quote:

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After the 9/11 attacks five years ago, the Catholic leader then known as Cardinal Ratzinger told Vatican Radio that "it is important not to attribute simplistically what happened to Islam" -- but then he added that "the history of Islam also contains a tendency to violence." True enough, but Christianity has its own history of violence: the Crusades, the Inquisition and several other detours from the path of peace and tolerance.

Just before he became pope last year, Benedict declared that Turkey should not be allowed into the European Union because its Islamic culture is incompatible with Europe's "Christian" culture. But the real case for the prosecution rests on his invitation to Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci to visit him last September.

Fallaci (who died last week) was an atheist, and her fame as a war correspondent and interviewer was decades behind her. But she carved out a second career as the most extreme anti-Muslim writer in Europe, producing two bestselling books since 2002 that vilified Muslims as dirty subhumans who multiply "like rats," and portraying Islam as an irrational religion that breeds hatred.

Her next-to-last book, which presumably inspired the pope's invitation, was "The Force of Reason," which argued that the West is rational and reasonable, whereas Muslims aren't. And there was Benedict in Germany last week, saying exactly the same thing. What a coincidence.

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5349808.stm

His recent remarks were anything but accidental and his "apology" rings hollow.

[ 20 September 2006: Message edited by: VanLuke ]

I am not going to defend any historical events as anyone can pull bright and dark stories out of their sacks. However, there is no excuse in this world for burning places of worship and shooting a Nun because of what anyone, even if it is from the head of that religion, says.

Maybe the prophets were right. Maybe the Armageddon will take place in the Middle East.

Here are a few more news-web-pages for your interest:
London Greek News

EURSOC

"If fundamentalist Muslims choose not to incorporate free speech into their societies, so be it. But to turn around and try to force us not to have it in ours is the height of hypocrisy - moreso, perhaps, than the pope's speech."

[ 20 September 2006: Message edited by: Sans Tache ]

I think you are confusing me for someone else. Slobodan Milosevic was a terrible vile scumbag.

As for "humanizing" the Serbs - there is no need to humanize an entire ethnic group in my books as I do not believe in collective guilt - I believe in the guilt of individuals who do wrong. So Milosevic, Arkan, Captain Dragan, Martic, Babic, Karadzic, Mladic are evil. The Serbian people themselves I have no problem with.

I have no use for people who are participants in ethnic cleansing be they Serb, Turkish, Russian, American, Muslim, Croat, Bosniak, Italian, German, Jewish, etc. That I condemn individuals does not mean I condemn the entire race, ethnic group, religion, etc.

My reference to "Ottoman" btw, was not meant to refer to an ethnic group - I was refering to the government and army.

quote:
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Originally posted by SteelCityGuy:

You may wish to "humanize" the Ottomans but I see nothing good in an empire which was hell bent on destruction. They wiped out whole areas of places like Bosnia and started the process of ethnic cleansing of people who had lived there for 1000 years. Notwithstanding the fact that there was some tolerance for Eastern Orthodox churches, churches fell into desrepair and the people were prevented from repairing them. That hardly bodes well for your theory of Ottoman tolerance.

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Yup about the same attitude as the USSR in relation to the Orthodox Church. So perhaps you and Jeff House can have a little tete-tete about communist extremists.

I notice you don't seem to complain when I "humanize" Serbs or Slobodan Milosovic. Humanity is quite hoplesslessly stupid and bigoted, I am sorry to say.

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After reading and rereading this discussion, all I can suggest and add is that; if anyone can condone the reaction to the content of the Pope's speech, then they must condone the reaction of Israel’s retaliation to the kidnapping of their soldiers.

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That would be true, except that some people choose a side, and then refuse to apply the same standards to "their" side as to the other one.

Secondly, the Armenian Genocide was undertaken by Enver Pasha, the leader of the Young Turks, a group secularizing modernizers, and an officers clique whom Kamal Attaturk (the founder of Turkey) was a junior member. Later, as part of Attaturk's secularizing "westernization" of Turkey, he cut a deal with the Greek government, and completed the de-Christianization of Turkey by exchanging Turkish populations in Thesalonika for Greeks living in Smyrna.

So, actually it was the secualrizing (more or less anti-religous nationalists) who committed the two largest ethnic cleansings.

Thirdly, the genocide of the Armenians, and the expulsion of the Greeks had everything to do with their ethnicity and nothing to do with their religion. Neither Enver Pasha or Kemal Ataturk were very much interested in religion or converting people through 'Jihad' and in the latter case, Ataturk was decidely against Islam, and only tollerated it because it was practical to do so.

Trying to pin the Armenian Genocide or the expulsion of the Greeks on Islam is like trying to pin the Holocaust on the Lutherans.

But of course such explanations and discussion points are not really relevant, nor is the factual history when all you seem to want to be able to do is condemn this and condemn that, or support this, and support that, and anything which actually dicusses the actual means, manners and practical realities (good and bad,) and even moreso the human reality of Islam or the Caliphate, or the Ottoman Empire from a historical perspective amounts to "glorification," according to you.

I can't change history. I am sorry. In comparison to the Christians (burning tens of thousands of people to create religious purity) the Caliphate, and the Ottoman Empire were models of modern liberalism during the Middle Ages.

But my point is really that this has less to do with the religious philosophy of Islam (though there is some of that in there too, because the Qu'ran offers explicit advice on the proper management of the state) and more to do with the general political and social context of Islamic society as it evolved in the mid-east, which the Qu'ran reflects in the kind of advice on the proper management of the state that Mohammed proposed because he built an empire out of a society which was 80% non-muslim.

How do you manage a state in which the state religion is the minority religion, without having constant internal conflict? Simple, you establish a system which recognizes minority religious rights, at least to some extent.

I am sorry if that is too nuanced for you.

Now, buy this book and read it: History of the Arab Peoples By Albert Hourani.

Also, since you have now brought up the Armenians, you might read this: Ataturk by Andrew Mango.

[ 20 September 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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By Sans Tache:
Why is it that when a vicious act of revenge (killing a Nun of all people) is carried out, no one condemns those acts?

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Did Hamas? Did Hezbollah? No and no.

Yet, you seem not to be able to make a distinction between the acts of a few bigoted and angry people with the body as a whole. There is no need to condemn the killing of the Nun, because such a condemnation is obvious. The act condemns itself. What is not obvious to some people is that the act or acts of one or a handful of Muslim people is not the act of the whole, nor can it be exampled as a typical act of the group.

Does Robert Pickton's murder of numerous Native sex trade workers indemnify you as a racist murdering bigot, simply because you share the fact with him that you are both Canadian?

[ 21 September 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]

As well, Canada is a place for all religions, ethnic backgrounds and cultures to flourish in relative freedom. Toronto has the most diverse ethnic population on this planet. As well, Southern Ontario has groups from other backgrounds not seen in Toronto. The rest of Canada has many others. We celebrate these ethno-cultural differences by scheduling many of their events. Other countries do not allow these diverse practices in the same way. Thus, I place Canada as the standard for all other countries to follow. All I ask of every Canadian, visitor and immigrant to Canada is to leave their dirty laundry at the immigration desk upon arrival, move on with their lives and make a brand new start. Now that you know my belief, I think it is absolutely reprehensible for you to even use Robert Picton (Bernardo, Homolka or any other waste of air and food for that matter) and me in the same sentence.

any good that either of these ridiculous and deadly religions may have ever done in human history, could have been done without them. they can never, ever atone for their behaviors.

allowing yet another awful old man with visions of grandure to push us closer to global divisiveness and war is unteneble.

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Originally posted by morningstar:
any good that either of these ridiculous and deadly religions may have ever done in human history, could have been done without them. they can never, ever atone for their behaviors.

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The exact same can be said for the evil acts attributed to religions.

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Justice Bruce Cockburn

What's been done in the name of Jesus?
What's been done in the name of Buddha?
What's been done in the name of Islam?
What's been done in the name of man?
What's been done in the name of liberation?
And in the name of civilization?
And in the name of race?
And in the name of peace?

Everybody
Loves to see
Justice done
On somebody else

Can you tell me how much bleeding
It takes to fill a word with meaning?
And how much, how much death
It takes to give a slogan breath?
And how much, how much, how much flame
Gives light to a name
For the hollow darkness
In which nations dress?

Everybody
Loves to see
Justice done
On somebody else

Everybody's seen the things they've seen
We all have to live with what we've been
When they say charity begins at home
They're not just talking about a toilet and a telephone
Got to search the silence of the soul's wild places
For a voice that can cross the spaces
These definitions that we love create --
These names for heaven, hero, tribe and state

Everybody
Loves to see
Justice done
On somebody else

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my deep anger and suspician of religion is in direct proportion to the damage that they have inflicted---especially on women.---for so long.

and now it looks as if these old men are going to up the ante yet again. world war 3 ???

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Every honest Jew who knows the history of his people cannot but feel a deep sense of gratitude to Islam, which has protected the Jews for fifty generations, while the Christian world persecuted the Jews and tried many times "by the sword" to get them to abandon their faith.

THE STORY about "spreading the faith by the sword" is an evil legend, one of the myths that grew up in Europe during the great wars against the Muslims - the reconquista of Spain by the Christians, the Crusades and the repulsion of the Turks, who almost conquered Vienna. I suspect that the German Pope, too, honestly believes in these fables. That means that the leader of the Catholic world, who is a Christian theologian in his own right, did not make the effort to study the history of other religions.

Why did he utter these words in public? And why now?

There is no escape from viewing them against the background of the new Crusade of Bush and his evangelist supporters, with his slogans of "Islamofascism" and the "Global War on Terrorism" - when "terrorism" has become a synonym for Muslims. For Bush's handlers, this is a cynical attempt to justify the domination of the world's oil resources. Not for the first time in history, a religious robe is spread to cover the nakedness of economic interests; not for the first time, a robbers' expedition becomes a Crusade.

--Uri Avnery

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