Seems as though we have a whole bunch of scaredy-cat Christians, all panicked about a competing religion coming into their back yard. Oh, and of course, that other religion is radical and terrorists and against the Constitution and all manner of bad things. I suspect they've forgotten about the almost entirely Christian terrorists who attacked the Capitol on 6 January, 2021.
The bigotry is out there for all to see, but those opposed to the Islamic center just can't see the forest for all those goll-darn trees.
Once I realized I no one was holding a gun to my head and forcing me to sign off on every piece of Christian dogma, I deconstructed and ended up in a very radically new place.
If we all got together (preferably over a pitcher of Margaritas*!) we'd probably find out that we agree on at least 80 percent of stuff; and the rest of it I'm willing to agree to disagree, agreeably.
------======******O******======------
*because EVERYTHING goes better over a pitcher of Margaritas (unless you're in the recovering community, and then I'll spring for Arnold Palmers for you)!
(As a general rule, I love Milhaud's music! He does the "Brazilian" style so well that when I was (much*) younger, I thought he was actually Brazilian, rather than French!)
When I read the article and got to the bit where all those objections to the mosque were listed ... i.e. terrorism and crime and so on, it made me think that the vast majority of the mass shooters are white, christian(ish) males.
They haven't gotten to that part in the bible where Jesus talks about taking the log out of your own eye before dealing with the speck in someone else's.
Literally everything they accused these Muslims of are things these white Evangelicals are guilty of and have far more power to accomplish:
Terrorism.
Mass shootings.
Violence.
Spreading lies to get their way.
A culture of power and domination determined to take over the world.
"They reject our laws and customs and, as you can see by their own writings, their goal is to take over and impose their laws — not assimilate, embrace or comply with our constitution or our culture."
Which is all this is. And they don't see the irony or hypocrisy or the beam sticking out of their own eyes.
If there's a god, may they save us from these Christians.
The Christian fascist’s strong suits are ignorance, unquestioning faith, blind obedience. Their skills are cooking roadkill, and inbreeding (if you can consider that to be skills).
If a mosque is illegal, then so is a church. Go back and reread the First Amendment. Then again. Then again, until you understand that it applies to everyone and not just Christians.
“It’s the job of our government to protect our culture,…”
What culture? Everything white supremacists call culture is stolen from everyone else. White bread, and pickup trucks does not a culture make. Fucking bigots.
Problem with finding a genuinely GOOD Reuben is one that has BALANCE. By that, I mean one that is NOT overflowing with corned beef, to the point where the Swiss cheese, sauerkraut, and 1000 Island dressing are LOST. I've run onto that more than once, and it ain't pretty.
The saving grace is that my gal makes KILLER Reuben sandwiches right here at home! 😋
I was looking at a Rueben recipe on Delish and came across a bunch of variations. Rueben nachos, using bagel chips. Rueben Squares using rolled crescent dough.
When a redneck talks about culture, it’s referring to WWE wrestling, bubblegum pop music, reality TV (the more violent the better), football (American), hunting programs, Hollywood movies (the more simplistic the plot, and more violent the better), gas guzzling cars, etc In a phrase American pop culture.
If you ask an average Christian fascist about culture: as in philosophy, art and architecture, classical music, classical literature; the redneck will tell you that a real American doesn’t need that foreign, elitist, socialist woke crap because Americans culture (redneck culture that I describe above) is the best in the world!
The MAGA wouldn’t know real culture if it smack them up side the head!
We all are waiting with bated breath every morning for Hemant's next article. If we all read at roughly the same pace, and all have similar thoughts, we're going to be typing similar comments at the same time. Looks like that was true today, as it is so frequently.
“The land could better serve the community if it was a Walmart, say, and not a religious building that doesn’t have to pay taxes.”
What do you mean a Walmart would be better? Walmart doesn’t pay taxes, demands the government cover all the costs the Mosque volunteered to cover upfront, and runs off local businesses killing towns. The only worse business model for local communities is private equity.
Um, yeah. If the rumors are true that employees are forced to do daily chanting and calisthenics in the stores. But even if they’re not, the USA worships corporations just as much if not more than their religions. Hell, they integrate their corporate worship into their Christian worship.
But the government treats Walmart and corporations better than religions. The tax incentives and subsidies for corporations give them a net negative tax burden, meaning the government pays corporations rather than the other way around. Let’s not forget that Walmart triple dips into the tax money. They get tax incentives and subsidies for their stores, then they pay so little the workers rely on government programs (government is subsidizing their workforce), and thirdly the workers (and all the rest on SNAP or other programs) spend their government money in Walmart because they’ve run off the other businesses that would otherwise have provided the food and necessities the programs pay for. At least a religious institution doesn’t have layers of stealing from the government.
“ Others said Muslims constantly lie “to get their way.” EVERY ACCUSATIONIS A CONFESSION.
One or two called [IST representative Aslam] Syed a liar directly to his face. BUT THEY WON’T SAY THAT ABOUT TRUMP, VANCE, ANITA BRYANT, TED HAGGARD AND A HOST OF OTHERS.
Islam is not a religion, many said, but a culture of conquest and power determined to take over the western world. EVERY ACCUSATION IS A CONFESSION.
They cited everything from personal experience to seventh century massacres to the Northwest Ordinance to Charlie Kirk while making their point. But their point does not include getting people fired from their jobs, political campaigns against sexual minorities, religious wars, officially church approved antisemitism that led to the man with a funny mustache, the massacres of Native Americans during the conquest. EVERY ACCUSATION IS A CONFESSION.
It just goes on and on and on and on and on and on
The primary problem is that ONE of those cults gets slid all the slack in the US because they THINK that they're in the majority. More like a plurality these days, and getting thinner by the day, which is why they're all panicked and grasping for any straw of power they can lay their hands on.
These lawmakers get so lost in their Christian hubris they really can't function as rational people. Oklahoma is close to being a fundamentalist Christian theocracy. The only objections they have to this Mosque being built are religious. They worry about Sharia law but would be entirely willing to impose the Christian verson of it on the people of their state, regardless of how they felt about it.
Yeah, I mentioned that on another comment as well, horrible, low, men marrying, and having a child or two, then killing the wife and her family. Psychopaths.
“The fact that the Broken Arrow City Council couched their votes in language about infrastructure shouldn’t deflect from how they came after weeks of blatant Islamophobia, conspiracy theories, and explicit calls to exclude Muslims from public life,…”
This is why they never believe the other side when the Christian nationalists don’t get their way. Why college students who don’t bother to do the work get upset that their god blather doesn’t get them the automatic A++++++++ they expected. Why attorneys general file lawsuits against other government agencies over not being able to buy ads no one is buying in the first place. Why churches sue over not being able to house unsheltered people in a death trap. They don’t believe the folks who don’t let them get away with their unconstitutional religious pushes, because they lie about their own motives to deny constitutional rights to others. They want to be bigots, they are bigots so they think everyone else is being bigoted. It’s projection. It’s also intentional to really get their way, because they can use the projection to defend their untenable positions, while using their bigotry to deny others protection.
They’re ugly racist assholes.
“Not all Muslims are terrorists but all terrorists are Muslim.” Coming from Oklahoma!?! Being said within a week of Renee Good being murdered, ostensibly for being a domestic terrorist. Fuck all y’all!
Hey, get rid of the tax exemption and, presto, problem solved!
Hold them all accountable and even more problems solved!
Seems as though we have a whole bunch of scaredy-cat Christians, all panicked about a competing religion coming into their back yard. Oh, and of course, that other religion is radical and terrorists and against the Constitution and all manner of bad things. I suspect they've forgotten about the almost entirely Christian terrorists who attacked the Capitol on 6 January, 2021.
The bigotry is out there for all to see, but those opposed to the Islamic center just can't see the forest for all those goll-darn trees.
CULT = any religion other than one's own.
HERETIC = anybody who doesn't believe what a Christian Nationalist, an evangelical Christian, or an Opus Dei Catholic believes.
So I guess that means I'm a "heretic". ☺️
LOTS of heretics around here! 😁
Most of us are apostates and infidels!
They ARE?!? EEEEK!!! 🤣🤣🤣
I'm downright proud of some of my heresies!
Once I realized I no one was holding a gun to my head and forcing me to sign off on every piece of Christian dogma, I deconstructed and ended up in a very radically new place.
If we all got together (preferably over a pitcher of Margaritas*!) we'd probably find out that we agree on at least 80 percent of stuff; and the rest of it I'm willing to agree to disagree, agreeably.
------======******O******======------
*because EVERYTHING goes better over a pitcher of Margaritas (unless you're in the recovering community, and then I'll spring for Arnold Palmers for you)!
And that's (at least partially!) why I like this substack so much!
That, and so many of the people here are truly nice people!
Glad you think so, Mark ... and just for fun:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQBtAA0UNVY
(LOVE the energy on this one!)
"And they finish in a TIE!"
(Thanks, T!)
I LOVE that piece!
(As a general rule, I love Milhaud's music! He does the "Brazilian" style so well that when I was (much*) younger, I thought he was actually Brazilian, rather than French!)
*but not TOO much!
One man's heresy is another man's self-evident truth. Around and around we go.
Oooh me too!
BINGO!
When I read the article and got to the bit where all those objections to the mosque were listed ... i.e. terrorism and crime and so on, it made me think that the vast majority of the mass shooters are white, christian(ish) males.
But that doesn't count .....
When a white person commits a crime it's the act of an individual. If a Muslim commits the same crime, it's a characteristic of their faith.
They haven't gotten to that part in the bible where Jesus talks about taking the log out of your own eye before dealing with the speck in someone else's.
One suspects it's a purposeful oversight.
The log was blocking their view of that page...
That’s not a log. That’s an entire fucking log cabin and ranch.
"GOD'S work!"
In the south it's known as "righteous anger", or "hating in the name of Jesus".
(Honest...even before Trump.)
Literally everything they accused these Muslims of are things these white Evangelicals are guilty of and have far more power to accomplish:
Terrorism.
Mass shootings.
Violence.
Spreading lies to get their way.
A culture of power and domination determined to take over the world.
"They reject our laws and customs and, as you can see by their own writings, their goal is to take over and impose their laws — not assimilate, embrace or comply with our constitution or our culture."
Which is all this is. And they don't see the irony or hypocrisy or the beam sticking out of their own eyes.
If there's a god, may they save us from these Christians.
Self-consciousness is not among their strong suits ... what few strong suits they have!
Self-reflection is impossible when one has no reflection.
The legal team from the Immortal Bloodsuckers Association would like a word about a defamation lawsuit.
The Christian fascist’s strong suits are ignorance, unquestioning faith, blind obedience. Their skills are cooking roadkill, and inbreeding (if you can consider that to be skills).
If the preachers ever acquired the power they seem to think they're entitled to, the country would soon find out what genuine persecution looks like.
Islamic Society of Tulsa has thus far not shot any unarmed women in the face.
Or launched a grenade attack on protesters.
No mass shooting either.
And called her a FUCKING BITCH right after.
𝑂𝑛 𝐽𝑎𝑛𝑢𝑎𝑟𝑦 8, 𝐴𝑡𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑛𝑒𝑦 𝐺𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑙 𝐺𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑛𝑒𝑟 𝐷𝑟𝑢𝑚𝑚𝑜𝑛𝑑, 𝑤ℎ𝑜’𝑠 𝑏𝑒𝑒𝑛 𝑎𝑛 𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑤𝑖𝑠𝑒 𝑠𝑢𝑟𝑝𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑚𝑝𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑜𝑓 𝑐ℎ𝑢𝑟𝑐ℎ/𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑠𝑒𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑎𝑠𝑡 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑝𝑙𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑦𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑠, 𝑎𝑛𝑛𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑐𝑒𝑑 ℎ𝑒 𝑤𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑 𝑙𝑎𝑢𝑛𝑐ℎ 𝑎𝑛 𝑖𝑛𝑣𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑔𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑜 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑚𝑜𝑠𝑞𝑢𝑒 𝑤𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑 𝑏𝑒 𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑔𝑎𝑙.
Hey Drummond:
If a mosque is illegal, then so is a church. Go back and reread the First Amendment. Then again. Then again, until you understand that it applies to everyone and not just Christians.
“It’s the job of our government to protect our culture,…”
What culture? Everything white supremacists call culture is stolen from everyone else. White bread, and pickup trucks does not a culture make. Fucking bigots.
I like honey wheat bread.
And hearty rye for Reuben sandwiches!
Heathens, the both of you!
You say heathens like it's a bad thing. 🙂
Never mind religion, bread is far more important!
And don't forget pita and naan!
Bread is real. And delicious. 😃
:-)
Yeah! So? 😁
It’s been too long since my last Rueben.
Problem with finding a genuinely GOOD Reuben is one that has BALANCE. By that, I mean one that is NOT overflowing with corned beef, to the point where the Swiss cheese, sauerkraut, and 1000 Island dressing are LOST. I've run onto that more than once, and it ain't pretty.
The saving grace is that my gal makes KILLER Reuben sandwiches right here at home! 😋
I was looking at a Rueben recipe on Delish and came across a bunch of variations. Rueben nachos, using bagel chips. Rueben Squares using rolled crescent dough.
Heathens!
You betcha! All day, every day, and matinees on the weekends! 👍
The midnight shows, too.
100% whole wheat.
You clearly haven't seen the slogan .... 'one country, one something, one heritage'??
You mean like: Ein Land, Ein Volk, Ein Reich?
Yeah, the DHS version.
They're not subtle, are they.
Sixteen-pound sledgehammers are more subtle.
When a redneck talks about culture, it’s referring to WWE wrestling, bubblegum pop music, reality TV (the more violent the better), football (American), hunting programs, Hollywood movies (the more simplistic the plot, and more violent the better), gas guzzling cars, etc In a phrase American pop culture.
If you ask an average Christian fascist about culture: as in philosophy, art and architecture, classical music, classical literature; the redneck will tell you that a real American doesn’t need that foreign, elitist, socialist woke crap because Americans culture (redneck culture that I describe above) is the best in the world!
The MAGA wouldn’t know real culture if it smack them up side the head!
You forgot NASCAR.
So true!
By 'culture,' they mean the Confederate flag, Robert E. Lee statues, white hoods, and segregated schools.
𝐼𝑠𝑙𝑎𝑚 𝑖𝑠 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑎 𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑔𝑖𝑜𝑛, 𝑚𝑎𝑛𝑦 𝑠𝑎𝑖𝑑, 𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝑎 𝑐𝑢𝑙𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑞𝑢𝑒𝑠𝑡 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑝𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟 𝑑𝑒𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑡𝑎𝑘𝑒 𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑤𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑛 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑙𝑑.
Christianity is not a religion, many said, but a culture of conquest and power determined to take over the western world. FIFY.
Oops. Sorry for the repeat. When I typed, there were no comments. After I sent my reply off, there were suddenly 5 already there,
We all are waiting with bated breath every morning for Hemant's next article. If we all read at roughly the same pace, and all have similar thoughts, we're going to be typing similar comments at the same time. Looks like that was true today, as it is so frequently.
“The land could better serve the community if it was a Walmart, say, and not a religious building that doesn’t have to pay taxes.”
What do you mean a Walmart would be better? Walmart doesn’t pay taxes, demands the government cover all the costs the Mosque volunteered to cover upfront, and runs off local businesses killing towns. The only worse business model for local communities is private equity.
Anyway, I hate Walmart.
"Walmart doesn’t pay taxes, demands the government cover all the costs ..."
Wallmart is a religion?
Um, yeah. If the rumors are true that employees are forced to do daily chanting and calisthenics in the stores. But even if they’re not, the USA worships corporations just as much if not more than their religions. Hell, they integrate their corporate worship into their Christian worship.
But the government treats Walmart and corporations better than religions. The tax incentives and subsidies for corporations give them a net negative tax burden, meaning the government pays corporations rather than the other way around. Let’s not forget that Walmart triple dips into the tax money. They get tax incentives and subsidies for their stores, then they pay so little the workers rely on government programs (government is subsidizing their workforce), and thirdly the workers (and all the rest on SNAP or other programs) spend their government money in Walmart because they’ve run off the other businesses that would otherwise have provided the food and necessities the programs pay for. At least a religious institution doesn’t have layers of stealing from the government.
It is to some.
At least in Arkansas it is.
You forgot that they tend to pay their staff so poorly, that they'll need top-up benefits to live.
“ Others said Muslims constantly lie “to get their way.” EVERY ACCUSATIONIS A CONFESSION.
One or two called [IST representative Aslam] Syed a liar directly to his face. BUT THEY WON’T SAY THAT ABOUT TRUMP, VANCE, ANITA BRYANT, TED HAGGARD AND A HOST OF OTHERS.
Islam is not a religion, many said, but a culture of conquest and power determined to take over the western world. EVERY ACCUSATION IS A CONFESSION.
They cited everything from personal experience to seventh century massacres to the Northwest Ordinance to Charlie Kirk while making their point. But their point does not include getting people fired from their jobs, political campaigns against sexual minorities, religious wars, officially church approved antisemitism that led to the man with a funny mustache, the massacres of Native Americans during the conquest. EVERY ACCUSATION IS A CONFESSION.
It just goes on and on and on and on and on and on
"Some of us were alive on April 19, 1995 [when the Oklahoma City bombing occurred]."
The OKC bombing was conducted by 2 WHITE MEN, not Muslims.
White men can be Muslim. 🙂
But THESE two were not. ;P
And if his followers wanted to build a church at this same location, ... I guess that would get approved.
muslim & christian religionites are different manifestations of the same mental disorder.
The primary problem is that ONE of those cults gets slid all the slack in the US because they THINK that they're in the majority. More like a plurality these days, and getting thinner by the day, which is why they're all panicked and grasping for any straw of power they can lay their hands on.
Schroedinger’s Christianity: A majority when that’s convenient but most of those people aren’t True Christians when that’s convenient.
Schroedinger’s Majority.
They’re a “majority” when it comes to determining votes, and a “minority” when it comes to receiving aid and benefits.
Beasts are always at their most dangerous when wounded. May the beast of religion die swiftly.
These lawmakers get so lost in their Christian hubris they really can't function as rational people. Oklahoma is close to being a fundamentalist Christian theocracy. The only objections they have to this Mosque being built are religious. They worry about Sharia law but would be entirely willing to impose the Christian verson of it on the people of their state, regardless of how they felt about it.
"not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslim”. Some of us were alive on April 19, 1995"
Said by someone who doesn't remember what white terrorists did in Tulsa, Oklahoma 105 years ago.
If they were alive on April 19, 1995, then they should know that the OKC bombing was not carried out by Muslims. Guess who DID carry out that bombing?
I read yesterday that the biggest threat we face is our own domestic terrorists, white supremacists.
They probably never learned about it.
Or "black wall street Tulsa massacre." Also done by christian nationalists.
Heck, read up on the bloody history of Central Park.
And Killers of the Flower Moon.
Yeah, I mentioned that on another comment as well, horrible, low, men marrying, and having a child or two, then killing the wife and her family. Psychopaths.
Sorry I did not catch your earlier comment. Yes, psychopaths combined with lots of money create a lethal environment.
Remember also Anders Behring Breivik.
"Islam is not a religion, many said, but a culture of conquest and power determined to take over the western world."
Muslims constantly "lie to get their way."
Projection in 4DX.
EDIT Joe King beat me to the first paragraph.
IMAX level projection, not even subtle.
IMAX wishes it was that powerful.
“The fact that the Broken Arrow City Council couched their votes in language about infrastructure shouldn’t deflect from how they came after weeks of blatant Islamophobia, conspiracy theories, and explicit calls to exclude Muslims from public life,…”
This is why they never believe the other side when the Christian nationalists don’t get their way. Why college students who don’t bother to do the work get upset that their god blather doesn’t get them the automatic A++++++++ they expected. Why attorneys general file lawsuits against other government agencies over not being able to buy ads no one is buying in the first place. Why churches sue over not being able to house unsheltered people in a death trap. They don’t believe the folks who don’t let them get away with their unconstitutional religious pushes, because they lie about their own motives to deny constitutional rights to others. They want to be bigots, they are bigots so they think everyone else is being bigoted. It’s projection. It’s also intentional to really get their way, because they can use the projection to defend their untenable positions, while using their bigotry to deny others protection.
They’re ugly racist assholes.
“Not all Muslims are terrorists but all terrorists are Muslim.” Coming from Oklahoma!?! Being said within a week of Renee Good being murdered, ostensibly for being a domestic terrorist. Fuck all y’all!
Better stop me or else I will rant all day.
Mr. Syed is correct, no normal person thinks about taking over a country, therefore (White) Christian (Nationalists) aren’t normal. But you knew that.