M
Mr.Ex_Nihilo
Guest
Reading through this thread has left me with mixed feelings. But it’s re-affirmed the position I’ve always held: Islam is not going away anytime soon. In fact, it’s probably coming toward us sooner than later. And I think it will be a bloody approach on the part of radical Islam too.
I personally think the recent letter sent by the 130 Muslim scholars is actually a borderline threat, something like a cautionary note. It seems to be attempting to control the dialogue in their favor toward their version of the “oneness of God”. And it also seems to be sent in the same spirit that Muhammad had sent before he attacked. I think this is true with the letter sent to Bush as well. In other words, I think they’re giving us a warning.
Now, as some might know, I’ve actually been very sympathetic toward Islam over the years. I’ve posted on here many times attempting to get a balanced discussion between Catholics and Muslims. But my sympathy only goes so far, And it seems, for the most part anyway, to be a waste of time.
Often I hear some speaking of the silence of Muslims around the world when attrocities occur under the name of radical Islam. I’ve also heard some say that their refusal to speak out against the extremists within their own religion indicates that they approve of these attrocities.
Oddly enough, this is the exact same accusation that’s often been railed against our own blessed Pope Pius XII during the Nazi holocaust. Yet, as Rabbi David G. Dalin points out, this is simply not true. In fact, their contention, “fails to consider the brutal realities in the wake of Nazism, as well as the retaliatory consequences sure to follow any condemnatory action.” In other words, more stringent protests, or denunciations, on the part of the Vatican might have quite possibly have backfired.
Rabbi David G. Dalin:
It remains possible the moderate Muslims are likewise silent out of prudence too-- due to the threat of their lives being ended by their radical counterparts.
I personally think the recent letter sent by the 130 Muslim scholars is actually a borderline threat, something like a cautionary note. It seems to be attempting to control the dialogue in their favor toward their version of the “oneness of God”. And it also seems to be sent in the same spirit that Muhammad had sent before he attacked. I think this is true with the letter sent to Bush as well. In other words, I think they’re giving us a warning.
Now, as some might know, I’ve actually been very sympathetic toward Islam over the years. I’ve posted on here many times attempting to get a balanced discussion between Catholics and Muslims. But my sympathy only goes so far, And it seems, for the most part anyway, to be a waste of time.
Often I hear some speaking of the silence of Muslims around the world when attrocities occur under the name of radical Islam. I’ve also heard some say that their refusal to speak out against the extremists within their own religion indicates that they approve of these attrocities.
Oddly enough, this is the exact same accusation that’s often been railed against our own blessed Pope Pius XII during the Nazi holocaust. Yet, as Rabbi David G. Dalin points out, this is simply not true. In fact, their contention, “fails to consider the brutal realities in the wake of Nazism, as well as the retaliatory consequences sure to follow any condemnatory action.” In other words, more stringent protests, or denunciations, on the part of the Vatican might have quite possibly have backfired.
Rabbi David G. Dalin:
Clearly, when our Pope actually was silent on this matter (because he did speak out prudently at times), it wasn’t because he “approved” of the Holocaust as many anti-Catholic morons often claim. It was because he was gifted by God to use his gifts as the leader of the Catholic faith-- in this case the Cardinal Virtue known as Prudence.An example frequently cited by defenders of the Vatican is the public protest of Dutch bishops in July 1942 against the deportation of Dutch Jews from the Netherlands. When Pius XII first learned of the Nazi atrocities in Poland, he urged the Catholic bishops of Europe to do all they could to save the Jews and other victims of Nazi persecution. The bishops of Holland distributed a pastoral letter that was read in every Catholic Church in the country, denouncing “the unmerciful and unjust treatment meted out to Jews by those in power in our country.” In no other Nazi-occupied country did local Catholic bishops more furiously resist Nazism than in Holland. But, their well-intentioned pastoral letter—which explicitly declared that they were inspired by Pope Pius XII —backfired. As Pinchas Lapide notes: “The saddest and most thought-provoking conclusion is that whilst the Catholic clergy in Holland protested more loudly, expressly and frequently against Jewish persecutions than the religious hierarchy of any other Nazi-occupied country, more Jews—some 110,000 or 79 percent of the total—were deported from Holland to death camps.” The protest of the Dutch bishops thus provoked the most savage of Nazi reprisals: The vast majority of Holland’s Jews—and the highest percentages of Jews of any Nazi-occupied nation in Western Europe—were deported and killed.
It remains possible the moderate Muslims are likewise silent out of prudence too-- due to the threat of their lives being ended by their radical counterparts.