The Pope's speech (link)

[fpb]

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2006/september/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20060912_university-regensburg_en.html

Scientists and philosophers appreciated it.
Howling mobs of fanatics hated what they could understand of it.
(This suggests that a lot of LJers will hate what they can understand of it.)

Comments

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Thanks for that link--that was an excellent read.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I posted on a subject connected with the Pope's speech - "Logic and God" - in my community "FPB de Fide Catholica": http://community.livejournal.com/fpb_de_fide/2269.html
If you are interested, please have a look.

[goreism.livejournal.com]

I agree with Fr. Samir, here; I doubt most of the people angry with the speech have actually read it.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I posted on a subject connected with the Pope's speech - "Logic and God" - in my community "FPB de Fide Catholica": http://community.livejournal.com/fpb_de_fide/2269.html
If you are interested, please have a look.

[lyssiae.livejournal.com]

Take a look at some people on my flist: not only did it take some more than was necessary to read the thing before reacting to it, they've also apparantly misinterepreted the "apology".

I generally take an optimistic view of humanity: I believe that with some effort, pretty much everyone (in any event, a damn sight more than currently seems to be the case) would be able to follow structured arguments as seen in the Pope's lecture.

At the very least, I will cling to that optimism until they decide to beat it out of me. Not even people burning effigies of my optimism will deter me! Muahaha!

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I dealt with the person who posted about the "apology". Very severely.

[lyssiae.livejournal.com]

*blink*

I never even thought that person could react like that. Much less that he ever would. Oh man. There's a certain variety of foul language that I just expect parents to keep under wraps in public, but apparantly that person doesn't have the same scruples. I hope his daughters are my age, because until I was turned 20 the worst curse I heard come out of my father was "Hell's teeth".

I regret telling you about it now. I don't mind the comment you made - you're much braver than I would have been, although I was thinking along similar lines - I just don't like being the source of that filthy language. All I really wanted was to share it with someone - you - whom I knew would understand the frustration I was feeling.

Oh well. Thinking that everyone's different, sundry and logically opposing religions can happily live side by side is a nice (in the nightmareish sense of the word) idea, but it's not going to happen, and I suppose the sooner we all get used to that idea, the better.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I don't mind telling you that I was slightly surprised too. Although a man who seriously thought that the Pope should have apologized to mobs of unappeasable haters who just wait for the next lie for which to swarm and murder, because they accepted lies about what he had said, deserves correction. But his reaction was astounding. However, I think I taught him one lesson: that when it comes to invective, I am the 1000-pound gorilla. It has been a while since I seriously stretched my capacity to insult people - not that I am proud of it, but he started with the insults.

And I did go after him to begin with. Seek the battle, don't complain of the wounds, says a wise man.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I posted on a subject connected with the Pope's speech - "Logic and God" - in my community "FPB de Fide Catholica": http://community.livejournal.com/fpb_de_fide/2269.html
If you are interested, please have a look.

[lyssiae.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the link; I'm having a read now.

[redcoast.livejournal.com]

Arrrrrrrrrrrrroooooooo!

No, I'm just kidding.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I only do that when there's a full moon...

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I posted on a subject connected with the Pope's speech - "Logic and God" - in my community "FPB de Fide Catholica": http://community.livejournal.com/fpb_de_fide/2269.html
If you are interested, please have a look.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I'm glad to have had the chance to read it--thanks!

[patchworkmind.livejournal.com]

I completely fail to understand why anger was roused.

Keep in mind that I am not a self-loathing, thirsting for death or revenge or both against an enemy I cannot and have never seen, brainwashed masogynist who has been purposefully kept uninformed, undereducated and vociferously propogandized by a theofascist regime bent on regaining 'past glories', avenging 'past wrongs' and achieving regional/world domination through the skillful exploitation of the weaknesses of another culture.

...

Oh, I'm sorry. Did I say that out loud?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Interestingly, there have been practically no big noises in Europe, America and Australia. Either the local Muslims are worried that they pushed our patience too much already, or they know (and I like to think this may be the case) that the Church is not hostile to them.

[goreism.livejournal.com]

I'm also suspicious of the reports that say a prominent so-and-so in Mogadishu or whatever has condemned the Pope. I sort of wonder how many of these people are nutters with no real following.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Um. Considering that, 1) the Islamic judges run the town and much of the country now, and 2) that someone just murdered an elderly Italian nun who was working in the local hospital for no reason, I suspect there is rather more to that than you imagine.

[ccord.livejournal.com]

Considering how quickly it seems that the reaction came into effect in such a miraculously well-organized fashion (one would normally expect it to take a few weeks for a German-to-Arabic translation of a complex theological speech to become widely available), one might wonder if certain parties in positions of influence and trust were providing large audiences with creative summaries of the Pope's speech for their own reasons.

But perhaps I simply have an overly Machiavellian mind. :-)

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I would like to know that my dear friend kikei is living proof that there are plenty of Muslims who are neither crazy, nor doctrinaire, nor violent, nor ignorant, nor suspicious of everything beyond their ken, nor woman-hating (in this, her family is the evidence). kikei is one of those rare person whom you respect and admire the more, the more you know her: talented, phenomenally hard-working, demanding of herself but not of others, loving, and highly intelligent - and devout in her religion. It is, in a sense, unfair to quote such an exceptional person as if such virtues were universal or easy to attain, but I have met many decent and friendly Muslims, and she is only the best of a good bunch.

Whoops...

[fpb.livejournal.com]

That was meant to start "I want to say that..." Can't imagine why it did not.

[johncwright.livejournal.com]

Thank you for posting the link. My admiration for the Benedict XVI increases.