Saturday, August 21, 2010

Triskaidekaphobia, Religious Liberty, and other thoughts


Last Friday - August 13, 2010, POTUS held a Ramadan Dinner at the White House to commemorate the solemnity of the annual holy month - with many invited Islamic adherents. During this event the President stated that Muslims have religious liberty in the United States of America, as mandated under the Constitution (these aren't his words verbatim). During the Iftar Dinner, Mr. Obama said that their right to worship is guaranteed. The president was commenting about a Islamic Center that is planned to be built near ground-zero in NYC; Though he promptly attempted to back away (deny his own words) from his original statements, he began a series of discussions that have not ceased until today, a week and a day since his publicly recorded statements. The President's assertion that Muslims are as American as Johnny Appleseed has not 'resonated' well with most Americans. The defense of a relatively new (to the hemisphere and the country) religious group over the vast Christian majority has not 'impacted' the public favorably. Now, many are again beginning to question the president's religion? Is he, or isn't he Muslim?

First of all, the commotion is about a 13 story Islamic Center that will be built on property near where the World Trade Center stood until September 11, 2001. Most, non-Muslims find it insensitive to build a "Muslim" building near the site of buildings that were allegedly destroyed (with 3,000+ victims) by Terrorists of the Islamic persuasion. Now, what most have overlooked is that the new Islamic Information Center (supposedly like a YMCA) would stand "13" stories high. I wonder why 13 stories? I know that in most buildings in Lower Manhattan, many of the structures don't have a 13th Floor; When you ride an elevator you'll see the 12th, then a 14th floor. The 13th floor is often omitted because of superstition. This makes me wonder why this new Islamic center is planned to rise 13 stories above the New York City Skyline?
Why 13?

Secondly, the fear of thirteen, and more specifically Friday the 13, goes back to Medieval Times:

The "catastrophe" was the decimation of the Knights Templar, the legendary order of "warrior monks" formed during the Christian Crusades to combat Islam. Renowned as a fighting force for 200 years, by the 1300s the order had grown so pervasive and powerful it was perceived as a political threat by kings and popes alike and brought down by a church-state conspiracy, as recounted by Katharine Kurtz in Tales of the Knights Templar (Warner Books, 1995):

On October 13, 1307, a day so infamous that Friday the 13th would become a synonym for ill fortune, officers of King Philip IV of France carried out mass arrests in a well-coordinated dawn raid that left several thousand Templars — knights, sergeants, priests, and serving brethren — in chains, charged with heresy, blasphemy, various obscenities, and homosexual practices. None of these charges was ever proven, even in France — and the Order was found innocent elsewhere —but in the seven years following the arrests, hundreds of Templars suffered excruciating tortures intended to force "confessions," and more than a hundred died under torture or were executed by burning at the stake.1

What a coincidence that on Friday the 13 of August, 2010 (almost 700 years later), the President of the United States of America should proclaim religious liberty for Muslims in a land where Muslims have just recently made any significant contributions? Especially in the present situation when a man with a Muslim name is the commander in chief of the Armed Forces that is currently engaged in a war with a militant fundamental (most Islamic countries are fundamental) Islamic region of the world; From the Turkish border to the Khyber Pass.

How can such a proclamation of religious freedom be made for people that weren't part of the original framework of the U.S. Constitution? Which of the Muslim countries allow the reciprocal rights for other religions within their boundaries? Tunisia? Sudan? Bangladesh?

Can you proclaim religious rights from the bully pulpit to those that are intolerant of other religions; in the land of religious liberty secured by Christians fleeing tyrannical persecution ?

Let's now reexamine the connection between the Knights Templars, and the Crusades against the Muslims that controlled Jerusalem and the Levant, or Palestina as the Romans named it. The Templars had acquired hidden treasures, architectural secrets, and also lost gnostic beliefs in pseudo-sciences such as Alchemy;
According to popular history the Templars fought (for centuries) to secure control of the holy sites for the Roman Catholic Church. On the above mentioned Friday the 13th, the Templars were betrayed and disbanded. The Knights Templars at the time were rich with the booty (spoils of war...) they have reaped while battling the Islamic kingdoms they fought. In one swift sweep all the goods they had fought for were taken from them, and they were declared heretics and enemies of the church. They were now personna non gratta? What a betrayal?
What a Friday the 13th?
By the way there won't be any more Friday the 13's this year...


Back to construction of the Muslim Building in Manhattan -

'M' is the 13th letter in the alphabet, and the first letter in Muslim, Muhammad, and in Mosque.

Isn't it surprising? Isn't it amazing?

Muslim Mosque with 13 Floors in Manhattan?
Then, they say it's not a Mosque; It's a Muslim Information Center!

Well, if that's what it is, then build it on 5th Avenue, near St. Patrick's Cathedral and Central Park, and the other "touristy venues".
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But, not near the N.Y.Stock Exchange, the American Stock Exchange, The federal Reserve (N.Y.), Chase Plaza, or all the other world headquarters of American Finances? All these bastions of free enterprise, and sparkling examples of American Laissez-Faire and Protestant Work Ethic.

For the last few days I've heard several "noose reports" stating that President Obama is a christian, and he has been for 20 years, ever since he began attending Jeremiah Wright's Trinity Church....
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Today, I heard another "noose report" that said that the prez prays every day to Jesus. Yet, every prayer I heard during the inauguration left out the "in Jesus name" before the closing Amen.
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Wow, they are really going out on a limb, as they say... trying to clean up all the president's intentionally obvious statements. Why try to clean up something you said by using the controlled media; when instead you could have just said or did the opposite of what took place? Or, just done or said nothing?
If it don't come out in the wash, it comes out in the rinse...

Back to 13:
What timing for that Iftar speech about "religious liberty", and the intentions of the construction of that 13 Story--Islamic Center?
This couldn't have cause more friction if they had doused it with gasoline, then placed it in field of dry grass in the scorching August sun? I wonder if there's a method to this madness?
Of course there is!

BTW: That fellow Hegel had quite a technique, didn't he?

Religious Liberty, ummh? OK!

I still remember that day -- a few months ago, when a low flying Air Force One airplane approached Lower Manhattan..
Just a mistake..

The Proposition to try the Guantanamo terrorists (DETAINEES) in Manhattan courts..
Just a mistake.
Arsenio.
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Triskaidekaphobia is fear of 13.
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P.S.
I do acknowledge the Black Muslims have been part of the American experience for many years starting from the arrival of the first men and women from East and West Africa. Also, from the influence of Elijah Muhammad and his Nation Islam. These people have contributed extensively to our society. The exception that I express is of the many people of the Islamic world who have arrived upon the continent of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, in recent years; And consider Religious Liberty as something that they brought with them from their homeland, and should be demanded...

No such animal under Sharia Law, or Canon Law for that fact...

These FREEDOMS are all God (of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob) given rights allowed in a country founded by Christians with a capital letter.
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