“We have been led in Mesopotamia into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honor. We have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information. The Baghdad communiqués are belated, insincere, incomplete. Things have been far worse than we have been told. Our administration more bloody and inefficient than the public knows. It is a disgrace to our record, and may soon be too inflamed for any ordinary cure. We are today not far from a disaster. Our unfortunate troops, under hard conditions of climate and supply, are policing an immense area, paying dearly everyday in lives for the willfully wrong policy of the civil administration in Baghdad.”
Lawrence of Arabia, 1920
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8 comments:
Holy shit man.
Nice find.
Ever since the collapse of the garden of eden, the area has been going to hell in a handbag. Evil sucks! Why can't people just help one another and be nice to each other?
The old garden may have been a little more allegorical/metaphorical than any specific spot in the middle east my friend, even by literalist biblical interpretation. It wasn't anywhere and it was everywhere all at once.
As far as why can't people be nice, that is truly a universal question. Mostly it has to do with economics, though there are plenty of other reasons weighing in.
I assume that the garden was everywhere and not in any one spot, but many speculate that it was near the mesopotamia region. I was narrowing it down so that I could make a smart assed comment. Thanks for extinquishing my little flame. :)
Not trying to extinguish your flame, you just hit upon a topic that gets me riled. I cannot abide the literalist interpretation of things like the Garden of Eden. If you choose to take the Bible literally, then you've got to take the warts literally too.
Things like slavery - clearly allowed in Genesis, women as property - also in Genesis, prohibition on touching the flesh of pigs (no more football or pepperoni) - Eclesiastes etc, make the whole enterprise a tough one to swallow.
It's a little disconcerting that two people left alone in a wonderful place with no rules except "stay away from the 'apple'" and little idea of what they were, and no guidance except to 'trust' some disembodied voice, could doom their descendants to countless lifetimes of suffering.
That's a crappy, mean-spirited god, and not the same god as you'll find in the New Testament.
Did god realize that the tough-love approach wasn't keeping people in line. Floods, plagues, and all manner of ill will focussed on them was not enough to keep the masses from straying?
So god decides to try the carrot instead of the stick, sending his son that tells everyone to love everyone, with no animosity towards anyone. Jesus' miracles did not include killing evil-doers with bolts of lightning, instead they were generally for the common good, including water into wine parlor tricks. Think of how popular he'd have been if he went to college with that one. "Dude, the keg's dry!"
I'm not buying it. Christians need to throw that Old Testament crap away. While there's good stuff in there (love thy neighbor and the golden rule being high on the list), some of the rest is no less mythological than Apollo riding his golden chariot across the sky.
I have an idea where you take out everything in the Bible that doesn't have to do with wine, and release it as a short pamphlet called "The Imbible."
Now that's a religion I could get behind.
God bless you both! :)
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