Thousands of Palestinians protested Friday night in Gaza City after Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, who belongs to the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, said the pope’s lecture had offended Muslims everywhere. “This is another Crusader war against the Arab and Muslim world,” Ismail Radwan, a Hamas official, told the crowd. The criticism of the pope’s remarks was often twofold: at the reference of the prophet Muhammad’s legacy as “evil and inhuman” and at the idea that Islam was spread by the sword.
Well, if there was any doubt as to the hypersensitivity of Muslims, Pope Benedict XVI just cleared that one up for us. it seems that Muslims the world over really ARE intolerant of ANYTHING that even remotely smacks of criticism. No, you can’t criticize. or even THINK about criticizing, Islam, the Prophet, or really anything even tangentially related to Islam without risking the incurrence of some sort of violent backlash.
Is it just me, or are these folks taking themselves WAY too seriously? You know, if the biggest problem you have is how a few words can be interpreted, then you really do lead a charmed existence. What makes this reacton so thoroughly disgusting and hypocritical is that most Muslims probably couldn’t even tell you what the Pope said. Just as with the whole Danish cartoon flap, Muslims the world over are demostrating once again that they infinitely prefer violent, ignorant reaction to considered rational thought.
Methinks perhaps some folks need to get over their bad selves, no??
“We ask him to offer a personal apology — not through his officials — to Muslims for this false reading” of Islam, said Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, one of the world’s leading Shiite Muslim clerics, who lives in Beirut.
Wire reports this morning are indicating that Pope Benedict XVI has indeed offered a personal apology…but for what? I’m hardly about to defend the Catholic Church and its Nazi Pope, but Jeebus, people…be reasonable, willya??
This is the sort of thing that makes me want to swear off organized religion altogether…uh, wait…I’m a Buddhist; I already have. Sorry…. ;p)
The pope began his lecture at the University of Regensburg by quoting from a 14th-century dialogue between the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologos and a Persian scholar. In a passage on the concept of holy war, Benedict recited a passage of what he called “startling brusqueness,” in which Manuel questioned the teachings of Islam’s prophet, Muhammad.
“Show me just what Muhammad 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,” Benedict quoted the emperor as saying.
The pope neither explicitly endorsed nor denounced the emperor’s words, but rather used them as a preface to a discussion of faith and reason. The Vatican said the pope did not intend the remarks to be offensive to Muslims.
Benedict offered neither and endorsement nor a condemnation of Islam, merely using Manuel’s words as the preface to an academic discussion. Are Muslims so hypersensitive, so ignorant, and so thoroughly against anything that can’t be interepreted as a ringing endorsement of the virtues of Islam that they’re willing to condemn anyone for anything in which they can find even the barest whiff of insensitivity or criticism? Apparently so…hey, violent rage is a whole Hell of a lot more fun than reasoned, rational consideration of ideas, eh? Why think when you can react, burn, and kill in the name of Islam?
If Muslims would bother to pull their anteriors out of their posteriors and look around, they might notice that most of them live in desperate poverty in Third World countries. Instead of worrying about the words and thoughts of non-Muslims, perhaps they could benefit by devoting their considerable energies to addressing the poverty and squalor that most of them live in? Ah, but charity and contructive action is boring. Killing, burning, and destroying in the name of the Prophet…now THERE’S a guaranteed good time, eh?
Thousands of Palestinians protested Friday night in Gaza City after Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, who belongs to the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, said the pope’s lecture had offended Muslims everywhere.
“This is another Crusader war against the Arab and Muslim world,” Ismail Radwan, a Hamas official, told the crowd.
Uh…can we lose the overheated rhetoric that really is only transparently designed to pander to your ignorant, highly propagandized masses? Pope Benedict XVI may not exactly be the voice of moderation, but he is hardly advocating a recreation of the Crusades. No, this is another example of governments in the Muslim world being led by the masses, who are only too willing to violently and destructively react to anything that carries even their barest, most minute hint of provocation. In this case, the ignorant and the despotic are willingly creating popular fury out of whole cloth. Then again, it sure beats the Hell out of having to solve actual, honest-to-God problems, like a moribund economy, a Paleolithic health care system, and a political system that makes a Chinese fire drill look professional. Apparently, poverty, disenfranchisement, and high infant mortality rates are acceptable, but God help you if you say something that can be even vaguely interpreted as criticizing Islam. Surely, this cannot be what Mohammed had in mind?
Wiat for it…the fatwa should be coming down on my head in 4…3…2…1….
The criticism of the pope’s remarks was often twofold: at the reference of the prophet Muhammad’s legacy as “evil and inhuman” and at the idea that Islam was spread by the sword.
Well, if memory serves, neither Islam nor Christianity were spread at ice cream socials. The truth hurts, no?
Memo to Muslims: Get over yourselves. Deal with your own problems, get your own house in order…and THEN perhaps you can think about killing and burning in the name of the Prophet. In the meantime, this silliness just makes y’all look intolerant, ignorant, and far more willing to kill and burn than to engage in a reasoned, rational discussion. Now there’s a ringing endorsement of Islam, eh?
