Irrational thought patterns. Logic is something that not everyone can grasp....reality is difficult for some people.
I tell people that you cannot read the Bible like it is the latest edition of the Sunday paper. Likewise we cannot judge history by modern perspectives. We would like to think that as times goes on we become more intelligent, more compassionate, and more fair, but that is not entirely true.
The United States was the first country to promote Freedom and Liberty. Christianity had been around for nearly 1800 years before the Declaration of Independence and no Christian country before that had established or fought for Freedom and Liberty....Freedom of religion....life, liberty and the persecute of happiness....government for the people and by the people....but it still fell short in some areas.
The studies of cultures and societies is complex....the term normative is a deep subject. In each culture...even Christian cultures as they progressed in time periods produced what you could call a reality....meaning what people thought was true in each time periods. There was a time that Christians believed that witches were everywhere and supported the horrors and atrocities of the witch hunt/heresy campaigns....something like 3 million women horribly tortured and killed between around 1200 and the mid 1700's....a lot if it at the hands of the Church and the rest at the hands of Christian communities.
Normative....the influenza virus has killed several million people worldwide over the years and in the last 50 years has killed around 35,000 a year (give or take) in the United States. It has become a norm....you can't hardly get people to take precautions for it. The Corona virus show up and because it is new, people are shaking in their boots. Traffic deaths usually run around 30,000 something a year in the United States....but people are not afraid of their cars..trucks...no laws to keep children out of cars. Normative is an interesting study. Cultural realities per time periods... good to understand, as the past, because if you don't....your perception of the present may not be real.
There was a time that slavery was part of many cultures....Yeshua never denounced slavery. Was Yeshua wrong not to demand an end to slavery? In His day slavery had nothing to do with skin color. Should the blacks hate Him for that? It was the norm and slavery continued to be part of many Christian cultures until the 1800's. Slavery was abolished in the United States and Europe at about the same time.
The conquest of "uncivilized peoples" at one time was the norm. It did not matter if it was Europe, North and South America, Africa or Australia. God's rule was that when you took over a region, you were to kill all that breaths so you would not have to fight them again. The Europeans did not do that and as time went on they tried to "compensate" them for the loss of their lands. That was the normative of the various time periods....Christian do not conquer regions anymore. But because we now consider it wrong, it sets up conditions that we cannot go back and correct. We are not going to give the land back to the Indians, the whites are not going to go back to Europe and the blacks are not going to go back to Africa. So we have to move forward the best we can.
So we have to deal with our reality now...where do we go from here? Perceptions can hider progress if they keep looking behind them and not where they should be going.
Should women hold the witch hunts against men today?
Women were considered property in Judaism and they were part of husbandry in polygamist relationships. Should they hold that against men today? God set the rules to regulate polygamy and concubinage. Should Women hold that against God?
If you look at history, Christianity did not initially do a whole lot for them. Should women hold that against the Bible? Against Christianity? Should they have a chip on their shoulders? Should they find a different religion that was more fair?
Should women hold their lack of rights in the past against our country now?
The Jews were slaves, should they have a chip on their shoulders?
These questions can be asked of blacks....do they want to waller in the past or do they want to look at where we should go from here. The chip on their shoulder that justifies all the violence actually keeps them from moving forward. Thinking that someone owes them something justifies their reliance on welfare systems...their demand for special rights and tolerance of violent behavior. That their fair share is in someone else's pocket....which justifies robberies, hold ups, home invasions, and carjackings. It is all wrong thinking...no logic.
The majority of blacks are moving out of that, and most blacks are doing well....and they know the same thing. Wallering in the past is like an anchor to their success, it is a dead weight. I live in an area where blacks come to live....outside of St. Louis which has one the highest black on black death rates in America. They come here to work, to buy homes...live among the whites...why? Because they want to live in area where their children can play in the front yard without getting shot! They want to live in an area where their skin color is not associated with violent crime and drug trafficking. They are not interested in having drug peddlers for their children.
You can study the past and you can learn from the past but it is incorrect to judge the past by modern perceptions and norms. The future is a blank canvas, the picture we want to paint is up to us and them. The black minorities have the brush, the picture that the black minorities want to paint is up to them...The fact is many minorities are painting their future standing side by side with everyone else...so it is a fact and it is a reality....it is possible because it is happening. But for the troubled angry minority of the black minority, they are painting a violent and bloody future. As the old saying goes, "If you keep on doing what you been doing, you are going to keep on getting, what you been getting."
The Black lives matter movement is the worst thing possible for blacks, it is rude, extremely racial, and ignorant. It is like they need a scope to take aim at their own feet....It focuses on the criminal element. How do we handle arrests....How do we handle arrests....How do we handle arrests....they demand that we do better....that is wrong thinking....The logical question is, how do they stop associating their skin color with crime? How can they get off of welfare? How can they be successful? How can skin color not really matter when it come to being successful in our society? These protests will set them back years....we burn, we destroy, we assault, we murder, and we rape....now we want to be liked....we want be accepted....we want special treatment because you owe us! People shy away from rattle snakes....they may leave them alone but the only respect they will get is the respect a person has for a rattle snake....you avoid being around them. All this is wrong thinking and all this is wrong actions...they are moving this in the wrong direction.
