Article

2008-01-09 Olde Tyme Religion

Muslim scholars and Pope to debate in March

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Posted by ryuge 2008-01-09 07:22|| || Front Page|| [11132 views ] Top

#1 Probably wouldn't hurt for him to read RB to bone up on things before the big debate! :-)

Posted by gorb 2008-01-09 07:38|| 2008-01-09 07:38|| Front Page Top

#2 Probably wouldn't hurt for him to get better security.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2008-01-09 08:39|| 2008-01-09 08:39|| Front Page Top

#3 Item 1) Pope Benedict XVI will not debate with these "scholars". The meetings, if they occur, will be with Vatican officials.

Item 2) Remember the two gifts that the King of Saudi Arabia delivered to the Pope last year? One was a sword. The other was a stature of a desert raider. That's the message of Islam to Benedict.

Posted by mrp 2008-01-09 08:55|| 2008-01-09 08:55|| Front Page Top

#4 I give this less chance than the U.S. Department of State coaxing the U.N. into being a streamlined and efficient world problem-solving body. When this falls apart, the Muslim "scholars" will have done their Koranic duty to invite the infidels into Islam and thus Islam will then be freed take up the sword against those who have not accepted the invitation.

A major weakness in the western peace movements is the mistaken assumption that hostile parties are all men of goodwill who will sit down to dialogue with no ulterior motives.

Posted by Darrell 2008-01-09 08:56|| 2008-01-09 08:56|| Front Page Top

#5 When the "Letter" was published last year, the author of this commentary (which should be read), Fr. Samir Khalil Samir, was ecstatic, almost Chamberlainesque, in his response. Then he mellowed a bit, and now, reality bites.

Excerpt:

The greatest danger of the letter of the 138 is in its silences, in what it does not address: there is no reference, for example, to the problems of the international community in regard to the Muslim community, or to the real problems within the Muslim community. The Ummah finds itself at a very delicate point, in a phase of widespread extremism and radicalism among a significant segment of Muslims, which is a form of exclusivity: those who do not think as we do are our enemies. This is evident every day in the Muslim press, and we see violence and attacks in Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, among Sunni and Shiite Muslims, or against Christians or Jews, or simply against tolerant Muslims . . . and they do exist!

And this:

But then (in the fifth paragraph of the text) they propose a distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic, and explain: "By 'intrinsic' I mean that which refers to our own souls and their inner make-up, and by 'extrinsic' I mean that which refers to the world and thus to society". They propose starting on the basis of the letter that they wrote, "A Common Word Between Us and You", and concentrating on "the unicity of God and the twofold commandment of love of God and neighbor". Everything else belongs to the extrinsic dimension, including social concerns.

Honestly, I find this distinction weak and even un-Islamic. Because if "intrinsic" is the soul and "extrinsic" is the world and society, then the Qur'an speaks a great deal of "extrinsic" things, and very little of "intrinsic" things. The Qur'an talks about the world, commerce, life in society, war, marriage, etc., but it says very little about the soul and one's relationship with God. But above all, the Qur'an never makes this distinction. On the contrary; the problem of Islam is precisely that of not making any sort of distinction between these two levels. Why in the world do the 138 want to address only "intrinsic" things? I think they're afraid of confronting the complete reality of the two religions.

From the commentary's conclusion:

I would not like for some theologians, finding themselves in difficulty over the affirmation of the dignity of every man, to look for a way of escape in theological dialogue. This method risks producing nothing but falsehood. But this is a problem that also exists within Islam itself. Until this has based everything upon the human person and reinterpreted the faith in the light of human rights, it will never be modern.

In the two Islamic declarations on human rights, it is repeatedly affirmed that Islam admits human rights, "as long as these conform to the law". To an unsuspecting person who reads the English translation, this may seem to be just fine. The point is that for the English translation "law", the Arab versions say "conform to sharia". This means that the "Islamic" human rights risk re-proposing the usual injustices and violence: apostasy, blasphemy, stoning, injustice toward women and children, etc[8].

Of course, interreligious dialogue cannot focus only upon human rights, but neither can it act as if there were not a serious problem precisely in this regard.

Posted by mrp 2008-01-09 09:45|| 2008-01-09 09:45|| Front Page Top

#6 Better frisk the muzzies before you let them in. They have the worst tendency to start shooting when they can't shout you down.

Posted by bigjim-ky 2008-01-09 09:54|| 2008-01-09 09:54|| Front Page Top

#7 Both the Catholics and the Muslims have a history of religious debate -- both with Jewish rabbis. The early Catholic debates were quite fair, and the rabbis often won; the later ones were loaded, the rabbis being killed and/or massacres of the the ghetto residents if the rabbis didn't allow themselves to be decisively beaten. As far as I know, the Muslim ones were never fair.

The current generation of Catholics go into this debate much, much better prepared than the Muslims, armed with logic, several hundred years of competing in a religious marketplace, knoowledge of the opponent, and honesty. I really, really hope this goes off, and is televised worldwide with running commentary. The Muslim scholars will be tied in knots of hopeless illogic, hatefulness, and revealed taqqiya in front of the entire world... or in temper tantrums when they realize they've lost the argument they started. Oh yes, and make sure the Swiss Guards in the room have orders to shoot as necessary.

Posted by Glusoting Smith3164">Glusoting Smith3164 2008-01-09 11:57|| 2008-01-09 11:57|| Front Page Top

#8 Sorry, my cookie disappeared somewhere. I seem to have temporarily become Glusoting Smith3164.

Posted by trailing wife">trailing wife 2008-01-09 12:44|| 2008-01-09 12:44|| Front Page Top

#9 TW has a secret identity!

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2008-01-09 13:32|| 2008-01-09 13:32|| Front Page Top

#10 Sotted on Glue perfectly describes the TW we all know and cherish.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2008-01-09 13:48|| 2008-01-09 13:48|| Front Page Top

#11 Here's a gem passage from the linked article that sums up what *I* want from the debaters:

"Respect" here also means that there are differences that must be guaranteed and welcomed. For example, a Muslim can say to a Christian: I do not agree with what you believe, that Jesus has a human and divine nature. You Christians are polytheists, because you place other gods, your Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, beside the one God. I say: let us seek to live in mutual respect. You have the full right to say that the Islamic conception excludes the Trinity, the divine-humanity. But leave me the right to say, for example, that Mohammed was not sent by God. I can acknowledge that he was a great personality on the human and political level, a social and spiritual reformer, that he also brought negative contributions, but not that he was a prophet. Do I have the right to say that, or not? As you have the right to say that you do not believe in the divinity of Christ - and in this you are consistent in your faith - we, too, have the right to say what we think about Mohammed. In short, there is no such thing as a "taboo" topic, but there are only taboo means and methods, because these are violent and disrespectful.

I think this is an issue that should be forced to the front: will there be true equality, in both directions, for this sort of thing, IN ALL FORUMS? I don't want the muslim weasels saying that criticising Mohammed is okay only in an academic context between faculty members, which is a sliver of a minority of the vast population. Does EVERYONE have that right?

Heh, TW, I am NOT surprised at the losses suffered by Catholic priests at the hands of Rabbis, which should have warned them that they had some housecleaning to do before the Reformers went after them with Sola Scriptura. Few Christians have any real depth in the Jewish scriptures (Old testament), so they fancy they can prove Jesus is the Messiah solely from Old Testament verses (can't be done: the verses are not detailed enough, in my view, to 'prove' it). The claims that Paul, Apollos, and the apostles were able to do that are unsupported, since the New testament does not report the details of the core arguments that were made.

There actually was one good outcome from those Jewish/Catholic debates: the current book/chaper/verse coordinate system for the Old and New Testaments was developed and accepted by both sides as a way to facilitate those debates, and probably was the only thing of lasting worth coming out of them.

Posted by Ptah">Ptah 2008-01-09 14:13|| http://www.crusaderwarcollege.org]">[http://www.crusaderwarcollege.org] 2008-01-09 14:13|| Front Page Top

#12 Interesting, Ptah. I never knew that about the book/chapter/verse thing.

Posted by Ebbang Uluque6305 2008-01-09 15:11|| 2008-01-09 15:11|| Front Page Top

#13 I didn't know about Ptah's thingy either. (He's one of my favourite Rantburg U professors.) But the Catholics have been discussing all sorts of things with their Jewish and Protestant colleagues, and they've learnt a great deal that is useful... and the current pope is considered an expert on Islam.

Posted by trailing wife 2008-01-09 23:47|| 2008-01-09 23:47|| Front Page Top

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