In Defense of Daniel Pipes and Pope Francis

Submitted by Robert (United States), Apr 8, 2016 at 08:36

Dear Mr. Thomas Hennigan,

It is the West, under Christianity that first distinguished between the realms of Faith and Reason.
And in that context emerged the notion separation of Church and State - the former governed by Irrational Belief, and the latter of subject of the Rules of Reason.

efforts to Reason, and be Rational, about Muslim scriptures is mistaken, therefore. As a non-believer you have no right to sit in judgment as to the meaning of the content of the Koran. However, you do have a right to respond to the behavior of Muslims against you and against one another. How a person behaves is in the realm of Reason, not belief. Whether someone harms another physically is a rational judgment - but not as to its relation to that person's belief system, his or her Religion.

The fact bit that Muslims - before World War One - were far more tolerant of Christians and Jews, than the other way around. Daniel Pipes is an authority on the wonderful Civilization and Culture that Muslims under Islam once had when Europeans were the Barbarians going though their Dark Ages and Middle Ages (it was a time when Muslims were the real practicing "Christians," so to speak, in terms of how they treated their fellow men (with the exception of women of course, who had it better in the Barbarian Christian world); but this kind of broad generalization is risky at best. Nevertheless, perhaps the Sinless status of Mary, Christ's mom, in the Roman Catholic Church (she was the only one born without Original Sin) pay have had a role in elevating women's status).

So, Pope Francis essentially asks to respond to Muslims with Love - on the model of Jesus who dis not hate those who had turned against him. I do not think that you fully appreciate what the Roman Catholic Church has been doing since Vatican Two, and the wonderful Popes that have followed that "revolution." Pope Francis is not ignorant of Islam. He merely recognizes it as a legitimate religion, and he further demands that all Christians an non-Christians seek Peace and Tolerance of one another.

Islam, under the Ottoman Empire evolved in a much more tolerant form than it has under the Saudis. But the Saudis effectively took over as a consequence of their vast oil wealth, and the subsequent imposition of their Wahabbi fundamentalist Desert sect that spread with their charity among the poor Muslims of the world wherever they built their Mosques with Salafi strings attached.

So your comparison of Jesus to Muhammad is merely an expression of your religious belief. Among Muslims Jesus too was a profit, but Muhammad was the last.

There are 1.6 Billion Muslims in the World. If you know anything about Religion, you must know that one cannot change easily the religion of another. So you have no choice (if your not Hitler) but to be Tolerant of another's belief system, and ask for Tolerance in return. It is this notion of Religious Tolerance which the West developed during the Age of Enlightenment. And that's what Daniel Pipes tries to do by distinguishing between Islam and Islamism. The former Daniel Pipes recognizes as a recent aberration in richer past. And it is the Tolerance which Pope Francis exhibits towards Muslims which you somehow misconstrue in you observation here.

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