"It scares me to think of the places that I DON'T do this and
where I might be being misled." You nailed it on the head.
That's exactly why I reacted as I did. I mean when people would
say that, "Most wars are caused by religion" - it smelled like
it was wrong but I had no way to counter it because _maybe_ they
were right... and I'd heard it as "major war cause" from
teachers on up, in textbooks, and really didn't question it TOO
much, although I would argue sometimes that "it's probably
land-grabbing and politics more than religion per se".. but
without something to back it up with, I had to let the idea
stand. Even when I saw this statistic as part of a graph, I
thought, "I hope that's true but how could they have gotten it
so wrong all that time?" and when I investigated the source of
the claim, I just about cheered because FINALLY I had something
concrete. If I could go back in time and have a long chat with a
few social studies, history and science teachers through the
years, I would do this. I REALLY don't like when education
misrepresents history. I know it can't be perfect at present. I
don't expect perfection... but some of the oversimplifications
are maddening and really inexcusable. == Exactly. I never
accepted it as "true" fact to myself; the bitterness and sarcasm
in some BBC documentaries I remember watching as a kid in the
80s towards the catholic church made me cringe even THEN. I
didn't like the portrayal of history, but I didn't have much
else to go with except my own "sense" that it was ridiculous.
I've never had a problem with religion, most of it. My
experiences were positive and it was very useful and helpful to
me. I know there's bad cases and likely some quite bad but I've
found that people who are bitter tend to exaggerate greatly, so
I take what they say with a grain of salt. To me, people are
people. Most people are decent and good enough, want to have
lives where they're more or less ok with life and aren't looking
to hurt others. Of course we hear about the bad stuff: far more
"newsworthy". It gives us a false-view of the world: The very
same event in the news, for example, will replay over and over
and over again giving us the IMPRESSION that it's ongoing,
neverending when in fact, it's something awful that happened
exactly: once. The abuse of human psychology is maddening to me.
Muddles people's heads. I'm glad when I discover mistakes I've
learned and have an opportunity to correct them. ==
