Mario wrote: However, I find your own sweeping and pretty damning generalization about the West troubling, unless you blame the West for the continuing failures of many of their old colonies decades later, in spite of BILLIONS in reparations - euphemistically known as governmental and private foreign aid - even while you personally benefit from living in the West that you so blythly attack with gross generalities that may, on balance,prove to be specious. ----------------------------
Dear Mario, You should know by now, that I rarely deal in generalities and specious ones at that. I'm not one of those Europhobic people, and I've taken up for the West on more than one occasion, in particular America. However, history is history and I do so despise this notion that Christianity has been a civilising force in the world, let alone in the West itself. Ever since Pope Urbane gave the call to Europe to reclaim Jerusalem from the Saracens, it has been nothing but rape, plunder and pillage in one form or another; be it the crusades, the colonisations,the genocide of indigenous populations, slavery, apartheid, the list goes on. Please don't say that these were political movements. Behind each of these acts was an intrinsic notion of superiority premised on a righteous God, who either called on them to engage in the act or would aid them once they embarked on it. Religion and politics have never quite cut the umbilical cord.If ever there was a tell-tale sign that religion was man-made, it is that our most fundamental perceptions of God mirror those of political power. Christianity is no different from any other religion in this respect. selma __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
