I had a long discussion last night with a Cherokee friend of mine about aspects of religion, which, of course, turned out to be a comparative anatomy lesson between Native American culture, and Judeo-Christian religion. I answered his questions the best way I knew how, being both Catholic and of Jewish ancestry myself. The upshot of his questioning, which included questions about the comparative place and history of Jesus, and what he had done to get himself crucified, (I answered the he responded to King Herod that he was the King of the Jews, and Herod being the paranoiac control freak that he was, then figured that Jesus was a threat to his power, and felt the need to have him eliminated to maintain control.) and the real nature, creation story of the bible, were completely at odds with Native culture, which essentially has no Bible-esque holy book. The Bible was basically written by the prophets and other writers, although frankly it was a little difficult explaining that the nature of the Bible was fairly dogmatic, and that a lot of Biblical teaching was teaching by parable and example; also that the Old Testament and New Testament Gods were of vastly different temperaments. I tried to explain that Jesus was God-incarnate so that He, as God would have a better idea of what it was like to be human, and experience fear, temptation, anger, etc.....all those things that make us human. Let's face it; The Bible is basically a lot of do's and don'ts, that, depending on your specific religion, and how you view the world, govern how you view the world, what your specific religion is, and other matters. You know if you're Jewish, you're not going to eat pork or seafood, hold the Sabbath holy, and never get a tattoo; to say the very least. The same goes for the tenets of other religions. The bottom line of his questioning was about why the nuns and priests in the boarding school he had attended relatively briefly were such seemingly mean-spirited people. What you come to in a case like this, (and if you've never heard about the Indian boarding schools, which operated from the 1800s up until about 1980, have a look here for starters,)http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16516865 or search on Facebook for a man by the name of Warren Petoskey, is that the boarding schools in particular were less about education and more about indoctrination, and stripping Native Americans of their culture, heritage and language. I think any right-thinking Christian or Jew would agree that this should not have been the goal of the schools, but basically was. Government agencies were empowered to remove Native children from their homes and take them to boarding schools frequently without their consent or knowledge. (Remember that there was frequently a language barrier between the parents and government agents; the agents spoke English, and frequently the Native parents didn't, so they had no idea why their children were suddenly gone.) Why did this all happen? That I couldn't explain, and probably never will be able to, simply because it wasn't a part of my culture. Obviously it wasn't a period in history that anyone who considers themselves a Christian should be proud of, but there it is. If I got things wrong, feel free to rebuke me, but I hope I was on the right track. I think the real point is, is that the dichotomy of the cultures in question is so vast that there will never be any way to fully reconcile what Judeo-Christian religion is and how it compares to Native culture, where the is no aspiration to a Heaven, afterlife, or paradise of any kind. the goals of religion and Godliness should be good; but given the nature of free will, frequently that is not the case.