In a BBC News article concerning the current crisis over the Pope’s words about Islam, we find the following:
The BBC’s David Willey in Rome says Pope Benedict, a theologian who has led a sheltered life in the Vatican for more than two decades, may not have understood the potential implications of his remarks.
Oh, really? The sheltered life here may be Wiley’s, as it seems to be often with his Beeb cronies. [Is everything "projection" to you?-ed. Well, not everything, but close.] I think Ratzinger knew perfectly well what he was saying and what he was saying is true. Violence is structured into Islam, because Islam dictates scripturally that the world must be Islamic via jihad (as opposed to Christianity, which says “Render unto Caesar… etc.”) and has never reformed on any level that is remotely permanent.
When this is pointed out, the Edward Said crowd says we materialistic Westerners just don’t understand what jihad means. But when we ask for it to be explained, we come out with … jihad. No wonder the Pope’s remarks engender brainless riots. There is no logical response. One can only applaud his honesty as opposed to our politicians who endlessly repeat the polite lie about a “great religion being hijacked” (by Wahabis, Salafists, Shiites … pick your hijacker). I question the efficacy of this lie. I prefer the Fallaci approach - direct and not dictated by fear (pace Tunku Varadarajan of the WSJ who seems to think the late Oriana was “afraid” of Islam). What we are dealing with here is a malignant belief system - and I say this not just because I am an agnostic. I recognize value in a whole host of religions, even in parts of Islam. But it is clear that this religious belief has oppressed its people (women particularly), kept masses of them in poverty and backwardness while enriching their rulers, and fomented deranged violence across the world from New York to Bali. What is an honest Pope supposed to say? Good on you?
In this post-cartoon universe, I guess he is. In Europe especially panic about Islam has set in. I for one applaud the Pope’s non-apology apology. I hope he sticks to it.
MORE from VDH.
PJM Home
56 Comments
1. TedM:Maybe, just maybe, this might wake up some of our Christian friends.
12 cartoonists in Denmark have no real following. The Pope has a billion Catholics looking towards Rome.
Sep 16, 2006 - 12:47 pm 2. Mike Lief:I fear that the leader of the largest Christian church in the world is about to back down in the face of Muslim anger and the abject terror of the Western elites who are willing to do anything to avoid angering the jihadis.
Roger, you were until fairly recently a fellow traveler of the PC crowd; why are they so resistant to recognizing the existential threat? How can gays, feminists and human rights activists side with an ideology that calls for their subjugation, their death? Can their hatred of the West, of America, be so total that it blinds them to their role as the sonderkommando of the 21st century?
Sep 16, 2006 - 12:53 pm 3. jedrury:“Oriana Fallaci was very brave. Perhaps a little too brave.” Even VARADARAJAN quivers in the face of the power of violence. It probably takes a “sheltered” Pope to speak truth to power.
Sep 16, 2006 - 1:26 pm 4. Ron:We are not killers, we do not destroy civilization, we are a “Religion of Peace” and if you say differently we will slaughter you! Lennie Bruce couldn’t have written their lines any better.
In the New York Times editorial today, once more they are groveling for forgivnance. Please don’t chop my head off they seem to say. Please it was the mean old Pope that said it, not us. Just look at how much we help you guys, please don’t kill us. We give you secrets, he help the guys in Gitmo, we pay the attorney fees for some, we have proven our worth to you, don’t kill us.
The once great New York Times has turned in to a major terrorist hemorrhoid kisser. Disgusting.
Sep 16, 2006 - 1:37 pm 5. jonathan riley:If the pope is so naive that he thinks he can quote these words:Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman. . . without causing a storm to break, then he oughtn’t to be in a position of such responsibility. “Inhuman”?! Didn’t germans used to say that about the jews in the bad old days?Now if he wanted‚Ää a storm to break, well that’s something else altogether, though hardly any more a desirable thing…
Sep 16, 2006 - 1:47 pm 6. Rhod:Riley:
Fascinating post. We don’t know what the Pope’s expectations were about a breaking storm. Moreover, “evil and inhuman” is quite clearly a comment on possibilities and not entities, like Jews as described by Germans. Seems you have no more understanding of the issues raised by the Pope than the perpetually outraged Islamist.
Finally, what is desirable or undesirable about controversy, or in annoying the permanently annoyed? And what is unique or troubling about Islamist rent-a-mobs declaring their hatred for everything Western? You seem to agree with them.
Sep 16, 2006 - 2:12 pm 7. Lem:“Radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam in a country like America where we have separation of church and state,” Rosie O’Donnell.
Now that the pope has declared jihad, how long does Rosie have to repent before a bishop call for a fatwa against her? Oh wait, it might take a cardinal given that she is a celebrity.
Sep 16, 2006 - 2:12 pm 8. photoncourier.blogspot.com:Talk about sheltered life, Rosie of all people. There is definitely something wrong with that.
“How can gays, feminists and human rights activists side with an ideology that calls for their subjugation, their death? Can their hatred of the West, of America, be so total that it blinds them to their role as the sonderkommando of the 21st century?”…I think there are at least two answers to this, applying to different sets of individuals within the broad grouping of “progressives.”
1)A lot of them simply lack imagination, and don’t understand the reality of the danger. I’ve seen something similar in business. If a company in trouble still has the *appearance* of being strong–impressive buildings, cash in the bank–some people have a hard time taking seriously the fact that the products are obsolete, the incoming orders are mainly for replacement parts, and a big payment on the bonds is coming due in a couple of years. Similarly, privileged life in America keeps many people from understanding just how rare and vulnerable our situation is.
2)Also, though, there is a significant set of “progressives” who have strong nihilist tendencies and for whom the brutality of the terrorist enemy is a feature, not a bug.
Sep 16, 2006 - 2:38 pm 9. jonathan riley:Come on rhod, do you seriously say that the head of the catholic church can allow himself the luxury of using those words without going on immediately to express disagreement with them? It were preferable for him not to have used them at all, for any reason. They are inflammatory words, and he is not the man who ought to be putting redness into the situation.I do not say that causing offense to the stupid is necessarily a bad thing; it is in this case not so much the thing said as the man, and the office, saying it.And i have been careful to admit that the pope may not have intended to kick up a storm. But i maintain that he would have to be really naive not to think that his too_clever_by_half quotation would.By the way, cards on the table, i despise all the abramic religions, and at the moment, islam is clearly the most egregious of the lot. There, do you feel better now rhod?
Sep 16, 2006 - 2:39 pm 10. Rhod:Riley:
Do I feel better that you’ve ruled on the matter? How ridiculous. Neither do I care about your detestation of the Abramic religions.
But even more interesting now is that speaking the truth is somehow contaminated by the kind of office held by the speaker. Add to that your delicacte concern for the feelings of Islamists. Can we introduce any more hatred into their world view? No, and who cares about the Islamist/Arab/Persian or Muslim Street anyway. I don’t.
Your complaint seems to be that the Pope either was, or was not, prescient about the effect of his remarks. His observation was, essentially, that Reason rather than violence is required of us by God, as a means to persuade. Sickeningly dogmatic, wouldn’t you say?
Cards on the table, I’m neither Catholic nor a believer, but your point is preposterous.
Sep 16, 2006 - 2:49 pm 11. Captain Hate:2)Also, though, there is a significant set of “progressives” who have strong nihilist tendencies and for whom the brutality of the terrorist enemy is a feature, not a bug.
Ding Ding Ding
Hence the mad crushes on Josef Stalin, Mao, Fidel, Pol Pot….
Sep 16, 2006 - 3:07 pm 12. Ron:“I think Ratzinger knew perfectly well what he was saying and what he was saying is true. Violence is structured into Islam, because Islam dictates scripturally that the world must be Islamic via jihad.”
Gee one old man is found to have the cojones to say the obvious and the rest of the world and some of the posters here get the shivers and willies. We have a religion/death cult that says “we love death more than you love life” and is saying it is going to take over the world and kill you and yours if you don’t like it and people say “he should apoligize.” Why would you apologize to people who are even now bombing and burning churchs and threatening to kill the head of a major religion. These are the same maniacs that tried to assassinate the last Pope. Do you actually think it will get better if you say nothing or apologize for telling the truth about the obvious? We have some major homicidel maniacs in the world, weren’t we aware of that before the Pope made his oblique statement. This resurgence of maniacal religion has been with us before, my way or the highway they scream, rant, riot, burn and kill. About time to tell them that that kind of behavior will get them eradicated and mean it.
Sep 16, 2006 - 3:18 pm 13. jonathan riley:: How ridiculous.Good, i’m pleased to hear it.: Can we introduce any more hatred into their world view? No…You don’t think so, huh? What makes you say that? You should ask yourself just how bad things could be, and here’s a tip - it’s probably much worse than they are now. I don’t know about you, but i’ve seen about a thousand real muslims today and not one of them has attacked me, or shown any hostility to me. When was the last time a muslim actually showed to your face any of the hatred that you are keen to fulminate about. You think nobody can “introduce any more hatred into their world view” eh? You’re almost as naive as the pope!: His observation was, essentially…Ah, there’s the think trap. Do you imagine that the lunatic orchestrating friday prayers is reading aloud and verbatim, the text of the popes speech, and encouraging young muslims to ponder its finer points? Of course he isn’t, he’s looking to exploit the pope’s obvious money quote instead! The pope ought to know this, and i strongly suspect that he does know it.Rhod, if you were the head honcho of a huge religion, would you quote some obscure philosopher’s opinion that one of your rival - and rather easily exitable - religion’s revered figures brought nothing into the world that was not inhuman? In a prepared speech? Or would you think that that might open up a can of worms?
Sep 16, 2006 - 3:30 pm 14. Rhod:Benedict introduced (at least one of) the central disagreements between Christianity and Islam. That Muslims, or Islamists (whatever), find it offensive is predictable under the terms of Islam.
If Islam assumes that God is transcendant, such that He transcends rationality, the Reason of Christianity is inferior to the cosmic self-evidence of Allah. There is neither device nor conditions under which Islam can prove The Pope wrong. He’s simply wrong, and the impulse of the outraged Islamic believer is simply is this: you can’t think about what you can’t think about, and anyone who thinks about it is an infidel and a vulgar insult to Islam.
If this is true, the celestial dead-end of Islam is that no one can be introduced to Islam through The Word, but must accept Islam, period.
Sep 16, 2006 - 3:33 pm 15. Lem:This is worth talking about.
Even if the pope “knew”, any good CEO would be derelict not to at least distance the enterprise from being lumped up among “the worldís major religions” as the MSM often does.
This “pope should have known” mantra is nothing but the beginning of yet another conspiracy theory.
Sep 16, 2006 - 3:43 pm 16. Sandy P:Ratzinger was just speaking truth to power….
Sep 16, 2006 - 3:54 pm 17. Rhod:Riley:
One would be pleased at your pleasure, if you made any sense. First, you still haven’t verified your claim that the truth should be suppressed by those in high office. You also fail to recognize that what you expect of the Pope, explication of religious doctrine, is exactly what you apparently support in the of the Imam Class and “the lunatic orchestrating Friday prayers”. You want it both ways, Riley.
Your nearly deranged second paragraph posits that “things” are worse than we (I) know, while dispensing anecdotal evidence of the thousand “real Muslims” you know who wish you no harm. Which is it? Are they bad or are they good. More confusion.
Then, according to you, my Papal naivete is deductive because it differs from your experience with friendly Muslims. Try reading the papers, Riley, rather than shmoozing with a thousand people you regard as friendlies. You might learn something.
Moving forward, your claim that the adjectival quality of “inhuman”..when you liken it to the German description of Jews, is the explosive factor in a theological rumination about Reason and Divine Purpose, shows that your detestation of Abramic religions is just silly. You don’t understand them, and your fixation on “inhuman” is comparable to counting angels on a pinhead. Try reading Benedicts remarks and get back to me.
And speaking of pinheads, your second to last paragraph about “young Muslims”, and their furies, clearly states that one should reward ignorance and murderous feelings by pandering to them. That’s worked so well so far.
Sep 16, 2006 - 3:55 pm 18. Sandy P:– but i’ve seen about a thousand real muslims today and not one of them has attacked me, or shown any hostility to me. –
So, where were you? General vicinity is fine.
Sep 16, 2006 - 3:57 pm 19. jonathan riley:: some of the posters here get the shivers and williesI hope this wasn’t with reference to me…
Sep 16, 2006 - 3:59 pm 20. Rhod:Correction:
“…that what you CONDEMN in the Pope….is apparently what you support….”
Sep 16, 2006 - 3:59 pm 21. jonathan riley:sandy poxford, england
Sep 16, 2006 - 4:00 pm 22. JK Ribera:-but i’ve seen about a thousand real muslims today and not one of them has attacked me, or shown any hostility to me. –
Mr. Riley, you could have been a Jew walking in Berlin in 1936 and said the same thing. Definitely a trivial statement.
Sep 16, 2006 - 4:20 pm 23. Rhod:Completing the offending sentence provided by Riley…forgot this…
“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…”
Which was part of the dialogue described by Benedict between the Emperor and the Educated Persian.
Are they any educated Persians around who can provide the answer?
Sep 16, 2006 - 5:10 pm 24. Barry Dauphin:JR
Do you imagine that the lunatic orchestrating friday prayers is reading aloud and verbatim, the text of the popes speech, and encouraging young muslims to ponder its finer points? Of course he isn’t, he’s looking to exploit the pope’s obvious money quote instead!….
Or would you think that that might open up a can of worms?
If it is a “lunatic” who is orchestrating Friday prayers, then it will not take much for a can of worms to be opened–maybe simply the existence of infidels for that matter. Why spend more energy and words scolding Ratzinger than the lunatics (there’s more than one)? What does this say about these “young muslims” as well? What does a violent response mean to a message that violence should not be used to promote a religion?
Sep 16, 2006 - 5:37 pm 25. Lem:Would I be off-base (i love baseball) to suggest that beheadings might also be meant as a way to put down reason? Of course, I’m using reason not as that word is generally constituted, mind you.
Jihadists are just doing a procedure, you know like appendicitis.
I’m trying to be reasonable!
Sep 16, 2006 - 6:13 pm 26. ForNow:Ooooh don’t offend the Muslims, especially the islamofascists, it’s crazy to do that! He oughta be de-popified for talking about Muslim intolerance! He oughta be de-popified for quoting somebody saying that Mohammed added mainly bad stuff to religion.
Dhimmification proceeding apace! One detects no inerest there in bringing the foaming-mouthed Muslim clerics to heel. Their Friday hatefests are of no interest to the left. Muslim clerics are the queenbees of the hives of terrorism.
Meanwhile there’s no deeper and broader bigotry on earth than Muslim bigotry. Their textbooks call Jews and Christians the sons of pigs and dogs. Non-Muslims are called “najis” and this is a widespread practice and attitude.
http://www.al-islam.org/laws/najisthings.html
66~~~~~
The following ten things are essentially najis:
Urine
Faeces
Semen
Dead body
Blood
Dog
Pig
Kafir
Alcoholic liquors
The sweat of an animal who persistently eats najasat.
~~~~~99
Muslim clerics in large numberspreach and practice the stoning of adultresses, the dropping of walls on homosexuals, the beheading of apostates, the general subjugation of women, and endless arabesques of excruciating horror. Shari’a, a.k.a. Islamic Holy Law, is a crime against humanity and should be attacked on every level by all civilization. An islamofacist is a Muslim who doesn’t hate Shari’a like poison.
How Renfield fears but loves his Dracula! As leftists & islamo-sadists circle ever closer in a macabre dance around a common bed, it’s the leftists who increasingly assume the inferior role, even while muttering, “We’re above it all! We’re above it all!” and even while they dream of bedding down with the terrorists in an Amiri Baraka atmosphere of casual carnage and total love.
Sep 16, 2006 - 6:36 pm 27. jonathan riley:Rhod,
oh dear, now i have to answer all these questions, how tiresome, given that i am trying deal with the point at issue.
: you still haven’t verified your claim that the truth should be suppressed by those in high office.
You need to read carefully before misquoting me, i never said that; prove to me that i did. Let’s take this step by painful step:
1) the truth. What is this thing that i said or quoted that i claimed was true? The pope quoted some very ancient theologian’s assertion that nothing that was of mohammed was “not inhuman” (or something very similar). I certainly never said that that statement is true, nor incidentally did the pope. Have you read everything that mohammed said, so that you could be in a position to know whether or not it was the truth? And do you say that it was? Or did you have some other “truth” in mind?
2) those in high office. Not so fast, i think i spy a rhetorical game here. The pope is one man having one office; it’s not sound reasoning that because i say a thing about one man and his office, that that statement can be generalised to apply to other similar men in other similar offices.
now since i mentioned neither truth, nor “those [pl] in high office”, it must follow that i am at liberty to disregard the question.
But by the way, since you mentioned “those in high office”, i look forward to seeing you excoriate your president when he supresses a state secret following a casual question from a wapo (or similar) journalist. Gosh, won’t you be angry that - as you yourself put it - “the truth should be suppressed by those in high office”.
: You also fail to recognize that what you expect of the Pope, explication of religious doctrine, is exactly what you apparently support in the of the Imam Class and “the lunatic orchestrating Friday prayers”. You want it both ways…
I’m sorry, I really don’t understand that at all, neither with, nor without the correction you supplied subsequently. Do you? Does anybody?
: Your nearly deranged second paragraph posits that “things” are worse than we (I) know…
This is an entirely understandable misunderstaning; a miswriting on my part, or misreading on yours. The problem turns on the fact that what i meant was that things could get much worse; what you understood was that things are much worse, while what i actually wrote could equally well support either reading. But just to be clear, I meant that things could get much worse.
Anybody asleep yet? Sorry, i wasn’t the one asking all these damn questions!
: reading the papers
Sorry, i gave up on the papers years ago; too much political correctness, too many very snooty establishment cronies. I read blogs now - you know, mostly pjm guys. Can you believe it?
: shmoozing with a thousand people you regard as friendlies
I do not regard these people are “friendlies”. I already tried to tell you that in as direct a way as i could. What do I have to do, sign off every sentence with a ten cent hate message?
: Moving forward…
Are you trying to convince yourself of that? How far forward are we now then? Is this what you call progress?
: You don’t understand them
Bingo! Understanding theology takes patience and time. I have better things to do with my time - even answering all your many questions falls under the “better things” umbrella - than to waste it pondering the convoluted superstition that passes for religious philosophy. You want me to “try reading benedicts remarks”? Why, because you say so? Let me tell you, there is no other reason for me to do it, and your command alone is not sufficient. The point - yes, the point, can you remember it? - is that muslims are getting excited about one sentence that the pope quoted. Please understand that the rioters among them, and the sorry assed imams stoking up the adolescent testosterone, dont care about the context, don’t care about the rest of the pope’s speech, don’t care to whom it was given or where, or why it was given. And because they don’t care, I don’t.
: And speaking of pinheads, your second to last paragraph about “young Muslims”, and their furies, clearly states that one should reward ignorance and murderous feelings by pandering to them. That’s worked so well so far.
Sep 16, 2006 - 6:44 pm 28. jonathan riley:I’m sorry, but i simply cannot divine this meaning from anything i have written in this thread, or indeed, anywhere else that i ever wrote! Notwithstanding that, i am easily found out on this subject; making life easy for religious bigots is definitely not my way, and i will continue to call a man who murders another for religious reasons a murderer, and to call out religious bigotry for what it is wherever i believe i see it, just like i think you probably do, and which is, in my case, by no means infrequently.
JK Ribera,
I was trying to say that things could get worse than they are now. I think, based on the example you gave, that this is precisely in accord with what you’re thinking, viz. that things are pretty tense now (well, at least i can feel uncomfortable around some of england’s mini islamic republics, and i’ve seen a few of them at first hand), but that they could get much worse (a thing i’d rather not see, god help us all). How can you possibly present the example of nazi germany as a means of pulling the rug from under my argument. The example seems to me to coincide with my point, rather than to clash with it.
Barry Dauphin,
: If it is a “lunatic” who is orchestrating Friday prayers [yep, it is...], then it will not take much for a can of worms to be opened [very true]–maybe simply the existence of infidels for that matter. Why spend more energy and words scolding Ratzinger than the lunatics (there’s more than one)?
First thing, i have hardly ever left comments on this blog, so i guess you guys don’t know me; anybody that does knows that i am usually the first to ’scold the [islamic] lunatics’. But because i fear that christianity in europe is being awakened from its relatively benign docility, i would like to point it out when i see it happening in front of my eyes. The pope’s comments can hardly be construed as being polemical, but still, i think he has been on this planet long enough to know the enoch powell effect, and was either incredibly stupid or even conceivably being provocative, albeit in a very cultivated sort of way.
: What does this say about these “young muslims” as well? What does a violent response mean to a message that violence should not be used to promote a religion?
When i was their age, i had spent the best part of two decades roped into a stupid religion - jehovah’s witnesses - and we were taught to believe that everybody that is not a jehovah’s witness is wicked and deserves to die. You can scarce have an idea what it is like to be a teenager who had an entire childhood of indoctrination into a hateful religion unless you have been through it yourself. All you see is enemies, and the sword. How should we deal with this? I dread to think.
Sep 16, 2006 - 7:02 pm 29. tioedong:Both the BBC and the NYTimes seem not to have read the Pope’s speech, which was an attack against moral relativism and the attack on reason…(The fad that says there is no truth, only opinion…which undermines our ability to seek the truth…even in science…look at the 9-11 conspirators, who reject fact in favor of opinions).
When MSM ignore the nexus of religion and politics, they might miss the story…a recent BBC story of the Vatican-China spat shows they are missing a story that has great political implications (hint: movies Beckett, A man for all seasons)…but then, they ignore most of what is going on in Asia…better to report on Paris Hilton’s hijinks.
Sep 16, 2006 - 7:05 pm 30. TedM:Mr Riley,
the last two sentences of your last post are the nub of the argument. “How should we deal with this? I dread to think.”
We are all thinking about how to deal with this.
And not dealing with it is the worst of all choices.
the “terrorists” have succeeded in the main objective of terrorism. They have terrorized a portion of our world. We are afraid to speak out
Sep 16, 2006 - 7:22 pm 31. jonathan riley:and “anger” them. The NY Times editiorial today is a prime example of that. Disagree with the Pope all you want, but to demand that he apologize is the result of fear. Fear of the “anger” of the mob. And that is what our press and politicians are guilty of today.
: but to demand that he apologize is the result of fear.
Sep 16, 2006 - 7:32 pm 32. Lem:I believe that is substantially true. I’m certainly not going to call for an apology from the pope.
I sense a pattern here.
Neocons “outed” Valerie Plame and all hell broke loose.
Now the pope has outed Mohammad. You ain’t seen nothing yet
Sep 16, 2006 - 7:48 pm 33. HA:may not have understood the potential implications of his remarks
We’re ALL Islamophobes now.
BTW, now that the NY Times has belatedly admitted that words actually matter, will they apologise to Ari Fleischer?
http://www.slate.com/id/2149377
Sep 17, 2006 - 4:59 am 34. TedM:VDH at Pajamas has a blog which touches on this
thread.
http://victordavishanson.pajamasmedia.com/2006/09/16/a_depressing_age.php
Sep 17, 2006 - 5:54 am 35. Terrye:I am getting tired of the never ending temper tantrum from the jihadis. I don’t give a damn if their feelings are hurt, my feelings get hurt all the damn time and I don’t kill people over it.
They can call Jesus Christ a ‘monkey on a cross’ and that is ok? I think the Pope was quoting something from the middle ages and guess what? The Islamists reacted pretty much the way they would have reacted 700 years ago. Case closed.
Sep 17, 2006 - 8:15 am 36. syn:J riley
Lucky for you your religion of choice allowed you to leave when you chose. Imagine for a moment if you by your own free will chose to believed in Islam and later decided to leave Allah, what makes you think the RoP would allow you the choice to leave.
Far as I know jehovah’s witness or any other Christian, Buddhist or Jewish religion has ever issued fatwas, or hacked off heads, or rioted in the public streets in unrestrained rage so common to the RoP.
I read the news today oh boy-a 70 year old nun working in a hospital in Muslim-dominated Somalia was shot in the back.
Sep 17, 2006 - 8:38 am 37. Cynic:Mike Lief
“Roger, you were until fairly recently a fellow traveler of the PC crowd; why are they so resistant to recognizing the existential threat? How can gays, feminists and human rights activists side with an ideology that calls for their subjugation, their death? ”
Maybe Shrinkwrapped’s post could shed some light?
“Liberalism and Aggression”
http://shrinkwrapped.blogs.com/blog/2006/09/liberalism_and_.html#more
He ends with:
Sep 17, 2006 - 9:09 am 38. Roger:“……….
Managing and containing the aggressive drive is a prerequisite for civilization, yet when the civilized liberal becomes so frightened of his own aggression that he attempts to suppress every overt expression of aggression, even when it is appropriate and necessary for his survival, he invites greater and greater violence from those who are not similarly constrained. This is a lesson which tends to be forgotten during peace time and must be relearned periodically. “
Thanks you for NOT using overly-long URLs in your comments. They dsitort the page width. I had to remove HA’s link to the NYT for that reason (no censorship intended or implied). Please use tiny URLs where necessary.
Sep 17, 2006 - 9:13 am 39. jaafar:It seems to me that less than one percent of the people commenting on the Pope’s address have actually read what he said. All of the focus has been on the so-called “money quote,” which was lovingly picked out for us by the MSM.
Here is one place you can find it:
http://tinyurl.com/ztevb
It may amaze you to discover that the Pope’s comments were not really directed to Muslims at all, in any way, shape, or form. What he does is to take the obvious evil of forced religious conversions as a departure point to discuss whether God is bound by any contraints at all, and at this point he does find a huge difference between Christianity and Islam. But all of this is only a preface, really, leading up to his discussion of how the Western world has somehow managed to imprison the wide-ranging human intellect and reason into a very narrow box called “science…”
Oh, read it. It’s only seven pages long and it’s absolutely brilliant, the most amazing thing I have EVER read from a Pope.
Sep 17, 2006 - 11:07 am 40. Terrye:jaafer:
That is why they call him a scholar. But scholars are hard to quote in a 30 second sound bite.
Sep 17, 2006 - 11:33 am 41. jaafar:Well, perhaps we should not let our wide-ranging human reason be guided by “sound bites.”
Just an idea.
Sep 17, 2006 - 12:59 pm 42. Terrye:jaafar:
I think it is a good idea. But hard to sell.
Sep 17, 2006 - 2:59 pm 43. jaafar:Well, it may be a hard sell. But I remember well the “trahiston des clercs” and I will have no part of it. Scholars and professors around the world need to pay attention to what Benedict said. If that happens, scholars and professors have joined the fight for the right.
The muscular and heroic soldiers are already on the ground.
We all need to get into this together, guys: this is not something imaginary. Some pseudo-God commanding evil goes right to the heart of the Pope’s most excellent argument.
(Note well: I have no religion. YET!
)
Sep 17, 2006 - 4:03 pm 44. Dilys:Jonathan references Enoch Powell, who spoke out presciently about British immigration and referenced the Roman poet Virgil who scryed “the River Tiber foaming with much blood.” Political opportunists and empty multicultural minds were off and running with the epithet “rivers of blood.”
Roger Scruton points out that Powell’s fatal miscalculation was not the accuracy of his misgivings, but in acting as though there was a critical mass of listeners able to engage the argument — to think — and soberly interested in the substance.
http://tinyurl.com/oncrh
A society of that sort is rather like a patient too sick for a remedy. Benedict, in his cure of souls, by the definition of his role may not conclude that pursuing the truth, balancing compassion and clarity as best a man can, is outlawed because the patient is too far gone.
Even if Jonathan maintains that his point is limited to metacommunicative issues, may I recommend he read Benedict’s speech
Sep 17, 2006 - 4:54 pm 45. mrp:http://tinyurl.com/octqc
in conjunction with opining, an easy means for anyone to distinguish himself from various placcard-carrying individuals pictured prominently in the newspapers during this brouhaha.
For those interested in things Fallaci, Corriere Della Sera published photos from her funeral and life.
http://tinyurl.com/pd6ed
Sep 17, 2006 - 6:06 pm 46. pacwaters:Have any of the idiots who are lambasting the Pope read the communique? It’s pretty bloody innocous. If you’re ready to silence remarks like that because you’re afraid you might engender violence i suggest you start bowing to mecca 5 times a day.
Sep 17, 2006 - 7:26 pm 47. pacwaters:One more thing. It’s time we had a Western Civilizaton Brotherhood.
Sep 17, 2006 - 7:27 pm 48. photoncourier.blogspot.com:Benedict strikes me as a true intellectual who is capable of subtle analysis and argument. Those who are raging at him are clearly not interested in following the details of his thinking: they just want an excuse for violence.
One would think that Western intellectuals, with their oft-advertised penchant for “nuance” and “shades of gray”, would want to stand with Benedict rather than with his opponents, but apparently not.
Sep 17, 2006 - 7:54 pm 49. Ray:Terrye mentioned the Muslim insult to Christianity that “Jesus was a monkey on a cross”. The fact that this didn’t elicit much response (as well as the piece of art “piss Christ”) shows that most of the non-Muslim world has had so many insults like this that it is immune to such insults.
Rather than respond with apologies, we should assist the Muslim world to become immune. For every imagined insult, we should respond with many more with even greater impact. How about making twelve cartoons showing Mohammad fornicating with goats? Wasn’t one of his harem a camel? One was a nine year old girl. A cartoon showing Mohammad abusing a small girl would be historically accurate.
I suggest a contest for the most outrageous rag head cartoon. Publish them everywhere and we shall have a vote once a year. The winner gets seventy one Muslim virgins (if he can find one the Mullahs missed).
Sep 17, 2006 - 8:42 pm 50. Lem:“Rather than respond with apologies”
We should confront it intellectually. Our response goes to the hart of what the pope was trying to convey. Good reading btw.
To respond with fear is to neglect reason and that only engenders more violence, (remember the cartoons?)
If God is transcendent, we are not; that’s why we have reason to work with.
Sep 18, 2006 - 5:44 am 51. Lem:If I remember correctly the pope used to be though of as infallible.
If we reasonable deduct that the pope is apologizing so as to avoid more violence (he said he was sorry for the violent reaction) then the apology can be said to be a reasonable act. Could that act (an apology w/o merit) itself prove the triumph of reason? Or is that spin?
BTW - here is the mother of all apologies
“I offer a complete and utter retraction. The imputation was totally without basis in fact and was in no way fair comment and was motivated purely by malice, and I deeply regret any distress that my comments may have caused you or your family, and I hereby undertake not to repeat any such slander at any time in the future.” - A fish called Wanda.
Sep 18, 2006 - 6:11 am 52. Sandy P:Benedict is sorry for their reaction, that they didn’t get what he was saying and acted as they have for 1400 years…..
Which was his original point…..
Sep 18, 2006 - 7:30 am 53. Neo:It’s really too bad that the Pope had to use big sentences with big 50 cent words that confused the literary challenged masses.
Sep 18, 2006 - 11:39 am 54. jaafar:The Pope must have forgotten that regular listeners of the BBC require a much lower intellectual level of discourse.
Perhaps in the future all communications should be with words not bigger that 4 letters.
By the way, Iraq The Model has just posted some wonderful facts on the question of Muslims spreading the faith by the sword. This was not the real focus of the Pope’s remarks, but the MSM have tried to make it so, and it’s absolutely fascinating to read the results of a man consulting Islamic histories written in Arabic. His conclusion: the Pope was too polite about all this!
Sep 19, 2006 - 7:12 am 55. Maggie4Life:Roger,
this is my first look at your blog. I am proud to state that I am a Catholic. I believe that Benedict said nothing wrong, and he does not need to apologise for telling the truth.
Someone mentioned infallibility. As a Catholic I have to speak up and point out that the speech at the university is not covered by “infallibility”. Many people, both Catholics and others, do not understand the issue of infallibility. It only applies when the Pope is speaking on matters of morals and doctrine. The speech does not come under that category. This does not fully explain what infallibility means, but for the sake of other Christians who read the blog and leave comments, the best Scripture that I can offer has to be the Acts of the Apostles, at the First Council of Jerusalem ( believe that it is in chapter 15). It was the head of the church who rose and made a speech that ended the arguments regarding the reqirement of circumcision for Gentile Christians. The successors of St. Peter can only make an infallible statement, they are not personally infallible.
Now, back to the issue: the one thing that has me interested is the fact that most men and women who are capable of thinking with reason, even if they are not Catholic, or Christian for that matter, have backed Pope Benedict XVI. That speaks volumes. Thank you.
Sep 20, 2006 - 2:38 am 56. pst314:Riley wrote “Or would you think that that might open up a can of worms?”
The can has been open for a long time, and it wasn’t opened by us. All that’s happening now is that we are being shown in stark terms just how violently intolerant and hypocritical Islam is.
Sep 23, 2006 - 9:24 am