A blogger's ability to add and clarify: Priceless.

I'm in blog hell right now. Weird stuff.

Hey we have your cooler left from the Chicken.

The Islamic people seem to me to be very reluctant to enter any discussion regarding reason or personal responsibility their faith would dictate. In order to create more dualogue, wouldn't it be appropriate for the leader of a 1.0 billion worldwide group to pull a string or two, that nay some dialogue?

The pope didn't say "Islam sucks", he said "Islam sucks, and here's why...". Critique is the cornerstone of Western rationalism, and it has served us very well. Why is it inappropriate in this case?

Also, I wouldn't call the Pope's or Christianity's brand of reason "positivism".

In re the pope's positivism, I think he's trying to construct some form of Western reason that can accomodate faith, in this way "proving" or "legitimizing" faith within a scientific construct. I think. Which is exactly the wrong approach, imho, no matter what your personal beliefs are.

The first step toward an open and constructive dialogue would be to recognize that there is no single approach that can ever attain Truth. What is important in such a dialogue (or in any social pursuit) is an agreement by all parties on common goals: the goals of peace, love, charity, and hope.

Christianity has a long long history of embracing reason, and of assuming a reality in which God himself is subject to the rules of logic. It is not about proving God's existence (though certainly many have tried to do just that), but it is about understanding the world, understanding God's creation, and an explicit assumption that reason can help us do both. It is a tradition in which reason is a requirement of faith, though not sufficient for it.

As for no single approach to Truth, most would agree, however, most would also agree that some approaches are highly inadequate. In other words, that there are multiple avenues does not mean all avenues are equally good.

And getting agreement on common goals seems like a sticking point right now that we all have with fundamentalists in both Islam and Christianity. I would expect to use reason and critique to expose the flaws in both of those camps.