De Gekte van Joel Voordewind 7

Naar aanleiding van mijn kritiek op Joel Voordewind http://stanvanhoucke.blogspot.com/2009/05/de-gekte-van-joel-voordewind-5.html#comments schrijft Bert Erends het volgende:

    Ik voel mij in je artikel, Stan, aangesproken, omdat ik mijzelf als 'christen' beschouw. Ik zet 'christen' hier tussen aanhalingstekens, omdat het geen eenduidig gedefiniëerd begrip is. Met het citaat, waarvan ik niet wist dat die van Teddy Roosevelt was, bedoel ik dat je bij mij de indruk wekt dat je vindt dat er in tegenstelling tot lieden als Joel Voordewind goede Christenen zijn die in stilte geloven. Stil zijn hier een beetje synoniem voor dood zijn. In plaats van dit citaat had ik ook kunnen schrijven: "Homo's prima, als ik er maar geen last van heb."

    In je tweede reactie lijk je te begrijpen wat ik bedoel. In je artikel wek je de indruk dat het veroorzaken van bloedbaden en expansionistisch, dwingend en luidruchtig zijn een typische christelijke eigenschap is. De geschiedenis van het Christendom, inclusief bloedbaden, is de geschiedenis van Europa en het lijkt of dat je je distantieert van die geschiedenis. Ook als je het oprecht probeert anders te doen en denkbeelden aan de kaak stelt, maak je volgens mij nog steeds deel uit van de geschiedenis.

Mijn antwoord hierop is dit: 'Ja Bert, ik ben van mening dat expansionisme, zowel fysiek als mentaal, een elementair onderdeel is van het christendom. Ik distantieer me niet van de geschiedenis, maar wel van een ideologie die uitmondt in grote bloedbaden, of de slachtoffers nu de Katharen waren in de middeleeuwen of recentelijk de moslims en christenen in Irak en Palestina maakt in wezen niet uit. Het christendom is vanaf het moment dat het een westerse staatsgodsdienst werd onder Constantijn de Grote een terreurbeweging geweest. Dat deze barbaarse religie ook schitterende bouwwerken heeft voortgebracht, verandert daarin niets. En ook het feit dat als mensen niet in de onbevlekte ontvangenis hadden gelooft, ze dan -- volgens Flaubert -- in dansende tafels hadden gelooft, vermindert het aantal slachtoffers niet. Met andere woorden: laten de christenen de eerst volgende tweeduizend jaar hun stem niet verheffen. Het geloof kan schitterend zijn, maar belijdt het in stilte, de christelijke gelovigen hebben al genoeg verwoest. Voor alle duidelijkheid: ik zelf geloof ook, ik ken niemand die niet ergens in gelooft. Ik heb zelfs spirituele ervaringen gehad en ik verkeer graag in godshuizen. De rust daar is weldadig. Alleen val ik anderen niet lastig met mijn 'godsbeeld'. God is oke, maar zijn volgelingen zijn vaak gruwelijk. Ik geef je een voorbeeld van wat jouw geloofsgenoten uit naam van jouw geloof dachten en sommigen nog steeds denken:

'Savage Indians

Indian-hating still exists; and, no doubt, will continue to exist, so long as Indians do.

Herman Melville, The Confidence-Man, 1857

The bad...

The Spanish have a perfect right to rule these barbarians of the New World and the adjacent islands, who in prudence, skill, virtues, and humanity are as inferior to the Spanish as children to adults, or women to men, for there exists between the two as great a difference as between savage and cruel races and the most merciful, between the most intemperate and the moderate and temperate and, I might even say, between apes and men....

Juan Gines de SepulvËda, The Second Democrates, 1547

These early accounts seem to have created a split image of the Indian in the English mind. On the one hand, the native was imagined to be a savage, hostile, beast-like creature who inhabited the animal kingdom rather than the kingdom of men. In 1585, prospective adventurers to the New World could read one description of the natives of North America which depicted them as naked, lascivious individuals who cohabited "like beasts without any reasonableness." Another account described them as men who "spake such speech that no men could understand them, and in their demeanor like to brute beastes."1

Gary B. Nash, Red, White, and Black:  The Origins of Racism in Colonial America

In the savage, the organs of generation are small and feeble. He has no hair, no beard, no ardour for the female. Though nimbler than the European, because more accustomed to running, his strength is not so great. His sensations are less acute; and yet he is more cowardly and timid. He has no vivacity, no activity of mind. ... It is easy to discover the cause of the scattered life of the savages, and of their estrangement from society. They have been refused the most precious spark of Nature's fire. They have no ardour for women, and, of course, no love of mankind. ... Their heart is frozen, their society cold, and their empire cruel.

Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, Histoire naturelle, gÈnÈrale et particuliËre, 1749-89

Like the deer and the antelope, Indians seemed to play rather than get down to the serious business of piling up treasures upon the earth where thieves break through and steal. Scalping, introduced prior to the French and Indian War by the English, confirmed the suspicion that Indians were wild animals to be hunted and skinned. Bounties were set and an Indian scalp became more valuable than beaver, otter, marten, and other animal pelts.

Vine Deloria Jr., Custer Died for Your Sins

The present King of Great Britain...has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers; the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776

 Indians have "nothing human except the shape," Washington wrote: "...the gradual extension of our settlements will as certainly cause the savage, as the wolf, to retire; both being beasts of prey, tho' they differ in shape."

Francis Jennings, Empire of Fortune, 62; Richard Drinnon, Facing West, 65, citing a Washington letter of 1783

Indians received not only similar descriptions to those given predatory animals, but much the same treatment as well. George Washington, revered as the father of the country, wrote that Indians "...were wolves and beasts who deserved nothing from the whites but 'total ruin'" (Stannard, p. 241). Thomas Jefferson, acclaimed proponent of freedom and democracy, argued that the United States government was obliged "...to pursue [Indians] to extermination, or drive them to new seats beyond our reach" (quoted in Takaki, 1979, p. 103). Andrew Jackson, founder of the modern Democratic Party and greatest Indian killer of all American Presidents, urged United States troops "...to root out from their 'dens' and kill Indian women and their 'whelps'" (Stannard, p. 240).

David Rider, "Indians" and Animals: A Comparative Essay

More on our wacky Founding Fathers and their involvement with Indians

Discovery gave title to the government by whose subjects...it was made, against all other European governments, which title might be consummated by possession....[D]iscovery gave an exclusive right to extinguish the Indian title of occupancy, either by purchase or by conquest...the Indians were fierce savages...whose subsistence was drawn chiefly from the forest. To leave them in possession of their country, was to leave the country a wilderness.

Supreme Court, Johnson v. McIntosh, 21 US 543, 1823, pgs. 573, 587, 590

Humanity has often wept over the fate of the aborigines of this country, and Philanthropy has been long busily employed in devising means to avert it, but its progress has never for a moment been arrested, and one by one have many powerful tribes disappeared from the earth. To follow to the tomb the last of his race and to tread on the graves of extinct nations excite melancholy reflections. But true philanthropy reconciles the mind to these vicissitudes as it does to the extinction of one generation to make room for another. In the monuments and fortresses of an unknown people, spread over the extensive regions of the West, we behold the memorials of a once powerful race, which was exterminated or has disappeared to make room for the existing savage tribes. Nor is there anything in this which, upon a comprehensive view of the general interests of the human race, is to be regretted. Philanthropy could not wish to see this continent restored to the conditions in which it was found by our forefathers. What good man would prefer a country covered with forests and ranged by a few thousand savages to our extensive Republic, studded with cities, towns, and prosperous farms, embellished with all the improvements which art can devise or industry execute, occupied by more than 12,000,000 happy people, and filled with all the blessings of liberty, civilization, and religion?

Andrew Jackson, First Annual Message to Congress, December 8, 1830

Intelligence, activity, ambition, progression, high anatomical development, characterize some races; stupidity, indolence, immobility, savagism, low anatomical development characterize others. Lofty civilization, in all cases, has been achieved solely by the 'Caucasian' group. Mongoloid races, save in the Chinese family, in no instance have reached beyond the degree of semi-civilization; while the Black races of Africa and Oceanica no less than the Barbarous tribes of America have remained in utter darkness for thousands of years. ... The Barbarous races of America (excluding the Toltecs) although nearly as low in intellect as the Negro races are essentially untameable [sic]. Not merely have all attempts to civilize them failed, but also every endeavor to enslave them. Our Indian tribes submit to extermination, rather than wear the yoke under which our Negro slaves fatten and multiply. ... The pure-blooded savage still skulks untamed through the forest, or gallops athwart the prairie. Can any one call the name of a single pure Indian of the Barbarous tribes whoóexcept in death, like a wild catóhas done anything worthy of remembrance?'

http://www.bluecorncomics.com/savagena.htm

Ergens in de ziel van het christendom schuilt een diepe leegte. Een leegte die telkens leidt tot moorden, stelen en verkrachten zoals nu weer zien. Bert, probeer die leegte te confronteren, want die leegte is dodelijk.