathing, starry-eyed liberal for whom wishful thinking is a way of life.
~ FreeThinke
By the way I neglected to mention that Baroness Sayeeda Warsi is an exceedingly attractive, charismatic woman who should be welcome anywhere in the world -- but no matter what her legal status may be, she's not a Briton.
Contrary to what liberals would have you believe Nativism is neither ugly nor evil.
And Britain, despite it's growing militant atheist-secularist movements, became great as a CHRISTIAN nation. The West would not be The West were it not for the predominant influence of CHRISTIANITY.
Multiculturalism is quintessentially DIVISIVE -- in fact a great evil.
DON'T FALL FOR IT.
~ FreeThinke
I quite agree, and I go further: anybody who was born and raised, as Warsi was, in West Riding, Yorkshire should be rounded up and sent back where they... d'oh!
Tit for tat.
Sell the cathedrals to the Spanish Muslims IF AND ONLY IF Saudi Arabia allows for the erection of a cathedral there.
PS: Love that comment from Thersites!
Yorkshire's a beautiful place. I flew into Leeds and jumped in a rental car to drive to Whitby. It was dark and it was the first time I'd ever driven on the wrong side of the road. What an experience...
Do Britons know the danger they are in from foreigners leaving the airport?
There's a beautiful old Abbey, museum and surrounding historical buildings along the coast in Whitby. Rent the headphones and have a beautiful sounding ghost narrate as you pass the various landmarks.
Charming people as well. I highly recommend Black Sheep Ale.
" ... During my years in the Middle East I had many a pork meal cooked and served by Muslims. ..."
Not surprising. Every Jew I've ever known (hundreds!) has eaten and enjoyed pork.
Most of this hullaballoo has emerged since 911.
I never gave Muslims a thought one way or the other till 911, and it was the sudden HYPER-AGGRESSIVE ASSERTIVENESS and blazingly hostile DEFENSIVENESS on their part WITHOUT A SHRED OF CONTRITION that showed up after the fall of the twin towers that has gotten my back up -- mine and hundreds of thousands of others.
~ FreeThinke
i think it is a joke that anyone takes such demands seriosly in the first place.
Morocco, which has the largest remnants of ethnic andalousis (tke note of that FinnTann) would consider such a claim as a joke as well.
Equally a farce are some comments here. How many of you wrote "the muslims . . "? What, they are a single group? Please argue, but with logic.
Yes a noisy group are milking us, demanding anything and everything. However they are a minority, often demanding things not accepted in the actual Muslim world and some over here are considered criminals in their country of origin.
the issues are three, only three.
1. why do the majoriry shut their mouths?
2. why are they tolerated? they are often not tolerated at home... And
3. why do some of us exagerate, generalize and abuse context to make the matter worse and confused?
D Charles
Jez,
If a white person of European background emigrates to China, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Viet Nam, etc. becomes gainfully employed, learns the language, observes the customs, marries a native oriental, has children, and remains there, he or she is STILL a white person. NOTHING can transform a white person of European parentage into an Asian, a Negro, a Pygmy, a Watusi, a Semite, an Australian Aborigine, or an Eskimo, etc.
The reverse is equally true. A black man will never be a white man. A Japanese woman will never be a white woman.
That's what I meant, and that's ALL I meant.
As the saying goes, you could spend your entire life housed in a garage, but I won't turn you into an automobile.
If you read about the late Samuel P. Huntington, and delved into some of his work, you would better understand what I am driving at. This is no place to quote reams of material that either confirms or denies any particular point of view. It's just a place to air differing opinions.
I happen to believe the deliberate importation of massive numbers of markedly foreign types into ANY established society for the purposes of changing the demographics to gain political advantage is beyond stupid. It is insane.
Think for a moment of what might happen, if you decided to make an attempt to transform yourself into a "Hottentot," and you might see what I'm driving at.
Individuals of all stripes may be delightful to know and wondrous to behold -- as a native New Yorker, I know that very well, believe me, -- but once exotic, anomalous elements grow large in number and transform themselves into demanding political POWER BLOCS determined to transform someone ELSE'S country to suit themselves, they are a distinct THREAT to the established cultural and religious identity of the nation who opened its doors to them.
I've spent several months in England on two occasions. It exceeded my fondest hopes and expectations. It was like living in a beautiful picture book or the pages of a novel. Truly a dream come to life. Every village street, every church, every graveyard, every stately home, every cathedral or historic castle, every garden, every pub, and every museum was sheer delight to me.
I was staying for the most part in the homes of middle class English people, and was privileged to share their lives and enjoy their surroundings for several days running, so I doubt if what I experienced was "illusory." The highlight of my first trip was the week I spent in Cambridge -- awe-inspiring, but in a friendly, welcoming way. Three weeks in London as a guest in friend's private club near Marble Arch was equally wonderful. Recitals at Wigmore Hall, Opera at Covent Garden and the ENO, a different play most every night in between the musical events, long long walks, The British Museum, the V and A, luncheon at the Savoy, dinner at Rules, Kew Gardens, Hampshire Court, Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's Cathedral, The National Gallery, shopping at Harrod's, Selfridge's, Fortnum & Mason -- all of it perfectly splendid. I had wings on my heels the whole time, and hated to leave.
But that was in 1981 -- before the massive influx of Negroes, Egyptians and Pakistanis began to have a noticeable impact on England's green and pleasant land -- and before Princess Di's disastrous marriage and her shoddy affairs pulled British Royalty into the gutter -- a place it had regrettably flirted with in a public and most unseemly manner since the advent of Wallis Warfield Simpson.
There's no going back, of course. I just hate to see the splendor, the glory and the majesty of a once-proud and vigorous England transformed into an amorphous beige puddle.
Cosmopolitanism is wonderful, but Multiculturalism is lethal.
~ FreeThinke
Freethinker, you make a couple EDL meetings while you were there?
Skipped the Tate, FT? Mistake.
Let lefties in europe have their way, let's see if the islam they tell us is wonderful and peaceful really is so. For their sakes, I hope they're right.
"... A black man will never be a white man.
That's what I meant, and that's ALL I meant."
Perhaps, but it's not what you said, which was: "she's not a Briton." (emphasis yours). Presuming you don't mean the ethnic group which peopled the British Isles in pre- Anglo-Saxon times (in which case you are correct but irrelevant), then you are wrong: Warsi is British, by birth.
"I happen to believe the deliberate importation of massive numbers of markedly foreign types into ANY established society for the purposes of changing the demographics to gain political advantage is beyond stupid."
I agree with this much narrower-than-usual statement. In general, global mobility is an important freedom, and I know that over 6 million British ex-pats must agree with me. Seems only fair that it happen both ways.
What I don't like to see is ghettoized communities, since that can breed ultra-conservative pockets of people over-compensating to keep their native culture alive. You can see it happen to disastrous effect in places like Bradford, but you can also see it happen among the Brits who move to Spain.
I'm glad you enjoyed England, and believe you would find something to enjoy even now. There was significant immigration prior to 1981 (it was noticeable enough back in the 60s to prompt Enoch Powell to publicly make many of the same observations that you make now -- interesting that you disagreed with him and found it so unspoiled), mostly permanent, from the commonwealth. Any additional immigration is primarily temporary, from the EU.
SF - You say, "I'm sympathetic to their cause. After all, the Christians aren't using them"
Unfair comparison. Mosques are not JUST houses of prayer. They serve to push their political jihad agenda.
Note how in Israel every Friday can become a tense moment when the "prayers" are done and they take to the streets. Not nearly as quiet as other days of the week.
So your comparison ain't right, in my opinion, and falls short.
Vanguard: It is not a comparison, it's a rhetorical point.
Semantic hair-spitting, Jez. you know perfectly well I meant "Briton" in the sense that it is a synonym for "Englishman." The latter would have been a better choice of words, I suppose.
Asians and Negroes may legally become CITIZENS of Great Britain, but they will never be ENGLISH.
I, as a native-born American with Anglo-Saxon and Cornish blood on my father's side and Italian on mother's, would have a better chance of qualifying as an "Englishman" than a black from Zimbabwe or South Africa or a chinese from Hong Kong, and frankly I'm not perfectly sure of that, although I know I could easily "pass," if given the opportunity having already done so.
"Englishness" is a unique and wonderful quality -- one of those many vitally important things that can't be weighed, measured, bottled or stored in a bureau. I wouldn't be eager to toss it away to be dissolved in the Big Beige Puddle International Socialist Utopians imagine would put an end to "racism," "antagonism," and "inequality" on every conceivable level.
True diversity comes from awareness -- and appreciation -- of the profound differences among varying kinds of people. Differences that ought to be celebrated not legislated out of existence.
~ FreeThinke
You keep ignoring the fact that Warsi was born & raised in England. What do you suggest her nationality be?
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