[goldstategop]

If what the Pope said was incorrect, Muslims should be able to calmly refute it. The rage and violent nature of their response to his address gives credence to the truth of his observation about Islam. We in the West think faith and self-criticism go together. In the Muslim World, self-criticism is seen as leading to doubt and apotasy from Islam. The mere questioning of Islamic tenets, even if only to strengthen one's faith, is punishable by death. And there is the other side of the issue: a religion that can only gain followers through force is not a religion with confidence in its ability to assimilate to itself the various trends in the modern world that threaten its authority. Islam would rather attack and destroy what it cannot understand. This is in the direct contrast to the way Judaism and Christianity deal with alien phenomena: they seek to understand it in order to find a way to ovecome it and show faith can thrive strong and true even in a hostile environment. That is where Islam is in crisis in having no way other than through jihad, to fend off the challenge posed by Western technology and science.

(No more Olmert! No more Kadima! No more Oslo! )

[LZ_Bayonet]

When I posted that the Pope was saying, "Bring it on!"I wasn't trying to be flippant (ok, that's a lie, I confess).

But actually, I was being serious. Your analysis of the situation with regard to the two religions illuminates that there is another front in the WOT besides the military one. I see this as the Pope opening up that other front. The Pope, to me, is saying that, 'We (Muslims and Christians) need to have an "intellectual" battle regarding use of force in the name of religion. I, by this speech, have initiated the "intellectual battle", now "Bring it on!"

It will be even clearer that the Pope has launched this "intellectual battle" when the MSM begin to attack him for making the statement. You will see comments like, "Why did the Pope say this? It gained nothing. It will only infuriate people that we cannot afford to upset right now."

[steve-b]

In the Muslim World, self-criticism is seen as leading to doubt and apotasy from Islam. The mere questioning of Islamic tenets, even if only to strengthen one's faith, is punishable by death.

A particularly egregious example:

Pakistan Shows Its True Colors

At the urging of hard-line clerics in Islamabad, Pakistani police last year arrested Younis Sheikh, a medical lecturer, under Pakistan's draconian blasphemy laws, and in August, an Islamabad judge sentenced him to be hanged, USA Today reports.

Sheikh languishes in a jail in nearby Rawalpindi, waiting for Pakistan's High Court to hear his appeal. The mullahs of Islamabad say he defamed the prophet Mohammed when he told students the prophet's parents weren't Muslim because they died before God revealed Islam to their son. Despite an international outcry over the Younis Sheikh case and his own campaign to rid Pakistan of Islamic extremism, President Pervez Musharraf has shown little stomach so far for a showdown with Muslim militants over the country's blasphemy laws.

In "If Iraq, Iran, and North Korea Are the 'Axis of Evil,' Why Is Pakistan an Ally?" research fellow Leon Hadar writes that, "Pakistan's government, led by an unreliable military clique that is assisting radical Islamic terrorist groups in Kashmir, pressing for a war with India, and presiding over a corrupt and mismanaged economy, has been a recipient of vast sums of U.S. military and financial aid."