Hard Core Catholicism

Dont blame your ignorance of history on the intelligence of others.

 

Not as an 8 year old.. but I have read from the archives.. Have you?

My family didn't come with the pilgrims.. They were mercenaries with the Dutch East Indies company.

 

Well said. It should also be noted that yes, Columbus did discover America. Yes there were inhabitants but they were primitive people. Columbus was the first from the known and civilized world to discover the Americas and open up the new world to civilization. The Vikings may have arrived first, but they didn't exploit their findings, so it was to no avail. It wasn't until Columbus arrived that the discovery became useful.

 

The Vikings discovered it first.

That Columbus did not know about the new world existed is a function of ignorance brought on by over 1000 years of the Church destroying knowledge and buring folks at the stake for even having "forbidden knowledge"

The Spaniards were so ignorant that they destroyed Mayan writing as "works of the devil"

Columbus, being the good Christian that he was:

http://www.iearn.org/hgp/aeti/aeti-1997/native-americans.html

A real American Hero ....

 

Not really. Landing in America without knowing what it was is not discovering it. Columbus was the one searching for a route to the West Indies knowing that the world is spherical. When he landed, he had discovered the new world ready to be colonized. He was the first representation of the known and civilized world to come to America. Only he can be said to have truly discovered it.

1. What is buring?
2. What specific event of the church buring people can you cite?

They were works of the devil. The Mayans were a savage race practicing human sacrifice, blood rites, and cannibalism. Demonic influence was strong.

 

So when Spanish soldiers were pillaging, raping and butchering Mayan Men, Women and Children I guess this was the work of god? How about the Inca who welcomed the Spanish and then were betrayed by them quite quickly and again we see pillage, rape, murder, etc...

"Having deprived the Inca empire of leadership, Pizarro and another conquistador, Hernando de Soto, moved south to Cuzco, the heart of Tawantinsuyu, which they captured in November 1533; they then led their men in an orgy of looting, pillaging, and torture in search of more precious metals."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_conquest_of_the_Inca_Empire


If killing and murdering and destroying a civilization for Gold and silver is not the work of the devil, what is?

“ There lies Peru with its riches;
Here, Panama and its poverty.
Choose, each man, what best becomes a brave Castilian. ”


—Francisco Pizarro

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_conquest_of_the_Inca_Empire

 

Indeed! It may be noted that Pope John Paul II, on March 12, 2000, issued a CONFESSION OF SINS AND ASKING FOR FORGIVENESS, in which he apologized for atrocities committed by Catholics in the name of the church and says:

"Lord of the world, Father of all, through your Son you asked us to love our enemies, to do good to those who hate us and to pray for those who persecute us. Yet Christians have often denied the Gospel; yielding to a mentality of power, they have violated the rights of ethnic groups and peoples, and shown contempt for their cultures and religious traditions: be patient and merciful towards us, and grant us your forgiveness! We ask this through Christ our Lord. R. Amen. R. Kyrie, eleison; Kyrie, eleison; Kyrie, eleison."

http://www.sacredheart.edu/pages/12654_pope_john_paul_ii_asks_for_forgiveness_march_12_2000_.cfm

Unfortunately not all sheep of his flock seem to share this apology and shamelessly go on calling other cultures "primitive" with "demonic influence".

 

We've issued many such reconciliatory statements, but they fall on deaf ears. Let's see if Islam can issue some apologies for the crimes of their past that make the Catholic Church look like a bunch of Quakers.

 

Apparently one of the deafest ears this one fell on was yours.

tststs ... the brother's eye and the splinter.

 

I think it is safe to say that Europeans have acted like total barbarians throughout their history. The one thing in their defense is they are less barbaric than everyone else.

 

Eliminating slavery in every Catholic country, crushing the Islamic expansion, sending missions throughout the world building hospitals, schools, etc. These are just a few of the things the Catholic Church did during the so called "Dark Ages." Perhaps your problem is much like that many RC critics, you don't know enough about the history of the Catholic Church and therefore by default you go along with the most barbaric renderings.

Don't apologize for the Crusades. The world would suck if we didn't stop Islam.

 

Have you apologised for the Conquistadors or the slaughter of the Cathars?

Is NOT a good idea to claim Christians have less history of violence than Muslims.... It makes you look cheesy.

 

My previous response was more harsh than I intended, especially for a fellow Catholic. I apologize.

I just get frustrated at how the Alexander Hislop/Lorainne Boetner version of Catholic history is the most readily believed and has become the axiom. I've learned through long experience that nearly everything that is popularly believed about history is false. We fit history to our world view instead of letting the facts speak for themselves. That's human nature.

But I thought a little more about what you said and I'd like to address the underlying flaw that I missed earlier. The humanistic belief that mankind is evolving, getting better and better is so prevalent that it often goes unnoticed. Gene Roddenberry was fond of using Star Trek to advance the idea that mankind can, by its own devices, overcome greed and selfishness and produce an ideal society where money and capitalism are no longer existent.

Of course humanism is much older than Gene Roddenberry and can be found even in many ancient philosophers. It's tempting to believe that people are basically good and that with just a little effort, we can better ourselves. Even deeper, and driving this philosophy, is the notion that we don't need God, that we are God. Humanism goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden.

Now applying this to your position that Europeans acted like total barbarians, I would postulate strongly that nothing has changed and in fact we are even worse today. The popular belief is that we've evolved beyond our beastial nature and have learned our lessons from the middle ages. But the truth is that we learned to hide our demons very well. We don't send armies to massecre innocent people, we silently snuff them out in the sanitized stainless steel of abortion clinics. Even the most brutal nations never murdered 4000 of its citizens every single day. We call it choice and we pretend we are more civilized than those who came before us, but our bloodlust is far more eggregious. Middle aged Europeans killed because of religion, economic disparities, or over land. We kill for convenience, to have the lifestyle of our choice.

Humanism says we started out as brutes but we are becoming better. The truth is the exact opposite. We were created perfect, fell from grace, and have been deteriorating ever since succumbing to base instincts. More than ever, we are wretched and in need of a Savior. More than ever, the gospel gives us hope when we finally realize what a lie humanism is.

 

Gee, I'm not a fan of abortions myself. Usually the mere mention of the topic fills me with sadness, but that statement :

had me rolling on the floor with laughter!

 

Because they know deep down that they are only faking and that it was cheap wine and bread crust that they ate and the whole thing is absurd. That's why they don't go. That's why they leave and commit the same sins. It's easy because there is no flesh. No blood. Bread crust and cheap wine.

 

You know, people use the "G" word far too loosely. In order for something to be a Genocide, it has to at least be systematic and planned out. The Europeans brought with them diseases that wiped out much of the native population. Diseases, plagues tend to be much more efficient at eradicating a civilization than any standing army.

 

The Vikings discovered Newfoundland. That's about it.

Destroying knowledge for 1000 years is generally considered bad for any civilization. Where on earth do you get your history? You do realize the Church did not always have such power and influence over the monarchs of Europe don't you? It is BECAUSE of the Catholic Church that many of the classical works of antiquity where preserved.

How could knowledge of the new world be considered "forbidden knowledge?"

 

I agree with saintmichael. We judge people of the past harshly, while forgetting that our own nation commits murder 3000 times a day in abortion clinics. People in future centuries will condemn us and wonder how these atrocities occurred under our own noses.

 

Sorry, that was a typo. buring should read - Burning.

Burning at the stake was the Church perscribed punishment for "heritics"

 

Abortion in the early stages of pregnancy is not considered homicide/murder because most subject matter experts (biologists) do not consider "the zygote" a human or a "living human" such that it can be killed.

The best you can get to is "experts disagree"

There is no disagreement that a born human is a living human.

For this reason it is a bad comparison and certainly is a weak justification for torture and genocide.

 

I did not say knowledge of the new world was considered forbidden.

The main activity of the Church in the early, and later days, was to burn books.

They destroyed anything that they thought might conflict with their religious teachings which included much of science and philosophy.

Few things that conflicted with Church doctrine were preserved. Even the Bible was kept from people and was not to be translated into the language of the common people.

 

I would say killing 5 million in 3 years would constitute Genocide in most peoples books.

Systematic erradication of a population.

Your list of personal hero's may include mass murderers but I personally dislike folks that do such things.

 

Smallpox that the Europeans brought with them killed off the natives. No doubt their here also atrocities committed by the Spanish Conquistadors, but this would be minuscule when compared to the number of dead claimed by smallpox.

Interesting that you mentioned Las Casas. He was a priest that spoke out against the atrocities committed at the hands of the secular rulers in the new world.

I think you are confusing me with someone else. I never called Columbus a hero.

 

My apologies for attributing the "hero" post to you.

 

Any biologist will tell you that a human life begins at conception.

This is the exact opposite of the truth. The Church preserved books and founded universities. Many leading scientists and philosophers were Christian - Protestant or Catholic.

Here's sociologist Rodney Stark: Recent historical research has debunked the idea of a "Dark Ages" after the "fall" of Rome. In fact, this was an era of profound and rapid technological progress, by the end of which Europe had surpassed the rest of the world. Moreover, the so-called "Scientific Revolution" of the sixteenth century was a result of developments begun by religious scholars starting in the eleventh century. In my own academic research I have asked why these religious scholastics were interested in science at all. Why did science develop in Europe at this time? Why did it not develop anywhere else? I find answers to those questions in unique features of Christian theology.
Even in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the leading scientific figures were overwhelmingly devout Christians who believed it their duty to comprehend God's handiwork. My studies show that the "Enlightenment" was conceived initially as a propaganda ploy by militant atheists attempting to claim credit for the rise of science. The falsehood that science required the defeat of religion was proclaimed by self-appointed cheerleaders like Voltaire, Diderot, and Gibbon, who themselves played no part in the scientific enterprise......

Here's a quote from Pulitzer Prize winner Jared Diamond: Infectious diseases introduced with Europeans, like smallpox and measles, spread from one Indian tribe to another, far in advance of Europeans themselves, and killed an estimated 95% of the New World's Indian population.

If you continue to make these kind of hysterical accusations about an ethnic group you dislike (Christians) people are going to conclude you are a bigot.