Phillipe, I read your post but I wasn’t sure that I...

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Phillipe, I read your post but I wasn’t sure that I understood what you were trying to say. So, I thought you might help me to understand.

Here we go: first you said, �"in this day and age you (meaning Haitians) are still worshiping inanimate objects, making animal sacrifices, begging deities, ancestors and snakes

Personally, I couldn’t tell from your description if you were describing Vodou or all religions.

So I thought I would do a little comparison and you could tell me which religion you were posting about.

I’m Catholic so let’s start there: We worship inanimate objects all the time…yes indeed…we worship crosses; we worship all sorts of stones made to look like people we never met; and we worship some strange book written by god knows how many different male individuals who each gave use their own version of what they thought God wanted us to do.

Like the religion you described in your post, we Catholics are also known for �"begging” our deities and ancestors for favors, except that our deities and ancestors are called Saints and Angels.

Are those the �"stooges” you were referring to in the religion you were describing?

In my Christian religion, we have a couple of super ancestors too, and we go �"begging” to them regularly; one is called Jesus the other is called Virgin Marie.

Maybe my religion is the one you were talking about, and I foolishly thought that you were referring to Vodou.

Your description just matches mine so very much

In my religion (you know, Catholic) we also have this snake thing going on, just like in the religion you were discussing.

And, when you mentioned it I was sure you were talking about us, not Vodou.

We sometimes call our snake-deity Satan.

At times we imagine this snake in human form and we call him Lucifer.

Oh! I’m sorry…I almost forgot one of the most important points that you made, the ritual sacrifice thing.

We Christians have become experts at this one. You see, we’ve become very civilized at butchering animals for our own personal rituals; the only difference is that we dress our sacrifice, put it on the table, and say our prayers over it. We say, �"Lord, we offer you this meal as a thanks for all the blessing you gave us all year.” We call that ceremony Thanksgiving.

It’s a bit less entertaining, and because we don’t actually kill the animal ourselves, we feel somehow superior to those that do. But, at its root, the result is actually the same.

You said that �"God do not operate in such fashion.” I suppose you meant that �"God DOES not operate in that fashion.” My question to you is, �"how do you know?” Did you meet him personally, and did he just happen to mention to you that he is really crazy about one group of people over another.

A bit arrogant don’t you thinkâ€"presuming to know how â€�"God operates

Think about this, Hindus worship cows. Cow-slaughter is actually banned in India because of the religious belief.

Yet Hindu religion is the world’s third largest religion.

How do you think they feel about us Christians eating cows?

It's all about respect for differences.

I did agree with your point that, �"God wants people to learn, love, live.” So why are you judging, dictating, and unable to learn (about different cultural differences).

You said �"you people are just a bunch of bloodthirsty ignorant lot.” Here again I wasn’t sure what religion you were referring to. Christianity has the most bloodthirsty history on the face of the planet.

Are Christians the �"you people” you were calling �"bloodthirsty”?

I’m confuse… What scale of killing and massacres are you using to define this term �"bloodthirsty”?

Let me give you my shortened list of what I consider bloodthirsty.

This is a short version of a previous post that I put on this blog a long time ago. Follow me on my search for religious "bloodthirsty" peoples:

a. One of the best examples of religious bloodthirsty violence was the period of Pope Gregory IX’s 1231 Inquisition.

There was some serious burning of human beings during that time, as an estimated 60,000 God fearing Christians killed each other.

b. The Reformation a period when the Christians even killed their own cardinals; when TWO THIRD of Europe’s Christian population was slaughtered by their own bloodthirsty Christian brothers.

c. The Anabaptists briefly took the German city of Munster.

When the Catholic armies regained control, they tortured to death the Anabaptist leaders.

Than the good Christians HUNG THE BODIES of those Anabaptist on the church steeples, where they remained for an extended period of time. Now that is what I call �"bloodthirsty

d. Do you remember those other people that were also called �"bloodthirsty?” Those beautiful people who were completely wiped out in many areas by what you would probably call �"civilized” Christians.

You know, those Native Americans who were slaughtered by �"good” Christians.

The estimated toll of their death is 20 MILLION.

But perhaps you think that killing a couple of chickens or pigs is less bloodthirsty.

e. Between 1992-1995 Bosnians Christians systematically murdered more than 200,000 MUSLIM CIVILIANS including women and children.

I don’t know about you, but I would put that above the killing of some chickens.

I could go on with what I consider to be religious bloodthirsty acts, but I think you get it.

Perhaps the concept of who or what to worships should not be intertwined with a discussion of the Haitian economy, prosperity, and harmony.

The most prosperous years in American history were those in which a solid division was maintained between church and State.

Perhaps that is formula worth remembering when dealing with Haiti.

Linda, December 28 2007, 8:56 PM

Topic: Why Rene Preval did not choose the Vodou Sector

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