So, the current news is the Pope offended Muslims by quoting someone who once said that all that Mohammed has brought to us is violence, specifically related to spreading the faith by the sword.

Here’s a good bit of context surrounding that quotation:

In the seventh conversation edited by Professor Khoury, the emperor touches on the theme of the jihad (holy war). The emperor must have known that surah 2, 256 reads: There is no compulsion in religion. It is one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under threat.

But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Qur’an, concerning holy war. Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the “Book” and the “infidels,” he turns to his interlocutor somewhat brusquely with the central question on the relationship between religion and violence in general, in these words:

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.

The emperor goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul.

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….

The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God’s nature. The editor, Theodore Khoury, observes: “For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this statement is self-evident. But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality.” Here Khoury quotes a work of the noted French Islamist R. Arnaldez, who points out that Ibn Hazn went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God’s will, we would even have to practice idolatry.

Clearly, this is an explanation of how compulsion to religion is incompatible with religion. Seems pretty cut and dried.

And the apologists keep telling us how Islam is a peaceful religion. Surely, a reasonable religion and its people would agree that spreading that religion by violence is indeed something to be avoided. If indeed that people were offended by having something like that said about their religion, they would request an apology, and move on. Heck, maybe just totally ignore it and move on.

Well, that is likely what many Mulims in the US and parts of Europe are doing. But, there are of course radical Islamists who say that this comment could lead to war, who are bombing churches (ironically, only one of them Catholic), and have caused the Vatican to strengthen their security.

Perhaps these radicals aren’t trying to spread their faith by the sword, but it seems they are trying to intimidate, dare I say, terrorize someone who suggests that spreading Islam by the sword is a bad idea.

Contrast this with the Christian response to Rosie O’Donut’s comments on The View. Granted, Rosie ain’t the Pope, but she did make comments about how radical Christianity (whatever that is) is as dangerous as radical Islam. Christians apparently hijack airplanes, bomb embassies and battleships, military barracks, and so on. How did I miss that? Anyway, rather than having Christians rioting in the streets, burning Rosie in effigy (which would take a while) and threatening war, most of us have chosen to ignore it. Some folks, like the American Family Association, are demanding an apology and reprimand from Rosie’s employer, neither of which is going to happen.