Posted on 11/29/2002 5:48:44 PM PST by chance33_98
Pope Fears Terrorism, 'Clash Of Civilizations'
Pontiff Asks Students To Have 'Open Sensitivity' To Various Cultures
Posted: 2:07 p.m. EST November 29, 2002
VATICAN CITY -- Pope John Paul II on Friday lamented the terrorism and violence he says are tearing up the world.
In a speech to religious students, the pope referred to a "clash of civilizations that at times seems inevitable."
The pontiff urged the students to have "an open sensitivity to the values of various cultures in relation to the evangelical message." He said that can be done "without renouncing the affirmation of the force of the evangelical message."
The pope told his listeners that these are not easy times, saying that "violence, terrorism and war only build new walls between people."
Fear not my son, the Lord is with thee !
More like a clash between civilization and anti-civilization.
The catholic church, like many governments, has good people filling the ranks but the people in charge, as usual, are a little out of it. Despite the priest scandals and other problems I have found that a large portion of the monks, nuns, priests, etc have a devout faith and spend countless energy devoted to others.
I would like to see beyond those same problems with the muslims, I even has muslim friends here in ohio and in california, but the core of their faith is the main problem. Add to that the corruption at the top and the whole apple is bad with but a few good spots.
The muslims I know, while seeing the events of 9/11 as terrible, generally have little other condemnation of terrorism (at least they have discussed with me). Though my friend mohammud came to the US to flee such violence from somalia. He wanted a place to raise his children in where there was not a civil war going on, someplace they would have a chance to grow and learn.
Those who come to this country wanting freedom would do well to remind themselves and others that the freedom they have will not be kept by letting a religion dictate directly the laws and government. It is one thing for the morals you learn from your faith to guide your decisions in office, it is another thing altogether to make your religion the only religion in the land and destroy the freedom God gave us to choose.
Welcome! I sure you will be a valuable addition having seen the options. As Annie said, we are all particularly strange here. Isn't that what you said, Annie.
Yup. This is a religious war. Islam is not civilized. We will have to kill millions and millions before this is over.
I dunno - I hear an awful lot of stored-up apprehension expressing itself all over the place, but the fact is that for half a century we were wondering whether the next dawn would bring worldwide nuclear annhilation, and that threat was absolutely, palpably real, not voices from dead guys on tape or diseases that somebody may or may not even be able to start. We should remember that and be grateful that adults were in charge during that period of fantastic danger when the holders of several thousand nuclear weapons watched their country fall apart.
I think that is the reason, incidentally, that many people tend to discount the danger from Iraqi possession of such weapons: we dodged the big bullet, so we're immune from the little ones, goes that hopeful theory, and its corollary that just maybe the big one never really existed. Neither notion is a recipe for long-term wellbeing of either individual or civilization.
The clash of civilizations alluded to here is, I think, both unavoidable and ongoing. But here I suspect that adults may not be in charge on both sides. The consistently self-destructive behavior of the various Arabic-speaking countries with respect to Israel, the preference for violence over negotiation, the inchoate rhetorical fury, the hyperemotionalism, and the pattern of throwing blame around in any external direction when things don't go their way; these are not the characteristics of adult leadership, but that of petulant, bloody-minded adolescents.
Just some comforting thoughts for a holiday season - "things could be as bad as they used to be" may not offer a great deal of comfort it strikes me that sitting in a ice-water-filled shellhole in Bastogne listening to the German tanks approach, or sitting with one's butt on a block of ice in the Chosin reservoir waiting for a few hundred thousand screaming Chinese to turn one's innards into a shishkebab with two-foot bayonets probably wasn't as nice as sitting in my den typing this with a beer close to hand. Matter of perspective. Cheers.
Oh, and BTW, don't believe the others when they say there are strange people here; there aren't, only us interleck-chools, and I have a collection of booger jokes to prove it.
As to an estimate:
If 10% of 1.2B Muslims are Islamofascists (D.Pipes), then 120M are for the barby. Saudi funded Wahabbi Madrassahs are still turning out "Osama-Youth" by the millions per year.
Suppose it takes two generations to make a family understand futility. I'd give you about 250M dead Islamofascists by 2080, and we'll have this thing licked.
Holy guacamole, batman!
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