In 1840, when the first official British presence touched down in New Zealand, it was led by a very idealistic young naval captain, Captain Hobson. And he gathered together representatives of most of the tribes in New Zealand. And at the Treaty of Waitangi he agreed that there should be certain rights that would be inherent within the Māori nation if they pledged allegiance to Queen Victoria.
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Historians get really nervous about patterns. That’s changing a bit now. And the truth of it is there’s not much way to avoid the 500-year cycle. You almost have to work too hard to unsay it, it’s so obviously there in every way. And if you say every 500 years we go through one, then you immediately say we’re in the 21st century and baby are we going through one.
One of the key differences between Islamic scripture and Christian scripture is that Islamic scripture (the Koran) was meant to have been revealed to the prophet Muhammad during his adult lifetime. It was not meant to have been revealed to a number of people over many thousands of years.
We’re looking at religion as an organized and above all institutionalized system of beliefs. The organization particularly of textual or other recorded teachings that form the basic faith framework of the religion, and the institutionalization which polices those teachings, polices the extent, the limits, and above all the interpretation of what those texts might mean.
The best justification we have for killing fifty-six, fifty-seven, whatever billion land animals and a trillion sea animals every year is that they taste good. And so, in a sense how is this any different from Michael Vick, who likes to sit around a pit watching dogs fight, or at least he used to?