[mojito]

The liberal faith is that everything can be reformed, even Islam, if only we can devise a government program to tackle the problem. This Pope is a scholar and theologian who knows better.

[Sergio]

I agree with the Pope, but when I said something similar after Mass one Sunday, folks looked at me like they would look at an apple that had only half a worm in it.

As psychologists like to say, the first step to solving a problem is to admit the problem exists.

Thanks for the post, best regards.

Sergio

[The Lumster]

The real story is WHY the pope thinks Islam cannot be reformed.

Here is his quote

This basic difference, Pope Benedict continued, makes Islam unlike Christianity and Judaism. In the latter two religions, “God has worked through His creatures. And so, it is not just the word of God, it’s the word of Isaiah, not just the word of God, but the word of Mark. He’s used His human creatures, and inspired them to speak His word to the world.” Jews and Christians “can take what’s good” in their traditions and mold it. There is, in other words, “an inner logic to the Christian Bible, which permits it and requires it to be adapted and applied to new situations

Whereas the Bible is, for Benedict, the “word of God that comes through a human community,” he understands the Koran as “something dropped out of Heaven, which cannot be adapted or applied.” This immutability has vast consequences: it means “Islam is stuck. It’s stuck with a text that cannot be adapted.”

So the Pope thinks that the bible is adaptable and thus can (and must) be changed to mean whatever we want it to mean because it came through men but the Koran is a direct unchanging word from God even though it came through Mohammed.

Since I believe that the Bible is the unchanging word of God, I suppose that I too am stuck with a text that cannot be adapted

This is why true bible believeing Christians can never submit to the leadership of the pope.

We do not "adapt" God's word to suit our needs. We must adapt ourselves to the word.

By Faith Alone In Christ Alone!

[Dark Skies]

Allah (the islamic) knew in the beginning, there can be only one...

Real islam cannot coexist with the non-islamic world.

[yldstrk]

Judaism and Christianity are free to believe that there are nuggets of truth in other religions. we are free to repect other truth; Islam is not. Judaism and Christianity are inclusive, Islam is exclusive. God is inclusive, room for all his creatures. The Other is not of. Some Islamic adaptations are following The Way. Others, the ones that believe in killing as a way to redemtion are not.

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

Islam can be reformed, and will be reformed, just like a puppy can be trained or a horse can be broken.

However, it won't happen just be offering islam tricks to sit up and beg, or roll over.

It's going to require means that are much more, shall we say, persuasive.

[hershey]

The Pope merely called a spade, 'a spade'.

[GSlob]

But everything IS reformable. Children, for example, routinely "re-form" their toys, after which reform the old toys have to be discarded and the parents have to shell out for the new toys, which, in their turn, will be reformed... One should look at the things broadly.

[redpoll]

Here's just my two cents. Islam believes that it is the infallible word of God, unchangeable, eternal. However, in a nuclear exchange between the infidels and Islam, what would happen if nukes obliterated Mecca and Medina? How can you go to hajj when the site is now a crater in the desert? (Sure, you could go to the site - but all the obligations that you have to do under Islamic tradition during hajj wouldn't be possible.) That would seriously crimp the Islamic belief system.

Another possibility comes from the "us and them" approach in Islam. For the first few centuries of its existance, much of the Islamic expansion took place against tribal chiefs or empires that were old and exhausted. The West may be long in the tooth (at least the Western European wing), but I wouldn't say that the Chinese, Australians, Japanese, Koreans, Indians, or Americans are about just roll over and become Islamized, even after a nuclear exchange. In fact, I could easily see a nastier response from those attacked that could be horrific.

One last thought: this is a joke that circulated around 9-11. The Saudi minister was in Washington talking to President Bush. The minister said that he had seen many things, but he had one question. "Why is it on your television show 'Star Trek' the starships have Russians, Africans, Asians, Americans... people from all over the world, but no Arabs?" The president leans over, smiles, and says, "Well, that's because 'Star Trek' takes place in the future."