Kevin Bjorke

A member of the Philip Greenspun's Homepage community since May 15, 2003

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May 15, 2003, on Israel:
One commentator mentioned the US religious right but in fact many middle-of-the-road American Christians feel happy knowing that "our" brand of mystics is in possesion of Jerusalem -- American being a Christian nation, and all that. It fits their half-thought-through teleological notions quite well. I can recall my own public gradeschool history teacher telling me that the crusaders had been vindicated by the Ottoman collapse at end of WWI. Religious mysticism has infinite capacity for rationalization -- if Jesus was the King of the Jews, then having Jews in Israel is okay because after all Jews are just Christians "on hold," waiting for the okay to believe that Jesus was the Messiah (as opposed to evil Muslims, who have deliberately bypassed Jesus and proceeded directly from Abraham to that upstart Mohammed). In every case, the groups believe that they are the Chosen People of the invisible sky-guy. As such, no amount of brutality and mayhem is beyond rationalization, because believers...