POPE BENEDICT AND THE MUSLIMS!

Well, it seems I cannot stay away from religious matters for too long.

Pope Benedict XVI gave a speech at the German university where he used to teach theology. I really never read any of his stuff so I never realized how smart and brave this old fart really is.

In short, his speech which was very intellectual (audience was all professors) brought up the topic of violence and religion and threw in a reference to Islam and the concept of “Jihad” or Holy War.

Because the pope quoted a 14th century conversation between a Byzantine Christian Emperor and a Persian Muslim scholar which included the words “Show me 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”, the speech caused quite a stir.

Well this speech, that I doubt anyone really read or for that matter, could fully understand has caused rioting in the streets of Islam. This is similar to the reaction the “Muhammad Cartoons” had.

The fact that the riots started in Pakistan and spread throughout leads me to believe that some cleric read parts of the speech and then went out on his balcony and told the great unwashed masses underneath that the pope insulted Muhammad and should be killed.

Let me make something perfectly clear, the idea of violence in the name of religion, is not limited to Islam. The Christians practiced it (The Crusades) and continue to practice it (Northern Ireland) to this very day. Christians practiced forced conversions also (Spanish Inquisition) and burned many heretics; so violence is nothing new to the history of Christianity.

But this pope, unlike the previous pope that tried to make nice, nice with every other religion and culture, wants to take the Muslims on in a theological and philosophical debate saying you cannot discount reason in your belief system, you cannot have a god that preaches violence and you cannot allow the extreme wing of Islam to dictate to all Muslims. He basically poked them in the eye. To me that is very brave but then the pope is pretty old and does not have much time to make his mark on world history.

I will have more in the next segment since this could get lengthy………………

Janusz