Toronto Sun - Previously Unexplored Stupidity As A Justification For Anti-Papal Riots
Marianne Meed Ward from the Toronto Sun is quite simply an idiot:
The kindest interpretation that can be made of the Pope's remarks is that he was trying to condemn spreading religion by force. The text he read from criticizes Mohammad for advancing Islam by the sword.
There are two ironies here. First, the Pope's comments may have already, and may in the near future, contribute to violence.
And second, Christianity has been no slouch in the spreading faith by the sword department. The Crusades and the Inquisition come to mind. More recently, there is a view within the Muslim world that U.S. President George W. Bush, a self-avowed committed Christian, isn't simply trying to export democracy with the wars he wages, but his Christian way of life, too.
Notice that the irony of Muslims murdering nuns to express their outrage at the suggestion that Islam is violent is not one of the two ironies that our sophisticated Toronto Sun columnist cites. No - it's that the Pope's comments have "contributed to violence" (violence by whom, praytell?) and that the Crusades happened. Oh, also that jihadists are so insane that they think the Crusades are still happening, because in their understanding of Islam Christians and Jews will be perpetual enemies until literally the end of time. Now, that may seem insane to you or us - but that's because we don't have the incisive understanding of Western jurisprudence that Marianne Meed Ward has:
This is harder to discount than it seems at first. Much of our jurisprudence in North America has been founded on Judeo-Christian principles. The requirement in our courts of law that you have a right to know your accusers could have come straight out of the Book of Matthew, which tells accusers to go directly to the person they have a beef with, before taking it to church leaders.
Even the requirement of "an eye for an eye" as a model of justice has been seen by some as a limit on injustice - do no worse to another than what has been done to you. Don't take out a village because one of your own has died. The idea that every person has an equal voice and an equal vote - which forms the very basis of our democratic system - is an offshoot of the idea of the "priesthood of all believers," we are all equal before God.
Similarly, we are all equal when it comes time to vote. This expansive equality is not an idea that sits well in many religious traditions, but nevertheless it is biblical. So is the U.S. exporting faith with democracy, when it wages war? Explicitly, no, but implicitly, yes, because faith forms the foundation of our democracy. That perhaps explains the resistance in Islamic countries to the North American brand of democracy.
See, this is what we mean when we say that terrorist apologists are not smart. Take, for instance, the idea that "an eye for an eye" is a particularly Judeo-Christian concept and is foreign to the Arabs of, say, Iraq. Now to a third grader, this might seem like a compelling argument, because the phrase "an eye for an eye" does actually appear in Exodus (good job, Toronto Sun fact checkers!). But this is obviously stupid. "An eye for an eye" actually predates the events in Exodus by a minimum of five hundred years. It of course appears as law 196 in the Code of Hammurabi. The Code of Hammurabi, of course, was written in the middle of the 1700s BC in Babylon - and Babylon, of course, is also known by its more contemporary name, Iraq. So instead of proving that Bush is exporting Christian values to Iraq, what Marianne Meed Ward demonstrates is that Bush is doing the exact opposite. And instead of that proposition being "harder to discount than it seems at first", it turns out to be exactly as easy to discount as it seems at first. Unless you're a pathetic and pretentious intellectual desperately looking for any way to excuse rampaging jihadists who shoot nuns and burn churches. Then maybe it's hard to discount.
Untangling these apologias for terrorism is becoming like trying to potty train a two year old. Every time you reason with them, they come up with some new excuse why it's OK to soil their pants.
UPDATE: And of course, how could Marianne Meed Ward's article be complete without the least credible argument ever, our old friend 'it's not any particular religion that's the problem, it's religious fundamentalism of all types' (and she even uses those words (!!)):
It's no secret that religious fundamentalism of all types, but most notably Christian and Islamic fundamentalism, is the fastest growing brand of religion around the globe. The attraction to its followers is that it is simple to follow, and requires no thought on their part, only obedience. The attraction to its leaders is that it guarantees their power over their followers. Judgment against those who disagree with the prevailing fundamentalist beliefs is swift and harsh - excommunication in our country; death by stoning elsewhere.
Now explain this to us: how does a semi-literate human being look at a paragraph and say to themselves "'excommunication in our country; death by stoning elsewhere' - yeah, those seem to be close enough that it's reasonable to write as if they're the same thing". And then she finishes with a flourish - first, the pro forma condemnation ('sure, violence in the name of religion is bad')...
Seen in this light, the violence that has and may continue to erupt as a result of the Pope's comments is the fault of those committing the violence, and the leaders who fail to speak strongly against it, and them alone.
... only to be followed up by the inevitable "BUT"...
Violence in the name of religion is just plain wrong. Maybe that's what the Pope was getting at, albeit very badly. It's a message worth repeating, and we'd do well to apply it to ourselves before others.
"Maybe that's what the Pope was getting at". Oh you think so, do you? We're actually kind of disappointed that Ms. Ward fell into the easy 'we all agree that... but..." form for the end of the article. Up until that point it had seemed like a genuinely original contribution to the annals of terrorist apologizing. As near as we can tell, the 'an eye for an eye is implicitly Christian, ergo there's some justification for the claim that the US-led liberation of Iraq is a Crusade' is totally original. At least we haven't seen it before. So five points awarded for originality, but two off for the laziness there at the end. Still, +3 total. Well done Ms. Ward.
The kindest interpretation that can be made of the Pope's remarks is that he was trying to condemn spreading religion by force. The text he read from criticizes Mohammad for advancing Islam by the sword.
There are two ironies here. First, the Pope's comments may have already, and may in the near future, contribute to violence.
And second, Christianity has been no slouch in the spreading faith by the sword department. The Crusades and the Inquisition come to mind. More recently, there is a view within the Muslim world that U.S. President George W. Bush, a self-avowed committed Christian, isn't simply trying to export democracy with the wars he wages, but his Christian way of life, too.
Notice that the irony of Muslims murdering nuns to express their outrage at the suggestion that Islam is violent is not one of the two ironies that our sophisticated Toronto Sun columnist cites. No - it's that the Pope's comments have "contributed to violence" (violence by whom, praytell?) and that the Crusades happened. Oh, also that jihadists are so insane that they think the Crusades are still happening, because in their understanding of Islam Christians and Jews will be perpetual enemies until literally the end of time. Now, that may seem insane to you or us - but that's because we don't have the incisive understanding of Western jurisprudence that Marianne Meed Ward has:
This is harder to discount than it seems at first. Much of our jurisprudence in North America has been founded on Judeo-Christian principles. The requirement in our courts of law that you have a right to know your accusers could have come straight out of the Book of Matthew, which tells accusers to go directly to the person they have a beef with, before taking it to church leaders.
Even the requirement of "an eye for an eye" as a model of justice has been seen by some as a limit on injustice - do no worse to another than what has been done to you. Don't take out a village because one of your own has died. The idea that every person has an equal voice and an equal vote - which forms the very basis of our democratic system - is an offshoot of the idea of the "priesthood of all believers," we are all equal before God.
Similarly, we are all equal when it comes time to vote. This expansive equality is not an idea that sits well in many religious traditions, but nevertheless it is biblical. So is the U.S. exporting faith with democracy, when it wages war? Explicitly, no, but implicitly, yes, because faith forms the foundation of our democracy. That perhaps explains the resistance in Islamic countries to the North American brand of democracy.
See, this is what we mean when we say that terrorist apologists are not smart. Take, for instance, the idea that "an eye for an eye" is a particularly Judeo-Christian concept and is foreign to the Arabs of, say, Iraq. Now to a third grader, this might seem like a compelling argument, because the phrase "an eye for an eye" does actually appear in Exodus (good job, Toronto Sun fact checkers!). But this is obviously stupid. "An eye for an eye" actually predates the events in Exodus by a minimum of five hundred years. It of course appears as law 196 in the Code of Hammurabi. The Code of Hammurabi, of course, was written in the middle of the 1700s BC in Babylon - and Babylon, of course, is also known by its more contemporary name, Iraq. So instead of proving that Bush is exporting Christian values to Iraq, what Marianne Meed Ward demonstrates is that Bush is doing the exact opposite. And instead of that proposition being "harder to discount than it seems at first", it turns out to be exactly as easy to discount as it seems at first. Unless you're a pathetic and pretentious intellectual desperately looking for any way to excuse rampaging jihadists who shoot nuns and burn churches. Then maybe it's hard to discount.
Untangling these apologias for terrorism is becoming like trying to potty train a two year old. Every time you reason with them, they come up with some new excuse why it's OK to soil their pants.
UPDATE: And of course, how could Marianne Meed Ward's article be complete without the least credible argument ever, our old friend 'it's not any particular religion that's the problem, it's religious fundamentalism of all types' (and she even uses those words (!!)):
It's no secret that religious fundamentalism of all types, but most notably Christian and Islamic fundamentalism, is the fastest growing brand of religion around the globe. The attraction to its followers is that it is simple to follow, and requires no thought on their part, only obedience. The attraction to its leaders is that it guarantees their power over their followers. Judgment against those who disagree with the prevailing fundamentalist beliefs is swift and harsh - excommunication in our country; death by stoning elsewhere.
Now explain this to us: how does a semi-literate human being look at a paragraph and say to themselves "'excommunication in our country; death by stoning elsewhere' - yeah, those seem to be close enough that it's reasonable to write as if they're the same thing". And then she finishes with a flourish - first, the pro forma condemnation ('sure, violence in the name of religion is bad')...
Seen in this light, the violence that has and may continue to erupt as a result of the Pope's comments is the fault of those committing the violence, and the leaders who fail to speak strongly against it, and them alone.
... only to be followed up by the inevitable "BUT"...
Violence in the name of religion is just plain wrong. Maybe that's what the Pope was getting at, albeit very badly. It's a message worth repeating, and we'd do well to apply it to ourselves before others.
"Maybe that's what the Pope was getting at". Oh you think so, do you? We're actually kind of disappointed that Ms. Ward fell into the easy 'we all agree that... but..." form for the end of the article. Up until that point it had seemed like a genuinely original contribution to the annals of terrorist apologizing. As near as we can tell, the 'an eye for an eye is implicitly Christian, ergo there's some justification for the claim that the US-led liberation of Iraq is a Crusade' is totally original. At least we haven't seen it before. So five points awarded for originality, but two off for the laziness there at the end. Still, +3 total. Well done Ms. Ward.
