🚀 go-pugleaf

In <61hp1q$23v@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net> "M. Poletti"
<polz@junoxxx.com> writes: 

(edit)

>You are correct on several counts. Actually one of the main thrusts
>behind abolition was Christian individuals and groups such as Quakers.
>It was these individuals and groups that actively aided and
>abetted the Underground Railroad and other facets of the struggle
>against slavery.

            ---------
            Those same good Quakers who helped fight against slavery
            also fostered EQUALITY between men and women.  Looks like
            there are good Christians and bad ones, just like what
            you'll find in any other group of people.
            ------------------
>
>After the Civil War, it was Christian missionary societies that
>went down south to provide badly needed education for ex-slaves.
>It was Christian groups that pressured the British government to
>send the Anti-Slavery squadron to African waters to *suppress*
>the slave trade- a trade that African and Arab polities (Zanzibar)
>refused to stop. 

            --------
            I'm not sure what you're trying to prove here;  most
            of those who created the slave-situations were 
            Christians (who comprised the predominent religion
            at the time), and most of those who helped prevent
            it were ALSO Christians, since that was the group
            in power.  
            -------------------------
>
>As for the "savages" teaching the good Christians "descent medical
>pratices, good environmental skills," it appears that Hornschuch
>is the one that needs to brush up on his/her history. In fact,
>it was Christian individuals and missions that introduced modern
>education, advanced technical skills and more advanced hygiene
>practices in many areas, particularly Africa. The great Kenyan
>leader Jomo Kenyatta for example was educated in one such
>mission school. 

            ------------
            Well, it was also the Christian "white men" who gave
            "small pox" blankets to the Indians, saying the only
            good Indian was a dead Indian.  ...Christians, like
            any other group come in all flavors.  As for learning
            things, the white man always had an aversion to 
            learning anything that his own "advanced society" 
            didn't already have.  If it was foreign;  it was suspect.
            Even today, we are learning about herbal remedies that
            less sophisticated societies have used, that are less
            invasive than what our doctors prescribe.  For example,
            St. John's Wort is now being recognized as a non-harmful
            natural anti-depressant, but it isn't likely that those
            who wanted to claim superiority would have wanted to
            recognize it.
            ----------------------------------------
>
>It was Christian individuals and groups that lobbied hard against
>such "advanced" non-Christian practices as head-hunting and
>cannibalism, and also the sutee in India, a quaint custom requiring
>that widows should be burnt alive after their husbands died. 

            --------
            Was scalping in America started by the Indians?
            ----------
>
>As for labeling people as "savages" this hardly originated with
>Christianity. Hornsusuch should check the arrogant ethnocentrism
>of histrorical China which divided the peoples of the world into 
>advanced Chinese and backward barbarians- a culture pround and 
>boastful enought to conceive of their land as the Middle Kingdom- 
>the center of the earth. Then there are the those other
>non-Christians- the Japanese- who take no back seat in
>arrogance. Just check the hiistory of WWII.

            ----------
            Sure; classism exists all over the world.  So is the
            idea of caste.  In other countries we do it by name
            and title;  in America we do it by race and gender.
            ----------
>
>As for Hitler he despised Christianity as a "Jewish Fable" and
>thought it for weaklings. The fact that he was born a Roman Catholic
>has little relevance for the point at hand. Using this approach
>we could say that any crime you comit is because of your religion of
>birth. Great logic that.... 

        ------------
            But, that's the very logic you used when speaking
            of the Quakers and the those who helped the Indians.
            How do we know whether their motivation was an accident
            of birth, or from their Christian moral perspective?
            It works both ways.
        ------------------------



Chairman Mao grew up under the Buddhist
>faith as did mass murderer Pol Pot of Cambodia. Using Hornsuch's
>logic, the mass crimes they committed "is all due" to Buddhism.
>But then again, since they werre both atheists, we can conclude
>that all atheists are mass murders. Great logic....
>
>To repeat a phrase "history speaks for itself.."


            -----------
            It sure does.  More wars have been fought in the name
            of God than for any other single reason.  Even today
            we have Arabs who won't live with Jews, and Irish
            Catholics who don't want to share the rule with Irish
            Protestants.  Even today we have arrogant twits stating
            (like a bully) "my religion can beat the shit out of
            your religion".  Now, PK wants to start a new war; it's
            not enough to pit one religion against the other; now
            they also want to pit men against women.  Of course,
            there's not really much new about patriarcy, but when-
            ever it was tried before it wasn't met with the power
            that women possess today.  It's a new world.

                Lefty