The Pope's Faulty Thesis (in regards to Islam)

We are glad that you decided to join us, but we really do not like long cut & paste jobs. If there is something you wish to link to, provide a link with attribution, but copying a long article and posting it here is not how we debate.At the end of this message you will find links to several threads that should help

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The pope has done a big mistake and he no sorry i mean christians will know that when we assasinate hm

Sorry pop but making threats like that is not acceptable here. You are banned.

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As the chief representitive of the ecumenical movement he certainly shot himself in the foot. Assassinating him would add injury to insult.

As much as I find the whole the concept of "The Church" to be taken completely out of context and that I particularly find this Pope less than appealing, what he stated was not as grievous as some Muslims have portrayed it.I think Tusko may be right that it was a tactical maneuver on the part of the Catholic Church to get them to behave exactly the way he suspected they would-- with violence. I have always found it either to be profoundly ironic or profoundly stupid for certain Muslims to act the one way they claim not to be-- violent. Time and time again, someone mentions the umentionable, that certain Muslims behave fanatical and violent. They get offended by the assertion only to act out in the exact manner that offended them to begin with, thus, making their opposition sit pretty in their decision. The Catholic Church was probably banking that, as they no doubt, see Islam as a festering wound that is in dire need of an antiseptic before a pandemic occurs. I agree that this has all the trappings of an agenda; as if he needed to do this; as if their behavior wasn't apparent before his remarks. I don't know how overt it was but their had to be some reason in mentioning it publicly.

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"There is not in all America a more dangerous trait than the deification of mere smartness unaccompanied by any sense of moral responsibility." -Theodore Roosevelt

On what basis is catholocism or any other form of Christianity more rational than Islamic beliefs.
They are both unprovable. They are both reliant on faith. I would argue they are both wholly reliant on indoctrination.....The single biggest obstacle to any sort of rational and peaceful way forwards in world politics today is GW Bush. Not Iran and not N.Korea.

I do . Edited by Rascaduanok, : No reason given.Edited by Rascaduanok, : Formatting hyperlinkEdited by Adminnemooseus, : Added the "(re: Islamic Statements Against Terrorism)" part to subtitle.

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Thank you sir.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Well done, Ras, and welcome.

I took a step up (or is that a step down?) the ladder, to the Department of Sociology, University of North Caroline, Chapel Hill home page of Charles Kurzman. Look at the courses he teaches (by bolding)!

quote:

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Sociology 273, "Social and Economic Justice," Spring 2007
Sociology 950.2, 1-credit Graduate Course, "Middle East Politics," Spring 2007
Sociology 250, "Social Theory," Fall 2006
Sociology 700, Graduate Course, "Social Theory," Fall 2006
Sociology 119, "Sociology of Islam," Spring 2006
Sociology 326.6, Graduate Course, "Celebrity Status," Spring 2005
Sociology 326.4, Graduate Course, "Radical Islamic Movements," Fall 2004
Sociology 311, Graduate Course, "Political Sociology," Fall 2003

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He also has quite a few other interesting links there, besides the one you cited.Cheers,
Moose

We have some ongoing threads dealing with some of the factors that lead to the current situation in the Middle East. They can be found at Message 1 and another at Message 1 and would love to have you join in and contribute.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

What more needs to be said?

Why, thank you very much! I’ll check those out when I have some spare time. I read your thread on the barbarity of Christianity before I joined. Modern day Islam has quite a lot of those problems too. I’ll have to see about contributing to that thread as well.

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Sheesh. Now I will have to go back and see what I said. While Fundamentalism seems to be on the rise these days in all of the major religions, I hope we can encourage more contributions from the moderate POV as well.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

I agree wholeheartedly, jar. I have visited some forums with very extreme views that purport to denounce extremism themselves! This thread on a Catholic forum, for example, attempts to ”prove’ that only mass-murdering muslims represent the true face of Islam. I have grown up my whole life in the UK amongst (mostly) peaceful muslims and communities who simply want to live their own lives much the same as anyone in ”The West’. Even when Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses caused controversy and footage of book-burning took precedence on television news broadcasts, nobody I knew called for his death or did anything remotely violent.I mentioned that thread simply in response to your call for encouraging a moderate point of view. If a large number of muslims (or ”muslimuun’ to use the Arabic, and therefore, in this case, technically ”correct’ plural) call for peace and co-existence, why would anyone object to that!? Why not hold them up as shining examples of ”true’ Islam and weed out fringe minorities?

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