posted by jives
Quote:
Is there still a lot of Protestant vs. Catholic violence going on? I have to say that honestly when I learned about that "war" in school, I was seriously confused. Aren't they both Christians? I can understand wars between people with different religions such as Islam vs. Christianity, but the Irish war makes no sense to me.
__________________
|
It's a hangover from the religious wars of the past, in northern ireland there were economic reasons as well stemming from protestant settlers-mainly scots, hensce tyhe belfast scots being settled to Northern ireland and taking the best land off the catholics. It's a complex nightmare you would not believe. The most vicious wars are history are those fought over religon or caused by it depending on your point of view. sectarianism is fairly rife in scotland as well if you go to the wrong pubs in the wroing part of town especially during an old firm game. Religon is the only discrimination allowed, a non catholic can't teach at a catholic school. You still cannot have a catholic marrying in to the royal family-not that many would care.
Southern Ireland has been independent since 1921, I get the impression many americans still think the british occupy all of ireland. The country was partitioned else there would have been a bloodbath as the protestants would never accept rule by a catholic majority. to understand you would have to go back to elizabethan times even then it makes no sense today. The question then was who rules the king or the bishop of Rome? State or church. That's one of the reasons freedom of religon was so important to the writers of your constitution. Having seen the religious wars of England and europe they were quite keen to avoid similar conflict. It's an age old conflict, catholic against protestant that the rest of europe leave alone.
Your civil war was pretty vicious but you never tied captives to a stake and set them on fire to save their souls singing hymns as they did so, good caring christians did that kind of thing to those they disagreed with.