Quote :

"you people who are contending that christianity (in the form it is in today) is anything remotely similar to islam are out of your minds."

agreed, its not remotely simmilar, its almost identical.

9/17/2006 1:17:53 PM

Therefore, Islam is okay.

Just because you hate Christianity doesn't mean you should fellate Islam, you fucking idiot. Radical Islam is a huge fucking problem -- one that should be eradicated.

9/17/2006 1:20:34 PM

Quote :

" agreed, its not remotely simmilar, its almost identical. "

your a pathtic little troll

9/17/2006 3:54:21 PM

whatever mohammad

9/17/2006 3:56:40 PM

Quote :

"your a pathtic little troll"

9/17/2006 3:57:40 PM

Quote :

"Anyone who describes Islam as a religion as intolerant encourages violence."

Yeah, I guess you really don't need to say any more than that.

Wow.

9/17/2006 4:02:13 PM

Quote :

"the reason why christains arent killing people is becuase they arent the underdogs anymore. THEY ARE THE SUPERPOWER. there is no reason to be offended. they won, they are holding all the cards."

Hey did anyone hear about the Bhuddist extremeists that fire bombed those churches? Them and those Shintos are fucking crazy man.

9/17/2006 4:49:31 PM

^ ha

NEIN

9/17/2006 7:55:06 PM

Quote :

"Now, one crazy former muslim did shoot up the last pope, which is why they roll in a glass popemobile now, but if they actually blew that shit up, we wouldn't have to worry about muslim violence anymore, because it may be a worldwide genocide. "

Coming soon, to a time near you: Its JUDGEMENT DAY, watch as Jesus Christ and and an army of 10,000 angels KICK SOME INFIDEL (Muslim,_____,_____) ASS after bringing Israel to it's knees.

9/17/2006 11:49:24 PM

Quote :

"your a pathtic little troll"

9/18/2006 12:12:22 AM

9/18/2006 12:33:13 AM

these events make Ganesh cry

9/18/2006 11:57:27 AM

sounds like the pope and bush have set the stage for the modern crusade

anyone else not learn a lesson from kingdom of heaven?

9/18/2006 12:07:14 PM

This thread needs a pope update.

9/18/2006 12:20:20 PM

Quote :

"CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- An al-Qaeda-linked extremist group warned Pope Benedict XVI on Monday that he and the West were "doomed," as protesters returned to the streets across the Muslim world to demand more of an apology from the pontiff for his remarks about Islam and violence. The Mujahedeen Shura Council, an umbrella organization of Sunni Arab extremist groups that includes al-Qaeda in Iraq, issued a statement on a Web forum vowing to continue its holy war against the West. The authenticity of the statement could not be independently verified. The group said Muslims would 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." In Indian-controlled Kashmir, meanwhile, shops, businesses and schools shut down in response to a strike call by the head of a hard-line Muslim separatist leader to denounce Benedict. For the third day running, people burned tires and shouted "Down with the pope." Protests also raged in Iraq, where angry demonstrators burned an effigy of the pope in Basra, and in Indonesia, where more than 100 people rallied in front of the heavily guarded Vatican Embassy in Jakarta, waving banners that said the "Pope is building religion on hatred." The pope on Sunday said he was "deeply sorry" about the angry reaction to his speech last week in which he cited the words of a Byzantine emperor who characterized some of the teachings of Islam's Prophet Muhammad as "evil and inhuman" and referred to spreading Islam "by the sword." Benedict said the remarks came from a text that didn't reflect his own opinion. "I hope that this serves to appease hearts and to clarify the true meaning of my address, which in its totality was and is an invitation to frank and sincere dialogue, with great mutual respect," he said during his weekly appearance before pilgrims in Italy. The statement of regret -- the pope's second in two days -- helped ease some tensions. In Turkey, where outrage against Benedict's remarks had been swift, Catholic bishops decided Monday that no changes were necessary in his upcoming visit in November -- his first to a Muslim country, Vatican spokesman George Marovic said. Marovic said the trip was expected to go on as planned, and the bishops had discussed the details of a religious ceremony the pontiff is to lead in Istanbul. However, State Minister Mehmet Aydin, who oversees the religious affairs in Turkey, said he expected Turkish authorities to cancel the visit if Benedict does not offer a full apology. "We are expecting the authorities to unilaterally cancel this visit. The pope's coming to Turkey isn't going to foment the uniting of civilizations, but a clash of civilizations," he said. The secretary-general of the Turkish HUKUK-DER law association submitted a request to the Justice Ministry asking that the pope be arrested upon entering Turkey. The appeal by Fikret Karabekmez, a former legislator for the banned pro-Islamic Welfare Party, called for Benedict to be tried under several Turkish laws, among them obstruction of freedom of belief, encouraging discrimination based on religion, and inciting religious hatred. A prosecutor in the ministry will evaluate the request and decide whether to open a case. Angry reactions also persisted in other corners of the Muslim world, where many demanded more of an apology by the pope than Sunday's statement of regret. "Muslims have all this while felt oppressed, and the statement by the pope saying he is sorry about the angry reaction is inadequate to calm the anger -- more so because he is the highest leader of the Vatican," Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar said. Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said on national television in Pakistan the pope had apparently forgotten it was Christianity that was spread by the sword during the Crusades. Elsewhere, protesters rallied in the city of Muzaffarabad, in the Pakistani-controlled part of Kashmir. "His apology is not sufficient because he did not say that what he said was wrong," said Uzair Ahmed, from Pasban-e-Hurriyat, a Pakistani political group. Even in China, where the government exerts tight controls over religious activities, a top religious official said Benedict had insulted the nation's Muslims. "This has gravely hurt the feelings of the Muslims across the world, including those from China," Chen Guangyuan, president of Islamic Association of China, was quoted as saying in an interview with the Xinhua news agency. In the Middle East, where Muslims threw firebombs at seven churches in the West Bank and Gaza Strip over the weekend, Christian leaders posted guards outside some churches. "We are afraid," said Sonia Kobatazi, a Christian Lebanese, after Mass at the Maronite Christian St. George Cathedral in Beirut, Lebanon, where about a dozen policemen carrying automatic weapons stood guard. Christians -- a minority in the Mideast that varies from nearly 40 percent in Lebanon to tiny communities in the Gulf states -- generally live in peace with the majority Muslims. But relations are sometimes strained and outbreaks of violence have occurred in recent years. Some worry the flap over the pope will lead to a new round. The protests and violence have stirred up memories of the fury over cartoons that were published in a Danish newspaper of the Prophet Muhammad. Angry demonstrations took place in many countries, and some of the violence was directed at Western targets and Christian churches."

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/09/18/pope.islam.ap/index.html

[Edited on September 18, 2006 at 12:23 PM. Reason : jank]

9/18/2006 12:22:52 PM

Quote :

"impose head tax"

9/18/2006 12:28:46 PM

Quote :

"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.""

Definitely not a religion of violence.

WWIII Muslim Countries vs. The World.

Muslim world will be obliterated, but they got nukes and can fuck some shit up too.

9/18/2006 12:43:12 PM

Quote :

"Correct. Its sort of like the way white people are never offended by any sort of racial epithet and why we laugh when Black people dress up like whites and mock us... when you are the big boy on the block its really not a big deal. Honestly, I can't think of a single thing someone can say, in regards to me being white, that could even remotely offend me. "

soap box qotd

9/18/2006 12:44:41 PM

Quote :

""In his speech, the pope quoted 14th-century Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus who said: "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."""

How dramatically ironic. I'll be he did so without the slightest bit of knowledge available to the audience suggesting this:

Few human religions, including Catholicism and Protestantism, can claim to have had their faiths spread by anything else.

9/18/2006 2:01:36 PM

^

9/18/2006 4:35:02 PM

In what way does that justify the Muslim response to the Pope's speech?

9/18/2006 4:36:18 PM

In exactly the way it was intended to.

9/18/2006 4:42:27 PM

In absolutely no way?

9/18/2006 4:46:07 PM

Correct.

9/18/2006 4:49:10 PM

Just wanted to 'hear' you say it.

9/18/2006 4:52:53 PM

Quote :

""We are expecting the authorities to unilaterally cancel this visit. The pope's coming to Turkey isn't going to foment the uniting of civilizations, but a clash of civilizations," he said."

This is hilarious, because it assumes that there's Muslim "civilization" with which one might clash.

9/18/2006 5:04:33 PM

OMF YOU MEAN THEY'RE NOT LIKE ARMY MEN?

9/18/2006 5:07:02 PM

kinda ironic that after being called a violent religion that muslim fanatics respond with, yep, VIOLENCE

9/18/2006 5:47:35 PM

Apparently they don't have the intellectual capacity to realize they're acting in a manner that's contradictory to what they assert about themselves.

[Edited on September 18, 2006 at 5:51 PM. Reason : .]

9/18/2006 5:50:55 PM

Much like many philosophical hypocrites I've met in life.

9/19/2006 1:25:09 AM

Just What Did the Pope Actually Say? Here's the transcript & explanation
link: http://www.lewrockwell.com/featherstone/featherstone62.html
via digg: http://tinyurl.com/kxzb6

Quote :

"Based on an unofficial rush transcript I downloaded from the BBC World Service web site, this is the offending passage: In the seventh conversation [between Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Paleologus and an unnamed "educated Persian" on the subject of Christianity and Islam sometime in 1391] edited by Professor [Theodore] Khoury, the emperor touches on the theme of the holy war. The emperor must have known that [S]urah 2, 256 reads: "There is no compulsion in religion." According to the experts, this is one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under threat. But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Qur'an, concerning holy war. Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the "Book" and the "infidels," he addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general, saying: "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." The emperor, after having expressed himself so forcefully, goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. "God," he says, "is not pleased by blood – and not acting reasonably is contrary to God's nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats... To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death....""

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Pontiff Has a Point - TIME
link: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1535812,00.html
via digg: http://tinyurl.com/hvff9

Quote :

"Perhaps Islamic sensibilities could have been spared if the speech had included a clear indication that the Pope did not agree with the inflammatory words from 600 years ago. Still, the fallout doesn't mean that the speech was a mistake or that a Pope can never mention Muhammad. In fact, the 35-minute discourse could turn out to be the most important step forward for interfaith dialogue since that first meeting in Assisi. It could also set off a new round of anti-Western violence by angry Muslims. Or both. Such is the world that this shy, academic-minded pastor was presented with 17 months ago when he became Pope. The buzzwords today are 9/11, clash of civilizations, jihad--and old formulas must now be replaced by hard, new thinking, even at the risk of offending sensibilities. ... Benedict said Islam teaches that God's "will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality." The risk he sees implicit in this concept of the divine is that the irrationality of violence might thereby appear to be justified to someone who believes it is God's will. The essential question, he said, was this: "Is the conviction that acting unreasonably contradicts God's nature ... always and intrinsically true?" His questions were not reserved only for the Islamic world. As he has done before, Benedict spoke about the need for the West, especially Europe, to reverse its tendency toward godless secularism. He believes that the gift of reason that he cherishes in Christianity has been warped by the West into an absolutist doctrine. And that too, he believes, prevents the opening of a productive channel for dialogue with a more faithful Islamic society. "Reason and faith," he insisted, must "come together in a new way.""

9/19/2006 2:01:59 AM

Quote :

"kinda ironic that after being called a violent religion that muslim fanatics respond with, yep, VIOLENCE"

fucking love it

9/19/2006 2:03:02 AM

Frankly, the context of the Pope's speech about injecting reason into religiosity, which has been largely glossed over by the sensationalism-driven media frenzy over a few lines in it (note the snickers of both GWB and Clinton supporters), was an insightful, relevant, and important element of discourse worth being debated academically.

Naturally, the media isn't reporting on the speech. But a few words in it. The market doesn't demand civilized discourse. The government sees no interest in civlizing it. And therefore, the media is free to act sensationally according to the whims of its audience AND its organizational interests.

I call the outgrowths of this phenomena, which you're free to call what you want, and what it represents Cue Card Culture. I see us debate about on the Soap Box repeatedly with very little changing of ideological territory because our understandings are blurred by the inability to internalize the fact that others can ultimately be as rational as us, and yet come to radically different conclusions about the functioning of the world.

If a message doesn't fit on a cue card, nobody will listen to it. That's why the messages we hear encourage us to believe everyone else (who is somehow not like us) is stupid and doesn't know anything. They're reduced and reduced until they represent charicatures, not real people. The beliefs are expressed in a way that is too condensed to properly represent the content of a person's intellectual, spiritual, or historical experiences in life.

[Edited on September 19, 2006 at 11:51 AM. Reason : ...]

9/19/2006 11:49:38 AM

I really can't believe that he's getting this much flack for what he said.

9/19/2006 12:53:10 PM

A lot of people leave the Soap Box wondering the same thing a lot of time. Including me.

9/19/2006 2:58:31 PM

Quote :

"Naturally, the media isn't reporting on the speech. But a few words in it. The market doesn't demand civilized discourse. The government sees no interest in civlizing it. And therefore, the media is free to act sensationally according to the whims of its audience AND its organizational interests. "

I agree with most of this statement. I would say that there is little the government can do about it. Until the public demands a more intelligent and honest discourse, nothing will change.

9/19/2006 3:15:30 PM

Sure they can do something. People will just not like having to deal with it.

Political correctness is one poorly understood, and perhaps even more poorly executed attempt to solve that problem. It breaks down for many of the same reasons most ideas do, though.

The current ideological war on the idea of a "biased" or "subjective" media is a philosophically important one. Even if the solution is to simply vote based on our pocketbooks, or our attention spans, as to who knows what's going on in the world, and who's just trying to sell papers. Or any relative distinction between them.

[Edited on September 19, 2006 at 3:28 PM. Reason : ...]

9/19/2006 3:27:02 PM

what can they directly do to affect the way that the media behaves?

i am of the opinion that generally the government should stay out of things. most of all because i think that government is so big and stupid that they will probably mess it up. w

i think that something needs to be done about the way the media behaves but i think that if its going to happen it needs to come from the general public, not from the government. if they can do anything they will just mess it up.

9/19/2006 3:38:18 PM

Quote :

"Much like many philosophical hypocrites I've met in life."

I assert that I am, on many occassions, a hypocrite.

If I claimed I wasn't, then you might argue I lack the intellectual capacity to realize I was making a statement about myself that was in some way not true. However, I know I act in a hypocritical manner at many points in my life and I acknowledge that. Not sure if that shot was aimed at me.

9/19/2006 3:54:47 PM

^ No more than it was aimed at myself. And every walking philosopher I've ever met. Many, including yourself I suspect, might conclude that means it applies to everyone.

I agree fundamentally that you're probably a hypocrite. It doesn't make you happy, I'm sure. But it's still probably got plenty of grains of truth behind it, and it an important distinction for you to keep in mind. The war of ideas is fought between hypocrites.

That's where the fun ends.

I admit to being every bit the biggest flaming hypocrite I've ever met. I just express different hypocrisies based on a lack of consideration or attention that I've paid to certain areas of ideological merit at any given time. Different people associate interactions between hypocritical belief systems reason enough to irrationally speculate beyond available data without noting the degree to which they can be wrong. I choose to do what I can to avoid being one of them.

Sometimes it works, sometimes I'll buy a 60 Minutes story about Bush's National Guard Records. Sometimes I can effectively call bullshit on "faggot college freshmen" who have no idea what they're talking about AND the assholes they're usually arguing with. But I can still come at them by arguing from flawed assumptions all the same.

But as you say, on many occasions, we're all hypocrites. A poet once put it this way: "I am large, I contain multitudes." I don't know necessarily that he and I agree on what he was talking about (he's dead, can't ask him), but I can see how it applies to the following fundamental questions:

1) If we're all composed of a multitude of hypocrisies between competing belief systems, whom or what should we believe?

2) How should we go from uncertainty to belief?

The answer, in any way, hands us our own philosophical reigns in a powerful way in the form of personal responsibility. We can be our own arbiters of truth. I call a person's self concept his own "silent arbiter" because it is so infrequently taken into consideration. But upon what basis do we or should that arbiter decide to examine (or refuse to examine) the belief systems contructed around it in order to clear the fog?

---

Quote :

"trikk311: what can they directly do to affect the way that the media behaves?"

To run with the PC example, they can certainly restrict the language the media uses. The operating rules of media language today are simple: Use only this set of words to categorize people, or else you'll face accusations of racism, sexism, elitism, corporatism, governmentalism, interventionalism, or whatever.

Distill it, and you get this: If you use this language, people will be ideologically reinforced into accepting what you say as true and not biased.

Quote :

"trikk311: i am of the opinion that generally the government should stay out of things. most of all because i think that government is so big and stupid that they will probably mess it up."

I fully recognize the truth in this. After many years of debating--at great length--with people of differing perspectives, I've learned to see the merits in this view. The government doesn't have a perfect track record of doing anything it's set out to accomplish.

What do you attribute this view to, though? IOW, what makes you believe this?

The bane of unintended consequences seems to be at fault in a lot of examples of this.

Quote :

"trikk311: i think that something needs to be done about the way the media behaves but i think that if its going to happen it needs to come from the general public, not from the government. if they can do anything they will just mess it up."

Probably.

Now, my question for you is this: Why do you have more faith in the ability of people not within the ideological centers and institutions who make policy, than within them?

[Edited on September 19, 2006 at 4:23 PM. Reason : ...]

9/19/2006 4:17:00 PM

Quote :

"I really can't believe that he's getting this much flack for what he said."

if it was criticizing any religion other than Islam I doubt it wouldve gotten this much press

9/19/2006 4:22:40 PM

Quote :

"I agree fundamentally that you're probably a hypocrite. It doesn't make you happy, I'm sure."

I've accepted it and I'm fine with it. I think that this is the only real way to overcome it. The only people faulted by their hypocrisy are those who refuse to understand and accept this fundamental truth about human nature.

Quote :

"The war of ideas is fought between hypocrites."

This doesn't put all sides of ideological battles on equal footing. Not to say you said that, I'm just drawing extra perspective.

Quote :

"I admit to being every bit the biggest flaming hypocrite I've ever met. I just express different hypocrisies based on a lack of consideration or attention that I've paid to certain areas of ideological merit at any given time. Different people associate interactions between hypocritical belief systems reason enough to irrationally speculate beyond available data without noting the degree to which they can be wrong. I choose to do what I can to avoid being one of them."

You might have much too strict a standard for hypocrisy. There are many stances to approaching and tackling different aspects of human life. Being able to use contradictory sets can be an asset -- it is not necessarily a bad thing. It's only bad when you attribute absolute truth to one of the sets (which cannot be held consistently with contradictory sets).

Quote :

"1) If we're all composed of a multitude of hypocrisies between competing belief systems, whom or what should we believe? 2) How should we go from uncertainty to belief?"

Do you really want to launch a full-out epistemological debate in this thread? This seems like a topic best addressed elsewhere.

Quote :

"The answer, in any way, hands us our own philosophical reigns in a powerful way in the form of personal responsibility. We can be our own arbiters of truth. I call a person's self concept his own "silent arbiter" because it is so infrequently taken into consideration. But upon what basis do we or should that arbiter decide to examine (or refuse to examine) the belief systems contructed around it in order to clear the fog?"

Personal belief doesn't matter. Knowledge requires truth.

9/19/2006 4:24:32 PM

^^ Agreed. But instead of blithely recognizing obvious bullshit (like I'm accused of), can anyone discern where it comes from? Or does anyone have any ideas?

Quote :

"Do you really want to launch a full-out epistemological debate in this thread?"

Well, no. Look for it in a minute or two...

[Edited on September 19, 2006 at 4:28 PM. Reason : ...]

9/19/2006 4:25:39 PM

I think people will resolve their cognitive dissonance in different ways, depending on the AMOUNT of stress that it causes.

This means that, when people REALLY want there to be a pleasant afterlife for themselves, they'll challenge opposing viewpoints that'll keep them up at night. Yes, even with violence and murder if the level of stress warrants it.

9/19/2006 4:28:03 PM

actually islam just needs 700 more years of growing/maturing to reach the point that christianity is at now.

in the 1300's christians where pretty fuckin militant about religion


that's about the level islam is at


eventually the fanatic extremists will get pushed to the side and marginalized

9/19/2006 9:02:33 PM

I like how some muslims are all like 'an apology is not enough'


wtf do they want? him to cut off an arm or something?

9/19/2006 9:03:58 PM

Probably just to hear a Pope admit his dick isn't as big as some cleric's.

9/19/2006 10:21:22 PM

^^ A reparation check?

9/20/2006 7:25:05 AM

I don't think he should have apologized at all. Given the Muslim world's reaction to the comments (burning churches, death threats, burning efigies, etc.) seems like the Pope was spot on. All those idiots did was prove him right.

And people need to stop living in the past. If all Islam can do is bring up the Crusades from 600 years ago, they need to move on. No one living now is responsible for that. Take responsibility for your religion's current actions.

[Edited on September 20, 2006 at 10:35 AM. Reason : .]

9/20/2006 10:34:21 AM