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ChimpumCallao
Joined: 17 May 2005
Location: your mom
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 Posted: Thu Sep 28, 2006 9:24 pm Post subject: |
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| It rather astonishes me that you are probably all ESL teachers with university degrees. They must be handing out degrees like candy in the Americas. Wink |
I love the dumb Americans angle. Very witty and original. Funny how these stupid yankees are the ones that basically run the political, financial, and coorporate world.
And i knew something like this would soon come from you. So, to clarify, I neither live in South Korea nor am in the educational field. I also completed my graduate degree at 23. Now I'm, as the man so loveingly calls me, a skirt suit.
Before you poke fun about universities in the America's why don't you check the rankings of said universities. If we solely go by that, most of us dumb Yanks with uni degrees have a much better education than the grads of wherever you are from. (England?) |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Thu Sep 28, 2006 9:31 pm Post subject: |
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| ChimpumCallao wrote: |
| more tiresome drivel |
Ah ha! Touched a sore point? Feeling insecure and needing to defend your country's honour?  I knew you'd take the bait.  |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Thu Sep 28, 2006 10:09 pm Post subject: |
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I love the dumb Americans angle. Very witty and original. Funny how these stupid yankees are the ones that basically run the political, financial, and coorporate world.
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In fairness to Big Bird, she was debating someone who had felt free to ridicule her physical appearance in a rather vulgar manner. Normally, I would not defend anti-American slagging, but in this case I'd say it was acceptable, in a "yeah well so's yer mother", sort of a way.
And I'd say the same thing if it was a Canadian whose homeland got slagged after he made fun of someone's appearance. In fact, I'd probably be the one slagging Canada in that instance.
Last edited by On the other hand on Thu Sep 28, 2006 10:13 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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ddeubel
Joined: 20 Jul 2005
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| Posted: Thu Sep 28, 2006 10:10 pm Post subject: |
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I think some of the posts here, reflect rather well on the people issuing them. We all know who we are talking about.........
Ken. You bring up some interesting points to consider. But I do think there is a point where we can stop making an "historical" causation. Of course maybe Adam is my father but it is just ludicrous to talk of him in the same vein as my grandfather..........But yes, what you are talking about is how do we seperate "the man' from his larger culture "judeo christian"?????
Particularly hard in Hitler's case. He was raised a fervent catholic and choir boy. Infused with Catholic norms. Also Germany and Austria were the most monoculture and concentrated Christian nation on earth, bar none. All this, this skin and odour, he could never escape of....
Mein Kampf confirms his belief in a christian god that thought of Germans as superior. It is infused with ruminations about God, Christ and Christian belief. ..... we have to take Hitler's word for it, this was who he was.
Let's also take for example how Hitler personally ordered on every SS buckle, "gott mit uns" God be with us. The Nazis marched with God.
But yes, it isn't an easy question because I do agree with those 2 points you stood by. I am just saying, in NO way can you think of the holocaust as being a non christian event. ....... Hitler or no Hitler.
Then we have my other points regarding the Christian church. So many (and why so few) stood up and said anything , did anything. Most capitulated.
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A noted theologian, Prof. Littell stated:
"It is amazing to me, a Christian theologian, to see how the idea of "the silence of the churches" during the Nazi genocide of the Jews still is passed on. Why couldn't we hear "the silence?" Could it be because of the thunderous adulation accorded the Fuehrer by so many of the church "leaders," leading the mobs that after the Enabling Act passed for repositories of "public opinion?" Cardinal von Galen, actually in some respects one of the better clerics, in MARCH of 1942, in a Pastoral Letter to memorialize those fallen in battle, wrote: "They intended to defeat Bolshevism through a new crusade with the battlecry "God wills it" - as a few years before the liberator Franco in an address in Seville proclaimed Christian goals. They died for Europe, to hold back the threatening red flood and to create a protecting wall for the entire western world." There are many similar documents in the record. We may regret deeply the self-deception and misreading of the historical situa- tion that led to the churches' - and not just the German! - optimism about Hitler, but have we now come to a time of re-writing history? The bitter truth is that the Christians faithful unto death - Bonhoeffer, Lichtenberg, Delp, Jaegerstaetter, von Moltke - were FEW IN NUMBER, and almost universally abandonned by the Princes of the Church and other Eminenten of the established churches. |
About your asking why Muslims did so little????? Well, I guess because they had so much to lose. As regards the Jews, the nations that excepted the largest numbers of Jewish refugees were Muslim, Morocco in particular and I know a few who sat out the war in Casablanca. China also did its part. Many did not rise up against Hitler because at that time, it was so hard to get communication about atrocities within Germany, so hard to travel vast distances........
DD
PS> Layton might not be described as a "historian" in the sense that he had a Phd. but he did teach high school history for many years....and was quite knowledgeable about the course of history as well as being of Romanian heritage. ............ and we all know what the Nazi's did there. |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Thu Sep 28, 2006 10:13 pm Post subject: |
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| flakfizer wrote: |
The way Westerners veiw Christianity is strange these days. We are told that America's founding fathers were not Christians, but Deists. Here is a quote from one of many websites formed only to "prove" that the founding fathers were not Christian:
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| Clearly, then, one cannot assume from Washington's presence at church services and his membership in the Truro parish vestry that he was a Christian believer. |
That's all fine by me. Whether he was a christian, deist or other matters not to me. But now, when one wants to argue in the other direction, suddenly Hitler is a christian because he went to church as a child or something. This double standard is troubling. It betrays a deep-seated desire to hate christianity and teach others to do the same. |
I don't really think DD wants to teach hate about Christianity - I think he was just trying to point out that extreme violence springs up within Christian cultures too - though as some have pointed out, it's perhaps not the best/clear cut example.
I think that DD would agree, that if all so called Christians truly followed the teachings of Jesus, there would be no violence. The world would truly be a beautiful place, as the new testament is full of wisdom and emphasis on love and forgiveness. True Christians have my utmost and sincere respect. That includes flakfizer who I know to be a gentle and considerate soul, who appears to me (I've met him in the flesh) to be a very principled young man, with no sign of a propensity for hypocrisy that so irritates me in so many other 'so called' Christians.
The thrust of this thread is that muslim cultures are not unique in giving rise to elements of violence. It's more a symptom of the flawed human being than the religion. I believe the same goes for Islam as well as Christianity. Practically all the devout muslims I have met are shocked and bewildered by the tactics of Osama Bin Laden and his ilk. In fact, the only two men I know with some sympathy for the more radical edge of Islam are more agnostic than religious - and they are filled with political passion and resentment, rather than religious fervour.
While there may be passages in the Koran which can be interpreted as condoning violence, the same may be said for the bible (particularly the old testament). However, all true followers of both faiths know in their hearts that violence is plain wrong. The violence is a symptom of something other than the religion - religion is just twisted to justify political acts. |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Thu Sep 28, 2006 10:17 pm Post subject: |
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Dddeubel wrote:
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I am just saying, in NO way can you think of the holocaust as being a non christian event. ....... Hitler or no Hitler.
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Okay, If I said that Saddam Hussein's human rights violations can be considered "Muslim events", because Saddam was raised in a Muslim culture and he put religious inscriptions on the Iraqi flag and talked a lot about Allah and the Prophet in his speeches, would you go along with that? |
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ddeubel
Joined: 20 Jul 2005
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| Posted: Thu Sep 28, 2006 10:40 pm Post subject: |
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Okay, If I said that Saddam Hussein's human rights violations can be considered "Muslim events", because Saddam was raised in a Muslim culture and he put religious inscriptions on the Iraqi flag and talked a lot about Allah and the Prophet in his speeches, would you go along with that?
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totally agree, with the caveat, just like I mentioned in my quote "in no way". You also can't discuss it as being a totally Islamic led regime but you also can't discount the elements of faith while talking about him. I could go on but I hope you see my point. I also hope you see the difference here too.......... these are in most ways, apples and oranges.
I wrote several weeks ago BB, about Christianity and how so few are "real" Christians. So hard in this time and place. And how Swift mentioned that the problem with the world wasn't that it had too much religion, but had too little." Not meaning organized going to church, ceremony, look at me, cross my ts and dot my i s type of religion but the real religion of the heart -- for me in Christianity, that internal dialogue of Merton or Sweitzer or even the Berrigans.
I do think violence happens in crowds....see that wonderful book of Canetti I clasped eyes on , years ago. Crowds and Power..................
DD
Last edited by ddeubel on Thu Sep 28, 2006 10:55 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Thu Sep 28, 2006 10:50 pm Post subject: |
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| ddeubel wrote: |
I do think violence happens in crowds....see that wonderful book of Canetti I clasped eyes on , years ago. Crowds and Power..................
DD |
I'd be interested to check that book out. I once remember reading an article about crowd psychology...it was terrifying!
One thing particularly sticks out in my mind: if you are attacked in a public place don't bother crying "help!" because people feel absolved of any responsibility when they are in a crowd. Everyone else will wait for someone else to do something. Instead shout "Hey you in the red jacket - please call the police"...etc. By singling people out as individuals you force them to 'snap out of it' and begin acting as individuals. |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Thu Sep 28, 2006 11:03 pm Post subject: |
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| ddeubel wrote: |
| And how Swift mentioned that the problem with the world wasn't that it had too much religion, but had too little." |
I like this quote, it sums things up quite well.
Myself I've come to this conclusion: Islam and Christianity are both beautiful religions when practiced by beautiful people, and hideous religions when practiced by the hideous. For the most part though, they are largely good yet flawed religions practiced by largely good yet flawed people.
But when practiced by the beautiful, both these religions truly shine, and leave me quite humble. |
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TheUrbanMyth
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Location: Retired
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| Posted: Sun Oct 01, 2006 3:24 am Post subject: |
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| laogaiguk wrote: |
| [ (1) Anyways, I don't care what you think. (2) Your opinion is meaningless "to me" from what I have seen you apologize for. (3) I also know Christians, like you, will eventually disappear. (4) Christianity is doomed to become a silly superstition in history books as all the others have. (5) There is no need to get in one of your post by post battles. |
(numbers are mine)
1. The feeling is mutual.
2. What have I "apologize[d)" for?
3. No we won't. The number of Christians world wide is growing.
4. I'm sure you like to think so, but we've survived and grown over 2000 years from a small persecuted sect to the world's biggest religion (see below). We'll be around for a few thousand more yet.
5. Awww. And here I was just getting all warmed up for one...
http://www.adherents.com
2.1 billion and the largest one to boot. Yep, sure looks like we're in danger of dying out.  |
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