Oh, Just Shut The Fuck Up.

Pope Benedict XVI gave a speech at a Bavarian University last Tuesday.

Benedict quoted some ancient book recounting a conversation between an incredibly obscure 14th century Byzantine Christian Emperor, Manuel Paleologos II, and an unidentified "educated Persian" on the "truths" of Christianity and Islam.

"The emperor comes to speak about the issue of jihad, holy war," the pope said. "He said, I quote, 'Show me just what Muhammad 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.'"

Now Muslims all over the world have their panties in a twist and are taking to the streets yelling, screaming and generally foaming at the mouth (apparently a popular Islamic past-time) over this alledged "insult to Islam".

Wah. Wah. Wah. Get the fuck over it.

Now, I'll acknowledge the supreme irony of a Catholic Pope quoting a Catholic Emperor to complain about Mohammed's "command to spread by the sword the faith he preached" when it was the Christian Crusaders following the orders of Catholic Popes who spent the previous three centuries turning the Middle East into a blood bath, chopping up Jewish and Islamic babies with their swords, in order to forcibly convert un-believers to Christianity and re-conquer Jersulalem.

It takes some diety-sized cahones for a Pope to even go there and try to play that card.

In fact, during the entire Crusade Era, it was the Muslim leader Slahadin who stands out as the most rational, tolerant and reasonable leader of the time.

But don't come whining and wailing that someone "insulted" your religion while in the same breath your leaders call for the complete destruction and obliteration of Isreal, you declare jihad against all non-Muslims, and your own radicals behead innocent civilians.

FUCK YOU!.

And while I'm at it, fuck The Pope. And fuck Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Louis Farrakhan, Meir Kahane, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, George W. Bush and every batshit crazy idealouge everywhere who think that they have a monopoly on The Truth and that anyone who diagrees with them is evil and must die.

I'm sick of all of you. We are all sick of you.

Here's an idea. How about we all (me included) just shut the fuck up, leave each other alone, and let stupid people the world over believe in whatever fairy tales they need to believe in if it helps them get through the day.

Yaweh? Jesus? Mohammed? The Flying Spaghetti Monster? Garden Gnomes?

I don't care! You want to believe that Jesus is making his Second Coming appearance in the Meth Capital of America and that the Garden Of Eden was somewhere in Gallatin County? Go for it! I could give a shit.

Prefer to die from a boil on your ass like some medieval peasant because your religion doesn't believe in medical science? What do I care?

Choose to believe that we have all been enslaved by the evil alien Xenu and are posessed by Thetans? OK. Whatever peels your potato.

All I ask of all of you is that you just, please, SHUT THE FUCK UP! Go worship in your churches, synagogues, temples, well armed underground bunkers, alien spaceships, whatever. But stop getting pissed off when people think you're an idiot; stop proclaiming that anyone who doesn't believe as you believe is evil, and don't kill anybody! Is that so hard?