Pope's gaffe?

Originally posted by Aelfgifu That being said, I do think some muslims tend to overreact. I saw images on the telly of groeps of angry shouting people burning popelike scarecrows. They should not do that, it makes the whole muslim world look bad. If someone would say this about jesus, you would not get riots in the street, I bet.

You'll probably find that the TV cameras paid some youths so they could get some pictures. Thats what usually happens, or they re-use old film.

This is where fellow Muslims fail.. The Vatican itself is not taken  very seriously by the most of fellow Christians.

Thats true. The net affect of this is that a lot of catholics are going to be walking down to mosques to apologise for their clergy. Thats what happened the when Cardinal Pell did the same. The only christians who would be influenced by this are those who already believed it (and maybe the "Christians" - who really aren't christians at all in my opinion)

Many Moslems seem to think they are special and entitled to an exalted place.  They also seem to think that their "prophet" is immune from criticism.  They are wrong on both counts.

No, this not about differences of opinion the difference is spreading a lie for the purposes of bigotry. If I said George Washinton was a murderous criminal that wreaked havoc across the American coloneys enforcing his rebellious ideas by the sword. Many Americans would get offened and rightly so, however if I said that since thats a lie that I'm attempting to pass off as fact. If I said that George Washinton was a seperatist against our glorious empire, then thats a point of view.

Nothings wrong with points of view, so long as they are factual and are not intended to cause strife.

Edited by Omar al Hashim - 15-Sep-2006 at 21:24

Pope had spoken in favour of dialogue between religions, which is something that  also support and consider urgent and necessary. Benedict  emphasised was a decisive and uncompromising renunciation of all forms of violence in the name of religion. In my opinion  Pope  just explored the historical and philosophical differences between Muslim  and Christian religions and of course  the relationship between violence and faith.

Originally posted by Seko Now onto a few issues. The Pope seems to stress the importance of faith, inquiry and Godliness. He presents a transforming epic of certain aspects of Greek religious history. The virtues of faith and reason/enlightenment. He also conveniently mentions a letter by a 14'th century Byzantine Emporer, who by the way had been losing territories to those infidel muslims. The letter vilifies Islam and one of it's prophets. Quite the opposite feel good story he presented about Christianity. Now, I ask, is this sensible and fair?

He could have just quoted from the Kuran, which could have been politicaly more correct for him & still conveyed what he really wanted to say.

No, but if I remember correctly it does say you can fight if the religious community is attacked. At least Muhammed conceded this to his followers when they came under pressure from their opponents in Arabia.

I do get the impression the Muslims howl at the slightest little mentioning of their faith in a negative context these days, it's one incident after the other, it's growing rather tiresome and I doubt they earn much respect in the world community this way.

Manuel II does have a point too, Muhammed really didn't come up with a lot of new material, it's more like a simplified version of Christian and Jewish beliefs with added rituals.

Of course, concerning the Pope's attitude, it should be remembered that this is the man who also claims listening to the Beatles is sinful.

But it also says:
109.001 Say : O ye that reject Faith!
109.002 I worship not that which ye worship,
109.003 Nor will ye worship that which I worship.
109.004 And I will not worship that which ye have been wont to worship,
109.005 Nor will ye worship that which I worship.
109.006 To you be your Way, and to me mine.

The problem with those holy books (apart from the question if they are true) is that they're terribily inconsequent.

Really, for an atheist like me remarks like "your religion is more violent and mine is more reasonable" are so pathetic.

Pope had spoken in favour of dialogue between religions, which is something that  also support and consider urgent and necessary.

Would be a good idea, but I think it is impossible, as long as all religions rigidly adhere to their own thruth criteriums. Whenever the pope says there is much truth in other religions as well (which he sometimes does), he doesn't mean catholicism can learn from other religions, but that other religions are right only on the points they have in common with catholicism. That's hardly a good base for a dialogue.

Seperate the faith from the faithful since both religions have had good and bad leaders-followers. Do that and first it is not so important to look at the religoius books for answers, and second such statements/quotes can be understood given certain peroids in certain places. Manuel's quote can be understood in that way, how the quote is used is what can make it offensive.

 ive skimmed over the latin patriach's speech , and i dont think his intention was to offend, but i can only guess . Maybe it was insensative at this point in time, and massive disclaimers are most probably needed when such subjects are touched on. (particularly at such a high level within the church). pity though

For people that think his intention was to offened, I ask this question, How do you know his intention?

Muslim's are definatley very sensative and i do think this is also being manipulated and exploited. This should be understood in the enviroment created by the war on terror, war on lebanon, racial profiling in our security, the bad /biased media, internet ...   i can understand why a small misunderstanding can become a big deal so quickly.

now i read two churchs in the west bank get attacked (not even latin churchs) and i bet the attckers dont see the irony of their actions.

The muslim world stands accused of violance and it responds with ... violance.








Edited by bg_turk - 16-Sep-2006 at 13:31

Certainly looks rather disgusting. That such individuals share objections by demonstrating through sheer anger. That type of reaction is not the way to protest in my opinion. Yet there are a bunch of people that react with emotion instead of reason.

Another link to the speech, for those who don't like PDFs

http://zenit.org/english/visualizza.phtml?sid=94748

What really bothers me about Muslims is that I never hear about any outrage when a popular Cleric allows the deaths of people or calls for violence. Where's the outrage across the world like we see in the above pictures?