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Originally Posted by
handlewanker
Huh....it's a matter of opinion in an argument, but you can't overlook historical facts and relate them to "a Christian idea of how the World was made" or even where it came from, (the Pope might disagree strongly on that one but he's got vested interests to look out for).
So, going back into deepest darkest history, (300 years would do) where the teachings in the schools were of the highest calibre, and by teachers who had instruction from the highest pulpits of the time, and you get "The World started at precisely 10.00 o' clock on a bright sunny morning in May ...." something of that order or similar twaddle that ruled at the time, but if'n you want to quote history, get your facts straight....the Third World was as it was right back to the beginning of time, low technology and only those people that knew better and applied their logic and free thinking did the 1st World or life as we know it come to be.
There are people today, probably the major part of the existing Human race, that given Stone Age technology would die for lack of the skill to apply it.
You may think of someone who came down from a tree and walked upright for a few steps as being "civilised", but it takes more than a few steps for mankind to even know the meaning of the word.
South East Asia and the major part of Africa are probably the areas that usually gets referred to as being the Third World, but it also applies to someone who is jobless through illiteracy, lack of any training and walks barefoot in Summer on dirt roads, be it in Africa, the outback of OZ or in downtown Memphis Tennessee, the outlook is the same.
At least the people living on watercraft in the Mekong delta of South Vietnam are doing what they are skilled at doing and will never aspire to do anything different, and have been doing so for centuries, long before the Romans or Greeks stared into the entrails of a ram and formed Earth shattering conclusions about the origins of matter.
If'n you think that because you eat your food with a knife and fork or a spoon or even with a pair of pointed sticks is civilised, then watch a Chimpanzee dig grubs out of a rotten tree stump with a pointed stick, and you can ascribe the word civilised to them too....the difference is the Chimp does it by choice not by convention.
By your own admission, if'n Africa was considered to be uncivilised due to the slavery practice, then America has only been civilised since 1860....for the last 150 years....no wonder you have problems with a veneer of civilisation so thin.
Ian.