posted
A statement from the Vatican has failed to quell criticism of Pope Benedict XVI from Muslim leaders, after he made a speech about the concept of holy war.
I mean, it is true that there are Islamist who kind of make the claim of Islam being peaceful rather weary. but I don't know if the pope was judging Islam as a whole or not
-------------------- "High-Five!" - Borat Posts: 1056 | From: Racine, WI | Registered: Jun 2006
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He wasn't doing either, according to the article. He was quoting Emperor Manual II Paleologos of the Byzantine Empire, and he made it clear that he was quoting, not expressing his own opinions.
And, ah
quote: ...it is true that there are Islamist who kind of make the claim of Islam being peaceful rather weary...
I'm not quite sure what you are meaning. Are you saying that those claims are becoming tiresome? It doesn't parse very well.
-------------------- Q. What's the difference between a Computer saleman and a Used Car Salesman? A. The Used Car Salesman knows when he is lying. Posts: 421 | From: Victoria, Australia | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Michael Cole: He wasn't doing either, according to the article.
Can someone hunt down the full text of this speech? I'm off to work. Thanks in advance.
-------------------- "Hillel says yes, naturally, and Shammai says no, and Maimonides is perplexed, and what do I know?" Julius Lester Posts: 5780 | From: Suburban Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | Registered: Oct 2001
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Richard W
Ding Dong! Merrily on High Definition TV
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Yes, it's hard to comment without a context. It depends why he was quoting this guy:
quote:The emperor's words were, he said: "Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."
Benedict said "I quote" twice to stress the words were not his and added that violence was "incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul".
That does tend to suggest that he agrees with the sentiment. If he was just trying to find an example of violence being "incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul" then he could surely have found examples that were more relevant to Catholicism. Like the Crusades for example.
Posts: 8725 | From: Ipswich - the UK's 9th Best Place to Sleep! | Registered: Feb 2000
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quote:Originally posted by Richard W: If he was just trying to find an example of violence being "incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul" then he could surely have found examples that were more relevant to Catholicism. Like the Crusades for example.
Without hearing the whole speech we don't know that he didn't. He could well have given examples of violence in various faiths. He may partake to the theory that all religions go through a 'violent bit' then calm down.
-------------------- Dactingyl is meant to sound a bit like Christingle.
It's not very good but I couldn't think of anything else.
Sorry. Posts: 257 | From: Hants, UK | Registered: Dec 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Dactyl: He may partake to the theory that all religions go through a 'violent bit' then calm down.
2006 years is a hell of a long adolescence!
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quote:The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God’s nature. The editor, Theodore Khoury, observes: For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this statement is self-evident. But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality. Here Khoury quotes a work of the noted French Islamist R. Arnaldez, who points out that Ibn Hazn went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God’s will, we would even have to practise idolatry.
I think this is where he got into trouble, esp. when he gets into paraphrasing a 'quote of a quote of a quote' [Khoury quoting Arnaldez quoting Hazn].
-------------------- No man has a right in America to treat any other man "tolerantly" for tolerance is the assumption of superiority. -Wendell L. Willkie Posts: 3833 | From: Virginia | Registered: Oct 2001
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posted
I have to admit, I'm getting fed up of protests calling for violence whenever someone critisizes Islam.
If you want to shed an image that you "spread islam by the sword", you don't call on blasphemers to be beheaded or burn effergies(sp?). First high profile case was just political cartoons like many muslim states had printed about other religions (mostly Jews), this time seems to be an out of context quote.
Being an aethist I find all religions equally silly but Islam seems to be the only one that takes to the streets on this scale when controversial or lying statements about.
Posts: 824 | From: England | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote:Originally posted by abigsmurf: Being an aethist I find all religions equally silly but Islam seems to be the only one that takes to the streets on this scale when controversial or lying statements about.
Agreed. Islam desperately needs to "grow up." It needs something akin to the Christian Reformation, in which it can shed some of the reflexive orthodoxy that trammels its thinking, and embrace a more austere and abstract religious philosophy.
I was reading a book (Leon Uris' Exodus) which suggested that Islam really had its spirit broken by the waves of Mongol invasions. (The Mongols also did a real number on the Slavs.)
This may be so, but it is WELL past time for Islam to get over that, and start to rebuild the high civilization of the Caliphate era.
Sadly, Nasser of Egypt, Pahlevi of Iran, and Saddam Hussein of Iraq were the three Islamic leaders who came closest, in the last 200 years, to providing that kind of leadership!
Silas
Posts: 16801 | From: San Diego, CA | Registered: Sep 2000
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Joe Bentley
Ding Dong! Merrily on High Definition TV
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Islam doesn't need to grow up. The countries in which Islam is predominate in need to grow up.
Christainity didn't grow up after the Dark Ages. The governments of the countries in which Christainity predominated in grew up and forced the church out of the goverment.
Christanity never grew up, it was just marginalized so that it doesn't have the influence it once did.
That's why they have clerics who suggest that infidels have their heads chopped of, and it happens, and we have idiots like Phelps who suggest that homosexuals be burned at the stake... but then everyone ignores them and goes about their day.
I've mentioned in many, many time. Imagine for a moment if we leaved in a world were Phelps had the power that the average Muslim cleric has to make the average person on street do something. If you don't find that idea totally terrifying you're a way different person then me.
The religions are the same more or less. Islam and Christanity have a lot more in common then either side is going to admit any time real soon.
The difference isn't in the religions. It's in the governments of the countries in which the religions are predominate and in what they let them get away with.
Christainity isn't less violent because it wants to be. It's less violent because modern, secular government won't let it get away with the shit that Islam is able to get away with in most countries in the Middle East.
What the Islamic world needs a good big dose of "Seperation of Church and State."
In the Western world the government dictates how much power the church has. In the Middle Eastern world the church dictates how much power the government has.
Our current situation proves to me beyond any doubt that our way is superior.
-------------------- "Existence has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long." - Rorschach, The Watchmen Posts: 8929 | From: Norfolk, Virginia | Registered: Jun 2002
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posted
Although I am no fan of Benedict, it seems clear to me that it was in the context of a scholarly examination of a dialog between a Persion and Greek theologian. Even I, usually unwilling to give His Holiness the benefit of the doubt do not see anything that suggests he agrees with the quote of a quote of a quote.
There was a lot of discussion of the Hellenistic influence on early Christian theology though.
ETA: And if you see four horsemen riding by your window this is likely because I find myself in complete agreement with Joe Bentley's post immediately preceding this one.
If I agree with him once more (it was this and a fabulous recipe for Minestrone soup he contributed to a thread), there is something more to this than simply a broken clock being right twice a day. I am not going to make any speculation on which of us is the broken clock.
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posted
What I meant was that if Islam is a religion of peace, then the extremists sure are contradicting themselves
-------------------- "High-Five!" - Borat Posts: 1056 | From: Racine, WI | Registered: Jun 2006
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Joe Bentley
Ding Dong! Merrily on High Definition TV
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quote:Originally posted by TurquoiseGirl: If I agree with him once more (it was this and a fabulous recipe for Minestrone soup he contributed to a thread)
Oh did you try that? I'm glad you liked it. It's one of my favorite recipes.
-------------------- "Existence has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long." - Rorschach, The Watchmen Posts: 8929 | From: Norfolk, Virginia | Registered: Jun 2002
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posted
Extremists always contradict messages of peace. this has nothing to do with Islam. May I mention Fred Phelps? Eric Rudolph? The Spanish Inquisition?
Because someone surely expected the Spanish Inquisition.
-------------------- There are people who drive really nice cars who feel that [those] cars won't be as special if other people drive them too. Where I come from, we call those people "selfish self-satisfied gits." -Chloe Posts: 6995 | From: New Mexico | Registered: Oct 2004
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I too am in complete agreement with Joe Bentley. Take the minority hardline religious right in the US and compare them to the hardline religious right in Iran. No abortion, no birth control, no pornography, no separation of fiath and state, public decency laws, no blasphemy. Imagine a coup in the US by the intelligent design folks. The thought is truly terrifying. Luckily we don't have armed groups of creationist bible thumpers trying to overthrow the government by force.
The problem isn't inherant to Islam, indeed many will point to the cultural tolerance displayed by Muslims in the 7th through 12th centuries, and during the crusades in the 15th. Most Muslims aren't about exterminating the infidel races. They comprise a tiny minority. It needs to be ensured that said minority don't gain power. Currently that seems way off into the distance.
@abigsmurf: The Hizb-ut Tahrir organised Danish Embassy protest in London was attended by about 4500 people (the signs were all in the same handwriting!). A similar number turned up at the Israeli embassy in a pro-Israel demonstration during the war with Hizballah. The vast majority of Muslims weren't sufficiently angered to take to the streets, or at least had enough braincells to work out the difference between a private newspaper and foreign embassy.
Posts: 1985 | From: Reading, England | Registered: Dec 2002
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albeit in a much more angry way.. I agree with Joe too: I know there were those who were Islamist who denounced the violence against the carotoons, but that's just not enough. the Muslim countries need a secular enough leader to keep them under control and even perhaps try to solve the conflict with Israel.
-------------------- "High-Five!" - Borat Posts: 1056 | From: Racine, WI | Registered: Jun 2006
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posted
eh... I'm going to buck the trend and only partially agree with Joe.
I agree that in that past, when they were in a comparable power situation, christian leaders have incited and committed comparable acts of violence.
and I agree that said history makes the most reasonable conclusion that were a similar power situation to arise, christian leaders would do it again.
But where I disagree is that it would have much of anything actually to do with their christianity.
Rather, I think it would stem much more from the same phenomenon that results in the same kind of violence in every single other flippin nation or people group, including the atheistic ones (china) the hindu ones, the the jewish ones, and any thing else you can think of.
In other words, it's gone nothing to do with religion or lack thereof, and everything to do with the one thing that all those different groups do have in common: their basic humanity.
And on another note, Richard, I think that's a cheap shot, re the crusades. I mean, do you really think that once you screw up you utterly forfeit the right to try to stop someone else from committing the same error? I lost my patience in traffic the other day, have I just disqualified myself from ever telling a hothead to calm down? I mean, sure, it would be pretty hypocritical for the United States to tell, say, France, that it was wrong to unilateraly invade, say, Spain, but that hypocrisy wouldn't make them wrong. Or better, given that the own the most nuclear weapons of any country in the world, it actually is hypocritical of America to tel Iran to stop trying to make it's own, but neither does that hypocrisy make them wrong; rather, they are very, very right.
Bottom line: hypocrosy doesn't make you wrong, it just makes you a hypocrit.
-------------------- a moment for old friends now estranged, victims of the flux of alliances and changing perceptions. There was something there once, and that something is worth honoring as well. - John Carroll Posts: 3375 | From: Ontario, Canada | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
Islam and Christianity have the same roots, almost identical mythologies to a point and many of the same rules. And so, we should expect similar actions from those who take it to the extreme.
Of course, there are numerous countries ruled entirely by islamic law and there are no longer any countries ruled by christian law, so it is easy for those in the modern day to forget the sins of their religion's past and pretend the new nicer, softer values were the values all along.
Look, if countries still worked under Christian law then everyone who was accused by anyone of a crime and wasn't in the noble class would be put through stretching, hot coals, thumbscrews, flailing and other tortures until they confessed to the crime and then they'd be executed, often in a relatively slow and painful way. If one takes straight from the bible than anyone who steals or committs prostitution would get buried up to the shoulder and have big rocks thrown at their head. Muslims still follow this rule, Christians ignore it and pretend it is no longer part of the bible...
(As a side note, Jews are also derived from the same mythology.)
Now, why Christians no longer follow the bible? Well, part of it might well be how the rituals and beliefs were adapted away from the Middle Eastern desert-people's thinking and readpted to the European forest people's previously existing religions. For instance, no true Christian would be celebrating the Winter Solstace with taunembaums, wreaths, holly, missletoe, yule logs and a jolly old elf bringing the children presents or Spring Equinox with an egg-laying rabbit and dubbing them Christmas and Easter, claiming they have biblical signifigance. These major holidays are likely only the surface of a much deeper change in the interpretations of the mythology in order to make it palpable to Celtic, Druidic, Germanic and Viking faiths where warmth during winter snow and rebirth of nature in spring were very important times in the lives of the people.
Posts: 411 | From: California | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Ophiuchus: These major holidays are likely only the surface of a much deeper change in the interpretations of the mythology in order to make it palpable to Celtic, Druidic, Germanic and Viking faiths where warmth during winter snow and rebirth of nature in spring were very important times in the lives of the people.
I can't speak to the celtic or druid faiths, beyond noting that celtic is a very broad term and there is a good indication that there was no one single religion for the celtic tribes, but that isn't entirely accurate for the Germanic and Norse faiths. (As an aside, Viking is a verb and a vocation rather than an actual group descriptor.) Yule is a winter solstice celebration but it is focused on beginning the countdown to spring. Oestra is a fertility ritual focused on having good fertility during the summer. Another thing to keep in mind is Christianity came into contact with those religions after it was well established so all that happened was that the symbols of those holidays were adopted not the holidays in their entirity.
Noemi
-------------------- Cleverly disguised as a responsible adult. My blog, no guarantees about witty or intelligent content. My current projects. Coveted Beads <---- our eBay store, new items being added somewhat regularly Posts: 8418 | From: Wyoming | Registered: Feb 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Ophiuchus: (As a side note, Jews are also derived from the same mythology.)
and all this time I've been wondering where those damn jews got that torah. I should have suspected the christians!
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quote:Originally posted by Joe Bentley: Islam doesn't need to grow up. The countries in which Islam is predominate in need to grow up.
Aye, that's a big part of it. The cultures and societies and people need to do some growing also.
quote: Christainity didn't grow up after the Dark Ages. The governments of the countries in which Christainity predominated in grew up and forced the church out of the goverment.
Well, a little yes and a little no. The English had a nasty religious civil war...and that helped lead the U.S. to the notion of a secular government. The French took that idea to an extreme, beheading priests on the guillotine, thereby entirely missing the point.
The Catholic Church of the 15th and 16th centuries was painfully corrupt, both in a secular and a spiritual sense. The Reformation was truly that: a reform. In a secular sense, it tried to clean up the excesses of the "robber Popes."
But in a spiritual sense, the intent of the Reformation was to explore beyond the rigid traditions and rituals. The breakthrough notion was for each man to read the Bible for himself, rather than to depend upon a priest to read it for him.
quote: The religions are the same more or less. Islam and Christanity have a lot more in common then either side is going to admit any time real soon.
The difference isn't in the religions. It's in the governments of the countries in which the religions are predominate and in what they let them get away with.
But there is an element of circularity there, as those governments could only come into power in a society that was able to support them. The people were "ready" for self-government, and thus the institutions of liberty could take root.
I do agree that organized religion, by its nature, tends to be conservative (in the sense of reluctant to embrace social change) and that the Christian Church has more often resisted reforms than facilitated them. But I think it is wrong to say that the Church, today, if it were in power, would immediately fall back to the crimes of eras gone by.
quote: What the Islamic world needs a good big dose of "Seperation of Church and State."
What the whole world needs is a bigger dose of the Enlightenment Values, most importantly the respect for the primacy of the individual, and a tolerance for diversity and dissent, such that the separation of church and state could become a reality in more places.
To put it in simplistic terms, it isn't enough just to have a light-bulb. You have to have the entire generation and transmission infrastructure. Otherwise, darkness weaves.
quote: Our current situation proves to me beyond any doubt that our way is superior.
Agreed. That's why we're nattering on the internet and analyzing the fine points of moral philosophy, rather than trying to kill one another over our differences.
Silas ("A Fray! Now Silas does what Silas does best!")
Posts: 16801 | From: San Diego, CA | Registered: Sep 2000
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quote:Originally posted by collegefreshman: I don't know if one could convince the muslim extremist in the middle east to be tolerant though
It isn't necessary to convince the extremists to be tolerant. What's necessary is to empower the moderates.
Nonny
-------------------- When there isn't anything else worth analyzing, we examine our collective navel. I found thirty-six cents in change in mine the other day. Let no one say that there is no profit in philosophy. -- Silas Sparkhammer Posts: 10141 | From: Toronto, Ontario | Registered: Apr 2000
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Joe Bentley
Ding Dong! Merrily on High Definition TV
posted
Exactly. In that last 2,000 some odd years the Western world has managed to convince our extremists of exactly... diddlysquat. There still the same f*cktards they have always been.
All we did was convince the rest of the people that the extremists are idiots. Well at least to a large degree.
-------------------- "Existence has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long." - Rorschach, The Watchmen Posts: 8929 | From: Norfolk, Virginia | Registered: Jun 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Ophiuchus: Look, if countries still worked under Christian law then everyone who was accused by anyone of a crime and wasn't in the noble class would be put through stretching, hot coals, thumbscrews, flailing and other tortures until they confessed to the crime and then they'd be executed, often in a relatively slow and painful way.
I've repeatedly criticized posters on this board who fasten on certain teachings of Jesus (judge not; Sermon on the Mount) as if they were the whole, and then implicitly eqate them with today's American-style liberalism. However, I have to say, the liberal interpretation of Jesus's message is much closer to the truth than yours. When Christians were doing what you describe, they were not living in accord with the preponderance of Christian teachings.
-------------------- "Hillel says yes, naturally, and Shammai says no, and Maimonides is perplexed, and what do I know?" Julius Lester Posts: 5780 | From: Suburban Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | Registered: Oct 2001
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Pope Benedict's remarks on Islam are subject to varying interpretations, so I am not quite sure what to say, other than that I hope no one is killed over this controvery, and, if anyone is, I hope the killer -- and I don't mean Benedict! -- is to brought to justice.
One thing I think Pope Benedict was saying is that the sharp, but fundamentally friendly, differences that might be seen, on a university faculty, between theolgians and atheists, would be a good model for a needed courageous dialog between committed Muslims and Christians. Agreed, but it doesn't seem realistic to think a lot of Muslims are going to get involved in a dialog where the Christians get to say why they think their religion is superior to Islam.
The future of the Catholic Church appears to be in the the third world, and, in much of the third world, it is locked in a battle for adherents with Islam. In a reasonable world, the Pope could make a case for why people on the fence should choose his religion. It's not clear to me that he was even trying to do that here, but it's his right -- even his job -- to do so.
-------------------- "Hillel says yes, naturally, and Shammai says no, and Maimonides is perplexed, and what do I know?" Julius Lester Posts: 5780 | From: Suburban Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | Registered: Oct 2001
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posted
As I just heard on the radio, some churches have already been torched in Palestine.
ETA: Aparently it was one church, in Gaza city. It was attacked with a bomb but suffered only minor damage. It wasn't even Catholic but Greek-Orthodox.
Posts: 794 | From: Utrecht, Utrecht | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
The bombing of that church really refutes the argument/belief/quote that islam is 'spread by the sword'... ¬¬
Posts: 824 | From: England | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Joostik: As I just heard on the radio, some churches have already been torched in Palestine.
ETA: Aparently it was one church, in Gaza city. It was attacked with a bomb but suffered only minor damage. It wasn't even Catholic but Greek-Orthodox.
CNN is reporting that two churches in the West Bank were fire bombed. CNN
-------------------- Let your TV bleed- Tom Petty Posts: 329 | From: Wiesbaden, Germany | Registered: Oct 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Ophiuchus: Islam and Christianity have the same roots, almost identical mythologies to a point and many of the same rules.
They most definitely do not. At most Islam has adopted some minor elements from the numerous Jews and Christians living in Arabia at the time.
quote:If one takes straight from the bible than anyone who steals or committs prostitution would get buried up to the shoulder and have big rocks thrown at their head. Muslims still follow this rule, Christians ignore it and pretend it is no longer part of the bible...
Have you ever heard the expression "He who is without sin should throw the first stone"? Christianity (at least in theory and according to official Catholic theology), is or at least should be based on the New Testament, not the Old.
Posts: 794 | From: Utrecht, Utrecht | Registered: Jul 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Ophiuchus: Islam and Christianity have the same roots, almost identical mythologies to a point and many of the same rules. And so, we should expect similar actions from those who take it to the extreme.
This has probably been addressed on this board before, so can anyone tell me if it's true that the word "love" never appears a single time in the Koran? So no "God loves you," "love your neighbor," "love your enemies," or "love your wife?" Because it seems to me that would indeed make a difference in the influence it has on its followers.
Both the Bible and the Koran have some intense "Old Testament" type commands and statutes, but the Bible is balanced out by the message of the NT. Does the Koran have an equivalent?
-------------------- The technical term is narcissism. You can't believe everything is your fault unless you also believe you're all powerful.--House Posts: 2684 | From: Budapest | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote: The angry reaction in the Islamic world to Benedict's comments stirred fears of violent anti-Western protests, like those in February that followed the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in a Danish newspaper.
On Saturday, a Greek Orthodox and an Anglican church in the West Bank were hit by firebombs. A group calling itself the "Lions of Monotheism" claimed responsibility.
Many Muslims felt the pontiff was critical of their faith in the speech delivered in front of university professors earlier in the week.
In that speech, the Pope appeared to endorse a Christian view that early Muslims spread their religion by violence.
Violence? Perish the thought.
-------------------- If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, it's just possible you haven't grasped the situation. - Jean Kerr Posts: 18428 | From: Ontario, Canada | Registered: Nov 2001
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