The Other Shoe Dropping - Pope Francis Says About Paris Attacks "Freedom of Speech Has Limits"

[jordan179]

Introduction

Recently -- barely noticed amidst the other reactions to the Al Quaeda Arabian Peninsula attack on Paris that killed 17 people and resulted in the destructioln of 3 physically-humanoid animals carrying out the attacks in Paris -- Pope Francis made a very interesting comment, reported here on BBC News:

The pontiff said religions had

Comments

[prester_scott]

Wow. Impressive.

The problem with your analysis is I think you are giving Pope Francis, and the current generation of Catholic leadership, WAY too much credit. While not exactly a liberal (nor exactly a Marxist as some have accused), neither is Francis a man of the Right by any stretch. I don't believe his comment was indicative of some grand plan to retake Western Civ from the paynim hordes. There's no evidence such a plan exists. (This actually matches pretty well with the previous occasions Christendom has had to rise up in defense against Islam, i.e. very disorganized. On those occasions, a betting man would have bet against the West.)

[jordan179]

It is not so much that I think that Pope Francis is a brilliant mastermind manipulating the history of the world to his Machiavellian ends. It is more that ... given that what amount to be a re-institution of blasphemy laws are being offered by the Western Powers in a frantic attempt to appease Islam ... the Pope would be foolish to not ensure that the Catholic Church wound up enjoying the protection of such laws. If he failed to do so, he would be handing the Muslims a major advantage in the struggle for the souls of the European Continent.

It is a betrayal of the liberal West, but Pope Francis is not of the liberal West anyway, so why should he sacrifice the interests of the Church to the interests of liberty?

[justgin1978]

"It is not so much that I think that Pope Francis is a brilliant mastermind manipulating the history of the world to his Machiavellian ends. It is more that ... given that what amount to be a re-institution of blasphemy laws are being offered by the Western Powers in a frantic attempt to appease Islam ... the Pope would be foolish to not ensure that the Catholic Church wound up enjoying the protection of such laws."

In the end, it does not matter to Islamic extremists if we respect their faith by not insulting or ridiculing them. By their standards, we are infidels who must be either converted or put to death.

[justgin1978]

@prester_scott

Couldn't agree more that the Pope is given too much credit. What good can come out of the mouth of the guy who is fairly liked by both Whoopi Goldberg and Elton John? I wonder what these two have to say about Jesus.

As for me, I say Pope Francis is a coward. In not taking a stand against these murders, he just gave license to all Islam to continue murdering "the infidel".

What next? Is murdering the unborn also okie dokie with the Pope?

[pasquin]

Excellent post. Really puts matters in context.

When I hear an argument against Hebdo (islamaphobic, e.g.), I always ask, "Does that justify murder?" Are you really saying that squiggles on a page licenses violence? If no, shutthefuckup. If yes, get in your time machine and return to medieval times.

I live in modernity, and in modernity we have tools to deal with differences: argument, shunning, boycotts, debate. Conflating an insult to one's irrational belief system (which is every religion ever) with an insult to one's mother is like comparing a joke about Obama with a your-mama taunt.

My philosophy (or religion) is a set of ideas I choose; my mother, a person I did not.

[little_e_]

The idea that people chose their religion is obviously false, at least when looking at non-Western religions. If people chose their religions, we would expect religious beliefs to be basically randomly distributed across the face of the planet. There'd be tons of Neo-Pagans running around in Pakistan, and Hindus in Bogota. There'd be essentially no correlation between parents' religion and their childrens' religions, and we could not speak of wide swathes of the planet united into cultural zones with single religious beliefs

[marycatelli]

By that argument, people don't choose their jobs, either.

[little_e_]

In a lot of cases, yes--the caste system comes to mind as a system where people have essentially no job choice. If you grow up in a farming society, you'll probably be a farmer; if you grow in a herding society, a herder.

[little_e_]

Religion is one of those things that I suspect is generally useful to people most of the time--it provides theoretical frameworks for understanding the world, morality, answers to anxiety-inducing matters like "what happens after death", community-boding rituals, seasonal and age-related rituals, etc. Judaism has compelled its adherents to wash their hands and otherwise observe hygiene standards for a couple thousand years under the logic of "do it because god says so," ( as a parent whose kids whine "whyyyy do I have to wash my haaaands?" every day, I can appreciate the effectiveness of this technique

[marycatelli]

Atheism is hardly a vaccine against such sacrifices.

[little_e_]

I agree, though not particularly caring too much does seem to work reasonably well.

[jordan179]

I agree with you regarding many of the memetic qualities of religion, but labeling something a "meme" does not rob it of informational content, and not all religions are created equal. Specifically, the lack of any religious justification for a separation of Church and State in Islam ... which in turn comes from the origination of Christianity among a subjugated people while Islam originated among subjugators ... has tremendous implications for the stability of political systems incorporating these religions as dominant faiths

[marycatelli]

"Ultimately monotheism would win, to the great sorrow of the human race for two more millennia, and to our great sorrow today."

You got some kind of objection to science and technology?

What precisely is the objection?

[jordan179]

My objection is to intolerance. The Classical Mediterranean world had managed to climb up to a fairly high degree of religious tolerance ... they had blasphemy laws but one had to publicly deny or insult the gods to trigger them ... and this was superseded by a society in which disbelief was actively hunted for and persecuted. It took us some fifteen hundred years to reach and exceed Classical heights of intellectual freedom. And now we're risking losing it all because cowardly political bosses are afraid of offending weaker foes.

It is a severe pity.

[marycatelli]

You seem to have overlooked the little detail about feeding people to lions. And testing for whether they should get it by dragging them to an altar and saying, "Sacrifice."

[benschachar_77]

He hasn't responded to this.

Weird.

I would have liked to know where on Earth he got this assumption that pre-Mosaic were open to other religions... or where he go the idea that Rome was tolerant.

[eta_ta]

A few yrs ago when I frequented blog Neoneocon there was a guy there, a Roman Catholic, who said he gets muslims more and more and wouldn't mind installation of sharia laws. Because: those shameless women with their revealing clothes! those disrespectful youths! those godless atheists and their abortionists! and Christians are too beaten by the state atheism to instill a proper order, but muslims are fearless and government is afraid to punish them.

And about 50 ppl in comments yelled: yeah! islam is a lesser danger than atheism!

That was instructive for my understanding where my political alliances lie... No way I will ever support Christian conservatives for more than a tactical reason.

[jordan179]

What's happening is that Western States are announcing that the liberal truce (all may speak and worship as they please) is now unenforceable because violent Muslims will object to the necessary actions for its enforcement. And the Christian sects are starting to give up on the States coming back to their senses, and are instead trying to make sure that their own sects get protected under the new, non-impartial blasphemy laws

[benschachar_77]

"Modern Christian conservatism has been throroughly enlightened by the spirit of Western classical liberalism, back in the 18th and 19th centuries."

You have a bad habit of getting it reversed.

Christianity informed classical liberalism through ethical monotheism. classical liberalism is the off shoot of enlightened Christian culture not the other way around.

[jordan179]

Call it mutual, given that most of the classical-liberals were some flavor of Christians. The point is that the Muslims did not participate in this process, save in the sense of having many of their number "enlightened" by superior Christian gunnery, notably in the Barbary and Algerian Wars.