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As I said in the Diary, he should not have used the quote, but as I read it, he uses the quote as an illustration of a way of thinking typical at that time, not as a statement of fact on Islam.
Quoting someone, does not necessarily mean one agrees with all aspects of what is transmitted on the literal level.
When I quote Bush and use this as an example of Neo-Con thinking and to put it into historical context, that does not mean that I agree with his overall statement.
Especially if I make a derogatory statement about it in the introduction to the quote.
wendet er sich in erstaunlich schroffer, uns überraschend schroffer Form ganz einfach mit der zentralen Frage nach dem Verhältnis von Religion und Gewalt überhaupt an seinen Gesprächspartner

"startling brusque, a us surprisingly brusque form"

the English translation provided:

he addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general,

It removed the inclusive, "us", that is clearly used (to me), to show that he makes a disaproving value statement that includes his thinking on this. He (the pope) would never (I suggest) use those quoted words as an expression of his own thinking on the verbal, descriptive level of the quote.

by PeWi on Fri Sep 15th, 2006 at 03:49:06 AM EST
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I don't buy it simply because even the context is a crude reduction which absolutely has no logic and reason behind it (which I guess is the point). So Paleologos erred in his thinking about Muhammad because he was using reason? Was that the argument? It just doesn't make sense.

That would be like blaming the crusades and the holocaust solely on Christian theology (emphasis on the "solely").

A century later the last Byzantine emperor uttered these words, "Better the Sultan's turban than the Pope's tiara." And thus the Ottoman Empire was born.

I wonder how Benedict would explain the crusades?

by Upstate NY on Fri Sep 15th, 2006 at 09:34:17 AM EST
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