.:what twisted love is hate:.


In a way, it's odd to think that the bombing of a building can cause so much hurt. Attacks on American buildings even if there were no casualities would still cause me to drop my head and close my eyes in saddness. An attack on a church, even if there were no casualities, would fog my mind and keep my lungs from filling. Imagine then, an attack on an historic religious site, a mosque that held the bodies of two prior imams, and the home of one to come. Perhaps for those who are not Muslim it is hard to understand why the bombing of a mosque could cause so much anguish. For those who are religious of any kind, imagine an attack on one of the more scared holy sites of that particular religion. For those who are not religious whatsoever, I suppose the mentality needs to be explained a bit more. While I cannot speak authoritively for all religions, I will try to explain to the best of my ability. God is not the church, or the synagogue, or the mosque, or the temple. Most religions (perhaps I should stick with the ones of the book) caution against the worship of material things. During the Reformation, Christians were afraid of the worship of Christian icons, and perhaps rightly so. In Exodus 32, Moses scorned his people for bowind down and sacrificing to a gold calf icon. In Islamic art Mohammad's face is often not drawn for fear of worshipping the prophet and not Allah. So why then, is a building so significant? You know, as I'm trying to articulate my thoughts in my own I cannot help but think that I won't make sense to others, and perhaps that is the problem of faith. But I'll try nonetheless. The building is a holy site. It is a place where we worship. But then the question and proposition arises that any place where we worship our God is holy. And yes, that is a mentality that is often not considered but should be. It's hard to say that one site is holier than another without sounding like a fool, but oh well. I think, however, that the pain and heartache that comes with an attack on a holy site is the pain that comes from a lack of respect. It's not that the building is God, but rather that it is a place where we go to forget about our lives in a modern world and go to praise someone higher than ourselves. And an attack on that place is a show of disrepect both to our faith and to our God. And that is what hurts.

Allah hafiz. God bless. (My arabic is obviously very lacking, so fyi, apparently people used to say Khuda hafiz to mean God bless)

on the tv: cnn. here's the article on the attack