Comments

14/09: Pope Benedict attacks Islam

During a visit to his home country Germany, Pope Benedict XVI made some dangerous comments regarding Islam.

The Pope gave a speech at Regensburg University in Bavaria, where he lectured between 1969 and 1977, and said that Islam justified violence. The explanation of the Pope, who is expected to visit Turkey in November, left many Muslims disappointed as it hardened the existing prejudices in German society against Islam.
- Link

Pope Benedict


The Pope spoke of the relationship between faith, reason and Islam's holy war, jihad. The Pope said violence is incompatible with the nature of God and with the nature of the soul. - Link

The pope made his remarks on Islam in a speech in which he quoted from a book recounting a conversation between 14th century Byzantine Christian Emperor Manuel Paleologos II and an educated Persian on the truths of Christianity and Islam.

"The emperor comes to speak about the issue of jihad, holy war," the pope said.

"He said, I quote, 'Show me just what Mohammed 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,'" he quoted the emperor as saying.

Clearly aware of the delicacy of the issue, Benedict added, "I quote," twice before pronouncing the phrases on Islam and described them as "brusque," while neither explicitly agreeing with nor repudiating them.
- Link

How absurd can he really be? My opinion of Pope Benedict has taken a massive blow from his statements against Islam which lack any good reasoning to back them up.




Even his statement about nature being non-violant is incorrect. One just has to observe wildlife (which is nature) and the predator-prey relationship beteen various animals. In all the documentries that I have watched on the behaviour and hunting traits of animals, I have never seen a cheetah asking a deer, over tea, if the deer would be a willing snack for the cheetah. Even trying to visualize such a ridiculous idea makes me laugh.

It is even more laughable when he equates Christianity with non-violance. Has he forgotten the crusades and other 'holy' wars? He is certainly having a lapse of memory if he thinks Islam was spread by sword. The Pope would do well to open a textbook on European history and start reading it instead of calling Islam a violent religion. After all, if lessons are not learnt from history, history tends to repeats itself which won't be to anyone's benefit.

This event, just before the Pope's visit to Turkey will spark anger in Muslims worldwide. Pope Benedict should immediately retract his statements and perhaps offer an apology as a Turkish cleric has suggested.

Bardakoglu, the Turkish cleric, rightly pointed out that "if the pope was reflecting the spite, hatred and enmity" of others in the Christian world, then the situation was even worse. Further statements by the cleric include:

"They (the Christians) saw war against those outside the Christian world as a holy duty," Bardakoglu continued. "That's why the Western clerics always have in the back of their minds a crusade mentality and the idea of holy war," he claimed.

Bardakoglu said he suspected Benedict had the same mentality and asked the pope to "look in the mirror" before making remarks against Islam.

"If there's a religious antagonism in the West, it's the responsibility of the logic-ignoring Christian church," he said.
- Link

(05-10-06) - Edit: Apparently, Dr. Zakir Naik has invited the Pope for an open interfaith dialogue. "I am absolutely ready for an open and public debate with the pope under live international TV coverage," he said. More can be read here. It is an interesting article and I am sure the Pope will refuse this offer from Dr. Zakir Naik. After all, Dr. Zakir Naik will blow the Pope's claims and arguments to smithereens, just like he did to Sri Sri Ravishankar. It goes to show that knowledge is power since Dr. Zakir Naik has studied all the major religious texts and is a very knowledgeable person.
Asad  Politics 
Karma: 439 [Add to karma] 


Comments made

This is Bad,this is really very bad.
No 1 allowed to say anything abot any religion.
These pops always said these obnoxious things and then they complained abot attackes :@.

OK answer my simple question."If some 1 just abuse u or ur religion,so wt ll be ur reaction,if u are religious"

u ll sure take some serious action against him/her.

so i appeal u guys plz dont say some thing foolish n save the world.
15/09 23:58:00
seriously i don't really care wat a christian pope says... i know he is wrong and i know he is making 1 billion people fool already so why should i be offended by his remarks and comments....... poor pope is just another one of those stupid people in the world like those neocons sitting in white house who want to divide the world and its people.... i see a bleak future for this stupid pope....
17/09 00:17:30
if you read the history of these pope you'll know that in past they use to thugs and nothing more then that... now they have become all respected and civilized but back in old days they were mere thugs...
17/09 00:19:23
he have already issued the appology(which i really dun accept n care abt) but for sure we know the real face of this current pope like its clearly mentioned in quran that they(christians n jews ) can't be your friends..... last time Bush's had a tongue slip saying war on terror to be a crusade then withdrawing his comments and appologizing... well all know what really is in their heart and what they really think about us so appology or no applogy does'nt make any difference.....
17/09 00:31:32
The apology is not direct and his image will not be cleared up now untill he dies or retires,A man in his position must have atleast considered the consequences of such stupide mistake.
04/10 22:18:07
You think the pope lack any good reasoning to back up his statements??? have you not read what Muhammad did and how Islam came into being?
if Bardakoglu thinks that Christians "saw war against those outside the Christian world as a holy duty", then no Muslim should really exist in the West at least. The Crusade was an urgent call to save all of Christianity in the East. Have you not read what Muslims used to do to the churches in the Holy land? and taking the women as sex slaves and kill the men? and to them this is a command from God? it is definitely Evil.

It's professor Ratzinger, and he refused to debate with this man, perhaps because he didn't want further bloodshed of Christians by Muslims everywhere in the world, or perhaps he knows now that you are people who cannot take the Truth.
12/11 10:23:52

Add comment

 

Allowed BBCode:[b] [i] [u] [color=] [size=] [quote] [code] [email] [img]

Comments must be approved before being published.

 

Copyright © 2006-2013 Asad Asif - All rights reserved unless otherwise noted.

CSS | XHTML 1.0 Strict | RSS