www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Christians of the world should be ashamed

Israel is a country based on ethnicity, not religion. One can be a practicing Satanist, but if your Mother is Jewish you qualify as on Oleh and can gain citizenship under the law of return. A Messianic Jew for instance, who say even has a Jewish Father, would not qualify.

Terror and violence were primary tactics of the Irgun, and several people who later went on to be mainstream Israeli politicians had a hand in what took place during the 1948 war.

Israel as it is today is essentially a product of the legacy of European colonialism and European guilt over the Holocaust. It survives because of American tax dollars. It is a garrison state.

The native Christians of the Holy Land are just caught in the middle of two warring parties and are without support on either side. Though Israel will make use of Christians when expedient, such as with the Phalange, they make life difficult for them at all turns. The ongoing policy is to favor and give land to Jews coming from Europe and the former Soviet Union over people who have lived there for generations. The Islamists more than likely will simply turn on and annihilate their Arab Christian neighbors if given the chance.

It is no wonder that it is quite conceivable that there will be no Christians left in the Holy Land within our life time. That we should be ashamed for.

Andrew

I don't know, Zevonia, I always wished that the French and the Indians had won the French and Indian War, even as a wee lad, and one descended all but entirely from natives of the British Isles; at least the French were Catholics, and intermarried with the Indians [racism being foreign to the Catholic mind], treating them with a great deal more respect than the Brits...
-Daniel

South America was a different story.

Andrew

Andrew- What are you talking about? Have you bought the Black Legend of the English historians?
Yes there was economic exploitation in the Spanish colonies, and enslavement of the Natives [contrary to the dictates of the Spanish Crown, which forbade enslavement]. But intermarriage, as well as a more humane form of slavery, where the slaves were allowed one day a week to labor for themselves [not to mention the numerous holy days when they were free to pursue their own interest] and to buy their freedom were the rule. Unlike the English colonies, marriage was respected, and the sale of family members was forbidden.


To those who believe that the Spanish colonists were worst than the English I ask only this: in the former English colonies what remnants of Native culture remain? Compare this to wherever Catholics colonized: there are vibrant native cultures. In most Hispanic or French cultures there are large numbers of racially mixed peoples, unlike the English colonies, where intermarriage was actually outlawed. The natives were either exiled or slaughtered. I mean compare New Jersey with New Spain.
-Daniel

Daniel, my only point was that "racism is foreign to the Catholic mind" is not a statement that could stand in light of history; be it Peru, Brazil or elsewhere. Who was worse - English, French, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, etc. could be argued endlessly and I was not intending to introduce that as a point of argument.

Apologies, as this all has nothing to do with the thread.

Andrew

Well, this is the Byzantine Forum, where threads get easily sidetracked [it is a rare thread that is still on the original subject by page 3].
Of course there are Catholic racists, as there are Catholic abortionists and every sort of sinner.
I only mean that if it is lived racism will disappear.
Which colonists were worse is not really something so hard to determine: look at the history, at the laws regarding marriage and slavery, and look where the natives survived in large numbers and intermarried: compare New England with New Mexico...
-Daniel

Dear Daniel,

I knew quite a few people when I was young that had Indian blood in them...and they were 'very' proud of it. Of course I heard differently about being part Indian in the West. But you were right about the intermarriage. I think though that it had to do with the French mentality...and the fact that they came as unmarried fur traders.

But through those French, that Indian blood entered many an American. For instance, Winston Churchill's mother...who had an Indian great-grandmother.

Now when Sir Randolph Churchill died, and Winston's mother was widowed and considered one of the most beautiful women in the world, (because of her complexion and its attractive coloring), she planned on marrying an Austrian nobleman.

Well, that was unheard of, because everyone in Austria had to have their coats of arms quartered. In other words, every nobleman's background must be checked. The Austrian's were constantly in consternation over the English nobility, with all their mixed blood. I guess only money mattered to them.

Zenovia

Maybe. On the other hand, the Imperial House of Hapsburg is proud to this day that they are NOT blood relatives of the Battenbergs! Tu, Felix Austria, nube!

This has little to do with the Zionists and the Palestinians - but then again, the Head of the Austrian Imperial House is also the de iure King of Jerusalem.

Incognitus

Compare the Quaker Middle Colonies with the silver mines of Peru. You can always find exceptions to any rule, and I would venture to say the Protestant Quakers were probably the most humane of the various European peoples that settled the new world.

There was and still is a large Mestizo population in Latin America. There is also a large number of mixed blooded here in the United States. The original colonies may have found intermarriage with the natives distasteful, but things played out differently on the frontier. African slaves were treated like subhumans whether they were serving on the sugar plantations of Protestant Barbados or Catholic Haiti.

Also, just on a note of irony, the tiny remaining native groups in New England are enjoying a major economic windfall due to gambling.

Andrew

I grant the humanity of the Quakers, but they did very little intermarrying, something even the brutal French slaveowners did in Haiti...
-D

Hi Daniel,
Have you ever seen the movie, 'Blackrobe', which is about the French missionaries in Canada?
Also, there is a shrine to the French martyrs about an hour north of Toronto. Across the road is a Canadian national park of an early French settlement -their equivalent to our Jamestown.

I did see Blackrobe ; fine movie, but not for the faint of heart...I haven't been to the Canadian shrine but have been to the Jesuit one in Auroville NY.
-Daniel

Daniel,
I agree there was an obvious difference with regard to intermarriage between Catholic and Protestant colonizers but had the French (or the Spanish or Portuguese for that matter) colonized all of North America there would have been zero chance of establishing the type of constitutional republic we have in the U.S.

Dear PaulNik I agree with the following in your post:

" but had the French (or the Spanish or Portuguese for that matter) colonized all of North America there would have been zero chance of establishing the type of constitutional republic we have in the U.S."

I say:

We definitely would not have had a constitutional republic. Then again, France might still have had her revolution and it might have continued here. But it took them quite a long time to establish a democracy. I guess it would have taken us just as long.

As for the intermarriage with the Indians, we have to remember that all the Indian tribes were not the same. From what I've observed, the Indians in the North Eastern part of the U.S. seem to lose their distinct facial characteristics when they intermarry. While those from Central America seem to retain them. So if we take that into account, we can't really say that intermarriage didn't take place.

As for the French, when Tocqueville came to this country in order to study the penal system at the beginning of the 19th century, he said that in French New Orleans they had these large 'balls'. Now the girls going to these balls were not Europeans but 'mulattoes'.

Actually he said it was pathetic, because some of these girls were completely white. Yet they were not able to marry 'white' men, but rather were searching for someone that would take them as a mistress. That way their future would be secure.

Now that doesn't sound to me that the values were better in the 'Catholic' New Orleans, but rather that the men were more lax in their morals ...which of course we all knew that about the French anyway.

Zenovia

Dear Rilian you said:

"Israel is a country based on ethnicity, not religion. One can be a practicing Satanist, but if your Mother is Jewish you qualify as on Oleh and can gain citizenship under the law of return. A Messianic Jew for instance, who say even has a Jewish Father, would not qualify."

I say:

Judaism seems to be a 'matriarchal' society. Now my parents were Greek. If one has a Greek last name, they are considered 'Greek'. It doesn't matter what the citizenship.

If a man has a Greek last name and happens to get caught in Greece at a time of war, then he better grab the first plane, ship or what not out of there. Boy you should have seen what happened when Turkey invaded Cyprus and they were ready to go to war? The visitors were being stopped at the gates.

Now I don't know if the laws have changed recently. But we have to understand that when Greek speaking people are kicked out of a nation, (such as the Northern part of Cyprus a few decades ago), then Greece takes them in...sort of like Israel.

But then again, I think most nations do that. At least in Europe, otherwise why would they have formed defined nations with set borders? The migrations were in the millions after each war when borders changed. Just look at what happened in Yugoslavia?

Zenovia