Fox News' Doocy: "Islam turned violent" and "proved the pope's point" about "Islam and violence"
On the November 28 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends, co-host Steve Doocy asserted that when "Islam turned violent" after Pope Benedict XVI's controversial comments about the religion, it "essentially proved the pope's point." In a September 12 speech, Pope Benedict quoted "the erudite Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus," as the pope described him, saying, "Show me just what Mohammed 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." As The New York Times reported, Pope Benedict said "he was 'very sorry' about the reaction to his remarks," adding: "In no way did I wish to make my own, the words of the medieval emperor. ... I wished to explain that not religion and violence, but religion and reason, go together."
Doocy's assertion that "Islam turned violent" echoes comments made by Pat Robertson, host of the Christian Broadcasting Network's The 700 Club. As Media Matters for America noted, on the September 25 edition of The 700 Club, following a report on a summit between Pope Benedict and Muslim envoys to address tensions over the pope's remarks, Robertson stated, "It's amazing how the Muslims deal with history and the truth with violence. They don't understand what reasoned dialogue is."
From the November 28 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends:
DOOCY: This is the pope's first visit to a predominantly Muslim country. Now, keep in mind, it was just a couple of months ago that the pope had some comments about Islam and Islam and violence. Next thing you know, Islam turned violent and essentially proved the pope's point.
Wasn't the pope claiming that he was taken out of context when he quoted from an ancient document?
He has stated that he did not mean to imply that Islam was a violent faith. Fox should get their story straight.
Though Muslims who reacted violently to what they THOUGHT the Pope meant certainly didn't help their cause OR the PERCEPTION that Islam is a violent religion.
But expecting Doucy to get a story straight might be too much for his pea brain to handle ;-)
I don't know the numbers, but I know I'm on solid ground when I say that very, very few muslims react violently to anything (if you consider how many of them there are). Every faith has it's psychotics.
" Every faith has it's psychotics "
Well, that's a psychotic way of looking at it. Now, maybe, you won't complain about Christianity when someone shoots an abortion doctor.
I'm not saying that violence is justified. I'm saying that phrases like "Muslims became violent..." is misleading because only a relative few became violent. I complain about all violence, but violence in the name of religion is just irrational.
" He has stated that he did not mean to imply that Islam was a violent faith. "
Oh? Then why did they go violent? Because the Pope said Islam WASN'T a violent faith? Seems to me they go violent for any and every reason under the sun. Especially while claiming to be a religion of peace. I would find it refreshing to see muslims react in peace ONCE to someone who acts/speaks disparingly about islam. Do I think it will happen? No, but there's always a slight chance they actually mean what they claim. I guess John and Yoko were speaking of islam in their song....give peace a chance
A FOX commentator calling Islam violent? That's rich. The "We got to bomb those people!" crowd calling anyone violent would be a laugh if they didn't actually go and kill themselves. Of course it's all Islam's fault, because the good serial killer always blames his victims.
It also sells the message of Israel expansionism to the American masses. "Hate the arab." This is what Israeli schoolchildren find in his textbooks and what the US parent finds on his tv set. We have our fascist scapegoat, eh? It's the moslem, the arab, who is now "the subhuman unworthy of life".
This all comes down to our Israel relationship. They are feeding the most racist and sociopathic elements in our politics with their racist poisons and steering DC into becoming a fascimile of Israel...fanatically religious, racist, and openly commiting torture and war crimes.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-jewish. I just want the US to stop assisting Israel in it's stupid religious war on arabs. My ancestors came here to escape religious warfare, now we're neck-deep in it.
William Penn once said "Tis better to be of no religion than bitter for any." Ain't it the truth?
Israeli schoolchildren find "hate the Arab" in their textbooks & Arab schoolchildren find "hate the Jew" in their textbooks. This MUTUAL hatred will probably NEVER be reversed. Even IF they someday actually stop shooting and bombing one another. Of course we shouldn't hold our breath on that ever happening...
U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East has been based [for the most part] on what is best for Israel. Israel, while an ally, is NOT the 51st state of the union. I think our own government sometimes forgets this.
IF the U.S. is going to continue to attempt to broker peace [probably a useless endeavor] between Israel and the Palestinians, it's time to treat them as equals.
IF the Arabs believed we were NOT taking sides, they MIGHT be less inclined to hate us. Maybe.
Simplistic as that sounds, it's time to give it a try.
you are correct that lots of arab schoolchildren do read "hate the jews" in their textbooks. it's a documented fact. israeli children do not find "hate the arab" in theirs. israel has a large population of arabs. and this is one of the things that i do jump to the conservative side a bit. guys like glen beck are idiots, but that does not mean that there isn't a lot of intolerance and radicalism in the muslim world. the current miss england is the first to be of muslim faith, and a couple months ago she said that a lot of muslims were beginning to support terrorism, because they were being stereotyped that way anyway, so why not. just a few weeks ago one of the most important muslim leaders in australia caused a huge stir because he said, and i'm not exagerrating, that if women who were not wearing muslim dress were raped, then it was their own fault. an atrocious comment. i am more than willing to rip into the religious establishment in this country, and have done it frequently. but if i see it elsewhere, i will say so.
exaggerating
This is exactly why we're hated in the region. We are taking sides, we're in the middle of a religious war for that side. We don't broker peace, we ship one side free bombs and give it a free UN veto when people complain about the bombs falling on civilians. We've invaded Iraq at Israel's urging, AIPAC men were all over the Defense and State Departments in the run-up to the war. We even proposed a new Iraqi flag in the exact same color and almost identical pattern as Israel's.
Israel's not an ally. It's more like a master. AIPAC rules in Washington. Ex-Senators have called DC "Israeli-occupied territory". They have a very organized operation, it's working very well, especially on the ignorant idiots we keep re-electing. And it is all acting on behalf of a foreign power with the express intent of making sure the USA never questions Isreal...ever.
That's not an ally to me. They're subverting our government, destroying our independence, removing the peace option, they even attack our press or politicians if they do not tow the line. They don't want us as allies, they want us as slaves. If Israel commands it, we'll start wars and send our children off to die in foreign lands, in the name of taking Jerusalem from the infidel. To go on Holy Crusade. Oh wait, we have.
I object to all this on two grounds.
One, as a patriot, I abhor the fact that my government is totally committed to a foreign power. The people comprising that government I consider traitors. They have sold us out, we are no longer independent, we are a vassal state.
Two, as a liberal, I abhor the fact I am being taxed to fund what only can be called crimes against humanity. The imprisonment and oppression of three million Palestinians, the million or so Lebanese recently made refugee or homeless, the millions of dead and maimed Iraqis, killed to break-up Iraq and set up a springboard to attack Iran...all in the name of "Israeli security".
Behind all the problems we have with the Middle Eastern nations, lies our slavish relationship with Israel. Until that ends, nothing will change and nothing will get better. We need to take the USA back from Israel. It's the only way we can use the peace option. They won't allow it, we need it, we need to take her back.
If ye love the Motherland, keep her free from war, free from want, and free of faithless suitors.
with oppression and crimes against humanity. me too. but you seem determined to ignore the fact that there is a huge amount of oppression in a lot of muslim countries. how about the places under sharia law where a woman who is raped can only bring charges in a muslim court if she has four male witnesses to the act. and if she can't provide that, then she is frequently blamed for enticing the rapist. or the places women are beaten for not wearing a veil or burgha. or saudi arabia where women can't drive. or when they send the religious police out in conservative countries like saudi arabia to make sure everyone is going to the mosque at the appointed time? how about the tennis players who were murdered in iraq because they wore shorts after being warned not to? i didn't see any big outrage about that. and if anyone in this country denies the holocaust we call them a nutcase. the fact that the president of iran does it brings no comment from the muslim world. and what was the thing we heard constantly from the lebanese government, and the lebanese man on the street, during the israeli invasion? it was we didn't kill and kidnap your soldiers, it was hezbollah, so why are we suffering for it. maybe a valid point, except hezbollah was part of the lebanese government. and about a week after the israelis pulled out, the head of hezbollah addressed a massive rally in beirut and about 600 to 800 thousand lebanese showed up to applaud him. somewhat of a contradictory message, no? and hezbollah was lauded all over the middle east for their supposed "victory" of lobbing rockets packed with ball bearings blindly into israel. and now they are bragging that they have more than before the invasion. what's the message there?
When it comes to the war crimes of the USA and Israel, I pay for it. I don't fund Hezbollah, the Burmese military junta or China's secret police. I DO get forced to fund the war crimes of the US and Israel, hence they get the full brunt of my wrath. Every time I receive my pay check, I am made an unwilling participant in war crimes by my government. I'm not happy about that, in case you haven't noticed.
And they're doing exactly the same thing to you and the rest of us. All forced to fund sheer criminality. To fund the death of children in the name of what can only be called Evil.
i was making specific comments about what happens in muslim countries in response to your comments about repression by this country and israel. you're totally one sided because you refuse to address that issue.
" They're subverting our government, destroying our independence, removing the peace option, they even attack our press or politicians if they do not tow the line. " and " Two, as a liberal, I abhor the fact I am being taxed to fund what only can be called crimes against humanity. The imprisonment and oppression of three million Palestinians, "
You, my friend, are a whack-job. There must be no screws left in your head or you've smoked tooo much wacky weed. From the sounds of it, you should be moving to Canada or Mexico so that you get better results from your tax dollar. You DO pay taxes, right? Or, are you one of those liberals who claim taxes are not owed to this government? I wouldn't doubt that at all! No wonder liberals have such a bad rap, with people thinking like you do.
If ANY of what you are paranoid about is true, then it was true during your last liberal president, too and the one before that and the one before that! Your mind is HIGHLY tweeked if you think Isreal is behind all that happens in the US or the world. I certainly hope you are not in a position to teach young minds. Because pollution like yours belongs in the dumpster with the rest of the trash.
I would like to see FOX News do a report about all the wars Christians started and add sidebars about the Inquisitions ("There is no Spanish Inquisition!"), wars or conflicts between Protestants and Catholics. These nimble-minded idiots must have flunked history in college or performed an acceptable level of "extra credit" (wink, wink) to get out of actually completing the course. Christians are just as violent and bloody. Heck, even the Jewish nation in the Bible is pretty violent (they were told to wipe out everyone that opposed God (including slaughtering the cattle). I wonder where that notion went?) Evil is just a word and it depends on who uses it.
this is now..... Live for now friend.
As a supposed "Christian" nation, we attacked Iraq. We reduced it as an Us Vs. Them mentality. West vs. East. Christians vs. Muslims. It's still a relevant arguement and case. As long as the American "Christian" political leadership keep assuming a moral high ground, we will continue to attack and harm other peoples and nations. It didn't stop for the past 1800 years and I don't see it stopping any time soon.
I only brought up the historical reference, because the Pope made a historical reference in regards to Islam.
" We reduced it as an Us Vs. Them mentality. West vs. East. Christians vs. Muslims. "
No, YOU reduced it to 'us v them, west v east, Christian v muslim' mentality. Keep spreading your hate.
The Pope brought it up many feel because of the current action of the Radical Muslims. You have to admint, the Muslims as a whole are todays cruisaders.
Yeah, good thing we're leading the world as the Christian nation that doesn't engage in demonizing "others" anymore.
Imagine if, in the 21st century we were to use terms like "Islamo-fascists" or "secular progressives".
...it really amazes me how purported 'Christians' take such license with the notion of 'Christian values'. I dare any of them (EvilLib included) to name ANYTHING Christian about ANY of Bush's policies. ANY!
He signed the Congressional bill banning partial birth abortion, he stopped U.S. taxpayer funding of international organizations that actively promote abortion, he set moral limits for stem-cell research, he banned human cloning and he funded sex education programs that promote abstinence. (The only African country to reduce the instance of AIDS, Uganda, includes abstinence education in its campaign.) He supports a constitutional amendment to defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman.
All of those sound like Christian values to me. Maybe they don't to you?
Where did Christ mention abortion, stem-cell research, cloning, abstinence, or same-sex marriage?
I just saw a guy on the RX7 forum I hang on. The same name. I almost, thought it might be you!
EL, that isn't me on the RX-7 forum. Lots of people use this pseudonym (stolen from King of the Hill). I should probably think of a more original one, huh?
I've never had an RX-7 but a family member had a sweet '93 for a while. Fast!
" Where did Christ mention".....
Ummm, in the Bible. You DO have one, right? If not, there are a lot of places you can get one for free, including (but not limited to) your local Church. You DO belong to a Church, right? Well, there are a lot of them, also.
Perhaps it doesn't matter, because you don't believe the Bible, do you?
No, they're not Christian values. They're ancient conservative Hebrew values based on old Judean law. Jesus never taught for or against abortion or abstinence or celibacy or any of that. It's never mentioned in the books of his life.
Any abortion legislation is meant to force a law into a woman's womb. A violation of the womb is a rape. It's a violation of individual sovereignty, as protected under the 9th Amendment. I would argue that in front of the Supreme Court. Our Bill of Rights and our individual sovereignties comes before anyone's religion.
The abstinence programs don't work, those girls just wear their little ring and think about it more and more until some bold rogue shows them that it just doesn't matter.
Conservatives want to sexually repress us all. Funny watching top evangelicals getting busted for having secret sex lives. Or politicians proving they have a predilection for sexually harrassing the help. They make such a big deal out of it. They're scared of their sex and they want the rest of us to be just as afraid. Like monks or popes, we must be pure and celibate! Repress! Guilt is good! It doesn't drive you insane...
" No, they're not Christian values. They're ancient conservative Hebrew values based on old Judean law. Jesus never taught for or against abortion or abstinence or celibacy or any of that. It's never mentioned in the books of his life. "
How would you know what Jesus taught, unless you read what He wrote? Did Jesus write the ten commandments? Do you follow them? (well except the 'one God' part..lol). Do you murder, steal, cheat on your spouse? Why not? What old hebrew value or judean law are you following there? Or, do you just not murder/steal/cheat out of the goodness of your heart? Well, THAT couldn't be the reason, huh? It's because you'll be punished for doing any of those. Not because you don't want to.
I wont bother. I can not stand Bush. As well, I have never waisted my Sundays' in Church
A Christian Nation. Stop contradicting yourself.
Many Muslims came out into the streets and became very very violent.
Are you aware that after a year of those two kids getting electrocuted in France accidentally, the Muslim kids are STILL burning cars nightly, and on the one year anniversary torched a few busses, one with a lady on it? They as well have been assaulting the police on a nightly basis.
I don't know, seems a pretty large part of that population is straight up 14th century.
I do have a few friends, like you, that left Pakistan and India to get away from the rediculous religious beliefs over there.
Anyone can do a search in google news, no need to take the words of morons like this guy!
But you want to see real anger, just wait until the checkout person at walmart wishes a happy holidays to an O'Reilly war on christmas fan.
They may send a text message to the clerk asking them to commit suicide. Just like those freaks in Turkey that ask the same of their daughters for dating a christian boy or not wanting a arranged marriage.
Wouldn't you agree?
I would be interested if you could provide any facts to support that assertion.
I saw footage of burning effigies and the like, but I haven't heard of any violence against people
I mean, I hate to fly in the face of a talking point, but it's always nice when these things are backed up by, you know, facts
In the wake of B16's speech, churches were burned in Palestine and a nun was killed in East Africa. And that's just in response to the speech, and just what I recall - there could easily be more incidents I'm unaware of.
has been going on for years:
[link to www.militantislammonitor.org]
There's not any proof the two are connected, though of course it is possible that the reaction to the Pope's comments led to the nun's death.
That's one. Horrible, of course, but should it justify the indictment of an entire religion?
First of all, I gave you two examples, not one. Second of all, that you can say "Killing Christians in Somalia has been going on for years and then Horrible, of course, but should it justify the indictment of an entire religion? seems to require intense mental gymnastics. Somalia isn't all. I could give lots of examples of Islamic violence from around the world. No, Islam is not a purely violent religion - but at the same time, violence in the name of Islam is not an aberration (sp?) but rather frequent. (And yes, I know that Christian violence exists, but I see no need to discuss it when it's not the topic at hand.)
The statement was, "Islam got very very violent."
You pointed out property damage (the burning of churches did not involve any injury or death AFAIK, but if I am wrong please correct me) and one death that may or may not have anything to do with what the Holy Father said.
Your riposte was, well Muslims are violent everywhere.
I won't go into the roots of Muslim violence worldwide, which is as off-topic as you correctly state that Christian violence is in this discussion. I maintain that the charge that Muslims erupted into violence - not protests or property damage or even hate speech, but actual violence - as a result of the Pope's speech is a talking point. And it's wrong.
You're right, there wasn't a lot in regard to this particular incident.
...how can an abstraction like "Islam" itself be violent? Because individual Muslims in specific places are violent, then the entire religion itself is dismissed and reviled?
A damn good percentage is though.
Maybe muslims wouldn't have been so offended by the pope's comments if there hadn't been these crusades et cetera. Maybe the pope should have taken a look at his own religion first.
Do you know anything about the crusades? Stop watching movies and actually do some study on the subject then get back to us on "who is at fault" and "who is the instigator" and "who continues fighting the crusades to this day".
i read the comments by the pope and followed the story in many different venues. i've read this entry about steve doocy's comment and also the comment represented here by pat robertson.
this seems to be a simple passing-on of quotes but... what does it mean? the pope quoted a historical figure and was referring to those who were actually using violence. it seems that doocy and robertson's comments were correct so that leads to my question...
what is wrong here? is there something wrong with these statements?