Subject: Re: East Timor (a sermon)
Date: 23 Sep 1999 22:18:41 GMT
From: "Robert Howard" <>
Les Brown <> wrote in article <>...
> You are making an assumption that G-d is violent and so are the people
> who do whatever He says.

You don't consider murdering everybody in a city violent? Were the babies
and young children guilty and worthy of a brutal death? Don't tell me you
can't get through to me. Do you think the savagery meted out to the
Canaanites was any different to the savagery meted out to the Jews in
Germany? What's the difference? If your God ordered it he was a brutal God.

But as I said he was invoked by brutal people. Do you think brutal savagery
is ever justified? Though they lived 3,000 years ago those Canaanites were
no different from the Timorese now.
 
> Now supposing one of our Aussie soldiers fighting in East Timor sees
> some militia character attempting to chop up an East Timorese. Our
> soldier threatens the militian to stop or he'll shoot. Is this fair
> enough? Should our Aussie soldier shoot to save the life of another?

What has that got to do with mass brutality?

> If you say no, then you are more like hitler than you realise, which I
> don't believe you could possibly be; but if you say yes then you
> should realise that what G-d was telling the Children of Israel to do
> was to put a stop to far worse than what is happenning on East Timor.

Rubbish! What could the Canaanites do that deserved mass murder? What did
the 2 year olds do to justify their murder?
 
> Do you understand? Am I getting through to you? I do not expect you to
> agree with me, I feel the best I can hope for is that you understand
> my perspective.

I certainly don't agree with you. Apparently if it is in the bible it is alright.
 
> One other vital point. hitler never actually gassed anyone, there were
> too many anti-semitic Germans who were only too willing to do his
> bidding whilst the rest of the world turned their back.

Hitler never pulled a trigger he merely ordered it.

> If it wasn't
> for 6 million of my people being murdered, I would doubt that the
> world's collective consciousness would have been sufficiently stirred
> to care about places like East Timor in the first place. Australia
> holds a special place of shame in that at the Evian conference in 1938
> it prominently reflected a view that Australia didn't want want a
> "stampede" and to import the "Jewish problem". Thank heavens that
> although it's too late for too many of my people, there are others who
> can benefit from Australia's regret for such callousness.

Let's get a little perspective there. Certainly the holocaust has sharpened
people's revulsion at mass brutality but I think we would still have been
in East Timor, Bosnia and Kosovo. I am not condoning other countries
refusal to take Jews just before the war but remember the Holocaust did not
start until 1942. Before that the Jews were being persecuted but not
murdered in large numbers. Many Jews did not leave Germany when they had a
chance because they did not realise how bad it was going to be.

Bob Howard.