In the wake of Mohammed's victory at Medina, a poet named Asma attacked the Prophet in her writings. A blind Muslim named Omeir made his way into her room and plunged his sword with the zeal that only a religious convert can muster through the sleeping woman's breast into the couch underneath her body. The next morning, in the mosque, Mohammed (peace be upon him - I'm supposed to say this even though I'm not a Muslim, right?) asked Omeir, "Hast though slain Asma?" "Yes," answered Omeir, "is there cause for apprehension?" "None," said the Prophet; "a couple of goats will hardly knock their heads together for it." A Jew, Afak, who satirized the Prophet, was slain as he slept in his courtyard (it would seem "there shall be no compulsion in religion ... and no honor in jihad"). Another poet, Kab ibn al-Ashraf, encouraged the Quraish to avenge their defeat and enraged Muslims by addressing love sonnets to their wives. "Who will ease me of this man?" asked the Prophet of this religion of peace. That very evening the poet's decapitated head was laid at the Prophet's feet.

The anecdotes above represent a few selective examples from the Koran. One could find worse in the Bible. There is much of nobility, morality, and even love and reason in Islam. But it is not a religion of peace (few religions are).

Appeals to reason ring hollow from the representative of the church which put Galileo under house arrest, sponsored the Inquisition, opposes preventative measures against AIDS, opposes birth control, and has closed its eyes for decades to child molestation by priests.

Those who find the Pope's speech a difficult read could consult Liberty Press's, Christianity and Classical Culture by Cochrane. It is a 1940 book and so unconnected with topical affairs but one could say that of Belloc's The Battle Ground (of 1936)and then of either that they could have been written yesterday.

Chuck, would you happen to have citations for those stories? I know how to find all kinds of horrific things in the Bible because I've read all of it at one point or another; I have comparably far less experience with the Koran.

Thank you, wahoofive, for your stinging indictment of the Church. If you wish to offer some rationale for your references - especially those addressing the Inquisition and contraception - now would be a splendid time.

Nick,

I don't read Arabic myself, so these stories came from Muir's Life of Mahomet; but the stories within are well-known and accepted in the Islamic tradition, and are recounted in the Koran and other Islamic literature.

Check out Chapter 13 (Volume 3)

http://www.answering-islam.de/Main/Books/Muir/Life3/chap13.htm

Full text:

http://www.answering-islam.org.uk/Books/Muir/Life1/index.htm

"sponsored the Inquisition ... opposes birth control"

Seth,

What kind of rationale do you want? The Catholic Church did run the Inquisition and it does oppose birth control.

We can debate all day about birth control; no doubt, if I started with the same preconceptions you did, then I would come to the same logical conclusion. I start with different preconceptions and get a different answer. (Of course, I think that your preconceptions are wrong, but I don't think that's what we're talking about here.) *shrugs* It's not a great example, I don't think, but I'm not sure what you're asking for.

As for the Inquisition, well, it's pretty damning. Sure, things have gotten better over the past 500 years - no doubt about that. But the Catholic Church put men to death for asserting that the Earth revolved around the Sun (even though those men had proof; reasonable, rational proof).

So when you talk about how God is logos is reason, this means one of two things:

1) You're wrong about your interpretation of God, because he tells you something that is not reasonable, or

2) The Catholic Church screwed up big time.

I assume you vote with option (2). I'm not saying that the Church should be taken to task for its sins of 500 years ago... But that there are plenty of things in the Church's history that cast doubt on any assertion that it is and has always been governed by reason, rather than money, power, nepotism, incest, or any of the other things that contributed to its power at various times.

The Church has, more than once, addressed the issue of the Inquisition and has acknowledged her error in her prohibition of teaching a heliocentric solar system (although Copernicus dedicated his seminal text to Paul III and Paul gladly accepted it. Galileo was sent to house arrest after a 22-day trial for proposing the "truth" of a Copernicus' hypothesis)). As for the excution of heretics, the role of the Curia is still debated. That the Church was irrational for roasting heretics is not a categorical issue like the immorality of contraception or abortion. Both Luther and Calvin affirmed that heresy should be stomped out wherever found, and Calvin had no problem drowning Anabaptists after pronouncing them guilty of heresy before the Geneva consistory. Thus, if the argument goes, "at one time the Church executed heretics, so any pronouncement on rationality from Benedict, presently, is ludicrous," I posit that (1) historical exigencies found such a pronouncement of orthodoxy necessary, and (2) such a practice was exercised by the reformers, yet their theology on the relationship between rational thinking and the logos is no less true.

As for contraception, if Rome's position is irrational, then so too has been all of Christian history's. A number of the Church father, beginning with Hippolytus, as well as Luther, Melanchton, Calvin, and Wesley all wrote against the practice of contraception - and this is not an issue of coitus interruptus vs. a honey-dipped sponge vs. a prophylactic vs. the pill; it is not an issue of means, but always an issue of the ends the couple seeks. It is a simply matter that the social attitude toward contraception changed during the twentieth century to such a degree that most Protestant bodies simply stepped in line (along with way too may Catholics). That something has been promulgated throughout the "c"hurch, Eastern and Western, Protestant and Catholic, cannot be ignored. At the same time the homousion of the Son was anyone's game, contraception was a settled issue. Either (1) every orthodox theologian to address the issue of contraception for 1750 years was irrational, and only now, in
our enlightened state has we discovered rationality, or (2) we have abandoned a something consistantly taught as Truth and only now dismiss it with talk of irrationality.

Yet these issues do not touch on what Benedict addressed in his lecture - again, the relationship between the logos and human rationality in Christian theology. His lecture could have come from the lips of Gregory of Nanzianzen; indeed it is very similar to Nazianzen's Easter oration from 381. Should we wish to debate the rationality of this theology, splendid, but Benedict's competency to address it in no way relates to burning heretics or Mircette. This is not Rome's game; she's simply reporting the score.

A fairly remarkable reply, Seth,on short notice too.I'm always impressed with arguments that find a flaw or two and then dismiss the whole rest of the story. I'm thinking the Catholic Church has been around for some 2,000 years. It wasn't supposed to make any mistakes? Nothing in Galileo's work is true, is it? Didn't he have some theory about tides? I think he also had some thoughts about sunspots. Heliocentrism has as many adherents as the flat earth society. More modern research on the Inquisition gives answers considerably different than those picked up in late night movies.
An examination of the costs of Contraception is long overdue as would be the costs of no fault Divorce or Same Sex Marriage. Indeed, foolishness of all sorts need not be accepted uncritically.

Could you provide a link for that Gregory fellow you mentioned? I've never heard of him and, having slogged through the Pope's speech I think the subject very interesting so would slog through an Easter address if I could be pointed to it.

I stand corrected: It was not his Easter Oration of 381 I had in mind, but his Second Theological Oration, given sometime in 380.

You might also consider his oration on the Holy Lights, given later 381, for a nice discussion on Gregory's anthropological dualism compared to the hypostatic union in Christ.

For a nice biography, I would suggest McGuckin's St. Gregory of Nazianzus. McGuckin teaches at Union and is an Orthodox priest - really great guy, too. His wife is an iconographer.

For the Second Theological Oration, go to this site: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers.310228.
htm. Also, New Advent has a nice, if dated, biography of Gregory.

There's a sharp different between Chuck's anecdotes and the others - his directly involve Mohammed.

When Mohammed conquered Mecca, the Kaaba, which was then a shrine of the city's polytheists, was seized and made into a mosque. "No compulsion in religion, but we'll take your holy sites and make them our own." (Heh, the religion of eminent domain.)

Christianity doesn't legitimize the Inquisition. Heck, not even theocratic Israel had general heresy in its criminal code (a few specific heresies like witchcraft, yes), and Jesus and the Apostles set up the Church as a peaceful voluntary entity.

Here's a little Inquisition background:

"Sixtus IV consented to the Spanish Inquisition and issued a bull in 1478 that established an Inquisitor in Seville, under political pressure from Ferdinand of Aragon, who threatened to withhold military support from his kingdom of Sicily. Nevertheless, Sixtus IV quarrelled over protocol and prerogatives of jurisdiction, was unhappy with the excesses of the Inquisition and took measures to condemn the most flagrant abuses in 1482..."

(Ferdinand's chief lobbyist for the Inquisition was Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia; he was pope after Innocent VIII, who succeeded Sixtus.)

Sixtus was certainly not a blameless soul, as his support for "Venice's aggression against the duchy of Ferrara" (cited earlier in the article) woudl testify. But there would have been no Inquisition without a Ferdinand seeking to guard his fragile political power.

A better example of papal impropriety would be the Albigensian Crusade. (I don't understand why this pogrom is lumped with the Crusades, since it didn't involve the common Muslim incursions.) Sixtus IV had no intention to launch a purge, but Innocent III did.

Comparisons between Islam and Christianity shoudl focus on Jesus (and His prophets) and Mohammed, not Torquemada and Saladin. Torquemada was a heretic, anyway - and the only reason he wouldn't have burned me at the stake is cuz the Tudors would have gotten me first...

I suppose I could always be more clear on this myself, so I'm not complaining about anyone in particular, but rather, making a point:

Alan is correct that it would be most profitable to compare stories of Jesus and Mohammed (or God and Allah, etc). Comparing the Inquisition to Mohammed just doesn't make much sense, as a general rule; the Inquisition wasn't the founding prohpet of Catholicism. As such, though, it's also fair to compare stories of what the followers of Christianity do with stories of what the followers of Islam do.

Now, in the modern era, I think it's clear that Christianity has the upper hand, morally speaking. But that's a result of innumerable factors, no one of which can be pointed to as the primary cause (I think, although feel free to disagree; I would love to see discussion on this).

Factors include but are not limited to:

1) Christianity has had 700 more years than Islam to find its place in the world;

2) Christianity has been the "religion in power" for about 1200 years, while Islam has been the religion of generally weaker (albeit oftimes wealthy) nations;

3) Christianity has been marginalized in modern Western society to the extent that it either has to "lie low" a bit in order to survive or be completely ignored (see, e.g., France), while Islam is not only thriving in some states but itself controls many states. You don't see many Christian theocracies these days, eh?

But: all that taken into account, it's important to point out that discussion should not be limited to comparisons between prophets or gods. What first drew me to this discussion was the assertion that "God is reason." I stand by my thought that either God is not reason, or that some of his followers have been pretty severely misled. That says nothing about the nature of Christianity as a whole, sure - but when someone starts talking about how reasonable Christianity is and has always been, I find myself skeptical.

2) Christianity has been the "religion in power" for about 1200 years, while Islam has been the religion of generally weaker (albeit oftimes wealthy) nations;

400 years would be more accurate, I think. Apart from the reconquista, the crusades were a temporary reversal in approximately 1000 years of Islamic ascendency and Christian defeats. Even considering the reconquista, Islam was arguably the dominant religion until the 1500s. The conquest of Constantinople in 1453 and the Battle of Vienna in 1683 were probably the high water mark for Islam in Eastern Europe. After that, Europeans gained dominance in the Enlightenment and Age of Discovery.

One cannot separate faith from reason

On the contrary, faith is, by definition, separate from reason. Faith is fundamentally unreasonable, and proudly so. Faith has no epistemologic basis, that's why it's faith.

Faith existed long before humans learned what reason is and it will no doubt exist long after they've forgotten all about reason.

From here, it looked like Pope B was attempting a smackdown of "irrational" Protestant and Islamic fundies in one corner, and of secular modernists in the other. Fine, let him have a slugfest with the Protestants and Islam for all I care, but how conveniently he forgets the Church's pre-Holocaust relationship with Jews and how those awful secularists resisted his church and promoted freedom and dignity for everybody, including Jews.

The Church has pubically, on more than one occasion confessed its sin with regard to her historic treatment of Jews. Benedict, nor for that matter, the Curia, have forgotten this sad piece of history.

You might want to ponder this:
http://rmadisonj.blogspot.com/2006/09/be-reasonable-kingdom-of-heaven-is-at.html

How we read his speech is not how others do, including well informed Catholics. This is not JP II we are seeing and hearing. A few months ago he angered Jews.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/pope/story/0,,1875791,00.html

Even the top US Vatican reporter has reservations in The Catholic Reporter.