>Hi Dragan, (& Tracy)
>
>I stand by my statement.

Nice of you. I assume I don't have to quote it the fourth time.

>I suspect that a lot of your skepticism comes in large part from a lack of knowledge as to just how poorly women are treated (now) or have been treated in the past in many cultural settings. Remember, even today in many places women are nothing more than chattel. And, be honest, it's those countries where Christianity has had its greatest influence where you see more liberation that anywhere else.

Jim has answered this.

Just to quote a personal example - I've seen several people both here and in Germany, that I had contact with, being surprised that we take so much effort and money to get our daughters through college. They all thought they wouldn't need it - they're supposed to get married well and that's it.

Back home, in the (ex-)communist country of ours, it took a dictatorship and Christian renewal to get people to start thinking that girls should stay home, get married and be done with it. Despite the efforts to turn Serbia into Orhodox Christian Jamahirya, it's still quite normal that the girls should graduate if they feel so. In the elementary school I attended, they had three ladies in a row for principals, and they spanned about 25 years of success - it was the best school in town. Until Sloba's party installed an illiterate loyal moron (male). The school lost all the goodwill it gained in mere three years.

>For example, would you like to suggest that Islam has 'liberated' women?

I would, just to see what you'd say. But I don't think that would hold any truth.

>I wouldn't by just about any standard. How about in countries where hunduism is dominant like India? Between those two I'd say you have a large part of humanity... Oh, yes.. Let's talk about the religion of Communism. China has a great women's liberation movement, don't they... Ahh what's a quarter of humanity anyway?

Are communists perfect? Of course not! No way. Regardless, the philosophical impact of the application of an honest understanding of communism will always do more to set folks free than anything else out there. Look, what's the ostensible goal of humanity? "World Peace", right? Well, just think about it a little and be honest. If you could actually get folks to "fight for everyone's freedom as for their own" you'd go a long long way towards that goal, wouldn't you? Be honest. Or are you suggesting that few can be free while others are bound? I doubt it. You're not that kind of individual, nor is anyone else here from what I can see but there certainly is an awful lot of anti-communist prejudice and prejudice in any form IMO is just another form of propaganda and not very pretty.

To go more in parallel with what you're saying, the communism as practised had very little to do with the ideas it originated from. As Lenin predicted, it was finished by the "hoodlums in its own ranks". Some of these ideas were kept, at least on the surface and pro forma, and among them was education and health for all, and equality (to differ from "liberation") of women. That much survived in the day-to-day life, if nothing else.

>What most folks simply do not have is an understanding of how Christianity has indeed affected the various cultures it has impacted. ALl good? Probably not but most of those issues stem, not from Christianity itself, but some goofy mis-interpretation of Christianity.

Ditto.

>Remember, in those days women were not much more than property. Christianity elevated them to the equals of men as the Bible states that God is no respecter of persons.

The story about the twelfth rib sure helped.

>ALso, and this is I suppose an area where folks can disagree, the definition of 'liberate' is, it would seem, important to nail down. A lot of what I see people calling 'freedom' is really just a rationalization for hedonism - mostly which leads to utter slavery to some desire.

I wouldn't classify the right to equality and equal chances as hedonistic.

>For example, to blame the Y chromosome is nothing little more than politically correct hate speech. Like the (attempt at) humor is the same as rational thought or something. I wonder how many ladies would scream and holler if someone were to say that because of their chromosones they were genetically stupid. Same difference and it certainly doesn't wash intellectually IMO.

It's been tried and published... and the reactions weren't absent.

>Also, there simply are some folks who just turn off their brains when it comes to things spiritual and then blame everyone else for their self-inflicted stupidity. Can't help them much though one would like to I suppose.

You can't, because you can't accept that there's spirituality outside of religion. Need a quote?

>But I'm not as intellectually superior as you are I suppose... <g>

It's not a matter of any linear scale, where we'd measure the intellectual strength. It's so very Christian, though, to view the world in dychotomies, as black/white, good/bad, god/devil... and then a linear scale of grays sounds like an improvement, thinking out of the box.

So in things spiritual you have, no doubt, hit the target and dived deep into the religion of your choice - and then missed everything else.

>>Yet the greatest Christian of the UT (aka "Bible-thumping maniac", but I didn't invent that name) has claimed exactly that.
>>
>>The only explanation I have is that the meaning he read into "liberation" is "you will be liberated from everything else once you join us".
>
>Here's a great example of you attempting to insert your prejudices into this conversation as though they were mine. That is totally disengenuous and a falsehood. Please stop misrepresenting me, either willfully or because you're just plain ignorant, would you? <s>

Where's the misrepresentation in "The only explanation I have"? I really don't have any other explanation that would sound plausible to me. I've written that sentence to the best of my knowledge, gathered from what you write.

Define ignorant without using "one who didn't read our books".

>I don't mind an honest dialog but you really need to be honest here Dragan.

I have honestly meant to stop the dialogue with you, after you have excluded me from humanity. I figure I now have the choice of addressing you as a fake human to a human-by-definition, or no way at all. Since you've taken the effort to write this much, I thought I may fake a human response, though you can't be tricked, I know.

>Please keep your incorrect misrepresentations to yourself

I'll keep even my correct misrepresentations, if that pleases you. But I won't stop talking, of course.

> or at least give me the courtesy you keep saying I don't have,

Don't mind me, people without any spirituality whatsoever don't count at all.

> thereby blatantly proving your hypocrisy to all who are able to think. I don't really appreciate your misrepresenting what I have said and I'd be delighted to tell you (once again) if you have the courtesy to speak to me rather than about me. <g>
>
>Tsk tsk.. <g>

OK, so this is courtesy. I knew you have exposed a compelling reason to have an answer, even from someone with spirituality definitely amputated. Again, the non-religious spirituality does not exist, by your definition (need a quote, again?).

>>Besides, supporting women's rights would be against the dogmae of their churches, so they are not only omitting the support - they are mostly opposing these rights. Or even when giving support, they always take care not to go too far. And their definition of "too far" is also quite short.
>
>Really? What is my dogma Dragan? Please, you seem to be an expert on what I believe.

Haven't you noticed this was not about you, it was about Christianity (in general?) which has "done more...". The above paragraph mentions "the dogmae of their churches". You said yourself most of the churches are doing it wrong.

>I wonder how you would like it if I startted telling everyone what you believed like you just did here.

>Lessee.. Oh yeah.. Dragan, being an ex-resident of a land run by communists believes in eating children. Only if they're boiled though. Isn't it a real shame that he's so backwards! I mean everyone knows that these ex-communists are all a bunch of baby-eaters, don't we? (all nod approvingly here)

You have not invented anything new. Such stories were part of the regular anti-communist propaganda fifty or seventy years ago. Invented by those who had that sort of imagination... you may well guess who.

>But you say, "That's a misrepresentation of what I've said", and in all honesty I would say you are correct.
>
>Please give me the courtesy of accurately representing me.

I can not represent you, because, as mr. Ryan here well remarked, I am not a citizen :).

So you think it's my level to invent things like that? Sorry, I was never a good master of negative propaganda. I simply don't have that sort of imagination. Lacking good Christian upbringing (despite my grandmother's feeble efforts), I don't even like horror movies. They are so religious.

Did you ever think why haven't the communist countries ever produced a decent horror movie?