Who should we hate?

Bullshit!Are you aware of that area of the globe called Latin America, you know that place where most of the population of Indians lived prior to 1500?Do you know why it has the word Latin in its name? Could it possibly be because it was conquered by Spain (and in regard to Brazil, Portugal)?The USA is not in any way, mean, or form innocent of genocide against American Indians, however the USA is not responsible for the deaths of millions of natives in Latin America, be it the Aztecs, the Incas, the Mayans, or any other group prior to and outside of their jurisdiction. Guess what, the number of natives south of the current boundaries of the USA was far greater than the number now occupied by the US and Canada.To state that Spain and Portugal are completely innocent of murdering natives during and following the conquest is an act of stupidity.Ergo, even by your own standards, the USA is most certainly not "responsible for the greatest single genocide in history."There lies your hole.All I can offer is a ladder. Take it or leave it.

Ah, okay. I wasn't aware we were including South America in "America". When people from the US use the word, they usually just mean their part of it, so I assumed that was how the other two meant it also.I stand corrected.However, does that still exclude the genocide solely in the US, or does it not? Numbers would be good, then I might borrow that ladder.

sure you took their land, and in return you gave them a bit of "lead poison", disease, raped their women, and in the end you put them in a reservation a fair trade i have no idea why this is some think it was a bad thing.

Does your school system cover that nasty part of history when Slovenia corroborated with the Nazis to kill Jews, the Roma, homosexuals and non-collaborating Croats, Serbs, and Bosnians?We all have skeletons in the closet, but it is best to not throw them at the window in a glass house if one appears to believe their nation is above criticism.

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The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas - uncertainty, progress, change - into crimes.
Salman RushdieThis rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It’s us. Only us. - the character Rorschach in Watchmen

The problem I have with your posts is the statement "the US is responsible for the greatest genocide in history." As I and Coyote have pointed out, it is obvious Spain and perhaps even Portugal managed to kill more Native Americans than the USA, even before the USA even existed.Exact numbers are difficult to come by as there was no general census among some 500 nations, but there are some pretty reasonable estimates. Since you asked, I can provide but it is the start of a busy work week for me so you might have to wait a few days.As to being defensive concerning the USA, I disagree. My concern is to tell the truth and the truth implicates every modern nation (in your case ask the Maoris).The truth indeed will set us free to solve problems instead of create them.

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The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas - uncertainty, progress, change - into crimes.
Salman RushdieThis rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It’s us. Only us. - the character Rorschach in Watchmen

yea we kinda got anexed and thanks to the priests and similar people who where collaborators things got preaty bad thou the resistance was there from day one and we killed more of our own than anyone other and after the ware we did not see enough blood so we killed more of our own lol kinda self destructive but it was do to hitlers policy divide and conquere.and no we did not kill the croats or serbs or bosinans they where the ones fighting among themselves although the croats did kill a few thousand slovenians and its possible that we did kill a few of them. mostly you can find mass graves of colaborators and mass graves of the resistance, and after the ware mass graves of people out of luck and moste of them up to 90% or more are our own people killed by our own people it was tragic and fuc** up though we did do it to ourselves not to another ethnic group

First, that was funny...Yeah I get it, there are others. But the US, if we include indirect effects and resluts, is neck and neck with the worse of history. And Spain changed their government in the 70's.Now, the Queen and I are having cyber sex, so I must say goodbye for now.- Oni

Hi, Onifre. Even if we assume that the United States is responsible for all those genocides against Native Americans, which is obscenely overestimated, remember that those numbers actually represent Native American deaths over a 400-year period.So, it seems that it took us 400 years to commit about half the atrocities that Stalin committed in 8 years in Ukraine (according to Coyote's figure above).So, not only does this data prove that we are among the most heinous genocidists in history, but we're also the least efficient genocidists in history.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Jar, trying to reason with you is a fruitless waste of time.. The position of Jesus was to love ones enemies and to not render evil for evil, God being the avenger.In the scripture in question he never ever instruction anyone to kill or fight. Because of his gospel, people would be turned against their own family members. I have already posted he evidence that that prophesy has been fulfilled all throughout the Christian era. If you refuse to acknowledge that, I can't help you. I know you, as usual will do the last word thing, so get on with it, but don't expect another response from me.

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BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW.
The immeasurable present eternally extends the infinite past and infinitely consumes the eternal future.

I'll take your word for it, then. Don't worry yourself.

I don't get a chance to participate for a few days and a thread begun with the theme of stopping the blame game and analyzing the human tendency to judge many by the actions of the few turns into a bizarre dick-measuring contest for whose nation or religion actually committed the biggest atrocities in history.Please stop that.The whole point of my OP was to point out that I don't think it's appropriate to label an entire group for the actions of a subset of that group. German Nazis gassed Jews and anyone else they considered to be undesirables...but I don't think we should hate Germans today for what their recent ancestors did. Stalin soaked Russian soil in the blood of his own people...but I don't think we should hate Russians because of that. Some Muslims flew planes into the Twin Towers...but I don't think we should hate Muslims because of the actions of a few.Human society has been around long enough and human nature is dark enough that virtually every cultural, national, ethnic or religious group has some skeletons in the closet at this point. It's important to learn from the mistakes of those who came before us...but at the end of the day, when a bunch of people get killed or impoverished or maimed because of the actions of others, it doesn't matter if the people who hurt those victims were Christian or Muslim or American of German or Iraqi or a bunch of soccer hooligans.Too many replies have come in for me to reply to everyone, so I'm just going to pick on the most important: Define "terrorist." Is every shot fired and bomb placed by a guerrilla fighter in Iraq a "terrorist attack?" Are "terrorist attacks" exclusively suicide attacks? Attacks that specifically target civilians? If a Muslim blows up a building, is that terrorism? What if a Christian blows up a building? What if the building was an abortion clinic in both cases? If I have 100 dead people over here and 100 dead people over there, is there a way for me to differentiate which one was a terrorist attack and which one was not? Perhaps more importantly, does it even matter? Aren't the same number of people dead either way?What do you mean by "adhere the closest to Islam so called holy books?" Does that mean that Christian fundamentalists who refuse medical treatment for their kids in order to adhere the closest to Christianity's so called holy book are also terrorists when their kids die directly because of their actions? Does it even matter? After all, like I said before, if Christians can ignore the parts of the Bible that tell them to stone witches and kill homosexuals and murder their rebellious children and slaughter adulterers and put to death those who work on the sabbath, then can't Muslims do the same? Should all Muslims, including those who do put aside the violent parts of their religion, be judged by the actions of those who do not? Should I then judge all Christians by the Inquisition or the Salem Witch Trials?There is absolutely no question in fact that the United States military has made more attacks and killed more civilians than Islamic fundamentalists in Iraq and Afghanistan. Why should American civilian and military deaths count, but not anyone else?Terrorist attacks on American soil by Islamic fundamentalists aren't even a threat. At all. It's nothing. They scare us out of our bloody minds, but I have a greater likelihood of keeling over from a brain aneurysm or a heart attack or a stroke or cancer or in a car wreck than I do of dying in a terrorist attack. Which of course means that basically every Muslim living in Europe or the US, those who have not tried to enforce their beliefs by the sword and in fact have spoken out against doing so, is a "bad Muslim?" In that case, I rather like "bad Muslims." In fact, I like them so much that I'm going to flip the labels to what I consider more appropriate - the Muslims who place basic human decency and the value of human life over the violent instructions of their religious text, who think the peaceful overtures of Islam override the violent bits, are the "good Muslims" in my eyes...and I don;t think we should judge the "good Muslims" by the actions of the bad ones.I'll say the same for Christians. I rather like the Christians who don't murder abortion doctors, who don't torture perceived heretics, who don't burn witches, and who don't stone their children. I think the Christians who believe that "loving thy neighbor" is the most important commandment are the "good Christians," and the Hitlers and the Inquisitors and the Martin Luthers and the Fred Phelpses are the "bad Christians"...and I don't think I should judge the "good Christians" by the actions of the bad ones.I don't really care what the holy books say. Holy books have a tendency to reflect vastly outdated morality and social structures, and those parts tend to get ignored by the majority of modern people simply because we've seen that doing so results in a much more pleasant world to live in. I don't judge people by how closely they follow the holy book of their choice, or which cows they decide are sacred. I judge people based on their actions, and I really don't care which book or person or dream or hallucination inspired the action.After all - I don't judge you by the actions others have taken in the name of the same holy book you revere. Wouldn't it be more appropriate for you to extend the same courtesy?

Hi Rahvin, nice post.I agree with much of what you're saying here, I think you raise some good points. I would just like to make one or two observations. True enough, but that does not mean that we can't make judgements upon which philosophies are more dangerous or harmful than others. In my view, Islam stands out as being amongst the more dangerous religions. Yes indeed they can and most (if not all) of my Muslim neighbours do. Muslims are just as capable of this kind of low-level hypocrisy as Christians and that is a bloody good thing.There is a problem here though. One tradition in Islam is that in cases of Quranic interpretation, the later, Medinan verses outweigh the earlier, Meccan verses. Care to take a guess where most of the fiery, violent verses come from? This is a concern that has been raised by the noted apostate from Islam, Ibn Warraq. He argues that the Quran does indeed argue in favour of violence much more than it opposes it. Warraq writes under a pseudonym. He does so for a reason. He would not have to do so if he were criticising Christianity. This sort of thing constitutes an important difference between the threat posed by Islam and that posed by other religions.There are other concerns. Muslims are far more likely to be extremely devout than most Christians. They very often see the Quran as the perfect and infallible word of Allah, making it very difficult to find compromise. Islam is used as a justification for the most awful oppression of women. Muslims are every bit as creationist as Christians, if not more so. There are genuine reasons for concern here.Does this mean we should condemn Muslims? No, of course not. We should condemn Islam. We should condemn those Muslims who are violent or intolerant, just as we should condemn anyone who is violent or intolerant. Islam is the problem here, or at least, certain of its tenets. Muslims are just another category of ordinary folk. They just happen to have latched on to an extraordinarily bad set of ideas.I very much like your definition of a "good Muslim". It has nothing to do with how closely someone sticks to their own interpretation of the Quran. A good Muslim is simply a Muslim who is... good. Sadly though, I've heard far too many good Muslims claiming that "Islam is a religion of peace!", as though this absolves their religion from any involvement in Islamist terrorism. I think that kind of self-deluding apologetic is dangerously counter-productive. Even non-Muslims (especially politicians) have trotted out this line. Often this is done in an effort to avoid offending Muslim sensibilities, which is fine. What is actually happening though, is that people are acting as apologists for Islam, papering over the cracks in its philosophy. That's just crazy. Islam can never advance and drive out its less desirable elements, if it is never subjected to honest criticism. I quite agree. It is always silly to judge any large group as a single amorphous mass. I think that it is also telling that some of those most keen to judge their fellow religionists as "bad Muslims" are Al-Qa'ida. One of their justifications for their killing of fellow Muslims (in the Twin Towers and elsewhere) is that these people were corrupted by Western decadence; they were not proper Muslims. Thus, they can be killed. Charming.I am always creeped out when theists start to judge who is the "good" Muslim or Christian. Can't they leave such judgements to God?Mutate and SurviveEdited by Granny Magda, : No reason given.

Um so christianety never had any cults that led to mass suicide, genocide (hitler was a chatolic doing gods will), you only fear what you do not understand there are also some rules of ware in the quran like no damaging trees in a ware, no slaying of inocents.... so it is not that badsome religius fundamentalist like the one you had david coresh, interpret the quran in the way that suits their needs. all the muslims i know think what the terrorist are doing is wrong inhuman immoral. depends on where in the world i know only a few muslim women who have those robes on moste of the time, and i know of one case where the husband is trying to convince his wife to NOT put it on when she goes out. if you read the quran right a woman is fare more protected by it than a man though as i said some like to interpret it the way that suits them.and partly do to the bible, women where 2nd class citizens for a very long time.

Isn't that a by-product of being a pattern seeking primate? Don't we have genetic predisposition to do that? If we didn't do that, we may not have survived much as a species.It works, it just happens to not be a nice thing to do. Now that you've pointed out that you don't find it appropriate, how do you suggest we fix it?Like I said in my early post to you, Muslims need to take control of their situation and change public opinion.- OniEdited by onifre, : No reason given.

Yes, which was basically my larger point - the normal, instinctual behaviors of human beings tend towards generalization and tribalism. Correction - it worked. I'm not so sure that it still does.Amorally, I could coldly state that tribalistic persecution and bigotry do not significantly threaten the species, while our pattern-recognition and extrapolation abilities have essentially driven us to the top of the food chain. Or rather I could have prior to around World War I, and especially World War II.Now, particularly with the advent of nuclear weapons (but to a somewhat lesser extent even with only conventional munitions), I would say that not only are those urges no longer a necessary evil, they actively threaten the survival of our species in a recognizable sense.At the very least I would say that the practice of generalizing blame to the many for the actions of the few is not the optimal available solution. The problem is perfectly encapsulated by your second sentence: it is impossible for Muslims to take control and change public opinion. In my opening post I linked multiple examples of Muslims who do speak out against the atrocities committed by those who claim the same faith. There are innumerable Muslims who do not want to kill you, and have said so.But the fact is, so long as there are any Muslims killing people in teh name of Islam, it doesn't matter - the news will run a full 24-hour cycle on a single unsuccessful attack by a Muslim (especially if it's not just frightening, but also mildly funny like the attempted underpants bomber), but you'll be lucky to get 10 minutes of coverage for a congregation of Muslims publicly decrying jihadism. In the West, Islam is by far a minority religion - it's alien to Christian-dominated countries. Muslims often have a different skin color. Muslims outside the US and many inside the US dress differently from non-Muslims. It's an absolutely perfect recipe for tribalism, no different from the tribalism that resulted in the demonizing of anyone of Asian descent during WWII and the construction of American concentration camps to hold them.The correct course of action is not to simply encourage Muslims to change their own press. The correct course of action is to recognize when our instincts are working against us, and to stop it with intelligent analysis. That means it's on us, you and me and everyone else, to recognize when we're stereotyping, and stop it.After all, I don't think Hispanics can change the perceptions of stereotyping bigots. I don't think blacks can change the perceptions of others, either. And why should they have to? There are lots of black males in jail; does that justify feeling like any given black man you see on the street is likely to be dangerous? Does the random black guy have some obligation to tell everyone around him on a daily basis, "I'm not in a gang, I don't want to rob you," etc? Should you, as a decent Hispanic American, need to constantly prove that you don't fit some New Mexico asshole's stereotype that all Hispanics are lazy Mexicans illegally stealing American jobs?I think that's utterly absurd, and I think you do, too. Why then should we expect those Muslims who have never done anything wrong to prove their innocence to us? I thought we wanted a society where we treated people as innocent of wrongdoing until they are proven guilty.In cases of bigotry and stereotyping, the problem is not the victim. The problem is the bigot; the person who casts blame for the actions of the few on to an entire group of people.It's not easy. It's difficult to consciously work against what your gut is telling you.But for me, I have no intention of being part of the modern version of the Commie scare, the persecution of American Germans in WWI, or the suspicion of all citizens of Asian descent in WWII. As far as I'm concerned, most Muslims are on our side in that they think cutting off heads and limbs and blowing up disabled women in public shopping areas is pretty fucked up and wrong. I include even those Muslims who think that America is pretty shitty as long as they don't support kidnapping journalists and chopping off their heads.I will not be suspicious of my neighbor just because he prays to Allah. I'll be suspicious of my neighbor when he buys bomb components, or starts hoarding weapons, or instigates violence against others, or beats his wife or kids. And that holds true regardless of whether my neighbor is a Muslim, a Christian, an Atheist, a Satanist, a Hindu, or anything else.