Far Out Son of Lung...

Contradiction

You have to love the current papal situation.

The Pope enraged Muslims in a speech a week ago in Germany quoting 14th century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus, who said everything the Prophet Mohammad brought was evil "such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

To which Muslims and followers of Islam took offense and demanded an apology. I don't have trhe full trasncript of his speech though, so I don't know the exact context here, but I'm guessing that the wrong ways to react include:

In a telegram to the order of an Italian nun killed in Somalia who may be the crisis' first victim...

Italian media said an al Qaeda group in Egypt called for the German-born Pope, who is 79, to be punished by strict Islamic sharia law for insulting their religion.

An al Qaeda umbrella group in Iraq has also vowed war on "worshippers of the cross."

Workers at Turkey's Directorate General for Religious Affairs, or Diyanet, petitioned for the arrest of the Pontiff when he makes a scheduled visit to Turkey in November.

In Iraq, where an effigy of the Pope was burned on Monday

But the cleric asked for an end to attacks on churches in the area, after seven were vandalized this weekend

And the clincher...

The head of Australia's 5.1 million-strong Catholic church went as far as to say that violent reaction "justified one of Pope Benedict's main fears" about Islam.

Cardinal George Pell said this showed "the link for many Islamists between religion and violence, their refusal to respond to criticism with rational arguments, but only with demonstrations, threats and actual violence."

Local Muslims called Pell's comments "unhelpful."

It does seem rather unusual that a people who is so offended by being refered to as violent, would respond to the accusation with violence and threats of violence.

Here is a link to some pictures from around the world that show people protesting the Pope and his comment(s) by burning flags, waving signs and looking angry. Oddly, the groups of people don't look all that big and some of the signs are written in English.

I have always wondered if these things are staged. I had seen reports of faked photographs appearing on Reuters and in the AP during the violence in Lebanon, and it makes me wonder if people in the Middle East are only being portrayed in this way by the media. A bit like protests here, the people involved are the zealots and freaks, but it does not necessarily reflect the opinion of everyone in the country.

It just seems strange to me that a religious community such as Islam has become so bent on the destruction of the Western World. I guess it is nothing new, and attacking them repeatedly doesn't help the situation, but I wonder how closely this all relates to the lack of a modern Cold War. I've always wondered how bad the Cold War ever really was, and whether it was all staged to some extent. I want to say that I'll read more history so I can learn about it, but depending on the history books you read you'll get a different slant on the truth. Which, of course, leaves me wondering if anyone really knows what has ever really been going on...

What if everyone is lost? Confused by conflicting reports, altered text books and half-truths in the media. Who is to know what the reality of any past event is if we keep sheltering youths from events like The Holocaust? Hell, everything could get so twisted we'd never be certain of anything.

posted by GreSam @ 09:31