Back from the brink….
OK. I return. Still mindlessly busy - Okapi Creative is finally finished btw - but seeing how all of you have failed to step up to the plate as guest bloggers I am forced to do it myself! Big thanks to Mark at Eternal Awareness btw for an excellent article which I shall publish here soon.
Well, there is certainly much to rant about...ho um, where to start....my adventures with Salvia Divinorum? No, perhaps another time....I know.....The Pope. That’s always a good one.
It seems that the Pontiff has been making some ill-informed and rather ludicrous comments about Islam and Muslims have taken offense. This should not surprising as that was probably the intention of either the man himself or those (mis) interpreting his words. Or both. The aim being to continue to perpetuate the recently established stereotype of babbling barbarians frothing at the mouth at every imagined slight and who are hell bent on ‘hating our freedom’.
Actually I also ‘hate our freedom’ in some sense but that is largely because it is no freedom at all - it is choice. Overwhelming choice admittedly but at the end of the day it is still only restricted choice from an authorized menu compiled by someone else who has no intention of putting certain dishes on it and who may or may not have our best interests at heart. Certainly they have their own....
But I digress....I am offended by this myself. Offended by hypocrisy and offended by stupidity. Well, not really but I’m ranting. This is what he said:
I was reminded of all this recently, when I read… of part of the dialogue carried on - perhaps in 1391 in the winter barracks near Ankara - by the erudite Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Paleologus and an educated Persian on the subject of Christianity and Islam, and the truth of both.
In the seventh conversation...the emperor touches on the theme of the holy war. Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the “Book” and the “infidels”, he addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general, saying: “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”
The emperor, after having expressed himself so forcefully, goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. “God,” he says, “is not pleased by blood - and not acting reasonably is contrary to God’s nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats.”
This is classic...."Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the “Book” and the “infidels"," - ie, without admitting that Islam accepts Christianity which would bring up the fact that Christianity has issues reciprocating. In fact...selective argument. Poor.
Having pre-emptively dismissed any uncomfortable counter-indications, His Holiness goes on to furiously construct his man of straw - whilst being careful to select an obscure 14th century proto-fundie to voice his opinions in his stead and serve as a kind of ‘human-shield’ for when the planned-for flak starts incoming: “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”
The above statement is not only indicative of the most pedestrian intellect - and all the more chilling for that in terms of its current resurrection (I mean - is that really the best he could do - he has the whole of the off-limits Vatican archives to ransack for anti-Islam arguments) but it is ill-thought out, inane and - shockingly, given the Christian attitude towards lying - demonstrably untrue. Or un-demonstrably true. Whatever.
But let’s say it was true - then what is the objection to Islam ‘spreading by the sword’ and not Christianity and Judaism that - it could be argued - spread by the same method. One would only need to adduce the Crusades and Moses or Joshuah’s epic battles. Which is it? Is it he sword-spreading itself that is objected to (in which case why not criticize all religions en masse or is it specifically Muslim activities of this nature? In that case then ‘spreading by the sword’ would not be reprehensible at all - it would be Muslim spreading by the sword that was being objected to. But then why not say that? Why unfairly malign martial activities if only one group engaging in them s wrong? Very badly constructed argument.
And here is the stupidity: if it is true that Muhammad brought ‘nothing new’ (and this is what Islam claims - that it is a re-statement of earlier Judaic and, to a certain extent, Christian traditions, which it accepts) then it follows that this ‘old stuff’ is the same tradition that the Pope and his Emperor friend claim to accept and which the latter claims to be the highest representative of! On the other hand, If Islam is not a re-statement of these faiths then it IS something new. People who aspire to be thinkers really shouldn’t paint themselves into this kind of double bind. Utterly incredible. Very poor, as Vic Reeves would say.
But there’s more: why should ‘something new’ be the benchmark? This is the ‘reality TV’ school of theology. It may be post-modern but that just makes it suck on more levels than the purely superficial.
So much for the stupidity. Let me introduce our old friend Mr Hypocrisy: at the time of the writing of the original nonsense - the 14th Century - Islamic Spain was nearing the end of 800 years of harmony between Muslims, Christians and Jews, a synthesis that would lay the foundation of much of the current scientific and cultural heritage of the West.
Of course the Muslims and Christians that were creating this harmony were not necessarily the same groupings that most people associate with these labels and we know this because the end of Islamic Spain came about due to the depredations of a group of Islamic fundie extremists who held the Spanish Muslim culture to be ‘degenerate’ and of the equally violent and barbaric activities of the ‘Christian’ armies of the time who had raised ‘killing for Jesus’ to any art-form unequalled until the present day where their American counterparts look set to have a tilt at the record - although, in keeping with current chicken-hawk fashionability - in their case, by proxy with someone else doing the killing as a kind of postmodern counterbalance to ‘someone else’ doing the dying.
As for the Jews, well they just had their lands, property and money confiscated and were thrown out of Spain by God’s Enfranchised Representatives. Those that were still alive. A conservative estimate is that 250,000 Jews were murdered by the Church up to the time of their final expulsion.
Prior to this however, the Spanish jews had been force first to wear the distinguishing ‘badge of shame’ to mark them out and were later subject to forced conversion to Christianity. A society was set up with the aim of monitoring and checking that these Jews stayed converted. It was called The Inquisition.
And that brings us full circle because, surprisingly, the Inquisition actually still exists. It is no longer called that - it changed it’s name to The Congregation For The Doctrine Of The Faith for re-branding purposes. It still has a leader, though he is not called the ‘Grand Inquisitor’, and this leader is responsible for the suppression and censorship of ‘unsuitable’ materials and the maintaining lists of banned books etc.
The leadership of the New Inquisition was recently changed after the death of Pope John Paul - it had to be, the head of the Inquisition until that time had been one Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.
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