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Pope's Speech Angered All Muslims


Gene German Pope Benedict XVI has offended Muslim in a speech this week where he implicitly linked Islam and violence, particularly with reference to jihad or "holy war". He also quoted a 14th-century Byzantine emperor who said innovations introduced by the Prophet Mohammed were "evil and inhuman". Then today, he came out to sorry to all Muslims. However, his comments have sparked an ongoing wave of anger across the Islamic world. "It is unfortunate that such an eminent figure like the Pope has not shown leadership in promoting good relations between religions. Instead, his statement has had the effect of sowing more seeds of discord and will not be conducive for dialogue among religions." AFP
Nick81 *yawns* bushra21 so what else is new? d3vilish_ang3l_88 :roll: :roll: :roll: valkyrie what's unfortunate is that the pope hasn't decreed that the "souls" of american soldiers that die in Iraq will go to hell :P dubaidiva
oh come on.... dumb uneducated muslims always find something to critisize the west about.... if only their English/German was a bit up to date they would find there is nothing to get upset about sa4877 umm...... so Gene...you take it upon yourself to do what the Pope may not have intended to do.... People... have a life. Stop this sort of instigations. 175bpm
+1 Sara1983
Goodness, you really been hurt dontcha.... I ain't talkin 'bout this topic..... Corcovado
really?? if u who dont understand the sensitivity of religion and its importance to billions of people around the earth then i guess ur the dumb one :x

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Gene Ya, I agree the best reaction to such news is simply to ignore it as it has no importance to our lives. It does us no favours or good at all. In my humble opinion, I feel the muslim should not be overly angered by the remark (coz there isn't one teeny weeny bit of truth in it at all), and the Pope should exercise more sensitivity and clarity in his speeches in future. Since the Pope has realised this and has apologised sincerely, we should follow suit in moving on and continue to live with each other in the greatest harmony. I'm witnessing this harmony in Dubai and it is a good feeling. The last thing I want to see is fellow friends on the forum behaving like monkeys over such an untrue & insignificant remark. sage & onion
Ditto Gene devilsdiciple
+5 Gene...... zam Can somebody paste here "the speech" please...its hard to react to something not everyone is really aware of..... :oops: ps...sorry feeling sleepy to google it,I only want DF in my screen.bum.hehe. sniper420 sage & onion This seems to be the speech
Your Eminences, Your Magnificences, Your Excellencies,
Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is a moving experience for me to be back again in the university and to be able once again to give a lecture at this podium. I think back to those years when, after a pleasant period at the Freisinger Hochschule, I began teaching at the University of Bonn. That was in 1959, in the days of the old university made up of ordinary professors. The various chairs had neither assistants nor secretaries, but in recompense there was much direct contact with students and in particular among the professors themselves. We would meet before and after lessons in the rooms of the teaching staff. There was a lively exchange with historians, philosophers, philologists and, naturally, between the two theological faculties. Once a semester there was a dies academicus, when professors from every faculty appeared before the students of the entire university, making possible a genuine experience of universitas - something that you too, Magnificent Rector, just mentioned - the experience, in other words, of the fact that despite our specializations which at times make it difficult to communicate with each other, we made up a whole, working in everything on the basis of a single rationality with its various aspects and sharing responsibility for the right use of reason - this reality became a lived experience. The university was also very proud of its two theological faculties. It was clear that, by inquiring about the reasonableness of faith, they too carried out a work which is necessarily part of the "whole" of the universitas scientiarum, even if not everyone could share the faith which theologians seek to correlate with reason as a whole. This profound sense of coherence within the universe of reason was not troubled, even when it was once reported that a colleague had said there was something odd about our university: it had two faculties devoted to something that did not exist: God. That even in the face of such radical scepticism it is still necessary and reasonable to raise the question of God through the use of reason, and to do so in the context of the tradition of the Christian faith: this, within the university as a whole, was accepted without question.
I was reminded of all this recently, when I read the edition by Professor Theodore Khoury (Münster) of part of the dialogue carried on - perhaps in 1391 in the winter barracks near Ankara - by the erudite Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus and an educated Persian on the subject of Christianity and Islam, and the truth of both. It was presumably the emperor himself who set down this dialogue, during the siege of Constantinople between 1394 and 1402; and this would explain why his arguments are given in greater detail than those of his Persian interlocutor. The dialogue ranges widely over the structures of faith contained in the Bible and in the Qur'an, and deals especially with the image of God and of man, while necessarily returning repeatedly to the relationship between - as they were called - three "Laws" or "rules of life": the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Qur'an. It is not my intention to discuss this question in the present lecture; here I would like to discuss only one point - itself rather marginal to the dialogue as a whole - which, in the context of the issue of "faith and reason", I found interesting and which can serve as the starting-point for my reflections on this issue.
In the seventh conversation (*4V8,>4H - controversy) edited by Professor Khoury, the emperor touches on the theme of the holy war. The emperor must have known that surah 2, 256 reads: "There is no compulsion in religion". According to the experts, this is one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under threat. But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Qur'an, concerning holy war. Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the "Book" and the "infidels", he addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general, saying: "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". The emperor, after having expressed himself so forcefully, goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. "God", he says, "is not pleased by blood - and not acting reasonably (F×< 8`(T) is contrary to God's nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats... To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death...".
The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature. The editor, Theodore Khoury, observes: For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this statement is self-evident. But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality. Here Khoury quotes a work of the noted French Islamist R. Arnaldez, who points out that Ibn Hazn went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God's will, we would even have to practise idolatry.
At this point, as far as understanding of God and thus the concrete practice of religion is concerned, we are faced with an unavoidable dilemma. Is the conviction that acting unreasonably contradicts God's nature merely a Greek idea, or is it always and intrinsically true? I believe that here we can see the profound harmony between what is Greek in the best sense of the word and the biblical understanding of faith in God. Modifying the first verse of the Book of Genesis, the first verse of the whole Bible, John began the prologue of his Gospel with the words: "In the beginning was the 8`(@H". This is the very word used by the emperor: God acts, F×< 8`(T, with logos. Logos means both reason and word - a reason which is creative and capable of self-communication, precisely as reason. John thus spoke the final word on the biblical concept of God, and in this word all the often toilsome and tortuous threads of biblical faith find their culmination and synthesis. In the beginning was the logos, and the logos is God, says the Evangelist. The encounter between the Biblical message and Greek thought did not happen by chance. The vision of Saint Paul, who saw the roads to Asia barred and in a dream saw a Macedonian man plead with him: "Come over to Macedonia and help us!" (cf. Acts 16:6-10) - this vision can be interpreted as a "distillation" of the intrinsic necessity of a rapprochement between Biblical faith and Greek inquiry.
In point of fact, this rapprochement had been going on for some time. The mysterious name of God, revealed from the burning bush, a name which separates this God from all other divinities with their many names and simply declares "I am", already presents a challenge to the notion of myth, to which Socrates' attempt to vanquish and transcend myth stands in close analogy. Within the Old Testament, the process which started at the burning bush came to new maturity at the time of the Exile, when the God of Israel, an Israel now deprived of its land and worship, was proclaimed as the God of heaven and earth and described in a simple formula which echoes the words uttered at the burning bush: "I am". This new understanding of God is accompanied by a kind of enlightenment, which finds stark expression in the mockery of gods who are merely the work of human hands (cf. Ps 115). Thus, despite the bitter conflict with those Hellenistic rulers who sought to accommodate it forcibly to the customs and idolatrous cult of the Greeks, biblical faith, in the Hellenistic period, encountered the best of Greek thought at a deep level, resulting in a mutual enrichment evident especially in the later wisdom literature. Today we know that the Greek translation of the Old Testament produced at Alexandria - the Septuagint - is more than a simple (and in that sense really less than satisfactory) translation of the Hebrew text: it is an independent textual witness and a distinct and important step in the history of revelation, one which brought about this encounter in a way that was decisive for the birth and spread of Christianity. A profound encounter of faith and reason is taking place here, an encounter between genuine enlightenment and religion. From the very heart of Christian faith and, at the same time, the heart of Greek thought now joined to faith, Manuel II was able to say: Not to act "with logos" is contrary to God's nature.
In all honesty, one must observe that in the late Middle Ages we find trends in theology which would sunder this synthesis between the Greek spirit and the Christian spirit. In contrast with the so-called intellectualism of Augustine and Thomas, there arose with Duns Scotus a voluntarism which, in its later developments, led to the claim that we can only know God's voluntas ordinata. Beyond this is the realm of God's freedom, in virtue of which he could have done the opposite of everything he has actually done. This gives rise to positions which clearly approach those of Ibn Hazn and might even lead to the image of a capricious God, who is not even bound to truth and goodness. God's transcendence and otherness are so exalted that our reason, our sense of the true and good, are no longer an authentic mirror of God, whose deepest possibilities remain eternally unattainable and hidden behind his actual decisions. As opposed to this, the faith of the Church has always insisted that between God and us, between his eternal Creator Spirit and our created reason there exists a real analogy, in which - as the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 stated - unlikeness remains infinitely greater than likeness, yet not to the point of abolishing analogy and its language. God does not become more divine when we push him away from us in a sheer, impenetrable voluntarism; rather, the truly divine God is the God who has revealed himself as logos and, as logos, has acted and continues to act lovingly on our behalf. Certainly, love, as Saint Paul says, "transcends" knowledge and is thereby capable of perceiving more than thought alone (cf. Eph 3:19); nonetheless it continues to be love of the God who is Logos. Consequently, Christian worship is, again to quote Paul - "8@(46¬ 8"JD,\"", worship in harmony with the eternal Word and with our reason (cf. Rom 12:1).
This inner rapprochement between Biblical faith and Greek philosophical inquiry was an event of decisive importance not only from the standpoint of the history of religions, but also from that of world history - it is an event which concerns us even today. Given this convergence, it is not surprising that Christianity, despite its origins and some significant developments in the East, finally took on its historically decisive character in Europe. We can also express this the other way around: this convergence, with the subsequent addition of the Roman heritage, created Europe and remains the foundation of what can rightly be called Europe.
The thesis that the critically purified Greek heritage forms an integral part of Christian faith has been countered by the call for a dehellenization of Christianity - a call which has more and more dominated theological discussions since the beginning of the modern age. Viewed more closely, three stages can be observed in the programme of dehellenization: although interconnected, they are clearly distinct from one another in their motivations and objectives.
Dehellenization first emerges in connection with the postulates of the Reformation in the sixteenth century. Looking at the tradition of scholastic theology, the Reformers thought they were confronted with a faith system totally conditioned by philosophy, that is to say an articulation of the faith based on an alien system of thought. As a result, faith no longer appeared as a living historical Word but as one element of an overarching philosophical system. The principle of sola scriptura, on the other hand, sought faith in its pure, primordial form, as originally found in the biblical Word. Metaphysics appeared as a premise derived from another source, from which faith had to be liberated in order to become once more fully itself. When Kant stated that he needed to set thinking aside in order to make room for faith, he carried this programme forward with a radicalism that the Reformers could never have foreseen. He thus anchored faith exclusively in practical reason, denying it access to reality as a whole.
The liberal theology of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries ushered in a second stage in the process of dehellenization, with Adolf von Harnack as its outstanding representative. When I was a student, and in the early years of my teaching, this programme was highly influential in Catholic theology too. It took as its point of departure Pascal's distinction between the God of the philosophers and the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. In my inaugural lecture at Bonn in 1959, I tried to address the issue, and I do not intend to repeat here what I said on that occasion, but I would like to describe at least briefly what was new about this second stage of dehellenization. Harnack's central idea was to return simply to the man Jesus and to his simple message, underneath the accretions of theology and indeed of hellenization: this simple message was seen as the culmination of the religious development of humanity. Jesus was said to have put an end to worship in favour of morality. In the end he was presented as the father of a humanitarian moral message. Fundamentally, Harnack's goal was to bring Christianity back into harmony with modern reason, liberating it, that is to say, from seemingly philosophical and theological elements, such as faith in Christ's divinity and the triune God. In this sense, historical-critical exegesis of the New Testament, as he saw it, restored to theology its place within the university: theology, for Harnack, is something essentially historical and therefore strictly scientific. What it is able to say critically about Jesus is, so to speak, an expression of practical reason and consequently it can take its rightful place within the university. Behind this thinking lies the modern self-limitation of reason, classically expressed in Kant's "Critiques", but in the meantime further radicalized by the impact of the natural sciences. This modern concept of reason is based, to put it briefly, on a synthesis between Platonism (Cartesianism) and empiricism, a synthesis confirmed by the success of technology. On the one hand it presupposes the mathematical structure of matter, its intrinsic rationality, which makes it possible to understand how matter works and use it efficiently: this basic premise is, so to speak, the Platonic element in the modern understanding of nature. On the other hand, there is nature's capacity to be exploited for our purposes, and here only the possibility of verification or falsification through experimentation can yield ultimate certainty. The weight between the two poles can, depending on the circumstances, shift from one side to the other. As strongly positivistic a thinker as J. Monod has declared himself a convinced Platonist/Cartesian.
This gives rise to two principles which are crucial for the issue we have raised. First, only the kind of certainty resulting from the interplay of mathematical and empirical elements can be considered scientific. Anything that would claim to be science must be measured against this criterion. Hence the human sciences, such as history, psychology, sociology and philosophy, attempt to conform themselves to this canon of scientificity. A second point, which is important for our reflections, is that by its very nature this method excludes the question of God, making it appear an unscientific or pre-scientific question. Consequently, we are faced with a reduction of the radius of science and reason, one which needs to be questioned.
I will return to this problem later. In the meantime, it must be observed that from this standpoint any attempt to maintain theology's claim to be "scientific" would end up reducing Christianity to a mere fragment of its former self. But we must say more: if science as a whole is this and this alone, then it is man himself who ends up being reduced, for the specifically human questions about our origin and destiny, the questions raised by religion and ethics, then have no place within the purview of collective reason as defined by "science", so understood, and must thus be relegated to the realm of the subjective. The subject then decides, on the basis of his experiences, what he considers tenable in matters of religion, and the subjective "conscience" becomes the sole arbiter of what is ethical. In this way, though, ethics and religion lose their power to create a community and become a completely personal matter. This is a dangerous state of affairs for humanity, as we see from the disturbing pathologies of religion and reason which necessarily erupt when reason is so reduced that questions of religion and ethics no longer concern it. Attempts to construct an ethic from the rules of evolution or from psychology and sociology, end up being simply inadequate.
Before I draw the conclusions to which all this has been leading, I must briefly refer to the third stage of dehellenization, which is now in progress. In the light of our experience with cultural pluralism, it is often said nowadays that the synthesis with Hellenism achieved in the early Church was a preliminary inculturation which ought not to be binding on other cultures. The latter are said to have the right to return to the simple message of the New Testament prior to that inculturation, in order to inculturate it anew in their own particular milieux. This thesis is not only false; it is coarse and lacking in precision. The New Testament was written in Greek and bears the imprint of the Greek spirit, which had already come to maturity as the Old Testament developed. True, there are elements in the evolution of the early Church which do not have to be integrated into all cultures. Nonetheless, the fundamental decisions made about the relationship between faith and the use of human reason are part of the faith itself; they are developments consonant with the nature of faith itself.
And so I come to my conclusion. This attempt, painted with broad strokes, at a critique of modern reason from within has nothing to do with putting the clock back to the time before the Enlightenment and rejecting the insights of the modern age. The positive aspects of modernity are to be acknowledged unreservedly: we are all grateful for the marvellous possibilities that it has opened up for mankind and for the progress in humanity that has been granted to us. The scientific ethos, moreover, is - as you yourself mentioned, Magnificent Rector - the will to be obedient to the truth, and, as such, it embodies an attitude which belongs to the essential decisions of the Christian spirit. The intention here is not one of retrenchment or negative criticism, but of broadening our concept of reason and its application. While we rejoice in the new possibilities open to humanity, we also see the dangers arising from these possibilities and we must ask ourselves how we can overcome them. We will succeed in doing so only if reason and faith come together in a new way, if we overcome the self-imposed limitation of reason to the empirically verifiable, and if we once more disclose its vast horizons. In this sense theology rightly belongs in the university and within the wide-ranging dialogue of sciences, not merely as a historical discipline and one of the human sciences, but precisely as theology, as inquiry into the rationality of faith.
Only thus do we become capable of that genuine dialogue of cultures and religions so urgently needed today. In the Western world it is widely held that only positivistic reason and the forms of philosophy based on it are universally valid. Yet the world's profoundly religious cultures see this exclusion of the divine from the universality of reason as an attack on their most profound convictions. A reason which is deaf to the divine and which relegates religion into the realm of subcultures is incapable of entering into the dialogue of cultures. At the same time, as I have attempted to show, modern scientific reason with its intrinsically Platonic element bears within itself a question which points beyond itself and beyond the possibilities of its methodology. Modern scientific reason quite simply has to accept the rational structure of matter and the correspondence between our spirit and the prevailing rational structures of nature as a given, on which its methodology has to be based. Yet the question why this has to be so is a real question, and one which has to be remanded by the natural sciences to other modes and planes of thought - to philosophy and theology. For philosophy and, albeit in a different way, for theology, listening to the great experiences and insights of the religious traditions of humanity, and those of the Christian faith in particular, is a source of knowledge, and to ignore it would be an unacceptable restriction of our listening and responding. Here I am reminded of something Socrates said to Phaedo. In their earlier conversations, many false philosophical opinions had been raised, and so Socrates says: "It would be easily understandable if someone became so annoyed at all these false notions that for the rest of his life he despised and mocked all talk about being - but in this way he would be deprived of the truth of existence and would suffer a great loss". The West has long been endangered by this aversion to the questions which underlie its rationality, and can only suffer great harm thereby. The courage to engage the whole breadth of reason, and not the denial of its grandeur - this is the programme with which a theology grounded in Biblical faith enters into the debates of our time. "Not to act reasonably, not to act with logos, is contrary to the nature of God", said Manuel II, according to his Christian understanding of God, in response to his Persian interlocutor. It is to this great logos, to this breadth of reason, that we invite our partners in the dialogue of cultures. To rediscover it constantly is the great task of the university.
*** ^ian^ Ok, a couple of things, reacting violently to an accusation of violent behaviour isn't necessarily very intelligent if you're disputing the claims. Secondly, the Pope represents the Catholic Church, not the Islamic faith, what do you expect? I personally think Muslims should attempt to at least prove him wrong, and show the world they're just as good (or better) at sowing the seeds of love and friendship as they are at sowing seeds of hate. sage & onion
You should start with yourself Jamal sniper420
so u a muslim? U r a prime example of muslims follwong prophet's teachings! :shock:
zam Tnx for that :wink: ... I noticed there are two thread running in line to this topic...maybe there should be an option where mods can merge it.. :lol: now now now...how would a Roman Catholic living in an Islamic country feel about this speech??? Ashamed. Scared. There are already sooooooo many things going on around the world, why pick this topic for a speech? The legacy of Pope John Paul the 16th should be continued. Faith, hope and love. Not division, anger and revenge. :? ^ian^
I'm a bit apathetic about it really. I judge people by their character not their faith.

The legacy of Jesus should be followed by the Catholics. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you!" - hence where the division is. The better part of the speech was related to the changing times and the debates between science and religion - and I would think if someone made a speech, they would like me to focus on the core message of the speech, and not pull something in it out of context. sniper420
well it was Pope instilling hate not he muzzies! what's ur point? :shock: zam
But Ian even if he says 10 things and only 1 number is offending,people concerned would react. Muslims are not blowing it out of proportion.
I agree to someone who said on the other thread that before a speech, it is reviewed couple of times, thus Vatican knows what they are doing. Now the question is why do it if you know that it would stir up violent reactions? :oops: Jamal figure it out sniper .. im still inhalin 8) ^ian^
If someone accused you of being violent, would you react by poking them in the eye and yelling "Am not!" and "Call me violent again and I will kick your arse!".
If anything, and I am skeptical of what I am about to say, but if anything it was ploy to get the appropriate response.
If someone accused you of being violent, how would you react? Corcovado
then be a real muslim a true one and stop swearing and using bad language cos this has nothing 2 do with islam .. Islam is about respect and love kanelli Jamal is a WUM, just ignore him! sniper420
do follow true islam? just askin.......... Jamal alright honey dbxsoul firstly after reading (part of) the speech i can't believe that there was actually anyone awake to hear what he said after the first paragraph. secondly he should now realise that he is the spiritual leader of approximatly 1.1 billion souls and the responsability that goes with it (prehaps he is to young for the position :lol: ), and secondly he has the potential to antagonise another 1.3 billion people through an indiscresionate remark. personally i don't think he prepares his own speaches, but at least should take the trouble to read through them before presenting them! sage & onion
Good summary DBX, I just woke up, asleep at my PC :lol: xibit
Muslims are blowing it out of proportion damn
Don’t u get it ?? Why can't u disgrace the fags we have for leaders and sheikhs now a days. Why?
But u choose to attack our respected prophet PBUH.
And then say that we are taking it out of proportion !!! what do u expect.
When the leader of the Christian faith says something, people listen; this is not George bush we are talking about. The pope acted like a politician and not a man of religion.
Any ways I have posted my views in the other thread.
And yeah
the popiness is traveling to...TURKEY
I just hope that history won't repeat itself. zam I think I said "not" :shock: xibit ^^ yeah i was reffering to the ppl in genral not u, may be i was just a bit fumed up. Bleakus
ignored a long time ago, beat you to it dude....haha
but whats the WUM stand for? kanelli Wind-up merchant (a.k.a Troll) Bleakus
thats for the clarification dude kanelli Dudette. :D MaaaD
hahaha K you spend so much time trying to tell peeps your not a "dude" .. i think its time for some girly avatar :P Bleakus
sorry....my bad :oops: sniper420
what does kanelli mean? kanelli Stop hijacking the thread peeps :) I'll put some breasts on my Yoda or something. :lol: zam
:lol: :lol: :lol: sniper420
uuuuuu......yoda with fake breasts! May the force be with u Yodi! Corcovado
no but i respect all religions Chocoholic
Ian, I agree with this, as typically once again, many have reacted with violent and hatful reactions only reinforcing the stereotype which is very very sad indeed.
People shouldn't be so sensitive about it all, I mean when it boils down to it, it's really silly. People get all het up over a few silly cartoons and now a poorly chosen speech, I mean for goodness sake, aren't there more importnant things to be angry about, like say oh the 800 missing child camel jockeys who never reached Pakistan after being sent from here! Mr & Mrs Inquirer .......... Do you think the Pope's apology will end the controversy? Send us your comments. / sniper420
wel;l choco u have to see what ppl are sensitive to..........for u st george flag may b dear and changing it can enrage u.....same way ppl in east religion plays imp role in every walk of life.....so an insult to the founder of religion is insult to all of them.......in ur remarks u didnt even crticize th old pope... he shold have known better with yrs of experience
Oh PUh-Lez....he should have taken stories from christain crusades example after first crusade massacre a message was sent saying they killed all the inhabiants in jerusalem and blood were flowing to their knees........he should ave used that context to explain religion and vilence dont get along.......but he chose Muslims present act! Intimacy
ridiculously Funny... Intimacy
You are very right
.
Man, i know that this is coming really from a good intention, but who is going to make happen. the media?!!
For more than 1400 years muslims nations have proven that, and our book talk about it since that time. and now .. out of the blue we start to become the worst nations, well.. its really our fault.
When you ask about Islam, no one knows what is it... they just hear this word in islam. What they know is: They are terrorists, they dont eat pork, and their God's name is Allah. rvp_legend [quote="^ian^"]
.
Ian,
With all due respect why does a Religion which has been around for 1400 years, has the peacefull message in its Text, proven to have had more merciful leaders than those of the Dear Pope's Christianity have to now prove themselves?
Recent stats show Islam is outgrowing ALL other faiths by a large margin. and by 2050 it is expected to become the largest.
We must not forget that the Islam was not created in September 2001. The Media frenzy and its own politically suited version was. rvp_legend
Intimacy
Maybe you can raise awareness in your local area? Teach people what the faith really is. That way you can detach it from the Violence and hatred often portrayed in the western media.
Since you say Muslims themselves are to blame...maybe you can do your bit and lead by example and show people it is not about extremism?
it has to start somewhere... danielmax2010 I quote from an editor column which really is a balanced view , atleast not going into sort of stuff like conspiracy against muslims etc, but a real analysis and it represents what a sane person would argue. I do agree we have lots of other issues to worry about as kanli wrote, however such things should be answered in a propoer manner as to warn others not to make such incidents( both muslims and christians.) "============================================" MUSLIMS from Indonesia to Morocco have reacted angrily to Pope Benedict XVI’s unfortunate remarks against Islam. While the two houses of parliament in Pakistan have condemned the remarks and demanded that he apologise, government leaders in Malaysia, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Palestine, Egypt and Morocco have expressed anger and regrets over what all agreed were ill-advised remarks. Even the head of the state-run directorate of religious affairs in Turkey has described the pope’s statement as “full of enmity and grudge” and made it clear that the pontiff wasn’t welcome to Turkey. Now the Vatican has issued a clarification, saying that the pope did not wish to “carry out a deep examination of jihad and or Muslim thought on it” or to hurt Muslim sentiments. The pope also said he was sorry that his speech offended Muslims, though he stopped short of offering an outright apology. But if he did not wish to carry out “a deep examination” of the jihad phenomenon in the first place, then he should have kept quiet rather than uttered words devoid of common sense much less intellectual content on a subject on which Christian scholars with a profound knowledge of history and comparative religion have recorded their thoughts. Secondly, one can accept that the pope did not wish to hurt Muslim sentiments, but then the end-result of his remarks has exactly been the same. If he did not wish to offend the sentiments of the world’s one billion plus human beings, the pontiff should have been a little more circumspect in his utterances at a time when the state of Muslim-Christians relations have come under strain. Agreed that the pope said “I quote” twice in his speech at Regensburg University and quoted a 14th century Byzantine emperor’s remarks about the Holy Prophet and jihad. Normally, a person giving a quote cannot be held responsible for the views contained in it, so long as the quotation is part of a long discourse designed to prove or disprove a point. But here the pope quoted Emperor Manual II Paleologos approvingly, and the latter retraction saying that he did not wish to hurt Muslim sentiments sounds unconvincing. In any case, he was quoting an emperor who fought losing battles against the Ottomans, was once a vassal at the court of Sultan Yildrim, owed his throne to the sultan, and paid him an annual tribute after becoming emperor at Constantinople. Later he went to Europe to seek military help against the Ottomans but merely received lip service. That Pope Benedict should have approvingly quoted someone who was at the Turks’ receiving end is indeed regrettable. Besides, does not the world’s Catholic community have enough problems of its own? Should not the pope dwell on his flock’s problems rather than quoting profanities against the Holy Prophet? His predecessor, Pope John Paul II, was Polish and belonged to a people who have a long history of persecution. As head of the Catholic church, Paul II worked hard to create understanding among the world’s faiths, especially between Islam and Christianity, and was never on record as having said anything hurtful to Muslims. Pope Benedict XVI has regrettably failed to follow in his predecessor’s footsteps. The controversy ignited by the Danish cartoons stemmed from the work of a single individual, but here the hurt and the potential for discord are greater because the profanity came from the head of the world’s Catholic community. Strange as it may sound, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has defended the Pope, forgetting that her country has millions of Muslim citizens." Cheers Danyal kanelli Are moderate Muslims doing enough? sniper420
give examples what are they supposed to do Intimacy
The Question should be, Are moderate Christians doing enough?
The other Thing Kan, Please define the word "Islam" shafique
Yes.
The issue is that normal Muslim behaviour is not newsworthy - praying, being charitable, speaking truth and being good citizens of the world do not make headlines.
The historical truth is that Islam was never spread by the sword, nor has it spawned vicious wars in the name of Islam in the way that people were converted to Christianity at the point of the sword in Spain and elsewhere and the religious wars that was the Crusades.
The barbarians in these long centuries were those from the West whilst the civilised humanitarians were those of the Islamic empire.
Yet today we seem to need to 'prove' Islam is a peaceful religion and that it was not spread by the sword. When all the studies show that Islam is the fastest growing faith worldwide it gives us some hope that those who take the time go beyond the headlines and their biases, they find the truth.
Cheers,
Shafique Lionheart
There is no such thing as moderate or Fundementalist muslims...a muslim is muslim. There are good muslims and there are bad muslims...in the same way as there are bad and good Christians or Jews or Hindus...so please stop dividing muslims into classifications that don't exist. valkyrie
When Muslim Arabs invaded Persia in 650 CE, a small number of Zoroastrians fled to India where most are concentrated today. Those who remained behind have survived centuries of persecution, systematic slaughter, forced conversion, heavy taxes, etc. They now number only about 18,000 and reside chiefly in Yazd, Kernan and Tehran in what is now Iran. The 1991 census counted 3,190 Zoroastrians in Canada. The actual number is believed to be much higher.
valkyrie Zoroastrians in Iran have, like other religious minorities, survived centuries of persecution. Communities exist in Tehran, as well as in Yazd and Kerman, where many still speak an Iranian language distinct from Persian. They call their language Dari (not to be confused with the Dari of Afghanistan). Their language is also called Gabri or Behdinan (literally "Of the Good Religion"). Sometimes their language is named for the cities in which it is spoken, Yazdi or Kermani. Iranian Zoroastrians were historically derogatorily called Gabar (roughly translated as 'infidel') by Muslim neighbours. The term is still used but has lost much of its derogatory meaning. Subsequent to the fall of the Persian Empire, after which Zoroastrianism was gradually supplanted by Islam, many Zoroastrians fled to other regions in the hope of preserving their religious tradition. Among them were several groups who migrated to Gujarat, on the western shores of the Indian subcontinent, where they finally settled. The descendants of those refugees are today known as the Parsis. In contrast to their co-religionists elsewhere, in India the Zoroastrians enjoyed tolerance and even admiration from other religious communities. Wiki danielmax2010 I am really interested in knowing if kanelli can define what is a moderate muslim and then she should also define what is a moderate christian?. This will provide us a means of comparison between a moderate muslim and a moderate christian(unless she thinks there is no such thing as a moderate christian or that all of em are indeed already moderate including their leaders). Cheers valkyrie Firstly, Islam is very clear about statues: didn't the Prophet Mohamed break down himself the first stone Gods ? Thereafter, it became a holy duty for all good Muslims. Firuz Shah Tughlak (1351-1388) who has an avenue named after him in New Delhi, wrote: "on the day of a Hindu festival, I went there myself, ordered the executions of all the leaders and practitioners of this abomination; I destroyed their idols and temples to build mosques in their places". ...... Encyclopaedia Americana says of Hindu Kush: The name means literally 'Kills the Hindu', a reminder of the days when Hindu slaves from Indian subcontinent died in harsh Afghan mountains while being transported to Moslem courts of Central Asia. While Encyclopaedia Britannica mentions "that the name Hindu Kush first appears in 1333 AD in the writings of Ibn Battutah, the medireview Berber traveller, who said the name meant 'Hindu Killer', a meaning still given by Afghan mountain dwellers who are traditional enemies of Hindus". "Unlike the Jewish holocaust, writes again Vyas, the exact toll of the Hindu genocide suggested by the name Hindu Kush is not available. However the number is easily likely to be in millions". A few known historical figures can be used to justify this estimate. Encyclopaedia Britannica recalls that in December 1398 AD, Timur Lane ordered the execution of at least 50,000 captives before the battle for Delhi; likewise, the number of captives butchered by Timur Lane's army was about 100,000 . Encyclopaedia Britannica again mentions that Mughal emperor Akbar 'ordered the massacre of about 30,000 captured Rajput Hindus on February 24, 1568 AD, after the battle for Chitod, a number confirmed by Abul Fazl, Akbar's court historian. Afghan historian Khondamir records that during one of the many repeated invasions on the city of Herat in western Afghanistan, which used to be part of the Hindu Shahiya kingdoms "1,500,000 residents perished". valkyrie Lahore (AsiaNews/Ucan) – Outrage at the death of a Catholic boy forced to convert to Islam at the hands of torturous abductors has prompted the Pakistan Catholic Bishop’s Commission of Justice and Peace, to take up the legal case. The Christian youth died of injuries inflicted by a teacher and students at an Islamic school. The National Commission for Justice and Peace declared May 4th that the incident reflects a worrying trend of forced conversions. http://www.asianews.it/view.php?l=en&art=763 More generally, however, Copts complain that they often face discrimination and that they are vastly under-represented in senior government positions and in the army and the police. Also, allegations of forced conversions surface every year. The rise of an assertive Islamist movement in Egyptian society in the last three decades has produced tensions in Coptic-Muslim relations. The takeover of the National Islamic Front government in 1989, and its drive to Islamize a country that is only partly Moslem, has not only led to massive killing, starvation, displacement, and pauperization of the Dinka and Nuba populations in southern Sudan. There also has been a systematic drive to eliminate their religions, languages, legal systems, and customs. I believe we need to broaden our theoretical framework beyond the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide to include the concept of what I describe as "cultural genocide." .... It is worth examining the language used in the NIF’s Islamizing campaign. The government of Khartoum declared jihad against the Christian Nuba; Muslim clerics issued a fatwah against "the infidels." "The Comprehensive Call" (Da’wa el Shamla) has encompassed varying intensities of indoctrination, which include political/economic/social incentives, harassment, detention, and forced conversion, especially in the "peace villages," where Christian Nuba have been "resettled" and isolated from the outside world. It has been reported that virtually every woman placed in a peace camp has been raped or forced into service as a prostitute or concubine for the army or militia. Massive systematic rape functions as a kind of ethnic cleansing, sniper420
val .... like teenage high skool fool dont cut and paste stuffs form sites.......
i ahve read enuf history and lemme tell u timur came form line of genghiz khanand he killed ANYONE let it be hindu or muslim who didnt give way to him............ secondly king Akbar was the most secular ruler india has ever seen or ever see........he loved hindus and muslims alike and wanted to unite and make new fused religion......about those killings...those killingfs were very common those days....so stop whining an dcuting and pasting an dexhibiting double personality valkyrie In December 2003, a Mandaean was confronted in front of a group of people in Baghdad and told to convert to Islam. When he refused, he was killed on the spot. Many similar incidents have been reported to the SMAA including an account of a seven-year-old boy burnt to death (6). The SMAA continues to receive reports of Mandaeans being raped and murdered, often with extreme violence. It has also received reports that Mandaean places of worship (mandi) have been confiscated in several Iraqi cities (5). The police are usually of little help, little effort being made to distinguish religiously motivated crimes from other crimes (7). As of January 2004, thirty-five Mandaean families were forced to convert to Islam, this including forced circumcisions. Mandaean women and girls in these families were forced to marry Muslim men (6). It is crucial to note here that one cannot be a Mandaean unless both of one's parents are Mandaean (1, 2, 11). Hence, the forced marriages are a means of forcing the religion out of existence. There are also numerous kidnappings of Mandaeans (7, 8), and police often tell the families that there is nothing they can do (7). Public baptisms are an important part of the Mandaean religion, and Iraqi Mandaeans are often harrassed and abused during these ceremonies (4). On 30 November 2004, a Mandaean clergyman, the Rev. Tarmida Saleem Ghada, was ambushed at the Mandaean place of prayer on the Deeala River. Tarmida was leading prayers at the river when Muslims shot him seven times in the legs, severely wounding him (17). The lawlessness of Iraq has also been used as an opportunity for the repudiation of debts owed to Mandaeans, leaving them without hope of redress (8). valkyrie
why don't you provide some evidence for your asserions? reading your broken english is bad enough, but when you imbue your posts with ad hominem attacks you only make yourself look bad :wink: kanelli
Actually, it is hard to define because people's beliefs can sit on a continuum from none at all to very extreme. In general, moderate means that they look for both sides to the story, are flexible and respectful of other's people's faiths or people of their own faith who practise it to a different degree than they do. Also, moderates are not as easily swayed by propaganda because they tend to be more critical. Moderates do not believe in only one strict way to follow their faith and they do not seek to punish anyone who disagrees or who does not practise as they do. Moderates are far less prone to violence than extremists. kanelli
"There are good Muslims and bad Muslims." I classify people across a whole continuum of belief and yet you class them into only two opposing groups - good and bad. How can you say there is no such thing as moderate? rvp_legend
So does that rule out Most of Britain as Moderate Christians...as they are "Sun" readers and follow propaganda?
Does that rule out most of USA as Moderate Christians. as they watch either CNN, or FOX both channels who always beat the war drums?
You have to understand when this term "Moderate Muslims" started to be used. and that was post september 2001 when Dubya needed to find a name for muslim nations who would follow him. So for you to decide who is Moderate is a farce. Pakistan was called Moderate... but they are a military dictatorship.
If a Moderate is someone who is not prone to Violence or extreme...then that is not the US, as the government is very influenced by Evangelicials and Neo Zionists who are both proudly Anti Islam.
Moderate is open to interpretation. there is no such definition in regards to a faith. Just like the USA could never provide a definition for "Terrorism"... it is only used for convenience.
Since it is about interpretation, i will tell you what is Moderate - SWEDEN!
the most wonderfull country on earth! MaaaD
sure thats why it has the highest suicide rate in the world. kanelli For me to decide... ? What, are you now taking me for the US government? :lol: If you don't like my definition, then why don't you offer one up? Or are you like one of the other posters who likes separate groups into only good and bad? tdot
well said Shafique! too many people are unaware of this and really don't want to discuss it. Have you noticed you had no reaction to your post? not even from the person who asked the question? rvp_legend
Now Now, you cannot go generalising about all who question the way you think ;-)
I just dont like labels, as it creates false images - thats all.
But i do respect your opinion, even if i may not agree with it. rvp_legend
Sure it does
Read the bit about Sweden kanelli tdot, in case you haven't noticed, the topics in these hot threads move fast and some points can be overlooked. I wouldn't jump to conclusions about why peope respond or why they don't. Mint Tulip Pope Benedict XVI is cool. He would be even cooler if he would openly and fairly criticize (some aspects of) Judaism. nismo
he wasnt to far off thou , i guess with such a loarge nuber of closed minded people being maslims , they took offence to the truth
oh well
i dont see rallies were maslims condemn the action of 9/11
or any of the other terrorist activities and suicide bombings
how many of you have seen actually mass rallies against that shit??
NONE!!!!
why? cause we truely are savages !!! chevaliers-de-sion [quote="Mint Tulip"]Pope Benedict XVI is cool.( the truth hurts)
He would be even cooler if he called for a new crusade and then he would have been able to show the jews how to do it :twisted: 8)



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