Oh, and by the way, one of the white supremacist groups said that God created the black man last and that this implies he is least favored by God. FRom this, you can draw your own conclusions about what they think of blacks and other colored folks.
A TV program (Pilgrims of War) I saw last night was about the Crusades. In that program, Christian knights and soldiers were told while the 5th Commandment (THOU SHALT NOT KILL) forbade killing, it was all right to kill Moslems for the glory of God and His church. The Christian fighters were also told that if they fell in battle or even before, God shall reward them in Heaven.
To me this sounds very much like what the Moslems are telling their able-bodied men in the Middle East and elsewhere.
Seems that IC is right in that the Moslems are now behaving just like how the European Christians behaved in the 11th century. As Islam came about 600 years after the inception of Christianity, perhaps Moslems will need another 600 years to catch up. Maybe modern communications will accelerate the process of evolution for them.
Many laugh at Moslems today for their strange customs and behavior. While a cursory look at some of their ways make many of us cringe or feel disgust, many also feel so very advanced, civilized and superior by comparison and feel they have a greater-than-never-before reason to hate and despise them! Apparently the notion we are more advanced gives many the impetus to gloat on the miserable conditions Moslems find themselves in. Little do the gloaters realize that their forefathers lived in abject and miserable conditions, too, about 600 years ago.
In England in the 16th and 17th century (see G.M Trevelyan's Social History of England) sanitary conditions were so bad that the stench of waste matter filled the air and the river Thames was so filled with shit that very few fish survived in it. Many people died even from mild infections of sorts because they had no antiseptics and they had none until Lister (remember Listerine) discovered the link between germs and infections and the need for antiseptics. In those days, operations were performed without antiseptics by so-called barber surgeons who loved displaying their pus- and blood-stained aprons to advertise their popularity. Also, Englishmen seldom bathed. To mask offensive BO, they used not OBO but lots of perfumed powders. No wonder many of them suffered from boils and carbuncles.
In yet an earlier period, in King Alfred's time (ca 900 AD???), it was considered polite to shout, "LOOK OUT" before throwing a piss-pot or shit-pot out of one's window on to the streets below, so that passerbys might be able to duck in time and avoid the prospect of wearing a piss/shit-pot hat!!! and more.
Why do so many people not know about this today? For one thing, because most schools have ceased to teach history and, if history was taught, such embarrassing details were discretely omitted. Also, the European colonial masters didn't want their subjects to know they themselves have had a disgustingly primitive past.
How many people know that the first settlers transported out of European mother-countries to settle in colonies were jailbirds and undesirables? More undesirables were sent out later from time to time. How many people realize that torrents of Irish came to America because of the famine in Ireland (due to its potato blight) in the mid 1800s? and that someone once said that the Atlantic Ocean exists because the Irish had filled it with their tears? How many realize there were a slew of criminals --- murderers, horse-thieves and cattle-rustlers, stage-coach robbers, bank-robbers etc --- whose descendants today feel so civilised and are very quick to condemn others for their "murderous" and vile ways? Think about this before you are too quick to find find fault and gloat over other people. Time and pleasant circumstances had helped a lot of us to evolve. And I earnestly hope that time will civilize a lot of the hated and condemned folks of today.
Of course, I am not saying give them all a chance and forget about them. Needless to say, everything must be done to ensure the extremists do not succeed in achieving their goals. Like free radicals in a chemist's reaction vessel, they can turn non-radicals into radicals. But there are ways to preclude (or reduce to a minimum) such a transformation.
Better to brainstorm for solutions than to indulge daily in a litany of cursing, condemning and gloating. |
