Pope on Islam
UPDATE: There has been violence over this issue, now, in response to what the pope said. Michelle Malkin's blog has a good article on the story.
"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."This is a quote the pope used in a speech in Germany regarding how Western science and philosophy has divorced itself from faith. You can read more about it here or here. He "went on to say that violent conversion to Islam was contrary to reason and thus 'contrary to God's nature.'"
- Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Paleologus
This has ruffled a lot of feathers, especially in the Islamic world. Here are a few of the responses:
"I don’t think the church should point a finger at extremist activities in other religions..."
"I call on all Arab and Islamic states to recall their ambassadors from the Vatican and expel those from the Vatican until the pope says he is sorry for the wrong done to the prophet and to Islam, which preaches peace, tolerance, justice and equality..."
"The pope’s statement is highly irresponsible... The concept of jihad is not to spread Islam with the sword."None of the responses, however, address the pope's concerns. No one responded saying, "you know what, this radical form of Islam that is being practiced ever since our inception has made people think our religion is violent. Let's seek to improve relations with others such as the pope in order to show them that we don't believe our religion to be violent."
No. That kind of response might make Islam not look violent. Rather, the response was one of putting blame on the pope for not reaching out to Muslims, as if all problems fell on his shoulders.
Oh, here are some more reasoned responses from Muslims (found here):
"At least one Muslim leader, Syed Ahmed Bukhari, the chief cleric of New Delhi’s Jama Masjid, India’s largest mosque, urged Muslims to 'respond in a manner which forces the Pope to apologise [sic]'. He did not elaborate."
"'These Christians are all infidels. Benedict himself is an infidel and a blind man. Doesn’t he see that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places were waged by Christians?' another worshipper said."Wow. You've really proved the pope wrong. Maybe you should go kill people over it. I mean, it was done over cartoons. Oh, and good job doing the exact same thing you criticize the pope of doing. I mean, calling Christians infidels really gets 'em right back. Oh wait, I'm being sarcastic.
Islam has a very large problem with violence, and has since its inception. It is a religion of violence because its adherents are violent. Until it is willing to acknowledge its own problems, Muslims need to stop taking the victim mentality and blaming their problems on others. Here's hoping this religion can change from the inside...
posted by Chris Hill @ 9/16/2006 01:52:00 AM
10 comments
10 Comments:
It should be noted that the quote the pope used was from, I believe, the 14th century.
Unless the process of radicalization and recruitment can be stopped, this isn't going to end. Meanwhile, we in the West A) are unsure how to reverse this trend, and B) are primarily dealing with the symptons produced by the Islamists ideology, which is terror. Islam must be reformed from within by moderates who are willing to offer a competing vision for Islam.
Jed
Maybe this is why some people think Christians are violent and that we "should[n't] point a finger at extremist activities in other religions..."
People won't stop pointing the finger right back at Christianity until parts of Christianity stops giving them good reason to do so.
I should clarify my last post. In no way am I saying that the pope was not justified in what he said, nor am I saying the secular response was in any way correct. I absolutely agree that Islam is a religion of inherent violence, and that true Christianity is the opposite. The problem is, unfortunately, that the absurd "Christians" are the ones that get all of the media's attention...
The great thing about Christianity is that it's made up of a majority who openly, vehemently decry those with the really weird beliefs (such as those morons who think "God hates fags" and protest at funerals of those military personnel who have died serving our country.
It is actually much like the scientific method. In science there can be some nutjobs on the sidelines who put forth absurdities...but due to peer review much of the ridiculous stuff is shut down pretty quickly (so the theory goes...of course conspiracy is still possible, but I don't want to get into that). Christians have an effective "peer review" process in western society. The Muslim world is largely absent of such devices.
I have some thoughts about it - I wrote a blog entry a while back that can be found here:
http://discoveredid.blogspot
.com/2006/02/thoughts-on-
christians-and-muslims.html
Dang
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website
that
I
have
to
copy
and
paste
line
by
line!
I remember your post, Laura, and it was well thought out.
Jordan,
You put a left paranthesis without a matching right one. Was your entire post supposed to be a paranthetical statement? Cause I think it was.
Stephen,
I love you, brother, but I think you're just dead wrong in terms of blaming those who have a "Jesus Camp" to train Christians to use the legal process to help change society for making Christians look violent. It may make Christians look weird, but not violent. Besides, most Christians distance themselves from that sort of stuff, and it would be pretty easy to find Christians who would outright oppose it. Christians take the criticism seriously, and often change tactics (and sometimes beliefs) as a result. The secular-left and many Muslims already hate Christianity, and will use any excuse possible to attack it. So this is just an excuse to attack Christianity, but not a legitimate one.
Muslims cannot take any form of criticism themselves, and blame all of their problems on others. They are like the kid who blamed his homework not being done on the dog: "the dog ate my homework." Muslims need to start taking responsibility for what is happening in their own religion, and not call for violence every time an outsider criticizes them.
Also,
Roman Catholicism, regardless of how many disagreements I may have with it, is hardly on the "fringe" or "extreme". So to say that the pope can't point fingers at extremist activities in other religions is completely absurd, since he himself is hardly part of an "extreme" wing of Christianity (which the criticism is implying).
The epitome of irony: There is a man in Turkey who is warning the pope not to come there because he plans to kill him if he does, because the pope quoted an emperor of the Byzantine Empire (headquartered in Constantinople, or today's Istanbul, which is the capitol of Turkey) as saying that Muslims are violent. The irony is so much that my head is about to explode.
Oh, the article is here.
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