Okay, now when I say we, I mean the general public. But wait! Am I any less skeptical about generations of prejudice than the next guy?
I mean, let’s be real here, the Egyptians hated the Jews as far back as Moses leading the persecuted sect to the promised land.
Pre-Christian anti-Judaism in Ancient Greece and Rome was primarily ethnic in nature. The guys who looked funny, talked funny and did not worship my god, were to be suspect.
Christian anti-Semitism in antiquity and the Middle Ages was religious in nature and has extended into modern times. Just like Muslim anti-Semites believed Jews were a protected class, a class above, at least in their eyes. This, of course, carried through to the European/German feeling that Jews were stingy, money hoarders and only liked and kept to other Jews.
Simply put, rumors, degradation of religious differences spreads like wildfire, even in ancient times and yes, even before the internet.
Blacks, that was a simple one. They could not hide their differences by simply changing their names, or somehow intermingling with the natives. They were, well - black.
Muslims are too often defined by small groups of terrorists, who like heavy evangelists, often misread, or interpret teachings in a blinded fashion.
Now, let’s get down to me. In my lily white upbringing in the suburbs, there were White Protestants, Catholics and a few Italians, that didn’t really fit the mold of...Italians.
Of course, the Catholics were at the top of the heap, with Protestants somewhat behind. The Italians were lucky - at least most were Catholics, their only saving grace in the neighborhood.
Brought up a Catholic, indoctrinated by a Catholic school education, Martin Luther was deemed a heretic of the upmost. Sure, Protestants could reach a level of ‘heaven’, but only if they were really, really good. In short, Jews killed Christ and they were never on the map of real religions. Muslims, hell no, they didn’t exist in suburbia in the 50s and 60s, 70s, 80s, except of TV documentaries of third world countries.
Ironically, the Bible, the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh and the Muslim Quran are texts considered sacred, but have similar themes and conclusions and even a few copied (borrowed) stories.
In high school we had two quasi-black students that almost passed as white and normal (?). The city news showed poor Blacks as an afterthought, but highlighted them in crime. Bottom line, if you did not speak our English... Oh sure, we had a sprinkling of Jews, but they never stood out.
After WWII the consciousness of true guilt led the allies to form the "promised land", mostly in an effort to singularly en mass the Jewish concern under one roof.
Yeah, to do so we had to kick a bunch of Palestinians to the curb and turn once peaceful neighbors on a century of pure hatred. But ahhhh, we felt so good at the time.
On Wikipedia, it is estimated, there are roughly 4,200 religions, churches, denominations, religious bodies, faith groups, tribes, cultures, movements, or ultimate concerns. The word religion is sometimes used interchangeably with the words "faith" or "belief.
The most widely recognized world religions are Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism. As you can figure out, the ‘spread’ is not only black, tan and white, but geographical in nature.
We tend to hate what we do not understand, that is the nature of being human.
Me? I don’t like religions, heaven hell ,and all the whoopla that goes with, it. Religion is the opiate of the masses, derived from a frequently paraphrased partial statement of German revolutionary and critic of political economy - Karl Marx.
Religion has done more irresponsible harm to human nature, but at the same time united history and regions with a undeniable bond. Hate, well, that is just an afterthought built upon by history.
