So his Eminent and "Extreme" Holiness Pope Benedict XVI is about to travel to Turkey in what's being billed as his first official visit to a Muslim country. Already gathered to meet him: vast crowds of generally peaceful but highly vocal protesters who are still miffed over the perceived insulting of their religion by the Pope during a speech he made a few months back.
Among those protesters is Husmattin Aycan Alp, a 25-year-old science student from the Turkish city of Izmir, who says that he wants to make his anger toward the Pope's offenses to Islam known because, "I cannot remain silent when the Prophet Mohammed is insulted. I love him more than myself."
After closing my eyes and sighing heavily, I'm going to repeat this -- just in case you missed it: a science student is professing his unwavering love for and allegiance to a 2000-year-old story, all as a show of defiance toward a man who heads a group which once tortured and executed thousands of people simply because they didn't agree with the particulars of its belief in an invisible supreme being -- a man who is now trying to heal wounds and create a "scholarly" dialogue between his faith in where we go after we die and another, very large and increasingly dangerous group's faith in where we go after we die -- neither of which can be proven in any way whatsoever.
If there is a better definition of "absolute fucking insanity," I'm completely unaware of it.
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