Yet more simulacra of ecstatic fury and crocodile tears
Another day, another effigy-burning.
And, naturally, it displays a wilful, almost autistic urge on the part of Muslims to misinterpret - or perhaps, more accurately, credulously to allow to have misinterpreted for them by clerics - anything said about them, their holy text, or their prophet. Are we really to believe that they are all so universally stupid as to consider that when Pope Benedict XVI quoted Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Paleologus, in dialogue with "an educated Persian" on the subject of the rationality of religion and its compatibility with the Greek spirit of philosophical inquiry and who considered the early (pre-Mohammedan) Koran's injunction that "there is no compulsion in religion" incompatible with the Prophet's later teaching concerning the spreading of the faith by the sword (which cannot be said to be any tremendous theological insight, frankly), as saying, "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," they all thought it was the Pope saying these things directly and that he subscribed to such notions?
Presumably not. Unthinking subscription to mediæval cults doesn't necessarily presuppose a total lack of higher brain functions. Whether or not any of them had individually happened across those words, they had nonetheless been written down for some 600 years, which is much older than even the most deluded, sub-Brown Catholic-conspiracy theorist nutbox can possibly believe that the Pope is. So, assuming we can take it as read that the billion "alienated" Muslims do not, in fact, believe that the Pope was using his own words to describe his own opinions, what are we to make of their reaction?
Another opportunity to kick up some fuss, presumably. Another opportunity to prance around like magnificent poufs waving signs urging severe physical punishment on those who dare to take a different viewpoint. ("Behead those who mock Islam" makes, if you ask me, a pretty efficient mockery of "the religion of peace" all on its own: does that mean the chap waving it around should be beheaded too?) Another chance to drive for more lily-livered appeasment from the terrified, morally uncertain Christian/secular West. Another little tap on the Sharia nail in the coffin of freedom. It doesn't hurt that it's the Pope bearing the brunt of the ill-considered opprobrium this time, either.
And, naturally, it displays a wilful, almost autistic urge on the part of Muslims to misinterpret - or perhaps, more accurately, credulously to allow to have misinterpreted for them by clerics - anything said about them, their holy text, or their prophet. Are we really to believe that they are all so universally stupid as to consider that when Pope Benedict XVI quoted Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Paleologus, in dialogue with "an educated Persian" on the subject of the rationality of religion and its compatibility with the Greek spirit of philosophical inquiry and who considered the early (pre-Mohammedan) Koran's injunction that "there is no compulsion in religion" incompatible with the Prophet's later teaching concerning the spreading of the faith by the sword (which cannot be said to be any tremendous theological insight, frankly), as saying, "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," they all thought it was the Pope saying these things directly and that he subscribed to such notions?
Presumably not. Unthinking subscription to mediæval cults doesn't necessarily presuppose a total lack of higher brain functions. Whether or not any of them had individually happened across those words, they had nonetheless been written down for some 600 years, which is much older than even the most deluded, sub-Brown Catholic-conspiracy theorist nutbox can possibly believe that the Pope is. So, assuming we can take it as read that the billion "alienated" Muslims do not, in fact, believe that the Pope was using his own words to describe his own opinions, what are we to make of their reaction?
Another opportunity to kick up some fuss, presumably. Another opportunity to prance around like magnificent poufs waving signs urging severe physical punishment on those who dare to take a different viewpoint. ("Behead those who mock Islam" makes, if you ask me, a pretty efficient mockery of "the religion of peace" all on its own: does that mean the chap waving it around should be beheaded too?) Another chance to drive for more lily-livered appeasment from the terrified, morally uncertain Christian/secular West. Another little tap on the Sharia nail in the coffin of freedom. It doesn't hurt that it's the Pope bearing the brunt of the ill-considered opprobrium this time, either.
posted by Novus at 13:42
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home