Athair,

If I may be at liberty to interject. I find your comments about the Pope, David, and Christians extremely offensive and you clearly have not taken the time to find out what was going on with the Pope incident (and possibly don't even know the basics of the Catholic religion).

As a Catholic the Pope is the closest to the head of the Church you have currently in the flesh on earth. The Catholic belief is that the Pope is the current successor of St Peter. Isn't it rather out of line for a Catholic to make (ill informed and) disrespectful comments like "he should be sacked"? All the Pope did was give a public lecture concluding that religious people should eschew violence. Jesus gave a lecture on the mount. Some of His comments could be taken to encourage non-violence. How is the Pope not following the footsteps of Jesus. Sheez he even apologized to those who got offended because of media reports that misrepresented his quotes from the Emperor. He also quoted scriptures but those quotes were not attributed to him personally. Is your image of Jesus a sword waving cross burning protestor keen on violence? That is clearly the opposite of the Pope's call for peace?

"your ficticious rantings , are not of this world"

Your comments are certainly of this world from a poorly informed person claiming to be Christian.

Islamic reactions to the Pope's comments on what someone said in the 14th century say it all. Can anyone really imagine adherents to religions other than Islam carrying on like lunatics everytime they are citicised? As George Pell said, the reactions of Muslims all over the world shows that the Pope's comments - second-hand though they were - are correct.

Islam has not changed since the 14th Century. If most Muslims were 'moderate' as is claimed, they would have adapted to the modern world by now.

It would seem the Pope has now raised the level of Bigotry on this site, what you bigots need to do, is find out what the Pope said later, about the Jewish involvement in the death of Christ, many Jewish people are now speaking out, they are upset,
the best way we can put this away, is to call for all people/ religions to pray to God to Forgive those who make statements that divide Gods children, by creating reigious hatred, many on this site have never had it so good, many religious bigots have now got the green light to crawl out of the sewers/woodwork, I have read the Popes speech in full, he did not need to mention Mohammed, that part of his speech seems out of place with what he was trying to say, he must have done something wrong because many newspapers in Europe are calling him Gods Rottweiler,

MJPB , Jesus would never carry a sword, the Pope is not carrying a sword, he is sharpening all the swords carried by religious bigots worldwide, if he was to truelly change his blooper he would say that the report by Professor Theodore Khoury was not true because historical facts prove this statement is incorrect, agreeing with what he said, is encouraging religious hatred, giving the green light, the question you bigots should answer. "Would Jesus make the same assumsions,?
If the Pope said he made a mistake, he would be seen as siding with the Muslims, many people are going to die because the fires of hatred are being stoked up, if the Pope is Killed Muslims will be Blamed, are we seeing another "twin towers" created? I say we need to pray for the Pope, he needs Gods help. maybe the Muslims should pray for him, instead of falling into the trap , violence will not bring peace, it only brings death, there has to be a better way, forgiving the Pope for his "whatever' will turn the tide of hate,

Athair,

"if he was to truelly change his blooper he would say that the report by Professor Theodore Khoury was not true because historical facts prove this statement is incorrect"

He prefaced it with: "It was probably the emperor himself who set down this dialogue, during the siege of Constantinople between 1394 and 1402; and this would explain why his arguments are given in greater detail than the responses of the learned Persian." Thus he carefully avoided any suggestion that it was a fair exchange of ideas. Why qualify the comments further?

He also said the point he wanted to distil was marginal to the report. The overall quote was thus not cited for the history or fairness/credibility of the comments. He just wanted to distil one point to develop an argument of non-violence. How would commenting on the veracity of the report further be relevant? He had already dismissed any notion that it was a balanced report of the debate and indicated that it was the view of a Greek Emperor when Constantinople was under seige. That is a strong clear message that the overall quote is rather biased and cannot be assumed accurate.

"agreeing with what he said, is encouraging religious hatred ... you bigots should answer. "Would Jesus make the same assumsions,?"

He didn't agree. He indicated it was an unbalanced commentary by an Emperor at war with Muslims. Re-read the speech then explain why Jesus would do otherwise.

"I say we need to pray for the Pope, he needs Gods help."

At the moment that probably wouldn't hurt. I have heard that they have had to up the security at the Vatican. ( ;

"MAYBE the Muslims should pray for him, instead of falling into the trap , violence will not bring peace, it only brings death..."

You would think that the literate ones would have read the Pope's speech by now, realized that any insult was media hype, and would be condemning the violence. It would be timely for non-violent Muslims to very publically apologize to the Pope lest bigots think that there are none.

It seems to me that the only people opposed to anti vilification laws are christians like BOAZ.
They seem to think they have a right to hate people based solely on a particular characteristic, albeit in the case of religion, a chosen one.
You (and in fact nobody) do not have any right to hatred of a group of people simply based your own assumptions or belief system.
If a religion or book pertaining to that religion teaches hatred, discrimination and bigotry, then we need to rip out the pages of the books which give the organisation justification and bring the organisation (church, mosque, synagogue, temple etc) and it's followers into line with the standards of a modern and just secular state.
More power to Steve Bracks, lets make these laws nationwide, nay lets make them international.
As for the pope or the muslim clerics, I really don't care what any man wearing a dress has to say, with the possible exception of Dame Edna Everidge.