Fool or Genius?

I apologize for being away for over a month. I've been busy at work and also a little bit out of the blogging mood. But I hope to get back into the swing of things and perhaps to some lighter subject material. If the Bengals keep winning, that might be easy.

However, I've been reading a great deal lately about Pope Benedict's comments regarding Mohammed and the subsequent outpouring of rage by the Muslim community. Everything that I've read seems to imply that Benedict was a fool or completely unaware of what his quote of the Byzantine Emperor would do. Yet after watching all this evolve over the past couple of weeks, I've come to a rather different conclusion. Benedict knew exactly what he was doing and is prepping for a grand master plan.

First, let us point out that Benedict is around 80 years old and has been working his way around in the affairs of religious politics for a very long time. The incident with the Danish cartoons depicting Mohammed told everyone exactly what the Muslim community's reaction would be to a perceived slight. Stating that their religion is only spread through fear and violence would obviously set the people off, despite the very stupid notion that by doing so they validate the Byzantine Emperor's opinion of them. There was ample warning of the reaction and only a blind fool would have not seen what would have happened after making those comments.

However, once you read the reaction of the non-Muslim masses regarding the Pope's comments and the Muslim reaction, one comes away with an interesting notion. The West (and indeed most of the world) is currently divided into two camps regarding Islam: those opposed to it and those willing to submit to Islam in the sake of peace. However, after the Pope made his comments, even those who are willing to concede many things to the Muslims in the sake of peace and out of fear of violence think that the Muslim reaction and anger was overblown, especially given the context of the Pope's comments and his repeated attempts to calm the waves. In essence, even though they might not necessarily be religious people or specifically Catholic, the non-Muslim community was brought just a little bit tighter together in opposition of the irrational anger of the Muslims.

If you scan about a look at the major religions of the world, they are all currently in conflict with Islam in some fashion. Christianity wars upon Al-Qaida and other Islamic terrorists in the Middle East and there have been several terrorist incidents and Islamic uprisings in Europe. Judaism and Islam mix like oil and water. Muslims and Hindus fight repeated pitched battles in Kashmir and other places about India. Muslim guerrillas have been fighting against Buddhists in the Philippines, eastern China, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and several other locations in southeast Asia. All it really takes is for enough fear and resolve to build throughout these groups before they unite together against Islam. Yes, its not like Buddhists and Christians have much in common, but when threatened the enemy of my enemy is my friend. This becomes even more pronounced when you see belligerent Muslim nations working very hard to develop nuclear weapons.

This unification probably won't happen overnight, but with his remarks, I believe Benedict has taken a large step towards everyone getting comfortable with the idea of a great unification. Benedict's plan probably involves taking them all under the Roman banner of a future Pope as the Catholic church is the wealthiest and most unified body among all the major religions of the world. This unification will also probably ease everyone's palate and turn a blind eye when Israel finally says enough and beats her Arab neighbors down to the point where they cannot make war on her ever again (an incident that I think is coming very soon). By playing the fool, Benedict has made a significant step forward in the goal a unified superstate/religion. A great war will be required to make it fully come to pass, but man has never shown a problem with going down that road before.