irrationality, Harry Reid-style

from firedoglake:

""""You would think, on occasion, the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause would mean something to aspiring Minority Leader, Harry Reid — a Mormon. However, that sort of rationality goes out the window when real important things — like reelection are involved.


The First Amendment protects freedom of religion. Senator Reid respects that but thinks that the mosque should be built some place else.
Because God forbid we tear down the holiest of relics, an abandoned Burlington Coat Factory (“You go in there with $645 and you are literally a king”) to class up the neighborhood.

By the way Harry, I imagine you were up front in making sure the Mormon Church didn’t build some sort of Memorial at the site of the Mountain Meadows Massacre, because that would be, y’know, offensive to the memories of the victims for the same reasons?

Oh, right, you were too busy peeing your pants."""

The Mountain Meadows Massacre counts as only one of numerous Mormonic tragedies (google Bear River for another). Then one might say the founding of the COLDS and Joseph Smith's bunko act (Donde estan Las Placas...) itself might be viewed as historical tragedy, at least to those who value the principles of the US Constitution, including the somewhat critical 1st Amendment (at least ..in principle). And per the 1st Amendment, the muslim people behind Cordoba House have as much a right to establish a religious center as do christians, jews, hindus, or even mormons. Had Reid decided to abandon the Church of Moroni and make an authentic secular claim--there should be no Cordoba House, AND no churches at all...because Gott ist TOT!... --some might take him seriously. Or not. (which is to say, all the children of Abraham are mistaken, alas...as Schopenhauer sort of realized once, in a dark time).


Schopenhauer on religion:
""""The demoralizing tendency of religion is less problematical than its moral influence. How great and how certain that moral influence must be to make amends for the enormities which religions, especially the Christian and Mohammedan religions, have produced and spread over the earth! Think of the fanaticism, the endless persecutions, the religious wars, that sanguinary frenzy of which the ancients had no conception! think of the crusades, a butchery lasting two hundred years and inexcusable, its war cry “It is the will of God ,” its object to gain possession of the grave of one who preached love and sufferance! think of the cruel expulsion and extermination of the Moors and Jews from Spain! think of the orgies of blood, the inquisitions, the heretical tribunals, the bloody and terrible conquests of the Mohammedans in three continents, or those of Christianity in America, whose inhabitants were for the most part, and in Cuba entirely, exterminated. According to Las Cases, Christianity murdered twelve millions in forty years, of course all in majorem Dei gloriam , and for the propagation of the Gospel, and because what wasn’t Christian wasn’t even looked upon as human! I have, it is true, touched upon these matters before; but when in our day, we hear of Latest News from the Kingdom of God [Footnote: A missionary paper, of which the 40th annual number appeared in 1856], we shall not be weary of bringing old news to mind. And above all, don’t let us forget India, the cradle of the human race, or at least of that part of it to which we belong, where first Mohammedans, and then Christians, were most cruelly infuriated against the adherents of the original faith of mankind. The destruction or disfigurement of the ancient temples and idols, a lamentable, mischievous and barbarous act, still bears witness to the monotheistic fury of the Mohammedans, carried on from Marmud, the Ghaznevid of cursed memory, down to Aureng Zeb, the fratricide, whom the Portuguese Christians have zealously imitated by destruction of temples and the auto de fé of the inquisition at Goa. Don’t let us forget the chosen people of God, who after they had, by Jehovah’s express command, stolen from their old and trusty friends in Egypt the gold and silver vessels which had been lent to them, made a murderous and plundering inroad into “the Promised Land,” with the murderer Moses at their head, to tear it from the rightful owners,— again, by the same Jehovah’s express and repeated commands, showing no mercy, exterminating the inhabitants, women, children and all (Joshua, ch. 9 and 10). And all this, simply because they weren’t circumcised and didn’t know Jehovah, which was reason enough to justify every enormity against them; just as for the same reason, in earlier times, the infamous knavery of the patriarch Jacob and his chosen people against Hamor, King of Shalem, and his people, is reported to his glory because the people were unbelievers! (Genesis xxxiii. 18.) Truly, it is the worst side of religions that the believers of one religion have allowed themselves every sin again those of another, and with the utmost ruffianism and cruelty persecuted them; the Mohammedans against the Christians and Hindoos; the Christians against the Hindoos, Mohammedans, American natives, Negroes, Jews, heretics, and others.""""