In Reply to: Re: Unfortunate Truths posted by Acheick on March 29, 2006 at 00:11:10:
Not so. I am simply trying to offer some balance to the mostly Christian points of view expressed on this board. I was wondering last night about why you and I seem to disagree on so many points, and one thing that occurred to me is that often you express your opinion with sweeping generalizations, which I then pounce on.
For example, initially you were making the claim that Islam is not a religion. Later you seemed to include all Muslims in your negative characterizations. You also seemed to be holding out Christianity as inherently better than Islam. What I was taking exception to was what I perceived as all or nothing, black and white thinking, which I always react to.
I realize that you may not have intended what I perceived, but I perceived it none the less, and that was what I react to in your posts. A more recent example is our discussion of slavery. I wasn't initially referring to slavery, though you peceived I was (see, we can both perceive posts in the wrong way). However, when you made a generalzed comment about slavery being the African's idea, that it was practiced there first by Africans against Africans, and the U.S. just picked up that tradition, I couldn't help but respond. I think the history of slavery is a lot more complicated than you tried to make it out. Your simple assessment led me to say you were "almost apologetic", not apologetic but close. I said that because you seemed to be saying, "Hey, the Africans started it, all we did was follow their tradition."
So, it only irks me when people try to make out Christianity as the ultimate benevolent religion by denigrating other religious traditions, or when they conveniently forget the horrors, past and present, committed under the Christian banner.