What are brilliant piece and I agree with all of it..... so far! from South Devon, England.
As we say on the ceasefire marches "in our thousands, our millions we're all Palestinians". We're all colonized by this hegemonic and blood curdling crowd of bigots and, yes, I've come to these conclusions myself over the last couple of years or more: that the Judeo-Christian culture that we all live within (even though in my case I'm a Buddhist of 30 years) deeply influences our attitudes, understanding of our place in the world and breeds arrogance. It has been staggering to me, yet again, how unconsciously racist many people seem to be in this country; ordinary people who have very little and people who have quite a lot, there's an inbuilt anti-brown or black attitude which is almost impossible to penetrate, partly because it is unconscious but when it comes to the fore as it sometimes does in conversation, it's so deeply embedded that one can only sit and remain silent because there's nothing really to say. I don't how the Muslims in this country cope with its vile attitude of much of the rest of humanity around them.... not all of course, but many around them.
Through my Buddhist understanding I have also looked at the Old Christian Gnostic traditions and the Orthodox Russian church......
"The Way of the Pilgrim" which I would highly recommend reading. Also the Philokalia; the writings of the desert mothers and fathers of old Syria and the Sinai. As you rightly say these teachings which have so much depth and wisdom in them and would serve humanity, along with Buddhist teachings from the far East, to learn to live proper, decent, moral lives have been shunned, indeed they have been buried by the established churches and the evangelical zealots because they can't face the reality of what these teachings tell us about ourselves and how we need to live.
This is said notwithstanding the deep racism of the Han Chinese as exemplified by their "re-education " , torture and slaughter of Tibetans and Uyghurs to mention a few ethnic groups, or of the Hindu Indians, once more exemplified by Modi who would like to follow in Israel's footsteps by getting rid of all the Muslims in the country and making it a purely Hindu land. But somehow the West seems to have a special place in the hierarchy of barbarism and racism.
So yes, you're on the right track, but what a gigantic realisation to face for a large part of humanity. This must come though, some time.
I don't know first hand about the Uighurs but I certainly know about the slaughter of 2 million Tibetans after 1959 which was 25%of the total population of Tibet. Tibetans have a separate language a separate culture and has actually never been part of China. There is plenty of footage of beatings of Tibetan monks and biographies of those jailed and finally released after decades. I've met people directly from Tibet so I know this is true. I suspect the same is true of the uyghurs and I have seen footage of it. I know that some channels will be saying that it's Western propaganda but they're also biased to an extent.
Excellent essay but a couple of points: The City in a Hill speech didn’t become a plank of american imperialism until the progressive era after the civil war. See In Search of the City in the Hill, by Gamble. his point is that the narrative you describe was more or less invented by Perry Miller, the great historian of the Puritans. winthrop’s speech was largely forgotten unto Miller resurrected it.
Also: founded? do you mean the 1776 thing? the constitution? or just landing on these shores? my people landed in Virginia in the 1660s and i doubt they saw themselves as Israel 2.0. they simply wanted to plant a crop. There was an enormous difference between the New Englanders and the Virginians.
What you have described is a post facto justification for america’s bad acts that began after the Northern conquest of the Southern states. an entire ideological architecture was invented by the GOP to explain why they imported Irish and Germans to kill Southerners and eventually the Puritans got folded in.
but your description of the imperial ideology is good. as for who created it? Harry Jaffa, the disciple of Leo Strauss, of the Claremont Instittue. both dedicated zionists. And Jaffa admitted he was inventing a “new religion” with Lincoln at its center. and somehow or another, Israel became an important pillar. blaming the puritans is to shift the focus from those truly responsible.
Thanks, Alon! I came to the same conclusion: Israel and USA can't stop and won't stop because this is who they are. I think the only way for them to stop is war with Russia, China, and/or Iran. Honestly, that is something I welcome if that means the genocide in Gaza will stop.
Damn! This is amazing. I’m going to continue thinking about this piece for awhile…
Your last point about the West wanting to destroy ancient Christianity is interesting. I’m an ex-evangelical Christian and I’m very drawn to the Eastern Orthodox Christianity. I’m honestly uncomfortable in any kind of church but I find Eastern Orthodox theology really interesting. I don’t see the same Western colonial mentality in it. For example, from what I can tell Eastern Orthodox do not believe that humans have “dominion over the earth” like Western Christians do but see humans as stewards who are responsible for taking respectful care of the earth and all living creatures.
Wonderful, clear analysis. It's interesting, I realize how I sensed this connection between the two "chosens" growing up and then taking college American history classes AND a course in "The Bible" at the same time. (The latter was fortunately "The Bible as Literature" and offered in the English Department). I felt very uncomfortable, in very similar ways, with huge chunks of the Old Testament and the diaries and journals of Puritan leaders in the "New World." In many ways, they're both dominated by death, destruction, and hate of the "other."
And so much narcissism and vengeance. It's truly amazing and so obvious, yet never spoken of. But this entire civilization is built on anti-human ideas. No Wonder that's where we are
This Iraqi origin is often overlooked . It’s referred to and its significance almost never pointed out . The promised land is a given without critique which tells you this biblical entrainment occurs in childhood and bypasses the filters of hard critique in adulthood. Much of the Israelite story is childhood indoctrination as the bible is a childhood institution of indoctrination.
conclusion “religion “ should be banned until the age of 14-16 when a more critical mind can parse through the givens of historical religious grandstanding and see it for what it is . Human failing with some highlights of humanity . But not much in the Old Testament which is ugly , brutal and primitive .
On an aside to your colonial fulminations -
I suspect white peoples have actually in ancient times on their “prehistoric “ entry to Europe committed similar exterminations. I think this behaviour is very very deep seated in the psyche in a way it’s not maybe in other cultures. Can’t be a coincidence that in Europe there are Eskimo and other none ethnic groups living at the far physical and almost uninhabitable fringes of Europe . They may well have occupied the whole land mass at one time . It’s almost like they got pushed out - or exterminated …
Modern genetics from max planck university show 8000 year old European skeletons have dna showing they were dark skinned . The white Eurocentric surpemacists cannot accept this and instead suggest in 8000 years dark people simply became fairer skinned living at latitude .
As observers of the human condition we can be fairly sure there were more prosaic reasons for whitening of the European continent .
This seems to be a chronic historical problem. White people imposing themselves forcefully on other races.
To 2025 , whatever that may bring . God bless you Alon . The God of small kindness’s .
Thank you for pointing that there is something else underlying the immediate causes which has to do with the West´s existential sense of what it is. I also believe so and that this deserves urgent unpacking. Concerning this process of unpacking:
In terms of Western powers committing suicide in the defence of Israel as their mirror image, it is still suicide, so is this a subconscious thing? Would they not rather change tactics, i.e., historical narrative, to justify what they really want in the eyes of a faith-diverse and largely secularised global society?
And what is what they really want? is it land as such, or identity, or meaning? or are identity, meaning, land and God the same thing, interdependent concepts in the colonising mind ... with the potential to be deconstructed (decolonised)?
It's a great question. Some of the rigidity can be explained in cultural fossilization: a tendency to keep things as they are, for fear of the unknown. And the unknown can be very scary. The idea of suicide is also interesting, because there is some of it in Jewish thinking, and some historians pointed to that. Maybe I should write about that part also. But yes, I mean, what is the Judeo-Christina 'end of days' if not collective suicide?
Christianity in many ways mirrors the Israelite narrative . There is the white privilege, manifest destiny , chosen race , new Jerusalem themes running through all strands of Christianity .
It’s time to really take THAT all apart . How much apocalyptic aspiration is baked into the bread I wonder as I read your article again . Where are Christians willing to go exactly in following their Hebrew Amanuenses - to the letter ? To Armageddon ?
Are we SO ruled by the past we have no real agency in our present ?
You realise following this just HOW the dead - the ghosts of the past - really control our living present.
This is theme I would like to see you write about . The power of the dead - their hold on the living
... very interesting approach to the suicidal aspect, from the history of reactions or attachment to written prophecies, their function, effects: holocaust and genocide present parallels with eschatology. They all describe existential collapse by unimaginable suffering and maximal destruction. Is it then a case of collective paranoia?
On the other hand, eschatology predicts that Abraham will inevitably fail. Thus, why would anyone take pride in calling themselves Abraham (interpretation of reality is complicated .... )
Was meant to also say thank you for investigating and sharing hidden historical connections.
"Christianity ... has its roots in the Hebrew bible, whose early chapters are horrifically bloody. Basically, there was believed to be a contest among gods, and Jahweh, the new god, and (a new claim) the only real god, sought to defeat the other gods by empowering his people, the offspring of Abraham, to defeat the peoples who believed in those gods, seize their lands, and slaughter their children. This may have provided the template for the Crusades, and for the conquest of the “New World.”
"What has lingered most from the [Himalayas] is a sense of the vastness and richness of the non-Western worldview. Sure, I had read books ... but having a physical sense of it is very different. We are so locked into our hysterical Abrahamic eschatology over here, we think it’s everything, and how provincial it is! Two-thirds of the world, at least, lives in otherly organized realities—or would if we would let them be, listen to them, instead of trying with force and guile to make them be like us. ...
"I keep thinking how different the world would be if, say, Buddhism had dominated it, instead of Judeo-Christo-Islamism. A paradox right there: Buddhism didn’t dominate the world because, for the most part, it doesn’t dominate. (And when it does, as in Myanmar, it’s usually been infected by Western political philosophy.) It aims to conquer the self, not the other. ..."
While the Christian may be the worst there are no pure forms.
In the Himalayas there is Hinduism with the cast system of subjugation and exclusion, even within Buddhism whose teachings are, in my experience, impeccable, as wise as gets (starting with absence of a God) there are different branches, some observe simple life, but some monasteries are rather fancy and wealthy. There are also eschatological passages in Buddhism though the view becomes wider, including the emergence and collapse of infinite universes. the talk here is not in the thousands of years but rather eons, and in some close-up passages descriptions are quite terrifying: https://suttacentral.net/dn26/en/sujato?lang=en&layout=plain&reference=none¬es=asterisk&highlight=false&script=latin
On the other hand, the bible is full of injunctions to help the poor and share, including the estranger. So it does not appear black and white, let alone along a geographical divide.
Still, worth looking into the presence or absence of a tendency within these systems of a drive to control land and what or whoever was already there
I have found the exploration of religious fanaticism and colonialism a fascinating subject. That anyone could put faith in such utter depravity, and sheer nonsense, as is in the Bible, has always been a mystery to me.
Are you familiar with Mark Charles and his work on the religious elements of the American colonial project? He has some very interesting comments that are available online.
i need to stay here and digest if my stomach can handle it
A completely new perspective has been opened in front of my eyes
re the new hebrews and the self delusion fed by the atheistic theory of evolution the lie of survival of the fittest in other words if you can conquer you are the fittest the worthy go ahead and do it and don’t worry about how because you don’t really believe in a supreme creator without shape or form who is merciful to all creations as he gave life to what once did not exist
you believe you are chosen
chosen not to be shining beacons of humanity and kindness role models but…..
Because you come with the original sin of arrogance and pride
everything you do is civil
others are barbarians that you came to civilise
so wipe them out and take them as slaves
your fake God in your fake book written by the hands of cunning and deceiving men (with some strains of truth )has allowed it
"We will build Jerusalem in England's green and pleasant land."--Rush, 1970s, based on a hymn sung by Oliver Cromwell's army.
Yah. The Jews can't possibly be God's Chosen People, and neither can the Catholics, therefore the Bible was really talking about US, not THEM!
My settler ancestors weren't exactly known for their humility. Yes, the roots of the Gaza tragedy are deep, but so is pride, whether it is deserved or not. How long will Americans allow an insignificant country governed by a pack of genocidal maniacs to control our foreign policy?
Perhaps a better question is how long will it be before Americans see our own rulers as the obstacle to good living instead of peoples who have never done us any harm? The answer to what will occur when that happens can also be found in Cromwell's tale.
These are very good questions. I think that becoming a heretic is so important for healing. If enough people agree to look at their history critically, things can change dramatically. Maybe when the present is so absurd it can get people thinking. We can only hope so
What are brilliant piece and I agree with all of it..... so far! from South Devon, England.
As we say on the ceasefire marches "in our thousands, our millions we're all Palestinians". We're all colonized by this hegemonic and blood curdling crowd of bigots and, yes, I've come to these conclusions myself over the last couple of years or more: that the Judeo-Christian culture that we all live within (even though in my case I'm a Buddhist of 30 years) deeply influences our attitudes, understanding of our place in the world and breeds arrogance. It has been staggering to me, yet again, how unconsciously racist many people seem to be in this country; ordinary people who have very little and people who have quite a lot, there's an inbuilt anti-brown or black attitude which is almost impossible to penetrate, partly because it is unconscious but when it comes to the fore as it sometimes does in conversation, it's so deeply embedded that one can only sit and remain silent because there's nothing really to say. I don't how the Muslims in this country cope with its vile attitude of much of the rest of humanity around them.... not all of course, but many around them.
Through my Buddhist understanding I have also looked at the Old Christian Gnostic traditions and the Orthodox Russian church......
"The Way of the Pilgrim" which I would highly recommend reading. Also the Philokalia; the writings of the desert mothers and fathers of old Syria and the Sinai. As you rightly say these teachings which have so much depth and wisdom in them and would serve humanity, along with Buddhist teachings from the far East, to learn to live proper, decent, moral lives have been shunned, indeed they have been buried by the established churches and the evangelical zealots because they can't face the reality of what these teachings tell us about ourselves and how we need to live.
This is said notwithstanding the deep racism of the Han Chinese as exemplified by their "re-education " , torture and slaughter of Tibetans and Uyghurs to mention a few ethnic groups, or of the Hindu Indians, once more exemplified by Modi who would like to follow in Israel's footsteps by getting rid of all the Muslims in the country and making it a purely Hindu land. But somehow the West seems to have a special place in the hierarchy of barbarism and racism.
So yes, you're on the right track, but what a gigantic realisation to face for a large part of humanity. This must come though, some time.
A lot of the narratives around Han Chinese torturing and slaughtering Uyghurs is American/Western propaganda
https://medium.com/@braisedporkblog/debunking-the-uyghur-genocide-a-resource-list-a31dd0ea3d87
https://thegrayzone.com/2021/03/31/china-uyghur-gun-soldiers-empire/
https://thegrayzone.com/2021/10/17/uyghur-tribunal-us-government-china/
https://thegrayzone.com/2019/12/21/china-detaining-millions-uyghurs-problems-claims-us-ngo-researcher/
https://thegrayzone.com/2020/03/26/forced-labor-china-us-nato-arms-industry-cold-war/
https://thegrayzone.com/2020/03/05/world-uyghur-congress-us-far-right-regime-change-network-fall-china/
https://thegrayzone.com/2021/02/18/us-media-reports-chinese-genocide-relied-on-fraudulent-far-right-researcher/
https://www.thecanadafiles.com/articles/meet-the-canada-based-cia-front-funded-group-fiercely-driving-the-debunked-xinjiang-genocide-narrative-in-canada
I don't know first hand about the Uighurs but I certainly know about the slaughter of 2 million Tibetans after 1959 which was 25%of the total population of Tibet. Tibetans have a separate language a separate culture and has actually never been part of China. There is plenty of footage of beatings of Tibetan monks and biographies of those jailed and finally released after decades. I've met people directly from Tibet so I know this is true. I suspect the same is true of the uyghurs and I have seen footage of it. I know that some channels will be saying that it's Western propaganda but they're also biased to an extent.
Excellent essay but a couple of points: The City in a Hill speech didn’t become a plank of american imperialism until the progressive era after the civil war. See In Search of the City in the Hill, by Gamble. his point is that the narrative you describe was more or less invented by Perry Miller, the great historian of the Puritans. winthrop’s speech was largely forgotten unto Miller resurrected it.
Also: founded? do you mean the 1776 thing? the constitution? or just landing on these shores? my people landed in Virginia in the 1660s and i doubt they saw themselves as Israel 2.0. they simply wanted to plant a crop. There was an enormous difference between the New Englanders and the Virginians.
What you have described is a post facto justification for america’s bad acts that began after the Northern conquest of the Southern states. an entire ideological architecture was invented by the GOP to explain why they imported Irish and Germans to kill Southerners and eventually the Puritans got folded in.
but your description of the imperial ideology is good. as for who created it? Harry Jaffa, the disciple of Leo Strauss, of the Claremont Instittue. both dedicated zionists. And Jaffa admitted he was inventing a “new religion” with Lincoln at its center. and somehow or another, Israel became an important pillar. blaming the puritans is to shift the focus from those truly responsible.
Well done. Excellent.
This. https://x.com/BonsaiSky/status/1874812202961805766
Thanks, Alon! I came to the same conclusion: Israel and USA can't stop and won't stop because this is who they are. I think the only way for them to stop is war with Russia, China, and/or Iran. Honestly, that is something I welcome if that means the genocide in Gaza will stop.
Damn! This is amazing. I’m going to continue thinking about this piece for awhile…
Your last point about the West wanting to destroy ancient Christianity is interesting. I’m an ex-evangelical Christian and I’m very drawn to the Eastern Orthodox Christianity. I’m honestly uncomfortable in any kind of church but I find Eastern Orthodox theology really interesting. I don’t see the same Western colonial mentality in it. For example, from what I can tell Eastern Orthodox do not believe that humans have “dominion over the earth” like Western Christians do but see humans as stewards who are responsible for taking respectful care of the earth and all living creatures.
Your argument makes a lot of sense! It explains so much. Being a former totally indoctrinated Catholic, now an atheist, this adds up.
Excellent, and very interesting. I also feel almost everything about the US is totally artificial, and the bible is just myth and fantasy.
Outstanding piece.
Supporting evidence in my wheelhouse, "4X" games have been around since games existed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4X
The new fun trend is garbage like Goat Simulator or Gas Station Attendant.
Wonderful, clear analysis. It's interesting, I realize how I sensed this connection between the two "chosens" growing up and then taking college American history classes AND a course in "The Bible" at the same time. (The latter was fortunately "The Bible as Literature" and offered in the English Department). I felt very uncomfortable, in very similar ways, with huge chunks of the Old Testament and the diaries and journals of Puritan leaders in the "New World." In many ways, they're both dominated by death, destruction, and hate of the "other."
And so much narcissism and vengeance. It's truly amazing and so obvious, yet never spoken of. But this entire civilization is built on anti-human ideas. No Wonder that's where we are
Amen
Incredible analysis, Alon. Thank you for the education.
Thank you, Derek
Best article yet to sign off on for 2025.
This Iraqi origin is often overlooked . It’s referred to and its significance almost never pointed out . The promised land is a given without critique which tells you this biblical entrainment occurs in childhood and bypasses the filters of hard critique in adulthood. Much of the Israelite story is childhood indoctrination as the bible is a childhood institution of indoctrination.
conclusion “religion “ should be banned until the age of 14-16 when a more critical mind can parse through the givens of historical religious grandstanding and see it for what it is . Human failing with some highlights of humanity . But not much in the Old Testament which is ugly , brutal and primitive .
On an aside to your colonial fulminations -
I suspect white peoples have actually in ancient times on their “prehistoric “ entry to Europe committed similar exterminations. I think this behaviour is very very deep seated in the psyche in a way it’s not maybe in other cultures. Can’t be a coincidence that in Europe there are Eskimo and other none ethnic groups living at the far physical and almost uninhabitable fringes of Europe . They may well have occupied the whole land mass at one time . It’s almost like they got pushed out - or exterminated …
Modern genetics from max planck university show 8000 year old European skeletons have dna showing they were dark skinned . The white Eurocentric surpemacists cannot accept this and instead suggest in 8000 years dark people simply became fairer skinned living at latitude .
As observers of the human condition we can be fairly sure there were more prosaic reasons for whitening of the European continent .
This seems to be a chronic historical problem. White people imposing themselves forcefully on other races.
To 2025 , whatever that may bring . God bless you Alon . The God of small kindness’s .
Thank you for pointing that there is something else underlying the immediate causes which has to do with the West´s existential sense of what it is. I also believe so and that this deserves urgent unpacking. Concerning this process of unpacking:
In terms of Western powers committing suicide in the defence of Israel as their mirror image, it is still suicide, so is this a subconscious thing? Would they not rather change tactics, i.e., historical narrative, to justify what they really want in the eyes of a faith-diverse and largely secularised global society?
And what is what they really want? is it land as such, or identity, or meaning? or are identity, meaning, land and God the same thing, interdependent concepts in the colonising mind ... with the potential to be deconstructed (decolonised)?
It's a great question. Some of the rigidity can be explained in cultural fossilization: a tendency to keep things as they are, for fear of the unknown. And the unknown can be very scary. The idea of suicide is also interesting, because there is some of it in Jewish thinking, and some historians pointed to that. Maybe I should write about that part also. But yes, I mean, what is the Judeo-Christina 'end of days' if not collective suicide?
Christianity in many ways mirrors the Israelite narrative . There is the white privilege, manifest destiny , chosen race , new Jerusalem themes running through all strands of Christianity .
It’s time to really take THAT all apart . How much apocalyptic aspiration is baked into the bread I wonder as I read your article again . Where are Christians willing to go exactly in following their Hebrew Amanuenses - to the letter ? To Armageddon ?
Are we SO ruled by the past we have no real agency in our present ?
You realise following this just HOW the dead - the ghosts of the past - really control our living present.
This is theme I would like to see you write about . The power of the dead - their hold on the living
... very interesting approach to the suicidal aspect, from the history of reactions or attachment to written prophecies, their function, effects: holocaust and genocide present parallels with eschatology. They all describe existential collapse by unimaginable suffering and maximal destruction. Is it then a case of collective paranoia?
On the other hand, eschatology predicts that Abraham will inevitably fail. Thus, why would anyone take pride in calling themselves Abraham (interpretation of reality is complicated .... )
Was meant to also say thank you for investigating and sharing hidden historical connections.
I can only quote Sam: Wow, wow, wow.
Thanks, Annie. This one is really a cornerstone for what I see as decolonial thought
I've been groping toward a similar insight but could not take it as far—here https://amba12.com/2021/01/08/a-sweeping-vision/
"Christianity ... has its roots in the Hebrew bible, whose early chapters are horrifically bloody. Basically, there was believed to be a contest among gods, and Jahweh, the new god, and (a new claim) the only real god, sought to defeat the other gods by empowering his people, the offspring of Abraham, to defeat the peoples who believed in those gods, seize their lands, and slaughter their children. This may have provided the template for the Crusades, and for the conquest of the “New World.”
and here https://anniegottlieb.substack.com/p/shadow-of-the-himalayas
"What has lingered most from the [Himalayas] is a sense of the vastness and richness of the non-Western worldview. Sure, I had read books ... but having a physical sense of it is very different. We are so locked into our hysterical Abrahamic eschatology over here, we think it’s everything, and how provincial it is! Two-thirds of the world, at least, lives in otherly organized realities—or would if we would let them be, listen to them, instead of trying with force and guile to make them be like us. ...
"I keep thinking how different the world would be if, say, Buddhism had dominated it, instead of Judeo-Christo-Islamism. A paradox right there: Buddhism didn’t dominate the world because, for the most part, it doesn’t dominate. (And when it does, as in Myanmar, it’s usually been infected by Western political philosophy.) It aims to conquer the self, not the other. ..."
While the Christian may be the worst there are no pure forms.
In the Himalayas there is Hinduism with the cast system of subjugation and exclusion, even within Buddhism whose teachings are, in my experience, impeccable, as wise as gets (starting with absence of a God) there are different branches, some observe simple life, but some monasteries are rather fancy and wealthy. There are also eschatological passages in Buddhism though the view becomes wider, including the emergence and collapse of infinite universes. the talk here is not in the thousands of years but rather eons, and in some close-up passages descriptions are quite terrifying: https://suttacentral.net/dn26/en/sujato?lang=en&layout=plain&reference=none¬es=asterisk&highlight=false&script=latin
On the other hand, the bible is full of injunctions to help the poor and share, including the estranger. So it does not appear black and white, let alone along a geographical divide.
Still, worth looking into the presence or absence of a tendency within these systems of a drive to control land and what or whoever was already there
I have found the exploration of religious fanaticism and colonialism a fascinating subject. That anyone could put faith in such utter depravity, and sheer nonsense, as is in the Bible, has always been a mystery to me.
Are you familiar with Mark Charles and his work on the religious elements of the American colonial project? He has some very interesting comments that are available online.
I will read up on Mark Charles
but Alons work has so much food for thought
i need to stay here and digest if my stomach can handle it
A completely new perspective has been opened in front of my eyes
re the new hebrews and the self delusion fed by the atheistic theory of evolution the lie of survival of the fittest in other words if you can conquer you are the fittest the worthy go ahead and do it and don’t worry about how because you don’t really believe in a supreme creator without shape or form who is merciful to all creations as he gave life to what once did not exist
you believe you are chosen
chosen not to be shining beacons of humanity and kindness role models but…..
Because you come with the original sin of arrogance and pride
everything you do is civil
others are barbarians that you came to civilise
so wipe them out and take them as slaves
your fake God in your fake book written by the hands of cunning and deceiving men (with some strains of truth )has allowed it
"We will build Jerusalem in England's green and pleasant land."--Rush, 1970s, based on a hymn sung by Oliver Cromwell's army.
Yah. The Jews can't possibly be God's Chosen People, and neither can the Catholics, therefore the Bible was really talking about US, not THEM!
My settler ancestors weren't exactly known for their humility. Yes, the roots of the Gaza tragedy are deep, but so is pride, whether it is deserved or not. How long will Americans allow an insignificant country governed by a pack of genocidal maniacs to control our foreign policy?
Perhaps a better question is how long will it be before Americans see our own rulers as the obstacle to good living instead of peoples who have never done us any harm? The answer to what will occur when that happens can also be found in Cromwell's tale.
These are very good questions. I think that becoming a heretic is so important for healing. If enough people agree to look at their history critically, things can change dramatically. Maybe when the present is so absurd it can get people thinking. We can only hope so
Wow, wow, wow. Thanks!
My pleasure, Sam. Thank you very much