Sep
15
Poped
ByIf you were the Pope and you said something like this, would it not occur to you that given the current state of the world it might be construed as just a tad controversial?
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.
Granted, the Pope was quoting a 14th century Christian emperor. And yes, the focus of his speech was to berate the triumph of reason over religion in the West. But he’s the bloody Pope. And when he says that Islam is a violent religion, albeit using someone else’s words, it’s going to cause offense.
3 Comments
September 16th, 2006 at 2:06 pm
Yes, I agree. Plus its not like Christians didn’t “spread faith” in the crusades with just words. Check out Sam Harris’ discourse on religion as a source of violence.
“Indeed, religion is as much a living spring of violence today as it was at any time in the past. The recent conflicts in Palestine (Jews versus Muslims), the Balkans (Orthodox Serbians versus Catholic Croatians; Orthodox Serbians versus Bosnian and Albanian Muslims), Northern Ireland (Protestants versus Catholics), Kashmir (Muslims versus Hindus), Sudan (Muslims versus Christians and animists), Nigeria (Muslims versus Christians), Ethiopia and Eritrea (Muslims versus Christians), Sri Lanka (Sinhalese Buddhists versus Tamil Hindus), Indonesia (Muslims versus Timorese Christians), Iran and Iraq (Shiite versus Sunni Muslims), and the Caucasus (Orthodox Russians versus Chechen Muslims; Muslim Azerbaijanis versus Catholic and Orthodox Armenians) are merely a few cases in point. In these places religion has been the explicit cause of literally millions of deaths in the last 10 years.”
So yeah, its basically a hypocritical point of view that isn’t being taken well by other hypocritical individuals. Any reasonable Christian or Muslim would just brush this off as an institutional error in choice of words and timing.
September 16th, 2006 at 2:07 pm
Oh, and great blog btw, got here by way of Glamourite. Love the subway photo in the header. Rock on.
September 22nd, 2006 at 6:27 am
Before you dismiss it as a mere faux pas, how about reading an independent intelligence analysis?
http://thepugilstick.blogspot.com/2006/09/papal-strategies.html