perhaps of interest

[Madalch]

That passage has caused us a lot of trouble over the years. The really sad part is, the whole curse is lifted in the book of Acts. I don't have a Christian Bible any more, so I can't tell you where it is, but Peter, I think, is speaking to that same crowd, or people that were in it. The gist is, "What shall we do? We crucified the Lord!" and Peter tells them, "Repent and be baptized, for this same Jesus, whom you crucified, will take away your sins--and the blessing is for you, and for your children."

The Jew-haters know it's there, but it blows their whole show.

I read that as the blessing being for those who get baptized (which would, to me, indicate becoming Christian).

 

[slingblade]

It won't make any difference, but I'll attempt it anyway. It's important.

A group of people, say nation-sized, does something to another group of people. What was done was inhumane, barbaric, ignorant, and cruel. The second group of people suffered horribly. Now, in the entire nation, there may have been only a relative few who were actually committing the atrocities. The rest stood around and turned blind eyes and deaf ears. Some of them approved, silently, and some didn't. But none stepped up to help or stop the atrocities. Later, these will be the ones who cry "But I didn't know! It wasn't me!"

The injured people, those who survive, don't forget what was done to them. They pass the stories of it on to their children, and their children, and their children. They pass along a warning, too: "they didn't just do this once. They did it over, and over, and over. They could do it again. Meantime, here's how they treat us now. We're still reaping the effects of what was done to your grandparents, their grandparents, and so on."

I'm a descendant of the first group, the tormentors. I've never tormented anyone. I think the ones tormented were horribly treated, and yes, I'm ashamed that it was my ancestors who were responsible.

Now, here's where the disconnect comes in:

If the effects of the initial horror are still being seen and still affecting people decades or even centuries after the initial horror ended, then who is responsible for that? None of us are the people who either originally suffered, or orignally caused suffering, but the effects of it have still been carried down from generation to generation.

Since everyone originally involved is long dead, they can't fix it. So, who does? No one? Do we just keep letting these effects rumble down along the years, absolving ourselves of responsibility?

No one says anyone has to accept responsiblity for the original wrongs, years later. But if we continue to perpetuate the effects by simply refusing to look, then we're just as guilty, even though we're not responsible for what our ancestors did.

I'm responsible for helping to keep it alive. If I do nothing to try to mitigate it now, today, I'm just as guilty.

 

[cnorman18]

--

Well, Matthew was a Jew writing (primarily) to other Jews (about that other famous Jew, Jesus). I've always assumed the point of the passage was not "blame those filthy Jews" but "We are all guilty of Christ's death"--e.g., all humanity shares in the guilt--not just those filthy Romans.

It only gets to be taken up as an anti-semitic idea when Christianity becomes (by a sheer historical accident) primarily Roman. then it becomes "it's not the nice Roman boy's fault--it's those filthy Jews!" Although there's always a certain cognitive dissonance on this point in Christian theology. That is Christian's DO believe that we all share in the guilt for Christ's crucifixion. It's a central element of Christian meditation to blame oneself for the wounds suffered by Christ during his Passion etc. etc. (it's very traditional, in particular, to regard each act of sin as adding a further injury to Christ's sufferings). So there was never really a sound theological basis for the "blood guilt" idea.

You'll get no argument from me. That sounds right on the money.

 

[cnorman18]

--

It won't make any difference, but I'll attempt it anyway. It's important.

A group of people, say nation-sized, does something to another group of people. What was done was inhumane, barbaric, ignorant, and cruel. The second group of people suffered horribly. Now, in the entire nation, there may have been only a relative few who were actually committing the atrocities. The rest stood around and turned blind eyes and deaf ears. Some of them approved, silently, and some didn't. But none stepped up to help or stop the atrocities. Later, these will be the ones who cry "But I didn't know! It wasn't me!"

The injured people, those who survive, don't forget what was done to them. They pass the stories of it on to their children, and their children, and their children. They pass along a warning, too: "they didn't just do this once. They did it over, and over, and over. They could do it again. Meantime, here's how they treat us now. We're still reaping the effects of what was done to your grandparents, their grandparents, and so on."

I'm a descendant of the first group, the tormentors. I've never tormented anyone. I think the ones tormented were horribly treated, and yes, I'm ashamed that it was my ancestors who were responsible.

Now, here's where the disconnect comes in:

If the effects of the initial horror are still being seen and still affecting people decades or even centuries after the initial horror ended, then who is responsible for that? None of us are the people who either originally suffered, or orignally caused suffering, but the effects of it have still been carried down from generation to generation.

Since everyone originally involved is long dead, they can't fix it. So, who does? No one? Do we just keep letting these effects rumble down along the years, absolving ourselves of responsibility?

No one says anyone has to accept responsiblity for the original wrongs, years later. But if we continue to perpetuate the effects by simply refusing to look, then we're just as guilty, even though we're not responsible for what our ancestors did.

I'm responsible for helping to keep it alive. If I do nothing to try to mitigate it now, today, I'm just as guilty.

You're not listening. No offense meant.

Your example works if it happened once and stopped. It didn't. It happened over and over and over, for more than a thousand years, and there are places where it's still happening. That's not an exaggerated oral tradition, as you portray it here; that's history and current events.

More importantly, I,m not talking about the various atrocities anyway; I'm talking about the teachings and attitudes that made the atrocities seem acceptable and even praiseworthy, and that are still being promoted and published in present time.

I'm seeing something weird here.

Can anybody link me to a thread where Christians doing monumentally bad things are so enthusiastically defended by so many atheists and skeptics?

What the Hell is going on here?

 

[slingblade]

Cnorman, I was speaking only to those who say "I didn't do this, why should I feel guilty about it?" That's all. I'm certainly not defending any Christians.

And my example specifically addresses repeat atrocities..."they didn't just do it once; they did it over and over...and they'll do it again..."

I covered that.

 

[cnorman18]

--

Okay, someone explain this to me.

I have seen on this forum, over and over again, the assertion that religion is good for absolutely nothing. Its effects and influence are invariably bad, it is responsible for all manner of evil, and it is a source of nothing but hypocrisy, misery and ignorance. Not to mention wars, discrimination, and prejudice of all kinds. Have I got that about right?

In particular, Christianity often gets excoriated with special vehemence for various reasons, among them its tendency to set itself up as the high panjandrum of religions, superior to all others and without flaw.

And now I post an example of just that, and of the reasons why a person--a Jew--might be a bit hostile to signing on to the Christian faith because of the very kind of hypocritical horrors inflicted on Jews by Christians, most often on specifically religious grounds.

And the atheists and skeptics are defending the Christians.

What is the principle at work here?

Is it "oppose the theist, no matter what"?

Is it "criticism of religion is only permissible from atheists"?

What?

Someone please explain.

 

[dirtywick]

slingblade,

I'm responsible for helping to keep it alive. If I do nothing to try to mitigate it now, today, I'm just as guilty.

I don't understand what you mean here. Mitigate it how? I'm a 25 year old white guy with Christian ancestors, true fact. But let's assume for the sake of argument I feel pretty bad about pretty much everything. What do you think I should be doing specifically?

I'm not trying to be a jerk or anything, I really don't understand what you mean.

 

[Yoink]

OK, I see your point, but, no offense, that's a textbook-classroom academic logic approach. In real life, looking at it like that makes no sense at all.

"Here, use this mechanic; he's better than yours."

"But every car he works on breaks down."

"So what? He might still be the best mechanic."

"Uh, right..."

That's not a good analogy. You're assuming that religious belief is in some way "proven" to be correct or incorrect by the behavior of its followers. The competence of a mechanic is obviously well demonstrated by the reliability of the repairs s/he performs. But Christ could be "the way" even if every single one of his followers was a complete putz.

Again, you're confirming my point that you're treating the choice of religions (and I need to remind you that it is you yourself, in your opening post, who tells us that this matter arose in the context of a discussion of choosing Xty over Judaism) as if it were a matter merely of "what company do I want to keep" and not (as it claims to be) a matter of who is "right" about the metaphysical underpinnings of the universe.

If you're trying to decide whether to adopt the teachings of a religion whose followers seem to have a habit of killing you, the precious little intellectual chess-game approach of using rigorous logic to answer every question doesn't seem very sensible to me.

As a matter of gut-feeling, I agree with you. But in saying that you are tacitly agreeing that all religious claims are equivalent from a "truth value" perspective (i.e., that they have no truth value--given that some of them are contradictory). That means it's simply a matter of what "team" you want to join.

If you insist that it's the only logical way, please explain what PROOF would be acceptable to you in making that decision.

Well, obviously, as an atheist, I'm pretty confident that there ain't no proof out there. But then, I'm not the theist. The question here is why you are still defending "religion" per se when you also seem to think that one's choice of religious belief should be premised solely upon emotional identification with the people you think are cool (Jews) or uncool (Christians).

I think I could write your answer for you, but go ahead; I want to see this.

So, was that the answer you expected?

On the massacres in the OT; we hardly "celebrate" them. They're more troubling to us than anyone. It's a bit of a relief to us to find out that archaeology indicates that they probably didn't happen.

I didn't say that you celebrate them, I said that the tanakh celebrates them. And it does. Over and over again. Yes, I've read it.

I have to wonder if it's logic or polemics that make you think it makes sense to pronounce events that happened 3,000 years apart as morally equivalent, anyway.

Er, I think its morality. Are you saying that genocide 3000 years ago was cool? How did it become "bad" in the meantime? Did it happen slowly, or in a particular year? Was it o.k. then because "people believed differently back then"? Does that mean that it would have been o.k. for the Nazis to murder 6,000,000 Jews as long as they really believed it was o.k. to do so? I really don't get your point here.

 

[Yoink]

Okay, someone explain this to me.

I have seen on this forum, over and over again, the assertion that religion is good for absolutely nothing. Its effects and influence are invariably bad, it is responsible for all manner of evil, and it is a source of nothing but hypocrisy, misery and ignorance. Not to mention wars, discrimination, and prejudice of all kinds. Have I got that about right?

In particular, Christianity often gets excoriated with special vehemence for various reasons, among them its tendency to set itself up as the high panjandrum of religions, superior to all others and without flaw.

And now I post an example of just that, and of the reasons why a person--a Jew--might be a bit hostile to signing on to the Christian faith because of the very kind of hypocritical horrors inflicted on Jews by Christians, most often on specifically religious grounds.

And the atheists and skeptics are defending the Christians.

What is the principle at work here?

Is it "oppose the theist, no matter what"?

Is it "criticism of religion is only permissible from atheists"?

What?

Someone please explain.

I think I'm the only one who has so far addressed this from an expressly "atheist" perspective, and I can assure you that you've utterly misread me if you think I'm in any way "defending the Christians."

The problem is not that you're criticizing Christians, the problem is that you're doing so on a comparative basis (yay Judaism, boo Christianity). My point is that that the terms on which you argue should lead you to reject BOTH Christianity AND Judaism. You also seem to want to suggest that Christianity is somehow "special" in its capacity for evil, while turning a blind eye to the capacity for evil that is enshrined in the holiest books of your own religion (which in fact contributed enormously to Christianity's justifications for its bad actions--look at the way European colonists turned again and again to the language of the "Promised Land" to justify their depradations in the New World--and their appalling treatment of the New Canaanites that they found there).

We atheists tend to think ALL religions have a dangerous capacity to lead people into irrational and destructive behavior--so we can't resist a bit of "hey pot, meet kettle" when we see adherents of religion A badmouthing adherents of religion B.

But seriously--do you think if a Christian came on here badmouthing Jews that s/he'd get met with anything but contempt?

 

[Darth Rotor]

Texas CHL, Kel-Tec P3AT, 500 rounds of .380 FMJs and a selection of pocket holsters.

Yugo underfolder AK-47 w/red dot, 2,000 rounds of 7.62x39.

You're welcome at my house, too...

Sounds like we're both ready for SHTF. You're familiar with the expression, I trust...?

Yes, you speak my language.

DR

 

[slingblade]

slingblade,

I don't understand what you mean here. Mitigate it how? I'm a 25 year old white guy with Christian ancestors, true fact. But let's assume for the sake of argument I feel pretty bad about pretty much everything. What do you think I should be doing specifically?

I'm not trying to be a jerk or anything, I really don't understand what you mean.

I won't tell you what to do. I don't claim to have any specific answers.

All I know is that certain things have long-lasting effects. A specific event might be over, but it will continue to affect people on all sides of it for a very long time.

I know Cnorman is talking about Jewishness and what he sees happening with that. I've brought up American slavery and Amerind genocide as being other events for which I wasn't present, but the effects of which influence my life whether I see it or not.

But when people say "Why should I feel guilty about that? I wasn't there, I didn't do it?" I feel it's helpful if they understand the problem now isn't the past event itself, but how the past event influences the present.

Including enabling the same things to keep happening over and over, Cnorman.

 

[dirtywick]

But when people say "Why should I feel guilty about that? I wasn't there, I didn't do it?" I feel it's helpful if they understand the problem now isn't the past event itself, but how the past event influences the present.

Yeah but do you need to feel guilty for things you can't possibly be guilty of to understand that?

 

[slingblade]

Yeah but do you need to feel guilty for things you can't possibly be guilty of to understand that?

No, that's exactly what I'm NOT trying to say.

To acknowledge that a past event was so powerful that it still has ramifications today that need to be addressed is not the same as admitting guilt for the past events. Guilt is not necessary or helpful. You aren't guilty of slavery, for example. But the effects of slavery are still affecting your life, and the lives of those around you.

If you ignore that, if you refuse to see any sense in that, if you turn your head away from the effects, say they aren't there, they don't exist, then you are guilty of that much, aren't you?

And in my opinion alone, being deliberately ignorant of the effects of an event is an equivalent sort of guilt to the actual commission of the event.

 

[blobru]

Well, Matthew was a Jew writing (primarily) to other Jews (about that other famous Jew, Jesus). I've always assumed the point of the passage was not "blame those filthy Jews" but "We are all guilty of Christ's death"--e.g., all humanity shares in the guilt--not just those filthy Romans.

It only gets to be taken up as an anti-semitic idea when Christianity becomes (by a sheer historical accident) primarily Roman. then it becomes "it's not the nice Roman boy's fault--it's those filthy Jews!" Although there's always a certain cognitive dissonance on this point in Christian theology. That is Christian's DO believe that we all share in the guilt for Christ's crucifixion. It's a central element of Christian meditation to blame oneself for the wounds suffered by Christ during his Passion etc. etc. (it's very traditional, in particular, to regard each act of sin as adding a further injury to Christ's sufferings). So there was never really a sound theological basis for the "blood guilt" idea.

Would that your interpretation had accidentally prevailed historically. In the context of surrounding verses, who's being blamed is perhaps a little clearer:

11 And Jesus stood before the governor: and the governor asked him, saying, Art thou the King of the Jews? And Jesus said unto him, Thou sayest.
...
22 Pilate saith unto them, What shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ? They all say unto him, Let him be crucified.
23 And the governor said, Why, what evil hath he done? But they cried out the more, saying, Let him be crucified.
24 When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it.
25 Then answered all the people, and said, His blood be on us, and on our children.
...
42 He saved others; himself he cannot save. If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him.
- Matthew 27

Having been mockingly crowned "King of the Jews", Jesus's fate is delivered into the hands of the crowd, who, because they don't accept him as their king, demand he be crucified. Pilate famously washes his hands of the crucifixion; the crowd, the ones who rejected Jesus as their king, i.e., the Jews [and their children], are alone then in accepting all the guilt for Jesus' crucifixion, for they alone requested it. That seems to be Matthew's point in differentiating between the Roman's actions and attitude and the crowd's. Later, Christ on the cross, the crowd continues to reject him, saying you are not "the King of Israel". The implication for me, today as when I first read it, is that it is the Jews' fault (those Jews who don't become Christian) Jesus was crucified, for they did not accept him as their king, or messiah.

Anyway, that's just the Gospel of Matthew, which I only referenced because it's the first one I read. The Gospel of John is far worse (or 'better', for anti-semites).

 

[cnorman18]

--

That's not a good analogy. You're assuming that religious belief is in some way "proven" to be correct or incorrect by the behavior of its followers. The competence of a mechanic is obviously well demonstrated by the reliability of the repairs s/he performs. But Christ could be "the way" even if every single one of his followers was a complete putz.

Well, given that as a Jew, I don't give two bent pins for the afterlife, and I'm going by ethical behavior only, I don't think that works. I see you logical point, but I don't find it helpful.

Again, you're confirming my point that you're treating the choice of religions (and I need to remind you that it is you yourself, in your opening post, who tells us that this matter arose in the context of a discussion of choosing Xty over Judaism) as if it were a matter merely of "what company do I want to keep" and not (as it claims to be) a matter of who is "right" about the metaphysical underpinnings of the universe.

Hmmm. I see your point. I really was more interested in the issue of arrogance, but I can see how that wouldn't be apparent from my presentation.

As a matter of gut-feeling, I agree with you. But in saying that you are tacitly agreeing that all religious claims are equivalent from a "truth value" perspective (i.e., that they have no truth value--given that some of them are contradictory). That means it's simply a matter of what "team" you want to join.

I don't think so; I think "truth value" in this situation can be determined from the behavior of followers; but then--no offense, I mean this--I'm used to thinking of religion as a real thing with real value, as opposed to an abstract set of useless and unprovable propositions. If I looked at it that way, I'd agree with you.

Well, obviously, as an atheist, I'm pretty confident that there ain't no proof out there. But then, I'm not the theist. The question here is why you are still defending "religion" per se when you also seem to think that one's choice of religious belief should be premised solely upon emotional identification with the people you think are cool (Jews) or uncool (Christians).

Well, here we are again. Our perspectives are so different that we're talking past each other, though I'm fairly sure you would ascribe it to theistic obtuseness.

One does not choose a religious belief like a pair of pajamas, but that's really a different topic.

Assuming one were to do that, the relative "coolness" of different groups (read: their integrity, morality, consistency, etc.) would not be the sole criterion; it would be one factor among many, though a big one. I don't think trivializing the question of character is particularly logical.

Emotional identification? That would be difficult for me, for neurological reasons, but never mind that.

So, was that the answer you expected?

Pretty much. Since there is no God, a test is pointless if not impossible, and the only logical course is to choose neither. Pretty close, no?

Given that there is no objective test, I don't understand your objection to examining the behavior of followers as one factor in making a choice.

Well, actually, I think I do; your actual objection is not to the method of making a choice, but to addressing the question at all. Wouldn't that be more accurate?

I didn't say that you celebrate them, I said that the tanakh celebrates them. And it does. Over and over again. Yes, I've read it.

In Hebrew? Or with a decent commentary? How about a study edition with marginal notes?

It matters. Are below.

Er, I think its morality. Are you saying that genocide 3000 years ago was cool? How did it become "bad" in the meantime? Did it happen slowly, or in a particular year? Was it o.k. then because "people believed differently back then"? Does that mean that it would have been o.k. for the Nazis to murder 6,000,000 Jews as long as they really believed it was o.k. to do so? I really don't get your point here.

I've said this again and again here: Judging the Bible on its own as a literary work from ancient times is perfectly appropriate, but making judgments about its significance as a religious document--let alone about the religion to which it is sacred--without considering the tradition connected to it is not.

If you want to merely see what a given article of the Constitution says, just read it; but if you want to know what it means, you are obligated to read and understand the court decisions pertinent thereto.

It has always been the teaching in Judaism that the Torah is unintelligible apart from the tradition. it is wholly unfair to read the book apart from that tradition and teaching, then make pronouncements about what Jews must therefore believe--and condemn those supposed beliefs while ignoring or discounting what Jews actually do believe and teach based on those passages.

Analogous situation: "You crazy Americans believe that anyone can own and carry any kind of weapon he wants!"

"Uh, no, we don't believe that at all. We have various laws--"

"That doesn't matter! It says so right here in the Second Amendment!"

Whatever Tanakh appears to "celebrate" has no meaning or significance apart from the tradition, just as the Constitution has no meaning apart from the body of law based on it.

If some other group or religion wishes to take our book and run off into fantasyville with it, e.g."Creationism," well, that is no concern or responsibility of ours.

If some individual wants to take it and decide that Jews do, or ever did, believe genocide to be acceptable--well, that is even less our problem.

 

[cnorman18]

--

I think I'm the only one who has so far addressed this from an expressly "atheist" perspective, and I can assure you that you've utterly misread me if you think I'm in any way "defending the Christians."

The problem is not that you're criticizing Christians, the problem is that you're doing so on a comparative basis (yay Judaism, boo Christianity).

?

Am I to remain "nonjudgmental"?

The fact that you judge all religions to be equivalent does not obligate me to think in the same way.

My point is that that the terms on which you argue should lead you to reject BOTH Christianity AND Judaism.

Can you explain that without invoking your conviction that all religions are false? That is an axiom of thought to which I do not subscribe.

I do not even believe, nor have I indicated here, that Christianity is necessarily "false." My complaint is about the behavior of Christians, and the arrogance of their attempts to judge the beliefs of those whom they have injured. The truth or falsity of their beliefs is not at issue. Whether true or false, it is most unlikely that their victims will even listen to them.

You also seem to want to suggest that Christianity is somehow "special" in its capacity for evil...

Hardly. It does seem to have a remarkable capacity for ignoring the evil to which it has contributed.

...while turning a blind eye to the capacity for evil that is enshrined in the holiest books of your own religion (which in fact contributed enormously to Christianity's justifications for its bad actions--look at the way European colonists turned again and again to the language of the "Promised Land" to justify their depradations in the New World--and their appalling treatment of the New Canaanites that they found there).

See my comments above on the legitimacy of judging our religion by reading the Torah without reference to our tradition, and the responsibility of others for what they draw from it on their own.

We atheists tend to think ALL religions have a dangerous capacity to lead people into irrational and destructive behavior--so we can't resist a bit of "hey pot, meet kettle" when we see adherents of religion A badmouthing adherents of religion B.

I think that declaring moral equivalence without considering what different religions actually do and believe shows a prejudice against religion per se rather than actual comparison and judgment.

But seriously--do you think if a Christian came on here badmouthing Jews that s/he'd get met with anything but contempt?

Certainly not, and I never said so. I was merely puzzled at the responses I have been seeing. I am less so now; I keep forgetting that the conviction that all religions are the same is a baseline here. I should not have expected anything else.

 

[cnorman18]

--

Yes, you speak my language.

DR

Molon labe, my brother.

 

[cnorman18]

--

I won't tell you what to do. I don't claim to have any specific answers.

All I know is that certain things have long-lasting effects. A specific event might be over, but it will continue to affect people on all sides of it for a very long time.

I know Cnorman is talking about Jewishness and what he sees happening with that. I've brought up American slavery and Amerind genocide as being other events for which I wasn't present, but the effects of which influence my life whether I see it or not.

But when people say "Why should I feel guilty about that? I wasn't there, I didn't do it?" I feel it's helpful if they understand the problem now isn't the past event itself, but how the past event influences the present.

Including enabling the same things to keep happening over and over, Cnorman.

First--Three million posts!!!

That is awesome! I'm 57 years old, and I don't think I've done three million anything.

Congratulations!

And for your post itself--

Yes! Yes!

I would add the problem of the attitudes and actual teachings that enable and legitimize these events still being promulgated and passed on, but that is essentially what I was talking about, as far as the atrocities themselves are concerned.

 

[dacium2007]

"Is there any intellectual argument, any logic of history, any proof text, any Biblical insight, any line of reasoning, any words from any authority figure, even from your own faith, that could convince you to spit on the Cross, admit that Jesus did not rise from the dead, give up Heaven, throw away the entire New Testament, laugh at Christian martyrs as fools, and turn your back on your spiritual ancestors of two thousand years? Is there anything at all that could convince you to do that?"

There is no intellectual argument you can make to convince someone they should be of any religion, so the real question is why are you religious if you know this?

You go to a xian site to try and get 'respect' for Judism? WTF are you doing? Do you have any intellectual argument for why they should give respect to someone who murdered their god/man guy? From your post I get the answer of no. What I get from reading your post is you have no respect for them either. You are trying to preach to them as they are to you.

 

[dirtywick]

No, that's exactly what I'm NOT trying to say.

To acknowledge that a past event was so powerful that it still has ramifications today that need to be addressed is not the same as admitting guilt for the past events. Guilt is not necessary or helpful. You aren't guilty of slavery, for example. But the effects of slavery are still affecting your life, and the lives of those around you.

If you ignore that, if you refuse to see any sense in that, if you turn your head away from the effects, say they aren't there, they don't exist, then you are guilty of that much, aren't you?

And in my opinion alone, being deliberately ignorant of the effects of an event is an equivalent sort of guilt to the actual commission of the event.

Alright, I got you.

Can't say I disagree with that.

At the same time though I think that the folks that try to project the guilt and don't let go of the past aren't helping much either. I'm not saying those effected by such an event don't have a right to, but it takes two to tango, so to speak.

Finally, I think that the extremes of both groups are relatively small. On one hand you've got the KKK, neo nazis, pick your poison, and on the other hand the ambulance chasers, everything's a race issue, whatever. There's a really big group in the middle, though, and I think that's where most of the world fits.