No religion has a good history when it comes to combining religion and violence, and Christianity isn't excepted.
Someone said it before in this thread - history is history. I cannot say I feel guilty for, say, the crusades. But I can learn from that past. The radical elements, no matter what religion they claim to follow, also learnt from that - but apparently they learnt something different.
I am not making any comment on the worth or dignity of Christianity or any other religion.
Well, if you ask me, the whole concept of "praciticing religion" is an insult to
human dignity, since the only common ground that all religions can find is the phrase "we are right and you are not", wrapped in pretty words. This is bound to cause hostility, since dogmatically all new or different ideas are wrong... I'll stop there since this goes beyond this topic.
Except that I'm not a fundamentalist or extremist, so why are you asking me such a bizzare question?
This is my point, let's assume you are a Christian, and maybe a "good one" (as in "strong believer") - you would maybe be insulted if something like this was said about holy figures in your religion's history. But would you go rampaging in the streets? It's not the indignation, but it's proportionality I despise.
(In the most recent case) especially, since the phrase that contained the "blasphemous" words was taken out of context - he actually focused on the "religion + violence = no no!" part, and not the "muslims bad haha" part. A quote and speech that were translated over and over again. A quote that far too often wasn't even recognized as a quote but as the words of Benedikt himself. Causing a radical response among thousands of people in more than just a handful of countries. So I think the question (or general cogitation) of how many muslims actually follow the peaceful image that the moderate followers of this religion constantly draw for the "western world" (should also be a candidate for this century's misnomer
).
