More Popery
The Pope’s has apologized. He says he wanted to open a debate on the use of violence in religion. In response to this our TV screens are filled with ‘Muslims’ holding placards proclaiming ‘Death to Christianity’ and ‘Kill the Pope’ and such. Now ‘al-Qaeda’ have declared ‘Holy War’ on the West.
What is actually happening here?
If we are interested in Sufism, mysticism and general esoteric wiseacring - and that is what this blog actually is - then what we are essentially interested in is the distinction between ‘illusion’ or apparent/concensus reality and ‘reality’. Ie the idea that what we see on a daily basis may be ‘false’ or illusory and that we need to ‘wake up’.
Of course many people (most?) interested in these areas actually use the term ‘I must wake up’ as a mantra to lull themselves back to sleep much in the way that some people count sheep.
So we have a false reality. We don’t have to automatically buy into it so let’s take an example - there are two issues; 1) the original statement of the Pope and 2) the reaction which echoes and builds on that of the infamous Prophet Muhammad cartoons.
1) The original statement is erroneous and has been proved to be so, not that this was necessary as most thinking people knew it was ludicrous anyway but the debate has moved on from that and now (quelle surprise) is centering on ‘free speech’. But let’s look at that; suppose for example I say something like the following:
Christians are paedophiles blah blah blah
And I support this with evidence of abuse cases in the Catholic Church of which there are some that have been known to happen. Firstly I would cause offense. Secondly, I would be wrong and essentially lying as Christianity clearly opposes such practices regardless that some ‘Christians’ have fallen into them but - and this is the most important point - I could in no way claim that I was “trying to open a debate on religious free speech or inter-faith dialogue.
See how they do this? Make a claim they want to implant in the mind of the target they wish to condition (in this case sections of the Western Populace), the claim being in this instance that “Islam = violence”. Then move the debate as far away from that claim as possible so no debate can occur about the actual claim itself it becomes - in the minds of the sheep - a given and the debate is about something else, free speech perhaps.
The sole aim of this incident - and the Danish cartoons - is to reinforce the meme that all Muslims are violent extremists and that they oppose ‘Western Freedoms’. And it works.
Hire a rent-a-mob (or dispatch one from MI5 HQ) with suitably offensive placards in full view of a BBC OB team and voila!
You can see this in action if you look and a further example should give one pause for thought. The Pope says he wishes to ‘enter dialogue’ with Islam but one of his first actions was to sack one of the world’s leading Islamic experts, Vatican Priest Archbishop Fitzgerald:
The British-born cleric ran a Vatican department that promoted dialogue with other religions. A distinguished scholar on Arab affairs, he was an acknowledged expert on the Islamic world.
The decision by Benedict XVI to remove him from his post, and send him to Egypt as papal nuncio, was widely seen as a demotion and some wondered about the wisdom of the move.
Father Thomas Reese, a Jesuit scholar and an authority on the workings of the Vatican, told the BBC news website of his concerns: “The Pope’s worst decision so far has been the exiling of Archbishop Fitzgerald,” he said in an interview in April this year. “He was the smartest guy in the Vatican on relations with Muslims. You don’t exile someone like that, you listen to them.
“If the Vatican says something dumb about Muslims, people will die in parts of Africa and churches will be burned in Indonesia, let alone what happens in the Middle East.
“It would be better for Pope Benedict to have Fitzgerald close to him.”
I have often spoken about Islamist fundies on here and how they need to be defeated. Many times those who buy into the current anti-Islam meme seem to stop by start to contribute (though on other more harmonious issues such as inter-faith dialogue they are strangely absent) and they disagree with my position. And for one simple reason; to them, Islam is not a religion that has a large or small number of violent extremists in it who are in contradiction to the ethos of the religion - to them, Islam is the extremists. They have been conditioned to think this by processes such as we are discussing.
2) The reaction: I have no doubt whatsoever that these events are staged consciously and that the reactions are staged consciously by parties with the same interests and aims.
Take the Danish incident re the cartoons: within hours of the story breaking Muslims were burning Danish flags. Hundreds of them. Where did they get them? Who supplied them? Who supplied the suppliers?
The UK and US are heading towards something that may be called totalitarianism but in reality is not - it is something new. And worse.
Everything you do will be controlled. Everything you think will be manipulated. They will not need ‘monitoring’ in an Orwellian sense because the techniques are so effective. You will fight and die to protect this ‘privilege’ and you will fight and die against those who you are made to believe want to rob you of this privilege.
And you will call it ‘Freedom’.
