::shinji:: said:
I'm not a fan of the Pope or the Catholic church in general, but the response by muslims is again way beyond ridiculous. Any reasonable person can clearly see his words (not even his words) were not what they're being made out to be. Burning churches, killing nuns, vowing death and violence...c'mon. I think religion in general is retarded, but muslims are fueling their own stereotype on a daily basis now, which in turn just gives further justification for the Geoerge Bush's of the world to do what they do.
As soon as someone starts an athiest paradise somewhere, I'm moving...
Well, while we must stress that many muslims in know way endorse the extreme reactions of others (look at me being all politically correct, who'd a thought it?), I agree that what is now becoming the standard islamic response to anything of this nature is really rather sickening and, as you say, does nothing but build and add truth to the stereotypes. I dont necessarily consider religion to be retarded, but I find fundamentalists of all religions (except the whacked out mellow ones) to be extremely frightening - someone that is so devoted to and wrapped up in a cause that they will respond in the manner that many are responsing to this is, in my opinion, clinically insane.
I personally find the regular statements from islamic religious leaders that "The west is the great satan", "america should burn" and "enemies of islam must be destroyed" far more offensive than these statements by the pope, as much as I hate him for the facist bastard he is. The hypocrisy present in some elements of their religion, as in the catholic church, is really quite staggering. I found it interesting to see that much of the negative reaction is being fueled by the very same Iranian newspaper that not so long ago hosted a competition for who could draw the best holocaust cartoon
And, as shinji said, the worst thing about all this is that is makes the actions of people like Bush seem justifiable and acceptable. While constantly telling us the contrary, Bush would like nothing more than for us to view all muslims as terrorists, he lumped Iraq in with Al-Qaeda and now he'd like to lump Iran in with those two, and hence it is beneficial to no-one more than him that this should turn into an east versus west battle.
so sad
