Riverwind (imported) wrote: Mon Oct 28, 2002 3:22 pm We were in NC visiting my mothers brother and while out look and taking in the sites we stopped at the public pool. There was so commotion going on and this older woman was coming our way. My uncle asked her what was going on, she said those " I don’t ever use this word, not ever " are trying to swim in our public pool.

Riverwind,

Segregation was still the way of life in the south in 1963. Remember Martin Luther King!

Paolo wrote: Sun Oct 27, 2002 8:11 am The Inquisition killed "infidels", witches were burned in Salem and many other places.

One minor correction here, Paolo: It was Muslims who killed (and continue to kill) infidels. The Spanish Inquisition killed heretics, and was created right around the time the Spanish defeated the last of the Moorish strongholds in Spain, thus throwing them back out of the country. I would suggest that the Inquisition was intended more to reinforce Christianity by weeding out the residual Muslims than to persecute Christians themselves, though I'm sure that in their zeal, the inquisitors often managed to do just that. In any case, as horrible as it may have been, it was, just like the Crusades, a reaction to external persecution, not some pogrom of the Church itself.

Radar,

You’re partly right. The Inquisition didn’t kill “infidels.” It did kill heretics. The Christians tended to kill “pagans” (Moslems frequently included in the category), and the Moslems killed “infidels” (Christians and Jews) and “pagans” (everyone else).

Christians have tended to kill Christians over minor doctrinal differences, such as the extermination of the Cathars in southern France or the current attempt by Catholics and Protestants to kill each other in Northern Ireland. The Moslems have done the same with warfare between Shi’a and Sunni.

The religious wars tend to be far more violent when it is only minor sectarian differences involved. Wars between Hindu and Moslem were much less vicious than those between Christian factions in Europe.

Wherever there is difference, there seems to be prejudice. Maybe it’s because we’re really far too much alike and the minor differences nag at us. Maybe if humans came in the full set of primary colors and a wide range of patterns (striped and polka-dotted), we would rejoice in our differences rather than fighting over a narrow range from dark brown through pink.

Xan you are rite this site is very imporent i dont think thair is another like it . i know thair is so many diffrent people here that normaly i wouldnt never get to talk to and since i have been talking to them i have began to understand them and i hope thay understand where i am coming from. I have learned to love them for who thay are that is somthing years ago i would not have done.May god bless every one of you.