Religion doesn't kill people...

Religion doesn't kill people. People kill people. (I started to say bears kill people when they're trying to steal pot, but the article says they're docile so I'm back to people killing people.) I've been discussing this furor over the "ground zero mosque" thing with some of my friends and trying to figure out why normally smart people are being so stupid about it.

1) It's more like YMCA with a chapel than the Muslim equivalent of a Baptist Church with a gym out back.
2) I don't see how it's more disturbing to the neighborhood than the strip clubs that are located even closer to the site.
3) They've said everyone will be welcome their so if Christians, Jews and Atheists want to go in and spy on them I'm sure we can.

That being said, let me go on to my point. Religions don't kill people. People kill people. One thing that I've learned about human beings in the last several years is that people have a really hard time separating people who do horrible from things from the religion of the people doing horrible things if they are members of a different faith. In other words, non-Christians have trouble separating Episcopalians who are only fairly certain that people who don't chill the salad forks are going to do time in purgatory from Westboro Baptist Church members who think everyone is going to hell except them. They can't tell Mennonites (pacifists) from evangelicals who lose it and decide to murder doctors who work at abortion clinics. I've also gleaned that it's pretty much universal opinion among non-Christian people meeting me for the first time assume that I don't believe in dinosaurs and think that gay people are all evil. I'm making a point here---it's not just Christians who assume things about peoples of other faiths. I read an article the other day written by what seems like a perfectly reasonable Jew that seemed to assume I and my other brothers and sisters are all bent on ushering in slaughter to bring about the second coming of Christ and that's why Christians are being nice to Israel and cozying up to Jews.

Whaat???? Who said anything about slaughter? Oh....those people again. The rest of us aren't into that honey...

Moving on. All Muslims are not terrorists any more than all Christians are terrorists. Wait? Christian terrorists? We have those? You guys remember the Klu Klux Klan? I don't know about you, but I think hanging men in the night with bags over your head (should have left out the eye holes asshats) without trial and burning a giant cross on people's lawns to intimidate them qualifies. That's terrorism. Neo Nazis? Terrorists. When they get violent anyway. They all eventually do. Call them "sleeper cells" if you must, because they're waiting around for the right provocation. We let them have their buildings. I don't think a lot of us like it, but we let them have their buildings because we know that if we want to be free we have to let them be free. (Until they start killing people, then "we" get to help file a wrongful death suit and bankrupt them, which is the American way of making roaches scatter.)

Guys, it's a community center. If they were training terrorists on site it'd be way smarter to buy land out in the Arizona desert or something where nobody comes around much like and they can play war games and talk about how the government is out to get them... oh wait, that's the white guys already doing that. Maybe not enough room in the Arizona desert?

If you don't want to be painted with the same brush as the assholes who practice your religion, stop being an asshole about this. Cause you know what? By doing that, you're helping convince perfectly sane young people that their country is out to get them and playing into the real terrorists' hands. Cut it out. You're making your own fears come true.