Comments on the Pope's Comments.

Jerry Pournelle

"In a more serous vein: the Pope delivers a rather important lecture on reason and faith, and how religion that does not recognize the primary importance of reason -- In the Beginning was the Word -- is contrary to the very nature of God. In the course of that he quotes a Byzantine emperor who was near the end of his rope, who saw in Islam nothing of value and no adherence to the importance of reason. The issue is whether today's Islam puts revelation (the Koran) above all reason and observation.

"I have heard no one in the Muslim community denounce the resulting reactions, in which Muslims demonstrate their commitment to reason and civilization by: calling for the assassination of the Pope; gunning down a nun on the steps of the free clinic she and her order operated; burning down churches.

"I think Benedict may have made his point, and the Muslims are eagerly affirming it.
Religion without reason is theological nonsense, at least in the Christian tradition. When science and revelation are flatly contradictory, one or the other is mistaken. This is the essence of Aquinas, and is taught in Catholic religion classes the world over, or certainly was when I was in high school. When right reason and science appear to contradict revelation, we have mistaken what was revealed. Benedict has repeated a lesson long taught; as Samuel Johnson observed, men seldom need educating but they often need reminding.

Lord Carey of Clifton, former Archbishop of Canterbury

Lord Carey said that Muslims must address "with great urgency" their religion’s association with violence. He made it clear that he believed the “clash of civilisations” endangering the world was not between Islamist extremists and the West, but with Islam as a whole.

“We are living in dangerous and potentially cataclysmic times,” he said. “There will be no significant material and economic progress [in Muslim communities] until the Muslim mind is allowed to challenge the status quo of Muslim conventions and even their most cherished shibboleths.”

“Islam’s borders are bloody and so are its innards. The fundamental problem for the West is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilisation whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power.”

“The actual essay is an extraordinarily effective and lucid thesis exploring the weakness of secularism and the way that faith and reason go hand in hand,” he said.

Cardinal George Pell of Australia

"The violent reaction in many parts of the Islamic world justified one of Pope Benedict's main fears," Pell, the Archbishop of Sydney, said in a statement on Web sites of the Catholic Church of Australia.

"They showed the link for many Islamists between religion and violence, their refusal to respond to criticism with rational arguments, but only with demonstrations, threats and actual violence," he said.

And Lawdog

Way to make his point, you sodding morons. "We're a religion of peace, and we'll by GOD kill, burn, bomb, beat, behead, imprison and tax anyone who says differently, so there!"

In response, the Pontiff said -- and I'm paraphrasing here -- "I am sorry that you got your panties in a wad."

I'm going to give the Moslems out there a bit of advice, free of charge:Y'all need to get your radical nutbars under control, and you need to do it sooner, rather than later.

If your Militant Squirrel Brigades manage to hit the Vatican, stuff is going to go south in a big, bloody hurry.

And God forbid if one of your frothing idiots manages to twep the Pope. That Crusade y'all've been wetting your knickers over? Yeah.

I suggest that it would be in your best interests to take anyone who's seriously considering a hit on the Pontiff out behind the camel barn and smack him firmly about the head and shoulders with an axe.