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09/18/2006 Archived Entry: "I don't get it (religion, violence, and logic)"

SO THE POPE QUOTED A REMARK from a Medieval manuscript about early Muslims making converts at sword-point. (Which in fact they did.) And hardly anybody steps in to note that Christians have an even longer, bloodier, and more aggressive history of slaughtering in the name of Jesus.

(Here's one of the few commentators on the present mess who gives some limited examples of early Christians being bloodier than their Muslim enemies.)

(And here's a transcript of the pope's speech in case you wonder whether the media -- believe it or not -- might actually be blowing the fooraw up out of proportion and taking the remark out of context. Although in fact it was a pretty stupid passage for an alleged world leader to quote in this tinderbox age, even if said leader really is just a clueless academic raised to the position of a papal placeholder.)

And then all the "reasonable" people agree with the pope's statement that "violence is incompatible with the nature of God." Which just goes to show that none of the reasonable people, including the pope, have actually read the Old Testament. Because you know damn well that the Old Bearded Dude makes George W. Bush look like a humanitarian.

And then, because they're mad at the pope for saying that somebody else once said (and remember, it's true) that Muslims converted "by the sword," groups of outraged Muslims ... um, threaten to convert everybody at sword-point and smash the cross and conquor Rome.

Yeah, that's a nice way of demonstrating the peacefulness of your religion. Uh huh.

There's only one thing perfectly clear in all this. And that's that next time some yahoo tries to convert me to his religion by informing me that God loves me personally like my own cuddly little celestial teddy bear, but oh by the way He's going to fry me in a vat of hot oil for several trillion years if I don't acknowledge His All-Bountiful Goodness by believing that he had his only son tortured and slaughtered for my sake* (something that happens about once a week -- and hint, hint, the most aggressive proseletyzers aren't Islamic fundamentalists), I'll have all the excuse I need to punch him in the nose. And call myself the soul of reasonable moderation.

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* Which demonstrates the truth of the above comparison with GWB. I mean, can you picture Dubya sending Jenna or whatsername off on a mission knowing for sure she'd be hung up on a cross for hours, stuck with a sword, and generally reviled, merely to produce a religion that would end up whacking millions of innocents over a couple of bloody millennia? Your kid he'd do that to, maybe. But hardly his own. And unlike God, he's got a spare.

Posted by Claire @ 01:50 PM CST
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