Native Americans ..not Indians.
Both terms are fine unless someone personally asks you to stop.
As an Asian Indian, it confused me for a few seconds.
The Last Florida Indians Will Now Die: The Westward Plight of the Apalachee
31–40 of 76 posts
Re: The Last Florida Indians Will Now Die: The Westward Plight of the Apalachee
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 1) Please cite your statistical evidence. Mao, Stalin, Lenin, Pol Pot; all of them worse than everything even the Catholic church ever did.
Counterpoint 1: Christian Crusades. There were seven major ones and a bunch of minor ones. All of them resulted in untold amounts of death and misery, all in the name of religion. Counterpoint 2: On the side of Islam, there were an equal amount of major wars conducted in the name of religion, both against polytheists but also other monotheists. The Ottoman Empire by itself conquered large parts of three continents in…
Subjugating people is bad. Outright genocide of massive proportions is even worse. The common factor here is empires, not religion. The Roman Empire for instance brutally killed many people. The Byzantines killed eg nearly all the Samaritans. The Spanish conquistadors brutally killed and destroyed entire civilizations eg Cortez and the Aztecs (who by the way were an empire themselves). The British and French were slightly less destructive than the Spanish but wound up taking the entire North American continent from the natives, whom they either killed by the sword or disease. Same with the aboriginals in Australia and Maori in New Zealand.
True, religion can play a big part. The Ottomans massacred the Greeks and Armenians, together with some Kurdish help. The Crusaders massacred everyone including Christians and Jews.
With Mao, Lenin, Pol Pot etc. you had a Communist revolution that was basically a mind virus which didn't care about the human population nearly as much as its own propagation. Most people died from the collectivization of farms, however many others died from political repression.
So no, it's not just Islam or religions. It's ideologies and empires.
Look today at how ATHEIST China's government persecutes Falun Gong and carries out extrajudicial killins and torture. That's not in Stalin's time, that was a couple years ago. Are you saying atheist governments can't have a terrible human rights record?
Re: The Last Florida Indians Will Now Die: The Westward Plight of the Apalachee
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would say that nothing beats the genocide of the Americas for sheer scope, numbers, duration, and cultural loss. All of your examples ended in a decade or two, that lasted centuries.
My intent is not to diminish the genocide of the Americas but.... I don't think you realize how many people Stalin, Mao, Hitler have killed. We all know Hitler had to resort to incineration to get rid of the bodies. Stalin filled mines with the remains of Ukrainians and others. They couldn't dig holes big enough to bury the dead. I have no idea what Mao did with the 50-80 million bodies he had on his hands. Between j…
The Great Leap forward created a famine…
In remote villages bystanders were sometimes allowed to cut the flesh from the dead and take it back home. - See more at: https://www.historytoday.com/frank-dik%C3%B6tter/looking-bac...
Re: The Last Florida Indians Will Now Die: The Westward Plight of the Apalachee
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Nazi movement had Christian influence. Whether it influenced the movement in a malicious way is arguable but Nazism wasn't an entirely secular movement. Hitler used the term in Article 24 of the 1920 Nazi Party Platform, stating: "the Party represents the standpoint of Positive Christianity". - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_Christianity And to be intellectually honest, none of those you stated committed…
Listen up: I'm not here to pick on atheists. I do have many friends who are and I think I see many who behave more decently than many religious. It is only when someone mounts sweeping attacks on all or specific religions, based on things that, -while done in name of said religion-, are not described in the sacred texts of said religion, -then I do use the opportunity to gove a little history lesson. Because if I and…
Thats really what I got out this particular segment. Religion to the individual is more important than the political implications. Theres an argument to be made about what the human mind is more likely to latch on to and what is worth having faith in. But here we see that it is a stronger power than those who try to abuse its name. And that in itself is rather beautiful in my opinion
Re: The Last Florida Indians Will Now Die: The Westward Plight of the Apalachee
#35> Christianity even today is used to excuse persecution and oppress. I guess that is totally fair as long as we also keep in mind that most of the biggest crimes against humanity were committed by proclaimed atheists.
Absolutely. Abuse of a name that anyone can claim will often attract ambitious people with intentions that dont coincide with what was intended. Jesus is particularly interesting because he practiced love and forgiveness yet people still use his name to justify actions.
Atheism is perhaps the scariest form of this as it often intends to supplant hope with the desires of the state or a leader. When looking at christianity it fractured from Roman Catholic and took forms in what usually best fit fir their specific regions. But the message remained the same and a church likely can be considered a safe haven despite alternative interpretations. With atheism there is no code of ethics abd as a result there is no way to predict their behaviour except with they are likeky to be elitest and insistant.
Re: The Last Florida Indians Will Now Die: The Westward Plight of the Apalachee
#36Because it helps to some degree I guess. Also keep in mind that the lack of religion is statistically worse as shown by too many examples. :-/
Communism is a form of religion too, IMO. Many fascist leaders have been at the centre of personality cults. When people take on mindsets based on faith rather than evidence, and hold their truth based on feelings rather than facts, they can no longer be reached by reason: they can be capable of great acts and monstrous ones, from unity of purpose and lack of dissent. This is the biggest evil, or our greatest asset in times of great need. Depends on the purpose people are put to when united irrationally. Little to do with God, very much to do with leaders.
Re: The Last Florida Indians Will Now Die: The Westward Plight of the Apalachee
#37> Christianity even today is used to excuse persecution and oppress. I guess that is totally fair as long as we also keep in mind that most of the biggest crimes against humanity were committed by proclaimed atheists.
Who are you talking about?
Re: The Last Florida Indians Will Now Die: The Westward Plight of the Apalachee
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Nazi movement had Christian influence. Whether it influenced the movement in a malicious way is arguable but Nazism wasn't an entirely secular movement. Hitler used the term in Article 24 of the 1920 Nazi Party Platform, stating: "the Party represents the standpoint of Positive Christianity". - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_Christianity And to be intellectually honest, none of those you stated committed…
Listen up: I'm not here to pick on atheists. I do have many friends who are and I think I see many who behave more decently than many religious. It is only when someone mounts sweeping attacks on all or specific religions, based on things that, -while done in name of said religion-, are not described in the sacred texts of said religion, -then I do use the opportunity to gove a little history lesson. Because if I and…
As an atheist, why should I feel bad because someone else also lacked a belief in any particular religion? There's no atheist text to follow, no atheist moral guidelines. It's just an absence of belief in religion - there's no shared base there.
Similarly, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot weren't working off some sort of atheist guidebook; atheism was incidental to their 'religion', which was communism. They didn't spread atheism for atheism's sake, they oppressed religious powers because they were competitors for power.
And as the OP said, Christianity today is still used to persecute and oppress. Catholicism still covers up paedophile priests. There are states in the US where an atheist is barred from holding office. Fake 'faith healers' continuously bilk people out of their money. Some flavours of the faith don't allow women to be priests.
Yes, there are abusive atheists in modern western democracies, but those atheists are not saying things like "women can't hold positions of power" or "ain't no paedophiles here" or similar to protect their atheism.
You're tired of feeling bad because of the dark corners of your religion? I'm tired of the canard of Stalin/Mao/Pot.
Re: The Last Florida Indians Will Now Die: The Westward Plight of the Apalachee
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 1) Please cite your statistical evidence. Mao, Stalin, Lenin, Pol Pot; all of them worse than everything even the Catholic church ever did.
At least the four of them didn't invade a land and massacre locals.
I think its fairly interesting that historically the Catholic Church was intertwined with the political system of various European countries.
Yet someone when this comes up, those countries are absolved of all guilt despite the fact it was their armies that were doing the deed, and their citizens who would largely receive the benefits.
Is this because the countries have changed their names? Or perhaps because the system of government has changed from monarchy to something else, thus people think having a new dynasty or new governmental type has broken ties with the old regime?
Re: The Last Florida Indians Will Now Die: The Westward Plight of the Apalachee
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
Counterpoint 1: Christian Crusades. There were seven major ones and a bunch of minor ones. All of them resulted in untold amounts of death and misery, all in the name of religion. Counterpoint 2: On the side of Islam, there were an equal amount of major wars conducted in the name of religion, both against polytheists but also other monotheists. The Ottoman Empire by itself conquered large parts of three continents in…
Subjugating people is bad. Outright genocide of massive proportions is even worse. The common factor here is empires, not religion. The Roman Empire for instance brutally killed many people. The Byzantines killed eg nearly all the Samaritans. The Spanish conquistadors brutally killed and destroyed entire civilizations eg Cortez and the Aztecs (who by the way were an empire themselves). The British and French were sli…
The Maori in New Zealand fought the English to a standstill, and forced them into a treaty which still stands today.