Sigmund, Carl and Alfred

Islam has come a long way.

From the organized study of medicine, mathematics and philosophy and the pursuit of scientic exploration, Islamic scholars of today have come a long way from their predecessors.

The most recent example of Islamic outrage is the result of words uttered by the Pope. In a recent speech, the Pope said that forced and violent conversion to Islam was “contrary to God’s nature” and reason.

Benedict

…began his address by quoting from a 14th-century dialogue between the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus and an “educated Persian.’’ The two debate the merits of reason in Christianity and the Muslim concept of holy war. Manuel, who champions faith embedded in reason, is quoted as criticizing Islam with what Benedict called “a startling brusqueness.’’

“Show me just what Muhammad 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,’’ Benedict quoted the emperor as saying. There is no response from the interlocutor.

Benedict himself remarked on Manuel’s ‘brusqness,’ as he recounted historical events, but apparently, that means little.

It is clear for all to see that Islam, under they tyranny of dysfunctional leaders, has been reduced to a shell of itself. Where once truth was championed and sought, now Islamic leaders demand that even history be rewritten to accomadate the deliberate deceit or ignorance that the Islamic leaders perpetrate.

Nowhere do Islamic leaders, fostering the anti Rome frenzied hysteria, note that the Pontiff’s remarks that

…only by recognizing the “rationality of faith” do people “become capable of that genuine dialogue of cultures and religions so urgently needed today.”

Where is the rational and honest response to the Pope’s remarks? He did not insult Islam and in fact, to insinuate that he did only serves to reinforce one of two points. Either Islamic religious leaders are delibertately misrepresenting Benedict’s remarks, or after reading his remarks, they were incapable of deciphering their meaning and the Pope’s intent. In either case, Islamic religious leaders look foolish.

In addition, Islamic leaders that are so sensitive to any religious slight, ought best to look in the mirror. These ‘leaders,’ (a religious carbon copy of the Arab League, whose sole function it is to maintain the status quo at all costs) cannot believe they will be taken seriously even as they spew some of the most vile hatred and religious bigotry uttered in recent memory.

Only foolish people believe that threatening violence now will create more respect for Islam, in the same way only foolish people believe that the cartoon riots were a good idea.

If the Islamic world wants to be taken seriously, they cannot preach hate and violence on the one hand, and then insist they are ‘just like us’ on the other.

Look around at our world and the Islamic world, and compare. Deal with reality- the differences have nothing to do with colonialism, Jews or America. The differences exist because of the choices people and regimes make. We have written about those kind of delusions, before.

We have said that

The legacy of colonialism is what those former colonies make of it. More often than not, colonialists came into a society that was far behind their own, in terms of achievement, advancement and human progress. Notwithstanding the mythical and fabricated notions that ‘the white man’ came into primitive, peaceful and loving cultures, only to destroy them, the fact remains that these cultures and societies could have been greatly benefited by the advent of the ‘white man.’ Those societies resisted the advances they could have assimilated into their own culture.

It is true there were abuses, of course, as there are in any human endeavor. It is also true that taking advantage of modern day tools and ideas are not an all or nothing proposition. Even today, there are groups of people that refuse the tools that might make their lives easier.

We noted why Islam degenerated into nothing more than an enormous petrie dish of failure:

In much of the Islamic world, choosing to fail is encouraged and facilitated by the corrupt and dysfunctional regimes that have come to define that world. Simply stated, a failed and less educated and informed society is a society more easily controlled and exploited. A society that believes failure is inevitable is a society that believes change for the better is impossible. For that Carnival of Dysfunctional Tyrants, that kind of servile and self flagellating society is a gift.

Those tyrants have exploited religion to encourage and fortify their message. That truth cannot be understated. In most of the Muslim world, clerics are in the employ of the corrupt regimes that pay their salaries.

In those societies, where speech and expression are strictly prohibited and media is an integral part of government , it is clear that the hate filled and inciting rhetoric of religious ‘leaders,’ employed by these despotic regimes, are approved and coordinated to coincide with the policies of these dysfunctional regimes. You cannot disapprove of the tyrannical regimes and at the same time, approve of the religious rhetoric and messages that only serve that regime.

We may be kaffirs, but we aren’t stupid.

**UPDATE**

The Anchoress has an excellent piece, Benedict’s Blunder Was Partly Media Enhanced, in which she looks at the media’s part in the current brouhaha. While George Bush may be the media’s red center of the bullseye, religion- Christianity and Catholicism in particular- are the blue rings closest to the bullsye, that are often hit.

Headlines have a powerful effect on the world. Busy or incurious people rarely read past them. For some, the headline tells them all they will ever know about a thing…found its headline in a Lebanese newspaper… The headline, though, is meant only to inflame.

The Anchoress also goes on to note that

Just so we’re straight - Pope Benedict made a speech in which he invited Muslims to dialogue, criticized terrorism as a means of movement and then quoted a 14th Century Byzantine to make the point that Islam and the West have had rather a long history of struggles. Three paragraphs of the speech covered all of that. The rest of the speech was about faith and reason, and a criticisim of secularism in the West. The pope was basically doing the job of the pope, and doing it the way a scholar, teacher and theologian - that would be Benedict - would do it.

There’s more- read it all. When The Anchoress takes aim, duck.