Selma wrote: > 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. > Mario clarifies: > I agree that you are an equal opportunity polemicist:-)) > However, I went back and re-read your post that I was responding to, to see what specifics I had missed, http://lists.goanet.org/pipermail/goanet-goanet.org/2007-November/064423.html and failed to see anything but this gross generality: > "The West donating blood is nothing to boast about. They've sucked enough blood from the rest of the world for a good 10 centuries. It's about time they donated something for altruistic purposes." > This, on balance, sounded like a specious generalization to me in the context of the blood that has been sucked from the citizens of ex-colonies by their post colonial governments and the billions in reparations that have been funneled to those countries by their previous colonists. > You gratuitously took the issue of donating blood and turned it into a general attack on "the West", blythly ignoring all the altruism that we have also seen from "the West". For example, who else but Western governments and individuals are spending BILLIONS to alleviate the suffering from, and trying to find a cure for, HIV/AIDS in Africa and Asia, a pandemic they had nothing to do with starting or continuing? > Selma wrote: > 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. > Mario responds: > By promoting the Golden Rule, the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount, true Christians have indeed been a civilizing force. You can hardly blame Christianity for those Christians who stray from these fundamental precepts. > Throughout history I can count three periods of blatant Christian-fascism, the Crusades, the Inquisition and the Conquistadors in the new world. These were actions misguidedly conducted in the name of Christ. > I cannot accept "nothing but rape, plunder and pillage IN ONE FORM OR ANOTHER" as anything more than a gross and specious generality. > Colonization began as a mercantile endeavor. Slavery and apartheid were not conducted in the name of Christ. Slavery was an economic atrocity that was engaged in throughout ancient and medieval history with little regard for the religious beliefs of the slaves, and apartheid was pure racism in its worst form. Christian Africans were treated little better than non-Christian Africans. > The manual on oppressive societal discrimination was, in fact, written in India, where Indians were divided into castes that defined them and their heirs with no end in sight and no recourse. > On the other hand there are numerous cases where Christians have done nothing but good for others less fortunate, sometimes by taking the name of Christ, sometimes not. Christians have done a lot of good for impoverished Indians and Africans, often oppressed by their own kind. In Kosovo, mostly Christians confronted other Christians to rescue innocent Muslims. In Afghanistan and Iraq, mostly Christians are confronting Muslim tyrants on behelf of innocent Muslim populations. The name of Christ was not invoked in these cases, but those who sought to rescue the oppressed Muslims where nevertheless mostly Christians. > Which is why, I tend to object to religious generalizations based on a selective use of history. > Selma wrote: > Religion and politics have never quite cut the umbilical cord. > Mario asks: > Heven't the constitutions of the United States and India officially cut the umbilical cord between religion and politics? Regarding the conduct of individuals, how can you expect individuals to conduct themselves in a manner other than what their religions teach them? Don't the atheists and agnostics conduct themselves politically according to their beliefs? > The last time I checked, it has been several hundred years since any Christian leader has called for killing those who oppose them, or prohibited someone from being the best that they can be. > Mario > "A communist is one who reads Marx. An anti-communist is one who understands Marx." - paraphrasing Ronald Reagan. >
