The Pope and the West are "doomed"
 

Link


Way to prove a point!

So, there we go again, the old man cites a long dead emperor and all Islam world burns up instantly. I was talking with some friends over this matter and whether the Pope should've refrained to make any comments on Islam, but seriously, isn't this getting ridiculous anyway?
Should the whole world change in order to make the fundamentalists feel comfortable? Should we all refrain to express ourselves in fear of offending others?
I think the point here is not whether the Pope shoulded or not made those quotations, but that in a way, the whole world is being hostage of this fundamentalists. It's a shame that in the name of "GOD", fear and death are planted all over the world.
I, for one, know that i won't be giving away my right to think and express whatever i want (with the due respect, that is) beacuse some lunatics have arrogated themselves with the power to decide what is true and what is acceptable.

We don't need less comments on Islam, we need more of it. The truth shall set you free after all.

As long as we keep blaming ourselves and keeping our heads in the sand its going to get worse not better.

The really ironic thing is that it was a Byzantine emperor who said it and the Pope won't be going to turkey unless he offers an offical appology (abasement). Now I'm sure you all took enough history to see the irony.

As a side note, we all owe a debt of thanks to the Byzanties who held off the muslim invasion of Europe for centuries, long enough to regain the strength to resist the invasion after the fall of Constantinople.

Problem is not Islam, but islamic extremists. I know first hand that most muslims are peacefull, good persons, but these bastards give the whole Islam a bad name.

History speaks otherwise. The old emperor wasn't talking out his ass when he made those comments. I think most people are peacefull, good persons, muslims included, but as a force of history, Islam has been anything but peaceful in its spread.

Completely agreed.
But then, they had an excellent model to work off of in Christianity.

Ironman and Superbelt..I agree completely and made a similar observation in another discussion that Mojo refuted by rewriting history.

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...6&postcount=35

The current state of terrorism has nothing to do with Muhammed and everything to do with the desperate and extreemist responses by Middle Eastern forces to strategic socioeconomic powerplays by the US and the UK. The pope was simply repeating old world religous bigotry; he slipped and let a little hate out. It's not uncommon for religous leaders to be somewhat defensive of their religon and somewhat offended by other religons. As was stated by Superbelt, many religons have been spread through violence and even "evil", including Christianity and Islam. It's an unfortunate byproduct of people being able to wield the power of the minds of those who are devoted to faith. The thing is, singling out a religon for being violent is like singling out a single tree for being green, and that singling out is usually done by a mamber of another religon. That's called religous bigotry.

Rewriting history now? I didn't know that Papal records and studies by historians and the BBC the world over equated as my lowly self rewriting history.

Now you're making assumptions here, will. You can't speak for the dead suicide bomber, you don't know that he was desperate. you don't know anything about him. You can assume all you want, but unless you've actually spoken to someone who'se driven a bomb-laden truck into a mosque or strapped himself full of explosives packed with ball bearings, you don't know that they were really desperate or really why they do what they do. How is a sunni gunning down shiites on the streets of baghdad a strategic response to the socioeconomic powerplays by the US and UK? The gunman is still a terrorist, trying to instill terror in others. Is he desperate? I don't know, and neither do you.

By the way, the first thing muhammed did when he started his religion was create an army and start conquering. I don't think Jesus and the apostles did that. It wasn't until much later that christianity was used as a justification for war, however war and islam are bound at the hip.

I'd call it a safe assumption. I doubt that people who are simply dissatisfied and unhappy would be willing to safrafice themselves to make a political statement like a suicide bomber.

Now who's making asumptions? I happen to know a lot of people in Iraq, Palestine and now Lebanon. A lot of the information about suicide bombings I get come from their experiences and friends instead of MSNBC or a book written by a professor in Texas. I consider their take on this to be reliable and when I base my understanding on their experience I do so with confidence.
Why do they have weapons? The US and UK have been playing God with the ME, and while we supply Israel with everything from munitions to nuclear weapons, Saudi Arabia supplies extreemists in order to counter that. They are living in violence based in bigotry, so it is to be expected that the bullets will be spread across anyone they hate. The thing is: the person you describe isn't a terrorist. Terrorists use fear as a tool, they simply are killing each other out of hate. That isn't terrorism. Suicide bombings are terrorism. Attacking areas that should be safe or that represent things like economics, religon, military power, political power etc. would be terrorism.
The first thing that Muhammed did was write the Qu'ran.
The community is one community is a preaching of peace between nations, not conquoring.

All the battles that took place during the Prophet's lifetime, under the guidance of the Qur'an and the Muhammed, have been surveyed and shown to have been waged only in self-defense or to pre-empt an imminent attack. I doubt we in the US are in any position to condemn a preemptive military action.

War and Islam are not bound at the hip any more than any other religon.

An affront of this magnitude by a pontiff is extremely rare, and I can't imagine why this pope would choose to make a statement such as this. His "apology" that he didn't believe the comments himself, appeased no one.
If he didn't believe it, why make the statement at all?

I believe Will is correct that some religious bigotry slipped out. I believe he will need to do more to mend the damage.

As you know, history is written by the winner. Who won all those wars in muhammed's time? give up? muhammed and his muslim army. They won many wars for many years. Then wrote many history books.

No. Christianity waited for a hundred + years or so and bought one that was already established.
Then they went and canibalized themselves over official doctrine.

BTW: Paul wasn't exactly a pacifist. Considering most christians put more emphasis on his writings than Jesus'....

I'll agree that a purely Jesus centered Christianity is a superior, peaceful religion. But there are hardly, any 'christians' on earth (and hardly ever were). Most are 'Paulstians' with a side order of Christ.

good for christianity. do I care?



nope.

Muhammed did not write the Qur'an. It was written about 60 years after his death. In reality the first thing he did was run off to Medina and create an army

Pre-empt an imminent attack? Are you serious? The Byzantine Empire payed no attention to Islam until they started invading Egypt/Palestine/Jordan. They were busy fighting Syssanid Empire.

Come on Wil, did you actually read the make-believe history you're sprouting or are you just making it up?

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/a...lim/article.do

How many of your people need to be 'extreme' before its no longer just 'extremists'?

Amazing how people who were so happy to equate with religious right with a tiny handful of abortion bombers are so quick to distance the 'average' Islamist from the 'extremists', no matter how many of these people there seem to be or how many nations are already under their control.

Why trust history at all then? Why trust anything written before you were born? The best we can do is try to figure out what happened. The best guess as to what happened at the genesis of Islam is what I stated above. Islam may have been introduced by aliens to a guy named Mac who lived in Australia for all we know, but I say we simply rely on what we understand.
True. The first thing Muhammed did was spread the word, and that word was the words of the Qu'ran. That was waht I was meaning to say, but thank you for correcting me. Actually, that's the first thing all religous leaders do.
I read it in a text book and heard it from a prof. and since I don't see you disproving it I have to assume you can't.

Ok Wil, here's what was going on in reality.

The Byzantine Empire and the Sassanid Empire were at war for generations at this point. They fought themselves hallow basically. Lo and behold the religion of peace starts declaring war with both empires, the Sassanid crumbling first. Then the slow conquest of Anatolia followed. Neither empire delt with the Arabian Penninsula prior, only in trade. To claim it was in self defense to take down the two powerful empires in the region is ubsurd.

geez..another fucking idiotic thread in which the entirety of islam gets painted with the same one-dimensional, uninformed brush. there is no point in even trying to have a conversation about this kind of thing if the conservatvie premises are--again--nothing more or less than racism dressed up behind a pseudo-historical figleaf ((seaver's posts aside...))
it is racism masquerading as history--which is a big part of the marketing of the "war on terror"--that perhaps explains stuff like this:

source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...091800597.html

as for ratzinger--the man was an appalling reactionary when he was the ideological hatchetman for john paul 2 and he has not magically changed now that he is called benedict.
but i do like the idea that he forgot for a moment that he was pope.

Totally correct as I understand it.
Do you mean that they were fighting a holy war? I'm confused by your usage of the word hallow.
The collapse of the Sassanid Empire: Khosrau the Second had led a succesful campaign against the Byzantine curing their civil war had actually served to weaken the Sassanian Empire because they didn't have the resources to wage a full scale war after their own civil war (the revolt of general Bahram Chobin). Byzantine retaliated by attacking Persia from the rear. Meinwhile, Khosrau the Second and his Khosrau the Second were acting like children, allowing suspician to rule their actions, and the Sassanid lost a great general and army. The Byzantine military won the battle of Nineveh, coupled with the assasination of Khosrau the Second, plunged Sassanid into a full scale civil war. That was how the empire fell. The remaining generals were striking out in all directions acting like warlords. One of the peoples that they attacked were the Arabs. The problem was that in it's weak state, the Sassanian Empire wasn't prepared for a counter attack, and the Persians eventually lost.

The Arabs did go to war with the Byzantine Empire after defeating the Sassanian threat and coverting most Persians, but they didn't win. Thanks to a great military and greek fire, Constantinople was never taken, and the Byzantine continued on to it's "Golden Age" in the 9th, 10th and 11th centuries under Macedonia.


Actually, maybe Roach can settle this one, being a history prof.

Mistype, supposed to be hollow.

I do agree with that aswell, then. Their wars could have easily led to the destruction of both empires.

I agree with Ustwo on this and this alone. There needs to be a hell of a lot more dialogue than there is currently. Stop talking about each other and start talking with each other.

Doc has great wisdom. :)

Of course there is that whole 'talk about islam in any negative way and we kill you' mentality to deal with first.

It tends to stifle a dialog.

Well, I just don't think that 'not talking to people' is a very intelligent way to figure anything out. I see it as immature and counterproductive. It's what children do when they don't get dessert.

I'm not implying in any way whatsoever that these extremists are good people. Or even that they are the ones that we sholud be talking to. But the Islam community as a whole. You know, try and get some support from within that mindset somewhere, get some trust. If anyone can help with this type of situation, it is Islamists themselves.

I mean, everyone watches the news. They know what is being said about them. And even normal, peacefull muslims (the ones that could help, if they wanted) see the light in which we (or our press) view them. I can understand why they don't jump at the chance to take a stand with the U.S. against their violent brethren

Had they done so to start then we wouldn't have had such views. There are plenty of friendly outlets for them to speak their minds, yet most are silent. Some I'm sure are intimidated by their murderous brethren, but we see little from them even in countries where they should be safe to speak their mind.

I know enough peaceful muslims to know that while they are not willing to die as terrorists, they support the idea behind it. These were very highly educated muslims, from all over the mideast who I worked with closely for 3 years. They were very nice, but I also saw their reactions to 9/11, and heard what they thought of israel. Its here that I decided that there really was no hope for peace until there was a very large pile of bodies. If I was with some of the best educated, with people who spent years in the US and other western nations, some for over 10 years, and yet they still felt this way, I had to despair as to what the average citizen of their nations thought.

You won’t see muslim outrage over terrorism because they are not upset by it, unlike a cartoon or a pope quoting a guy dead for 600 years, thats worth being outraged over.

I do see the irony you point out here. There is no way to not see it.

And I agree with you also that, as a whole, there does not seem to be "outrage" in the muslim community regarding terrorist acts, but more a sense of "disagreement" with terrorism. Which is a far cry from outrage.

But I don't think killing them all is the answer (extreme understatement)! Some sort of an attempt should be made at real communication. Whether or not we believe they deserve communication with us is moot. The only other alternative is a continuous back and forth of escalating violence.

Interestingly there are moderate Muslim leaders calling for more "rationalism" to brought to the religion.

There were quotes from the heads of state from Brunei and Malaysia today that pretty much agreed with what the Pope was saying, if not how it was being said.

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/webl...RI-1222wmv.jpg

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: I hereby declare that this sinister regime [Israel] is the banner of Satan. It is the banner of the Great Satan. All it does is to implement the orders of the criminal America and England. They think that the peoples are the same as they were 100 years ago. They are not aware that things have changed in the world. Today, all the peoples have awoken. The Iranian people is the standard-bearer of this awakening for all the peoples. As we can see, from the southernmost point in South America to the easternmost point in Asia, all the people are shouting a single cry. With placards in their hands and clenched fists, they shout: Death to Israel.

Crowd: Death to Israel.

Sorry to host this thread, but this is the face of islam today.

willravel, seaver: can't really help you gentlemen. history is big and no-one knows all of it.



ustwo:

you cannot possibly be serious.
perhaps in your racist fantasy world, it is.
in the big empirical world that other folk know about, yours is a ludicrous position.
it has nothing to do with the empirical world and everything to do with the ways in which conservative media uses racism to sell the bush administration.
works for you, apparently.

repellent stuff, ustwo. truly repellent.

Ustwo... perhaps if you had said, "This is one of the faces of Islam".

Saying it is the face if Islam is as ignorant as saying Pat Robertson is the face of Christanity.

You are being entirely facile in your world and it's really disturbing. I expect more from you.

It seems to me that Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi accepts the Pope's apology. I am not sure what your point is...

As for where Badawi stands, his speech last July seems pretty clear to me: LINK

Read the whole speech. He may not make the Western news but he is the leader of one of the biggest national populations of Muslims.

Approximately 2 out of 5 Americans approve of the job George W. Bush is doing. Is he the face of America? Yes, it could be argued, but is he the heart of America?

The same effect applies to anything that receives a high profile. Falsehoods run rampant if you only look on the surface of things. I've never looked to the media to teach me about anything. Why would I have them teach me about Islam?

Hey great, one of the many muslim nations isn't ruled by fanatics, we should celibrate!

I'm sorry Charlatan but the Pat Robertson comparison is poor. Pat Robertson is just a guy, he even has people who follow him, but until they start killing people at his bidding, burning mosques, blowing themselves up, that sort of thing while the rest of Christindom sits idle its a false one.

LOOK around the world, look at was these muslims leaders as a whole say look at what they want their people to do, look at what they allow and then tell me.

Robertson says we should kill Chavez and much of the country and I'm sure Europe thought it was assinine, and said so. The president of Iran says 'Death to Israel' and they chant right along.

You must know enough aboust sociology and anthropology to understand that a population in poverty acts differently than a population with wealth. I will bet you $5000 that if the US was in the same political, economic, and sociological situation we see in the Middle East, we would see some sort of massive group think led by anyone charismatic enough to catch everyone's ear. As we've seen time and time again in history, the lodest voice is often the most radical voice.

Islam itself is a wonderful faith that helps people understand themselves and the world around them, just like any other religon - yes, even scientology can help people to live happier lives. How in God's name do I know this? Well there are muslims in my very city! I'm even friends with several!!! Do you know what they communicate to me? Not all Muslims are radical. In fact, they are liberal peaceniks just like I am. They have no interest in hurting anyone, because they recognize that to hurt someone because of intolerance is hypocritical. Even with the intolerance of Islam you continually post, I doubt they'd do anything more to you than dislike you. They wake up, eat breakfast, kiss their kids goodbye, work hard, go home, spend time with their families, and go to sleep like everyone else.

I strongly suggest you go to a mosque and ask some questions. Keep an open mind, and you might just learn something about these people you so quickly judge.

So I'm just wondering, Ustwo, where do you want to go with this? What are you trying to make us see here?

Are you suggesting we stop being friends with Muslims? Not allow them into our country? Kill them all? If we take what you are saying as the truth, what would you have us do?

Here's the text of the lecture if anyone is interested. I'll paste the relevant part here in the thread.
http://www.oecumene.radiovaticana.or...lo.asp?c=94807

Looking at the lecture as a whole it is not some outrageous attack on Islam rather an analysis of theological issues to do with rationality. Though I do see why people may find it offensive and call for an apology. I think we can agree that the responses to this lecture calling for violence are, however, completely asinine. I'll leave the debate over the general beliefs and attitudes of Islam toward the west to others.

Thank you, akula. I made assumptions based only on what I saw quoted in my news sources. Your post gives the context needed to gain some understanding.

Uh... Are you trying to avoid the Godwin thing, because there are plenty of examples of Western and even Christian nations behaving that way in times of social and economic crisis. That particular sociological mechanism transcends culture, religion, and ethinicity. I'd bet you could find examples of it on every continent save Antarctica.

Yeah, I've overused the Nazi comparison lately. I was thinking about the Inquisition but certian people don't think it exiasted (and people call me a conspiracy nut), and I didn't want to threadjack. Being vague gives me the oportunity to bring up any case of religous zealotism in history.