France and Islam

[Picky_Picky]

Like another poster said no one in France cares about the decline/fall of Catholicism. The dominant French political parties and elites have been working to weaken and destroy the church since at least the french third republic and probably longer. The population has been nominal and declining for so long that you’d need to go back way further than now to show reasonable concern. What some french people are worried about is the decline of secularism (those pesky muslims still care about that silly old thing called religion which is so not french) which is much more important to the elites modern perception of French identity (just like in Quebec) . Modern western European far right parties are set up to feed off of the anti immigrant/muslim feelings in Europe and they do so in France.

Certainly France has a long history of anti-clericalism, especially among the intellectual elite, in a way hardly found in, say, England. To say, however, as one commenter did earlier, that this translates somehow into some sort of collective cowardice, seems to me quite unjustifiable. Many people risked everything to help save Jews from the death trains. I see no reason to think such people would not come forward today. There are people of quite astonishing courage to be found in every nation.

 

[boar2roar]

Certainly France has a long history of anti-clericalism, especially among the intellectual elite, in a way hardly found in, say, England. To say, however, as one commenter did earlier, that this translates somehow into some sort of collective cowardice, seems to me quite unjustifiable. Many people risked everything to help save Jews from the death trains. I see no reason to think such people would not come forward today. There are people of quite astonishing courage to be found in every nation.

Frances modern history is anti clericalism. When the PQ in Quebec tried to appease the “super french” voting block they immediately pandered to the most universal French value, mandated secularism. It failed ultimately failed because they destroyed their birthrate once the church went down but still. I didn’t refer to the french being cowardly and I ’ m not sure what that means. I was surprised at how vigorously the French defended marriage in way that would never happen in a place like England or Germany. I don’t necessarily think that the protests were fueled by devout religious people but in some ways at least the French are more rational and open to other opinions than other western countries.

 

[Picky_Picky]

What France and your family did for the Jews 70 years ago they probably would not do today.

I was referring to this, from Mary Estelle.

 

[Picky_Picky]

Kaninchen

I certainly wish there were nothing but religious apathy. What a relief that would be, instead of the outright hostility as verified in the Pew research study.

But let me give you an example that might open your eyes, although I am sure it will deeply disturb you.

There are actually atheists in the UK so filled with malice and venom that they spend their time visiting Christian websites to try and harm the faith of believers. Yes, yes, it’s quite true. Even though, if you were an atheist, that would make no sense - why would you bother in a meaningless universe - but perhaps atheists sometimes suffer from a deficit of logic… At any rate, no one could ever accuse them of lacking in ugly spite, don’t you think?

God bless, Annem

Although I’m not sure there are many of those malicious atheists hereabouts, are there? Sometimes the anti-Lutheran business seems to me to move from straightforward debate to an attempt to undermine belief, but that’s not usually from atheists. Certainly it’s not something I would indulge in. Setting out to undermine someone’s belief seems to me a rather shabby ambition.

 

[HolyCrusader007]

Irt the relation that France, and even the past Catholic Kingdom of France had with Muslim powers, this is a interesting study imo. Good thread idea OP.

Muslims have been in France for many years and have contributed greatly to making France a better place. During WW2, the Grand Mosque of Paris(built in honor of the Muslims who fought for the French during WW1) protected Jews from nazi death camps. During the times of the Catholic Kingdom of France a remarkable thing happend, France allied with the Ottoman Empire,

Consequences
The alliance provided strategic support to, and effectively protected, the kingdom of France from the ambitions of Charles V. It also gave the opportunity for the Ottoman Empire to become involved in European diplomacy and gain prestige in its European dominions. According to historian Arthur Hassall the consequences of the Franco-Ottoman alliance were far-reaching: ‘’“The Ottoman alliance had powerfully contributed to save France from the grasp of Charles V, it had certainly aided Protestantism in Germany, and from a French point of view, it had rescued the North German allies of Francis I.”

Political debate

*Side effects included a lot of negative propaganda against the actions of France and its “unholy” alliance with a Muslim power. Charles V strongly appealed to the rest of Europe against the alliance of Francis I, and caricatures were made showing the collusion between France and the Ottoman Empire. In the late sixteenth century, Italian political philosopher Giovanni Botero referred to the alliance as “a vile, infamous, diabolical treaty” and blamed it for the extinction of the Valois dynasty. Even the French Huguenot Francois de La Noue denounced the alliance in a 1587 work, claiming that “this confederation has been the occasion to diminish the glory and power of such a flourishing kingdom as France.”

Numerous authors intervened to take the defense of the French king for his alliance. Authors wrote about the Ottoman civilization, such as Guillaume Postel or Christophe Richer, in sometimes extremely positive ways.*

sussle.org/t/Franco-Ottoman_alliance

*The great emperor of the Turkes doth with as great devotion as any prince in the world honour and observe the religion by him received from his auncestours, and yet detesteth hee not the straunge religions of others; but to the contrarie permitteth every man to lfie according to his conscience;yea and that more is, neere unto his pallace at Pera, suffereth four divers religons, viz. That of the Jews, that of the Christians, that of the Gecians, and that of the Mohametanes, *
-Jean Bodin

more,

books.google.com/books?id=3uJzjatjTL4C&pg=PA111&lpg=PA111&dq=Jean+Bodin+on+the+ottoman+empire&source=bl&ots=SPBZVeflNd&sig=AchKvv35iim0Nr6SHXnLaa3FKio&hl=en&sa=X&ei=35VKVfqOM6HLsATTxIDgCA&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=Jean%20Bodin%20on%20the%20ottoman%20empire&f=false

During the 16th century Pierre Belon, a french explorer, writer and diplomat among others, published a work known as Les observations de plusieurs singularitez et choses memorables trouvées en Grèce, Asie, Judée, Egypte, Arabie et autres pays étrangèr Otherwise known as *Observations. *

*In 1546, Pierre Belon - already a naturalist of some renown - travelled to Constantinople in the entourage of the French Ambassador to Suleiman the Magnificent. En route, he visited Venice, Ragusa, Corfu and Crete, and over the next two years travelled throughout the Ottoman domains, - to Egypt, Anatolia, Arabia, and the Holy Land - returning to France in 1549. Wherever he went, Belon described plants, birds, mammals and fish, and recorded the customs of the inhabitants - what they ate, how they reared their children - collecting information on almost every aspect of the lands through which he passes. He did not rely on hearsay, on previous accounts, or on authority: what we have are his own observations, and the result of assiduous questioning and meticulous recording. His Observations, ‘written in our ordinary French tongue’, were published in 1553. In April 1564, Pierre Belon was murdered by persons unknown while crossing the Bois de Boulogne. *

amazon.com/Travels-Levant-Observations-Singularities-Memorable/dp/1843821966

Observations is considered to be a very important piece of literature. Observations includes first hand accounts of a man traveling through the Ottoman Empire. In his work *Observations * Belon talks about how *Turkish domination had not deeply changed the culture of the conquered nations and was not tyrannical, and he depicts the Turks as a civilized people, giving support to the politics of the French government, *

more,

books.google.com/books?id=R-3iBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA709&lpg=PA709&dq=travels+in+the+levant+pierre+belon&source=bl&ots=wjI_isQCvW&sig=jZ5LHFdMwtO_3R7CG-ifTyWh_p0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=72NLVYWcCsuKyATluICABw&ved=0CEUQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=travels%20in%20the%20levant%20pierre%20belon&f=false