puzzled

Submitted by aThinker (United States), Sep 19, 2006 at 17:33

While condemming the disgusting displays of hatred towards the pope, I am somewhat curious what people think is OK to quote in discussions.

For example, christianity for a 1000 years has had the most disgusting characterization of jews and judaism. Catholics and Protestants have written things that basically reduce the jews to a sub-human status, or at best examples of filth and failure. Would it be OK to begin a discussion with such quotes and then suggest that this is part of inter-faith understanding towards jews?

Similar considerations apply to buddhism and hindu traditions. This pope once characterized buddhist practice a form of "mental masturbation". Of course, buddhism being a mature tradition there was none of this violence and disorder. But did that contribute to inter-faith understanding? I dont think so.

The bottom-line here: what is the goal of this talk given by the pope? To recall spiteful and prejudicial comments from the past or say practical things like: how come there is emphasis on jihad in the 21st century? Or why aren't christians and others free to practice their faith in the middle-east? Is it the former or latter?

To me it seems to be the former.

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