germs...

i'm not feeling well. i went to the store the other day & apparently picked up an illness while i was out. i seem to be recovering, but i'm reminded of an interesting docu i caught a few days ago. it's about Indians in the Amazon rainforest & how a road built up into the rainforest affected them. there is a particular part about the Indians being exposed to government officials & then becoming ill w/pneumonia & measles.

there were 700 humans in this particular ethnic group prior to exposure. by the time everyone had died or recovered, there were only 200 humans left. many of the dead were the elders who maintained cultural history. the docu went on to show how missionaries were then brought in to essentially frighten the Indians into following Christianity. the Bible was translated into the indigenous language. this is not harmful in & of itself. the Bible has some great messages for humans w/regard to certain universal truths. the thing that was interesting & quite disturbing was the drawings/images that were used along w/the Bible stories. whoever the artists were, they created some very scary images to give the Indians.

i grew up as a Christian. the images that i grew up w/were not like these at all. why would you find the need to scare a person into believing something? the truth does not require fear. knowledge does not come from being afraid. discovery is the result of fearless exploration. the docu reminded me pretty clearly of 1 of the primary reasons i don't fuck w/religion.

this situation occurred not long ago, beginning in the late '60's early '70's. if you study world history, this type of thing seems to have occurred regularly as a result of European global exploration. to see it still happening in the modern era just goes to show how fucked up the process is.

this is a link to the docu:

Children Of The Amazon

make like manifest destiny is not a mandate for genocide...

PEACE
...be calm...