Holy Pope Batman!

Ok...once again we are faced with individuals who call themselves Muslim getting irrationally upset and violent because of words they don't understand. The Pope has also clarified in the speech that the comments of the emperor he quoted were 'brusque' and found them astounding.

Here is the Pope's speech.

It's seven pages long and only mentions Islam once to illustrate a point - the rest was about Greek philosophy and the term 'logos', which I'm not going to pretend to understand but here's the Wikipedia version of it if you want to bore yourself.

As usual, the 'Islamic' world has taken the Pope's words out of context. The reason I put 'Islamic' in quotations is to remain true to what the Pope was trying to illustrate and how I understand it because these people who are making all the fuss are not learned theologians and are acting 'voluntarily', which is one of the philosophies that was brought up in the speech and the only part I found quite interesting. Here's an excerpt:

But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality. Here Khoury quotes a work of the noted French Islamist R. Arnaldez, who points out that Ibn Hazm went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God's will, we would even have to practice idolatry.

[...]

In contrast with the so-called intellectualism of Augustine and Thomas, there arose with Duns Scotus a voluntarism which, in its later developments, led to the claim that we can only know God's voluntas ordinata. Beyond this is the realm of God's freedom, in virtue of which he could have done the opposite of everything he has actually done. This gives rise to positions which clearly approach those of Ibn Hazm and might even lead to the image of a capricious God, who is not even bound to truth and goodness.

Those learned Islamic theologians, if they read the full text, would understand that the Pope was waxing philosophical about reason and religion and how the philosophy of religion was not out of line of being taught in a university. The Pope also went on to explain that other cultures have influenced Christianity, in particular Greek thought.

The Pope stressed how important it was to open dialogue with those in the Islamic world so each other could further the other's understanding of God. He was stating how important religion is in the context of humanity that doesn't reject scientific reason nor current philosopies of other religions for if it did, then it would limit the scope of ethics and morality.

You know my first and only language is English and I had trouble understanding what the Holy See was saying too, but rest assured it wasn't to insult Islam.

He was attempting to illustrate an emperor's writing on the meaning of 'controversy' and what he believed was contrary to God's nature. You have to consider that when belligerents are banging at a city's gates, it seems only natural for an emperor to make those statements at a time when Constantinople was under siege by the Turks, for fear of being compelled to convert to a religion they really didn't want to convert to. That was his understanding of Islam then and he probably wasn't correct because there was a lack of dialogue.

As the Pope also pointed out, compulsion to practice Islam is an anti-thesis of it. He did not mention that Christians were also not compelled to practice Islam as they were accepted as people of the Book which is clearly stated in the Quran, which also states that it's legal for Muslims to marry people of the Book (which includes the Torah and New Testament). For those who don't want to convert, they are asked to pay a tax and in turn, the Muslims would protect them.

What's insulting to all Muslims are the idiots who act out in the name of their religion it because they have become exactly what it is that they have assumed the Pope has said - violent. They are acting out as if they were still living in the Middle Ages and have a voluntary compulsion to behave as if they were in a Holy War (jihad).

It's time to give the Pope a break.