I must admit the smell of bacon makes my mouth water, but..... as the soup Nazi would say, "NO! bacon for you!"

Yeah, he did...but some Christians don't seem to want to listen to what Jesus said. Those are the people that tick me off.

~Zoo

lula,

Very interesting, I haven't heard that one before and will have to give it some thought. I would however have to go ahead and say that in my opinion the dominant belief system today that people kill for (in our society) is a world-view.

This is a world view that says the following:

"Developing countries are inferior. They are to be pitied and sent charitable donations through world vision so that we can say we do our bit for world hunger, but, because they are not as technologically advanced, economically well-off or militarily as powerful as we are, they are clearly inferior to our society and need us to be their "policeman". Anything we decide to do to them is for their good because they clearly can't lead themselves, and if the changes that we forcibly enact in their countries fail to make things better, it is clearly their fault. Because we are trying to help them become more like us, some of them will ultimately hate us for our style of life. These people who hate us do so because we have freedom, big Macs and MTV, or they are part of a backwards religion which cannot be compromised with. These people are clearly evildoers, terrorists who do not classify as human beings and so we should go kill as many of them as possible, and if we capture them they should be shown no mercy in any regard, because we've already established they're not real human beings in the first place!"

Why am I saying all this gobbledygook? Well, for starters western countries have, either directly or indirectly sponsored and supported military coups and terror campaigns in

Chile
Guatemala
Honduras
Nicaragua
Iran
Indonesia
Afghanistan
Iraq
Argentina
Brazil
The Phillipines
Panama
Colombia

the list goes on.... but there have been many more nations where coups were not carried out but rather leaders assassinated or political parties secretly supported to get the "correct" candidate into office who would open the door to our benificent ways. Disastrous economic policies were shoved down their throats as a means of 'helping' them. Economic policies that now allow for essentially legalized slavery in most of Asia (I wouldn't want to work in one of their IPOD or GAP factories!)and massive unemployment because local economies were completely destroyed by foreign competition after the IMF strong-armed them into opening their borders to international business.

It's a worldview that says:

1) We know what's best, most of the world is inferior
2) We are the good guys
3) It is our manifest destiny (hey, that sounds like "white man's burden"!!) to help these poor countries, but since they are so far below us in intelligence sometimes we might have to force them to do what's right. If they resist or try to hit back at us, clearly they are evil scum who don't deserve to live.

Now. Step back, and think. Take the words written above and apply them to any previous era in the past. The reasons that I've stated here, the rationale for doing things this way have been used time and time again, by the Romans, by the European explorers, by Genghis Khan when his army raced across the steppes of Asia. Life is a cycle, and history always repeats itself just in different flavours! The flavour of our time is a combination of economic and political assumptions and foreign policies. The flavours of previous societies were all different as well (religious supremacy, ideological doctrine, etc) but supporting the same underlying core assumptions! Why? Because human nature stays constant throughout.

yeah but medievial catholocism surely did way more damage than medievial atheism/humanism no? plenty of history between then and now to consider as well.

while i'm sure you'd prefer this to represent modern humanism:



its most recent and notable proponent is none other than pope benedict xvi who used that very argument in a speech earlier this year in which he splained how well things worked out for the indigenous peoples of the new world whom spain colonized in the name of god.

"For them (los indios), it meant knowing and welcoming Christ, the unknown God whom their ancestors were seeking, without realizing it, in their rich religious traditions. Christ is the Saviour for whom they were silently longing. It also meant that they received, in the waters of Baptism, the divine life that made them children of God by adoption; moreover, they received the Holy Spirit who came to make their cultures fruitful, purifying them and developing the numerous seeds that the incarnate Word had planted in them, thereby guiding them along the paths of the Gospel."**

either xvi done deserted catholicism for humanism and next thing ya know bears will demand porta-potties or...you're desperately attempting to shift attention away from millions (could be tens of millions or possibly just about a hundred million) who were guided into their graves by an army of god.

admittedly most of that happened several centuries ago.

how bout the 1930s-40s.

athiests and humanists were hardly the majority in bavaria...or in power and falling all over themselves to collaborate with the nazis in spain, italy, croatia or poland. athiests and humanists didn't hand over the vatican to pius xii in return for his support. nor, after the nazis were crushed, were they using church resources, facilities or connections to crank out fake passports enabling monsters like bormann to slip away down the ratline to freedom in south america.

bhuddist monks didn't torch themselves to protest repression by athiests and humanists in saigon or because athiests and humanists did all they could to help the french re-enslave their own people in indochina.

it certainly wasn't atheists and humanists who butchered their neighbors throughout the balkans in the 1990s to avenge what they believed to be a 600 year old insult to their catholic faith.

lotsa dead out there lula. most of em formerly fully developed persons whose presence was duly and legally recorded and documented. it's highly likely some were pregnant females. blame whatever you wish on atheists and humanists. in the end it don't diminish the fact that a whole lotta blood has been shed by catholics on behalf of their church.

That. May stand as the funniest thing I've read all day. I would not call Xena historically accurate.

But Gabrielle was still hot!

Well I see this thing has taken a life of its own, carry on!

OK, please enlighten me, lula. On what historical sources are you basing your analysis?

for the record, lula, the show Xena was, ostensibly set in ancient Greece (the name Xena is Greek). Now, I my have some memory problems, but I'm fairly certain Alexander the Great never did battle with the Knights of the Round Table.

But carry on. You are obviously a much more scholarly historian than I.

But, you disdain pro-life, Christian folks saying

Lula, I disdain people first that read stuff that is not there, second I disdain people that think one single issue is enough to disqualify someone form office when he has NO POWER over said issue {abortion} thirdly would you care to pore over my entire 850 plus articles and find some statement where I disparage Christians for BEING PRO-LIFE,This is a non issue and I have never said nor intimated said statement, but this is what I have learned what to expect, people that disagree to read things that are not there, to believe in their heart of hearts somehow, in someway I disrespect Christians, when I am married to one.

why you dirty low down picker of nits! of all the low people on the planet pickers of nits are the lowests. heh heh

Anytime you disagree with a fundie of any religion, they are right, you are wrong, period. there is no middle ground!

My belief is their are many paths to G-d. Yes it based on faith, but it is all encompassing, not to the exclusion of anyone.