the popes comments and the fallout.......media hatchet job?

constitutionus

ive held off commentating on this for so long to see how it pans out and if anything would change in the media but i cant help thinking that this is the worst media hatchet job since liam lawlor died in a car crash with a "prostitute".

im no rampant supporter of the pope, christ i dont even go to mass except at christmas like most people, and i sure as hell dont hang on his every word but the reporting of this issue is nothing short of almost criminal negligence. particularly considering churches are being firebombed and at least one nuns been killed on the back of this reporting

for those who dont know, and you'd be forgiven for not knowing cause it hasnt been reported properly, the pope quoted a 12th century emperor who basically said islam only brought evil to the world during one of his lectures at his old college .

now on the surface this seems disgraceful untill you realise we havent been told what context it was said in. for all we know he couldve been using it as an example of institutional bigotry and illustrating how even the ruler of an empire had fallen into it. and how we as an enlightend people must seek to move forward with love and acceptance.

in the media we get " pope says islam is evil" and thats pretty much it. in fact you'd be hard pressed to find any media outlet that bothered to find out the name of the emperor involved (manuel apparently, que faulty towers jokes ). now when you consider practically all radio comentators have quoted texters messages on their shows you have to wonder if future we can expect newspapers headlines like "jo duffy says all **** should be sent back to africa" or "sean moncrieffe says gays are sick and abnormal" simply because bigots sent those messages to them and they read them out. some how i dont think so.

so is this a hatchet job? did the "liberal" media go full tilt at the pope in order to make a non story something thats resulted in deaths and violence simply to stick it to the church?

i'd be interested to see what you guys think

Sgt. Sensible

The Pope was trolling. One week ban?

ButcherOfNog

constitutionus wrote:

the pope quoted a 12th century emperor who basically said islam only brought evil to the world during one of his lectures at his old college

Its not a media hatchet job. He said it, and won't apologise for saying it, but he has apologised for the hurt the comments may have caused...in other words, he believes in what he said.

constitutionus

ButcherOfNog wrote:

Its not a media hatchet job. He said it, and won't apologise for saying it, but he has apologised for the hurt the comments may have caused...in other words, he believes in what he said.

no he didnt, he quoted it! theres a BIG difference . by your standard what i said about jo and sean would stand up too and you cant possibly believe the bigoted texts theyve read are representative of the heart felt convictions they have on those issues. how this has been presented is the problem and thats the medias fault. why should he apologise for the quote when to this day we havent been given the context on which this quote was stated? the waffle from the media is "we'd have to reproduce the entire document" ,thats bull

think of it this way, remove the words "the pope" and insert bertie ahern and ask yourself if the reporter wouldve been so slipshod with the context of the quote and indeed the entire address

ISAW

ButcherOfNog wrote:

Its not a media hatchet job. He said it,

He who? The Pope said it or the emperor said it?

and won't apologise for saying it,

why should he? Look satan probably once said "i want to corrupt all of humanity" . should I have to apologise for that. Maybe Satan is doing this by getting people to commit acts of terror. should I have to apologise to muslims because actions of 9/11 were committed by so called muslims?

Some people might be offended by what I state and maybe all I can say is I am sorry if it offended anyone it was not intended that way.

but he has apologised for the hurt the comments may have caused...in other words, he believes in what he said.

No in other words he believes some people were offended that he quoted a 12th century Emperor and that naive people actually thought he might agree with the words quoted.

Captain Trips

ButcherOfNog wrote:

Its not a media hatchet job. He said it, and won't apologise for saying it, but he has apologised for the hurt the comments may have caused...in other words, he believes in what he said.

And if I quote Hitler and it offends Jews does that mean if I apologise for the huirt it caused and said I specifically they are not my own views, am I still guilty of OFFENDING SOMEONE.

He believes clearly in saying what needs to be said. It was said, at one time, when there was strife between religions. It is essential in civilised society to debate matters that may be taboo openly, he was doing that. He did not say he believed it so stop trying to feed that line of nonsense.

swiss

http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=46474

The Pope wrote:

In the seventh conversation edited by Professor Khoury, the emperor touches on the theme of the jihad (holy war). The emperor must have known that surah 2, 256 reads: There is no compulsion in religion. It is one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under threat.

But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Qur’an, concerning holy war. Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the “Book” and the “infidels,” he turns to his interlocutor somewhat brusquely with the central question on the relationship between religion and violence in general, in these words:

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.

The emperor goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul.

God is not pleased by blood, and not acting reasonably is contrary to God's nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats... To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death....

The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature. The editor, Theodore Khoury, observes: "For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this statement is self-evident. But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality." Here Khoury quotes a work of the noted French Islamist R. Arnaldez, who points out that Ibn Hazn went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God's will, we would even have to practice idolatry.

Make up your own minds as to whether he endorsed the Emporers' sentiments or not.

ISAW

Captain Trips wrote:

And if I quote Hitler and it offends Jews does that mean if I apologise for the huirt it caused and said I specifically they are not my own views, am I still guilty of OFFENDING SOMEONE.

He believes clearly in saying what needs to be said. It was said, at one time, when there was strife between religions. It is essential in civilised society to debate matters that may be taboo openly, he was doing that. He did not say he believed it so stop trying to feed that line of nonsense.

It is called the "quote/use" or "use mention" distinction:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use-mention_distinction

"The use-mention distinction" is not "strictly enforced here".

bonkey

constitutionus wrote:

now on the surface this seems disgraceful untill you realise we havent been told what context it was said in. for all we know he couldve been using it as an example of institutional bigotry and illustrating how even the ruler of an empire had fallen into it. and how we as an enlightend people must seek to move forward with love and acceptance.

""I wished to explain that not religion and violence, but religion and reason, go together,"

Thats the explanation the man himself has offered. So, without the context, we can see that he claims he wasn't targetting Islam, but was trying to make a point about religion in general and about religion and reason, rather than religion and violence.

I'll believe him, but it raises another question:

Why did he choose this passage to illustrate his point??? If he wanted to make a point about how religion and violence don't mix, why didn't he pick a part of the Catholic Church's own sordid past and show how we're far better off with those days behind us?

I mean...seriously...its not like the Church denies that the Inquisition was a bad idea.

So why Islam? Why choose another religion to highlight how religion and violence don't go well together? Why not choose your own, so that the only people you could conceivably offend were your own?

There are two possibilities:

1) It never occurred to him that linking another religion with violence could provoke a reaction.
2) It did occur to him, and he chose it anyway.

THe man is alleged to be pretty smart and he's been around the block. I find it hard to credit the notion that he was that naiive.

jc

Sgt. Sensible

bonkey wrote:

Why did he choose this passage to illustrate his point??? If he wanted to make a point about how religion and violence don't mix, why didn't he pick a part of the Catholic Church's own sordid past and show how we're far better off with those days behind us?

I mean...seriously...its not like the Church denies that the Inquisition was a bad idea.

So why Islam? Why choose another religion to highlight how religion and violence don't go well together? Why not choose your own, so that the only people you could conceivably offend were your own?


jc

Exactly, why not discuss the Spanish Requiremento, which ordered the people of the Americas to convert to catholicism or be killed or enslaved. There was a lorra lorra blood. It was read to the people in Latin which was not widely spoken in that part of the world I believe.

We can only speculate about his motives. But I would like to know why Archbishop Fitzgerald was dismissed too.

ziggy

This post has been deleted.

ISAW

bonkey wrote:

""I wished to explain that not religion and violence, but religion and reason, go together,"

Thats the explanation the man himself has offered. So, without the context, we can see that he claims he wasn't targetting Islam, but was trying to make a point about religion in general and about religion and reason, rather than religion and violence.

Actually I thought about the relationship between science and religion. I also thought the address MORE RELEVANT to the thinking within church itself. for example he referred to the Reformation. Other potential schisms might include "liberation theology" or elements with the African or Oriental church. The Pope referred to "dehellinisation" i.e. to the church being grounded in the type of thinking of greek philosophers. This also applies to science. I would suggest you cant have an "african2 science or a "muslim" science but that western "science" is a system which is dependent of its roots in greek philosophy. One must accept this to develop it. Just as one must accept the foundation of church to develop it. So this was to me more an address about where the church was coming from oand where it was going rather an attack on anything external to the church.

I'll believe him, but it raises another question:

Why did he choose this passage to illustrate his point??? If he wanted to make a point about how religion and violence don't mix, why didn't he pick a part of the Catholic Church's own sordid past and show how we're far better off with those days behind us?
[/quote]

He did! the reformation.

I mean...seriously...its not like the Church denies that the Inquisition was a bad idea.

At the time it was "a good idea". But certainly the Counter Reformation was a good development.

InFront

ISAW wrote:

Why did he choose this passage to illustrate his point???

To be honest, this has been bugging me a bit as well. I have read his comments, and for me, at least, I wasnt entirely clear that he was not hinting at the possible accuracy of the quote. I thought there might have been something sinister in the speech.
However, the pope's most recent "ejaculations" on this subject are enough to convince us that he didnt really want to hurt Muslims, and to be honest, I think that the controversey, if any real controversey still sorrounds this topic, is itself exaggerated and in need of definite restraint. I think the guy was simply misundestood, or hope so anyway.

constitutionus

ziggy67 wrote:

What does this have to do with politics? I would have thought the News and Media forum would be the place for this.

Not modding, just an observation.

popes head of a country, vatican city. that makes attacks on him by the media political as well as religious/news and media

LondonLass

We have Muslim religious leaders here telling their followers to kill all Christians and Westerners etc, they stand in the middle of the street sometimes doing this and you don't see any Christians making protests about it OR murdering people OR burning mosques. I think we understand the concept of freedom of speech very well in christianity, but for some other religions you can't say anything about them at all before they go mad for nothing. We either all say what we like or we all say nothing at all.

ziggy

This post has been deleted.