Saturday, January 31, 2004

I once argued with a friend of mine that there were many people in the Biblical period of history that were trully evil, many more so than modern times. I disagreed, I pointed out a few examples that I knew about in modern times, and said that the Biblical period and modern times are on even kilter for atrocities. So here's some for the last hundred years, many of you will be happy to note that we are currently at a low, an extreme low for reported or recorded atrocities.

Between 1933 and 1945 over 6,000,000 people were killed in Nazi occupied Europe, the majority of them being Jews, though over 2/3rd's of the gypsey population in Europe were also killed. Along with these two groups of people, many prisoners of war, those with medical disabilities, homosexuals and Jehovahs Witnesses were also executed. Most of the executions were done with either gas, or machine gun fire in which the bodies were then burned in large crematoriums or pits dug in the ground, some were buried in unmarked graves. Others were killed or died through starvation, exhaution and malnourshment. The trully unfortunate were victims of medical experiments that included: live disection, repeated freezing and unthawing, altitude tests that would measure how long a living being could survive in lethal altitudes. A few camps were in the practice of burning the individuals while they still lived.

These are not the only atrocities that were commited during the twentieth century, however they seem the most open and significant.

1975 in Cambodia the Khmer Rouge kill over 2,000,000 people in order to create a perfect communist state. Most educated people are killed, as were they're children. Many died from starvation and exhaustion through forced labor. Those that got the worst died in state run prisons that would torture prisoners to death to extract information, these included women and children.

Between 1919 and the end of Communism force labor camps in the Gulag were used to house "enemies of the state" in Communist Russia. These included political mainly political dissidents. The Gulag was in nothern Siberia. Millions died due to harsh conditions and lack of proper food, shelter, or clothing.

This is just a smattering. In Communist China it is estimated that nearly 50,000,000 people were killed in the different uprisings and purges that occured between 1946 and the cultural revolution that occured in the late sixties. People were killed by the thousands in revolutions that took place in Chile and Argentina There are still numerous kidnappings and murders happening in Columbia. The list of atrocities committed in Vietnam could fill volumes. The attrocities were committed by both Viet Cong, South Vietnamese and U.S. Troops, no one was innocent, and non of these groups were not a victim. Racial violence and genocide occurred in Serbia, and in Solmalia in the late 1990's. It doesn't cease, it just keeps going, and perpetuating itself. So even though we're at a low now, who'know's when we'll see another peak?


Monday, January 26, 2004

So I'm working with books on Judaism at the store. Quite interesting. It's from the Jews, or the Israelites where three of the most predominant religions stem. Three branches, and the Jews are at the root. The first to branch off, at least according to the religion that branched off of it, was Islam. Islam however was the last of the three religions to be founded, by what is believed to be the a branch of people who are the offspring of Abrahams son Ismael. The Christians, which came second, believe to be following the true religion of God, reformed on earth, a new message of good new, or Gospel, for all peoples. Christianity was originally a Jewish sect, and for several decades after Christs death, his followers were primarily Jewish. Very little of what is practiced today as Christianity resembles how the first Christians practiced. What we now know as Christianity comes from several sources: first and formost, Paul the Apostle, whom the Jews feel is the one who made the greatest changes to the actual teachings of Christ. There is a view point that if you take the quotations of the Old Testament and translate them into the orignal Hebrew instead of taking the Greek translation, alot of the message of Christianity is changed. I don't know, I don't speak either Greek or Hebrew.

There is a certain, I must strangley admit, comfort in Judaism. I think many of the trully ancient, of at least more intact ancient religions have it. There is also an honest unrefinement, and ritualistic nature about that I find overall attractive. Now this isn't to say that I am or would consider becoming a jew, I don't have the lineage for it firstly, nor the substatial belief or faith structure that would be required to become one. But I do find it absolutely fascinating. Just as I find many of the eastern religions fascinating: Taoism, Buddism and Hinduism.

More later.