Not more than a few hours ago, we wrote:
Imagine a world in which there was something more important than dialogue with another faith – like asserting a justification for why your faith is the correct faith. Not even asserting a justification for your faith – which we thought was going to be the NYT argument – but the attempt to literally preserve the faith that you are the spiritual leader of. Almost like something that a brilliant theologian-turned-Pope might do in a speech at a university (this is just surreal at this point though – they’re blaming the leader of the Catholic faith for trying to prevent the loss of Catholic identity because it prevents interfaith dialogue!! Even if that was a reasonable calculus – which it. is. not. – don’t you need a faith before you can even have interfaith dialogue? Bridging faiths isn’t like State Department and European negotiations with rogue states – the process itself doesn’t manage to substitute for actual content).
And don’t insult our intelligence by pointing out that the jihadist problem is also that they lack tolerance, and so the Pope is like the jihadists. The Pope expresses his belief in the superiority of his faith by tracing how the neo-Platonist trace in Aristotelian empiricism meant that the historical development of science qua falsification was limited by a horizon that it pointed to but could not access. The jihadists express their belief in their faith’s superiority by slitting the throats of Jews on camera – and then selling those tapes to millions of other Muslims.
And now, because the universe hates us:
Well if we didn’t know it before we certainly know now that Pope Benedict XVI was not the best politician in the kennel of potential Popes. He made it clear that he longed for the middle ages, when the church was all powerful, making and breaking kings. To criticize the violence of Islam he quoted Byzantine emperor, Manuel II Paleologos who’s reign was sandwiched the bloody Crusades and the equally bloody Inquisition. The reality is all of the Abrahamic religions, Jewish, Christian and Islamic, are violent and bloody as is their ultimate source the Old Testament. Of course Pope Benedict said he was sorry, not for what he said but that people took offense. Organized religion is a dangerous plague on humanity, the Abrahamic religions being the most dangerous.
Do people actually believe this? Not the religion being bad thing – there are coherent (if sometimes overenthusiastic) defenses of this throughout the ages. Do they believe that the stuff about all the Abrahamic religions being equally violent is an answer to anything. That reminding people that the Crusades happened before the Church modernized is an answer to the suggestion that there is something in Islam that resists modernization? Obviously, when people worry about contemporary religious extremism, they are not worrying about psycho-theological question like ‘which system of thought lends itself most to violent extremism’ (although the answer to that debate is a kill – those that try to actualize utopian social structures on Earth). They’re worrying about actually existing religious extremists – real societies. Say what you will about the Vatican, it’s not a threat to world peace (unless you count being hated for expressing Catholic views as a threat to world peace, which it has just become). Certainly the last couple centuries haven’t really seen organized Catholic efforts of the same kind of even this ho hum act of religious cleansing:
Palestinians wielding guns and firebombs attacked five churches in the West Bank and Gaza on Saturday, following remarks by Pope Benedict that angered many Muslims. No injuries were reported in the attacks, which left church doors charred and walls pockmarked with bullet holes and scorched by firebombs. Churches of various denominations were targeted. Relations between Palestinian Muslims and Christians are generally peaceful, and the attacks on the churches sparked concern that tensions would heighten. “The atmosphere is charged already, and the wise should not accept such acts,” Rev. Yousef Saada, a Greek Catholic priest in Nablus, said Saturday.
Incidentally, we’ve got something going up tomorrow on the “generally peaceful” relations between Palestinian Muslims and Christians (having dwindled through attrition and flight to being 1.7 percent of the population, Christians have a good incentive to stay “peaceful”). But back to the rant at hand. Forget destruction of holy places – when was the last time that the Catholic world threatened to go to war to redress insults to Catholicism:
The recent remarks made by Pope Benedict XVI on Islam are threatening to ignite the entire Muslim world. Op-Eds published in the Arab newspapers slammed the pope even after the Vatican’s apology. The most extreme opinion was voiced by Hani Pahas in the London-based Arabic-language daily newspaper Al-Hayat, who wrote “the pope’s comments may lead to war; we fear that the pope’s statements may lead to a war that we, Muslims and Christians alike, are trying to prevent through dialogue between East and West.
Honestly now, can’t we just kind of give up on using ‘the problem isn’t Islam, it’s religious extremism of any kind’ or any of its variants? It really is aggressively stupid.
