Muslims anger at Popes remarks

[speedymama]

Story here .

I wonder if a Fatwa will be taken out against the Pope who had the temerity to say something about Islam? His comments have been misconstrued and to be honest, I don't understand what all the fuss is about.

Both Christianity and Islam have a bloodthirsty history but I think that Muslims are becoming too hypersensitive towards their religion. Why is it that clerics like Abu Hanza can stand on the streets of London, spewing hateful rhetoric about the West but the minute anybody in the West says something about Islam, Muslims around the world get their headscarves and beards in a twist? Chill out for goodness sake. I don't recall the Muslim collective condenming the Iranian President when he called for Israel to be wiped of the planet. I'm certain that there are many Muslims who make disparaging remarks about Judaism, Hinduism, Christianity, Sikhism etc. Religion is not just about words, it is about living up to what you preach and how you treat others. No wonder so many people in this country are turned off religion.

I personally agreed with everything the Pope said and interestingly, so did my male Muslim friend.

custardo I don't know what kind of people you met and in what context but one thing you have to remember about Muslims is that many of them confuse culture with religion. So for example you get honour killings where women are murdered because they want to marry either outside the faith or a Muslim of a different race. This is not condoned by Islam.

I have known many Muslim girls who have been very badly treated by their families - a friend of mine had to really fight to go to Uni and she was pressured into marrying a cousin. She was not allowed to cut her hair short - all because her parents thought this was the religion's requirement when in fact it is cultural.

Or you get arranged marriages where the bride's family is expected to give huge sums of money to the groom's family.

Unfortunately many Muslims are not very well educated and this is why they sometimes lead quite insular lives.

PeachyClair I find it very interesting that you find the idea of religion "not humble", as I think quite the opposite. I can't help thinking it a little bit arrogant to suggest that Man could have been created without help.

I see the hand of the Creator in every child that is born, in every type of landscape, every planet, every beautiful sunset. I wonder why Earth is so filled with sophisticated life when we all the other planets in the Solar System appear quite barren.

I'll have to disagree with you there kittywits. I fear that although DC gets the irony, on one level, of saying that 'I fear ruty has the perspective you get from too much immersion in a white male dominated culture' on another level he completely misses the point. I fear that he has been damaged so much by his Roman Catholic schooling that he will never see sense again.

I don't think the idea of having been created is not humble, just the 'I have the right answer, the rest of you are wrong' part- which is intrinsic in any faith.

I think mankind is a happy accident / genetic thing. I don't think mankind is necessarily allt hat great either- what's great about a race that destroys its own homeland (plant earth?)

But then I am aprticualry lacking in vision and imagination and happy to admit I am a bit defunct on that aspect of personality, which is why I intrigued enough to be studying it- fascinated by it

I think for religious people to put their faith across in the way you describe is indeed arrogant, but for most people it is a very personal thing and not something they have much choice in.

The creation of the universe is a pretty mind blowing thing whether you believe in God or not.

thanks saadia you put it far better than i and more succinctly - the confusion of culture and religeon.

yes thats what i mean.

thanks for not crucifying me (pardon the pun)

I see saadia's point about the wonder of the natural world. It's sad that the major supersitions part company from science.
Especially in the case of Islam from whom we inherit Astronomy, most of maths, and the scientific method itself.

The dismally drab universe they paint bugs me not because of their talk of a glass sphere covering the Earth, or bizarrely inaccurate biology (sperm is not seed), but that it's all a bit dull.

I know enough chemistry to see the scent of a flower, or physics to answer ssadia question why we only see life on a small % of planets.
This increases my wonder because I don't see the superficial level in things, and know that beyond my wit is always more to understand.
If I was a pope I simply wouldn't let anyone loose as a priest unless he understood the wonder of God's creation.
If I didn't know better, I'd assume that the Abrahamic set of delusions were invented by someone living on a sink council estate in the 1970s.

no problem custy .

oh yes i agree with you there DC. We need a few more G.M. Hopkins.

but the point about religions is they [well the bible for a start] is that they speak about the creation of the universe in metaphor. The problem is when you start to take it all literally.

Can't stand G.M Hopkins, yuk

ah well then kittywits you and me are never going to see eye to eye.

I think the problem is when you take anything as literal truth, not just the Bible.

A coe of my gripe against religious mania is not that they are wrong, but that they regard any attempt to correct their view as "offensive", a view that we observe is often backed by violence.

The great physicist Richard Feynman explained his oveall view of the world, which was essentially that he didn't have one.
He treated each thing he tried to understand "as if it were...". Thus you can treat light as if it were lumps or waves, neither of these views are "true" but they are useful.
As Jack Nicholson so wisely said "You want the truth ? You can't handle the truth".

People aren't good at "truth". We didn't evolve for an environment where things stayed true very long.

Science is about always being wrong and trying to correct that, and faith is about being right.

I like you DC.
A very refreshing addition to MN.

Dc your last post could easily be about many of the conversations on MN

faith isn't about being right. religeon maybe. 2 quite different concepts

exactly custardo. Faith is a torturous and often very dark road to take. It is not about being right at all. Religion probably is. Archbishop Michael Ramsay [not archbishop any more] used to call himself a Christian Agnostic. I rather like that expression.

In fact science and 'God' are inextricably interlinked. It could be argued that the more we discover scientifically, the more we discover the 'face' of God.

it is also bllocks to say faith is an easy way out, a fake comfort - i would find it a lot easier to deal with the losses and illnesses of loved ones if i didn't believe in God. A searching and explorative faith is a pain in the ase to be honest.

three in a row again!

Ruty is right, that science can act as good PR for God, and you can argue that by his works we might now him better.

But as saadia rightly says, there is a difference between religion and religious culture.

Science has evolved a cultural process by which different versions of "truth" can be argued over, and where one view can be shown to be superior to another.

Religion has evolved a process by which it struggles to get poitical power then uses force to to make people act as if they believe that version.

Objectively we observe that religion has the better evolutionary strategy. Like any parasitic organism it has adapted to changes in it's host.
Since "tolerance" is trendy, religions have managed to get appalling behaviour excuse by caiming that to crack down on this is "intolerant". Some Catholic eaders, with no hint of irnoy actually called the search for paedophiles in their ranks a "with hunt".

This is analagous to the way some non-poisonous organisms mimic the colours of realy toxic creatures, so as to deter predators. They aren't "lying", evolution has no concept of this.

Blimey Dc I've a jelly for brains head today. Don't think I understood most of that. How despressing for me. Sounded bloody good though

it was all about me being right kittywits.

sometimes DC you alienate yourself by using the language you do. i am sure most people for the most part can't be arsed.

i did read your post. i deconstruct

• the usual i am bitter about arse catholasism - whichis always expected from you.

whats with the science - truth degrees of truth in science?

i thought science was fact. what you can prove otherwise than that its hypothetical - even philosophical - rather than scientific.

so do clarify

you then followed with ......................................something completely unrelated - like - erm WTF? religeon uses force to mae people belive what it wants.

yeah ...whts that got to do witht he first point?

bck to religeon

it changes its evolutionary strategy... - what all relieons hav done this?

becuase them jehovass witnesses keep knocking at my door and telling me evolution is a pile o shit.

so i dontthink all religeons do change according to the whim of society - in fact that could be seen as a failing - by you am sure it is - you missed that one dc.

then we have som left field peado comment - again not related to anything said before.

followed by some comment on a creature that mimics ded scary creatures to avoid getting eaten.

now DC - i like you. i do. you are a breath of fresh air in this sometimes stifling centreparks complex they call mumsnet.

but sometimes you just like to hear yourself doncha?

....ohhhhhh here i am with the big words - non linked difficult to rad post - some look t and will think "bet hes intelligent i dont understand it" little do they know even i know i dont have apoint - i have many unrelated but no appearing so - i think if someone pulls me on something one way or anoher there should be enough 'scatter' in there to cover it.