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September 15, 2006
Protests in pictures
From Ankara. I really have no idea what it means.
More photos here, including this study in contrast, unintended, I'm sure:
A Muslim family walks to Friday prayers at the mosque in Rome:
A police officer stands guard outside a Catholic Church in Pakistan:
Posted by Amy Welborn | Permalink
Comments
Uhuh. A Muslim family walks to Friday prayers in Rome. Peacefully. In a European city with Catholic roots.
Is it too much to ask for similar courtesies in Muslim countries?
Posted by: Christine at Sep 15, 2006 11:16:31 AM
The Pope is very brave to speak the truth. His predecessor was nearly killed by a Turk.
Posted by: Sam at Sep 15, 2006 11:23:31 AM
I would go even further. Since you can see a hideous mosque in the hills overlooking St. Peter's let's ask the Saudis when we can build a church next to Mecca!
At times like this, our daily political squabbles seem so minor. Time to unite and defend our pope!
Posted by: Morning's Minion at Sep 15, 2006 11:31:38 AM
Anyone who really believes in Christianity and who thinks about Islam rationally can not fail to come to certain conclusions:
1. Mohammed was not a prophet of God
2. The Koran is not God's word
By definition, a Christian believes these things. If a Muslim responds with anger and "offense" whenever a Christian points out that this is what a Christian believes, then no dialog is possible with that Muslim.
Posted by: DelRayVA at Sep 15, 2006 11:43:01 AM
If I were writing a humorous science fiction story, I might very well put in a religion that responds with riots and murder when it's non-violence is brought into question.
That's the only place it would be believable, right?
Posted by: Ed the Roman at Sep 15, 2006 11:55:43 AM
I hope violence doesn't breaks out because of this manufactured controversy. If it does come to violence, will Pope Benedict start to pull his punches for fear of bringing death and fire down upon those of his flock in muslim areas?
Posted by: Kevin Jones at Sep 15, 2006 11:58:44 AM
It is all very well for us to reach out to both our Protestant brothers and sisters and followers of Islam, but there is the issue of some fundemental beliefs here. While a modern Muslim may be blameless for their belief, Mohammed either recieved a visit from the Angle Gabrial, which means that Chrisitians are doomed to hell. Or he made it up and Islam is following the teachings of a man who used a made-up religion, based on Arab animilism, Jewish and Christian beliefs, sprinkled with a smattering of other near eastern religions to garner political power, during his lifetime and left as his legacy a violent, expansionistic religion that makes the worst of the Inquisition look tolerant.
But, unfortunately in the modern secular world where the worst sin is telling someone they might be wrong, or that their "world view" isn't valid such statements are not allowed.
Posted by: TerryC at Sep 15, 2006 12:08:43 PM
Third option (or subset of #2) - Mo was visited by Satan, disguised as Gabriel. I find this highly plausible.
Posted by: c matt at Sep 15, 2006 12:19:37 PM
That mosque in Rome is truly disgusting. Until there is genuine religious freedom for Christians and Jews in Muslim lands, Europe and America should close down all mosques. Most of them are financed by Wahabbi extremists anyway, who use them to foment more hatred and jihadism.
Posted by: Dennis at Sep 15, 2006 12:27:33 PM
The reaction to the Pope's remarks reminds me of a cartoon I saw many years ago: Two rough-looking, hairy men are sitting together. One says to the other, "When people call us Vandals barbarians, I get so mad I want to break things!"
Posted by: Henry Dieterich at Sep 15, 2006 12:34:03 PM
Interesting possibility c matt. I hadn't thought of that. I think that "deluded false prophet" is probably likely to garner even less sympathy from Islamic adherants than "political opportunist".
Posted by: TerryC at Sep 15, 2006 12:38:13 PM
You forgot several subsets. Mohammed could have had purely imaginary visions; insane delusions; good visions that morphed into bad, imaginary, or delusional ones; or even good ones that were tragically misreported. There's also the option that he never existed, of course, but I don't think that's very probable.
Posted by: Maureen at Sep 15, 2006 12:40:51 PM
I see that a Christian church (Greek Orthodox) has now been bombed in Gaza City. Nobody killed, fortunately.
Posted by: Blind Squirrel at Sep 15, 2006 1:01:50 PM
Well we can't acuse these gentlemen in Pakistan of being illiterate (how many of us could make posters in Arabic or Farsi?) just illogical:
"Jehad is a Means to End Tyranny and Injustice"
that's about as clear cut as it gets in debunking the civilizing influence of Hellenizing reason (the end may never be used to justify the means). By way of conciliation, I'll second his colleague's proposal:
"Christians (sic) Community Should Take Notice of Pope's Remarks"
Posted by: Clare Krishan at Sep 15, 2006 1:14:24 PM
Maureen,
It must be said that, in fact, the early history of Islam is pretty murky. The texts on which even standard scholarly histories are based were written hundreds of years after the events they are meant to recount and are clearly tendentious, at best. The Koran, without the associated Moslem commentary, is, in many,many places almost completely unintelligible and, in fact, many of the hadiths looks suspiciously like attempts to provide some kind of narrative logic for otherwise meaningless chunks of text. There are a handful of contemporary descriptions of the early days of the Moslem conquest but these descriptions don't correspond at all to the Moslem histories. So Muhammed may very well have not existed. Certainly the foundations for asserting that he did indeed exist are not significantly better than the foundations for asserting that, let us say, Krishna of the Bhagavad Gita existed. People used to say that Islam emerged in the full light of history, contrasting this, I think, with the historical-critical methodology-inspired skepticism about Biblical accounts of the origins of Christianity. Interestingly, I think it would now be far more broadly accepted among scholars (excepting maybe hard core Jesus Seminar types - and even many of them seem to be caving) that, after all, the Gospels are, for the historian, a reasonably good guide to Jesus' life and teaching while the Islamic histories could be very well be almost completely mythical.
Posted by: will cappelli at Sep 15, 2006 1:26:43 PM
I tend to side with cMatt's idea above regarding the true identity of Mohammed's angelic messenger. I also tend to think it was the same messenger who spent time with Joseph Smith 1200 years later on another continent.
Posted by: Chris Molter at Sep 15, 2006 1:34:07 PM
The most irritating thing to me is the complete hypocrisy of the MSM......How often do celebrities and politicians make slams against the Holy Father or Holy Mother Church???? CONSTANTLY. And yet, how many headlines do you see that decry this ever-present realtiy? None. We can bash Catholicism all we want, but bashing Islam? Don't even think about it! And the bottom line is....Papa B didn't even bash Islam. Suddenly intelligent, critical (in the most classical sense) remarks are seen as "bashing". Give me a break.
Posted by: Anne at Sep 15, 2006 2:24:21 PM
Ed:
If I were writing a humorous science fiction story, I might very well put in a religion that responds with riots and murder when it's non-violence is brought into question.
That's the only place it would be believable, right?
Yes! It sounds like something out of Terry Pratchett's fantasy satires.
Chris Molter:
I tend to side with cMatt's idea above regarding the true identity of Mohammed's angelic messenger. I also tend to think it was the same messenger who spent time with Joseph Smith 1200 years later on another continent.
I think myself that would be giving Smith much too much credit for sincerity. The man was involved in quite a few scams before he hit on Mormonism. Before he claimed that the Angel Moroni had brought the tablets for him, he was claiming that he could find buried treasure with crystal balls on a pay in advance basis. The fact that he was involved in such an obvious confidence-trick, and threw that over when it wasn't bringing in enough money, makes me very suspecting of his sincerity about the Angel.
Posted by: Eileen R at Sep 15, 2006 2:30:07 PM
While I'm quite sure Mohammed was not a prophet of God, I think there is a different possibility at work here that one should not dismiss.
In one sense, Mohammed (who quite clearly existed as a real person) had a strong, particular, and correct insight about God: There is only one God. As we know, you cannot come to know the truth about God without grace. So, almost certainly, there was an element of God's grace that gave Mohammed this insight. It may even have been the angel Gabriel who delivered that message!
What is also quite clear to a Christian is that God did not tell Mohammed to proclaim a message against our God and Lord Jesus Christ. Where the error crept in and distorted the truth is not clear, whether it came from the heart of a fallen man, or from the prince of lies we cannot tell.
I do not share this relatively benign opinion of Joseph Smith, who clearly had disingenuous intent from the very beginning, and deserves no more respect than L. Ron Hubbard in that regard.
Posted by: DelRayVA at Sep 15, 2006 2:31:25 PM
Hmmm. Easy to buy the banner, hard to speak the English.
Posted by: franksta at Sep 15, 2006 2:43:05 PM
I'll say this much: at least the banner didn't have Bert on it.
http://www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,8950,00.html
Posted by: Dale Price at Sep 15, 2006 3:13:11 PM
Gasp! Great minds think alike, Dale, and so do ours!
Posted by: Patrick Rothwell at Sep 15, 2006 3:59:34 PM
Patrick:
LOL! I'm definitely going to remember--and use--that one.
Posted by: Dale Price at Sep 15, 2006 4:08:39 PM
Dennis
How would America close down mosques?
Posted by: Liam at Sep 15, 2006 5:21:26 PM
A good start would be to go after the ones financed by Saudi/Wahabbi money and other terrorist supporting nations and organisations. Look cloesly at any mosque, and I bet you can find ample evidence of aiding and abetting Islamic extremism. That alone should be enough to shut them down, just as many so-called Muslim "charities" have been shut down in the wake of 9-11 because they were really nothing but fronts for terrorism and Islamic extremism.
It is simply obscene for the United States and Europe to allow mosques full of extremists to operate within thier borders, while it's illegal for Christians to even build a church at all in Arabia. It's a simple matter of reciprocity. If Christians cannot openly practice their faith in majority Muslim lands, then they shouldn't expect to take advantage of our freedoms in order to destroy us from within.
Muslims always seek to have it one way: Islamist lobbyists, like CAIR, will scream and yell at every perceived slight in the West, and claim that we must be "tolerant" of them, but they won't offer the same openness and tolerance to others in their own countries. I'm sick of it! I'm sick of Islam! I'm sick of Muslims! I'm sick of Allah! (not to be confused with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob!). Ans I'm sick of Mohammad! Every day the news for the last five years has been an endless stream of Islamic terror, atrocities, and claims on their part to be "outraged" at some perceived slight. Enough. I'm outraged, as should we all be, by Islam and it's adherents, and the endless atrocities, hatred, and terror they foment. No submission! Not now. Not ever.
Posted by: Dennis at Sep 15, 2006 5:53:02 PM
