Myths

The myth that Islamists or anyone else for that matter, have a right not to be offended by others is amusing on a global scale.

The Turks... the infamous genocidal Muslims who murdered more than a million Armenians... have their turbans ruffled because Pope Benedict XVI happened to point out an historical fact the other day while speaking in Germany.

To wit: Benedict quoted from a book recounting a conversation between 14th century Byzantine Christian Emperor Manuel Paleologos II and a Persian scholar on the truths of Christianity and Islam.

"The emperor comes to speak about the issue of jihad, holy war," the Pope said. "He said, I quote, 'Show me just what Mohammed 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.'"

And we all known what happens when brain-dead Muslims feel they've been insulted... they start looking around for kafir to attack, behead, and burn the corpses....and just for good measure, they video tape the whole thing. Apparently this is an effort to prove that offended Muslims aren't blood-thirsty killers.   

Somehow it falls short of convincing me, anyway.

All Muslims are psychotic murderers? Nope, but it seems that a great number of psychotic murderers are Muslims.

While I have no Catholic credentials, I would advise the Pontiff to forego his trip to Turkey in November. It may interest you to know that the best selling novel in Turkey, now on the verge of its third printing is titled, “Assassinating the Pope: Who will kill Benedict XVI in Istanbul?”

That's this Pope and this trip.

You may recall that the Papacy and Turkey have a rocky past in the person of Mehmet Ali Agca, who served 19 years of a life sentence in Italian prisons, was handed over to prison officials in his native Turkey in June 2000. He is now serving a prison term there for a murder committed before his near-successful attempt to assassinate John Paul II.

The new pontiff's first encyclical, about love and charity, has endorsed a ban on men with "deep-seated homosexual tendencies" becoming priests.

That should offend the members of the Gay, Lesbian, Bi-Sexual, Trans-gendered and Utterly Confused communities (or is it one big community?)

At least I hope so. Especially since we know that the most put upon, the most discriminated against group on the world is comprised of Jews and Chrsitians, especially fundamentalist Chrisitians labeled as "right wing."

We are offended everyday, but don't resort to murder to plead our case. Therein lies the truth and the distinction.

Am headed for the first night of the Fort Morgan High School Class of 1966 reunion festivities here pretty soon. Hope there are name tags as I haven't seen many of these folks since I was a freshman. I moved to California soon thereafter and despite not having graduated with them, they are kind enough to invite me back. I have perfect attendance.

Several of these good folks and I go back to the second grade... back when kids were still being crippled by polio; receiving polio inoculations by syringe and sugar cube are some of my earliest school memories.

So this weekend, I'll drive by the haunts, all the places I lived and played, reliving what was essentially a Norman Rockwell childhood along the banks of the South Platte River where at one time a small military outpost gave protection to those who settled the vast plains of a young state facing the new century. 

Comments

[Ninja R]

Completely amazing. I've never understood this—show that Islam is not the *religion of peace*...point out they spread their religion "by the sword" and are burning and slaughtering savages...and they become outraged.

How do they show their outrage? By spreading their religion by the sword, burning whatever they can find and slaughtering people.

Have fun out there in California...weather's probably better there than Texas.