Comments for Benedict and the Koran at http://www.thecatholicthing.org , comment 1 to 13 out of 13 comments http://www.thecatholicthing.org Wed, 19 Jun 2013 17:37:05 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/elizabethmccoy2002.html#comment-5656 actually, B16's address was irenic--perhaps naively so--in intent. one of his main points was that Islam's turn against reason was, in fact, paralleled in the West by the voluntarism of Duns Scotus. B16 appears to have seen this commonality as a basis for dialogue between Christianity and Islam--in effect, we have both sinned against reason, lets see if we can come together in reason at last. - mark Tue, 11 Jan 2011 12:47:44 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/elizabethmccoy2002.html#comment-5651 You should definitely read this: A critical reading of Islam/The Quran. The Pope asked for it at Regensburg, but is there a fear among academics: "The Lost Archive" by Andrew Higgins from the Wall Street Journal, January 12, 2008. - Tom Mon, 10 Jan 2011 22:20:24 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/elizabethmccoy2002.html#comment-5650 The photo bears the caption: "Benedict XVI delivers his address at Regensburg." However, it is evident from the backdrop that the photo is of Pope Benedict delivering an address at Castel Gandolfo. - Dan Mon, 10 Jan 2011 18:25:27 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/elizabethmccoy2002.html#comment-5649 To "The Moz": You say, "There are mosques in every city in Europe and North America but not even one in Saudi Arabia." You mean, "...not even one church in Saudi Arabia," don't you? - Howard Kainz Mon, 10 Jan 2011 16:50:55 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/elizabethmccoy2002.html#comment-5647 You are right, Mr. Taylor. This is not a peaceful planet. I have just finished reading "Galileo's Daughter" and I was amazed to read there how many times Europe had to defend itself against Muslim incursions. In "Salvation Is from the Jews", I learned that Muslims were actively cooperating with and even advising Hitler in his plans for European domination. I lived through that war and I had never heard that. In those earlier times, however, European nations were defending Christianity and, later, western civilization. Nobody seems to care about western civilization any more, least of all western Europeans. So, to quote the small print on TV commercials: Past performance is no guarantee of future success. - Louise Mon, 10 Jan 2011 13:01:46 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/elizabethmccoy2002.html#comment-5646 "Can we live on the same planet with an active Islam?" We seem to have managed just that for about 1500 years. Unless you mean "can we live PEACEFULLY on the same planet with an active Islam". The answer to which is that this is not a peaceful planet. - jason taylor Mon, 10 Jan 2011 12:11:05 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/elizabethmccoy2002.html#comment-5645 "Western academics have punted on the more fundamental question of whether Islamic beliefs are actually true" I have asked contributers on TCT and on other sites, when discussing whether Islam is "good" or "bad", to ask, instead, "Is it true." However, this time I'm going to ask the first question: is it good or bad? Can we live on the same planet with an active Islam? I did a search for "terror, Islamic, 2010". Figures had not been compiled for 2010, but here are the countries in which there were terror strikes under the banner of Islam in 2009. A few had only casualties, the vast majority had varying numbers of fatalities. Sometimes, only a single Christian was murdered. Pakistan, Thailand, Afghanistan, India, Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia, Iran, Algeria, Israel, Yemen, Ingushetia, Palestine Authority, Philippines, USA (4 successful), Dagestan, Jordan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Chechnya, Sudan, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Belgium, Germany, Indonesia, China, France, Canada, UK (1 nonfatal), Mauritania, Turkey, Mali, Uzbekistan, Lebanon, Bahrain. It would have taken me the rest of the afternoon to count deaths and casualties. Maybe it doesn't make any difference any more whether it is true or not, or whether the Koranic texts agree or not. There seem to be more pressing concerns. Those are questions for peacetime. Those were questions to have asked when Islam was dormant. Isn't it a little late for those questions now? - Louise Mon, 10 Jan 2011 09:55:11 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/elizabethmccoy2002.html#comment-5644 Patton was right. We should have made the German Army part of ours and conquered all China..then Russia couldn't have gotten any of their mischief started and Islamists wouldn't have been so powerful. (I know idiot Americans walked right into the fight but if the USSR hadn't had China, Western style democracy and human rights would now be impossible to escape--like death sentences in modern China and the Middle East.) - Jacob Richard Mon, 10 Jan 2011 09:14:39 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/elizabethmccoy2002.html#comment-5641 Unless Iran and Saudia Arabia open their borders to the sort of cultural exchange that has been happening in the West for over 2,000 years, Islam will remain a hostile and irrational system. This subject always brings to mind the saying "Thouest protesteth too much". There are mosques in every city in Europe and North America but not even one in Saudi Arabia. Why is that? Well we know why. It is because only a very tiny minority of people, if they could choose freely and securely, would choose Islam over Christianity and the authorities of both countries know it. So it'll just have to be a game of wait and see. But with most Christians in the West preferring fun over family, who knows who'll be on the defensive in 2050. - The Moz Mon, 10 Jan 2011 07:47:53 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/elizabethmccoy2002.html#comment-5640 Actually I meant to say this in order to call attention to how deranged the Islamic worldview is. I don't have space to recount the 16,000 plus Islamic attacks over the past ten years but that number is right. Sixteen thousand instances of unimaginable cruelty. There is not a place on the earth where Islam is practiced where innocents are not slaughtered and not a single day goes by without Islamic atrocities being committed. AND we are just getting started on Mohammed's reign! - quaecumque vera Mon, 10 Jan 2011 07:45:30 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/elizabethmccoy2002.html#comment-5639 To quaecumque vera: I speak just for myself (and not Peter Brown), but to say that the Islamists make the "Nazis look like schoolyard bullies" must be a rhetorical slip. Of course none of us knows what the future holds, and how it may unfold if Islamofascists take full control of Pakistan and other countries, but the Nazi record of 6-million murdered Jews and more than 70-million total dead in the war they started is hardly "schoolyard' by any measure. - Brad Miner Mon, 10 Jan 2011 07:24:49 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/elizabethmccoy2002.html#comment-5637 The hope that Islam can ever become something peaceful is scant indeed.In Pakistan yesterday fifty thousand people including hundreds of Islamic scholars demonstrated in support of the guard that assasinated the political figure trying to bring Islam into the modern world. It is ten years since 9/11 and Islamic barbarism has gotten worse. The whole of Hitler's reign was twelve years. The followers of Islam make the Nazis look like schoolyard bullies. What can be expected from an ideology that offers Heaven for slaughtering innocents and promises death to anyone converting? - quaecumque vera Mon, 10 Jan 2011 06:53:26 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/elizabethmccoy2002.html#comment-5636 Islam, much like a great deal of modern Western thought, abandoned reason in favor of the will to power. When this happened to Islam, one of the results was Islamism just as reason's abandonment in Western thought helped produce communism and fascism. - Mark Mon, 10 Jan 2011 01:40:39 +0100