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Excuse me?
2006-09-17 06:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mdlbearGuardian Unlimited | Special reports | Muslim world divided over Pope's apology
Now, it is possible to argue -- and I've seen several attempts over the last couple of days -- that Muslim terrorism has a higher bodycount during the last couple of centuries than Christian. Possibly even if you omit 09/11 and the IRA. I'm not sure about the crusades. But the former head of the organization once known as the Inquisition is hardly in a position to cast stones, and he damned well ought to know better.
Pope Benedict's admission that he was "deeply sorry" for offending the sensitivities of Muslims does not necessarily mean that the worst crisis of his papacy is over yet. Speaking in Rome yesterday, the Pope said that the views of the 14th-century Byzantine emperor Manuel II Palaeologus that he quoted last week - describing Islam as "evil and inhuman" - were not his own....but presumably he wouldn't have quoted them if they didn't say what he wanted to say.
Now, it is possible to argue -- and I've seen several attempts over the last couple of days -- that Muslim terrorism has a higher bodycount during the last couple of centuries than Christian. Possibly even if you omit 09/11 and the IRA. I'm not sure about the crusades. But the former head of the organization once known as the Inquisition is hardly in a position to cast stones, and he damned well ought to know better.
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Date: 2006-09-18 04:03 am (UTC)It's both accurate... and insensitive.
I mean, I've had it up to here with the Jihadists... but if Herr Ratzinger *wants* to restart the Crusades, he's doing a damn fine job of it.
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Date: 2006-09-18 04:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-18 05:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-19 04:29 am (UTC)you can tell that the thought behind it [crusade] is still there.
I'm not so sure that the Shrub was that smart. "Crusade" in Modern American Christian Speak is used for any good, righteous, moral endeavor - a crusade against breast cancer, the campus crusade for christ, whatever. That the original wars might not have been viewed positively by all, leaving the word badly tainted probably didn't even enter Dubya's mind when he made his unfortunate Crusade comment.
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Date: 2006-09-19 04:35 am (UTC)Of course, "Jihad" just means "struggle" in Arabic, and most Muslim literature uses it primarily to mean "inner struggle". There's a different word for "holy war".
Doesn't mean the Shrub was that smart -- I've never known anyone to whom it was more appropriate to apply Hanlon's Razor.
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Date: 2006-09-18 04:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-18 05:54 am (UTC)And I have trouble believing that he didn't intend the implication -- this is, after all, a professional theologian: his job is the close and careful reading of texts. He may have expected it to slip by without being noticed.
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Date: 2006-09-18 09:41 am (UTC)So: I gotta side with the Pope on this one. The Muslims don't really appear to need any real justification to go of. They're in a permanent state of agitation, kept that way, IMHO, by their own tribal mentality and the lack of anything approaching a modern, universal education system. On the other hand, any change has got to come from them internally (again, IMHO), so we've just got to bear with this nonsense when it occurs. There's just not a whole hell of a lot we can do about it. I am not, however, going to fault the Pope for making the self-evident point that mixing religion and violence is a bad thing, and Mohamed was not only wrong, but evilly wrong to embrace it. I will not concede that we in the West may not criticize Islam or Mohamed, regardless of the frothing-at-the-mouth and idiotic violence by the "Arab street."
Wow, this was more of a rant than I had intended, but what the hey.
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Date: 2006-09-18 01:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-19 04:57 am (UTC)Here's a link to the speach
http://212.77.1.245/news_services/bulletin/news/18792.php?index=18792&po_date=12.09.2006&lang=it#TRADUZIONE%20%20IN%20LINGUA%20INGLESE.Unlike Bush, the man is not stupid, and I, too, have trouble believing that there was anything unintentional about the choice of quote.
In the seventh conversation (*4V8,>4H - controversy) edited by Professor Khoury, the emperor touches on the theme of the holy war. The emperor must have known that surah 2, 256 reads: "There is no compulsion in religion". According to the experts, this is one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under threat. But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Qur’an, concerning holy war. Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the "Book" and the "infidels", he addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general, saying: "Show me just what Mohammed 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". The emperor, after having expressed himself so forcefully, goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. "God", he says, "is not pleased by blood – and not acting reasonably (F×< 8`(T) is contrary to God’s nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats... To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death...".
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Date: 2006-09-19 05:36 am (UTC)and, wondering where the heck 212.77.1.245 leads to ...
Blessed name servers!
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Date: 2006-09-19 06:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-18 10:17 pm (UTC)As for the Pope - that was DUMB. He didn't have to quote whosis; if he'd made a speech along the lines of "way back when we did something really stupid - it was called the Crusades. Please learn from our experience and try and keep your more inflamable members from doing something equally stupid."
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Date: 2006-09-18 10:18 pm (UTC)..stupid" it might've done some GOOD.