MORE ON BENEDICT!

Let’s get back to Pope Benedict and the Muslims.

This morning’s papers brought news of rioting, recalled ambassadors to the Vatican, churches firebombed in Gaza and the West Bank and even threats of suicide attacks on the Vatican and the Muslims think they have no issue with religious violence.

The pope is issuing “regrets” for having his words cause such strife but NO APOLOGY and he aint’ takin’ nothing back!

Did the pope insult Islam? Well, judging from the ruckus generated by Danish cartoons of Muhammad, anything and everything may be considered an insult to their faith; it is hard to decipher. Remember when someone in the prison at Guantanamo, Cuba said that an American urinated on a copy of the Koran or at least threw it into the toilet. Wow, what uproar. Here in the West we had a work of art consisting of a crucifix in a glass of urine – weird but no riots.

For some reason, when Muslims perceive their religion was slighted, they have to react in actual acts of violence or threats of violence as if their god demanded revenge. My usual answer to that was to say if your god is so pissed off, let him do something about it otherwise shut up!

It is hard for us in the West to understand this type of religious thinking; cannot empathize.

The pope, in his speech, brought up the concept of violence as part of religion as in a holy war (Jihad) and in the use of violence to convert infidels to Islam. One thinks of the so called holy martyrs that kill innocent people all in the name of Allah.

He mentioned the role of reason and science in our lives and in our faith, in effect, questioning the use of reason in what Muslims believe and do. He argues that god cannot be capricious and do whatever he wants, no; he is basically good and incapable of evil behavior. Muslims, on the other hand, think their god is unknowable and can do whatever he wants. Here he gets into a lot of philosophy and theology.

Breaking it all down, he tells the Muslims that they are behaving like idiots and wrapping their idiotic and violent behavior in the cloak of religion. In the Koran, Muhammad, before he had any power, advocated using the sword to spread the faith. As he gained power (through the sword) he became more mellow and philosophical. Bottom line, Mohammad invented this religion and he based the Koran on a lot of things he learned along the way, some good some not so good.

Islamic history is populated by many wise men that interpreted Islam for the masses as many Christian scholars interpreted Christianity for everyday use. Currently, Islam has been taken over by radial clerics who use it to wage war against the West and against their enemies and this has to be challenged by the West because it appears that moderate Muslims are incapable or scared of posing a challenge to Islamic extremism.

This pope has balls and appears to have a guaranteed place in history if he sticks to his guns.

Janusz