Post by Astroruss on Mar 28, 2013 1:45:31 GMT -5
For the last several weeks now I have been instructing mostly elderly students in basic computer skills and in Microsoft Office programs. My classes are usually small, four students at a ttime at most, and sometimes I don't get anyone at all. 
The one student I do get almost everyday is an elderly Egyptian man named Galle. He doesn't want to go over the computer skills and instead likes to watch documentaries and other educational shows on the computers, in addition to checking up with his friends and relatives back in Cairo, while using the computer's Arabic script fucntions to do it in his own language.
He and I get along fine and we have much of the same interests. He, too, likes history and archaeology and we talk much of ancient Greek, Roman, Persian and Arabic civilisations. We watched a video today about the Apocalyptic times and religious fundamentialism, which of course centered mostly on Israel and the near east.
Both Galle and I decry the religious extremists of both sides, muslim and judeo christian and think they short sided fools. But it seemed from the interviews of these people that soo many of them feel that the only way for peace to come in the enar east is for the other side to surrender in full and convert. Either that or be blown to hell by the forces of hellfire.
Now of course, Israel/Palestine is of no particular importance to me except on a historical level; my faith places no the Holy Land no higher than any other place the universe. And my friend Galle, speaking as a Muslim, agrees.
But we wonder about the rest of the world. And since this website is international in scope I thought it would make an interesting topic. How do the others feel about the Near East and how it relates to faith and history? And how can or should peace be achived?
The one student I do get almost everyday is an elderly Egyptian man named Galle. He doesn't want to go over the computer skills and instead likes to watch documentaries and other educational shows on the computers, in addition to checking up with his friends and relatives back in Cairo, while using the computer's Arabic script fucntions to do it in his own language.
He and I get along fine and we have much of the same interests. He, too, likes history and archaeology and we talk much of ancient Greek, Roman, Persian and Arabic civilisations. We watched a video today about the Apocalyptic times and religious fundamentialism, which of course centered mostly on Israel and the near east.
Both Galle and I decry the religious extremists of both sides, muslim and judeo christian and think they short sided fools. But it seemed from the interviews of these people that soo many of them feel that the only way for peace to come in the enar east is for the other side to surrender in full and convert. Either that or be blown to hell by the forces of hellfire.
Now of course, Israel/Palestine is of no particular importance to me except on a historical level; my faith places no the Holy Land no higher than any other place the universe. And my friend Galle, speaking as a Muslim, agrees.
But we wonder about the rest of the world. And since this website is international in scope I thought it would make an interesting topic. How do the others feel about the Near East and how it relates to faith and history? And how can or should peace be achived?
