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Religion of peace

Posted by Bob Weber on Sep 18th, 2006 in Our Changing World, Religion | 1 comment

Unless you’ve been under a rock for the last week or so you have heard about the Pope’s offensive remarks about Islam. Recently in speech the Pope

referred to criticism of the Prophet Muhammad by 14th century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus, who said everything the prophet brought was evil “such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”

Muslim groups had this response to the Pope’s statement, in which he was only quoting a historical document not directly denouncing Islam himself:

Al-Qaeda militants in Iraq vowed war on “worshippers of the cross” and protesters burned a papal effigy…

Muslim fundamentalists, and western organizations like the New York Times, who are appearantly sympathetic to radical Muslims, have been begging Pope Benedict for a retraction of his statement. Sunday, the Pope addressed the matter but did not retract his statements. In fact, he reiterated his point that we should all reject religiously motivated violence.

To me, this whole issue is insane and ironic for the following reasons.

Islam and Christianity are, and always have been, incompatible. Muslims continually point at the Christians (and Jews) as being evil, but when a Christian leader points out the same opinions about Islam worldwide riots erupt.
The New York Times is defending Islam. Barely five years ago the city this newspaper represents was attacked by militian Muslims, but now the paper is leaping to their defense? How crazy is that?
Islam is by it’s very nature violent. The Koran actively encourages it’s followers to spread the religion by the sword. This is not a myth, this is not a misinterpretation, this is a fact and it has been a method of operation for Muslims for thousands of years. There are many Muslims that don’t take this literally, but at it’s heart Islam is rooted in violence. Conversely, the Christian gospels constantly renounce violence. Christ made it clear that he did not advocate violent action in any way. Not that many wars haven’t been fought in the name of the Chrisitan God, but many times those wars were initiated by corrupt church officials not following the words of Christ.
Declaring War on “worshippers of the cross” is neither new or peaceful. How are these people convincing anyone they are peaceful when every time they get offended they start killing people? How are all these liberal groups defending a religion that is committing violent crimes every time someone makes a statement they don’t like?

The only thing I understand less than the actions of Muslims on a worldwide scale is the readiness of social and political groups everywhere to constantly defend them. While I believe that, at least here in the US, Muslims have (and should continue to have) the right to peacefully worship in any way they wish, I also believe that there is a significant segment of Muslims worldwide that take the text of their religion to heart. These people are violent and dangerous because of Islam. The sooner we recognize and admit this the better off we will be.

Did we evolve?

Posted by Bob Weber on Jul 12th, 2006 in Religion | 0 comments

Doc Rampage has an interesting post on the currently popular topic of how evolution fits with Christianity. I have to admit, I’m in much the same place Doc is. I am a Christian and believe in creation, but there is scientific evidence that definitely makes a young-earth creation more difficult to believe in. While, unlike Doc, I’m not ready to question the canon there are some unanswered questions I have.

I’m never one to shy from a debate, but there are some difficulties in this topic, as I have experienced lately in discussions on Mano Singham’s blog. This is largely a question of philosophy. It seems that, for most people, the science doesn’t decide the question one way or the other. It’s actually the belief (or disbelief) in a omiscient creator that creates the starting ground and the discussion is polarized based on an individual’s beliefs. Often the discussion breaks down more into ‘who should prove what’ than any discussion weighing the actual evidence.

There is one thing I think gets lost in all of this discussion. For much of the scientific community creation or evolution is meaningless. In either case man, and all other leaving things, reached a point some 6,000 years ago where he was uniquely suited for his environment. If we were created by God it’s reasonable to assume that our minds and bodies were created to function in the cultures that existed at that time. If we evolved it’s also reasonable to assume that we adapted to our particular situation. This means for sociology, psychology, medicine, archeology and most anthropological studies evolution is a non-issue. If we start at recorded history and work from the idea that we are uniquely suited to live on this planet in the social groups that existed at the time all science is minimally impacted. All that’s left are the biologists and the philosophers duking it out.