Europe is the bastion of human civilization.

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-world-is-mystified-by-americas-enduring-racism-and-bizarre-gun-laws-2015-6
Lets just put it this way it is not that Europe is a racist free zone. Not at all, But it is honestly true that USUALLY racism in Europe is way more brand and inconsequent when compared with the gun fighting gang hatred we see in America...people in Europe shy away from racist behaviour when isolated and in group may joke about some ethnic groups but it is quite rare to see deep ingrained racism in the vast majority of Europe.

1 Reply

@Fil Albuquerque,

Last year Portugal promised to take 4 500 refugees.
Uptil now you have taken 150.
How come so few??

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@saab,

True and sad ! I wont lie...I have been campaigning for people to take them in in Europe and in particular in my country. But again normally we have loads of black people from the ex-colonies studying in Portugal, lots of people from East Europe and they all are well treated here. Portugal is perhaps one of the least racist countries in Europe. The reason about recent refugees is perceived by public opinion as a problem of the country being close to bankruptcy and lacking conditions to receive the refugees. Obviously the argument is pure demagoguery looking at the numbers implied...but the common people are bad at looking at numbers, the issue it is not purely racist...still as far as I know the government will take them in no matter what.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

You have a population 10 000 000 and about 50 000 foreigners.
Mostly Catholics over 50% - 25% are Europeans andpart of those are Portugees with a foreign passport.
Another great amount are retired people living in Portugal.
Not difficult to be a none racist

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@saab,

saab wrote:

You have a population 10 000 000 and about 50 000 foreigners.
Mostly Catholics over 50% - 25% are Europeans andpart of those are Portugees with a foreign passport.
Another great amount are retired people living in Portugal.
Not difficult to be a none racist

We really are not. Many are not legal and the numbers are way bigger, but let me give you the example of my city Coimbra which is famous by its University (3 oldest in Europe). Back here we have an abnormal number of students from all of the ex colonies and people get along just fine. Racism exists in punctual rare occasions but doesn't quite work with real consequences. Black people get jobs and are well integrated. Take a look at who is our prime minister right now...

http://scd.pt.rfi.fr/sites/portugues.filesrfi/imagecache/rfi_16x9_1024_578/sites/images.rfi.fr/files/aef_image/antonio-Costa-Natal_770x433_acf_cropped.png

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@Fil Albuquerque,

If I had to make an actual observation on Portuguese specificity that would go to cultural clashes not skin colour per se. A well integrated black or Asian has no problems whatsoever. We are much more sensitive to distinct cultural ways of life without regard for skin colour.
As for Religion aside old ladies 90% are "non practicants"...its more of a Pascal wager then actual belief...people maintain tradition regarding marriage in churches but don't give a crap about the religious teachings...Certainly no one here believes the Earth is 6 or 10 thousand years old.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

According to you 90% are "non practicants".
According to statistics in 2012, a study conducted by the Catholic University revealed 79.5% of the Portuguese considered themselves Catholics, and that 18% attended Mass regularly.
Some 6.8% of the population declared themselves to be non-religious, and 8.3% did not give any answer about their religion

Again it seems your information about Europe is a bit different than reality.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

You are obviouslly not Asian. The Asian community in Portugal regularly faces housing discrimination.

Ethnically divided neighborhoods in Portugal face police violence. Let's not even talk about the indignities the Roma face.

Portugal is backwards compared to the US when it comes to racial issues. Other countries in Western Europe are a bit better.

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@maxdancona,

Dear good Lord...this is an absolute falsification on matters of fact !
Not saying some of this doesn't happen just that it is rare.

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@saab,

I told you before everyone I ask about its Pascal's wager......they say "one never knows, one can never be sure"...even "Fatima" pilgrims go there in a "party" mood a sort of adventure pilgrimage...we are not in the 70's of past century any more...back then yes this country was deeply religious.

Matter of fact they don't by any means take it seriously, nor does most of Europe. Now you either take the truth or trash it...

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@saab,

saab wrote:

[img] Jews are leaving Europe in greater and greater numbers.[/img]
It is a correct and sad statement.
The majority of attacks on Jewish establishment like schools or synagogs are done by rather newly arrived Muslims and some rightwinged Europeans.

Sad? Or, just desserts? Europe can then enjoy the intellectual contributions of their own gene pool. Enjoy!

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@saab,

saab wrote:

The Jews were discriminated in Europe, but was that because of their religion or their race. You walk by someone in the street and you cannot tell they are Jewish.

No. It was because much of Christian (more Catholic than Protestant) did not like the success of Jews in different venues. It was a threat to their fragile self-esteem, in my opinion. And, Jews are not a race; otherwise, they would still look like Moses (taken from the bullrushes in Egypt when the Pharohs were still Black Africans).

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@Foofie,

Geez Foofie. You do realize that Moses is a myth, right?

The Jews were never actually in slavery in Egypt.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

The Jews were never actually in slavery in Egypt.

Some of their ancestors were. Egypt had Canaanite slaves.

Textual analysis of the Hebrew bible shows that the lines about the slaves escaping across the Red Sea are the most ancient part of the text.

Late Bronze Age Egyptian records listed the Hebrew deity as being a local deity found in the lands where desert nomads roamed.

It seems likely that a band of Canaanite slaves were able to escape from Egypt at the collapse of the Bronze Age, found a new religion to credit their good fortune to on their way home, and then when they got back home their story of escape from slavery and new religion proved popular in the societal chaos that followed the end of Bronze Age civilization.

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@oralloy,

No Oralloy, there is zero evidence of this outside of the mythological text.

Non-religious scholars, that would include scholars from Israel, all accept that this did not happen.

It is a myth. It is the same as Noah's ark. Some people really really want it to be true, but it isn't.

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Egyptian and other archaeologists have found reliable evidence that the monumental structures of Egypt were built by skilled labor and not by slaves. This has been known for over a decade, and was suspected long before. From Harvard Magazine:

Who Built the Pyramids?
Not slaves. Archeaologist Mark Lehner, digging deeper, discovers a city of privileged workers..

1 Reply

@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

Egyptian and other archaeologists have found reliable evidence that the monumental structures of Egypt were built by skilled labor and not by slaves. This has been known for over a decade, and was suspected long before. From Harvard Magazine:

Who Built the Pyramids?
Not slaves. Archeaologist Mark Lehner, digging deeper, discovers a city of privileged workers..

Current biblical scholars only say that the Hebrews were utilized to make bricks for the cities that the Pharohs kept building. Only the Irish can claim that they built NYC; the Hebrews just made bricks.

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@Foofie,

Biblical Scholars are religious people who have the goal of making their religious text seem true. They start with religious mythological texts and then cherry pick facts to make the texts sound plausible while ignoring any counter-evidence.

Non-religious scholars, who study all of the facts and evidence without regard to a religious preconception say there was no mass group of Hebrews making bricks in Egypt. There is simply no evidence of this.

Do you believe that Noah's Ark actually happened too?

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

Biblical Scholars are religious people who have the goal of making their religious text seem true. They start with religious mythological texts and then cherry pick facts to make the texts sound plausible while ignoring any counter-evidence.

Non-religious scholars, who study all of the facts and evidence without regard to a religious preconception say there was no mass group of Hebrews making bricks in Egypt. There is simply no evidence of this.

Do you believe that Noah's Ark actually happened too?

Or, they were making knishes? Maybe bagels? Or, bialys? The first schmear on a bagel was offered to a pharoh. He declined it as a sort of Trojan Horse from the "stiff necked Hebrews." The bagel has spread to the U.S., at least in major cities. Today Hebrews can be found in many universities making schhtick. Only the Irish have a comparable sense of humor. WASPs find humor very dangerous; their somber expressions can cause pain if made to laugh. My opinion only.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

No Oralloy, there is zero evidence of this outside of the mythological text.

The fact that Egyptian hieroglyphics have a mythological component to them has not prevented historians from using them to reconstruct a history of what happened in Egypt and the surrounding region. In fact, the ancient written records of almost any nation have quite a bit of mythology intertwined in them. Historians still use them to determine what happened in a nation's past.

maxdancona wrote:

Non-religious scholars, that would include scholars from Israel, all accept that this did not happen.

All scholars agree that Egyptian records show that the Hebrew deity was a local deity in the area where desert nomads roamed.

All scholars also agree that textual analysis shows that the lines about the slaves escaping across the Red Sea are the oldest part of the Hebrew bible.

All scholars also agree that Egyptian records show that the Israelite culture existed at the very beginning of the Iron Age (1200 BC).

Now, it might be hypothetically possible for Judaism to have reached Israel by other means. Perhaps aliens came in UFOs and transported people back and forth between Jerusalem and that mountain in the desert.

Occam's Razor though suggests that it might be a bit more plausible that the Hebrew accounts of escaped slaves passing by that mountain on their way home might be the way it happened.

maxdancona wrote:

It is a myth. It is the same as Noah's ark. Some people really really want it to be true, but it isn't.

The historical evidence says otherwise.

1 Reply

Europe is the bastion of human civilization.

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