From: judy@locus.com (Judy Leedom Tyrer)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: "mean" witches (and a request for courtesy and tolerance)
Date: 12 Aug 92 21:45:47 GMT
Organization: Locus Computing Corporation, Los Angeles, California

In article <765193d7675508t73@witsend.uucp> dcs@witsend.tnet.com (D. C. Sessions) writes:
>
>  Absolutely not.  Note that as we speak his followers in south-central
>  Europe are rounding up men in the street and stripping them to check
>  for circumcision.  Can't have THEM around, can they?

STOP!  The situation in the Baltic is in NO WAY CONDONED by any Christian
churches in the West.  PERIOD!  The Pope himself has come out declaring this
an attrocity that must stop and in full support of the UN resolutions!  

What is happening in the Baltics is a bloody civil war about what all civil
wars are ultimately about - POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC POWER.  The leaders are
dredging up century old hatreds and prejudices in an attempt to gain power.
The battles are Christian against Christian against Muslim with the Orthodox
and Catholic factions fighting each other as vehemently as they are fighting
the Muslims.  

>
># Anyway, if you don't like what I say, ignore me!
>
>  Sometimes it's difficult when your ancestors learned -- the hard way --
>  that bigoted talk is a reliable leading indicator for bigoted action.
>  Having ancestors who were burned at the stake can seriously alter your
>  perspective.

I'm sure the blacks feel the same way about having ancestors who were enslaved.
I suppose all whites are suspect as well, according to that logic.  After all,
all whites are clearly slavers.  

>
>  Curiously enough, today is also the 500th anniversary of the Spanish
>  expulsion of Jews.  Couldn't have THEM around, could they?  Guess
>  what happened to the stragglers (do the words 'auto da fe' mean
>  anything to you?)  Besides Jews, who else was a popular torch fuel?
>

You might ask the Palestinians living in Jerusalem what a lovely life they are
allowed to live.  Talk to THEM about Jews and see whose religion suddenly bears
the term "persecutOR" and "tormentOR".  When our priest was in Israel he saw
a 12 year old Palestinain boy beaten with the but of an army rifle by Israeli
army.  The child was beaten until he became unconscious and left in the street.
His crime?  TALKING to Americans.

Better check that your house is not glass before you start throwing those
stones.

Now, that said, does anything come of this sort of tit-for-tat?  Or can we
not honestly say that "Humans have been treating one another like shit for
thousands of years and using everything from religious preference to skin
color to accident of birth to justify their behavior".  If so, can we please
try to do just a LITTLE better?  

D.C's ancestors were burned at the stake.  My ancestors were fed to lions.
Other ancestors were crucified, tortured, held hostage for years, enslaved,
dismembered, etc., etc., etc.  No religion is free from having been either
persecuted or persecutor.  No race is free from having been either 
persecuted or persecutor.  No country, no economic class, no nobody is clean
and sparkling and free from a very violent and bloody human history.

There are two ways out of this mess.  We can hold one another accountable and
continue this violent and bloody history into enternity.  OR we can forgive and
communicate and try to understand and make room and somehow live together.
I choose the latter.  But, then again, I may not get a choice.
-- 
Judy Leedom Tyrer

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions"	- William Blake
Newsgroups: alt.atheists,talk.religion.misc