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<div>Dear Whoever-</div>
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<div>Read through all the content available on the Vision2020 web site. You will discover that the Mission Statement includes "To have fun thinking critically and creatively." I was rather surprised to find this statement included in the Vision2020 Mission Statement, given how broad it appears...
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<div>Anyway, Nick's article rather obviously relates to local community issues insofar as he argues that portraying the followers of Islam as especially violent is historically inaccurate, which may result in more tolerance for and a less negative view of Muslims in the area. Isn't promoting religious tolerance a valuable aim for the local community?
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<div>And furthermore, discussion of religion in general is relevant to local Moscow issues because religion dominates how people think and act regarding a wide range of topics. The fundamental principles involved are behind many decisions made by people and government every day. If these fundamental principles go unexamined, the real basis for decisions will not be revealed. Just as discussion of the US Constitution in general can relate to local Moscow issues, given its importance to the understanding of fundamental principles governing civil rights, free speech, etc.
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<div><a href="http://vision2020.moscow.com/mission.asp">http://vision2020.moscow.com/mission.asp</a></div>
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<div>Vision 2020 Mission Statement Adopted March 1995</div>
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<ol>
<li>To ensure that all parts of our community have an opportunity to take part in visualizing and planning for the community's future. <br><br></li>
<li>To strengthen citizens' sense of community by promoting awareness, ownership and investment in Moscow's future. <br><br></li>
<li>To foster cooperation among (and public involvement with) the agencies and organizations that plan for and make decisions about the future of Moscow and Latah County. <br><br></li>
<li>To raise awareness on the part of citizens and public officials that: <br><br>
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<li>uncontrolled and unplanned growth may have negative effects. <br><br></li>
<li>short-term decisions have long-term consequences. </li></ol><br></li>
<li>To inform ourselves about growth and development issues. <br><br></li>
<li>To have fun thinking critically and creatively. </li></ol></div>
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<div>Ted Moffett</div>
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<div><span class="gmail_quote">On 6/6/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">Latah Lounger</b> <<a href="mailto:latahlounger@yahoo.com">latahlounger@yahoo.com</a>> wrote:</span>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Why is it relevant with regard to HOW MANY individuals were killed by such-and-such people of a certain faith. Isn't it the simple act of killing and the reason behind the killing that is of importance? Keeping scorecards of "number killed" by "faith/belief structure" seems a bit sophomoric if the ultimate issue is to address the REASON behind the killing. Is one faith more evil or despicable because it killed 2,000 more than another for the exact same reason?
<br><br>Furthermore, what does Gier's post really have to do with the stated objective of Vision 2020: "Moscow Vision 2020 is an informal, multi-partisan group of Moscow residents formed in 1993 to encourage more public information and debate about the future of Moscow and Latah County." I fail to comprehend where Gier's post, as well as many other posted here, has any connection with Moscow or Latah County. It appears that several posters use the board as a soapbox to spout off their own partisan or religious beliefs, or, in this case, to develop a thesis, without connecting how their post relates to Moscow's or Latah County's future.
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<div><span class="e" id="q_1130298ac0ceaa8c_1"><br><br><b><i><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="mailto:nickgier@adelphia.net" target="_blank">nickgier@adelphia.net</a></i></b> wrote:
<blockquote style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: rgb(16,16,255) 2px solid">Good Morning:<br><br>I would like to thank Gary Crabtree for the inspiration for this week's KRFP radio commentary.<br><br>
Nick Gier<br><br>CHRIST IS OUR COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF:<br>RELATIVE VIOLENCE IN ISLAM AND CHRISTIANITY<br><br>I'm writing a book on the origins of religious violence and my thesis is that there has been far more religiously motivated violence in the Abrahamic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—than the Asian religions. Draft chapters can be viewed at
<a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/orv.htm" target="_blank">www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/orv.htm</a>.<br><br>A person on our local list-serve Vision2020 had this to say about relative violence in Islam and Christianity:
<br><br>"Up to the eleventh century Islam had a sizable lead. From 1095 to 1291 the Church picked up the pace and nosed ahead. It was neck and neck till 1834 and the end of the Spanish Inquisition. After that Allah's chosen made it no contest."
<br><br>There are more than a few problems with this summary history.<br><br>Islam could not possibly have had any sort of lead before the 11th Century because Christianity had a very good head start. Under Theodosius I, being a pagan was a capital crime, and even Christians were arrested if they practiced even the most minor of pagan practices.
<br><br>On December 25, 390, Theodosius ordered the slaughter of 7,000 pagans in Thessalonica. The British historian Hugh Trevor Roper called Theodosius "the first Spanish Inquisitor," and "the Christian monarch who introduced the world to religious totalitarianism."
<br><br>Bishop Ambrose, who baptized St. Augustine, made Theodosius do penance for the atrocities at Thessalonica, but he still proclaimed that "Christ was now at the head of the [Roman] legions." <br><br>This reminds me of the sign outside a fundamentalist church in
L.A., right after the invasion of Iraq: "Christ is our Commander-in-Chief." I'm assuming that our born-again president would have to agree with this demotion. <br><br>Under Muslim rule Jews and Christians were generally asked to offer a special tax, not their heads. The slaughter of 4,000 Jews in Muslim Granada in 1066 was the exception rather than the rule, and Jews generally had much better lives in Muslim Spain than anywhere else in Christian Europe.
<br><br>In 1099, men, women, and children were slaughtered indiscriminately when Christian forces captured Jerusalem. An eyewitness reported that the Crusaders "rode in blood up to their knees and bridle reins. Indeed, it was a just and splendid judgment of God that this place should be filled with the blood of the unbelievers, since it had suffered so long from their blasphemies."
<br><br>When Saladin retook the city in 1187, Christians were only required to pay a ransom and then free to return home. Some of Saladin's officers paid for those who could not afford it, and about 7,000 others were sold into slavery.
<br><br>In Muslim India Buddhist and Hindus were, incredibly enough, declared "People of the Book," and the tax on non-Muslims was only sporadically enforced and even more infrequently collected. <br><br>Most of the ancestors of Muslims in Pakistan, Bangladesh (especially here), India, Indonesia, and Malaysia freely converted to Islam. Areas in India where forced conversions were attempted are now the places where one finds the fewest Muslims per capita.
<br><br>Some Mughal emperors ordered the destruction of Hindu and Buddhist temples, but local resistance and intimidated Mughal functionaries meant that relatively few temples were liquidated. Early Christian emperors were much more successful in destroying pagan temples, including the one in Alexandria that housed the finest library in the ancient world.
<br><br>Curiously, the Vision2020 post above ended Christian atrocities in 1834, but during the Taiping Rebellion, Chinese Christian armies were responsible for killing 10-20 million people between 1852-1864. I would hazard a guess that more Daoist, Buddhist, and Confucian temples were destroyed by the Taipings in 12 years than 600 years of Muslim rule in India.
<br><br>Some have claimed that the Taipings were not really Christians, but that is simply not the case. They took great pains to eliminate Chinese religious influences; they enforced the 10 Commandments at the point of a sword; and they followed the Bible very carefully, including the prophecies in the Book of Revelation.
<br><br>Short of Osama bin Laden getting several nukes and using them, <br>militant Muslims have a long way to go to match the historical Christian kill rate. <br><br>Nick Gier taught religion and philosophy at the University of Idaho for 31 years. See his columns as the Palouse Pundit at
<a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.nickgier.com/" target="_blank">www.NickGier.com</a>.<br><br><br><br>=======================================================<br>List services made available by First Step Internet,
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