Holocaust Tour

[midwestyankee]

And we find the oddest things to differentiate by - I listened to a diatribe on how "renters" are ruining our local schools recetnly. Those dirty renters!

By this logic, landlords must pay no real estate taxes to the school. Helluva deal, that.

 

[sb2009]

I agree LOL I didn't want to butt in, I'm working on my goal of not calling people fucknuts. It's hard.

I was also slightly personally insulted - this is the first place we have bought a house. We move a lot, due to his job. Doesn't make us crappy people. And the schools get a FUCK TON of funds for families just like mine, Impact Aid, and they make sure every year they get me to sign a paper stating we are a military family.

Hey, I want to go on a rant about how people buy into this bullshit that buying house is part of being a productive member of society LOL

 

[graceanne]

I think it's easier for us (by "us" I mean a group of people who share a common link, be it Americans or People With Crazy Mothers) to selectively notice genocide when it's happening to people who are not our shade of skin color, or who practice a religion unlike our own, or who have some sort of cultural identity that is alien to us.

And we find the oddest things to differentiate by - I listened to a diatribe on how "renters" are ruining our local schools recetnly. Those dirty renters!

Most people want to feel they're special and better than other people because 'at least we don't . . .' Sometimes it's based on race, religion, and/or how much money you make, but even in groups you'll find people telling themselves they're better than so and so because . . .

For instance 'Yes, I'm a drunk, and I can't hold down a job, but at least I'm not a junkie. They're losers.'

or

'Yes, I beat my kids, but at least I only use my hand.'

[gracie rant]'Christians' are really guilty of this. Like being a Christian makes you suddenly better than everyone around you. I personally think most 'christians' aren't, they just say they are because that makes them better. 'Yes, I"m a slimey piece of shit, but at least I'm not a heathen.'

[/gracie rant]

 

[WriterDom]

I think it's easier for us (by "us" I mean a group of people who share a common link, be it Americans or People With Crazy Mothers) to selectively notice genocide when it's happening to people who are not our shade of skin color, or who practice a religion unlike our own, or who have some sort of cultural identity that is alien to us.

And we find the oddest things to differentiate by - I listened to a diatribe on how "renters" are ruining our local schools recetnly. Those dirty renters!

There is a misconception that renters get by without paying property taxes which is true as far as sitting down and writing a check, but it is part of the expense of renting property. You can bet the landlord is paying property taxes.

 

[teknight]

There is a misconception that renters get by without paying property taxes which is true as far as sitting down and writing a check, but it is part of the expense of renting property. You can bet the landlord is paying property taxes.

The Federal gov't has been pushing for homeownership as a goal since the 1920s. Now, one way to get people to do that is to say that homeownership rocks, and the renting blows. The rest of the story works itself out. Frankly, a lot of communities are opposed to having apartments in their midst, 'cause they're a gateway drug, or some crap. The funny thing is that this homeownership dream's really worked out since the late 40s..until the recent most crisis. Guess what: unemployment would be lower if people didn't own houses, 'cause they could more easily move to other states where the jobs are to be found.

I'm quoting economic analysis, but, more specifically a recent (within the past 2 months or so) Time or Newsweek article. It was on the cover.

 

[sb2009]

yeah, and I wouldn't live in a this tiny house and be forced to keep chickens to make ends meet :-(

 

[WriterDom]

[gracie rant]'Christians' are really guilty of this. Like being a Christian makes you suddenly better than everyone around you. I personally think most 'christians' aren't, they just say they are because that makes them better. 'Yes, I"m a slimey piece of shit, but at least I'm not a heathen.'

[/gracie rant]

How many of the two billion Christians did you interview to come up with such a conclusion? Because I have lived in the heart of the bible belt most of my life and other than the old black lady who knocks on my door every six months to give me Jesus comic books, you wouldn't know it. The bible college kids look a little like Stepford wives kids, but seem happy and wholesome.

But you said Christians right? Not Jews or Muslims or Atheists or Wiccans so I guess you are not being politically incorrect.

 

[intothewoods]

How many of the two billion Christians did you interview to come up with such a conclusion? Because I have lived in the heart of the bible belt most of my life and other than the old black lady who knocks on my door every six months to give me Jesus comic books, you wouldn't know it. The bible college kids look a little like Stepford wives kids, but seem happy and wholesome.

But you said Christians right? Not Jews or Muslims or Atheists or Wiccans so I guess you are not being politically incorrect.

Grace is a Christian, right? It makes sense she would have a few pet peeves about her own. I took this as a pet peeve, not a fact-based assessment of all Christians.

 

[VelvetSin]

If we don't learn history, we are destined to repeat it. Of course, I think most know enough about this time in our history to not repeat it.

I'm not disagreeing just to be disagreeable, but it was an important lesson that, unfortunately, the world still hasn't learned and never will. The Nazi Holocaust death toll is 6 to 17 million deaths depending on source and whether you just include the Jewish population or the rest of the groups also included in the slaughter. I'm not belittling that by any means – it's horrible and ugly – but it wasn't the first, the last, or the largest by any stretch of the imagination.

Before the Nazis, Stalin's Ukranian Famine killed between 6 to 23 million people depending on the source you prefer. The world should have learned before Hitler's Nazis started the wholesale slaughter.

North Korea's slaughter ranged between 1948 and 1994 and their death toll is “low” compared to others, but many reputable sources claim the suffering rampant through that region could have taught many Nazis a lesson in cruelty.

Mao Ze-Dong's “Great Leap Foward” and “Cultural Revolution” collected a death toll between 40 and 78 million between 1949 and 1976.

In Cambodia, Pol Pot's experiment to create a perfect utopian government from 1975 to 1979 collected a death toll of around 2 million out of an estimated population of only about 7 million, killing somewhere around 25 to 30% of the entire population.

Despite all the hype about the WMD fiasco, the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime put an end to the wholesale genocide of the Kurdish and Shiite populations in and around Iraq. Though it's difficult to site and actual total death toll, it's easily in the hundreds of thousands. The cruel torture policies inflicted on his own people was an affront to any lesson the world should have learned from WWII's atrocities.

The Rwandan Genocide in 1994 collected a quick death toll of 800,000 in only about 100 days, killing close to 20% of the country's population.

Unfortunately, there are dozens of other examples that occurred after the Nazi regime. I hate to say it, but “never again” was discarded before it was even spoken.

 

[WriterDom]

Grace is a Christian, right? It makes sense she would have a few pet peeves about her own. I took this as a pet peeve, not a fact-based assessment of all Christians.

If she said "some Christians I know," I'm sure she'd be correct. There are so many flavors of Christianity that it's not really fair to lump them all together. Pride and being judgmental is not what you find in the teachings of Christ.

 

[teknight]

If she said "some Christians I know," I'm sure she'd be correct. There are so many flavors of Christianity that it's not really fair to lump them all together. Pride and being judgmental is not what you find in the teachings of Christ.

As my ancestors* would have said: "To err is human."
As Christ would have said "Turn the other cheek." (was he into BDSM?)

And don't get me started on how selfish Christianity teaches you to be: everything you do you do to get into Heaven. That's selfishness. Besides, since it uses a carrot and stick approach, it really does believe everyone's a sheep. If she has her fight to wage with Christianity (some sub segment, or the whole thing), more power to her.


*The Romans

 

[midwestyankee]

If she said "some Christians I know," I'm sure she'd be correct. There are so many flavors of Christianity that it's not really fair to lump them all together. Pride and being judgmental is not what you find in the teachings of Christ.

I had no problem understanding gracie's point. She put "christians" in quotation marks to make it clear that she was talking only about that class of people who hold themselves and their religiosity in a holier-than-thou place. She clearly was not saying that all who profess to be christians behave in the way she described.

 

[graceanne]

How many of the two billion Christians did you interview to come up with such a conclusion? Because I have lived in the heart of the bible belt most of my life and other than the old black lady who knocks on my door every six months to give me Jesus comic books, you wouldn't know it. The bible college kids look a little like Stepford wives kids, but seem happy and wholesome.

But you said Christians right? Not Jews or Muslims or Atheists or Wiccans so I guess you are not being politically incorrect.

Grace is a Christian, right? It makes sense she would have a few pet peeves about her own. I took this as a pet peeve, not a fact-based assessment of all Christians.

If she said "some Christians I know," I'm sure she'd be correct. There are so many flavors of Christianity that it's not really fair to lump them all together. Pride and being judgmental is not what you find in the teachings of Christ.

I had no problem understanding gracie's point. She put "christians" in quotation marks to make it clear that she was talking only about that class of people who hold themselves and their religiosity in a holier-than-thou place. She clearly was not saying that all who profess to be christians behave in the way she described.

Wow. Did I hit a nerve, WD? Talk about protesting too much.

Here's a fact. I am a practicing Christian. I can bitch about my own religion all I fucking want. I don't harp on you for all your stupid political threads, if I want to vent about people I go to church with, and that bothers you, then iggy me. When's the last time you went to church?

You want talk politically correct? If a muslim bitched about their religion, what would we do? Let them. If a Jew bitched about their religion, we'd let them (and they have. on this board. and we did.). Why do I, as a Christian, have to stay silent? Oh, wait, that's right. I'm a Christian, I don't get the same rights as every other religion. Practice what you preach.

Add to that, take a look in the religion thread. Bible belt Christians don't even read their fucking bibles. They couldn't even name JOB (an entire book in the bible) as a man who suffered and stayed with God. This was not rocket science. When's the last time you talked to a Christian about their religion? Or do you just assume because they say they're Christians that they are? News flash, over 75% of American's claim to be Christian.

 

[Kat73]

I have been to Dachau in Germany twice in my life. The first time I was 17 and we had just done these programs of conscience at school where we heard from a man who had been at Dachau and several other camps. He talked for 2 hours about what he had gone through and how he had a 6 on his arm that was blurred and looked like an 8 and that saved his life. And about the sleeping arrangements and knowing what the showers were for and that he survived because he had a skill. That was almost 20 years ago and I can still see him and hear his voice. Then going to the camp and seeing the showers and ovens and the barracks and fences. I cried and cried. It is a very emotional place and I hope one day to be able to take my children, because it isn't enogh to just hear and read about it in the history books.

 

[intothewoods]

If she said "some Christians I know," I'm sure she'd be correct. There are so many flavors of Christianity that it's not really fair to lump them all together. Pride and being judgmental is not what you find in the teachings of Christ.

I don't usually qualify my rants about the tribe with "some Jews I know." Obviously I haven't met every Jew out there in the world.

As my ancestors* would have said: "To err is human."
As Christ would have said "Turn the other cheek." (was he into BDSM?)

And don't get me started on how selfish Christianity teaches you to be: everything you do you do to get into Heaven. That's selfishness. Besides, since it uses a carrot and stick approach, it really does believe everyone's a sheep. If she has her fight to wage with Christianity (some sub segment, or the whole thing), more power to her.


*The Romans

My understanding, as a non-Christian, is that there are different Christian philosophies on getting into heaven.

From a logical, non-religious perspective, it certainly made or makes sense to tell poor people who don't have such a great life that if they believe, they will be rewarded in the hereafter. It was probably tough to get a peasant to come to church and toe the line otherwise. But I've heard plenty of modern Christians say that you do good acts for their own sake.

 

[WriterDom]

Wow. Did I hit a nerve, WD? Talk about protesting too much.

Here's a fact. I am a practicing Christian. I can bitch about my own religion all I fucking want. I don't harp on you for all your stupid political threads, if I want to vent about people I go to church with, and that bothers you, then iggy me. When's the last time you went to church?

You want talk politically correct? If a muslim bitched about their religion, what would we do? Let them. If a Jew bitched about their religion, we'd let them (and they have. on this board. and we did.). Why do I, as a Christian, have to stay silent? Oh, wait, that's right. I'm a Christian, I don't get the same rights as every other religion. Practice what you preach.

Add to that, take a look in the religion thread. Bible belt Christians don't even read their fucking bibles. They couldn't even name JOB (an entire book in the bible) as a man who suffered and stayed with God. This was not rocket science. When's the last time you talked to a Christian about their religion? Or do you just assume because they say they're Christians that they are? News flash, over 75% of American's claim to be Christian.

It's a wonder you can get a word in edgewise with all my stupid political threads clogging up the board. For that I'm sorry. Put me on ignore and all zero of them will disappear from the front page.

If you actually read the survey you'd see that white evangelicals and Mormons scored higher on the bible questions than any other group. I don't think anyone who has read the bible could miss Job. I mean, come on. Even if it is on the Jewish side.

You seem to be a lot more upset than I ever was. I was just questioning you pigeon holing all Christians because of what you experienced in your church. You can't take a piss outside here without hitting a church, and I imagine there isn't a perfect one in the bunch, and 98% of them I probably wouldn't even consider joining. That would be all the Baptists and Baptists spin offs. Not to mention the more backwoods who speak in tongues and handle snakes.

 

[teknight]

I don't usually qualify my rants about the tribe with "some Jews I know." Obviously I haven't met every Jew out there in the world.



My understanding, as a non-Christian, is that there are different Christian philosophies on getting into heaven.

From a logical, non-religious perspective, it certainly made or makes sense to tell poor people who don't have such a great life that if they believe, they will be rewarded in the hereafter. It was probably tough to get a peasant to come to church and toe the line otherwise. But I've heard plenty of modern Christians say that you do good acts for their own sake.

I think better of myself, but I do get on my anti-Christian atheist horse once in awhile...which is more often than I'd like, actually. I've actually been taught Christianity (Orthodox Christianity-old school, folks!) in school for 8 or 9 years. For that I do apologize.

Now, to your point- it does make sense, but it doesn't.
a) I find it insulting: I can't be a good human being, an ethical creature without the punishment of hell should I fuck up? No thanks.
b) I do actually hold humans to be more animal than we give ourselves credit (and as such subject to a bunch of crap we're not even aware of), but, if you're gonna hold yourself as the pinnacle of Creation, then, maybe you shouldn't be ok with being treated as a sheep, ya know?
c) meh.....

 

[graceanne]

It's a wonder you can get a word in edgewise with all my stupid political threads clogging up the board. For that I'm sorry. Put me on ignore and all zero of them will disappear from the front page.

If you actually read the survey you'd see that white evangelicals and Mormons scored higher on the bible questions than any other group. I don't think anyone who has read the bible could miss Job. I mean, come on. Even if it is on the Jewish side.

You seem to be a lot more upset than I ever was. I was just questioning you pigeon holing all Christians because of what you experienced in your church. You can't take a piss outside here without hitting a church, and I imagine there isn't a perfect one in the bunch, and 98% of them I probably wouldn't even consider joining. That would be all the Baptists and Baptists spin offs. Not to mention the more backwoods who speak in tongues and handle snakes.

Oh, bullshit. You were looking for a fight. Everyone here saw me put christian in quotes because I was talking specifically about certain 'christians'. I did not at any point say ALL christians act that way, you chose to read it that way. Don't bitch at me that you went looking for a fight and got it.

And, just as important, I can (as I stated) bitch about my own religion all I want. I see you didn't address the fact that you haven't jumped any of the other religions here when they bitch about their religion. Hate to admit you were being politically correct?

 

[WriterDom]

Maybe you can refresh my memory about other religious people here who post about their religion. With all our Hindu and Muslim posters.

Other than Netzach talking about acid throwing Jews in Israel.

Correct me if I am wrong, but the Jews on this board don't strike me as being particularly religious. More of a noun than a verb kind of thing.

But we are getting away from the Holocaust, so if you want to start a religious thread then have at it.

 

[graceanne]

Maybe you can refresh my memory about other religious people here who post about their religion. With all our Hindu and Muslim posters.

Other than Netzach talking about acid throwing Jews in Israel.

Correct me if I am wrong, but the Jews on this board don't strike me as being particularly religious. More of a noun than a verb kind of thing.

We have several practicing jews on this board, and there's been many conversations about jews. Including a few stating issues they have with their religion. Convenient you don't remember, but I'm not going to waste my time looking them up for you.

AND you still didn't address the issue in my last post; you were looking for a fight, and deliberately misconstruing what I said, since I did NOT say, at any point, that all Christians are like that.

But we are getting away from the Holocaust, so if you want to start a religious thread then have at it.

If you didn't mean to derail a thread, then you shouldn't have. Last I checked we don't spend a lot of time worrying about derailing; it's awful convenient that when you know I'm right, you were picking a fight, you suddenly decide to care about hijacking, but whatever.

 

[WriterDom]

What you said was "I personally think most 'christians' aren't, they just say they are because that makes them better."

Then of course you said this: 'Christians' are really guilty of this. Like being a Christian makes you suddenly better than everyone around you.

I don't think most Christians are that way and I think if I said:

'Muslims' enjoy blowing up innocent women and children. Someone might take offense to it regardless of the " ' ' ". like that somehow makes it ok.

Now if you simply said, "There are people at my church who claim to be Christian but are hypocrites," I wouldn't have blinked an eye.

And you might read every post to every thread here but I certainly don't. If I'm going to be tested on past forum material then I'll be happy to read what you want me to read.

 

[graceanne]

What you said was "I personally think most 'christians' aren't, they just say they are because that makes them better."

Then of course you said this: 'Christians' are really guilty of this. Like being a Christian makes you suddenly better than everyone around you.

I don't think most Christians are that way and I think if I said:

'Muslims' enjoy blowing up innocent women and children. Someone might take offense to it regardless of the " ' ' ". like that somehow makes it ok.

Now if you simply said, "There are people at my church who claim to be Christian but are hypocrites," I wouldn't have blinked an eye.

And you might read every post to every thread here but I certainly don't. If I'm going to be tested on past forum material then I'll be happy to read what you want me to read.

I bolded the part you want the 'most' part. Just so you're clear 'most' does not equal 'all'.

AND you are not muslim, so therefore don't get as much leeway in bitching about them. I know this is dificult, but people who are part of a group of people get to bitch about that group of people. Black people get to bitch about black people, gay people get to bitch about gay people, and religions get to bitch about their own religion. I mean, seriously. DUH! I am a christian, I can bitch about Christianity all I want. If a muslim came on her and said 'muslims' like to blow people up, no one would say a thing. You are bitch about political correctness not applying to Christians - you're right and you just proved it. And you HAVE said things about muslims that have pissed people off, so don't go there. Just because I don't post, doesn't mean I don't read threads.

That said, you're an idiot and I'm done with this conversation.

 

[DVS]

I'm not disagreeing just to be disagreeable, but it was an important lesson that, unfortunately, the world still hasn't learned and never will. The Nazi Holocaust death toll is 6 to 17 million deaths depending on source and whether you just include the Jewish population or the rest of the groups also included in the slaughter. I'm not belittling that by any means – it's horrible and ugly – but it wasn't the first, the last, or the largest by any stretch of the imagination.

Before the Nazis, Stalin's Ukranian Famine killed between 6 to 23 million people depending on the source you prefer. The world should have learned before Hitler's Nazis started the wholesale slaughter.

North Korea's slaughter ranged between 1948 and 1994 and their death toll is “low” compared to others, but many reputable sources claim the suffering rampant through that region could have taught many Nazis a lesson in cruelty.

Mao Ze-Dong's “Great Leap Foward” and “Cultural Revolution” collected a death toll between 40 and 78 million between 1949 and 1976.

In Cambodia, Pol Pot's experiment to create a perfect utopian government from 1975 to 1979 collected a death toll of around 2 million out of an estimated population of only about 7 million, killing somewhere around 25 to 30% of the entire population.

Despite all the hype about the WMD fiasco, the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime put an end to the wholesale genocide of the Kurdish and Shiite populations in and around Iraq. Though it's difficult to site and actual total death toll, it's easily in the hundreds of thousands. The cruel torture policies inflicted on his own people was an affront to any lesson the world should have learned from WWII's atrocities.

The Rwandan Genocide in 1994 collected a quick death toll of 800,000 in only about 100 days, killing close to 20% of the country's population.

Unfortunately, there are dozens of other examples that occurred after the Nazi regime. I hate to say it, but “never again” was discarded before it was even spoken.

I agree completely that we don't live in a perfect world. Too many just look the other way when it's someone else in trouble. It happens today, on our own U. S. streets. People are mugged and murdered in broad daylight and nobody sees anything.

And it doesn't have to be stranger on stranger. A very good friend of mine was killed by her own beloved son and 9 year old grandson. The son was in the will to get her money when she died, but I guess she didn't die soon enough. The grandson cracked during interrogation and now the son is in prison for life. I just hope my friend didn't know who hit her over the head from behind.

But, even though we live in a cruel world, I still like to look at the glass as half full instead of half empty. I'd like to think there will be a time when, with enough thought provoking communication, there will eventually be a generation that makes a change.

 

[DVS]

Man, what happened to this thread? I've left for a few days and it goes down hill. I'm glad I don't consider myself in any "legitimate" or "verified" religious group. All I will say is I believe in a God and heaven. I don't even believe there is a hell.

I have my own views on the hear after, and because I don't consider myself a member of any of those religious groups, I can freely state what I believe and nobody can say I'm wrong. Oh, I guess they can say I'm wrong, but none of us will ever find out until we die, so I have my right to believe what I want, as well as anybody else.

Politics and religion...never fight over those issues. You're not going to change anybody's opinion. You will only piss them off and raise everybody's blood pressure.

 

[intothewoods]

I think better of myself, but I do get on my anti-Christian atheist horse once in awhile...which is more often than I'd like, actually. I've actually been taught Christianity (Orthodox Christianity-old school, folks!) in school for 8 or 9 years. For that I do apologize.

Now, to your point- it does make sense, but it doesn't.
a) I find it insulting: I can't be a good human being, an ethical creature without the punishment of hell should I fuck up? No thanks.
b) I do actually hold humans to be more animal than we give ourselves credit (and as such subject to a bunch of crap we're not even aware of), but, if you're gonna hold yourself as the pinnacle of Creation, then, maybe you shouldn't be ok with being treated as a sheep, ya know?
c) meh.....

I'm sorry, I can't recall where you live. I have to say that I'm more or less familiar with a number American Christian denominations, but other than the Catholics and probably the Anglican church, I'm a little fuzzy on non-American Christian denominations. But I digress...I'm not arguing for Christianity. I would have a hard enough time arguing for Judaism if I were to try. I'm just saying that while I think that some Christian sects follow a very rigid and even simplistic philosophy, there are others who have a more complex view of God, their religion and the world. Some leaders/thinkers are interesting to listen to, others (for me) are not.