The Pope's speech to the German Parliament

[fpb]

http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/the_listening_heart
As ever, the man is worth listening to. But the responses in the comments thread just show how bloody useless it is to deliver intellectually distinguished and morally valuable speeches in a world where most people know no history but are stuffed full of out-of-context factoids and believe themselves entitled to judge.

Comments

Seven

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Modern ideas which we take for granted existed nowhere but in the West. It is the worldwide triumph of the West that has made them universal. Ataturk learned nationalism and secularism in the military school in Berlin, and Gandhi got the idea of an Indian-flavoured nationalist movement from GK Chesterton.

Re: Seven

[ihuitl.livejournal.com]

The key term is "the West"...which includes pre-Socratic Greece through the Enlightenment and beyond, up to modern times with modern rights such as contraception and non-procreative sex, which I applaud while the Pope does not.

The Church is one of many dominos that fell in this hisotry, and my issue is not with the Pope mentioning the church's role in Wetern civilization, rather with how he marginalizes the other Western contributions before and after. In fact, the Western journey is still a work in progress, as evidenced by civil rights and women's suffrage, or the right to be gay and not burned at the stake coming within the past century.

I also think he conflates origin with principle when he implies we must be religious just because we inherited ideas that religion influenced. I mean, I like Gregorian chanting, but it doesn't mean I have to believe in transubstantiation: we can, and do, separate the notion of legal rights from the unsupported metaphysical danglers of Platonic forms and natural law.

Re: Seven

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Half of Greek civilization became part of Christianity. The other half became part of Islam. Do tell me where all the wonderful Greek contributions can be found in the Muslim world.

Re: Seven

[ihuitl.livejournal.com]

In the present? Little. In the past? Math and science, which was taken up by the West again within a few centuries (and apparently abandoned by the Muslim world). I'm not an apologist for Islamic culture except as regards to cuisine, music, and other aesthetics.