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Sunday, September 17, 2006

A brief summary of Islamist reaction to Pope Benedict's lecture

Little Green Footballs gives us these stories:

ROPs Iraq Branch Threatens Pope with Suicide Attack

Misogynist Medieval Murderers Want Pope to Apologize

London Arabic Paper: Pope = Bin Laden/Hitler

Saudi Grand Mufti: "These Are All Lies"

Somali Cleric Calls for Pope's Death

Alykhan Velshi said this just a day or two ago:

...maybe I should agonise over it more, but somehow I don't. With respect to my religious faith, I agonise more over memorising difficult prayer verses and singing religious songs in tune.I don't however agonise over whatever it is that bothers the violent jihadists.
Which is more important: memorization exercises, singing in tune, or watching members of your religion - these are "your people" - threaten death to the Pope? If this were the public face of Christianity, I would be agonizing over my association with it.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Excuse me, you totally misconstrued what I said.

In the daily practice of my faith, I worry more about getting the prayers right and singing in tune, not about Israel/Palestine, American hegemony, or what have you.

In my non-religious life, I'm focused entirely on defeating militant Islamism: I work full time for a DC policy institute trying to achieve that end and I've written articles to that end, too.

That is to say, whatever it is that borther the jihadists doesn't really affect my faith since it isn't a part of it, I having no inclination to be or lend any support to mass murderers. It is in my non-religious life that jihadism become important, because they are a threat to me, my family and friends, my country, and the West - all of which I cherish dearly.

Alykhan.

Moneyrunner said...

Alykhan.

I understand that you may have significant disagreement with the people who are the public face of your faith. I have those disagreements with the hierarchy of my denomination of Christianity. And it does not affect my faith. Neither should it affect yours.

What it does make me do is to question whether I wish to remain part of this faith community. And it does not lead me to use euphemisms as you did, when you referred to Muslims who commit “suicide” instead of murder.

Now, I have a problem with the Methodist church. But your problem is bigger because Methodists are not threatening to kill the Pope.