Let's go down the list:
Yeah, you really show yourself to be a moron when you counter a charge of ignorance by forcefully demonstrating it.
Second, Boroda, I don't know from which orifice you pulled the declaration that "US history books don't count the Orthodox or Armenian churches as Christian". Just because some Amurricans are ignorant doesn't mean they aren't taught certain things. Many Americans also insist that Catholics are not Christian.
In any case, Boroda, we have strong Orthodox and Armenian communities in this country. Of course, they probably don't count since here we have strong Muslim groups as well. So we'll just call them Greek- and Russian-rite Catholics. How's that?
Or perhaps the presence of these communities eluded you since we don't require our religion to be on our identification cards. Or maybe it was the fact that in the United States (contrary to what your propaganda may say) church leaders don't play a major role in mainstream politics as well. So if the requirement for a religious community is a couple of fat bishops exploiting the political system for private gain, then no, we don't have that.
YEs, that's what you meant, isn't it? Religion is a state thing. Anyone holding a different religious belief is therefore not a member of the nation, the ethnos. For that reason they should be at best tolerated as "guests". Each country, of course, is in its rights to terminate this guest status at any time. The uncreated light will purify as well as enlighten. Palamas was a visionary, after all.
Beliefs like that are why God gave the United States free-fall bombs and the delivery system to put them in the general area of those we suspect might hold ideas similar to them. And we don't need to know what the world looks like, as long as our GPS puts us near enough to the target that we don't hit our own people.
As for the Crusades, personally I think the Fourth Crusade was the greatest achievement of Western Europe. It's a pity it was run by a bunch of thugs, though. If the pope had any control over it whatsoever, we'd still have one universal Christian church seated in Rome.
[This message has been edited by Dinger (edited 05-23-2001).]
