Vatican tries to calm Pope row as militants vow war

Yahoo - AP ^ | 9/18/06 | Stephen Brown and Philip Pullella

[PigRigger]

Let's get past the cut and pasting shall we?

Please provide one verse from the New Testament where Jesus orders His followers to kill non-believers if they do not voluntarily convert and follow him....better yet, supply one verse from the New Testament where his followers order Christians to forcibly convert non-believers (with the threat of death over their heads)...

BTW, many of your cut and paste verses, particularly from the New Testament, have nothing to do with your argument and are taken out of context.....

It is painfully clear that you have little knowledge of Christian Theology making your moral equivalence argument rather silly when looked at with an educated eye....

[FJ290]

Since the crusades, the Arabs have been under someone's thumb almost all the time. Whether it was the Ottoman Empire, the British, the French, or now, the United States. I think that might go a ong way oward understanding the current conflict. Does it justify terrorism? Of course not. Does it give us some perspective that could, perhaps help matters? Probably.

The Arabs do nothing to keep people under their thumbs however do they? Like forcing women to wear burkas, forced conversion by the sword, lopping off people's heads who disagree with them, not allowing education to women, declaring fatwas and jihads against anyone who they perceive as an enemy... they are just innocent little lambs in all this aren't they??

[TheClintons-STILLAnti-American]

"We would all be so much better off without religion in the world. "

As we would be without self-appointed gods.

[FJ290]

My point is that even ONE death in the name of religion must by any moral ethic be a tragedy to be condemned and these deaths were certainly due to religious bigotry.

Would you care to mention the deaths caused by atheistic governments (Communism) in the name of the State as among those to be condemned or are you only here to harp on Christians?

[TheClintons-STILLAnti-American]

"The appropriate conclusion is that people are inclinde to evil, not that the excuses they use force them to be."

Many people are not interested in "appropriate conclusions".

They're going to believe what they want to, and wave their tiny little fist at their creator.

Unlike the god of Islam, however, the true God does not need us to have His back. He isn't threatened by their ingratitude/defiance.

[FJ290]

As we would be without self-appointed gods.

Christianity has done more to bring about civilization and humane efforts than any atheistic system ever has.

[FJ290]

meant to include you in post #126.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

My point is that even ONE death in the name of religion must by any moral ethic be a tragedy to be condemned and these deaths were certainly due to religious bigotry. 119 posted on 09/18/2006 2:26:59 PM EDT by Jersey Freethinker

Shall we ban secular humanism for the hundred million people murdered by Communists and statist totalitarian governments or the tens of millions slaughtered by liberal abortionists and geeky scientist nerds splicing embryonic stem cells? They're ahead on the body count.

[jpsb]

"If God did not exist, mankind would be forced to invent Him."

Someone (a very bright someone I might add) once said.

[hosepipe]

[ My point is that the world would be a far saner place without religion--if everyone were somewhere between atheist and agnostic. ]

Jesus came to make ALL religion obsolete, AND DID...
Get with the program...

[BelegStrongbow]

That medicine, the arts, literature, et al, did in fact flourish in the Caliphate between 800 and 1000 is undeniable. That would be a fact not yet mentioned in this discussion.

It would not refute my major premise, which was that Muslims were attacking and the Christian West responding. The Seljuk Turks, who had recently overcome the Arabs, had renewed the war on the West and were on the march. They would continue that march right up to the gates of Vienna in the 17th century (defeated there, if memory serves, by the Pole Sobieski). So, one can have great culture and a ravenous, bitterly agressive foreign policy at the same time.

That is what Alexis saw and what he asked for help combatting. Urban saw that this help could both perhaps put Alexis in his ecclesiastical debt and, more probably, release the Holy Land from the Muslim interdict under which the Turks put it in the mid-11th century. I note that the Arabs had permitted pilgrims before but that the Turks both stopped this and then turned on Byzantium with the intent of conquering it.

They eventually succeeded, of course, not least because Western Latin Catholics could not understand or come to any agreement with Eastern Greek Orthodox. A blot on the Church Universal, to be certain, but not one which has anything to do with why the Crusades were undertaken.

As someone else said, they were in fact defensive wars. Some indefensible things happened (not least the sack of Constantinople in 1204), but that's what happens in a lot of wars undertaken for any of the reasons humans light into each other. Religious wars have intensity, to be sure, but you might want to just review a few newsreels of WWII. Now you might call that a religious war, after all, Hitler and Stalin were intent on obliterating Judaeo-Christianity. That sounds at least anti-religious. But the West did not respond for religious reasons, nor was the war prosecuted as a jihad or crusade. Yet, it was brutal beyond any previous measure. So one can have total non-religious war, can't one?

In any case, your original premise was shallow and poorly-phrased, at best. You ruffled feathers for no good reason and likely put off people who might have been willing to chat with someone less dogmatic about their revulsion for organized religion in general and Christianity in particular.

Poor move, Vulture, overall, but you likely do have a good head on your shoulders, one you should feed with more pro-Christian material more often, IMHO.

[darkangel82]

yeah, the whole world would be great if everyone thought just like you...I'm sure 100 million victims of communism would agree.

[jpsb]

"However, religions win the atrocity game"

Man you really need to read more. Your examples are very poor. Romans killed Christians not because to their religious views, but because early Christians were trouble makers seeking to weaken the power of the Roman state. Rome was very tolerant of local religious views

The Crusades were the west FINALLY defending itself from a hostile violent Islam that was throating Western Europe.

The Spanish in South America wittiness wide spread human sacrifice and decided SA civilization was not worth respecting.

[Jersey Freethinker]

Please provide one verse from the New Testament where Jesus orders His followers to kill non-believers if they do not voluntarily convert and follow him....better yet, supply one verse from the New Testament where his followers order Christians to forcibly convert non-believers (with the threat of death over their heads)... It is painfully clear that you have little knowledge of Christian Theology making your moral equivalence argument rather silly when looked at with an educated eye....

---

Luke 19:27 says it all my confused friend. 27 “BUT THOSE ENEMIES OF MINE WHO DID NOT WANT ME TO BE KING OVER THEM – BRING THEM HERE AND KILL THEM IN FRONT OF ME.”

As far as context is concerned, here’s the whole thing:

Luke 19:11While they were listening to this, he went on to tell them a parable, because he was near Jerusalem and the people thought that the kingdom of God was going to appear at once. 12He said: "A man of noble birth went to a distant country to have himself appointed king and then to return. 13So he called ten of his servants and gave them ten minas.[a]'Put this money to work,' he said, 'until I come back.'
14"But his subjects hated him and sent a delegation after him to say, 'We don't want this man to be our king.'
15"He was made king, however, and returned home. Then he sent for the servants to whom he had given the money, in order to find out what they had gained with it.
16"The first one came and said, 'Sir, your mina has earned ten more.'
17" 'Well done, my good servant!' his master replied. 'Because you have been trustworthy in a very small matter, take charge of ten cities.'
18"The second came and said, 'Sir, your mina has earned five more.'
19"His master answered, 'You take charge of five cities.'
20"Then another servant came and said, 'Sir, here is your mina; I have kept it laid away in a piece of cloth. 21I was afraid of you, because you are a hard man. You take out what you did not put in and reap what you did not sow.'
22"His master replied, 'I will judge you by your own words, you wicked servant! You knew, did you, that I am a hard man, taking out what I did not put in, and reaping what I did not sow? 23Why then didn't you put my money on deposit, so that when I came back, I could have collected it with interest?'
24"Then he said to those standing by, 'Take his mina away from him and give it to the one who has ten minas.'
25" 'Sir,' they said, 'he already has ten!'
26"He replied, 'I tell you that to everyone who has, more will be given, but as for the one who has nothing, even what he has will be taken away. 27BUT THOSE ENEMIES OF MINE WHO DID NOT WANT ME TO BE KING OVER THEM – BRING THEM HERE AND KILL THEM IN FRONT OF ME.”
28After Jesus had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. 29As he approached Bethphage and Bethany at the hill called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, 30"Go to the village ahead of you, and as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here.



The verses quoted above represent a statement (parable)made by a ruler about some rebellious servants. By relating this incident Jesus is implicitly condoning the execution of those in disagreement with one's philosophy. Jesus taught in parables as a method to impart knowledge to those who could understand. That was his lesson for the day - DO YOU WISH TO DISPUTE HIS WORDS PigRigger?

[Joan Kerrey]

that we must avoid anything that excites tensions between peoples or between religions," Chirac said on Europe 1 radio.

Just what we'd expect from Chirac and many other western leaders. I think the time is long overdue for the west to be just as visibly outraged at Muslim behavior. It is unacceptable and the west values free speech no matter who is offended. If they don't like it, TOUGH.

They don't want an apology. They want the Pope to crawl on his hands and knees to them and beg for mercy. If the Pope does it shame on him.

[PigRigger]

This parable talks about judgment on those by God (who do you think the ruler is?)...not by man...and does not ask followers of Christ to kill in God's name nor convert through threat of death...

Try again...

[jpsb]

LOL, in 700AD that ENTIRE region was Christain, Greko-Roman, Western. Civilization, education, learning, all flurished. Then came Islam, it took a while but Islam managed to reduce one of the finist of civilizations to the ignorant tribalism that is now and has been for many many hundred of years. Go peddal your revisionist history else where.

[onyx]

It's always helpful to ping the moderator when posting to or about the moderator.

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And to the moderator - I have no agenda other than to speak truth freely (mostly quoting other sources) without posting any personal feelings - unlike a lot of FReeper with their obsenities and single minded opinions. I see their spewed venom no different than the venom spewed by those they seek to criticize. For all intents and purposes I have said my final word here and will not post again if you want to censor what I have said.

119 posted on 09/18/2006 1:26:59 PM CDT by Jersey Freethinker (People should read the Bible)
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[FJ290]

This parable talks about judgment on those by God (who do you think the ruler is?)...not by man...and does not ask followers of Christ to kill in God's name nor convert through threat of death...

I would take heed of that parable VERY carefully if I were Jersey Freethinker. He can consider himself an enemy of Jesus Christ for what he has said here today.

It may be easy to sit behind a keyboard today and insult God, His Holy Word, and those who follow Jesus, but there will come a day when he has to face his maker like the rest of us.

[Centurion2000]

Personally .... the Pope needs to call for a Crusade and put these demon worshippers in their place (Six feet under with some pig grease)