The caveat to this is that we need to pull the mote from our own eye before we can start condemning the Muslim extremists for their behavior.

We are guilty of our own extreme actions, based on our own offended sensibilities. The FCC is handing out random fines to the media because some conservative family groups get offended and launch a campaign to complain. We gasp in horror as a bare breast is exposed during a football game, but there’s no outcry against ubiquitous violence in a television series. We’re so terribly offended by an entire subculture’s choices that we propose a constitutional amendment to ratify discrimination against them, while at the same time we applaud our chief executive for using federal funds to support a particular religious mindset.

Most of the time we’re not as violent as the Muslims who get offended, but that’s just most of the time. We’re not shy about maiming or killing homosexuals, and we’re not at all ashamed of the fact that we’ll bomb a former ally when it serves our purpose. We use rallying cries of “9/11″ and “for the children” to justify our retribution for being offended, but how does this make us any better? Just because our god is bigger than theirs? We are directly responsible for the deaths of more Muslims than the reverse; surely that must mean that God is on our side.

The Muslims who riot and kill in the name of their god are contemptible, but they’re no worse than our own religious fanatics who attempt to use the government to force their morality on the unwilling. The Muslim extremists, at least, are honest about their methods. They may be trying to kill us, but they’re not trying to tell us it’s for our own good.

I have failed to follow in this space the Pope’s comments condemning the deadly religious crusade which a large faction of Islam now finds itself prosecuting. But the Anchoress, as the Anchoress tends to do, sums it up beautifully:Any intelligent…

What Benedict has done in these few paragraphs is remarkable. He is calling for a dies academicus on a worldwide basis, a worldwide reasoned discussion of the very underpinnings of belief and faith, for a shared “responsibility for the right use of reason”. He suggests to us that, “it is still necessary and reasonable to raise the question of God through the use of reason”. Taking up this endeavor, Benedict has staked out, very clearly, the wide horizons of the Church’s philosophical ground vis à vis more constricted worldviews, as he defines them, that of Islam, and that of the relativist/multi-culti/Popperian hoards. This is no blunder, it is very closely reasoned, purposeful thinking. The question of whether there is anyone “reasonable” with whom he can have this discussion remains to be answered. The early response is not encouraging.

The brief bits that seem to have the collective knickers of the p.c., relativist NY Times, et al, and the Muslim “street” in a twist treat the relationship between religion and violence, Mohammed’s exhortation to spread the faith by the sword, and our erudite Benedict’s view that, “Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and with the nature of the soul.”, a view echoing that of the Byzantine emperor Paleologus who said, “God is not pleased by blood, and not acting reasonably is contrary to God’s nature.” The reactions of Benedict’s hoped for interlocutors speak for themselves. He has set himself a difficult task to try to take up this dialogue, but one worth the doing.

He then goes on to a wide discussion of the hellenistic strand of influence in theology, and the various stages of “dehellenization” in progress. For anyone at all interested in the nexus of faith and reason, or their opposite number, gnosis, Pope Benedict’s paper rewards careful reading with a wealth of ideas to ponder.

On the field of action, confusion reigns. As Ms. Rosett wonders in rightful exasperation, “What does it take for the democratic world to understand?” I would counter that it is not the monolithic democratic world that doesn’t get it, and is thus causing our confusion of response. It is, rather, that part of it lost to the vagaries of the relativist/multi-culti/Popperian worldview and its very narrow horizons (i.e., most of the “elites”, the MSM, the Democratic party en masse, etc.). I leave to her wisdom and courage how best to displace that entrenched worldview, though I suspect that, unfortunately, the eventual weight of events will do the deed.

On the field of ideas, Pope Benedict sees the situation very clearly, and he has now announced his readiness to enter into a reasoned dialogue with both the Muslim world and the relativists of the West. The question is whether either group has the courage or the wits to take up his offer.

The Pope did nothing but lance a boil.

But if you really want to know what the motivation is, and has remained so for over 1000 years, compare these pictures with the brief history of Islamic conquest c.AD630 and for the next 200years, in the book “The Force of Reason”, by the late Oriana Fallaci.
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=3346
Then to complete your education, tab down the page and on the box on the left, titled “Slide Shows”
click on “Palestinian Child Abuse”.
I would also add that arming and displaying children in this manner, apart from many other crimes, is also a war crime.
The term “Cannon fodder” springs to mind!!!!!!
Now what sort of society, parents, religion, brainwashes children in this way???
Remember, the child suicide bomber was Arafats gift to the world, – the man who stole billions$ from his people, of our money, gifted by the looney left.
You got to wonder!