Sounds like the humanist-pig natives lost this round. Columbus wrote “the natives are so naïve and so free with their possessions that no one who has not witnessed them would believe it. When you ask for something they have, they never say no. To the contrary, they offer to share with anyone.”
He also wrote,
“I believe that they would easily be made Christians, because it seemed to me that they had no religion.”
“The European settlers took a free society without possessions, property, currency, hierarchy or written religion and replaced it with today’s America – the world’s shining beacon of selfish materialism, where every square inch of land/water/airspace is publicly or privately owned, taxed, and governed through a corrupt hierarchical system of laws and regulations where Mother Nature’s gifts are treated as personal possessions to be bought, sold, owned and defended. Howard Zinn “A people’s history of the United States ”
They also threw religion at their feet and forced them to comply or die.They stripped them of their heritage and language and families, and stole all that was left of their land and resources. It amazes me that there is one Native American or African Native Christian on the entire planet that carries on in this belief system that destroyed their beautiful ways of life. It is beyond me. I’ve had this question on the back burner for several years. Long before I was an atheist it amazed me how enthusiastically the black and native communities embrace Christianity. Why? How was this done?
The Requermiento, a document that offered the Indians a choice between salvation and slavery, helped the Spanish “benevolently” force various Indian groups into the missions. The basic mission plan for Catholic missionaries followed a structure repeated by later groups and based on Sir Thomas More’s Utopia, which outlined a plan for Christian communities. Mission life revolved around and resembled rural European Christianity as much as possible, creating communities of Indians who ate, slept, and worked under the aegis of Christianity. Most missions had compulsory attendance at matins and masses, required all able bodies to work within the mission, and set up systems of governance using the patriarchal family as a model. Every day, Indians went to matins, worked in the fields, went back to church, worked in the fields, and then went home to a system where fathers and men ruled and met as councils, mimicking European societies more than biblical ones.
Essentially by eliminating the non compliant, it turned into generational compliance by remaining natives. Why are they still in it? And particularly, why are African Americans still in it so strongly? We all know their history here.
I agree it is hard to understand. If someone mistreated and tortured you, took everything you had, would you then find comfort in their deity? I do not understand it at all. Hugs
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Fear maybe. Hard to break the going to hell if you don’t believe in me.
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This is a great post. I have found that any African American I have ever known, was a Christian and have often wondered why. It must stem back to the times of slavery when their lives were so utterly miserable, that they fell for it…the idea of a better life someday far away from the present.
And Native Americans….maybe they felt betrayed by their gods and decided if you can’t lick ’em, join ’em.
Both groups had many different beliefs in their original settings (America and Africa) and there was much division and warfare between tribes. Maybe this lack of cohesion, which was unlike the dominant Christianity here, was another cause…such a dominant all consuming force.
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I don’t think a lot of the real history is readily available either. You have to dig this stuff out. Remember what we learned in school? Godless heathens the missionaries civilized. But, take away the language and the culture and violet! Forget the past and join the mass.
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If I humbly may Jim… I cover some of this in my 4-part series “Games of Unknowledging.” Particularly in the conclusion. By Charles W. Mills:
Here’s an excellent 7-min video on rewriting history. It’s been a common practice among powerful Anglo-Saxon domination:
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And who is the most resistant ignorant you speak of? I already know. Excellent point Professor! Worthy of a repost.
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I will say this… typically the “most resistant” are those that staunchly believe that this existence on Earth is an immutable Monistic framework. Obviously that is a Wizard of Oz green curtain paradigm, scheme, and fallacious delusion and it hates any critical-thinking skills. It thrives from apathy. 😦
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I remember my time at BYU there was an overall reluctance to higher learning outside of the faith. “We already have the truth!” And they often could prove it on the football field back in the 80’s. Beating Notre dame was proof enough baby. Mormons over Catholics all the way.
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LOL… yeah, this past NCAA football playoffs and the NFL playoffs, and really most all of sports, I am utterly amazed (in a comical way) how many different teams, different players have “God” on their side! God apparently loves specific teams/players MORE than He loves (or hates?) others. If you believed all these hyper-religious athletes, HELL… God is an extremely finicky sports supporter — and I don’t me a jock-strap — jumping from winner to winner to winner! 🤭😇
As I’ve stated too many times, our planet, our species, the animals, the ecosystems, our Solar System, our Galaxy, our Cosmos… are in a perpetual state of change and fluidity; Pluralism with absolutely NOTHING exactly identical at any given time — the utter antithesis of Monism or a Closed belief-system.
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And this window of history Jim, that you’ve aptly illuminated, was the early stages of White-dominance (expanded racism) which — via the Victors always writing “history” —
eventually turned that history, or unknown history, into White-ignorance that permeates our society in the Western Hemisphere today.
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It’s a hard reality and X rated violence. Embarrassing!
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Utterly shameful. Makes me want to become more and more color-blind that’s for sure!
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How do we get this into the hands regular people? Even the Mormon history that is available is only found if you dig. Well known by scholarlies but nobody looks below the allowable surface. I think most people would gasp at Christianity if they knew the truth without sugarcoated excuses.
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You’re right Jim. Sadly the majority likely won’t dig — too many are lazy and LOVE their known comfort zones — until it (might) directly effect them or their pocket-book. But clearly the popular cliché “Don’t judge a book by its cover” applies in many, MANY cases. To borrow another one that’s proactive for us is “You can lead a horse to water…” and so that’s what we must never stop doing. 🙂 ❤
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