You would have to be an intellectually lazy Catholic to think you had to believe a lie just because a Priest, Monsignor, Bishop, Cardinal, or Pope said it was the truth.
So on what basis do individual Catholics have the ability to make that determination what to believe and what not to believe?
The following is for all, not just the post I to which I reply:
We are to give “religious assent” to the Ordinary but that doesn’t mean blind obedience. If they teach something contrary to Tradition (note the capital “T”), and/or Scripture they are in error, period.
What “religious assent”’means is that we are to obey the teachings of priests and bishops if we don’t know or can’t know any better. If we do, again through either Scripture or Tradition, or both, then they are wrong. If we don’t know more then they are right. “Religious assent” is not a charism of infallibility.
With that said it’s clear: unless one is an expert on Islam, a scholar in other words (not just some internet jockey with an axe to grind) one can’t claim to be in a position to know more than those who HAVE studied the religion extensively. So only a true scholar of Islam could disagree with anything any bishop says about it (unless some bishop says it’s equal to Christianity or some such heretical nonsense).
So speaking for myself ONLY: (others may disagree if you wish but I’m tired of fighting these battles with not only my own church but others) I am not a scholar in Islam. It’s not my area of expertise. One can provide numerous examples from the Internet of Islamic nut jobs doing all kinds of crazy things in the name of Islam, but I’m sorry that’s not scholarship. It’s sensationalism (at best).
The fact of the matter is the majority of Muslims are not violent that’s just simple math. There are 1 billion of them if they were all violent or with violent tendencies we would simply be dead already. That’s just reality. It’s mathematics. 1 billion bloodthirsty people waiting for the right moment to kill anyone wouldn’t take 1600 years to kill everyone else on the planet.
There certainly are violent Muslims (so don’t knee jerk and say I’m saying there aren’t) and they are certainly using justifications from Koranic verses to “legitimize” their violence and there are indeed millions that are like this. From ISIS to alQeada, to the Muslim Brotherhood to any terrorist group you could imagine. They all SAY they are the true Islam, and who is to say they are “wrong”?
Not I and that’s my point! Again, I’m not a scholar on Islam. I simply don’t know enough about it to know if it is, or is not, an inherently violent religion that’s an honest admission that I think everyone should make, notwithstanding quotes from Internet sites and Koranic verses that (who knows if) are taken out of context or interpreted incorrectly. Surely interpreted literally by the terrorists but again who’s to say they are REALLY interpreting them incorrectly (or correctly for that matter)! It takes scholarship, to do so. It takes scholarship to honestly and accurately disagree with a teaching of a bishop.
Are there any true scholars of Islam here? I see a lot of references to the Internet, in condemning Islam as a whole. That’s all I see. That’s not scholarship.
I’m tired of Internet fueled rage replacing real scholarship around here I couldn’t remain silent any longer. Flame away anyone, “prove” your case of the hatred in Islam with more hate. I doubt anyone here has even met a Muslim, which makes it all the more easy to hate them as a group.