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.

DC, are you sure you're not an arts grad?

No Ruty, I think we're looking at International Politics and Media Studies, (3rd class) from Michael Moore University...

"I am offended by those who are constantly offended!"

Yep, says it all. To say that you are offended instantly brings every civililzed argument to a grinding halt. Making some subjects totally out of bounds - and NOTHING should be out of bounds for discussion as far as I can see.

Ruty, please read post post again.
Carefully this time.
I specifically said that there was no evidence these people thought they were helping the Soviets.

But if I were a soviet intelligence officer, I would see it as my duty to help them. Given that some CND/Greenham women also despised the SU, I'd make sure they didn't know, and I'd make damned sure the papers didn't find out.

CND was funded by individual donations, how hard would it be to fake a few of these ? Some nice person turns up with a battered minivan to help you get to some protest, you going to say no ?

They made a great play of how they were a pan-european movement, so how did they know that none of their members were East, rather then Wst Germans ? Given that intelligence agencies with huge funding and intrusive background checks get that wrong, explain to a witless fool like myself how CND and the Greenham wimmin knew for a fact that all their people were who they claimed to be ?

I have no formal qualifcations in politics, so feel free to explain to a humble science grad hoe you know that this is impossible.

We did the same to the soviets, why shouldn't they do it to is ?

Fuzzywuzzy
Where did I say or imply that all Muslims are responsible for terrorists acts? I simply quoted from Manji's article because I think she makes a valid point and wants an open, honest and objective debate in the Muslim community. The fact that she has had fatwas issued against her and is roundly condemned for speaking her mind and refusing to fall in line as an obedient drone tells me that she is someone worth listening to.

By the way, in the same way you don't want to be held responsible (quite rightly) for the actions of a few Islamic nutters, I hope that you and other Muslims do not hold all Jews responsible for the unjust treatment of Palestinians.

Interestingly, the pope apologised again yesterday and whichever Muslim it is who has set himself up as the voice of Islam in Britain, has said it's not good enough (or words to that effect).

That's the problem once you start apologising, it can never be good enough.

I just happen to know a lot about the Greenham common movement DC - my father is part of the CND organisation and was involved in Greenham too. The women had to put up with so much sh*t and believed in what they were doing passionately. A lot of them were also very smart. I can't rule out the possibility of Soviet interference, but again, there is a total lack of evidence, and a huge body of evidence in favour of the integrity, courage and commitment of these women. One can speculate about a number of things, including the idea that Martians are about to take over the world in ice cream vans. Doesn't make it true though.

'If you suggest that my religion is violent....I'll call for your execution.' Says it all to me, really.

If your religion is a private relationship with your God or Allah and you then what do you care what anyone thinks of you and your faith? Personally I have very little time for religion cos in my experience religion and bloodshed are often bedfellows.

interestingly many people in the balkans think that Milosovic was put in place by the CIA determined to tear apart a very successful communist Yugoslavia [and they were very good at weapons manufactoring too] I don't believe this either, though I think it carries more persuasion than the Greenham common/Soviet argument.

According to the 'Today' programme this morning on R4 - the Pope decided yesterday to publicly read a passage from St Paul in which he blamed the Jews for Christ's crucifixion.

Why? Was this in an attempt to redress the balance? It smacked of trying to shift some of the heat from himself, IMO.

Maybe he's got a bet going to see how many religious groups he can offend in a week?

I await his comments on Hinduism with interest.

i've offended myself with my spelling of manufacturing actually...

He'd be hard-pressed to do so, I suspect, as Hinduism is one of the most inclusive religions..

I'm sure he'll have a good go, though.

And, without wishing to offend any of the many mnetters who I know are practising Christians....I can't see much of a backlash from Christians in general..Forgiveness and 'turning the other cheek' etc.

I'm sure most Jews could do without the added grief though, TBH.

Looking at the Pope's conduct, I am reminded of a joke about the title of Salman Rushdie's next novel "Buddha, you fat bastard".

The emnity of the Catholic church towards Jews is a ghastly thing, and includes supporting the Nazis who the current Pope used to be a member of.

Also, the version of history Christians have foisted doesn't really bear much scrutiny.
Palestine at the time Jesus is claimed to have lived was under Roman occupation, though it was quite a rough place.
The spin put upon the execution is that this was a Jewish thing. Which is odd.
Jesus was put to death in a traditionally Roman way, by Romans, after a Roman leader ordered the execution. The spin is quite breathtaking since all the image issued by the Christian churches show legionaires in full Roman uniform, yet somehow they get to blame the Jews.

There is an allegation that Jews asked for the death of Jesus, which although possible really doesn't accord with the standard Roman way of dealing with mobs.
Rome was an Empire, not a liberal democracy, "reasonable force" in dealing with riots was when you didn't execute all of those you captured.
At this point we also ought to be mystified as to why there are no Roman records of what are claimed to be really large scale events. Obviously though a Catholic pope isn't going to ask that question.

However, the bad guys here are Romans, ie Italians, not Jews.
A lot of Jews were fighting against the Romans, though they were losing and could not have forced the Romans to release Jesus.

However, objective reality has little to do with Catholic doctrine, and to be fair to the Pope, he is enunciating core long held beliefs of his church.
This is not what people want to hear.
Apologists for those who want superstition to be respected and play a more corrosive effect upon society want to hear about religious leaders saying nice things about each other.
The sad fact is that religions are competing with each other, and only behave in a civilised manner when the society has taken away their knives and guns.
Invariably when a religion, any religion even Buddhism gets political power, it starts abusing people from competing faiths.
TRhus the most unpleaant places in the world to be a Moslem is not Israel or the USA, but Moslem nations where you are not the "right" sort of Moslem.

It is a mistake, and frankly quite dishonest to claim that the horrors of Christian rule are some sort of obscure piece of dead history.
We have a leader of the Catholic church who chose to join the Nazi party, and an american christian president who has created a series of torture camps.

As I understand it, young Ratzinger didn't "choose" to join the nazi party. He was a member of the Hitler Youth at a time when all German children were required to be members. Parents who didn't allow their children to join, were in genuine serious danger of being sent to prison or a concentration camp - at the very least, they'd be eyed with suspicion and lose their job. His family were anti-nazi.

I don't think it helps to obscure truth in this way and promote slanders about the pope. There's enough about what Benedict really says and does to criticise, without attributing things to him which are untrue.

DC wrote "Well, aelita, why do we keep seeing hordes of Moslems doing things whose only apparent purpose is to make them look like dangerously mad people ?" Perhaps because actually the western press reports very little about the Muslim world that isn't related to terrorism, violence etc. Those protests are there because they are often the only way people know how to get noticed. I'm not saying its right but thats how it is.

Point in case - how many of you read that women got the vote in Kuwait this year? how many of you know where this years Asian Olympics is taking place? how many of you know about the GDP of Saudi or the US's recognition of Qatar (a muslim state) as a place of religious tolerance and freedom? Yet here in Gulf-land I get to read about Pete'n'Nikki splitting up, David Cameron going Swedish, Chinese labour reforms etc as well as all the local news in the local paper. Funny old world eh?

It wasn't "very serious danger". You were vastly more likely to be killed by a British bomb than sent to a camp for political unsuitability.

Dachau was purpose built for political prisoners but actually didn't have enough, so had to be put to other uses.

Many people younger than Ratzinger fought against the Nazis, and yes it was dangerous, but these were the Nazis, not the good guys.
Many Hitler youth fought with distinction against allied troops, accounts of the time speak of wehrmacht veterans beiung quite unnerved by the bravery shown by them. This was not the girl scouts.

Oh wow, Ratzinger's parents might lose their job. I think that tells you as much about the role of the Catholic church in WWII as you will ever need to know.

Ratzinger then chose to join an organisation which helped Nazis during WWII and helped some Nazis who led the holocaust to escape.
Both Germany and Italy have huge Catholic populations. Did their spiritual leaders do anything at all ?
No.
I don't know if the old pervert is in his heart a Nazi. I do know he seems very comfortable around them.

Speedymama, I do not believe nor have I ever said that 'all jews' are responsible for the inhuman treatment of the Palestinians. God this thread is getting surreal.
Have you never seen orthodox Jews standing alongside Muslims campaigning for the rights of Palesitinians, I have.

If anyone is still interested in the OP I thought this article in newsweek was interesting, and before anyoen dismisses out of hand it's written by a non-Muslim

it is indeed a misconception to say the Jews killed Christ. The whole point of Christ's crucifixion is that everbody, save a small group of [Jewish]disciples and people living on the fringes of society [and about one roman soldier], chose not to listen to what he had to say, as it was too inconvenient to change their lives and views accordingly. The fact that some of these people were Jews is irrelevant. People like George Bush [and maybe even Raztinger, I don't know] still do the same thing - conveniently ignore what christ actually had to say even at the same time as purporting to be Christians. Man killed Christ, not the Jews. We would do the same thing today, if we could.

and good point meowmix.

And i do actually think we need more lesbian theologians in all religions, if only to counteract hundreds of years of male bigoted bullsh*t. Right, I'll go away now.

To be fair to Christians, they actually have no way of knowing what Christ said. It's tricky to produce evidence that he even existed. Unlike Moslems they lost the original documents, and the 3rd hand stuff in existence is more than a little "edited".

It's never been clear to me how, exactly you can be a Christian fundamentalist, since you can't know what the fundamentals are.

The muslims that I know have about as much in common with the pope effigy burners as Ruty does with George Bush.

As has been said earlier, you can't fill many column inches with "average British muslim not that bothered by Pope".

An interesting point made to me by a muslim that I work with is that from his point of view as a muslim, it is enough for him to follow the 5 pillars of wisdom and that he feels no need to be part of a mosque. The impression I got from him was that there isn't really a muslim 'hierarchy' that can speak for all muslims in the same way that there is in the church. I would be interested in other muslims views on this.