... [snipped]

It's good to see the rise once again of the eternal, internecine
hatred between Christianity and Islam. The world would certainly be a
far better place if the 2 billion benighted followers of these fear-
and ignorance-based "religions" suddenly vanished from the face of the
earth.

WHY these two sects are constantly at war is an unanswered question;
they have more basic SIMILARITIES than dissimilarities:

=B7 Both are human-constructs.
=B7 Both are intolerant of other religions and viewpoints.
=B7 Both urge adherents to hate "infidels."
=B7 Both have histories that mainly are filled with killing, war,
torture, violence, and intentional denial of education for their
followers.
=B7 Both are based on hypocritical, exclusionary doctrines.
=B7 Both teach and insist upon the inferiority of women.
=B7 Both childishly insist that there's an "afterlife" that only
"members" may enter.
=B7 Both teach that their "god" is a wrathful, take-no-prisoners despot
who "guides" his followers by fear and threats of damnation.
=B7 Both fearfully and ignorantly insist that their "holy" books of
fiction and fantasy are the "word of god."
=B7 Both have hierarchies of "holy men" (not women) patterned on
kingdoms, with long legacies of child molestation and rape.

I'm sure some of you can think of other similarities. Point being
that Islam and Christianity are at the top of the world's GREAT
DIVIDERS of HUMAN BEINGS!

And that'll never change.
------------
"Remarks by Pope Prompt Muslim Outrage, Protests"

"14th-Century Quote Refers to 'Evil' Islam"

By Anthony Shadid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, September 16, 2006; A01

BEIRUT, Sept. 15 -- A medieval reference in an academic lecture by Pope
Benedict XVI unleashed a wave of denunciations, outrage and frustration
across the Muslim world Friday, with officials in Turkey and Pakistan
condemning the pontiff, Islamic activist groups organizing protests and
a leading religious figure in Lebanon demanding that he personally
apologize.

The reception to the pope's speech in Germany on Tuesday was a reminder
of the precarious, suspicious state of affairs between a West that
often views Islam as a faith in need of reform and a Muslim world that
feels besieged in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Some of the
criticism evoked the Crusades; others accused the Vatican of joining a
Western-led war on Islam.

"We ask him to offer a personal apology -- not through his officials --
to Muslims for this false reading" of Islam, said Grand Ayatollah
Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, one of the world's leading Shiite Muslim
clerics, who lives in Beirut.

The pope began his lecture at the University of Regensburg by quoting
from a 14th-century dialogue between the Byzantine emperor, Manuel II
Paleologos, and a Persian scholar. In a passage on the concept of holy
war, Benedict recited a passage of what he called "startling
brusqueness," in which Manuel questioned the teachings of Islam's
prophet, Muhammad.

"Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will
find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the
sword the faith he preached," Benedict quoted the emperor as saying.

The pope neither explicitly endorsed nor denounced the emperor's words,
but rather used them as a preface to a discussion of faith and reason.
The Vatican said the pope did not intend the remarks to be offensive to
Muslims.

"It was certainly not the intention of the Holy Father to undertake a
comprehensive study of the jihad and of Muslim ideas on the subject,
still less to offend the sensibilities of Muslim faithful," Vatican
spokesman Federico Lombardi told Vatican Radio.

But the reaction was quick, and though it was largely peaceful, it
evoked the storm of violent protests that erupted in most Muslim
countries after a Danish newspaper published a series of cartoons a
year ago that lampooned Muhammad. In some ways, the denunciations
seemed even more pronounced, given the pope's stature and authority
over the world's 1.1 billion Roman Catholics.

Pakistan's parliament adopted a resolution Friday condemning the pope
for what it called derogatory comments and seeking an apology. The
Foreign Ministry summoned the Vatican's ambassador to express regret
over Benedict's remarks.

In Turkey, where Benedict planned to visit in November in his first
trip as pope to a Muslim country, the deputy leader of Turkish Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Islamic-inspired party called
Benedict's remarks the result of ignorance or a provocation.

"He has a dark mentality that comes from the darkness of the Middle
Ages. He is a poor thing that has not benefited from the spirit of
reform in the Christian world," Salih

Kapusuz told state media. "It looks like an effort to revive the
mentality of the Crusades."

Even the country's secularist opposition party demanded the pope
apologize before his visit to Turkey, which has long been one of the
least ostensibly religious of Muslim countries. News agencies reported
that another party led a demonstration outside the largest mosque in
the capital, Ankara, and about 50 people placed a black wreath outside
the Vatican's diplomatic mission.

About 100 people protested in Egypt, the Arab world's most populous
country, where demonstrators chanted, "Oh Crusaders, oh cowards! Down
with the pope!" Mohammed Sayed Tantawi, the sheik of al-Azhar
University, a leading seat of religious scholarship, said the pope's
remarks indicated "clear ignorance of Islam," and the Muslim
Brotherhood, one of the Middle East's largest and oldest Islamic
groups, called on Muslim governments to sever relations with the
Vatican if the pope does not apologize.

Thousands of Palestinians protested Friday night in Gaza City after
Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, who belongs to the Islamic
Resistance Movement, or Hamas, said the pope's lecture had offended
Muslims everywhere.

"This is another Crusader war against the Arab and Muslim world,"
Ismail Radwan, a Hamas official, told the crowd.

The criticism of the pope's remarks was often twofold: at the reference
of the prophet Muhammad's legacy as "evil and inhuman" and at the idea
that Islam was spread by the sword. Much of the conversion that
followed the prophet's life in the 7th century was a gradual,
centuries-long process that left a remarkable degree of diversity --
albeit faded -- in parts of the Muslim world.

In Iraq, where religious differences have fueled much of the country's
crippling violence, a Catholic representative warned that the pope's
remarks were being distorted to "sow a crisis of chaos and enmity
between the one family of Christians and Muslims."

A statement posted at mosques in Anbar province, a center of the
insurgency, warned that a previously unknown group would begin killing
Iraqi Christians in three days unless the pope apologized. In Basra, a
bomb exploded at the Assyrian Catholic Church on Friday evening,
causing damage but no injuries, according to a church leader who said
the attack stemmed from the pope's remarks.

Across Iraq's sectarian Sunni-Shiite Muslim divide, clerics called the
remarks another campaign against Islam. "Last year, and in the same
month, the Danish cartoons assaulted Islam," Sheik Salah al-Ubaidi, a
representative of Moqtada al-Sadr's radical Shiite movement, said in
the group's stronghold of Kufa.

Special correspondent Saad Sarhan in Najaf, Iraq, contributed to this
report.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/15/AR2006091=

It's good to see the rise once again of the eternal, internecine
hatred between Christianity and Islam. The world would certainly be a
far better place if the 2 billion benighted followers of these fear-
and ignorance-based "religions" suddenly vanished from the face of the
earth.

WHY these two sects are constantly at war is an unanswered question;
they have more basic SIMILARITIES than dissimilarities:

· Both are human-constructs.
· Both are intolerant of other religions and viewpoints.
· Both urge adherents to hate "infidels."
· Both have histories that mainly are filled with killing, war,
torture, violence, and intentional denial of education for their
followers.
· Both are based on hypocritical, exclusionary doctrines.
· Both teach and insist upon the inferiority of women.
· Both childishly insist that there's an "afterlife" that only
"members" may enter.
· Both teach that their "god" is a wrathful, take-no-prisoners despot
who "guides" his followers by fear and threats of damnation.
· Both fearfully and ignorantly insist that their "holy" books of
fiction and fantasy are the "word of god."
· Both have hierarchies of "holy men" (not women) patterned on
kingdoms, with long legacies of child molestation and rape.

I'm sure some of you can think of other similarities. Point being
that Islam and Christianity are at the top of the world's GREAT
DIVIDERS of HUMAN BEINGS!

And that'll never change.
------------
"Remarks by Pope Prompt Muslim Outrage, Protests"

"14th-Century Quote Refers to 'Evil' Islam"

By Anthony Shadid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, September 16, 2006; A01

BEIRUT, Sept. 15 -- A medieval reference in an academic lecture by Pope
Benedict XVI unleashed a wave of denunciations, outrage and frustration
across the Muslim world Friday, with officials in Turkey and Pakistan
condemning the pontiff, Islamic activist groups organizing protests and
a leading religious figure in Lebanon demanding that he personally
apologize.

The reception to the pope's speech in Germany on Tuesday was a reminder
of the precarious, suspicious state of affairs between a West that
often views Islam as a faith in need of reform and a Muslim world that
feels besieged in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Some of the
criticism evoked the Crusades; others accused the Vatican of joining a
Western-led war on Islam.

"We ask him to offer a personal apology -- not through his officials --
to Muslims for this false reading" of Islam, said Grand Ayatollah
Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, one of the world's leading Shiite Muslim
clerics, who lives in Beirut.

The pope began his lecture at the University of Regensburg by quoting
from a 14th-century dialogue between the Byzantine emperor, Manuel II
Paleologos, and a Persian scholar. In a passage on the concept of holy
war, Benedict recited a passage of what he called "startling
brusqueness," in which Manuel questioned the teachings of Islam's
prophet, Muhammad.

"Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will
find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the
sword the faith he preached," Benedict quoted the emperor as saying.

The pope neither explicitly endorsed nor denounced the emperor's words,
but rather used them as a preface to a discussion of faith and reason.
The Vatican said the pope did not intend the remarks to be offensive to
Muslims.

"It was certainly not the intention of the Holy Father to undertake a
comprehensive study of the jihad and of Muslim ideas on the subject,
still less to offend the sensibilities of Muslim faithful," Vatican
spokesman Federico Lombardi told Vatican Radio.

But the reaction was quick, and though it was largely peaceful, it
evoked the storm of violent protests that erupted in most Muslim
countries after a Danish newspaper published a series of cartoons a
year ago that lampooned Muhammad. In some ways, the denunciations
seemed even more pronounced, given the pope's stature and authority
over the world's 1.1 billion Roman Catholics.

Pakistan's parliament adopted a resolution Friday condemning the pope
for what it called derogatory comments and seeking an apology. The
Foreign Ministry summoned the Vatican's ambassador to express regret
over Benedict's remarks.

In Turkey, where Benedict planned to visit in November in his first
trip as pope to a Muslim country, the deputy leader of Turkish Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Islamic-inspired party called
Benedict's remarks the result of ignorance or a provocation.

"He has a dark mentality that comes from the darkness of the Middle
Ages. He is a poor thing that has not benefited from the spirit of
reform in the Christian world," Salih

Kapusuz told state media. "It looks like an effort to revive the
mentality of the Crusades."

Even the country's secularist opposition party demanded the pope
apologize before his visit to Turkey, which has long been one of the
least ostensibly religious of Muslim countries. News agencies reported
that another party led a demonstration outside the largest mosque in
the capital, Ankara, and about 50 people placed a black wreath outside
the Vatican's diplomatic mission.

About 100 people protested in Egypt, the Arab world's most populous
country, where demonstrators chanted, "Oh Crusaders, oh cowards! Down
with the pope!" Mohammed Sayed Tantawi, the sheik of al-Azhar
University, a leading seat of religious scholarship, said the pope's
remarks indicated "clear ignorance of Islam," and the Muslim
Brotherhood, one of the Middle East's largest and oldest Islamic
groups, called on Muslim governments to sever relations with the
Vatican if the pope does not apologize.

Thousands of Palestinians protested Friday night in Gaza City after
Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, who belongs to the Islamic
Resistance Movement, or Hamas, said the pope's lecture had offended
Muslims everywhere.

"This is another Crusader war against the Arab and Muslim world,"
Ismail Radwan, a Hamas official, told the crowd.

The criticism of the pope's remarks was often twofold: at the reference
of the prophet Muhammad's legacy as "evil and inhuman" and at the idea
that Islam was spread by the sword. Much of the conversion that
followed the prophet's life in the 7th century was a gradual,
centuries-long process that left a remarkable degree of diversity --
albeit faded -- in parts of the Muslim world.

In Iraq, where religious differences have fueled much of the country's
crippling violence, a Catholic representative warned that the pope's
remarks were being distorted to "sow a crisis of chaos and enmity
between the one family of Christians and Muslims."

A statement posted at mosques in Anbar province, a center of the
insurgency, warned that a previously unknown group would begin killing
Iraqi Christians in three days unless the pope apologized. In Basra, a
bomb exploded at the Assyrian Catholic Church on Friday evening,
causing damage but no injuries, according to a church leader who said
the attack stemmed from the pope's remarks.

Across Iraq's sectarian Sunni-Shiite Muslim divide, clerics called the
remarks another campaign against Islam. "Last year, and in the same
month, the Danish cartoons assaulted Islam," Sheik Salah al-Ubaidi, a
representative of Moqtada al-Sadr's radical Shiite movement, said in
the group's stronghold of Kufa.

Special correspondent Saad Sarhan in Najaf, Iraq, contributed to this
report.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/15/AR2006091500800.html

It's good to see the rise once again of the eternal, internecine
hatred between Christianity and Islam. The world would certainly be a
far better place if the 2 billion benighted followers of these fear-
and ignorance-based "religions" suddenly vanished from the face of the
earth.