Posted by Alexander from 92.52.26.24.cfl.rr.com (24.26.52.92) on Thursday, February 20, 2003 at 8:25PM :
In Reply to: Re: Shlame posted by pancho from customer-148-233-71-107.uninet.net.mx (148.233.71.107) on Thursday, February 20, 2003 at 7:11PM :
Thank you- It's nice to be back on the forums. I hadn't looked at them for over half a year. I finally found your forum and noticed how "clean" it looked in comparison with the other forums. In this I mean that the conversations are not so choppy, and it appears to me that the content tends to be more logical.
I agree with you when you say: "...but all of them are the modern descendants of ALL the people who ever lived in BetNahrain."
That is a fact. Another thing you mention is about Christianity and Assyrians saying Moslem Assyrians cannot be true Assyrians.
I cannot understand why some think that. I once had a short discussion on AINA with a woman who claimed the 4 million Moslem Assyrians in Turkey could not be "true" Assyrians because they are not Christians. I pointed out several things:
What about your kings who were not Christians?
How is a race identified by how the person "thinks" religiously?
And also, Why is it that Christianity must be "the one" for Assyrians.
She simply kept restating that "they could not be true Assyrians because they were not Christians." And that's where the argument ended.
Regardless, the 4 million Moslem Assyrians in Turkey consider themselves Assyrians(or at least are starting to) even though they are Moslem. And not for anything, but until some time ago, I had never dealt with any Christian Assyrians. The ones I dealt with were all Moslem. They did believe they were Assyrian, but were more preoccupied with daily life and "real" life concerning their daily affairs and Iraqi life. I have only positive things to say of all Assyrians, Christian or not, so nobody take this the wrong way, but it seems to me that the Moslem Assyrians were more intuned to life, in a sense, more "real."
Now, naturally, it appears to me that the majority of Christian Assyrians from Iraq are more involved with Assyrian affairs, I suppose because of church, etc. Of the Christian Assyrians I have dealt with, I have to say they are all very nice. I just don't want anyone to feel that I view Moslem or Christian Assyrians differently, I believe they are the same, and I will be the first to tell you that I do not believe a religion defines a race, but rather, that a race defines a religion.
Take, for instance, Arabs. Do you think they appear so devoted to Islam because they are Moslems, or do you think instead that it is in their nature? I believe it is in their nature, as Moslems from all different races tend to vary in their levels of "Moslem devotion" or behavior patterns. But I leave this open-ended to whomever wants to pick this debate up.
Fred, it is nice to hear from you again. It's been a while...
Have a nice day-
Alexander