Post by Josh on Feb 10, 2007 20:08:07 GMT -8
9/20/06:
If you know me, you know I have a certain respect for Islam. There is much in it that I find admirable. I hope that is visible in the following observations:
There seems to be a predominate misunderstanding in the reporting I've seen regarding the Pope's Comments on Islam and the Muslim response.
The real offense of the Pope's words to much of the Muslim world (except the liberal minority) wasn't that he was saying that Islam is an intrinsically warring religion. In fact, the violent reaction of many Muslims to the supposed offense only underscores that point.
In fairness to the Muslims, what really offended the majority of them was that they perceived that Muhammad was being insulted. And an insult to Muhammad is something that a good Muslim must not tolerate, as far as I'm aware.
My understanding of Pope Benedict's point in the use of his quote (whether a good idea or not) was that Muhammad didn't really add anything truly novel to what Christ had already preached and, in fact, only achieved a regression of Christ's high ideals. Again, I'm not sure Pope Benedict's choice of words was necessarily the best, but, then again, why are we all so afraid of someone disagreeing with us, or even worse, saying that we are wrong?
This made me think of an interesting contrast. Whereas Islam cannot tolerate an insult to it's Prophet (and that is a totally reasonable outgrowth of loyalty), Jesus, shockingly, told us:
"Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven..." Matthew 12:32a
If you know me, you know I have a certain respect for Islam. There is much in it that I find admirable. I hope that is visible in the following observations:
There seems to be a predominate misunderstanding in the reporting I've seen regarding the Pope's Comments on Islam and the Muslim response.
The real offense of the Pope's words to much of the Muslim world (except the liberal minority) wasn't that he was saying that Islam is an intrinsically warring religion. In fact, the violent reaction of many Muslims to the supposed offense only underscores that point.
In fairness to the Muslims, what really offended the majority of them was that they perceived that Muhammad was being insulted. And an insult to Muhammad is something that a good Muslim must not tolerate, as far as I'm aware.
My understanding of Pope Benedict's point in the use of his quote (whether a good idea or not) was that Muhammad didn't really add anything truly novel to what Christ had already preached and, in fact, only achieved a regression of Christ's high ideals. Again, I'm not sure Pope Benedict's choice of words was necessarily the best, but, then again, why are we all so afraid of someone disagreeing with us, or even worse, saying that we are wrong?
This made me think of an interesting contrast. Whereas Islam cannot tolerate an insult to it's Prophet (and that is a totally reasonable outgrowth of loyalty), Jesus, shockingly, told us:
"Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven..." Matthew 12:32a
