Hating Diversity

The Running Board BBS
August 9, 1995


BBS: The Running Board  -  The New York Region
Date: 08-09-95 (19:45)             Number: 56
From: SHLOMOH SHERMAN              Refer#: 230902
To: CURTIS JOHNSON               Recvd: NO  
Subj: Diversity                    Conf: (56) RELIGION
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CJ>> This is an excellent example of a major reason why the
CJ>> United States leads in basic science:  it is able to attract the
CJ>> best creative minds of all races and beliefs.  Your "Christian
CJ>> nation" would mean a weaker United States.  What you see as a
CJ>> weakness -- our diversity -- is indeed our strength.  Our strength,
CJ>> that is, so long as it does not divide us, and sir, that is
CJ>> precisely what you attempting to do, and as a patriotic American I
CJ>> will fight it.

Goddard's attitude it typically more European than American. It is the on-going tragedy of Europe that it seems unable to abide diversity.  

"Diversity" is a dirty word to Europeans. Hitler was a good European, and it is no mystery that Nazism arose in the heart of Europe and attracted so many Europeans. But power Christianity is linked up to Europe and European history. To be sure, there are many non-European Christians - but here is the thing. During the Crusades, many Levantine Christians were killed by the European invaders simply because they looked a certain ethnic way or dressed in Middle Eastern fashion.

To a great extent, Christianity has shaped that xenophobic attitude in Europe. In the Moslem world, there were many minorities, and the Moslems could accomodate and live with diverse minorities. That is one of the reasons Jews did not have as much trouble living among the Moslems as among the Christians. In the East, Jews were just one more minority among many minorities. In Europe, the situation was quite different. There, Jews were THE minority that disturbed the otherwise Catholicness of Europe's peoples. Just think. If the same Europeans that have never been able to abide each other's diversity even though they were all of the same religion, how much less so were they able to abide the differentness of a people of a minority religion.

The Jews were not the only minority to suffer because of Europe's inability to abide diversity. People we today call witches were also a religious minority that were hounded to death. After all, what were the witches of the Middle Ages but remnants of the old Celtic religions of Europe gone underground? And so gypsies, Masons, etc. This inability to abide diversity still marks Ireland and Yugoslavia, just to mention two examples.

Yes, Germany kicked out Einstein to their own detriment only because he came from a people whose background was diverse from the majority. That he might have helped Germany in its war efforts was of no consequence to the Nazis. It reminds me of a saying of ours, namely, that when Spain kicked out the Jews in 1492, they kicked out their own brains. That's why they became a second and third rate country subsequesnt to the Expulsion.

Evidently, Goddard takes his Christianity very seriously, and has been affected by it. I don't mean to say that all Christians cannot abide diversity. The most AMERICAN of Christians among us thrive on it. The Christians who want every one to be Christian are the most unAmerican. I place the so-called Identity Christians among them. It is not surprising that they idealize Nazism. It was made for them. But they don't belong in this great land. They belong in Europe. That is more their setting. What's more, they hold another thing in comon with all other Fundamentalist Christians in that they are essentially undemocratic and anti-democratic, pinning their hopes on the return of a Jewish king who will establish a one world government, denying all peoples their human right to be diverse. These are the very people who claim they are against the One Worlders. But what are they other than One Worlders who worship a king, Christ, and who wish this king Christ to rule over One World, lacking freedom and democracy and diversity.

We faught a war against a king to be free, and Goddard would return us to the year 1775.

---þ OLX 2.1 TD þ I have always relied on the kindness of strangers.


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