Ron, Krimel Great points you make.
A few Weeks back I attended a lecture by Reza Aslan, he has a book out called " no god but god" A few interesting points he made: a. When he went to Europe and explained to them that we do a pledge of a legion every morning in calls, they found that a bit disturbing. b. Waiving of national flags in Europe, is only done on very special occasions ( i.e. World cup) c. When he went asking Americans what does it mean to be an American, he got different responses when he asked the Europeans what does it mean to be German, french or Italian. Hence lies the problem of the European immigrants assimilating in the European society. As for the point Krimel makes: > Part of the problem in "nationalizing" Christianity would be deciding to whom to award the franchise. Well my theory is that unlike the immigrants in Europe who cannot assimilate being "German" or "Italian" because that hinges on your ethnic background as opposed to the passport you carry, Nationalism in the US has become the religion. And it's the natives who are having a hard time accepting the immigrants, their ideas and cultures. See, immigration to the US has been mainly from Europe. and as each generation got established they did manage mistreat the new comers. First the Irish, then the Italian and so on. And this is the battle I see happening: The new comers look around and see that there are really very few natives, all the others are new comers just like they are. So the new immigrants get their citizenship, pledge to protect the constitution ( more or less) and look forward to making their fortune in the land of opportunities. The problem is a lot of them are not Christian. And as we keep getting reminded that this country was built on the judeo-christian ideal, the new Buddhist, Hindu and Muslim are being feared. Lots of that comes from ignorance of course, and if you have cancer and your oncologist happened to wear a turban, and he is the best in town, you keep quiet till you are cured, then go raise hell. The world is changing, ethnically and religiously. What once was a majority is not a minority. Can you say California? Hence the battle lines Khaled Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
