no I believe this is what you claimed

""Who conquered Africa, sir?
Who?
WHO?

I'm sorry, but that's where the slaves came from...there's a reason they're now called AFRICAN-Americans...

WHO conquered Africa, sir?

Who?

Who other than people of the Christian faith conquered and sold these people in Africa?

Hm? "


Who conquered Africa in this period Obi?

No one.

And your belated backtracking does not change the fact that Europeans never strove to conquer African that early and they didn't. They set up trading posts, its like saying Europeans conquered Japan in the same period...

"No, I never claimed such a thing."

As I said...

"AGAIN, I was just claiming they BEGAN in Africa at that time--not that they carved it up wholly as they did in the 1800s, just that they began to do so in the 1700s--and that this was, as I said above, Christians doing this, so I am not impressed when, decades later, they cleaned up the mess other Christians created with the Slave Trade to America and acted to abolish it."

No you quite specifically and forcefully said they conquered Africa during this period. Maybe you didn't mean all of it, but it is quite apparent you belived there were sizable conquests in Africa, not coastal trading posts and forts. We all read it. Stop lying

No...I did not. Fallacy of logic that you can say what I BELIEVED.

Santa...I'm an English major.
"Will you quit banging on about that!"
Well, no, never, but for the moment, it's valid--

Heart of Darkness?
Conrad's alternately stirry/tedious/progressive/possible racist (take your pick) book on Marlow's journey up Africa in the late 19th century...Kurtz..."the horror, the horror!" and all that good stuff?
CLEARLY Africa was conquered in THAT sense in the 1800s.
I know *that*--I had to read Heart of Darkness.

(Which served a purpose and some still quite like it, I think that while Kurtz is a great character and the idea is brilliant reading Conrad's prose is just as tedious for me as I must imagine reading my scribblings here is for you, and I think "Apocalypse Now" tells much the same story and does it far better, but I digress.)

Again, my argument was centered on the slaveholders in America.
CLEARLY there were many in the 1700s.
Ergo, there was a slave trade going on.
The slaves came from Africa.
As my quote points out, the British, Portuguese, and French were the largest culprits.
All were heavily Christian at the time.
America was heavily Christian--but NOT the Founders, until you can prove it--at the time.
And by "prove it," I mean more than merely tie, as I've already given evidence, you'll have to show either my evidence is faulty or else that you have more evidence...this WAS a thread on Religion, Western Government, and the Founders once, what a concept...

SO--

My point being, gong aaaaaaaaaalllll the way back to all of that, to state it again:

Christians began the very thing Christians later abolished, namely, the capturing, trading, buying, selling, and enslaving of Africans.

That's ALL I care about.

If it will hasten the conversation and get us back on track, I will concede that I really only was concerning myself with "conquering Africa" in terms of capturing and controlling its population (I WAS talking about slavery, after all, not out and out imperialism a la Heart of Darkness) and that this was all I intended with my claim.

Again, I DO NOT and DID NOT mean to take "conquering Africa" in the Eddie Izzard "Do you have a FLAG?" sense, as I was talking about, again, American slavery and Abolition in relation to the Slave Trade...

And that's ALL.

I am aware that the greater conquest of Africa in terms of land--again, I was focused on population for slaves--took place during the 1800s.

If I gave the impression that I meant this rather than what I say I meant by it above, then I will apologize if it confused you as to my meaning and intention, as I again meant the former, population-enslaving, relevant-to-American-slavery 1700s period and meant that Christian Europe was taking Africa in THAT sense (perhaps it'd have been better if I'd said they were "conquering the African population?") and not the Heart of Darkness-era 1800s.

I'm really confused about this genocide/counter-genocide argument. God is all-powerful and all-loving, and Israel is his people. Why didn't he just save his people from genocide without resorting to counter-genocide? He's supposed to be, well, God. Why not just use his divine power to convince the Amalekites - not *force* them to accept, as that would be a violation of free will, but convince the Amalekites to quit being genocidal freaks? Actually, why didn't he just do that for everyone?

Incidentally, by the way...

Thinking about it, I am certainly glad that, contrary to what George Bernard Shaw posited or began to fear (even with his praise of "King Lear") that there is no religion for Shakespeare...

No actual Bardolotry or Shakeaspeareanity, if you will.

It lets us all loom back and enjoy Shakespeare as the greatest writer in the English language while still recognizing that he WAS just a man, was flawed...and was WRONG sometimes.

The Bible doesn't allow that, as it's written structurally as a piece of religious dogma first and story second, and it is thus uncompromising, you have to believe all the way...

I can say with a clear conscience that "The Merry Wives of Windsor" is really not a good play at all, and that "The Comedy of Errors" hasn't aged very well, and that "Titus Andronicus," while rebounding a bit now in reputation, is still astonishingly crude and rough and has definite problems (even if its over-the-top nature makes it more fun to watch for sheer spectacle than, say, a "better written" play such as "Julius Caesar.")

I can criticize Shakespeare AND love him and his works, and not fear Hell or heresy of some kind...

But more importantly--I'm not BOUND by the antiquated morality of his day.

For his day, Shakespeare was progressive; how much is debatable, but most agree that he was pretty progressive; the women in his plays especially enjoy more power and more prominent roles than any other writer of that time and indeed almost no writer since Sophocles' Antigone even begins to rival their depth and power.

That being said...he also had some crude depictions of others.
He was a definite Elizabethan propagandist.
Some argue he was Anti-Semetic; I argue he was either not or at least not maliciously so, given his "Hath not a Jew eyes?" speech it seems clear he at least viewed Jews as human beings and the issue complex, rather than the out-and-out evil monster Marlowe's "Jew of Malta" was portrayed as.

But I'm not bound to his mistakes, and so I can find Shakespeare inspirational and not say such things as "Well, Shakespeare was a monarchist, so we should have a monarchy for sure!" or "Shakespeare had slaves in his plays, so I guess slavery is OK."

But those sort of gross justifications are what happens when a dated story becomes dogma.

You find yourself, people who would condemn any other genocide HANDS DOWN, and some of you, far less than allow a newborn baby to be murdered, argue abortion is wrong for killing an arguably-unborn baby...you'd NEVER condone it being OK.

But say God, Bible, and Amalekites, and suddenly you say genocide is OK, I heard people on Wednesday they'd do it this very day if "God" so told them, as barbaric as those people thousands of years ago.

I love Milton...

But I'm glad, though his subject is religious in nature, that "Paradise Lost" isn't scripture, otherwise we might all be terribly sexist towards women.

I love T.S. Eliot, but I'm glad I can shrug off his malicious references to Jews in his earlier poems as being attributable to most flawed men of his day and separable by virtue of the fact he had no destructive hate for the Jews, even had Jewish friends--including a relative or friend's of Virginia Woolf, if I recall, with whom he was great friends before her tragic suicide--and, most importantly, that his words aren't scripture, all or nothing, take it or go to Hell (no hell in the OT, Sheol but no hell, but you get my point.)

Just a thought...look at ANY of your favorite literature from, well not that far back, and you'll find things in it that are outdated morally, logically, or otherwise...

Things written today will suffer the same fate in years, our great-grandchildren will wonder how on earth we could have lived in such a barbaric, backward time as 2012.

"I'm really confused about this genocide/counter-genocide argument. God is all-powerful and all-loving, and Israel is his people. Why didn't he just save his people from genocide without resorting to counter-genocide? He's supposed to be, well, God. Why not just use his divine power to convince the Amalekites - not *force* them to accept, as that would be a violation of free will, but convince the Amalekites to quit being genocidal freaks? Actually, why didn't he just do that for everyone?"

+1

And the answer:

Because the Bible was written by men who were writing after the fact and either trying to rationalize a great war crime or else invented this made up war and thought it'd be a cool show of God's power and favoritism--because you have you have to show, of course, that an all-loving God plays favorites--towards the Israelites.

It's flawed, it's immoral, it's outdated.

If we could look at it as just literature, and not make excuses for it bending over backwards, maybe we could try and enjoy it some more, at least the well-written portions (and there are well-written portions.)

But sadly, we still have a largely superstitious world who make excuses for illogical, irrational, immoral actions and so condone genocide and infanticide when any case of it in real life would repulse and outrage them.

After reading your post I couldn't but wonder - what would Shakespeare and Milton comment about the 21st century's western way of life.

Because god is not all loving according to jews, he can and will be a real son of a bitch. And by attacking gods chosen people in the way they did the Amalekites royally pissed off god. God is not lovey dovey as my christian co arguers suggest. A little known part of the exodus story is the fact that about 4 or 5 times pharaoh was ready to let the jews go until god himself hardened his heart (looks like Obi has a new favorite passage, just like the last one which I too informed him about). Pharaoh according to the torah, knew he was over matched and wanted nothing to do with the later plagues but god himself, far from forcing Pharaoh to accept, hardened his heart and led him and the Egyptians to a world of hurt. The Egyptians and their gods pissed him off, so he wanted revenge.

Later in the Torah there is the story of Balaam, the only non-jew who is the center of a torah story to my knowledge (besides the Genesis chapters of course). God convinces forces Balaam to bless Israel rather than curse it, which was the point of Balaams journey. Jews actually still say Balaam's blessing to this day. But this fact didn't save Balaam. Later he was listed (just his name nothing else, always thought that was pretty badass) among the dead of his tribe in a war the Israelite fought.

God in the stories gets angry. And when hes angry people get severely punished.

Not only did god not try to convince the Amalakites (in the story at least) he actually gave the Israelites a choice, massacre the Amalakites (he did not want a full genocide based on later occurrences in the text but surely a massacre) or to die themselves.

The Amalakites had free will. They used it to try to wipe out the Israelites, so according to the god of the bible they MUST be punished.

Or you could read above and realize this story is likely just a justification of a major Israelite defeat and a collapse of the dynasty of Israels first king.

We know what you meant by conquering Africa you idiot, the same thing you meant by conquering haiti. Stop trying to deny it. Its pathetic

And with that I have given up on locating the white whale of Obi's humility. Semck, I know you have been following. Enjoy. Obviously obi wasn't wrong and never meant what he very forcefully said twice. It was all a metaphor, or something...

"After reading your post I couldn't but wonder - what would Shakespeare and Milton comment about the 21st century's western way of life."

The fun of it is to speculate...and never know...

Because let's be honest--

If we ever DID meet our heroes...especially those from long ago...they'd almost certainly disappoint in some way or another. :)

One hero of mine talking about another, Hitchens once said in the subject of Heaven, and the question, "Well, wouldn't you like to go and meet, say, Shakespeare and Orwell, and all these great writers?"

And he gave a great answer, an answer I try to take to heart when I read anything:

"I have already met them, in their writings."

I think that's a good way to look at such people...I've "met" the only Shakespeare I can or could ever meet, the one that lived and was shaped between the year of his birth in 1564 and the year of his death in 1616.

If he saw 2012, if he or Milton or Eliot or Dostoyevsky or ANY such people saw 2012...

They wouldn't be themselves, they'd be removed from the elements that made them who they were.

Shakespeare lived at a time when a grammar school education and a knack for acting and writing was all you needed to get started acting and then writing plays and sonnets, to the point where he became a favorite of Elizabeth and then James...

He also lived during a time where religious tolerance was still extremely fragile, the idea of women being as strong as men was a foreign concept to many, and died when Jamestown, Virginia was just 6 years old, and he could still get away with writing about half-man, half-fish monster creatures living out there on a still-mostly-unexplored Earth.

Take any of that away, and you take away a key part of what shaped Shakespeare.

Milton lived during a period of social upheaval, with that monarchy that seemed stable for Shakespeare being challenged and fighting Parliamentarians, when Christianity was practiced in a hugely sexist way, and when people like the Puritans emphasized the Fall quite a bit, all while science was for the first time challenging how the Earth and sun moved and what the relation of the planets actually were, to reveal we are NOT the center of the universe.

Take any of it away, and "Paradise Lost" never happens.

And I'd rather know Milton and Shakespeare via "Paradise Lost" and "Hamlet," their best expressions of their best ideas, than remove them from the times that shaped them just to be disappointed, as even most of us here, after all, know more and have had a better education already than they ever did, or could have had...it'd be a bit sad, perhaps...

"We know what you meant by conquering Africa you idiot, the same thing you meant by conquering haiti. Stop trying to deny it. Its pathetic"

OH FOR THE LOVE OF...

FINE. WHATEVER.

I still deny it, and you can't say what I MEANT, but I'm tired of going back and forth with you when you won't even permit me to say something as perfectly reasonable as "I maybe didn't state it best the first time, this is what I meant by X, sorry if that was unclear."

Just LET IT GO and FOCUS ON MY POINT, please, SC...

Abolition and the Slave Trade and how Christianity was cleaning up its own mess.

LET. IT. GO. I misspoke, or didn't write what I meant clearly, that tends to happen when yo have four angry theists all trying to rush-message you at once while you're trying to respond to them all AND not make the professor of the class you're in too achingly aware that you're not paying attention and typing in a flame war and really don't care for Hegel...

Get back on topic now, please, for goodness' sake...!

White whale my ass...

Well, that'd make you Ahab...and didn't HE have a rather IRRATIONAL obsession, SC?

Yes...nice analogy...a perfect one to match your irrational blathering, I'd say!

Exactly, it does make me Ahab, that was my point

Well... I certainly am not particularly enamored to a God such as that, SC. But I do appreciate the fact that this narrative is consistent. Thanks for the clarification.

Obi, nice how you produce a tome on (against) the Bible and then a tome on Shakespeare before telling everybody else to get back on topic. But realize that with an AA degree and at the age of 20 (plus), you still have a lot to learn about debate, slavery, history, faith, the Bible, and, yes, even Shakespeare, although you probably know more than I do about him. A few important words you'll need when you get married: "I was wrong." You could say that and then jump right back into an argument from another point--if you thought that was wise--and still get to argue to your heart's content, while denying your interlocutors some ammunition.

I got that, thanks--I am an English major, so I may be arrogant, snobbish, and fully of nonsense, but that also means I've read "Moby Dick."

And MY point was, if you align yourself with Ahab, and Ahab is an irrational character...well...

"But realize that with an AA degree and at the age of 20 (plus), you still have a lot to learn about debate, slavery, history, faith, the Bible, and, yes, even Shakespeare, although you probably know more than I do about him."

Well of course, otherwise my getting up to commute at 6am on a Friday for classes would be rather silly. ;)

I don't claim to be an expert--just relatively good with literature and such...

AND morally aware enough to know, somehow, that there is NO justification for genocide.

And I figured I'd said as much on the topic, SC sort of dragged it out, but whatever, I'm really done talking about which period of Africa being screwed over by European Christians I'm referring to... ;)

Santa, don't shut your heart to the God of the Bible. But I do need to point out that your use of "lovey-dovey" to describe how Christians see God is not true. Yes, he's loving, he loves me, he loves you, he loves everybody to such an extent that he sent his own son, Jesus, the Messiah, to die for us and take upon himself the penalty for our sins--but the blood penalty was still there. He never excused sin, and it cost the dearest thing in the universe--his son, whose name Yeshua means Ya saves, or God saves--to pay for it. Come to Jesus, and live.

Ask God if he exists and if he loves you. He'll show you, I promise--but you have to be willing to entertain the possibility.

Shakespeare - if he really existed, although we all know he was a collection of anonymous authors publishing under the same name - is an ancient and musty collection of literature that has nothing to say to us in the modern world. In fact, his writings are full of scientific fallacies and worse, propagate horrible, horibble moral attrocities. Romeo and Juliette promotes adolescent suicide. Henry V justifies - nay, promotes! - the wholesale slaughter, rape, and plundering of French people. The Tempest demonizes persons with congenital deformities and developmental disabilities. The character Falstaff promotes the vicious stereotype of "the jolly fat alcoholic". Othello demonizes moorish people while endorsing - nay, promoting! - a man's right to murder his wife. All of this to say nothing of the anti-semitism!

No amount of apologist hand-wringing can change the fact that Shakespeare is pure evil!!!!!!

Worst of all, my good friends, your TAX DOLLARS are being used to cram this archaic, vile, ignorant views down the throats of innocent high school freshmen!!! THE FONDERS WOULD BE TURNING IN THEIR GRAVES IF THEY KNEW ABOUT THIS!!!!!!!

Wow, Obi, this is a really fun game! Thanks for teaching it to us!

*FOUNDERS

@Obi - What if one aligns himself with Don Quixote?

Oooooh...FlemGem went for the Shakespeare!

Nice touch. :p

But I won't bite, as I know it's a tease.

So answer my question obitard.

"Not just destroying villages and towns and males...
But killing women, children, children, babies, and people who cannot hurt you...
THAT is justifiable...EVER???"

Just exactly how does one kill the economic engine (the Men who farmed, the villages and towns) for a Bronze Age civilization without killing the women and children slowly through starvation because you;ve killed off their very means of survival in the world. Enslave them perhaps? OR do you have a quaint 21st Century notion that if you just pick them up and feed them and make them part of your tribe all would be forgiven and they wouldn't try to get revenge for killing Daddy?

@obi

"I simply claimed that Christians began the mess they take credit for ending and...

They did!

Christian slave traders/buyers/sellers/workers, Christian Abolitionists.

They began the mess, they ended it.

Simple as that."

So the worst thing you can claim is that Christians screwed up; saw that what they were doing was wrong and put an end to it (even though the rest of the world hadn't made that leap yet). THat's actually pretty good for the Christians, they policed themselves on this issue and came to an understanding that slavery was no longer to be tolerated. Leading the rest of the world in an ongoing campaign against the institution starting as far back as the 7th Century.

Now there is one last logical flaw in your argument though. Merely being Christian or even going to the Holy Bible as a source for your argument, doesn't mean that Christianity is truly the motivation for your act.

As SC says Christianity was incidental to the slavers. The primary motivation for enslaving these people was to make money not to save their souls. Look at it like this. Imagine a slave holder buying slaves and not expecting them to do work, just instructing them in a Christian life. It wouldn't happen. Imagine a slave trader buying a boatload of slaves and dropping them off at a monastery for free. THat wouldn't happen either. Their motivation wasn't the spread of Christianity in that was their motivation was turning a profit.


On the other hand Abolitionists didn't make money on the process at all. They relied heavily on Biblical arguments in what was obviously humanism but could NOT be called Secular Humanism (secular after all means apart from religion) because it relied on Biblical argument. They were Christian Humanists.

Now you could say, as you've tried, that Christians started this mess (and in this horrific incidence they did). The problem with the argument is that you cannot discount the many Christian slavers and abolitionists that came BEFORE this incidence. Slavery was not a uniquely Christian cultural trait, it was much more an institution of the ancient world. Christians began a discussion about how to treat slaves almost immediately (as Mujus says Paul was preaching about how to treat slaves and you can't get much closer to the source without quoting Christ Himself). If you deliberately blind yourself to the whole process, then you cannot possibly make a fair judgement about the issue. Christians had been urging other Christians to reject slavery for centuries. Slavery was an accepted institution in the ancient world, with the rise of Judaism and Christianity it began the long road toward the disrepute that it now has in the world. It is most certainly a triumph of Chritian values and much more to be seen as such because it was a triumph fought not against a foreign entity but against our own brothers.

@AWB

"War is communication."

Really? You're saying that on a Diplomacy website? War is the breakdown of communication. That's why cease fires are necessary so that you can get back together to talk.

@flem

Worst of all, my good friends, your TAX DOLLARS are being used to cram this archaic, vile, ignorant views down the throats of innocent high school freshmen!!! THE FONDERS WOULD BE TURNING IN THEIR GRAVES IF THEY KNEW ABOUT THIS!!!!!!!

Wow, Obi, this is a really fun game! Thanks for teaching it to us!


+1 LOL I think I just snorted up my English Degree



BUT FLEM you MUST realize that we can just say THOSE are stories and have no real influence on us because THEY are NOT THE WORDS OF GOD! (read into this the stereotype that Christians will follow whatever they are told and are therefore dangerous and SCARY)

War is a breakdown of civil discourse/communication, but it is still communication of a different sort.