SeanAhern's Journal: Pope Benedict XVI's speech

Having heard about the debate about Pope Benedict XVI's recent speech in which he talks about the relationship between violence and religion, I decided to go find the text of the speech and decide for myself what's going on. You can find the Vatican english translation here.

My take on it is that the Pope was attempting to show how, throughout history, religion has been shown to be incompatible with violence. Specifcally, he was attempting to show that reason is incompatible to both religion and violence and that only by choosing reason can religion be understood and accepted. Thus, violence is counter to relgion. He happened to use a rather bad example in the quote from Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus that disparages Mohammed. The Pope certainly didn't say that he agreed with the quote. In fact, in reference to this quote, he uses words like "leaves us astounded" and "a startling brusqueness."

In any case, I give you the link so you can decide for yourself.

i agree.

[ak3ldama]

and i have been kinda perplexed by the outrage. the other problem is that the media doesn't really seem to understand what the pope said either. it is as though it is in the media's best interest to go off on a sensationalist tangent than try to convey the real message of what the pope said. what a joke. we give our media a freedom they don't deserve.

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[eglamkowski]

The media hasn't been responsible for decades. It's like the Bond film "Tomorrow Never Dies".

As to the Pope, it it telling that the muslim reaction only serves to confirm the Byzantine Emperor's observations, even if the Pope was trying to disavow that point. It's sad to see the Pope bending over backwards to placate them in this context.

The age of Christian Europe (and by extension, the USA), is finally coming to a close. What the coming age will look like I don't know, whether muslim or chinese or some

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[Incongruity]

we give our media a freedom they don't deserve.

Many would say that man cannot give freedoms -- instead, we can only take them away -- and statements like yours scare me just a bit. We don't give the media any freedom. We may give them power because we pay attention to them, but that's another matter. Nevertheless, if I may interpret, the spirit of your comment, that the media doesn't live up to its responsibility given the power and freedom it has is pretty much completely true, IMHO. Then again, we

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[ak3ldama]

thanks for not reading too much into what i said, i definitely don't want any freedom taken away from the press. i was just saying they take their responsibility too lightly. and as for reaping what we sow, that is basically true.

i have more of a 'conspiracy theory' view on this stuff though, it is my opinion that the rich basically control everything. in the beginning there was less of a contingent of rich people controlling the 'New World', though now things have changed and the USA is basically screw