By now, I’m sure, everyone has heard about the furor caused by the comments Pope Benedict XVI made during his recent trip to Germany. He was quoting from an argument between Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos and a Persian emissary.
"Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."
(Full Text)
First it is important to remember that the Pope was not claiming this to be his own views, but rather, was questioning the idea of Jihad, or “holy war”. Also, the historical context of these statements is very important to remember when considering what the Pope meant
The Ottoman Empire, at the time, was a sudden super power, and was threatening to overwhelm The Byzantine Empire, an event which eventually happened in 1453. (That’s why it’s now Istanbul, not Constantinople.) In other words, Manual II was the third to the last of the rulers of a doomed kingdom, who had lived his entire life in the shadow of war, defending a crumbling empire, losing family and friends in war with the invading Muslim horde.
Now, that the Pope was taken out of context is one thing. Misunderstandings happen. What is no mistake, however, is that the hostility and violence that Muslims worldwide demonstrated in the past couple of days has, in many ways, proven what Manuel II said as correct. Muslims can be a violent people, who will use any excuse to show this violent behavior to the world.
It stuns me to think that, in the 21st century, Islamic clerics can condemn the Roman Catholic Pope of being “medieval” and “Ignorant” when they repeatedly call for violence against people and nations, murder of their enemies, political mayhem to those who disagree with them, and all in the name of a very strict and temporally provincialist, ethnocentric religion.
I am reminded of an incident that happened to me in Cairo, back in the innocent days before the world fell into it’s present state of chaos. I was having lunch with an exceptionally snotty bunch of Western students, who had made no effort whatsoever to fit in, or make native friends, or get to know the people in any way at all. I listened to them share their overtly PC and saccharine thoughts and opinions about Islam, and when I’d had enough, I blurted out, ”You’re all full if it. Islam makes people stupid.”
Now, this was back in the days before the Islamofascist movement had taken a strong foothold in Cairo, otherwise, I may have been rent limb from limb like a bastard in the street. Fortunately, all I succeeded in doing was shocking my innocent Western brood. I went on to explain that Islam, by its very nature, calls for mindless submission, suppression of individuality, and drone-like servitude. I used the notion of praying 5 times a day, at intervals which interrupt a person’s sleep schedule, to show that one of the religions main purposes is to manipulate and warp. Sleep interruption and deprivation is a well known and time tested technique used to break down people’s will, and soften them up for mind control sessions. This has been used by interrogators, cult leaders, and bitchy domineering girl-friends for centuries, and usually leaves the broken subjects open all sorts of suggestion. Quod erat demonstrandum.
Now, it was not my intention to insult Islam, and yet, any Muslim listening to me would have been shocked and appalled, and probably visited upon my person great violence and harm. In this way, Islam keeps free dialog and debate from ever happening, and prohibits progress and open mindedness. The Pope, it seems, has had to learn this the hard way.
Dope
After my post on Tom Cruise I took some flack from one of my biggest fans over the rancor and ire that I heaped upon the wacky Hollyhood star. It made me think about why I dislike the guy so much, and if I was perhaps being irrational about it. I realized that I started to dislike the guy when he went off the deep end with this Scientology crap.
Those thugs are dangerous and have infultrated the American Film Industry to a dangerous degree. Take this story from RadarOnline.Com.
"According to a high-ranking media executive, Paramount Pictures honcho Grey had a highly unpleasant run-in with the Church during his tense negotiations with Cruise over Mission: Impossible 3. Grey, who had recently joined the studio, entered the talks determined to make Cruise accept a smaller share of the gross revenues than he had from the first two installments in the franchise. (For those films, the actor reportedly took home an unheard-of 30 percent of the total revenue.) Leaving the office one night, the diminutive Grey, walking to his car in the Paramount lot, suddenly found himself surrounded by more than a dozen Scientologists, who pressured him to ease up on the actor, according to the source."
So, now it comes out that one of the main reasons that Paramount Studios decided to end their contract with Tom Cruise is that he resorted to strong arm tactics to try and extort a better deal from executives. Now, surely, this is not the only times this kind of thing has happened in Hollywood. I saw the Godfather. But this is not the Cosa Nostra. We expect actions like that from Tony Soprano, or Don Vito Corleone. This comes from the Church of Scientology. Now, I'm no expert on cults, and, this being The United States of America, a person is free to worship in any way they choose to do so. However, when their church uses methods normnally reserved for orginized crime or dark Op's Government agents, then I start to get worried.
I start to wonder how many of our beloved hollywood celebreties are being held against their will by this strange and whacked out cult. Kirstie Alliey, John Travolta, Emelio Esteves, Candice bergen, Juliette Lewis...the list goes on.
Perhaps there is something more to this whole Scientology boondoggle than meets the eye, a sinister and dark plot to control celebreties and their money, who can in turn, control the very fabric of American cinema. If that is the case, then we must ask ourselves...What would Ronald Reagan do? What would John Wayne do? Maybe there is a link between the Scientology connection and the level of bad stinky acting coming out of hollywood in this day and age?
Get a Rope
Venezuelan strong man Hugo Chavez is at it again, stirring up trouble the day after a somber United States commemorated the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. In a speech to supporters he has started to support the fringe conspiracy theory that the United States was responsible for the events of that awful day.
‘The hypothesis is not absurd ... that those towers could have been dynamited…A building never collapses like that, unless it’s with an implosion…Why? To justify the aggressions that immediately were unleashed on Afghanistan, on Iraq.”
(link)
Now, this insulting idea has been spreading like a fungus around the internet for years, mostly, I have found, by anti-American foreigners who are looking to add insult to injury. There are several Americans who seem to believe this non-sense, mostly out to discredit the Bush administration, and bring dissent and doubt to the people. These subversives are probably bolstered by foreigners.
I’ve run up against the idea that the American Government was either directly responsible for the attacks, or allowed them to happen. Mostly, the unwashed masses that spew out this misinformation are barely literate, trouble makers who are as likely to protest the moon landing as they are the attacks. They use the flimsiest of “proof”, and illogical queries to dissemble their misinformation. They ask that rational people prove that it did not happen the way they say it did, without realizing that the burden of evidence rests with them to prove that it did.
To date, not one of their arguments has stood up to scientific scrutiny, and I believe that little green men from Mars will be proven to exist long before these nuts can present their ideas in a clear cut, scientific, and logical manner.
This, however, doesn’t make them go away. Remember, “They who know not, and know not that they know not…Shun them.”
They are relentless, assaulting the intelligent person with a barrage of meaningless questions as though their lack of answers of evidence somehow proves their point correct, and yours wrong. It’s like arguing with a Creationist, or a Liberal, there’s no winning, because they have already made up their mind that you have lost. It is these nuts that are letting the terrorists win. Chavez is just showing his true allegiance. In fact, in 2002, Free Republic News reported this:
“The private pilot of Hugo Chavez, Major Diaz Castillo has since defected and
has started to talk. As the trusted insider who flew the president's Airbus, he
was an eye-witness to secret meetings between Chavez and some of the top
dictators in the world. He was also in charge of organizing one million dollars
worth of assistance from Chavez to Al Qaeda.”
(link)
So, it’s very likely that, although he is aware of the truth in the 9/11 attacks, he is doing what he does best…Adding fuel to a fire. One day, though, that fire is going to burn him, and when it does, I hope it will be broadcast live on CNN, so that there’ll be no mistake who did what, to whom, when, and how.
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