Check out today’s Vent with Michelle Malkin and another of my favorite bloggers, Mary Katharine Ham.
Today, they deconstruct the ridiculous statement Rosie O’Donnell made on the The View the other day that “radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam.” No it isn’t, Rosie.
On a related note, the Pope gave an amazing speech Tuesday in which he discussed the fundamental differences between Christianity and Islam. Jeff Israely of Time magazine covered the speech. Here’s an interesting paragraph:
His discourse Tuesday sought to delineate what he sees as a fundamental difference between Christianity’s view that God is intrinsically linked to reason (the Greek concept of logos) and Islam´s view that “God is absolutely transcendent.” Benedict said that Islam teaches that God’s “will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality.” The risk he sees implicit in this concept of the divine is that the irrationality of violence can potentially be justified if someone believes it is God’s will. “As far as understanding of God and thus the concrete practice of religion is concerned, we find ourselves faced with a dilemma which nowadays challenges us directly. Is the conviction that acting unreasonably contradicts God’s nature merely a Greek idea, or is it always and intrinsically true?”
Update: RightWingSparkle has a great post that also delineates the differences between Christianity and Islam.
First of all, make no mistake about it, when Rosie refers to “radical Christians” she is referring to people like me. Don’t think for a moment that she was referring to the likes of Fred Phelps. She was referring to Christians like myself who don’t want to see gay marriage, who are against abortion, and live our lives according to our faith.
Let me get straight to the bottom line here. FACT: If Rosie lived under radical Islam they would seek to torture and kill her. FACT: There is not a true Christian organization that would seek or condone any harm to anyone who is gay in this country, including Pat Robertson, Dr. James Dobson, and the Catholic Church.
Not only would we not harm anyone who is gay, we would stand at the gate and fight to death anyone who tried to harm, torture, or kill an innocent person who happened to be gay.
Rosie doesn’t understand who her allies really are.
Excellent deconstruction of the blowhard and dimbulb Rosie, ladies!
I’d love to see a live battle between Malkin and Ham, and the nitwits of “The View.”
As for the Pope, I must say that Benedict is actually a refreshing change from John Paul II. Not that I’m dissing the late Pontiff. He was terrific, and was a lion in his time. But Benedict seems to understand radical Islam in a way that JPII didn’t.
Or maybe I’m looking at it wrong. JPII drew a line in the sand concerning communism. Benedict is doing the same with radical Islam.
I have yet to read his full talk, which was an important talk and deserves much reflection.
In some defense of John-Paul II, he was extremely ill in the last years before anything but a tiny minority in the West recognized the rise of Islamofascism. Upto that time the acts of terrorism were often portrayed as the uprisings of oppressed or disenfranchised locals. The exception was Iran which was contained by US sponsership of Iraq followed by its own economic self-destruction.
Anyway John Paul II was probably too sick and to a degree, the Vatican was likely on autopilot based on what John Paul had built and directed before he became ill. In otherwords you need to flip back to the time before he became ill and what his priorities were then against what we knew then.
jmp100- I understand. What I was thinking was JPII’s heartfelt reaching out activities, as opposed to this talk by Benedict.
Rosie vs. Michelle.
Battle of the lightweights!!!
“I’d love to see a live battle between Malkin and Ham, and the nitwits of ‘The View.’ “
I’d love to see a live mud-wrestling battle between Malkin and Ham. Or a lingerie tickle-fight or something.
Fundamentalism is fundalmentalism regardless of the God they believe in. Rosie is absolutly right. The only reason the fundi’s here seem mild compared with the fundi’s in the ME is because we Americans are not about to give our country over to them. People like me will keep them in check and make sure they keep their religion to themselves.
There was a time when the fundi’s ruled in this countries early history;
They spiked native Americans babies and tortured their parents with all sorts of atrocities….they also killed, burned and drowned non-believer witches.
Liberal/ rational thinkers and the freedom of America is what keeps these lunies in check here.
I think the modern American Christianfundi is often jealous of the Islamofundi’s because they get to kill gays and demean women and rule theocratically.
http://www.truthout.org/imgs.art_01/3.072505B1R1.jpg
http://www.jesuscampthemovie.com/
I think the modern American Christianfundi is often jealous of the Islamofundi’s because they get to kill gays and demean women and rule theocratically.
That is the most ignorant, uneducated, sterotypical and hateful claptrap I think any idiot could possibly say.
Muirgeo, I am glad that we are blessed with “people like” you to keep the Christian fundamenatlists in this country in check. Geesh, you’re just as sanctimonious as you seem to claim they are. Not????
Oh yeah, and I want to add I agree with Jimmy that Malkin and Ham are very easy on the eyes compared to The View panel. Maybe it’s worth re-visiting this issue: http://sixmeatbuffet.com/images/theirsoursbig.jpg
muirgeo wrote: Rosie is absolutly right. … I think the modern American Christianfundi is often jealous of the Islamofundi’s because they get to kill gays and demean women and rule theocratically.
With ‘thinking’ like this, actual knowledgeable debate is impossible.
muirgeo are you even for real? I know there are plenty of moonbats out there, but seriously – you’re kidding right? You can’t possibly be this stupid in real life.
I think those guys at six-meat-buffet should drop Debbie Shlusshel for Mary Katherine Ham. Throw in Bethany from Realverse too (God knows I’d like to throw it in her).
Too bad old mun-go does not live in the ME. They hang dumbasses also.
“That is the most ignorant, uneducated, sterotypical and hateful claptrap I think any idiot could possibly say.”
You should hear Bush talk about Islamofacists taking over our country.
Or his followers talk about Muslims.
Mungo–Have you ever even set foot in a church? Embrace Grace, my friend….And it would figure that you would leave links to truthout. You’re a whacko to the max.
I guess it was a week for dogs on “The View.”
An unbelieveable dog says “hello,” then another dog says something unbelieveable.
Rosie, what a worthless cur, did someone throw her a bone. Oops, she does work that way.
Another big difference: Every Christian and Jewish demonination teaches that every believer should seek to have a personal relationship with God. This is considered one of the prime responsibilities of the believer. In contrast, Islam’s view of Allah is that, since Islam considers Allah to be totally mysterious and unknowable, it is by definition impossible for the Muslim layperson to have a relationship with Allah. In fact, it is my understanding that seeking to do so is considered blasphemy. The average Muslim is completely at the mercy of the imans as to what the will of Allah is, and has no grounds for questioning or challenging it. The goal of Islam is not to promote spiritual understanding so much as it is to promote spiritual abandonment.
Rosie vs. Michelle.
Battle of the lightweights!!!
Uh….Robert….how can you call Rosie a LIGHTweight? I think she moved up to a different weight division.
I wonder how Christianity in America would repsond if troops from Islamist countries where setting up coups to overthrow our government?… if they had troops on the ground in our country and were meddling in our afffairs supporting regional dictators, stealing our resources ect….
The problem is not the religion of Islam or “Islamofacist”. The problem is our dependency on oil and the answer is energy independence and leaving the ME to its own.
Do that, (become energy independent and pull all troops from the ME and the “Islamo-fascist will be just as big a problem to us as they were in the early 1900’s.
But if you want to solve the problem with Christian bombs….plan on passing the problem on from generation to generation because it will never go away short of mass genocide of all 1 billion Muslims worldswide…and then only to be replaced by some NEW enemy.
Yeah I’m just a nutty moonbat amoral atheist though so what do I know….onward Christian soldiers…..Who do we and Jesus bomb next???
muirgeo: Except in your own fever-swamp imagination, there is no such thing as a Christian bomb. Or a Jewish bomb, or a Hinduist bomb, or a Bhuddist bomb, etc. There are just bombs. However, there are apparently such things as Islamic bombs, because all of the Islamists keep telling us so. That’s the part you don’t get.
Mungo–Have you ever even set foot in a church? Embrace Grace, my friend….
Posted by: nikkolai
You know Jesus do you? Does he like our ME policy? Does he tell you which country we should bomb next?
Funny, muirgeo. Germany is very much against invading Iraq and is a largely secular nation with no nuclear weapons (although they could easily make them, given their technical knowledge).
Yet bombs planted by Islamists were planted on their trains.
So much for the “they’ll leave us alone if we leave them alone” theory.
I have a link to the Pope’s lecture translated into English. Definitely worth a read. I also attempt some explanation. (btw, PhD in Religion)
Link.
I appreciate the point that Michelle and Mary Katherine make about Rosie not knowing anything about American Christians. RightWingSparkle is also very correct. Trying to save you might be annoying, but it’s hardly hateful (no matter how many people claim that it is.)
I was going to say something else about fundamentalist christian attitudes about church authority but I’ll say this instead…
Who understands the fundamentalist religionist’s mind set better? A nutty moonbat amoral atheist or a True Believer fundy moralist?
My brain keeps trying to do these odd klein jar twists everytime someone claims that the “right” (which we can agree generally includes fundy moralists) doesn’t understand Islam or the complexity of the situation in the middle east… that we (I find it easiest to self-identify “fundy”) think they’re all the same. We just don’t get it.
Who could possibly “get it” better?
Is Christianity a simplistic and singular creature? Or is it convoluted, filled with argument and disagreement over the interpretation and application of scripture, various personalities and human failings, not to mention heated conflict between various sects?
Considering this, is there any logic to the assumption that people who understand the reality of *both* profound faith and church politics, will have a simplistic understanding?
Or is it just that people like Rosie and muirgeo prefer their own simplistic understanding of Christianity?
When Rosie is talking about Fundamentalist Christians she is talking about me.
She is actually talking about a lot of us Christians in the United States.
Yet she has no fear saying the things she says against us. Why do you suppose that is?
I’ll tell you why. Because she knows, just like Miergo knows, that we are not dangerous to them. They are not afraid of us.
So why the comparison?
Simple, they aren’t afraid of the radical muslims either. They believe that we’ve invented the threat of radical Islam and that radical Islam truely is as benign as radical Christianity.
This is what we will find once the Democrats gain power in the United States. They will not treat the threat seriously, instead, they will try to convince us that radical Islam is as benign as radical Christianity.
Murieggo
“I wonder how christianity in America would respond if troops from Islamic countries were setting up coups to overthrow our government?
You mean like MOSQUE’S?
Rosie doesn’t understand who her allies really are? Not surprising.
No liberal seems to know who their allies are. Liberal Jews fear Republicans more than Islamists, liberal Democrats fear their own President more than the enemy, liberal Euroweenies fear the U.S. more than a nuclear Iran. MSMers fear exercising their first amendment rights if it means pissing off head-choppers with stupid cartoons, and they fear letting the public weigh the simple facts so much that they prefer the loss of their reputation for professionalism. Liberals in general fear being “wire-tapped” by Karl Rove more than they fear a successful terrorist attack. Liberal ex-presidents and celebs fear irrelevance, so they snuggle up to dictators, terrorists and socialists. Liberal politicians (including Rinos) fear being noticed appealing to those scary gun toting, America -loving Christian red state Americans.
We could blame their ignorance on the education system, but they’ve got that just the way they like it. So I guess it’s their own damn fault.
That is the most ignorant, uneducated, sterotypical and hateful claptrap I think any idiot could possibly say.
No, Lee hasn’t shown up yet…
I offer my own deconstruction of the “Rosie” thing on my own blog. You’re welcome to come have a look.