Amos

I have some of them too. Our mental institutions are full of born again Jesus victims and many or most of the rest of them are organizing or are engaged in war someplace. You go there in response to the unrest that prevails in the hearts of your church members so now you are their victim. Is that what you mean to say?

foxjazz

Unfortunately, we are all in one big box called earth. I still think, however, the prime directive remains valuable even for primitive societies. Since we have destroyed more than half the primitive cultures in the world already, I guess there isn't anything wrong with screwing the rest of them.

And the business of greed is always to first to greet the great anarchy of our time.

I haven't been to africa, but have been to other places in the world and seen mediocre poverty. I still believe that if we keep going the way we are, the human race doesn't have too much longer for this planet.

Fox

Gurdur

Good heavens. I assume if you are consistant then you also have something against dentists, doctors and engineers.
In fact, how come you are using the WWW ?
Would you like to comment on kuru, a syndrome which was actually destroying people like the Fore, and which was only successfully tackled by persuading the people not to indulge in ritual consensual cannibalism ?

Oddly, though, they really appreciate medicine, dentistry and clean drinking water, as well as enough to eat.
In view of the points above, do you think you could make a more ........deeper and meaningful analysis ?
Damn, I missed the office memo from Nature letting me know of the correct POV.

Gurdur

Amos usually likes to go in for the flamboyantly surrealistic symbolism. Except when he is annoyed. Poseur. This 5 ' 6�" person who doesn't like volleyball can still give you more than a run for your money, as you will eventually find out.
I've actually visited Lenin's mausoleum in Red Square; I found it quite interesting, and not at all macabre. However, they keep Lenin's legs covered owing to a fungal infestation and consequent degradation.
Pardon me, but that's a load of tripe.
First off, Russian society previous to the Communist take-over was horrible, despite the all-pervading Russian Orthodox God.
The God-based (theoretically) Czarship was a disaster for peasants, dissidents and above all Jews, who were periodically and with official approval from Church and State unmercifully persecuted.
Next: the Communists managed to take over because of the absolute and horrible failures of the Church-approved Czarship. Got any comment on that ?
Next: "dethroning God" ??? What is that supposed to mean in view of my above points ?
Care to talk about the Church-approved White Russian (anti-communist) armies in the Russian Civil War, 1917-1922, and the numerous and well-documented atrocities they carried out ?
Next: "they put a man in his place" --- good heavens, can you point to any society where "God" is in place of a man, and things consequently according to your POV go well ?
I would so love discussing that.

And finally: "depths of cruelty, depravity and stupidity unparalleled in human history" ???
Oh puh-leeeze.
I can talk for hours about the Thirty Years' War, 1618-1648, which reduced the population of Germany by up to 35 %. That war of course was fought in the name of religion --- Protestantism against Catholicism.
Now that war is unparalled.
The Russian affair was in some ways small potatos compared to that.
Care to argue the toss ?

____________

Or, to put it in other words, you'll have to come up with more sophisticated analyses. We ain't all ..... simplistic, you know.

Amos

There is nothing surreal about my writing. To say that is just a convenient way to avoid the argument.

I wrote above:

So who dethrones God here? They are those who bring the "good news" to vulnerable and instill the "ideal" of salvation into their minds. The techniques they use to inscribe this into their minds are well known to us (?) Infidels and while CAOS is telling us how difficult it was for her to find relief from this slavery and bondage, Pouye is telling us that it was her own fault and that they are doing Gods work over there after all. This is absurd man and I think they should all be roasted.

Let me say again that if he indeed had finished his own race he would have the right to speak . . . but wouldn't because "those who know do not speak." Therefore he's a wolf.

It was the height of their civilization just as our was ours prior to our Reformation. You are judging from your idea of pain and suffering and fail to realize that out of such depths of oppression the highest peaks and brightest minds must be awakened. That just happens to be true and is true for every one those that we admire so much today.

Luiseach

Except by the
Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918-1919, of course.

Gurdur

I am shocked --- shocked ! --- to see someone teasing me for my hobbyhorses.

In any case, the 1918 Flu wasn't a war.

Gurdur

Possibly you should read up on the destruction of monasteries during the Cultural Revolution, and the large number of Chinese immigrants in Tibet today, as well as the ongoing armed repression.

Pouye

The systematic extermination of Jews, and other minority groups was carried out by people who were pretty damn stupid. The fact that (roughly) 11 million people were tortured, executed and used as guinea pigs in the name of science is a good contestant for the "cruel, depraved and stupid" award.

THAT was my point. If you want to look at other stupid thing people have done throughout the centuries, they only seem to deserve second place... but what does that matter? My point still stands. The way China today treats Christians (and other religious groups -- as well as many of it's own minority groups) is a good indication that this same stupidity is still around, and is alive and well.

You can pick culture and religious wars out of history books all day long... but as I have said, people (like Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, etc.) who were definitely influenced by thinkers who believed that religion is a blight on the face of this earth which needed to be exterminated committed some of the worst atrocities in the history books. Point still stands, no matter how many other examples you give me!

Rock

Luiseach

Hey, what else would you expect from a postmodernist.

Edited to add:

Anyway, one could view a pandemic as a war, on a metaphorical level of signification...that is, if one is willing to think in metaphors.