Was the Pope's criticism of Islam unfair?

Clockwood said:
Thats the thing... Islam and Christianity are the human elements. This whole conflict has practically nothing to do with anything written in sterile ink and paper. Thousand year old words can be bent any which way to rationalize whatever the hell you choose to do. This conflict is more about living culture.

That isn't to say that Islamic culture is bad, its just struck through with cancerous elements. A running theme throughout history is that moderates are rarely in command of anything except by virtue of social inertia whenever any number of radicals are present. Moderates want only to live their lives and raise their families. Radicals are the ones that form armies and risk their lives for one cause or another. That tends to give them a certain amount of dominance.

One problem I see is that there is very little done against these elements by their own people. Terrorists cloak themselves in the image and word of Islam and by doing so make themselves effectively a sacred cow. To speak or act against them is seen in many places as un-Islamic and thus you would be siding with evil.
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You obviously, don't know much about the history or truth of Christianity or Islam. The human element, what I mean by that is, no matter what the words say, humans who feel hatred will make a case for their emotion. Most muslims know Bin Laden is wrong and was nothing like Mohammed.

Mohammed was living during a time period where you had to be aggressive like that just to survive. Jesus believed in the same ideas, but Jesus was so passive that he got slaughtered, we have to remember that Mohammed came hundreds of years after Jesus and likely remembered what happened to Jesus and decided that in order to keep Islam pure, holywar was required to defend it, as self defense, a form of religious self defense.

Mohammed living during a time where it was kill or be killed, conquer or be conquered, enslave or be enslaved, so to talk about Mohammed in such a way, as if Christians did not do the same thing, whats the point? It's coming from the Pope, not some athiest. If an athiest wants to condemn organized religion as being violent and aggressive, fine, point taken, but for the Pope to say it, it's a completely different meaning. Do we really want religious leaders to start fighting?

The truth is, religion and self defense are linked, you can see this just by reading the art of war. Really, comments like what the Pope made, it does not help to moderate the debate, it will only serve to piss off Muslims who will take it very seriously. Why exactly do we want to provoke extremism?

Now, if you want the Pope to use this language, be aware that Jesus can just as easily be attacked. Mohammed was aggressive, yes, and Jesus was so passive that he refused to defend himself at all, and we all know that the average person is somewhere in the middle, passive until provoked. Why do we want to provoke the mainstream muslims and mainstream christians?
 
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spidergoat said:
I do.

I don't understand the question.
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I mean there are two ways to handle this:

1. they are criminals

2. they are fanatics because of their religion

Which view is likely to garner the support of the moderate majority?
 
Jaster Mereel said:
This sounds ultra-modern, but it's about globalization. I'm not talking about just economics, I'm talking about culture. Radical Muslims feel like their culture is under attack and so they are fighting against the West, which is the cultural force moving in to supplant Islam. Of course, it's not that simple, but that's what it boils down to in the end.

Terrorist is just a word. Al-Qaeda, and groups like it, are paramilitary organizations fighting a war against the West. They are guerillas, and this is a global guerilla war.

That may be an oversimplification, but the point was kind of off-topic so I don't feel like writing an essay about it. Maybe if someone started a separate thread about Globalization and Terrorism, I could expand upon it.
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I understand that, I understand not everyone wants American culture, but hey some of Europe does not want American culture.

If you think this is about culture, it vastly complicates everything down to the atomic degree, because how exactly do we claim muslims have a unified culture, or that the west has a unified culture?

Globalization and ecomomics I understand.
 
spidergoat said:
We do deserve criticism for our government's actions.
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Shut up masochist. If someone has a prolem with our government they should write a letter to our President, not to me. I did not make these decisions, and I'm sick of Europeans and Muslims blaming all Americans. I'm also sick of American's blaming America, only about 20% of the country are neo-conservatives.
 
wesmorris said:
Surely you don't think that's an excuse for violence and murder eh?

I think most "thinking muslims" would agree with sam that this is no big deal.
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I don't think it's an excuse for violence and murder and I doubt that 'thinking muslims' would think so either, but the reactionaries live for stuff like this, they will seize upon it and innocent people will die in the crossfire as the terrorists will indeed use it as an excuse.

The reaction has already been fierce, though not too violent; why do you think the Pope listened to advice and has apologised personally so swiftly? Because he made a ballsup and the Vatican knows it.
 
samcdkey said:
I mean there are two ways to handle this:

1. they are criminals

2. they are fanatics because of their religion

Which view is likely to garner the support of the moderate majority?
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I'm still not totally sure what you're asking.
Americans aren't inherently criminal and neither are Muslims, but we all deserve some blame for having our country run by criminals and warmongers.
 
spidergoat said:
I'm still not totally sure what you're asking.
Americans aren't inherently criminal and neither are Muslims, but we all deserve some blame for having our country run by criminals and warmongers.
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I mean targeting all Muslims for the actions of terrorists is equivalent to targeting all Americans for foreign policies and the net result is still the same.

I cannot do anything about an Al-Qaeda terrorist anymore than you can do anything about the war in Iraq (well maybe if you vote).

Targeting the behavior is more effective than targeting the group.

So if there is criminal behavior that is what should be targeted.

I'm not making it very clear maybe.
 
samcdkey said:
I mean targeting all Muslims for the actions of terrorists is equivalent to targeting all Americans for foreign policies and the net result is still the same.

I cannot do anything about an Al-Qaeda terrorist anymore than you can do anything about the war in Iraq (well maybe if you vote).

Targeting the behavior is more effective than targeting the group.

So if there is criminal behavior that is what should be targeted.

I'm not making it very clear maybe.
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But I'm not advocating targeting of Muslims for criminal prosecution, only criticism of their religion. I don't know of any other religion that includes the concept of holy war.
 
Good try, but in the first case, martial arts has nothing to do with being aggressive, and in the second, it was simply zennists following along with their nation rather than zen as the driving force.

Still, all organized religion makes people crazy and they all deserve to be criticized and ridiculed.
 
spidergoat said:
Good try, but in the first case, martial arts has nothing to do with being aggressive, and in the second, it was simply zennists following along with their nation rather than zen as the driving force.

Still, all organized religion makes people crazy and they all deserve to be criticized and ridiculed.
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Do you believe that atheists will not fight if they feel threatened?

All you need is enough of them in one place to form an organised group.
 
I'm not talking about defending yourself, but killing for an ideology. No Muslim was put in danger by American military bases in Saudi Arabia, for instance. In Islamic law, it is illegal to convert someone to another religion besides Islam, punishable by death.
 
spidergoat said:
I'm not talking about defending yourself, but killing for an ideology. No Muslim was put in danger by American military bases in Saudi Arabia, for instance. In Islamic law, it is illegal to convert someone to another religion besides Islam, punishable by death.
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They are a different culture with different values. If the people there don't like it, they can move out. The Sharia law in Islam is as open to interpretation as the Quran,

If they don't agree, no one can force them to change. Education and reform cannot happen overnight. Remember when communism was a crime in the US?
 
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