How can the Pope be so upset and surprised about world Islamic

[niallmac]

reaction to his comments? Are we missing the boat here as a planet
by not having our world opinion influencers like Popes and U.S. Presidents
take and pass a basic cognitive compentency exam?

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[panader0]

2. I never caught what he actually said

just that there was huge fallout in the Muslim community. What was the offensive part? I'm not religious, but I knew that this pope couldn't fill John Paul II's shoes.

[zanne]

7. I agree. This pope isn't exactly winning converts.

The Catholic Church seems to have gone back to the old, authoritarian, God-Is-Punishment role. I'm not religious either, but I would actually stop to listen to John Paul II. This guy is a cowboy.

[Submariner]

3. Because Pope-guy, like all other religious fanatics,

lives in a world of alternate reality believing in imaginary sky-people for deliverance. When one lives in a world of make believe like the Pope the vision of reality will obviously be nonsense.

[WinkyDink]

4. Why should Muslims care what he says? As a Catholic, I could

not care less what an Imam says about my religion.

[napi21]

5. I don't know,but could it be that the Christians all over the world

haven't gone completely nuts when the Muslim leaders constantly call them Infidels and say "Kill all the Infidels" in an almost constant chant?

I'm a Catholic, and Idon't support the Pope in all his actions, but in this case, I really believe the Muslims are WRONG! It really is a case of "they can sure dish it out, but can't take it!"

[niallmac]

24. Whether or not I think it is correct to go bezerk over a cartoon

or a speech is not my point. The fact that people do go bezerk
over such things is something I respect. Seems to me time is now
too short to judge each other. I am not a big fan of religion in
general but I try to the best of my ability to afford all people of
faith as much respect as I can muster (until they start telling me how to live or think...)

I am just saying that our leaders who command such powerful pulpits need to
be responsible to the realities of our world. If the other guy does not seem
to demonstrate similiar responsibility in his or her speech or actions that
cannot, should not dictate my behavior.

[cali]

51. I don't respect

hysterical reactions to speech. Not. One. Bit. And did you actually read the full text of the Pope's remarks before condemnimb his speech?

[treestar]

32. The problem with this approach

These could be different people. There are millions of Muslims. This judges them all as one.

We have this thing in the US about collective judgment of Muslims. One of them does a bad thing or says a bad thing and all of them are accredited with it. Yet why does what one Muslims says reflect what they all think?

We know they kill each other over the Sunni/Shiite difference, why wouldn't it be possible to conclude that amongst themselves they can disagree (like Christians or any other group on earth).

[Malikshah]

40. Uh...who's been invading and killing tens of thousands ?

"dish it out but can't take it" get a grip.

Oh, btw-- the Pope is considered by many to be the spokesman for upwards to a billion people

There is no such entity for Islam.

IOW the pope's words carry a hell of a lot more weight than some fanatical imam with an ax to grind.

One would think this would be perfectly clear. Guess not.

[treestar]

61. They are the underdog

Eddie Murphy can sing "kill all the white people" in a silly voice, and I'm laughing my ass off. Let a white comedian do that and you have racism. Because it's a threat. It's funny when you are the overdog, because there's no real threat.

It's like the way we laugh at Baghdad Bob, or any other Muslim threats - but from their side, they are afraid it will lead to more bombing.

Not to mention that it is judging the group collectively by its extremists. To be fair in that case you are responsible for the killings and torture that take place there - you are being judged by the worst Americans. Cheney and * sentiments being applied to you.

[Marr]

67. I know what you mean.

I think there also might be an element of, "they can dish it out and are just begging for someone prominent on the other side to return it". Know what I mean? The sensitivity does seem awfully one-sided, but I wonder how much of it is people wanting to spark righteous indignance. There are fundamentalists on both sides who would love nothing more than a broadening religious conflict.

[peteatomic]

6. ..

As far as I understand he was using an example about historical Islam in a university lecture. The response in the 'Muslim world' is fire bombing of Christian churches.
Catholic thinkers have a strong background in rational inquiry, including religion. At this time in Islamic history, there doesn't seem to be a counterpart to that type of freedom of thought.

[panader0]

8. Welcome to DU!

[jobycom]

12. If dropping daisy cutters on innocent people is "freedom of thought"

on the part of the west, then we need less "Freedom of thought," and more "rationality of thought." The West has killed many times more Muslims than Muslims have killed westerners. We have bombed more mosques, and houses, and hospitals, and schools, and weddings, and nurseries, than the most violent people using Islam as an excuse for hatred have done to us.

Welcome to DU! :hi: Sorry my response to your first post is a disagreement. But that's the point of DU: Freedom AND rationality of thought, even when thoughts disagree.

[AngryAmish]

21. The subject matter of his lecture was rationality

I have not read the whole thing but one of the central tenant of Roman Catholicism is that God created Man in his image. It is believed that mankind's nature is one of rationalism and one of God's gifts was reason.

[niallmac]

26. ...and I confess I do not have the full transcript of his talk.

I did hear excerpts of his speech. I am going to assume
it was a perfectly appropriate talk in a class room
setting in a scholarly atmosphere. What I expect was
fumbled is that whatever the Pope says, wherever he says it
will also be heard all over the world.

I agree people need to relax but the reality is that
today the world is on it's last nerve right now
and we need to act accordingly if rational discussion
is to ensue.

How many people have been slaughtered over the idea of disrespect?

[rodeodance]

28. I posted some excerpts below

[AngryAmish]

30. If the flaws of certain cultures cannot be discuussed

then the thugs veto wins. One of the glorious things of western thought is that we discuss our differences without slaughter and vote for an outcome. It does not always work out that way but that is the ideal we all strive for.

[niallmac]

41. Within those countries that provide us with pictures of burning

tires and mobs run amok are vast numbers of people who dream of
peace, a better life for their children and other such familiar sounding
things. I have sat with such families and felt that for now they are the
hapless victims of extremism. I hope they realize that when this glorious
western country bombs them into oblivion because they happen to live
amidst chaos that we really mean well.

The point I clumsily try to make here is that I do not feel now
exactly is the time to feel smug about our grasp
on civilized behavior.

[CJCRANE]

49. Critical reasoning

is a big part of the history of islamic philosophy just as much as it is in christianity.

[rockymountaindem]

35. While I don't have a part in this fight

being neither Catholic nor Muslim, I do think it's worthwile to note that our new poster didn't say "western world", but was referring only to Catholic scholars. As of today, the Vatican hasn't dropped any bombs in the war on terror.

Of course, the Muslims could just bring up the conquest of Jerusalem and the ensuing massacre, but nobody's hands are clean. I guess some things are just better left unsaid.

[JI7]

52. the Vatican didn't do that, the United States did

the Vatican actually opposed the war , at least the previous Pope did.

it's evangelical Christians who mostly supported the war, not Catholics.

[treestar]

64. Why expect all the Muslims to distinguish that when Westerners

don't bother to distinguish between their extremists and their not so extemists? Muslims are judged today by their extremists - everything Al Qaeda, a relatively small number of Muslims - is attributed to them by Westerners. They know that and have amongst them the equivalent of "freepers" who will see the Pope as "Western."

It's like we expect the Muslims to be obsessed with us and know all about us, while we remain ignorant regarding them.

[The Straight Story]

72. What the hell does that have to do with anything? Excuses actions maybe?

Are we on the track that says Group X can act any way they want, and maybe we even expect them to (because we feel they are less civilized and rational) because they were done wrong to?

The pope is not dropping the bombs. I don't care how guilty one group is because I can judge actions based on a rational line of thought that flows across historical boundaries. Either an action is right or it is wrong, appropriate or inappropriate.

As far as freedom of thought goes, I don't like the idea of people having to be quiet and tiptoe around things out of fear the other group will go apeshit crazy.

There ARE negative things to say about just about every group known to mankind. From religious to political affiliation. And I like to be able to call that out without fear of riots - and I expect islamic folks to be as civilized as we are. Maybe some here see them as less capable....

[niallmac]

20. Actually it scientific inquiry has deep roots in Islamic

history. What the Islamic prophet said or did not say was studied and debated
to the inth degree after his death to assure the veracity of his recorded words
and deeds. Whether or not this was accomplished or not is part of the schism between Shia and Sunni. (Muslim scholars give me a break please as this thumb nail is the best I can do. I'm no scholar.)

[AngryAmish]

23. The problem is that is history

I would bet that more patents come from Taiwan than the entire Islamic world. Too many religious scholars, not enough engineers. That is why the Islamic world lives in squalor.

[niallmac]

38. Lots of reasons for the squalor I suppose but the

scientific method really was alive at one time in the
'Middle East'. I don't think it survived it's fundamentalist
trials as well as Western inquiry was able to survive the Dark Ages.

[malaise]

63. Writing as an ex catholic

can you tell what is rational about that or any other religion? What freedom of thought. Until the 1960s there was significant opposition to catholics marrying non-catholics and if they did the chilren were supposed to be brought up catholic. There is nothing rational about a single religion.

[Vidar]

9. He's an evil , little control freak just like our fearful leader.

[zanne]

13. He needs a new speech writer. nt

[rodeodance]

27. no, he needs a knowledgeable acedemic in Islam or needs to study

it more himself. Both would do, now that I write this.

[genie_weenie]

10. Does it really matter?

I love the Current Turkish Government comparing the Pope to Mussolini and Hitler since it was only in late-2003 the Turkish Government lifted it's bans on all things Kurdish.

Of course Turkey is well within it's rights to massacre and destroy the Kurds since they are "Terrorists"...

[jobycom]

11. Several posts here prove that it isn't just the pope

I don't know how the rest of the thread will turn out, but already several posts accuse Muslims of over-reacting.

The lie that Islam was spread by the sword has plagued Muslim people for centuries, and has enabled Christians to ridicule and dismiss Islam as a false religion. It besmirches Islam, the Prophet, and all Muslims. The pope should be aware of this. I understand that his comments were meant to call for reason over violence, but his odd quotes of a 14th century Emperor seem to imply that he thinks of Islam as a violent religion that must overcome its violent origins. That angers me, and I'm not Muslim.

Those who are ridiculing the Muslims for their reactions in this aren't thinking clearly. Muslims are dying by the tens of thousands because of the arrogance of Christians, who are using these fantasies about Islam to dehumanize Muslims, to blame them for their own demise. Just as Bush used 9-11 as and excuse to invade a country that had no connection to 9-11, many Westerners are using the myth of "irrational, overreactive Islam" as an excuse to, at best, dehumanize Muslims as misguided and brainwashed, and at worst to threaten or kill them. The pope's words (as the disgusting cartoons of the Prophet last year) further this dehumanization.

In America's early history as we were slaughetering every Native American we could find, we created the myth of the "savage," even using that word as a name for Native Americans. We created fantasies about a violent, barbaric people who couldn't be reasoned with, who only understood death. We did much the same thing to African American slaves and later freedmen. They weren't like us, they weren't rational like us, they couldn't be reasoned with. The more violent amongst them had to be killed so that the less violent--the less irrational, the less radical, the less extremist, whatever--could take over and convert the people.

All we really meant then, as now, was that we were going to kill anyone who stood in our white way until all the other people who looked like them gave up the fight and did what we told them to do. The Pope's words, whether he meant them to or not, sound an awful lot like that attitude of white, western superiority that has justified such atrocities. His words implied that Islam was a violent religion, and thus Muslims were a violent people, and they had to overcome that violence to solve our problems.

Whether his whole speech was represented accurately or not, I don't know. All I've heard is what most Muslims and most of us have heard--the quotes about Islam being spread by the sword. Maybe the media has misrepresented his words. But still, the Pope should understand the media he has to work with better than that.

[AngryAmish]

25. It is not a lie that Islam was spread by the sword

I am sure that the Ottomans were just picnicking at the gates of Vienna before those mean ole Poles attacked them.

The Moors found their way into France after getting lost while looking for a kite that got away.

The Moguls empire was granted power through a strange aquatic ceremony. They were elected by theior subjects every three years.

gimmie a break.

[Jed Dilligan]

36. And the people of Mexico and Peru

just unanimously gave up their gods one day and became Christian without one shot being fired.

And the aborigines of Australia decided by democratic vote that their country would be Anglican.

And the aborigines of Tasmania must have killed themselves.

And the Thirty Years' War was actually a quiet discussion over tea.

[etherealtruth]

44. I don't think anyone disputes that Christianity ...

... in many instances, was spread by "the sword" or significant coercion; Islam is no different (look at the history of the spread of Islam in Asia and the Indian sub-continent).

[Jed Dilligan]

45. Indonesia?

I don't know of any country outside Europe that volunteered to go Christian. There was never (as far as I know) a Muslim conquest of Indonesia. So the game is 1-0, Islam, for converting foreign peoples without genociding them first.

[etherealtruth]

47. Sorry, Islam is as guilty as the rest ...

... r/t to forced/coerced conversion. They are no worse or better than any other ideological group.

There are plenty of ancient Europeans that would deny that they happily/willingly converted to Christianity; the same holds true for many asians and northern Africans converting to Islam.

Human beings have a long tragic history of forced ideological conversion ... you can cite the wrong doings of one group whenever the wrongdoings of another are mentioned; however, I miss how that negates the latter's actions.

So the "game" is 0-0, where indigenous peoples are concerned.

[Jed Dilligan]

62. I don't think Islam denies its violent past

the way Christianity does.

While I abhor both faiths, I tend to hate Islam less because it is not as hypocritical about its essential violence.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

70. I disagree strongly

All the things I dislike in Christianity, and especially in its social teachings, are present to a considerably greater degree in most, albeit by no means all, forms of Islam than in all but fringe forms of Christianity.

It's slightly less clear-cut if you look at it historically, but in terms of the modern day behaviour of the two religions I think it's clear that Islam is much the worse, on women's rights, religious freedom, gay rights, freedom of speech, crime and punishment, etc, Islam is, *on average*, far more regressive and unpleasant that Christianity.

In the last hundred years or so most Christianity has begun to clean up its act somewhat - Fred Phelps, or to take a more extreme example the Lords Resistance Army, are now very much the exception rather than the rule. However, in much of the Islamic world Phelp's views would be completely unexceptional.

American liberals tend to be *far* harder on Christianity than on Islam, because they spend some much more time arguing with the former than the latter. I think this lack of perspective is illogical and harmful - for a liberal to dislike Islam less than Christianity is hypocritical, I think.



NB: what I mean by "Christianity" and "Islam" is "what people generally recognised as Christians/Muslims actually say their personal religion is" - I'm not interested into getting into the debate about what is or isn't "true" Christianity or Islam, or an abuse/misinterpretation of it.

[Jed Dilligan]

71. Muslims say what Christians think

I'd rather have the bad guys out in the open than insinuating themselves in the power structure. I'd rather have a hundred Fred Phelpses than one Jerry Falwell. I'd rather have five ayatollahs than one Ronald Reagan.

By being crazy out in the open, the Islamists have effectively marginalized themselves. They can take over a few failed or failing states. No truly robust society wants to be run by bigots and fanatics. They can only get to the top by lying and pretending to be something else.

What can radical Islam do? Blow up a couple of buildings, and probably not without "inside" help. They really don't scare me at all. On the other hand, the Christian fundamentalist freaks, who with their dissembling and nice-making have taken over the most powerful country in the world, are in the process of fomenting a third world war.

I don't think the majority of Muslims are Osama bin Laden any more than the majority of Christians are Fred Phelps. What the radical fundamentalist Muslims lack is a false front, a supposedly "moderate" mouthpiece like Bush to take over a truly powerful country (Egypt and/or Pakistan).

It's absurd to think a few suicidal maniacs are more of a threat than the most powerful military ever in the hands of sane-acting people whose ideology is indistinguishable from theirs.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

77. I think you miss several points

One is that you appear to regard terrorism as the principle criticism of Islam, whereas actually it's the one thing Islam is regularly accused of that isn't - as you say, only a tiny minority of Muslims support terrorism, whereas the proportion who believe, say, that homosexuality should be a criminal offence or that rape victims should be punished is considerably higher.

You asked "What can radical Islam do", and then proceded to answer the question "What can radical Islam do *to me*". But the reason to criticise Islam is not what it is likely to do to you, but what it does to the lives of the people in the "few failed or failing states" where it has considerable influence (and they're actually far from few). The fact that they're failed or failing is no reason not to care about the people who live there. And in both Egypt and Pakistan, while they're not theocracies, Islam has great influence and as a result makes people's lives a lot worse.

Islamic terrorism against westerners only directly effects thousands of people's lives. Hundreds of millions are forced to (or brought up to choose to) live in societies which, due to the influence of Islam, are run very badly indeed.

I agree that influential Christians wield far more power in the world to day than Muslims do (although it's worth noting that in general Muslim leaders are more influenced by Islam than Christian leaders are by Christianity). But the standard to judge by is not "how much power do they have" but "how well/badly do they use what power they do have". And by that standard Islam is very clearly indeed worse than Christianity.

[WinkyDink]

75. Who is arguing against your points? Are you saying that the Muslim

depradations did NOT occur, but the European ones did?
Or that the Muslim ones DID occur, but are OKAY, because the European Christians committed atrocities, TOO?

[Jed Dilligan]

78. I'm saying the pope should have shut the fuck up,

if he and his followers didn't want me and like-minded people jeering them.

[jobycom]

55. Yes, it is a lie

Islam forbids forced conversions, and the history of the spread of Islam does not include forced conversions. Militarily the Arabs conquered much of the world within a hundred years of the advent of Islam, but they did not force conversions, and the evidence is clear that most people did not convert within the conquered lands for centuries after the conquests.

The Muslim armies conquered, just as armies always conquer, but there was no forced conversion. Islam did not spread by the sword.

[Malikshah]

65. It is a lie. Taking control of land is one thing. Forcing people to

convert or die is another.

No break will be given until some realize that they need to actually read the history and understand it.

[MUSTANG_2004]

31. Please clarify

While very few blanket statements are entirely true, it is true that early Islam was filled with military conquests led by a caliph, who was both the religious and political leader. What conquests in the history books do you say never happened?

While I think it's entirely possible to live in peace with the Muslim world, to blame the tensions that exist primarily on "our white way" is wrong. Considering that it was a Turk, trained in Syria, who shot and nearly killed Pope John Paul II, it seems clear there are violent men on both sides of the cultures.

[treestar]

34. Well, you admit it was also political, and the religion and the politics

are mixed up a great deal - Christianity or any other religion could have been spread by the sword by that definition. In fact if you have any Christianity in a non-Euro country it could well be imperialism that led to it.

Islam in the modern world has spread quite a bit, to places where it can't be said to be "by the sword." As a religion, it has an appeal.

[MUSTANG_2004]

37. But the original poster said it was a lie

Everything I've read indicates that Islam has had no shortage of violence in its history. This is not to compare it to Christianity, which also has its own violent past. I simply think the OP was mistaken in saying that Islam's violent beginnings are a lie, and am interested in hearing which areas of commonly accepted history the OP disputes.

[niallmac]

42. I did?

Regarding the Popes words be they true or not, all I am saying is that the planet is a tad irritable right now and men of peace should be
like oil on the waters not fuel on the fire.

[MUSTANG_2004]

46. Not you.

I should have clarified, the top post of this sub-thread.

[jobycom]

56. Islam did not spread by the sword. Arabs conquered, but did not

force conversions, or even encourage them. Evidence shows that most people did not convert to Islam for centuries after the conquests, and it shows that the Arabs did not want them to convert. Non-Muslims paid higher taxes, so that, and the fact that forced conversion is forbidden in the Qur'an, meant that Arab leaders discouraged conversions.

[MUSTANG_2004]

68. Lower taxes

Do you not think it encourages someone to convert if it means they'll pay lower taxes? Would you say the Bush was encouraging people to convert if he said that Christians could pay half the taxes as non-Christians? Hmm?

[jobycom]

74. The two eras are not remotely similar

Conversion meant a lot more than changing your church. And even if people were "encouraged" to convert by hopes of lower taxes, that's a long way from being forced to convert by violent coercion, as the emperor quoted by the pope was claiming.

[Marr]

69. They most certainly did encourage conversion.

The higher taxes you mentioned were a form of coercion. Muslims also enjoyed other rights and privileges that non-Muslims did not enjoy in conquered lands.

None of these organized religous groups has been particularly even-handed, IMHO.

[jobycom]

73. No

The proof is in conversion. The majority of people in the conquered lands did not convert until centuries after their lands were conquered. There was little is any pressure to convert.

And you may be making an assumption that conversion was similar to today, where you just changed churches. It was a bit more serious than that. Conversion often meant abandoning your family, your occupation, your old circle of friends (meaning customers, support network, etc), and often your home and neighborhood. Not until large percentages of the population had converted was it easy or advantageous for most people to do so. In addition, though the Qur'an declares that a newly converted Muslim is equal in all ways to someone born a convert, this was not often the case. Often the newly converted complained and even rebelled because they were not given the reduced taxes of Muslims, or given the same advantages. This was in many ways part of the cause of the split between Sunni and Shi'i Islam.

ANd I don't know why people are hung up on the idea of "even handed" or any such concept. We are talking about an era thirteen hundred years ago. What contemporaries would consider fair or not was very different than any of our concepts of fair. The bottom line is that Islam did not spread through forced conversions. Even if Arabic leaders "coerced" non-Muslims to convert through taxation and special privileges (and there is plenty of evidence they did not), that's a far cry from the papal speech's implication (albeit through a quote) that Islam spread by violent, forced conversion. Even the pope has explained that that was not his meaning, nor his belief.

[treestar]

33. Great post, and I love your sig line

Thank you for summarizing it so well. It bugs me when people start on this "Muslims are too sensitive" bit for yet another reason. They are the ones under attack as a group for the acts of any given one of them. They know this kind of propaganda is to be used to justify our killing and bombing more of them, so they have more to fear. 911 notwithstanding, it is the Western world that has the big armies and they are in more danger from us now than we are or ever have been from "them."

As to * and co, the attempt to turn "the Muslims" into the new Soviet Union (for the benefit of the military industrial complex, presumably) is so obvious.

[goclark]

58. They have started a world wide HATE fire that will

be to our peril. :(

The sad part is that they will walk away without a scratch and innocent people will get the pain from their stupid, illtimed words.

[cali]

53. stunning example

of revisisionist history and propaganda. What tripe. Both Christianity and Islam damn well have been spread by the sword. Read some history. In addition, Islam is as flawed as any other religion/culture, and all the terrible things laid at the door of western colonizers, can be equally laid at the door of Muslim colonizers.

[jobycom]

57. Read some history?

My Masters degree and PhD work on the spread of Islam doesn't qualify? If I was still teaching I'd ask you to take on of my courses. Islam did not spread by the sword, and no legitimate historian of the era would teach you otherwise.

As for "flaws" in religion or culture, it's not an historian's job to judge such things. It's an historian's job to explain what happened, and all I was talking about was the spread of Islam. Islam forbids its followers from trying to force conversions. In the eaerly days of the spread of Arabic rule, conversion was discouraged, not encouraged. Arabs conquered by the sword, but they did not spread their religion by the sword. Evidence is quite clear that most people in the conquered lands did not convert until centuries after the conquests. Muslims did not want them to convert. Non-Muslims paid higher taxes.

[JI7]

54. Islam was spread by the sword just as Christianity was

any Christian who uses that to attack Islam or anyone else is a either a hypocrite or a moron.

[jobycom]

59. Wrong.

Read my posts above. Islam did not spread by the sword. Neither did Christianity, for the most part. Christians conquered, were very violent and bloody in their history, and often enslaved or slaughtered people in the name of their religion (Slavs, for instance, were so frequently sold as slaves that the word Slav came to mean slave), but in most cases there was no systemic forced conversions.

[malaise]

14. His comments were deliberate

All the usual fascists and their best friends (the catholic church has always been allied to the most reactionary people on the planet) are on a crusade.

[rodeodance]

15. the words are here:------best to read the entire article.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060916/ap_on_re_eu/pope_muslims

Pope said to be upset Muslims offended

By FRANCES D'EMILIO, Associated Press Writer 6 minutes ago

VATICAN CITY -
Pope Benedict XVI "sincerely regrets" that Muslims have been offended by some of his words in a recent speech in Germany, the
Vatican said Saturday — stopping short of issuing an apology the Islamic world has demanded.
..........

Thus, the pope "sincerely regrets that certain passages of his address could have sounded offensive to the sensitivities of the Muslim faithful and should have been interpreted in a manner that in no way corresponds to his intentions," Bertone said in a statement.

"Indeed it was he who, before the religious fervor of Muslim believers, warned secularized Western culture to guard against 'the contempt for God and the cynicism that considers mockery of the sacred to be an exercise of freedom,'" Bertone said, citing words from another speech that Benedict gave during the German trip.

.....

When giving the speech, the pope stressed that he was quoting the words of a Byzantine emperor and did not comment directly on the "evil and inhuman" assessment.

Bertone, referring Saturday to the emperor's "opinion," said "the Holy Father did not mean, nor does he mean, to make that opinion his own in any way."

........

[CJCRANE]

16. To me

this is all part of the RW christian hysteria that fears the spread of Islam by non-violent means (i.e. by population growth and converts in the West). As a result there is this meme spread that muslims want to kill us all so...we have to kill them all first.

This is no better than the morality of the Nazis.

The way to combat muslim fundamentalism is through human rights and international law not by trying to combat it with christian fundamentalism.

[rodeodance]

17. this article has a bit of more critical view:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2359816,00.html

Times Online September 15, 2006

How an emperor’s words landed the Pope in trouble

By Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent of The Times
Even his critics are agreed that the Pope did not intend to cause offence to the world’s Muslims.

In quoting a work edited by the highly-respected Lebanese-born scholar Theodore Khoury, who works out of Munster university, he was trying more to reassert his academic credentials in the university where he once taught himself.

This speech, as its esoteric tone and content testifies, was an address by Professor Joseph Ratzinger, scholar, rather than by Pope Benedict XVI, world religious leader.

The Pope’s mistake was his failure to distance himself from the Byzantine Emperor’s comments, surely inflammatory enough in their own time, but a thousand times more so when repeated today.

........

In fact, this surah is held by Muslim scholars to be from the middle period, around the 24th year of Mohammed’s prophethood in 624 or 625, when he was in Medina and in control of a state. Contrary to what the Pope said, this was written when Mohammed was in a position of strength, not weakness.........

lots more

[bobbieinok]

79. Hans Kueng comment (at the link in your post)

....

The Pope’s old sparring partner, Professor Hans Kung, a former colleague of his when at Tubingen university, agrees that the Pope did not intend to provoke Muslims.

....

He found it incredible that the Pope had quoted an emperor, a Christian adversary of Islam, who had set down the comments while in the middle of a battle, the siege of Constantinople in 1394 to 1402.

....

"This just shows the limits of the theologian Joseph Ratzinger. He never studied the religions thoroughly and very obviously has a unilateral view of Islam and the other religions.”

(and another critic)

The Pope has a history of criticism of Islam. According to another leading Catholic who took part in a secret meeting with him on the subject last September at the Pope’s summer residence in Italy, Benedict XVI believes that Islam cannot be reformed and is therefore incompatible with democracy.

....

[leftchick]

18. he isn't

it is as simple as that. He meant what he said. It was deplorable.

[rodeodance]

19. The Pope: The University of Regensburg address (excerpts)

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509-2360088,00.html

The Times September 16, 2006

The Pope

The University of Regensburg address
The Pope’s speech was entitled Faith, reason and the university. This is an edited extract:

"I was reminded of all this recently, when I read the edition by Professor Theodore Khoury (Münster) of part of the dialogue carried on, perhaps in 1391, by the erudite Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus and an educated Persian on the subject of Christianity and Islam, and the truth of both.

The dialogue ranges widely over the structures of faith contained in the Bible and in the Koran. . . In the seventh conversation the emperor touches on the theme of the holy war. The emperor must have known that Sura (Koranic chapter) 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 Koran, concerning holy war . . . He addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence, saying: ‘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.’

The emperor, having expressed himself so forcefully, goes on to explain 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 . . . 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, or any other means of threatening a person with death . . .’ The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God’s nature. Theodore Khoury, observes: For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this 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. At this point, as far as understanding of God and thus the practice of religion is concerned, we are faced with an unavoidable dilemma. Is the conviction that acting unreasonably contradicts God’s nature merely a Greek idea, or is it always and intrinsically true? . . . John began the prologue of his Gospel with the words: ‘In the beginning was the Word.’ This is the very word used by the emperor: God acts, with logos. Logos means reason and word — reason which is creative and capable of self-communication, precisely as reason. A profound encounter of faith and reason is taking place here, between genuine enlightenment and religion . . . This inner rapprochement between biblical faith and Greek philosophical inquiry was an event of decisive importance not only from the standpoint of the history of religions, but also from that of world history . . .




......

[rodeodance]

22. This paragraph sums it up for me:

........The tragedy of the episode is that the Pope was arguing against the idea that violence can be justified in any religion. He was making the case for the compatibility of reason with religion at a time when fundamentalism is gaining terrifying ground across the religious spectrum.

The irony is that the Islamic response illustrates how desperately the world needs to hear his message.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509-2360087,00.html

[Monk06]

48. Thanks for the citation. I have to agree his fuller remarks are reasonable

[rodeodance]

29. recommend.

[Zhade]

39. Um, we're talking about a guy who believes he's god's spokesman.

A guy who helped cover up child rape.

A guy who has a CHIEF EXORCIST - in the 21st century!

Do the math! :P

[Jed Dilligan]

43. He's neither upset nor surprised

He did it on purpose to stir up more religious hatred in the world. That's his business, just like the CIA's business is political instability and the DEA's business is drug dealing.

[CJCRANE]

50. I agree.

I'm not a believer in any religion but if I was public figure I would be careful not to make blanket statements about any major religion. I wonder what would happen if a major religious figure made a statement demonizing Hinduism? (which also has over a billion adherents). I wouldn't want to find out.

On the other hand, criticising religion in general (in moderate language) is a much more viable proposition rather than a biased view from a rival religion.

[treestar]

60. Amen! Can't he at least make an attempt to understand where they

are coming from? Obviously there are many Muslims who are very sensitive on this subject (though they get all the attention from the Media in order to try to paint all Muslims with this broad brush) and there is no reason why the Pope, in his position, couldn't think it through before opening his mouth in public.

Muslim insults to us just sound funny, which is a sign that we are much stronger than they as a group. (look at the reaction to Baghdad Bob and the jokes we make about their verbal attacks). As the underdog, our remarks sound like serious threats.

It's like the way blacks can tell jokes on whites and it sounds funny even to whites, whereas white jokes about blacks are taken as seriously dangerous racism. By both sides.

[Homer Wells]

66. I tend to believe

that Islamic influencer's (Ahmadinijad) (sp.)etc.) seek out these faux pas by Western leaders and by the media and intentionally stir up the Islamic people.
The people of the "Christian " world are not the only ones who are blind followers of the media.
Many people here also believe blindly what the media tells them. It is only fitting that there be at least as many,if not more, idiots on their side of the fence as there are here.
I am sure that they have their FOX News there too.

[undeterred]

76. the pope does not live in the real world

he's the pope :shrug: