This is an utter lie from start to finish – the death toll in southern Sudan since the early 1990s has far outstripped the Rwandan genocide and the Bosnian “genocide” put together; here’s a hint – it was instigated at the hands of an Islamist government. I could add scores of thousands killed by murderous fanatics across the entire Sahel, Nigeria, Indonesia, etc, but I think you get the point.

And why on earth should that be the case, other than that a vocal group of rancourous barbarians are unreconciled with the scientific method and are willing to spill blood in their efforts to destroy the entire edifice of humanity’s progress? There has been no shortage of “non-vague” “characterisations” of another particular “faith” held by, say, 1.5 to 2 billion homo sapiens, so precisely why bother treading lightly now? The simple fact is this – if you are a genuine “secularist” (meaning somebody who, whatever their private rituals, is an ardent opponent of coercing people on the basis of faith or superstition), then you can have no principled reason to withold your fire simply because the delicate sensibilities of your targets might be upset, and they be driven to murderous violence.

Allow me to be epistemologically blunt – Muslims, as with all other religions, uphold a belief system that is unfalsifiable; that is, it is neither proven, nor even able to subject itself to empirical proof. Of course, they oppose rational enquiry for others’ benefit, but necessarily demand it for themselves. To then insist that your “faith” which, as far as you can prove, may well be a load of emotional gibberish, should be firewalled from the warranted intellectual attacks of people who DON’T believe public life should be held to ransom by mythical beings, is just unbelievable hypocrisy – and utterly immoral. Muslims are currently by far the worst offenders in this regard, and like Christians did three or so centuries ago, they need to learn to GROW UP.

What is more interesting then, is why wise words from a 30-something man seem to count for so little, judging from commenters’ (here and elsewhere) lack of interest in them. Now *that’s* an insult.

All the extant Greek texts are catalogued and concordanced. There is no evidence of leading Hebrew ideas getting any currency in Greek texts.

Certainly, as a maritime, and occasionally expansionary culture, the Greeks came into contact with neighbouring cultures.

Fighting with neighbours, living with neighbours, even reading their books is one thing. Incorporating and adapting their beliefs and ideas is quite different.

Not even in Greek popular culture is there much of an imprint of Hebrew culture. Much less is there any evidence of it in “high” Greek culture which embodied the quest for hellenic “reason”.

Take a current example: Even Cardinal Pell, it seems, reads the Koran, with the intention of rejecting it.

I know all about Rwanda, by the way, as I had family helping to pick up the pieces in situ. You don’t know what you’re talking about.

Historically inaccurate. any “enrichment� that took place was all one-way, from Greek to Hebrew.

That’s wrong, however.

Thanks, Katz, for the interesting contribution.

Benedict’s thought is a tad Hegelian for my liking, I must admit.

Rubbish. You said you were not a practising Catholic only a few weeks ago when I japingly suggested you do some penance.

You also conveniently ignore a number of recent events such as the Christian Serb slaughter of Muslim Bosnians and the Christian involvement in the slaughter of Tutsis in Rwanda. On the latter, note the following:

” Since the genocide, Rwandans have converted to Islam in huge numbers. Muslims now make up 14 percent of the 8.2 million people here in Africa’s most Catholic nation, twice as many as before the killings began.

Many converts say they chose Islam because of the role that some Catholic and Protestant leaders played in the genocide. Human rights groups have documented several incidents in which Christian clerics allowed Tutsis to seek refuge in churches, then surrendered them to Hutu death squads, as well as instances of Hutu priests and ministers encouraging their congregations to kill Tutsis. Today some churches serve as memorials to the many people slaughtered among their pews.

Four clergymen are facing genocide charges at the U.N.-created International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and last year in Belgium, the former colonial power, two Rwandan nuns were convicted of murder for their roles in the massacre of 7,000 Tutsis who sought protection at a Benedictine convent. ” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53018-2002Sep22.html

Accordingly, since the 1990s, Christians- including Catholics- have been involved in two acts of genocide that have killed many tens of thousands of people. This outweighs the death toll from Islamofascist terrorism by at least one hundred to one.

So maybe you should purge the sins of your brethern before you cast stones at your neighbours. What do you think?

Then there is the question of the use of reason to justify ones religious beliefs.
I cant see how one could possibly be a Christian of any kind if one REALLY used systematic reason to examine any of the Christian “truth” claims.
The same applies to Islam.
True philosophical enquiry begins with an open hearted/minded disposition of not-knowing and the consequent thorough examination of all propositions and alleged “evidence”.
What do we really know?
What do we really know about what may or may not have occurred 2000 years ago? Or yesterday afternoon for that matter!

The reaction from Muslims. violence. says it al really

Much of the unfavourable criticism of it in this thread and elsewhere is based on a crude consequentialism that does violence to the intent of the lecturer.

Let me observe that the lecturer has a powerful and sinuous intellect.

His major self-appointed task is to resynthesise hellenic thought and bible-based faith. He believes, correctly enough, that this separation began in Western Europe during he Middle Ages, especially with the thought of Duns Scotius. He believes that this separation has been catastrophic for both faith and reason. I wish to show that he has mishandled and overstated his case.

The lecturer uses several methods to argue his point that hellenic thought and bible faith represent a privileged sythesis of reason and faith. These methods represent a brave effort, but they are, in the end, inadequate to his purposes.

I restrict my self to discussion of the lecturer’s assertions about encounters between the world of the bible and the hellenic world before the birth of Christ. (There is much to be argued with in the lecturer’s assertions about the Christian era as well.)

1.

Is the conviction that acting unreasonably contradicts God’s nature merely a Greek idea, or is it always and intrinsically true?

Commits the logical fallacy of the excluded middle. Until the lecturer corrects that, no sensible discussion is possible.

2.

The encounter between the Biblical message and Greek thought did not happen by chance. The vision of Saint Paul, who saw the roads to Asia barred and in a dream saw a Macedonian man plead with him: “Come over to Macedonia and help us!” (cf. Acts 16:6-10) – this vision can be interpreted as a “distillation” of the intrinsic necessity of a rapprochement between Biblical faith and Greek inquiry.

Obscurantist special pleading.

3.

The mysterious name of God, revealed from the burning bush, a name which separates this God from all other divinities with their many names and declares simply that he is, is already presents a challenge to the notion of myth, to which Socrates’ attempt to vanquish and transcend myth stands in close analogy.

Again, special pleading, based on a primitive understanding of the nature of biblical sources.

4.

Thus, despite the bitter conflict with those Hellenistic rulers who sought to accommodate it forcibly to the customs and idolatrous cult of the Greeks, biblical faith, in the Hellenistic period, encountered the best of Greek thought at a deep level, resulting in a mutual enrichment…

Historically inaccurate. any “enrichment” that took place was all one-way, from Greek to Hebrew.

Thus the lecturer gets off to an unpromising start.

It is evident that the lecturer’s thesis is built on foundations of sand.

(His now notorious reference to Manuel II is very ambiguous in intent, for it introduces well enough his theme, but is also a red rag to a bull, but this isn’t the main thrust of his piece.)

A jihad is not a holy war but a holy struggle…

Heh. Cristo quotes Wiki too – case closed!

Meant to add, Mark, that the address also returns to the Emperor’s discourse. The Islamic theme is intentional and – as I said above – founds the treatise in the events of the present. Purposefully.

I have never said I am not a Catholic, Steve. It is increasingly difficult to take you seriously. Agreed that Luther was a disgusting figure. Unfortunately for your typically dotty thesis – what about TEH evil Christians? – Lutherans aren’t presently killing people every day or flying planes into buildings.