[spectre] The pope the emperor the religions as culture

[Louise Desrenards]

Hi! Heiko, 

I am not a co-activist from Gush Shalom, but I appreciate their activism
more their traditional mode of aphorisms which tells from inside the one who
writes, a sort of subjective but certain tribute not a command, to others,
what respects self freedom; it is so much more interesting, as activist
expression, just at the moment any of us voluntarily have left the universe
of the watchwords under the command of the political parties or activist
movements. 

As for Uvnery: of course there always stays a part of demagogy from a very
point of view of western and Israeli  comprehensive brotherhood, something
as infra-nationalism fossil, at Avnery's activist publications...

But there is always an interesting point of view in it, that is the
agreement of the positive convivial life as convenient taste of life, by
washing something and making the criticism of the belief itself, can be the
religion, can be sciences, can be politic, even not washing all the view...

>From this point: if I send such articles here, it is not as integral
fighting but hope a debate from this relative but real tribute outside of
the religion (but not outside of the consensual western ideology).

For instance, such answer as yours ‹and mostly knowing the context of this
pope from Germany‹ is surely welcome, and probably inescapable argument;-)

Of course I agree your discernment (and that evocates my own position).

L. 


On 30/09/06 12:07, "Heiko Recktenwald" <uzs106 at uni-bonn.de> probably wrote:

> Uri Avnery is putting things in a strange order, whatever this is good
> for, and, most important, people like to overlook it, he forgets to tell
> us that the question, it was not more than a question, was part of a
> longer conversation amongst FRIENDS!
>> At the end of the
>> 14th century, the Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus told of a debate he had - or
>> so he said (its occurrence is in doubt) - with an unnamed Persian Muslim
>> scholar. In the heat of the argument, the Emperor (according to himself)
>> flung the following words at his adversary:
>> 
>> "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find
>> things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the
>> faith he preached".
>>   
> This is the question. But what follows next is the basic norm of the
> Pope, what he is fighting for, with which he has started his "dies
> academicus" speech. The next comes first! It is the introduction to the
> famous question above.

Yes
> 
> The "dies academicus" is an institution in Bonn, where the Pope once was
> prof, he said so in his Regensburg speech btw, a feast of though
> sotosay, with Luetzeler, oriental art history, a contradiction in
> person, a gnome that the women liked very much, a speech over some
> aspects of Picasso or whatever, as the usual climax. To say controversal
> things is part of the game. "Wow!" And then everybody goes to a concert,
> to see and to be seen.
>> The pope himself threw in a word of caution. As a serious and renowned
>> theologian, he could not afford to falsify written texts. Therefore, he
>> admitted that the Qur'an specifically forbade the spreading of the faith by
>> force. He quoted the second Sura, verse 256 (strangely fallible, for a pope,
>> he meant verse 257) which says: "There must be no coercion in matters of
>> faith".
>> 
>>   
> There were more words of caution, the most important being that the
> conversation was written down by one of the participiants, who was
> concentrated on his own view. Has anybody seen the book, that the Pope
> quoted, where this all comes from?

>> How can one ignore such an unequivocal statement? The Pope simply argues
>>   
> 
> The Pope probably never "simply argues"...;-)
>> that this commandment was laid down by the prophet when he was at the
>> beginning of his career, still weak and powerless, but that later on he
>> ordered the use of the sword in the service of the faith. Such an order does
>> not exist in the Qur'an. True, Muhammad called for the use of the sword in
>> his war against opposing tribes - Christian, Jewish and others - in Arabia,
>> when he was building his state. But that was a political act, not a
>> religious one; basically a fight for territory, not for the spreading of the
>> faith.
>>   
> Thats right! And to destinguish those two things the Popes speech was
> probably very usefull.
> 
> Why did 9/11 happen? To spread Islam? Probably not.
> 
> However crazy or whatever it was.
> 
> To put the Pope and Bush in the same line is OVERSIMPLIFICATION and to
> do so deminishes the Arabs noble cause.
> 
> If you want to fight for something, you have to have a clear target.
> 
> Populism, to play with masses of idiots, is never good, neither in the
> west nor in the east.
> 
> 
> H.
> 
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