[ExI] The mosque at Ground Zero

[Mike Dougherty]

2010/8/8 John Clark <jonkc at bellsouth.net>:
> Well it's a real nice theory, and who knows it might even be true, but there
> is virtually no hard evidence in its support so I sure wouldn't want to bet
> my life on it as you advise. And even if it were proven to be true I don't
> see how that knowledge would help us much. If you were able to correctly
> explain to Churchill in 1939 all the social and economic factors that led to
> the rise of Nazism, (and we can't do that worth a damn even today with 70
> years of hindsight) how would it have helped the Prime Minister solve the
> colossal problem that was before him?

You're talking about a more of a "Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em
out" except without the god-based sorting ?


When termites threaten the structural integrity of your home, you
don't spend a lot of time considering the needs and motivations of the
termites: you spray poisons and 'fix' the problem.  It might be nice
to build houses from termite-proof plastics but that's not feasible
right now.  In the meantime, it's probably not useful to complain "why
do they threaten my house?" when you could be working to mitigate the
threat.

So yeah John, I agree with you.  I like to play the role of whatever
the atheist equivalent of devil's advocate may be but at the end of
the discussion, a threat is still a threat no matter how much you
appreciate the motivation of the invader.  And yes, that's xenophobic
Us v. Them language.  That also doesn't change simply because we have
taken time to reflect on it.