dear pope, i hope your house has good security.

"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...God is not pleased by blood — and not acting reasonably is contrary to God's nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats… To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death..."

a statement made by Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos to some fictitious Persian dude a long time ago. by the way, the word byzantine reminds me of the colour orange, but that is besides the point, of which includes the fact that Palaeologus is a definitive bigot in today's terms.

of course you would have read or heard that the pope quoted this string in a lecture, which would indubitably cause blood to boil. my God, Pope, sir, whyfor would you do this?

today's controversy is due to the fact that this statement is a very powerfully sweeping one that stereotypes Islam unfairly, and the matter is made worse when a great leader of another religion cites the message with intent to change the very group that mocks it. how naive. there are certain flaws in the Pope's grand plan, and i have found these hairline cracks to be such:

1. Terrorism does not seek to convert non-muslims to muslims
2. All terrorists are religion-less

though it is true that in the past there were wars due to clashes in religious ideals, the Pope was making an irrelevant link to what is actually happening today, i.e. terrorism. Osama bin Laden does not want the Americans to become muslims. he wants blood for blood. for the Pope to draw a link between abhorrent pratice of terrorism today and the early instances of Islamic warring (of which were crucial points in muslim history; also the point in time when there was actually real jihad going on) is a fatal error undeserving of the guy who sits on the Vatican's boss chair.

because of this apparently false logic, certain muslim clerics then come up with their own arsenal of bullshit arguments. it is then raised that Christianity too is not free from the fact of the Crusades (circa 11-14th Century AD). whats funny is that these crusades in the name of christendom were usually sanctioned by the Pope (lol not Pope Benedict you dumbass. i know he's old but he's not that old. the Pope who was in office at that time, duh.)

anyhoo, this is how the current Christian-Muslim debacle unfolds in today's newspapers. the Christian boss says something stupid, and the Muslim bosses, not to be outdone, says something slightly less stupid but still stupid nonetheless. fuck, the whole brouhaha is stupid because it is about something that happened almost 1000 years ago and has NOTHING to do with terrorism. fast forward a few days and the Pope has apologised not once but twice and may go for a third because some guys just cant accept that the Pontiff has not fallen on his arthritic knees and begged for divine forgiveness.

dear Pope, you made a fatal error and it's not that i dont empathise with your current situation. you play with fire and you get burned! still though, i might still raise an impressed eyebrow at the fact that a few words from you can cause the very people you talk about to fulfill the accusation you make from those words.

within days of the controversial lecture, two churches were burned down.