Deborah Coddington: Religions of tolerance set example of violence

Despite the fact that one-god religions like to preach tolerance, increasingly that is not what they practise. This week's over-reaction by some Muslims to Pope Benedict's speech proved that given the slightest provocation, the mad mullahs will take umbrage, threaten violence, and demand apologies.

How many of those outraged Muslims bothered to read the full text of Pope Benedict XVI's address at the University of Regensburg?

If I caught His Holiness' drift (it was a very dense speech), he was arguing the link between faith and reason, and that you can't bring people to religion by force, ie by the sword.

Hence he quoted a centuries old, civilised dialogue which took place between two intelligent people, one Christian, one Muslim, in Ankara during the Holy Wars (the Pope acknowledged the documentation was most likely one-sided). A Byzantine emperor and an "educated Persian" were discussing the differences and similarities between their religions, and in his speech, Pope Benedict said: "He [the emperor] addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general, 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'.

"The emperor, after having expressed himself so forcefully, 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', he says, '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'."

It's also interesting to note that earlier in his speech, the Pope had noted the Koran also states "there is no compulsion in religion".

So aside from the conclusion that any Muslims offended by this piece of academia are mad, they're also illiterate. Note that the emperor does not say that Mohammed only brought things evil and inhuman, but that his command to spread faith by force was evil and inhuman. Which indeed it is.

So it is doubly ironic that extremist followers of Islam around the world demonstrated in violent terms just what they would do to the Pope - burning effigies, and His Holiness stepped up security in response.

But extremist Muslims don't have a monopoly on irrational behaviour. Before Christians in this country start condemning Muslims for being too sensitive, they should remember the brouhaha over Te Papa's Virgin in a Condom exhibit.

Likewise, Catholics behaved just as stupidly when they went ballistic over C4's screening of the episode of South Park and the menstruating virgin Mary. Instead of dismissing the programme as irrelevant to their faith, they made a huge fuss and delivered C4 ratings to die for.

Why they didn't just turn their televisions off beats me. But then anyone who lets faith rule their life has me puzzled. At the risk of offending all Germans, Pope Benedict in his speech showed that Catholic Germans do have a sense of humour, when he remembered his days as a teacher at Bonn University (which has two theological schools) and the question was asked why a university devoted to reason has two faculties which focus on something which doesn't even exist - God.

But we're not allowed to offend anyone any more. The Exclusive Brethren are complaining because Trevor Mallard called them chinless scarf-wearers. The Tongans are insulted (and Wanganui bleeding hearts are insulted on their behalf) because Michael Laws called their late king a brown slug. The Prime Minister is insulted because of what Ian Wishart and the Sunday Star-Times have published.

Michelle Boag's husband was insulted because he thought Mallard (him again!) called her a slag. He says he called her a hack, and when Mr Boag rang Mallard's office to complain, the staffer, thinking the insulting word was hack, said, "But she is".

Talk about adding injury to insult.

Some of us are growing a little tired of pussy-footing around anything to do with Islam for fear of giving offence. Strangely, the same restraint is not shown when it comes to slagging off Judaism. The Pope's error was not in quoting the 14th century dialogue, but in apologising - three times.

Not all followers of Islam are mad extremists intent of blowing themselves to bits, just as all Christians don't run around nailing robbers to crosses to die.

Nonetheless, millions have perished in the name of both religions. Right now militant Islam, by its own admission, is a threat to Western civilisation.

We should not be apologising for speaking the truth.