NO, they wouldn't...my point exactly...people hold to their faiths, regardless...

but faith is not an absolute, people of the same faith have multiple interpretations of it

am I going to stick up for a christian who has blasphemed God or killed ,,, just because we share the same faith? no

Im much more likely to defend my atheist neighbor than such a CHRISTIAN


so, if there was a war between nations, I am guessing each nation would support their own nation, regardless of the religions existing there,,

i think of it more a cult, and the are everywhere, from russia to africa,
so yes, they are of many different races... and this has what to do with their philosophy of your either with us or against us? i hear people saying all the time that they know a few, and they are the nicest people around... but do yall honestly think that when push comes to shove, that they are going to abandon their philosophy and help the US interests?

and this has what to do with their philosophy of your either with us or against us?

i hear people saying all the time that they know a few, and they are the nicest people around... but do yall honestly think that when push comes to shove, that they are going to abandon their philosophy and help the US interests?

MightyMoe - thank you for elaborating! I may have misunderstood your post because I tend to assume that when a person quotes another and makes a statement, they are responding directly to the quoted statement. So when you said that some are blind, I wondered if you were questioning my claim that Islam "has members from all races." Thanks for clarifying.



I was just pointing out that one of the Muslim-bashers on this site may be mistaken in his impression that Muslims are all of one race. Thats it.

Being factual in this matter might be important when addressing the way that some fear-mongers prey on already existing bigotries - and tendencies towards fear and hatred. Racism, sexism, xenophobia, religious intolerance...I don't thinks is hard to sublimate one into another. I mean, if you are willing to set aside facts and logic.



Can we be a little more specific? Which parts of their philosophy? Which parts of US interests? Can we deal with a specific example?

Every person has a philosophy, which (thankfully!) is not entirely in lock step with some arbitrary concept of 'the US interest'. I support people standing up for their personal beliefs, regardless of what some high cleric or some US official dictates.

And I would fully expect that the peaceful Muslims I know would be on the side of sensibility and sanity - which is more than I can say for some people who think they are "pro US".

9/11 Father: 'I Don't Understand All of This Hate'
Updated: 3 hours 15 minutes ago
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Deborah Hastings
AOL News
(Sept. 9) -- Of all the things he carries in his heart -- grief, pain, longing and loss -- Lee Ielpi refuses to carry hate.

He carried the body of his firefighter son, 29-year-old Jonathan Ielpi, from the choking, twisted rubble of the World Trade Center. That was burden enough for the father of four grown children who gave 26 years of his life to the Fire Department of New York.

Nine years later, he has no time for the rhetoric of a small Florida pastor who said he would burn copies of the "evil" Quran, Islam's holy book, on the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The pastor, Terry Jones, announced Thursday afternoon that he was calling off the plans but later said he might reconsider the cancellation.


Retired New York City firefighter Lee Ielpi, seen here in December 2001 at the site of the World Trade Center in New York, volunteered in the recovery effort and helped carry his son Jonathan's remains from the site.
"I don't understand all of this hate," Ielpi, 66, told AOL News. "I'm not sure where these things come from. What's it going to do except promote hate?"

He pleads for tolerance. Especially on Saturday.

"It should be a special day to remember these people," he says. "You know how many people are still missing? Where they've found nothing (of them)? One thousand, one hundred and twenty-five."

Tribute WTC Visitor Center, which Ielpi helped found while city planners argued over a memorial site at ground zero, issued a public statement earlier this week saying it would be "disrespectful" to protest a planned Islamic center two blocks away. Both sides of the project have called for demonstrations Saturday.

Ielpi will be at the 16-acre graveyard where he helped dig his son from the ashes, watching the annual memorial, listening to its somber reading of the names of more than 2,700 -- firefighters, paramedics, office workers, busboys, janitors, financial executives, airline pilots, passengers and flight attendants -- who perished when two hijacked jetliners slammed into the twin towers.
How to Help: Network for Good's 9/11 Relief

"People ask constantly, 'What's it like?' And I have a very simple answer: It's been nine years since I've seen my son."

Jonathan Ielpi was a husband and father of two young sons when he died in the towers. His father rushed to the wreckage and started to dig. So did Jonathan's brother, Brendan, just four months on the job as a firefighter in Brooklyn.

Days turned into weeks, but the Ielpi men kept digging. They helped carry out many bodies, and pieces of bodies, but none belonged to Jonathan.

The family had a funeral without his remains. Still, father and son kept dragging themselves to the steaming site. Every day, for hours and hours, they shoveled and pulled and heaved. Firefighters have a code: No one is left behind. Every firefighter gets carried out by his comrades.

It was winter when rescuers finally found Ielpi's first-born. They called Lee Ielpi at home on Long Island. On a cold December morning, Lee and Brendan helped carry the stretcher that bore what was left of Jonathan. By their sides were Jonathan's colleagues from Engine 288 in Queens.

"We were blessed," Ielpi says. "We were blessed that we got to carry him out."

Brendan Ielpi is still fighting fires in Brooklyn. Jonathan's boys are now 18 and 12. Their mother has remarried.

She has trouble talking about Jonathan's death, Ielpi says. Andrew, the eldest, has trouble talking about his father's death. Austin, the youngest, has no real memories of his dad. He was 3 years old on Sept. 11, 2001.

"It's hard for all the children who've grown up without a mom or dad," he says. "There is no rest. There is zero rest for the families."

Asked how he copes with what he carries in his heart, Ielpi breaks down. "I don't know," he says. "I'm able to talk about it, every day."

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At Tribute WTC, next to ground zero, Ielpi gives guided tours of the site, and of the visitor's center that contains artifacts including Jonathan's battered yellow "turncoat" with his last name stenciled on the back. He has become an activist for the families left behind.

The organization he helped establish provides education tutorials on its website for teaching children the lessons of 9/11. Lessons that include what it's like to suffer loss and how to continue living when it may seem easier to succumb to anger or despair.

"Tomorrow can be a better day," Ielpi says. "I can't bring my son back. I wish to God that I could. But maybe I can make a better day for my grandkids. That's what we're trying to do."

http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/911-father-lee-ielpi-i-dont-understand-all-of-this-hate/19625618?icid=main|main|dl1|sec1_lnk3|169823

This tore my heart out.

This father believes it would be healing for all to bring us together.

i have to disagree with ya there...i think of it as like a war between atheists and Catholics(just using them as an example). the catholics will always side together, because that's what there god says to do. like a football team, they don't always agree how to win the game, but they are playing for the same reason, to win. i use this analogy because religious people are like a football team, they have the same cohesion and brotherhood a team would have. and they all want the same same thing - to be the best religion, to be right about their god. the "my god is better than your god" kind of thing..
that's why i say when push come to shove with the muslims, don't think that just because you are friends with them would matter in the slightest.

Except that outside of the U.S. many of these countries which are harboring or fostering Islamic militants are theocracies or Muslim nations where one cannot practice Judaism or Christianity or other religions openly for fear of bigotry and violence.

even with that being true, those places are not technologically advanced or large enough to pose real threat to the rest of the worlds countries,,,

Actually, he is right. Just look at a verse from the Qur'an itself.

At-Tawba (Surah 9:5), stating Koran 9:5 "Kill the disbelievers wherever you find them."

"If a man lies with a male as with a women, both of them shall be put to death for their abominable deed; they have forfeited their lives."
(Leviticus 20:13)


"You shall not carve idols for yourselves in the shape of anything in the sky above or on the earth below or in the waters beneath the earth; you shall not bow down before them or worship them. For I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God, inflicting punishment for their father's wickedness on the children of those who hate me, down to the third and fourth generation" (Exodus 20:4-5)


"Happy those who seize your children and smash them against a rock." (Psalms 137:9)


"As you approach a town to attack it, first offer its people terms for peace. If they accept your terms and open the gates to you, then all the people inside will serve you in forced labor. But if they refuse to make peace and prepare to fight, you must attack the town. When the LORD your God hands it over to you, kill every man in the town. But you may keep for yourselves all the women, children, livestock, and other plunder. You may enjoy the spoils of your enemies that the LORD your God has given you. But these instructions apply only to distant towns, not to the towns of nations nearby. "As for the towns of the nations the LORD your God is giving you as a special possession, destroy every living thing in them. You must completely destroy the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, just as the LORD your God has commanded you. This will keep the people of the land from teaching you their detestable customs in the worship of their gods, which would cause you to sin deeply against the LORD your God." (Deuteronomy 20:10-18)

98% of the families of the victims don't want the Mosque there. They believe they have the right to build there but they don't want it there, it would hurt to much. Quite a few families said in interviews that they wouldn't go to the public memorials today becsause of the plans to build one.