Posted by julia from boston23.erols.com (208.58.120.23) on Friday, July 19, 2002 at 4:13PM :
In Reply to: I Sympathize... posted by panch from pool0637.cvx20-bradley.dialup.earthlink.net (209.179.252.127) on Friday, July 19, 2002 at 3:12PM :
I hate to do this to you again and all other posters, but here I go:
I agree that Christians committed atrocities in the world. We don't have to look back many years to figure this out. We don't have to go to the Pre-Christian era or the Post-Medieval era or whatever, we can simply look through the 1900s to see how people treated each other. I agree 100% that Christians in Europe and America oppressed minority groups, non Europeans through colonization, western expansion, etc..
But it's not just Christians who did bad things. Muslims did, Communists did, aristocrats did, petty borgeoisie did, buddhist did, nationalists did, fascists..
What is important to me is again WHY christians, muslims, communists, nationals, fascists, WHY do people do these things. Why did the october revolution in russia bring muder and poverty rather than economic livelihood, safety and peace? why did the socialist party in Germany get snuffed out by the Nazi movement to let their reign of terror in? Why does india and pakistan waste life, money and intelligence to fight for a piece of land that has no real inherent value?
All i know is people are people, no matter what you call them - black, jewish, christian, german, etc. and people do the same things, and have done the same things throughout history. they've hurt, maimed, stolen, westwardly expanded, spread diseases and bleached cultures. I believe this.
Who do we blame for these things? books? property? gold and silver? geography?
Ive said this a billion times to fred, ever since i "met" him in Spring 2001 (was it spring ?). i don't remember what he said about the world's atrocities, besides christian atrocities.
I'm not trying to be a nihilist, saying that so what if christians are horrible if the rest of the world is horrible too.
instead i want to know WHY christians are horrible and why the rest of the world is horrible too.
THat is the question that fred never really answers, or thinks is not that important.
look at the israelis, who got their country, got museums and cafes and civic institutions..which is GREAT, but getting a country is not the end all be all of life. look at the problems they have now.
obviously having a country is great, having property and a job and health and some wealth is nice...but there are still problems in the world. ranting and raving about christians, or if you're talking about fred's counterparts, rantng and raving about islam is not as important as trying to understand why people do these thigns, and have done these things, throughout history.
i never was challenged by you, only because i still think you spend way too much time attacking things or dressing up your language and not appealing to reason. Sometimes you come out pretty calm and thoughtful like in this post, which is great.
now i have nothing more to say. laterz
-- julia
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