Pope implies Islam a violent religion ... Muslims bomb churches
By Leverkuhn Posted in Culture | Spotlight Blogs — Comments (35) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
If headlines like the preceding don't strike you as tragically amusing, you probably had your sense of irony surgically removed long ago. This from
breitbart:
5 churches attacked in Palestinian areas following Pope's comments on Islam ALI DARAGHMEH NABLUS, West Bank (AP) - Palestinians wielding guns and firebombs attacked five churches in the West Bank and Gaza on Saturday, following remarks by Pope Benedict that angered many Muslims.
No injuries were reported in the attacks, which left church doors charred and walls pockmarked with bullet holes and scorched by firebombs. Churches of various denominations were targeted.
And more:
Firebombings left black scorch marks on the walls and windows of Nablus' Anglican and Greek Orthodox churches. At least five firebombs hit the Anglican church and its door was later set ablaze. Smoke billowed from the church as firefighters put out the flames
In a phone call to The Associated Press, a group calling itself the "Lions of Monotheism" claimed responsibility for those attacks, saying they were carried out to protest the Pope's remarks in a speech this week in Germany linking Islam and violence.
Later Saturday, four masked gunmen doused the main doors of Nablus' Roman and Greek Catholic churches with lighter fluid, then set them afire. They also opened fire on the buildings, striking both with bullets.
In Gaza City, militants opened fire from a car at a Greek Orthodox church, striking the facade. A policeman at the scene said he saw a car armed men inside flee the scene. Explosive devices were set off at the same Gaza church on Friday, causing minor damage.
At the risk of saying something tedious and obvious, those who take offense at Christian clerics saying (or, more accurately, implying) that Islam is not the most peaceful religion in the world might make that point more effectively if they did not respond by blowing up churches. What boggles the (occidental) mind is the apparent pointlessness of the attacks. One may suppose that Pope Benedict, having seen the destruction wrought in the wake of his comments, will try to assuage tensions by issuing the apology the Muslim Brotherhood demanded yesterday. Says Muslim Brotherhood Deputy Mohammed Habib:
"We want a personal apology (from the Pope). We feel that he has committed a grave error against us and that this mistake will only be removed through a personal apology," Muslim Brotherhood Deputy Leader Mohammed Habib told Reuters.
"Has he presented a personal apology for statements by which he clearly is convinced? No," he said.
So let's say Benedict bows to their demand, and issues an apology with enough humility and groveling to satisfy them. Will the Pope's apology, forced from him by the violence being carried by groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, change the way Islam is actually viewed in the West. If anything, this episode can only reinforce that perception. And more to the point, an apology from the Pope will not change the fact that those churches were bombed. Of course, all of this is lost on the Muslim Brotherhood, the Lions of Monotheism, and their ilk. Islam's adherents insist that their religion is not, in its purest form, a violent faith. They may be right, But if Islam is not a violent faith, it is increasingly clear that it is not a very introspective one.
The Pope READS AN ANCIENT QUOTE that implies Islam a violent religion ...........
"Adapt your style, if you wish, to admit the color of slang or freshness of neologism, but hang tough on clarity, precision, structure, grace." (emphasis mine)
-William Safire
but if you read the diary beyond the title you'll see I'm not criticizing the Pope, and certainly not misrepresenting his position.
A precedent embalms a principle.
- Disraeli
Just one simple point that I believe is important; these were not his words, the Pope was quoting someone from centuries ago. That, in itself, distances him from the statement. Nothing more, nothing less.
Clearly, there is something horribly wrong when a significant number of the members of a religion are so ready to protest and even advocate violence against someone's WORDS. However, those same believers are very silent when some of their members behead and main innocents.
The real question, what are we all going to do about it? You cannot fix a problem without first identifying it and then obtaining acknowledgement that it is, indeed, a problem. Looks like this first step is going to take quite some time. Perhaps the Pope will be active in helping achieve this step. The rest of the civilized world needs to assist and support.
If you read the Pope's words in context, it is clear that he agrees with the Byzantine emperor's assertion that Holy War (or jihad) was in fact commanded by the Prophet Mohammed as a means of spreading Islam:
In the seventh conversation [text unclear] 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 ... 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...".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/pope/story/0,,1873277,00.html
All this, in itself, is nothing new. The Islamic radicals do not deny that the Prophet demanded the conversion of non-believers by force. Indeed, that is the primary justification for their cause, without which Islamic fundamentalism would be unintelligible. What they object to, (in so far as their objection is rational at all) is the idea that the Pope would presume to criticize their faith, and their prophet, and indeed we may take from the above text an implied criticism, given the discussion of reasonable versus unreasonable religious evangelism.
The real question is, why does radical Islam, which defends the use of violence in defending and promoting Ismlam, object to the Pope pointing that out? As I have said, this is the essentially irrational aspect to their response to the Pope's speech.
A precedent embalms a principle.
- Disraeli
You wrote, "As I have said, this is the essentially irrational aspect to their response to the Pope's speech."
Do you really expect a 'rational' response from people that prepare and direct homicide bombers that kill and maim innocents?
Too often will can succeed over reason. So, how do you overcome the will if they cannot be reasoned with?
Who said I expected a rational response from them? What are you talking about? And why are you being so goldern weird about this?
A precedent embalms a principle.
- Disraeli
"And why are you being so goldern weird about this?"
I prefer clarity to agreement.
Honestly, I think this is case in point of why moral relativism comparisons of Christianity to Islam fall through.
When people say nasty things about Christianity, the Christians don't start bombing the messenger or even worse, people who look like the messenger.
Please Pope Benedict, don't apologize. Your comment was correct and the ensuing violence proves it. I harbor a secret hope that the Pope and his advisors made this comment on purpose in order to provoke the medievel savages into proving his point.
If he apologizes it will be as big a waste of breath as Larry Summers apologizing for intimating that there may be a few more men than women at the far right end of the IQ bell curve. The insane ones will only take an apology as a sign of weakness and it will whet their appetite for more aggression.
Islam IS a religion of violence. Look at every place on the planet where Muslims bump up against other cultures -- Kashmir, the Caucus region (Chechnya), the Phillippines, sub-Sarahan Africa, Israel, and more recently Paris and London. This isn't to say every last Muslim is a potential suicide bomber. But a not-insignificant minority is. And the culture around them, if doesn't explicity encourage it, sure incubates it. How much more proof do you need?
There are precious few Western leaders and intellectuals who are on the mark -- Oriana Fallaci (God rest her soul), Ed Koch, Christopher Hitchens, Mark Steyn, Victor Davis Hansen, and Newt Gingrich to name the brave few. It won't be long before our cultural ignorance is flat our suicidal.
Honorable people can disagree with George Bush's tactics in this war. But it is only the dishonorable, ignorant, and downright suicidal who disagree with the fact that we are entering a clash of civilizations that could dwarf any war in history. Why? When you add together the suicidal nature of Islamic terroism and WMD you are asking for the deaths of untold millions. Please try and argue with a straight face that Mohammad Atta wouldn't have killed 3 million Americans instead of 3,000 if he had the means. Soon his type will have the means.
So. Do we kill the cancer now, kill it later, or wait until it kills us?
...at least the media isn't taking sides. It's a nice, unbias headline:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060913/wl_afp/vaticanpopegermany_060913115...
(In case the headline is suddenly changed, it reads: "Pope Enjoys Private Time After Slamming Islam"
that gets it right, and will likely be read by very few literate Muslims.
Muslim response to papal "insults," we have the London based Arab newspaper Al-Hayat warning that the Pope's comments might lead to war:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3304575,00.html
A precedent embalms a principle.
- Disraeli
Last I checked, the Pope is the head of the Catholic Church, not the Greek Orthodox Church. Seems to me they don't really seem to care, both are guilty by association.
a rational response from these people. I have come to believe that Middle Eastern countries random acts of violence often function as a pressure valve to release steam caused by conditions within their own societies. In other words, life sucks so badly in places like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, and (alas) Iraq that a car bombing, a rocket attack, or some other attack serves to relieve some of the mental tension and anxiety that afflicts these people. Of course, there's a counterproductive arithmetic to this:
Life sucks + suicide bombings = life sucks worse
But apparently these people don't grasp that.
A precedent embalms a principle.
- Disraeli
people who live their lives believing the irrational and contradictory verses of the Qur'an to be absolute truth cannot escape irrational behavior themselves. Educated Muslims, like the 19 hijackers, are made a little crazy trying to square fundamentalism and knowledge, and that majority of other Muslims who are undereducated, malnourished, sometimes illiterate and even inbred (because their dynasties are first-cousin marriages) are doomed to be just plain stupid.
This is not condescension to people who are "different." This is the sorry truth of the matter. They could achieve so much more. Call them victims if it makes you feel better. It's past time to stop making excuses for why these people are so easily exploited and why certain imams and crime-family governments exploit them.
justifying terrorism, or making excuses for it. You couldn't read my diary and come away with that impression. I was simply explaining the phenomenon of terrorism as I understand it.
A precedent embalms a principle.
- Disraeli
the comment that you responded to was clearly sarcastic, especially the opening sentence.
A precedent embalms a principle.
- Disraeli
Somali Islamic cleric: the Pope must die
And this ain't no Robbie Coltrane movie. Hunt him down and kill him, says Sheikh Abubukar Hassan Malin. "Somali cleric calls for pope's death," from AFP, with thanks to News4U:
A HARDLINE cleric linked to Somalia's powerful Islamist movement has called for Muslims to "hunt down" and kill Pope Benedict XVI for his controversial comments about Islam.
Sheikh Abubukar Hassan Malin urged Muslims to find the pontiff and punish him for insulting the Prophet Mohammed and Allah in a speech that he said was as offensive as author Salman Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses.
"We urge you Muslims wherever you are to hunt down the Pope for his barbaric statements as you have pursued Salman Rushdie, the enemy of Allah who offended our religion," he said in Friday evening prayers.
"Whoever offends our Prophet Mohammed should be killed on the spot by the nearest Muslim," Malin, a prominent cleric in the Somali capital, told worshippers at a mosque in southern Mogadishu.
"We call on all Islamic Communities across the world to take revenge on the baseless critic called the pope," he said.
Expect Sheikh Abubukar Hassan Malin to be burned in effigy by Muslims worldwide, for daring to suggest anything other than the proposition that "Muslims have no violent character." (Actually, of course, all too many self-proclaimed Muslim moderates are much more likely to criticize those who report on the Sheikh's words than they are to criticize the Sheikh himself. Hmmm. Now why is that?)
The thing that Islamists tend not to understand about us — perhaps because they do not do this themselves — is that we in the West tire of environmental nuisances and often fashion engineering solutions to eliminate them.
Perhaps this business of responding to every slight with threats of death — and the occasional chopped-off head — has worked well in their own milieu. Someone needs to explain to them that this is not an act they should try to take on the road.
In flying over the blogosphere today, I could not help but notice a certain change in tone. "The Moslems are rioting again? When aren't they rioting? It's always something." The headline says, "Muslims outraged." So what, they're always outraged. When they aren't burning flags, they're torching cars or throwing bombs. They stab filmmakers. They burn cartoons. Now they're threatening the Pope with death. Ho hum. Last week it was Death To Bush; the week before that it was Blair; next week it'll be Jacques Chirac. Death, death, death to them all. And death to America, too.
This is the beginning of people losing their fear of it; they are beginning to regard Islamic wrath as an environmental nuisance... Moslems as fire ants.
Drink Good Coffee. You can sleep when you're dead.
Hmm, then I suppose the best answer is to avoid tequila.
Somewhat more seriously, assassinating the Pope, especially now, would do very little damage to our side but would do their PR a deathblow. I hope they don't do it, of course, but if it's a real worldwide war they want, that's a good way to get it.
--
The Presidency is a position more easily critiqued than attained.
We urge you Muslims wherever you are to hunt down the Pope for his barbaric statements as you have pursued Salman Rushdie, the enemy of Allah who offended our religion.
Look at what the Muslims do when the Pope accuses Islam of being a violent, uninspired religion. They go out and commit violence, like they always do because they don't have the ingenuity to prove the Pope wrong or get rid of the violent element among them. It is kind of funny because anyone who pays attention knew the Muslims would riot and be violent when they are accused of being a violent religion.
Look what they do when they hear Mohammad has been portrayed in cartoons or that the Koran was desecrated. They kill.
What do Christians do when Muslims call for the killing of Christians or when representations of Christ are desecrated? We sure don't act like Muslims.
Islam is a religion of peace my @$$!
'Let's go to work and drink a beer to professionalism!
A: Islam is a violent religion.
A: Islam is a violent religion.
A: Islam is a violent religion.
Q: "That's not simple it's simplistic. What about the history of Christianity? You need to be more subtle. You need to put Islam into historical perspective."
A: I'm sorry, you're right. Christianity used to be shockingly violent, but it has improved dramatically.
A: Of all major religions, Islam is the most violent.
A: Of all major religions, Islam is the most violent.
A: Of all major religions, Islam is the most violent.
No need for elaboration
Shiara law is incompatible with modernity, and before there is peace, there will have to be a revolution and reformation within Islam, which will probably follow the gameplan that modernized the nazi cult and the kamikaze cult. Massive defeat concentrates the mind.
"If they attack us, it means we're winning." - Rush Limbaugh
you're saying there needs to be a regional war in the Middle East in which radical Islam is defeated thoroughly and utterly in order for a genuine reform of the culture to take place. It's a thought, but current U.S. policy seems to be to avoid such a scenario, on the (not unreasonable) assumption that we are unready to fight such a war. So, is there a plan B?
A precedent embalms a principle.
- Disraeli
I'm saying that it is probably inevitable that we will one day have to unleash our full power to have peace. I hope it can be avoided but when I see no major movement in Islam to clean up its own house, and I see the day coming when the enemy attacks the US mainland with wmd, and I see Iran moving to nukes and the day when UBL's ilk may rule Pakistan, I simply do not see how we will be able to maintain peace absent a total victory that breaks them like we had to break Japan and Germany.
If a wmd goes off in America, the gloves will be off. We will not fight a proportional war after that.
History suggests that my prognosis will come to pass, and it won't matter who is president.
"If they attack us, it means we're winning." - Rush Limbaugh
I agree. At that point "proportional" war will be off the table, and we'll have no choice but to retaliate. However, I'd rather we avoid that necessity if at all possible, especially since we are currently spending an aweful lot of our blood and treasure to create stable governments in Iraq and Afghanistan that would, almost certainly, be obliterated in the great calamity you predict is now inevitable.
Don't get me wrong. If total war becomes a reality we must prosecute it to the fullest extent of our powers, because then we shall have no choice if we wish to survive. But as long as we are not yet over the brink there is no excuse for jumping toward it.
A precedent embalms a principle.
- Disraeli
...when the Quran states:
- converted to Islam
- enslaved by Muslims
- killed by Muslims
Muslims everywhere believe Allah to be the only God, Mohammad to be the only prophet and the Quran to be the only true word of Allah. So if the text says "convert, enslave or kill" (Jihad), why do moderate Muslims claim it is a religion of peace? Do they not believe the texts are true? And when thousands are killed in suicide attacks on innocent civilians, why do moderate Muslims not condemn the attacks as being anti-Islamic, assuming Islam is a religion of peace and really does not demand the conversion, enslavement or death of non-Muslims?
Recently I've read about the willingness of Palestinian Muslims as well as Iraqi insurgents to allow innocent Muslims in war zones (women and children) to be killed for the sake of killing a few Israeli soldiers because "Allah knows his own". The concept is that it is better to be "in Paradise with Allah" than to live on earth with non-believers. So killing a few of "Allah's own" is doing them the favor of moving them out of the slums of this earth on to the high rent district of Paradise. Of course, the unsuspecting faithful Muslims are not consulted by their leadership regarding this sudden and unannounced move up-market.
Who actually said (besides the POTUS) that Islam is a religion of peace?
For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. St. Paul
"Violent? I'll show him violent!"
If the Pope apologizes, I will be very disappointed.
On the other hand, I'll applaud him if he says, "Since Islam is a religion of peace, the remarks of a long-dead Byzantine could not be injurious. If you demand an apology under threat of violence, I suggest you have Allah awaken him to get one."
--
The Presidency is a position more easily critiqued than attained.