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Bring Back John-Paul II (pg. 3)
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| shaolin_Z |
| quote: | Originally posted by Groundhog Boy
A little, but two quick things: First, I'd think that if they were upset about the prejudice they would attempt to express why people have the wrong perception rather than polarize themselves further. Second, while I understand that the Middle East is more repressive of free speech, especially that which is critical of the governments/religion, the part that concerns me most is that a lot of this extremist speech isn't coming from the Middle East. The guy calling for the murder of the pope was in from of Westminster Cathedral. The death threats over the Danish cartoons were from within Denmark. That's the part that concerns me most, as I can see how it would be difficult for Muslims who are limited in their freedom of expression to speak out, but these people do have freedom of expression, and it's going the opposite way in a lot of instances. I would like to add, though, that I have heard statements from Muslim groups in Europe that they found the apology to be acceptable. |
Yeah, it's pretty ed up :(. I know alot of Muslims feel like they're victims of misunderstanding or prejudice already, and speaking out only puts them on the nutter fundamentalists hit list too. So yeah, it's a pretty y situation. |
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| shaolin_Z |
@ all the TA Muslims: I urge you to be more vocal here, and on other occasions. It's eighter (potentially) getting caught in the crossfire or a ing concentration camp (not necessarily you, but possibly your children). Take your pick. If not out of principle, I assume most of you are alteast interested in self-preservation.
EDIT: And no, I'm being asolutely serious here. |
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| tathi |
| heh Islam would not have even caused a tenth of the deaths, suffering, and attrocities that Christianity has been directly and indirectly culpable for throughout history :rolleyes: |
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| pkcRAISTLIN |
| quote: | Originally posted by tathi
heh Islam would not have even caused a tenth of the deaths, suffering, and attrocities that Christianity has been directly and indirectly culpable for throughout history :rolleyes: |
true, but how are those numbers going in post modernity? ;) |
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| tathi |
| For this leg of the race Islams ahead in the killing and bombing people department but they've still got a good 600 years of rape, pillage, and murder to catch up to those good ol' Christians; oh and those sneaky Catholics are sodomising Africa with AIDS which cancells out those who've died in Darfur so they're pretty much neck and neck in that part of the world. |
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| LazFX |
| quote: | Originally posted by tathi
For this leg of the race Islams ahead in the killing and bombing people department but they've still got a good 600 years of rape, pillage, and murder to catch up to those good ol' Christians; oh and those sneaky Catholics are sodomising Africa with AIDS which cancells out those who've died in Darfur so they're pretty much neck and neck in that part of the world. |
So smart arn't you? |
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| pkcRAISTLIN |
| quote: | Originally posted by tathi
For this leg of the race Islams ahead in the killing and bombing people department but they've still got a good 600 years of rape, pillage, and murder to catch up to those good ol' Christians; oh and those sneaky Catholics are sodomising Africa with AIDS which cancells out those who've died in Darfur so they're pretty much neck and neck in that part of the world. |
oh bollocks. you cant compare to the last 600 years. well i suppose you can, but ill just ask which of these two religions do you think has made the transition into modernity more successfully? |
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| shaolin_Z |
| quote: | Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN
oh bollocks. you cant compare to the last 600 years. well i suppose you can, but ill just ask which of these two religions do you think has made the transition into modernity more successfully? |
I don't see what a "transition to modernity" necessarily has to do with acting sane and not blowing up? :conf: |
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| pkcRAISTLIN |
| quote: | Originally posted by shaolin_Z
I don't see what a "transition to modernity" necessarily has to do with acting sane and not blowing up? :conf: |
well, i wasnt talking about "terrorism" specifically, more about how the (christian) liberal democracies have allowed a separation of church & state, gender equality, freedom of speech (the right to blaspheme). middle-eastern nations (or the citizens within them) that are governed too much by religion are a bit behind in these areas. |
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| LazFX |
| quote: | A Sorry Situation
It's time to stop apologizing and start defending freedom of speech.
By Anne Applebaum
Posted Monday, Sept. 18, 2006, at 11:43 PM ET
Already, angry Palestinian militants have assaulted at least seven West Bank and Gaza churches, destroying two of them. In Somalia, gunmen shot dead an elderly Italian nun. Radical clerics from Qatar to Qum have called, variously, for a "day of anger" or for worshippers to "hunt down" the pope and his followers. From Turkey to Malaysia, Muslim politicians have condemned the pope and his apology as "insufficient." And all of this because Benedict XVI, speaking at the University of Regensburg, quoted a Byzantine emperor who, more than 600 years ago, called Islam a faith "spread by the sword."
We've been here before, of course. Similar protests were sparked last winter by cartoon portrayals of Mohammed in the Danish press. Similar apologies resulted, too, though Benedict's is more surprising than those of the Danish government. No one, apparently, can remember any pope, not even the media-friendly John Paul II, ever apologizing for anything in such specific terms: not for the Inquisition, not for the persecution of Galileo, and certainly not for a single comment made to an academic audience in an unimportant German city.
But Western reactions to Muslim "days of anger" have followed a familiar pattern, too. Last winter, some Western newspapers defended their Danish colleagues, even going so far as to reprint the cartoons—but others, including the Vatican, attacked the Danes for causing offense. Some leading Catholics have now defended the pope—but others, no doubt including some Danes, have complained that his sermon should have been better vetted, or never given at all. This isn't surprising: By definition, the West is not monolithic. Left-leaning journalists don't identify with right-leaning colleagues (or right-leaning Catholic colleagues), and vice-versa. Not all Christians, let alone all Catholics—even all German Catholics—identify with the pope, either, and certainly they don't want to defend his every scholarly quotation.
Unfortunately, these subtle distinctions are lost on the fanatics who torch embassies and churches. And they may also be preventing all of us from finding a useful response to the waves of anti-Western anger and violence that periodically engulf parts of the Muslim world. Clearly, a handful of apologies and some random public debate—should the pope have said X, should the Danish prime minister have done Y—are ineffective and irrelevant: None of the radical clerics accepts Western apologies, and none of their radical followers reads the Western press. Instead, Western politicians, writers, thinkers, and speakers should stop apologizing—and start uniting.
By this, I don't mean that we all need to rush to defend or to analyze this particular sermon: I leave that to experts on Byzantine theology (and to my colleague Christopher Hitchens). But we can all unite in our support for freedom of speech—surely the pope is allowed to quote medieval texts—and of the press. And we can also unite—loudly—in our condemnation of violent, unprovoked attacks on churches, embassies, and elderly nuns. By "we" I mean here the White House, the Vatican, the German Greens, the French Foreign Ministry, NATO, Greenpeace, Le Monde, and Fox News. Western institutions of the left, the right, and everything in between. True, these principles sound pretty elementary—"we're pro-free speech and anti-gratuitous violence"—but in the days since the pope's sermon, I don't feel that I've heard them defended in anything like a unanimous chorus. A lot more time has been spent analyzing what the pontiff meant to say, or should have said, or ought to have said if he had been given better advice.
All of which is simply beside the point, since nothing the pope has ever said comes even close to matching the vitriol, extremism, and hatred that pours out of the mouths of radical imams and fanatical clerics every day of the week all across Europe and the Muslim world, almost none of which ever provokes any Western response at all. And maybe it's time that it should: When Saudi Arabia publishes textbooks commanding good Wahhabi Muslims to "hate" Christians, Jews, and non-Wahhabi Muslims, for example, why shouldn't the Vatican, the Southern Baptists, Britain's chief rabbi, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations all condemn them—simultaneously. Equally, I see no reason why Swedish social democrats, British conservatives, and Dutch liberals couldn't occasionally forget their admittedly deep differences and agree unanimously that the practices of female circumcision and forced child marriage are totally unacceptable, whether in Somalia or Stockholm. Surely on this issue they all agree.
Maybe it's a pipe dream: The day when the White House and Greenpeace can issue a joint statement is distant indeed. But if stray comments by Western leaders—not to mention Western films, books, cartoons, traditions, ethics, and values—are going to inspire violence on a regular basis, I don't feel that it's asking too much for the West to quit saying sorry and remain united, occasionally, in its own defense. The fanatics attacking the pope already limit the right to free speech among their own followers. I don't see why we should allow them to limit our right to free speech, too.
Anne Applebaum, a Washington Post and Slate columnist, is currently a fellow at the American Academy in Berlin. Her most recent book is Gulag: A History.
Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2149885/ |
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| Renegade |
| quote: | Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN
true, but how are those numbers going in post modernity? ;) |
Not sure if you count the US government as "Christians" (I would), but:
| quote: | The "war on terror" - and by terrorists - has directly killed a minimum of 62,006 people, created 4.5 million refugees and cost the US more than the sum needed to pay off the debts of every poor nation on earth.
If estimates of other, unquantified, deaths - of insurgents, the Iraq military during the 2003 invasion, those not recorded individually by Western media, and those dying from wounds - are included, then the toll could reach as high as 180,000. |
http://news.independent.co.uk/world...icle1433404.ece |
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| LazFX |
| quote: | Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN
middle-eastern nations (or the citizens within them) that are governed too much by religion are a bit behind in these areas. |
Most of these people that are causing all of this mess are uneducated and follow every word that thier local radical preacher tells them. For instance the nun that was killed. All these years, 30+ I think, she lived among them and some idiots shoot her in the focking back.. :mad: ignorant fools, the pope has apologized but yet they issue statements saying that the Pope and the West will die or convert to Islam.
| quote: | You infidels and despotic, we will continue our jihad (holy war) and never stop until God avails us to chop your necks and raise the fluttering banner of monotheism when God's rule is established governing all people and nations," the statement said. The group said Muslims will be victorious and addressed the pope as "the worshipper of the cross" saying "you and the West are doomed as you can see from the defeat in Iraq,
Afghanistan,
Chechnya and elsewhere ... We will break up the cross, spill the liquor and impose head tax, then the only thing acceptable is a conversion (to Islam) or (killed by) the sword." source |
what rule is that?? the rule of the Muslim's idea of what the world should be like?? I am sorry but if this is the attitude of the Muslims then people, we have a big issue.
but perhaps all is not lost and now maybe the Real Muslims will start to show the world that these few radicals do not speak for True Islam
| quote: | | Head of Indonesia's largest Muslim organization: The Pope apologized, so STFU and GBTW. "If the rage continues, perhaps what the pope said is true." SOURCE |
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