Agnosticism IS the most dishonest position

[Belacqua]

I know your historical knowledge is sorely lacking, but this statement is just idiotic and has no relation to the facts as established.

People do not go out and murder each other over events 3 or 4 centuries ago particularly when rubbing two brain cells together will tell you they are themselves direct descendants of the 'oppressors'.

I think maybe you two are not as far apart as it may seem.

I mean, there may not be many combatants at work today who are directly motivated by the conscious memory of 300-year-old evils. But that doesn't mean that there's not a sort of chain reaction. 

For example, the English landlords who made the conscious economic decisions that caused the Great Famine, for their own gain and to the ruin of many (and without theological motives), possessed their power due to events that came before. And much hate that came after was the domino-effect of that, whether contemporaries had it in mind or not. 

I think the break-up of Yugoslavia and other places show that long memories of evil can be overcome, but show up again when they can be useful tools in rallying modern movements. People get along and intermarry just fine until there's some political issue, and then suddenly they're all mad again about the Middle Ages.