Pope angers muslims

[thesilentone]

It's not photoshopped, it's pretty consistent with all the other muslim outrages that crop up every few months, they just aren't always so well reported. They're well aware, and indeed hopeful of western cameras being around to catch their outrage, they'd write in arabic or their local language otherwise.

Meh, I have no sympathy for these protesters, they're no better than the less numerous National Front protesters here in the UK, the tiny neo-nazi movements across europe and all the fundamentalists in the US. Don't get the impression that these guys are the norm in muslim countries, they're "relatively normal" in the muslim world compared to the western world sure, but they're still minority whackjobs, and looked down upon by large portions of society. They just aren't quite at the stage where people in that county can outright laugh them out of whatever room they're in.

I've lost touch with the few muslim guys I used to work with in my last job, but they were really cool, we had some really good conversations, they loved the fact I knew stuff about the crusades that was favourable to saladin/muslims and they were completely tolerant guys. Their parents were a lot stricter, and they sure as hell weren't about to convert to christianity but they would come to bars with us and be cool. I'm an atheist so really I look down on everyone who's religious (...sorry...) but I've met plenty of muslims who have just as much common sense as everyone else.

[Lord Avalon]

Originally posted by Tattila the Hun

"Jihad is hump of islam"?

Sounds funny if you consider English slang.

But it could mean jihad is the (camel's) hump of Islam, in the sense that the hump is the highest part of the camel.

[VetLegion]

I've read the transcript now. It's a fairly highbrow speech about the compatibility of reason and faith, or if you will, in defense of theology.

Pope says (with pride, I think) that Christianity and logical reasoning are linked from the begining, and that Christian Church is a fusion of Greek/Hellenistic tradition of thought with Christ's teaching.

He opposes lines of thinking that would decouple God from all limitations of human ability to understand and make him transcendent, incomprehensible, illogical.

He endorses thinking and reasoning about religion and laments that violence is unacceptable.

He runs into a major problem with an attempt to fuse reasoning with faith, in my opinion (but I'm no theologian).

Islam is mentioned, but not dwelled on. He uses it to contrast the idea that God can't be comprehended (bad) with the idea that we should try (good).

His speech is politically incorrect. This part in particular (emphasis mine):

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 practice idolatry.

It paints Islam in a bad light. Don't know if he's right or wrong. In defence of Pope, it's not what he said, he's just paraphrasing (see my emphasis). On the other hand, he does seem to agree.

[thesilentone]

A lot of it is that he's trying to finish the re-unification of catholic-orthodox churches that started in the last few years. Over a 1000 years of schism and now they're quoting that stuff despite the obvious anti muslim undertones... but to be fair, he's not saying it like he believes it, he's just quoting, but that carries it's own implications. I don't really disagree, if you take it literally and look at islam through just the news. But then i'm not a religious person.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Wezil
Islam is a violent religion of peace.

fixed

[Spiffor]

From the BBC:

But the statement has failed to quell criticism. In developments around the world:

* Pakistan summoned the Vatican's ambassador to express regret over the remarks, as parliament passed a resolution condemning the comments

* The head of the Muslim Brotherhood said the remarks "aroused the anger of the whole Islamic world"

* Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya condemned the Pope's comments

* In Iraq, the comments were criticised at Friday prayers by followers of radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr

* Salih Kapusuz, deputy leader of Turkey's ruling AK party, likened the pontiff to Hitler and Mussolini

* The 57-nation Organisation of the Islamic Conference said it regretted the Pope's remarks

Notice that the harsher reactions mostly come from countries where theocratic power is far from being established.

Looks like another political manipulation, with the clash of civilizations as an excuse, just like last time.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by thesilentone
A lot of it is that he's trying to finish the re-unification of catholic-orthodox churches that started in the last few years.

Unlikely. This pope has downgraded the interfaith groups in the Vatican. He seem to be an old-school, Catholocism is the only true faith Pope. And the world continues to get crazier.

[thesilentone]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara

Originally posted by thesilentone
A lot of it is that he's trying to finish the re-unification of catholic-orthodox churches that started in the last few years.

Unlikely. This pope has downgraded the interfaith groups in the Vatican. He seem to be an old-school, Catholocism is the only true faith Pope. And the world continues to get crazier.

Maybe, but he probably wouldn't have used that quote without all the unification buzz going on behind him. Using byzantine emperor quotes was a big nono previously.

EDIT, And I don't think they're ever going to come close to what some hope to be a proper re-unification, there's just too many ceremonies and customs that their tight arse priests will refuse to budge on for their to ever be a proper "un-schism". Over a 1000 years!

[Datajack Franit]

It´s the Pope. What else is he supposed to talk about?

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Datajack Franit
It´s the Pope. What else is he supposed to talk about?

Condoms, made in Satan.

[Datajack Franit]

And gay butt****ing

[Spiffor]

That's plenty already.

[VetLegion]

I don't think he was very offensive towards Islam and he does mention dialogue between religions in other parts of the speech.

But in today's hypersensitive atmosphere (thank you, America) it's definitely not politically correct to quote a 14th century emperor's views on Islam, even if the point of emphasis is not the nature of Islam, but that the emperor held that to go against reason is to go against God's intentions.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Thue
Uncyclopedia had some nice comment on the Danish cartoon crisis :

http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_cartoons

That seems like garbage to me. To my knowledge the Danish government did not fund or create those cartoons and in fact they were commitioned by a completely independent newspaper.

I suspose I can't blame people who live in societies where all of the media is controlled the government from not understanding what it means to have a free media. I still think it was perile though.

[VetLegion]

Oerdin, edit that while you still can