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To: eleni121
Most people before Christianity did not have a master race mentality

I disagree. Christianity alone developed the very concept that of "all men are created equal," out of the Hebrew idea that all men are descended from one man created by God. The Jews never developed it explicitly because of their ethnic orientation. It wasn't until this Jewish idea was freed from an ethnic matrix that the idea of human equality could evolve.

Look at Greek, Roman, Chinese, Mongol and Japanese history if you don't think each group thought of itself as superior by nature to everybody else. The ruling classes in India developed the idea of caste as a way of perpetuating the master race. The Aztecs and Incas, in our hemisphere, had a very definite idea of their right and duty to conquer and rule everybody else.

In almost every language around the earth, the word by which its speakers refer to their own group translates as "The People," with the strong implication that other groups are NOT people. This implication is usually, although not perhaps always, made explicit by the terms used to refer to outsiders.

It is the idea of human equality that is unique and unusual, not the idea of human inequality. And of course if you believe humans are unequal, you will generally think of your own group as being at the top.

67 posted on 02/11/2007 10:20:21 AM PST by Sherman Logan (Recognition of one's ignorance is the beginning of wisdom.)
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To: Sherman Logan

Most rivalries before the coming of the Lord were concerned with cultural economic and political conflicts. The "master race" ideology is a more recent 19th century Germanic racial theories derived from Schopenhauer and the rest - don't forget the Darwinian contribution to this bunk - and is a phenomenon that does not explain the conflicts among ancient peoples.


69 posted on 02/11/2007 10:42:13 AM PST by eleni121 ( + En Touto Nika! By this sign conquer! + Constantine the Great))
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To: Sherman Logan
To be fair, the Romans were a lot more willing to take in different races and cultures, if and only if you were to render unto Caesar that which was Caesar's, so to speak.

Imperial Rome was pretty amazing in that aspect - you could be Persian, African, Indian, Celtic, Egyptian, etc., and be a full Citizen with a capital 'C' of the Roman Empire, with all of the rights of somebody born a citizen inside Rome herself. Rome knew how to incorporate a conquered people or nation, and turn around and make those people or that nation an ally, somebody who had a vested interest in being a Roman.

That was partially helped by the fact that any race or people could be a slave or a citizen - that's taking race out of the equation and making social status centered around economic status.
72 posted on 02/13/2007 8:00:09 AM PST by af_vet_rr
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