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Israeli police stormed Islam's third holiest shrine Friday after hundreds of angry Islamic worshippers threw stones and bottles in an eruption of outrage over contentious Israeli renovation work at a disputed Old City holy site.

About 200 police streamed on to the hilltop compound known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as the Temple Mount, to try to quell the violence, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. Witnesses said police hurled stun grenades.

Police said several protesters and several officers were injured in the faceoff, but gave no further details.

As many as 300 protesters barricaded themselves inside the Al-Aqsa mosque at the compound. Police were stationed near the mosque, but did not enter it.

The protesters are angry about Israeli repair work on an earthen ramp leading to the hilltop compound, which they fear will damage the mosque.

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You wonder why we're critical of what Israel is doing, but in the end it's the Media's dishonestly that's causing a lot of this. Yesterday (and weeks ago) this was an archialogical dig. Today, since there was violence yesterday, this is now 'renovation work' for a 'new walkway'.

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Originally posted by josh:
No, the world will never be at peace as long as the plague of organized religion walks the earth.

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It won't be at peace then, either. The focus on "organised religion" is scapegoating a phenomena which is symptom, not cause. The attention it receives is part of a long line of excuses that we make to ourselves for not looking deep inside for answers about human probabilities/possibilities both individually and collectively. It amounts to a complete reversal of cause and effect. "God" didn't make vanity, pride, anger, and so on, man did.

I was recently in the Falkland Islands and there can be no greater testament to the power of pride and vanity than a war fought over those barren little rocks. Sure, you can talk in high words about "self-determination" and "decolonisation" but in the end, the conflict was/is about pride - basic stupid animal pride. Religion added into the mix wouldn't make it better or worse.

Perhaps the "Secular Humanists" among us will show up now with their naturalistic fallacies about the origins of ethical behaviour, but bleat as they might, they won't be able to demonstrate that religion is the cause of our violence and rage. "Science" is no more the answer than religion - as if our common, everyday "thought and reason" could stem the crimson tide as it were - the cascade of chemical reactions in the brain, that rush of blood to the head, the adrenaline boost, all the hallmarks of a proper rage. Ask the Italians - apparently football is enough to incite people to do their best. Apparently you don't need anything as interesting as "God", just a bunch of guys kicking a ball around.

Conceit, and wishful thinking AND - most importantly, laziness. If all we need to do is get rid of God everything would be more simple than it is. The God-people also believe that simply getting rid of non-Godliness will bring salvation. It seems both teams believe in a simple and ultimately doomed strategy.

For proof, see History (or Herstory, or Ourstory...)

BTW - why is "organised religion" scorned but not "unorganised religion"? I suppose a religious group where no one remembers to bring coffee and scones is less dangerous?

[ 10 February 2007: Message edited by: B.L. Zeebub LLD ]

whoooo whooooo

Your point is valid. We humans don't need much of an excuse to be cruel to each other. Soccer riots-- or the street battles between the Blues and the Greens in Constantinople bear some testimony. As did the rotting corpses of slaves nailed to crosses on the Via Capua. And we didn't need religion when the blitzkrieg raged and the bodies stank.

On the other hand, it must be admittied that we also do not need religion to promote acts of courage and selflessness. We humans don't need much of an excuse to be nice to each other, either.

What must be admitted is that at a certain point, religion-- organized or otherwise-- is symptomatic of mental illness.

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Originally posted by Tommy_Paine:

What must be admitted is that at a certain point, religion-- organized or otherwise-- is symptomatic of mental illness.

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"At a certain point" being operative. It must also be admitted that "at a certain point" religion promotes kindness and compassion. Surely, we are nice to each other for no reason at all in some circumstances, but there are also those moments when we are about to do something selfish and/or damaging to someone else and a voice inside says something (culturally adjusted to fit) akin to "do unto others" and we "repent" (i.e. re-think) and choose a different path. The more signposts pointing the way toward kindness on our neural highways, the better. The map is there, blaming it for those who don't follow it is insanity.

Religion, "at a certain point", also points the way into investigating the great mysteries - internal and external - of our Being. There is Exoteric and Esoteric. The choice is always ours. The fault for taking the one path over the other doesn't lie with religion, but somewhere "closer than our own juggler vein."

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What is insidious, is that fervent religious belief is allowed to mask insane behavior, in a way that soccer riots don't

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The more signposts pointing the way toward kindness on our neural highways, the better.

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Ah, the Ben Franklin gambit.

Yes, but our religious signposts that encourage nice behavior also tell us to not suffer a witch to live amoungst us, and other bits of nastyness.

In the end, religion is actually ambiguous on doing unto others. Sometimes it means helping out the poor. Sometimes it means burrying a woman in the sand and throwing rocks at her head. Or tying her to a stake and setting her on fire. Or just setting her aside and throwing rocks at her.

People of the book; never at a loss for cruel and unusual punishments.

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Originally posted by quelar:
You wonder why we're critical of what Israel is doing, but in the end it's the Media's dishonestly that's causing a lot of this. Yesterday (and weeks ago) this was an archialogical dig. Today, since there was violence yesterday, this is now 'renovation work' for a 'new walkway'.

What the fuck.

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From what I understand, the renovation work is necessary because the structure in question is failing.

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[ 10 February 2007: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

Referring to Olmert's planned Feb. 19 peace talks with Abbas and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Darwish said: "Whoever wants to speak about peace does not excavate anywhere in the area around the holy al-Aqsa mosque."

So the answer to the question above would be NO!.

Whatever the reason it is undeniable that now is a horrible time to be "working" on this highly contentious structure. Fatah and Hamas are said to be inking a power sharing deal and Rice is to be in the region 9 days hence talking peace. Okay, the former is far more hopeful and significant than the latter.

Some reaction on the matter (in addition to remind's):

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Israeli Deputy Defence Minister, Ephraim Sneh, said Defence Minister Amir Peretz asked Olmert to reassess the excavation.

"He (Peretz) did not request the work be stopped," Sneh said. "He asked for a discussion to reconsider (the issue)."

"Our problem with the work at the Temple Mount ... is its effect on our relations with important, moderate elements in the Arab world who are very angered by it," he told Israel Radio.
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Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction said any damage to the mosque "will lead to a termination" of a November ceasefire deal that has largely calmed Israeli-Palestinian violence in the Gaza border area. The governing Hamas movement said it would spark a "volcano of anger".
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Israeli police have reinforced patrols in the Old City and restricted access to the mosque area to Palestinian men over the age of 45, in a bid to prevent violence, a spokesman said, after Islamic leaders urged followers to defend the compound.

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[ 10 February 2007: Message edited by: siren ]

""At a certain point" being operative. It must also be admitted that "at a certain point" religion promotes kindness and compassion. Surely, we are nice to each other for no reason at all in some circumstances, but there are also those moments when we are about to do something selfish and/or damaging to someone else and a voice inside says something (culturally adjusted to fit) akin to "do unto others" and we "repent" (i.e. re-think) and choose a different path. The more signposts pointing the way toward kindness on our neural highways, the better. The map is there, blaming it for those who don't follow it is insanity.

Religion, "at a certain point", also points the way into investigating the great mysteries - internal and external - of our Being. There is Exoteric and Esoteric. The choice is always ours. The fault for taking the one path over the other doesn't lie with religion, but somewhere "closer than our own juggler vein."

quote:What is insidious, is that fervent religious belief is allowed to mask insane behavior, in a way that soccer riots don't

We like our excuses."

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Originally posted by Tommy_Paine:
[QB]

Ah, the Ben Franklin gambit.

Yes, but our religious signposts that encourage nice behavior also tell us to not suffer a witch to live amoungst us, and other bits of nastyness.

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Discernment, my dear Tommy; discernment. For those (who like you apparently) feel that Jesus of Nazareth's suggestion to "do unto others" should be taken with the same value as a command to burn witches at the stake, there is little hope. Beyond the immediately apparent contradiction in logics, the two stand on completely different levels - uttered from entirely different states of being. Knowing the different taste of each is a lesson we can all learn. Much of the literature of religion is dedicated toward pointing out that there are higher and lower orders of Being and existence. Without that basic understanding, surely it can only deteriorate in the way you suggest. But that doesn't mean the entire corpus is failed or doomed, merely that "the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life".

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In the end, religion is actually ambiguous on doing unto others.

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Not really, at least for those with "eyes to see and ears to hear". In that little statement (as with many others) there is given a key - a key that opens the door to hermeneutic possibilities based in the understanding that not all things are to taken on the same level, and that many things are intended to be taken at many different levels simultaneously.

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People of the book; never at a loss for cruel and unusual punishments.

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Mengele needed no Bible to encourage him. Oppenheimer didn't consult any religious text for guidance in how to create the most destructive weapon the world has ever known. The amateur pornographers/torturers of Abu Ghraib sought no counsel from Jesus, or the Buddha before staging their cruel theatre. The human capacity for cruelty is not inculcated by religion. It precedes it. So much of religion is expressly dedicated toward countering that capacity.

Also, you've gone back to a premise which we dismissed earlier. This is the point where so many of the arguments against religion fall apart: we are to believe that religious belief is a prime causal factor in human cruelty/insanity/irrationality but that it is not equally a causal factor in compassion/understanding/raising consciousness.

[ 11 February 2007: Message edited by: B.L. Zeebub LLD ]

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Originally posted by Brett Mann:

Thoughtful and perceptive. Thankyou. But it's "jugular" vein.

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Hahaha!

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Discernment, my dear Tommy; discernment. For those (who like you apparently) feel that Jesus of Nazareth's suggestion to "do unto others" should be taken with the same value as a command to burn witches at the stake, there is little hope.

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Careful. There is discernment in my mind, as there is in your mind. But it is not our minds we are talking about, rather those who, I contend, are not sane enough to discern.

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Mengele needed no Bible to encourage him.

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Perhaps not. I have never studied Mengele in depth. I have read Christian columnists who would attribute the horrors of Nazism to humanism. I have been told, too, that my morals cannot be attributed to humanism because they are informed by centuries of Christian philosophy.

But, strangly, Hitler and Mengele remained unaffected by centuries of Christian pogromated anti-semitism.

Niether of us can have it both ways, surely.

What I think we can say is that for those that can or will not discern between what Confusious first identified as "do unto others" and, say, witch hunting are suffering from some kind of mental illness. If thier anti social and violent behavior was due to devotion to Manchester United, we see that as criminal and, well, a bit potty.

We seem, however, to cut those who use religion as a basis for thier violence much more latitude in the law courts, and the courts of public opinion.

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Originally posted by vancity75:
That is so because of the wealth of archaeological material found in the land. I suspect similar considerations would apply in locations such as central Rome.

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Originally posted by vancity75:

I think it a poorly researched/written Reuters article. The story has been developing for a number of years, actually.

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Quite true. In fact developing for almost 40 years as of this upcoming summer.

[ 12 February 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]

Did the UN approve this without consulting an Islamic groups?

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In recent months, we have seen simmering tectonic tension between the rival political and military wings of Hamas and Fatah and both America and Israel did nothing. Abbas was left pretty much to fend for himself, though there is word that the U.S. was funneling some money and guns in to help Fatah.

But we were absent in deal-making because of our self-imposed restriction in talking to Hamas.

This time, Abbas was left no choice but to make a deal on a unity government that would stick -- and this time, the deal was with the real muscle of Hamas, Khaled Meshal.

Saudi Arabia, disturbed by the poor hand America is playing in Middle East affairs, brokered the kiss-and-make-up sessions between Abbas and Meshal and the unity government is coming together.

All of this has been in the news. We apparently talk to the Saudis frequently.

And yet -- quite unbelievably -- I have dependable sources inside the US government foreign policy bureaucracy who tell me that our decision makers were caught completely off-guard by the Saudi venture and its success.

Elliot Abrams is again winding up a spin and influence machine to try and send signals that America is not please with this move towards a unity government

It's a replay of what happened last year.

One of the things that really stood out about the Clinton Global Initiative is how nearly every major speaker at the plenary meetings underscored the vital importance of moving to final status Israel-Palestine negotiations and addressing Palestinian grievances was key to any progress in the Middle East.

...And yet, America dithers and replays the same game over and over. We pretend to engage in epic efforts to establish Palestine while all the efforts are ultimately designed to fail.

This has to stop. And that's what the real message behind the Saudi deal-brokering between Hamas and Fatah is all about.

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Sorry, that came out wrong. I can't go into your post right now, I've got to run, but I hope to soon.