To Punish a Pope

I can't honestly say I support very much that any Pope (or Imam or Rabbi or whatever) does on a day to day basis. The response of the Islamic world to some remarks that the Pope made in a scholarly lecture of reason and religion has led me to believe the the Islamic faith has lost it's minds collectively.

I thought that the whole cartoon thing was bad enough, but then I see Christians protest ugly and unfunny cartoons and art all the time-- no one wants to see their religion, their faith, made the butt of a childish joke, after all. But to respond to an historical quote made in the middle of a (very) long speech about the reconciliation of reason reason and faith, and how one cannot stand without the other, (rather then the prevailing secular attitude that neither can stand with the other,) with death threats and comparisons to Hitler-- that's just unreasonable (which was the point of the Pope's speech.)

Religion without reason is anarchy. A reasonless God cannot be a moral compass, nor can a reasonless God be followed with any faith (if you can't trust God to be reasonable, who can you trust, after all.) Islam has proven itself to be reasonless by responding to a speech about reason with unreasoning fury. Rather then accepting the debate openly and discussing the fusion of religion and reason, Muslims have chosen to do what they always do: protest, bluster, name call and threaten. This is no religion of peace; this is a religion of the bully, one that cannot stand up to the slightest blow, yet uses its size to intimidate those around it.

I may laugh at Christians who espouse the "Intelligent Design" theory and deny the very evolution that their own DNA proclaims, but they do not threaten me for it-- they try, in their own way, with reason to debate me and to try to change my mind. They cling to the veneer of science, even if they reject some of it's central findings. In the end, with neither side convincing the other, we learn a little something more about ourselves. No blood need be shed, no apologies issued.

I leave you with another quote from Pope Benedict XVI's speech, in which he is again quoting one of the last Roman emporers:

"God is not pleased by blood, and not acting reasonably is contrary to God's nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats... To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death...."

God couldn't have said it better himself (I hope.)