> I really believe our only hope is in some kind of spiritual
> awakening (me, the atheist!) We have to change our hearts and we have to
> figure out a way to stop turning our little babies into killers.
>
In Northern Ireland they do the same. Protestant children are taught to hate
Roman Catholic children and Roman Catholic children are taught to hate
Protestant children.(I was brought up RC until my early teens. We were taught
that all non RC's were bad people and heretics and would go to hell. we wre also
taught that anyone who died not baptised in the faith would not get to heaven.
When my teacher's wife gave birth to a still born son, I realsied this teaching
was crap. I was 10).
But it isn't just religion.
Boys are taught to eschew all things femineine and grow up to be men who have
difficulty with things like intimacy and expressing of emotions.
Girls are taught that good girls don't do certain things.
thus men and women gorw up to be somthing other than themselves.
hate is subtle, it is taught in many diffferent ways. We are taught to hate
difference-be it race, religion, nationality, sexuality, hair colour(yes-ask a
red head), left handedness, the list is endless.
We end up with people who cannot feel all of themselves, cannot empathise, who
are not whole. Some of us spend a lifetime trying to undo it all. Most of us
just walk around feeling wrong but not knowing why or how to solve it.
it is terrible what we do.
However, we also have the capacity for greatness, for love, for compassion, for
growth, for fortitude. we will win out in the end.
bw
colin
