Article

2007-11-26 Olde Tyme Religion

Why Benedict XVI Is So Cautious with the Letter of the 138 Muslims

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by mrp 2007-11-26 09:43|| || Front Page|| [9 views ] Top

#1 You only have to read our Nicene Creed (The Credo) to understand the existing gulf and how difficult it will be for the Pope to do more than say thanks. His more detailed formal response will lay out some of these dichotomies such as our Trinitarian adoration versus the singular of Mohammed. Plus we worship our women via our Mother, the Blessed Virgin (not kill her for honor) and we pray for life everlasting (not martyrdom).

Posted by Jack is Back!">Jack is Back! 2007-11-26 13:40|| 2007-11-26 13:40|| Front Page Top

#2 ~~Islamologist~~ Islamapologist John Esposito

There. fixed.

Posted by Clydelo Fromoethelydo 2007-11-26 14:29|| 2007-11-26 14:29|| Front Page Top

#3 Here's an example from scientific debate which may prove helpful - the nature of light. Light is a particle. No, light is a wave. Modern thought is that light exhibits properties of both. Perhaps the concept of God may be similarly elusive.

Posted by doc 2007-11-26 14:31|| 2007-11-26 14:31|| Front Page Top

#4 Plus we worship our women ...

No, we don't - just the ground they stand on. :)

Posted by mrp 2007-11-26 14:34|| 2007-11-26 14:34|| Front Page Top

#5 Yeah, that whole "3=1" thing is what put 'em off the first time. They were good at math back then.

Posted by mojo">mojo 2007-11-26 16:43|| 2007-11-26 16:43|| Front Page Top

#6 With all due apologies to our Catholic friends, but the urgency of the journey was instigated, not by the Enlightenment, but the Reformation. While there was a brief period of persecution of the RCC hierarchy in the Germanic countries, it came to an abrupt halt with the reappearance of Martin Luther from hiding. Contrast with the decades long religious wars between Catholics and Protestants in France that got people so torqued up that the backlash was quite horrific.

Hmph. Apologizing for the Crusades might be well enough, but I have as yet to hear of an apology for the St Bartholomew (sp?) massacre, OR of Cardinal Richilieu's anti-protestant policies. Yeah, nobody's bitching about them to the extent that the Muslims are bitching about the Crusades, but the Protestants aren't the Muslims, even though they were treated like them.

My plugged nickel. I take you back to our regularly scheduled program of the true lowdown on the Fourth World War.

Posted by Ptah">Ptah 2007-11-26 16:53|| http://www.crusaderwarcollege.org]">[http://www.crusaderwarcollege.org] 2007-11-26 16:53|| Front Page Top

#7 Actually the Enlightenment is at the core if you are careful enough to study your history properly. The Reformation marked the end of the unity of the Church, but the Church did not react to reform itself until the Age of Enlightenment and Age of Reason brought about fundamental threats to the very existence of Christianity, and thus the Catholic Church.

The Enlightenment meant that that "Faith alone" was no longer sufficient, that Reason had to be included, and that free and open practice of other forms (of Christianity) with allowances for the free choice by individuals was a fact (Treaty of Augsburg and later Wesphalia, 1100 years later). The end of the Reformation and beginning of the ENlightenment also mark the end of the Pope and Church as a worldy power with armies and territories - thus the real demarcation of when the Church was forced to deal with being primarily a spiritual and moral power, instead of a military one. Thus the reference the Pope made - Islam is still centered arount the Caliphate and wordly power and armies and wars (Jihad, etc).

This treaty places it firmly in the period of The Enlightenment.

Ptah, you might want to reconsider who was writing those history books you learned the wrong things from. The Refomation set the stage, but the Enlightement really pushed the Chruch into reform and reason, and away from being a worldy power (armies, wars soldiers).

Its not that Liberals don't know anything, its that they know so much that just isn't so. ("Ronaldus Magnus").

Posted by OldSpook 2007-11-26 20:43|| 2007-11-26 20:43|| Front Page Top

#8 1100 = typo,thats more like 100 years (Augsburg as in the mid 1500s)

Posted by OldSpook 2007-11-26 20:45|| 2007-11-26 20:45|| Front Page Top

#9 The end of the Reformation and beginning of the ENlightenment also mark the end of the Pope and Church as a worldy power with armies and territories - thus the real demarcation of when the Church was forced to deal with being primarily a spiritual and moral power, instead of a military one.

Take a good look at the above quote, Old Spook: you admit that the process of terminating the power of the RCC finished at the end of the Reformation and the beginning of the Enlightenment. So how, exactly, is something that happened concurrently with a change be the historical, prior cause of the change?

The treaty of Augsberg was in 1555. Martin Luther died in 1546, having started the Reformation decades earlier. The Treaty of Westphalia ENDED a hundred years of RELIGIOUS wars. This, of course, all happened before the Enlightenment (roughly the 18th century). IN short, the reliance of the RCC on military force was checked, and eventually terminated, by the protestants of the Reformation. This created the "reason, not guns" environment that fostered the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment accomplished some real achievements, but doesn't justify crowing about something that your ancestors bequeathed to you as if you created it yourself.

Posted by Ptah">Ptah 2007-11-26 22:44|| http://www.crusaderwarcollege.org]">[http://www.crusaderwarcollege.org] 2007-11-26 22:44|| Front Page Top

#10 His Regensburg address already made clear exactly how sharp Benedict's mind is. I can only hope he personally vetted the content shown above. If so, I read into it a bit of serious groundwork onwhat could just as easily becomesome rather forceful replies to Islam.

On the other, one must welcome the true conquests of the Enlightenment, human rights and especially the freedom of faith and its practice, and recognize these also as being essential elements for the authenticity of religion.

Which looks one helluva lot like saying, "If a religion cannot coexist with other faiths, it is not an 'authentic' religion". This would represent a tremendous step towards the stance that Islam might no longer be regarded as a "true" religion and instead, the political ideology that it really is.

is the Muslim world ready to make a similar journey? Is it ready to recognize the religious neutrality of the state, and therefore the equal freedom, within the state, of all the religions?

No. Effing far from it, if even on the same planet. Next question.

He maintains that Islam, in a position of command, remains far from accepting the neutrality of the state, and therefore the full freedom of all religions.

This is where political Islam sheds its sable pelt of religious semblance and unsheathes its military claws.

that country would have the right to close its borders, in self-defense. Because a secular state cannot renounce the "natural law" that is its foundation: "a law induced by membership in a cultural world rooted in the elements of the classical world, Judaism, and Christianity, but reconceived within the context of the Enlightenment

All of which points towards what I have posted about inserting constitutional language forever prohibiting adoption of shari'a law, even by majority vote. Similarly, here we also see the barest glimmerings of a protective Europe going "screens up" against further Muslim intrusion. Much of the above also lays groundwork for the potential declaration of Islam as inimicalif not outright hostileto constitutional rule of law and thereby sets the stage for some serious containment of both Shari'a and Muslims alike.

All of thisplaced under the physical pressure of violent assault, read: "terrorism"is a precursor to, at least, mass expulsions or, far worse, flat out genocide of the sort that Europe is more than familiar with.

While it would be nice to think that Muslims have perceived this carefully worded statement as a definite warning shot across Islam's bow, such a desirable outcome is less than likely. More probable is that this is but one more opportunity where Islam has missed an opportunity to purchase a clue before Western civilization drops the hammer on its endless aggression. Tough noogies.

Posted by Zenster">Zenster 2007-11-26 22:47|| 2007-11-26 22:47|| Front Page Top

23:53 Zenster
23:49 Procopius2k
23:43 Zenster
23:38 Zenster
23:25 Zenster
23:21 Zenster
23:09 Zenster
23:05 Skidmark
22:58 Skidmark
22:56 Skidmark
22:54 Skidmark
22:48 Silentbrick
22:47 Zenster
22:44 Ptah
22:17 Justrand
21:51 Leonard Plynth Garnell
21:48 mrp
21:44 OldSpook
21:42 Grunter
21:33 trailing wife
21:25 Nimble Spemble
21:24 trailing wife
21:17 Nimble Spemble
21:05 WTF