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YinYangMom
Guest
Chris and UnWorthySoul - Thank you for the clarification.
I have not studied history in depth as others have so I appreciate the opportunity to engage in discussions with people who have taken the time to explore areas I haven’t gotten around to. When I raise certain discussion points in a conversation such as I did with the Crusades and the Native Americans it’s not because I do so as an ‘authority’ on the subject. I’m pretty sure I’ve usually noted somewhere that I am unclear on certain aspects of the topic (or at least I try to, with so many threads and posts it’s hard to keep up, you know).
My exposure to the Crusades is basically from however it was introduced to me in middle school and reintroduced in boards such as these where for some reason, no matter what the primary point of conversation is, someone seems to raise that as an argument of how wrong the Catholic church was. It seems Catholics are disdained for the Crusades so I posted what seemed to be the consensus view in hopes that I was hoping someone more educated on the topic could shed some light.
As for the Native American statement, I never questioned the missionary movement of the West until I visited Mexico and was looking at various murals there. Not a pretty depiction of the conversion of souls for the sake of the church. (Come to think of it…that probably reflected more accurately on the Spaniards, huh? My bad.)
I recall being jarred out of accepting the view of Christianity as always being good and pure being absolute truth. As I grew older, aunts and uncles spoke to me as an adult and began sharing some of our family’s history with me. That too, wasn’t a pretty picture. (We are of CA native american and Mexican American roots.) It certainly wasn’t the history I was taught in school. The way some of my family tells the story the missionaries weren’t as loving and kind as I would have expected. (Perhaps that’s more a result of the political climate of the time, though.)
Even then I assumed any mistreatment was a matter of some not-so-good apples in the barrell (just as now with our wayward priests). And while I recognize those bad stories could not possibly reflect the Church’s teachings, I raised the issue in hopes that someone else who had studied that period could help refute or support that impression.
I think I’m a pretty good example of how a ‘system’ trains you to think in one way, whether with truth or distorted truths, and then how we carry the good and the bad forward. I welcome any opportunity to weed out the ‘distorted’ truth along with the boldfaced lies, but I can’t do that unless an opportunity such as this here in the forums arises where ideas can be tossed out to be addressed by others.
I truly appreciate everyone’s (name removed by moderator)ut. It has been wonderful to spend time here getting access to ‘good’ websites, books, speakers and the like to help clear the cobwebs in my ‘programmed’ mind.
I have not studied history in depth as others have so I appreciate the opportunity to engage in discussions with people who have taken the time to explore areas I haven’t gotten around to. When I raise certain discussion points in a conversation such as I did with the Crusades and the Native Americans it’s not because I do so as an ‘authority’ on the subject. I’m pretty sure I’ve usually noted somewhere that I am unclear on certain aspects of the topic (or at least I try to, with so many threads and posts it’s hard to keep up, you know).
My exposure to the Crusades is basically from however it was introduced to me in middle school and reintroduced in boards such as these where for some reason, no matter what the primary point of conversation is, someone seems to raise that as an argument of how wrong the Catholic church was. It seems Catholics are disdained for the Crusades so I posted what seemed to be the consensus view in hopes that I was hoping someone more educated on the topic could shed some light.
As for the Native American statement, I never questioned the missionary movement of the West until I visited Mexico and was looking at various murals there. Not a pretty depiction of the conversion of souls for the sake of the church. (Come to think of it…that probably reflected more accurately on the Spaniards, huh? My bad.)
I recall being jarred out of accepting the view of Christianity as always being good and pure being absolute truth. As I grew older, aunts and uncles spoke to me as an adult and began sharing some of our family’s history with me. That too, wasn’t a pretty picture. (We are of CA native american and Mexican American roots.) It certainly wasn’t the history I was taught in school. The way some of my family tells the story the missionaries weren’t as loving and kind as I would have expected. (Perhaps that’s more a result of the political climate of the time, though.)Even then I assumed any mistreatment was a matter of some not-so-good apples in the barrell (just as now with our wayward priests). And while I recognize those bad stories could not possibly reflect the Church’s teachings, I raised the issue in hopes that someone else who had studied that period could help refute or support that impression.
I think I’m a pretty good example of how a ‘system’ trains you to think in one way, whether with truth or distorted truths, and then how we carry the good and the bad forward. I welcome any opportunity to weed out the ‘distorted’ truth along with the boldfaced lies, but I can’t do that unless an opportunity such as this here in the forums arises where ideas can be tossed out to be addressed by others.
I truly appreciate everyone’s (name removed by moderator)ut. It has been wonderful to spend time here getting access to ‘good’ websites, books, speakers and the like to help clear the cobwebs in my ‘programmed’ mind.
