Pope Benedict XVI on Islamic refrom
Strange as it may seem, the pope must whisper when he wants to state agreement with conventional Muslim opinion, namely that the Koranic prophecy is fixed for all time such that Islam cannot reform itself. If Islam cannot change, then a likely outcome will be civilizational war, something too horrific for US leaders to contemplate.
Read the whole article, it touches on many fascinating topics that could spawn several posts. (via Belmont Club)
As my readers know, I have also struggled with the concept of whether Islam can reform or not. For the most part, I choose to believe that it can, not because of any evidence, but because, the alternative is indeed horrific to contemplate.
Choosing to believe that Islam can reform means giving Islam every chance to do so, using every tool we can muster, from trying to convince to military occupations that allow a ‘reset’ to see if things will come out better. Choosing to not believe Islam can refrom essencially means deciding that a ‘clash of civilizations’ is inevitable and given a non-containable globalized world, Genocide becomes the only viable option.
I worry that eventually we will be forced into that option. A mass casualty attack, either nuclear or biological, will probably be the last act done in the name of Allah. Retribution will be swift and, most likely, quite complete and be a horror that will echo for generations.
The article makes this point about the nature of revelation from a Jewish or Christian point of view as opposed to that of Muslims:
Hebrew and Christian scripture claim to be the report of human encounters with God. After the Torah is read each Saturday in synagogues, the congregation intones that the text stems from “the mouth of God by the hand of Moses”, a leader whose flaws kept him from entering the Promised Land. The Jewish rabbis, moreover, postulated the existence of an unwritten Revelation whose interpretation permits considerable flexibility with the text. Christianity’s Gospels, by the same token, are the reports of human evangelists.
The Archangel Gabriel, by contrast, dictated the Koran to Mohammed, according to Islamic doctrine. That sets a dauntingly high threshold for textual critics. How does one criticize the word of God without rejecting its divine character?
One of my favorite statements on revelation is from Kim Stanley Robinson’s book, The Years of Rice and Salt. I don’t have the exact quote handy, but it goes something like, God’s words fall upon men like rain upon dry earth. The resulting mud is necessary for life, but is not to be confused with pure water. Ironically perhaps, the statement in the novel is made by a Muslim character.
I think that that is the correct attitude to have about any truth, whether from a holy man or from a scientist. Human fallibility means all truths known to man are suspect, and while they should certainly be valued, they should never be confused with absolute knowledge. I hope that like the character in Robinson’s novel, Muslims will learn to value this perspective as well.
I am probably going to buy lots of guns and ammo just in case that whole civilization thing does not work out for the muslims.
look at the entire history of their race starting with Isacca in the old testament. I am beginning to doubt they can be civilized.