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Oppression of progress

outhouse

Atheistically
Giordano Bruno - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Giordano Bruno (1548 – February 17, 1600), born Filippo Bruno, was an Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, mathematician and astronomer, who is best known as a proponent of the infinity of the universe. His cosmological theories went beyond the Copernican model in identifying the Sun as just one of an infinite number of independently moving heavenly bodies: he is the first European man to have conceptualized the universe as a continuum where the stars we see at night are identical in nature to the Sun. He was burned at the stake by civil authorities in 1600 after the Roman Inquisition found him guilty of heresy and turned him over to the state, which at that time considered heresy illegal. After his death he gained considerable fame; in the 19th and early 20th centuries, commentators focusing on his astronomical beliefs regarded him as a martyr for free thought and modern scientific ideas.
Recent assessments suggest that Bruno's ideas about the universe played a smaller role in his trial than his pantheist beliefs, which differed from the interpretations and scope of God held by the Catholic Church.[1][2] In addition to his cosmological writings, Bruno also wrote extensive works on the art of memory, a loosely organized group of mnemonic techniques and principles. More recent assessments, beginning with the pioneering work of Frances Yates, suggest that Bruno was deeply influenced by the astronomical facts of the universe inherited from Arab astrology, Neoplatonism and Renaissance Hermeticism.[3] Other recent studies of Bruno have focused on his qualitative approach to mathematics and his application of the spatial paradigms of geometry
 

outhouse

Atheistically
bound to be someone educated in this list

How many people have been killed by Christians since Biblical times?- ExChristian.Net - Articles




Listed are only events that solely occurred on command or participation of church authorities or were committed in the name of Christianity. (List incomplete)
[SIZE=+1]Ancient Pagans[/SIZE]





un.jpg

  • As soon as Christianity became legal in the Roman Empire by imperial edict (315), more and more pagan temples were destroyed by Christian mob. Pagan priests were killed.
  • Between 315 and 6th century thousands of pagan believers were slain.
  • Examples of destroyed Temples: the Sanctuary of Aesculap in Aegaea, the Temple of Aphrodite in Golgatha, Aphaka in Lebanon, the Heliopolis.
  • Christian priests such as Mark of Arethusa or Cyrill of Heliopolis were famous as "temple destroyer." [DA468]
  • Pagan services became punishable by death in 356. [DA468]
  • Christian Emperor Theodosius (408-450) even had children executed, because they had been playing with remains of pagan statues. [DA469]
    According to Christian chroniclers he "followed meticulously all Christian teachings..."
  • In 6th century pagans were declared void of all rights.
  • In the early fourth century the philosopher Sopatros was executed on demand of Christian authorities. [DA466]
  • The world famous female philosopher Hypatia of Alexandria was torn to pieces with glass fragments by a hysterical Christian mob led by a Christian minister named Peter, in a church, in 415.
    [DO19-25]

[SIZE=+1]Mission[/SIZE]






  • Emperor Karl (Charlemagne) in 782 had 4500 Saxons, unwilling to convert to Christianity, beheaded. [DO30]
  • Peasants of Steding (Germany) unwilling to pay suffocating church taxes: between 5,000 and 11,000 men, women and children slain 5/27/1234 near Altenesch/Germany. [WW223]
  • 15th century Poland: 1019 churches and 17987 villages plundered by Knights of the Order. Number of victims unknown. [DO30]
  • 16th and 17th century Ireland. English troops "pacified and civilized" Ireland, where only Gaelic "wild Irish", "unreasonable beasts lived without any knowledge of God or good manners, in common of their goods, cattle, women, children and every other thing." One of the more successful soldiers, a certain Humphrey Gilbert, half-brother of Sir Walter Raleigh, ordered that "the heddes of all those (of what sort soever thei were) which were killed in the daie, should be cutte off from their bodies... and should bee laied on the ground by eche side of the waie", which effort to civilize the Irish indeed caused "greate terrour to the people when thei sawe the heddes of their dedde fathers, brothers, children, kinsfolke, and freinds on the grounde".
    Tens of thousands of Gaelic Irish fell victim to the carnage. [SH99, 225]

[SIZE=+1]Crusades (1095-1291)[/SIZE]






  • First Crusade: 1095 on command of pope Urban II. [WW11-41]
  • Semlin/Hungary 6/24/96 thousands slain. Wieselburg/Hungary 6/12/96 thousands. [WW23]
  • 9/9/96-9/26/96 Nikaia, Xerigordon (then Turkish), thousands respectively. [WW25-27]
  • Until January 1098 a total of 40 capital cities and 200 castles conquered (number of slain unknown) [WW30]
  • After 6/3/98 Antiochia (then Turkish) conquered, between 10,000 and 60,000 slain. 6/28/98 100,000 Turks (incl. women and children) killed.
    [WW32-35]
    Here the Christians "did no other harm to the women found in [the enemy's] tents - save that they ran their lances through their bellies," according to Christian chronicler Fulcher of Chartres. [EC60]
  • Marra (Maraat an-numan) 12/11/98 thousands killed. Because of the subsequent famine "the already stinking corpses of the enemies were eaten by the Christians" said chronicler Albert Aquensis. [WW36]
  • jesusinator.jpg
    Jerusalem conquered 7/15/1099 more than 60,000 victims (Jewish, Muslim, men, women, children). [WW37-40]
    In the words of one witness: "there [in front of Solomon's temple] was such a carnage that our people were wading ankle-deep in the blood of our foes", and after that "happily and crying for joy our people marched to our Saviour's tomb, to honour it and to pay off our debt of gratitude."
  • The Archbishop of Tyre, eye-witness, wrote: "It was impossible to look upon the vast numbers of the slain without horror; everywhere lay fragments of human bodies, and the very ground was covered with the blood of the slain. It was not alone the spectacle of headless bodies and mutilated limbs strewn in all directions that roused the horror of all who looked upon them. Still more dreadful was it to gaze upon the victors themselves, dripping with blood from head to foot, an ominous sight which brought terror to all who met them. It is reported that within the Temple enclosure alone about ten thousand infidels perished." [TG79]
  • Christian chronicler Eckehard of Aura noted that "even the following summer in all of Palestine the air was polluted by the stench of decomposition". [WW41]
  • Battle of Askalon, 8/12/1099. Thousands of heathens slaughtered "in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ". [WW45]
  • Fourth crusade: 4/12/1204 Constantinople sacked, number of victims unknown, numerous thousands, many of them Christian. [WW141-148]
  • Crusades (1095-1291)
    • Estimated totals:
      • Wertham: 1,000,000
      • Charles Mackay, Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the
        Madness of Crowds
        (1841): 2,000,000 Europeans killed. [[SIZE=-1]http://www.bootlegbooks.com/NonFiction/Mackay/PopDelusions/chap09.html[/SIZE]]
      • Aletheia, The Rationalist's Manual: 5,000,000
    • Individual Events:
      • Davies: Crusaders killed up to 8,000 Jews in Rhineland
      • Paul Johnson A History of the Jews (1987): 1,000 Jewish women in
        Rhineland comm. suicide to avoid the mob, 1096.
      • Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, v.5, 6
        • 1st Crusade: 300,000 Eur. k at Battle of Nice [Nicea].
        • Crusaders vs. Solimon of Roum: 4,000 Christians, 3,000 Moslems
        • 1098, Fall of Antioch: 100,000 Moslems massacred.
        • 50,000 Pilgrims died of disease.
        • 1099, Fall of Jerusalem: 70,000 Moslems massacred.
        • Siege of Tiberias: 30,000 Christians k.
        • Siege of Tyre: 1,000 Turks
        • Richard the Lionhearted executes 3,000 Moslem POWs.
        • 1291: 100,000 Christians k after fall of Acre.
        • Fall of Christian Antioch: 17,000 massacred.
        • [TOTAL: 677,000 listed in these episodes here.]
      • Catholic Encyclopedia (1910) [[SIZE=-2]http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/[/SIZE]]
        • Jaffa: 20,000 Christians massacred, 1197
      • Sorokin estimates that French, English & Imperial German Crusaders lost
        a total of 3,600 in battle.
        • 1st C (1096-99): 400
        • 2nd C (1147-49): 750
        • 3rd C (1189-91): 930
        • 4th C (1202-04): 120
        • 5th C (1228-29): 600
        • 7th C (1248-54): 700
      • James Trager, The People's Chronology (1992)
        • 1099: Crusaders slaughter 40,000 inhabs of Jerusalem. Dis/starv reduced
          Crusaders from 300,000 to 60,000.
        • 1147: 2nd Crusades begins with 500,000. "Most" lost to
          starv./disease/battle.
        • 1190: 500 Jews massacred in York.
        • 1192: 3rd Crusade reduced from 100,000 to 5,000 through famine, plagues and
          desertions in campaign vs Antioch.
        • 1212: Children's Crusade loses some 50,000.
        • [TOTAL: Just in these incidents, it appears the Europeans lost around
          650,000.]
    • TOTAL: When I take all the individual death tolls listed here, weed out
      the duplicates, fill in the blanks, apply Occam ("Pluralitas non est
      ponenda sine necessitate"
      ), etc. I get a very rough total of 1½ M
      deaths in the Crusades.
 

outhouse

Atheistically
[SIZE=+1]Heretics and Atheists[/SIZE]






  • Already in 385 C.E. the first Christians, the Spanish Priscillianus and six followers, were beheaded for heresy in Trier/Germany [DO26]
  • Manichaean heresy: a crypto-Christian sect decent enough to practice birth control (and thus not as irresponsible as faithful Catholics) was exterminated in huge campaigns all over the Roman empire between 372 C.E. and 444 C.E. Numerous thousands of victims. [NC]
  • Albigensians: the first Crusade intended to slay other Christians. [DO29]
    The Albigensians (Cathars) viewed themselves as good Christians, but would not accept Roman Catholic rule, and taxes, and prohibition of birth control. [NC]
    Begin of violence: on command of pope Innocent III (the greatest single mass murderer prior to the Nazi era) in 1209. Beziérs (today France) 7/22/1209 destroyed, all the inhabitants were slaughtered. Number of victims (including Catholics refusing to turn over their heretic
    neighbors and friends) estimated between 20,000-70,000. [WW179-181]
  • Carcassonne 8/15/1209, thousands slain. Other cities followed. [WW181]
  • Subsequent 20 years of war until nearly all Cathars (probably half the population of the Languedoc, today southern France) were exterminated. [WW183]
  • After the war ended (1229) the Inquisition was founded 1232 to search and destroy surviving/hiding heretics. Last Cathars burned at the stake 1324.
    [WW183]
  • Estimated one million victims (Cathar heresy alone), [WW183]
  • Other heresies: Waldensians, Paulikians, Runcarians, Josephites, and many others. Most of these sects exterminated, (I believe some Waldensians live today, yet they had to endure 600 years of persecution) I estimate at least hundred thousand victims (including the Spanish inquisition but excluding victims in the New World).
  • Spanish Inquisitor Torquemada, a former Dominican friar, allegedly was responsible for 10,220 burnings. [DO28]
  • John Huss, a critic of papal infallibility and indulgences, was burned at the stake in 1415. [LI475-522]
  • Michael Sattler, leader of a baptist community, was burned at the stake in Rottenburg, Germany, May 20, 1527. Several days later his wife and other follwers were also executed. [KM]
  • University professor B.Hubmaier burned at the stake 1538 in Vienna. [DO59]
  • Giordano Bruno, Dominican monk, after having been incarcerated for seven years, was burned at the stake for heresy on the Campo dei Fiori (Rome) on 2/17/1600.
  • Thomas Aikenhead, a twenty-year-old scottish student of Edinburgh University, was hanged for atheism and blasphemy.

[SIZE=+1]Witches[/SIZE]






  • From the beginning of Christianity to 1484 probably more than several thousand.
  • In the era of witch hunting (1484-1750) according to modern scholars several hundred thousand (about 80% female) burned at the stake or hanged.
    [WV]
  • Incomplete list of documented cases:
    The Burning of Witches - A Chronicle of the Burning Times

[SIZE=+1]Religious Wars[/SIZE]






  • 15th century: Crusades against Hussites, thousands slain. [DO30]
  • 1538 pope Paul III declared Crusade against apostate England and all English as slaves of Church (fortunately had not power to go into action). [DO31]
  • 1568 Spanish Inquisition Tribunal ordered extermination of 3 million rebels in (then Spanish) Netherlands. [DO31]
    Between 5000 and 6000 Protestants were drowned by Spanish Catholic Troops, "a disaster the burghers of Emden first realized when several thousand broad-brimmed Dutch hats floated by." [SH216]
  • 1572 In France about 20,000 Huguenots were killed on command of pope Pius V. Until 17th century 200,000 flee. [DO31]
  • 17th century: Catholics slay Gaspard de Coligny, a Protestant leader. After murdering him, the Catholic mob mutilated his body, "cutting off his head, his hands, and his genitals... and then dumped him into the river [...but] then, deciding that it was not worthy of being food for the fish, they hauled it out again [... and] dragged what was left ... to the gallows of Montfaulcon, 'to be meat and carrion for maggots and crows'." [SH191]
  • 17th century: Catholics sack the city of Magdeburg/Germany: roughly 30,000 Protestants were slain. "In a single church fifty women were found beheaded," reported poet Friedrich Schiller, "and infants still sucking the breasts of their lifeless mothers." [SH191]
  • 17th century 30 years' war (Catholic vs. Protestant): at least 40% of population decimated, mostly in Germany. [DO31-32]

[SIZE=+1]Jews[/SIZE]






  • Already in the 4th and 5th centuries synagogues were burned by Christians.Number of Jews slain unknown.
  • In the middle of the fourth century the first synagogue was destroyed on command of bishop Innocentius of Dertona in Northern Italy. The first synagogue known to have been burned down was near the river Euphrat, on command of the bishop of Kallinikon in the year 388. [DA450]
  • 694 17. Council of Toledo: Jews were enslaved, their property confiscated, and their children forcibly baptized. [DA454]
  • 1010 The Bishop of Limoges (France) had the cities' Jews, who would not convert to Christianity, expelled or killed. [DA453]
  • 1096 First Crusade: Thousands of Jews slaughtered, maybe 12.000 total. Places: Worms 5/18/1096, Mainz 5/27/1096 (1100 persons), Cologne, Neuss, Altenahr, Wevelinghoven, Xanten, Moers, Dortmund, Kerpen, Trier, Metz, Regensburg, Prag and others (All locations Germany except Metz/France, Prag/Czech) [EJ]
  • 1147 Second Crusade: Several hundred Jews were slain in Ham, Sully, Carentan, and Rameru (all locations in France). [WW57]
  • 1189/90 Third Crusade: English Jewish communities sacked. [DO40]
  • 1235, Fulda/Germany: 34 Jewish men and women slain. [DO41]
  • 1257, 1267: Jewish communities of London, Canterbury, Northampton, Lincoln, Cambridge, and others exterminated. [DO41]
  • 1290 Bohemia (Poland) allegedly 10,000 Jews killed. [DO41]
  • 1337 Starting in Deggendorf/Germany a Jew-killing craze reaches 51 towns in Bavaria, Austria, Poland. [DO41]
  • 1348 All Jews of Basel/Switzerland and Strasbourg/France (two thousand) burned. [DO41]
  • 1349 In more than 350 towns in Germany all Jews murdered, mostly burned alive (in this one year more Jews were killed than Christians in 200 years of ancient Roman persecution of Christians). [DO42]
  • 1389 In Prag 3,000 Jews were slaughtered. [DO42]
  • 1391 Seville's Jews killed (Archbishop Martinez leading). 4,000 were slain, 25,000 sold as slaves. [DA454] Their identification was made easy by the brightly colored "badges of shame" that all Jews above the age of ten had been forced to wear.
  • 1492 In the year Columbus set sail to conquer a New World, more than 150,000 Jews were expelled from Spain, many died on their way: 6/30/1492.
    [MM470-476]
  • 1648 Chmielnitzki massacres: In Poland about 200,000 Jews were slain.
    [DO43]



(I feel sick ...) this goes on and on, century after century, right into the kilns of Auschwitz.​
 

outhouse

Atheistically
[SIZE=+1]Native Peoples[/SIZE]






  • Beginning with Columbus (a former slave trader and would-be Holy Crusader) the conquest of the New World began, as usual understood as a means to propagate Christianity.
  • Within hours of landfall on the first inhabited island he encountered in the Caribbean, Columbus seized and carried off six native people who, he said, "ought to be good servants ... [and] would easily be made Christians, because it seemed to me that they belonged to no religion." [SH200]
    While Columbus described the Indians as "idolators" and "slaves, as many as [the Crown] shall order," his pal Michele de Cuneo, Italian nobleman, referred to the natives as "beasts" because "they eat when they are hungry," and made love "openly whenever they feel like it." [SH204-205]
  • On every island he set foot on, Columbus planted a cross, "making the declarations that are required" - the requerimiento - to claim the ownership for his Catholic patrons in Spain. And "nobody objected." If the Indians refused or delayed their acceptance (or understanding), the requerimiento continued:
    "I certify to you that, with the help of God, we shall powerfully enter in your country and shall make war against you ... and shall subject you to the yoke and obedience of the Church ... and shall do you all mischief that we can, as to vassals who do not obey and refuse to receive their lord and resist and contradict him." [SH66]​
  • Likewise in the words of John Winthrop, first governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony: "justifieinge the undertakeres of the intended Plantation in New England ... to carry the Gospell into those parts of the world, ... and to raise a Bulworke against the kingdome of the Ante-Christ." [SH235]
  • In average two thirds of the native population were killed by colonist-imported smallpox before violence began. This was a great sign of "the marvelous goodness and providence of God" to the Christians of course, e.g. the Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony wrote in 1634, as "for the natives, they are near all dead of the smallpox, so as the Lord hath cleared our title to what we possess." [SH109,238]
  • On Hispaniola alone, on Columbus visits, the native population (Arawak), a rather harmless and happy people living on an island of abundant natural resources, a literal paradise, soon mourned 50,000 dead. [SH204]
  • The surviving Indians fell victim to rape, murder, enslavement and Spanish raids.
  • As one of the culprits wrote: "So many Indians died that they could not be counted, all through the land the Indians lay dead everywhere. The stench was very great and pestiferous." [SH69]
  • The Indian chief Hatuey fled with his people but was captured and burned alive. As "they were tying him to the stake a Franciscan friar urged him to take Jesus to his heart so that his soul might go to heaven, rather than descend into hell. Hatuey replied that if heaven was where the Christians went, he would rather go to hell." [SH70]
  • b3ta-jesuswing.jpg
    What happened to his people was described by an eyewitness:
    "The Spaniards found pleasure in inventing all kinds of odd cruelties ... They built a long gibbet, long enough for the toes to touch the ground to prevent strangling, and hanged thirteen [natives] at a time in honor of Christ Our Saviour and the twelve Apostles... then, straw was wrapped around their torn bodies and they were burned alive." [SH72]
    Or, on another occasion:
    "The Spaniards cut off the arm of one, the leg or hip of another, and from some their heads at one stroke, like butchers cutting up beef and mutton for market. Six hundred, including the cacique, were thus slain like brute beasts...Vasco [de Balboa] ordered forty of them to be torn to pieces by dogs." [SH83]
  • The "island's population of about eight million people at the time of Columbus's arrival in 1492 already had declined by a third to a half before the year 1496 was out." Eventually all the island's natives were exterminated, so the Spaniards were "forced" to import slaves from other caribbean islands, who soon suffered the same fate. Thus "the Caribbean's millions of native people [were] thereby effectively liquidated in barely a quarter of a century". [SH72-73] "In less than the normal lifetime of a single human being, an entire culture of millions of people, thousands of years resident in their homeland, had been exterminated." [SH75]
  • "And then the Spanish turned their attention to the mainland of Mexico and Central America. The slaughter had barely begun. The exquisite city of Tenochtitlán [Mexico city] was next." [SH75]
  • Cortez, Pizarro, De Soto and hundreds of other Spanish conquistadors likewise sacked southern and mesoamerican civilizations in the name of Christ (De Soto also sacked Florida).
  • "When the 16th century ended, some 200,000 Spaniards had moved to the Americas. By that time probably more than 60,000,000 natives were dead."
    [SH95]


Of course no different were the founders of what today is the US of America.
  • Although none of the settlers would have survived winter without native help, they soon set out to expel and exterminate the Indians. Warfare among (north American) Indians was rather harmless, in comparison to European standards, and was meant to avenge insults rather than conquer land. In the words of some of the pilgrim fathers: "Their Warres are farre less bloudy...", so that there usually was "no great slawter of nether side". Indeed, "they might fight seven yeares and not kill seven men." What is more, the Indians usually spared women and children. [SH111]
  • In the spring of 1612 some English colonists found life among the (generally friendly and generous) natives attractive enough to leave Jamestown - "being idell ... did runne away unto the Indyans," - to live among them (that probably solved a sex problem).
    "Governor Thomas Dale had them hunted down and executed: 'Some he apointed (sic) to be hanged Some burned Some to be broken upon wheles, others to be staked and some shott to deathe'." [SH105] Of course these elegant measures were restricted for fellow Englishmen: "This was the treatment for those who wished to act like Indians. For those who had no
    choice in the matter, because they were the native people of Virginia" methods were different: "when an Indian was accused by an Englishman of stealing a cup and failing to return it, the English response was to attack the natives in force, burning the entire community" down. [SH105]
  • On the territory that is now Massachusetts the founding fathers of the colonies were committing genocide, in what has become known as the "Peqout War." The killers were New England Puritan Christians, refugees from persecution in their own home country England.
  • When however, a dead colonist was found, apparently killed by Narragansett Indians, the Puritan colonists wanted revenge. Despite the Indian chief's pledge they attacked.
    Somehow they seem to have lost the idea of what they were after, because when they were greeted by Pequot Indians (long-time foes of the Narragansetts) the troops nevertheless made war on the Pequots and burned their villages.
    The puritan commander-in-charge John Mason after one massacre wrote: "And indeed such a dreadful Terror did the Almighty let fall upon their Spirits, that they would fly from us and run into the very Flames, where many of them perished ... God was above them, who laughed his Enemies and the Enemies of his People to Scorn, making them as a fiery Oven ... Thus did the Lord judge among the Heathen, filling the Place with dead Bodies": men, women, children. [SH113-114]
  • So "the Lord was pleased to smite our Enemies in the hinder Parts, and to give us their land for an inheritance". [SH111].
  • Because of his readers' assumed knowledge of Deuteronomy, there was no need for Mason to quote the words that immediately follow:
    "Thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth. But thou shalt utterly destroy them..." (Deut 20)
  • Mason's comrade Underhill recalled how "great and doleful was the bloody sight to the view of the young soldiers" yet reassured his readers that "sometimes the Scripture declareth women and children must perish with their parents". [SH114]
  • Other Indians were killed in successful plots of poisoning. The colonists even had dogs especially trained to kill Indians and to devour children from their mothers breasts, in the colonists' own words: "blood Hounds to draw after them, and Mastives to seaze them." (This was inspired by Spanish methods of the time)
    In this way they continued until the extermination of the Pequots was near. [SH107-119]
  • The surviving handful of Indians "were parceled out to live in servitude. John Endicott and his pastor wrote to the governor asking for 'a share' of the captives, specifically 'a young woman or girle and a boy if you thinke good'." [SH115]
  • Other tribes were to follow the same path.
  • Comment the Christian exterminators: "God's Will, which will at last give us cause to say: How Great is His Goodness! and How Great is his Beauty!"
    "Thus doth the Lord Jesus make them to bow before him, and to lick the Dust!" [TA]
  • Like today, lying was morally acceptable to Christians then. "Peace treaties were signed with every intention to violate them: when the Indians 'grow secure uppon (sic) the treatie', advised the Council of State in Virginia, 'we shall have the better Advantage both to surprise them, & cutt downe theire Corne'." [SH106]
  • In 1624 sixty heavily armed Englishmen cut down 800 defenseless Indian men, women and children. [SH107]
  • In a single massacre in "King Philip's War" of 1675 and 1676 some "600 Indians were destroyed. A delighted Cotton Mather, revered pastor of the Second Church in Boston, later referred to the slaughter as a 'barbeque'." [SH115]
 

outhouse

Atheistically
To summarize: Before the arrival of the English, the western Abenaki people in New Hampshire and Vermont had numbered 12,000. Less than half a century later about 250 remained alive - a destruction rate of 98%. The Pocumtuck people had numbered more than 18,000, fifty years later they were down to 920 - 95% destroyed. The Quiripi-Unquachog people had numbered about
30,000, fifty years later they were down to 1500 - 95% destroyed. The Massachusetts people had numbered at least 44,000, fifty years later barely 6000 were alive - 81% destroyed. [SH118] These are only a few examples of the multitude of tribes living before Christian colonists set their foot on the New World. All this was before the smallpox epidemics of 1677 and 1678 had occurred. And the carnage was not over then.
All the above was only the beginning of the European colonization, it was before the frontier age actually had begun.
A total of maybe more than 150 million Indians (of both Americas) were destroyed in the period of 1500 to 1900, as an average two thirds by smallpox and other epidemics, that leaves some 50 million killed directly by violence, bad treatment and slavery.
In many countries, such as Brazil, and Guatemala, this continues even today.
 

Riverwolf

Amateur Rambler / Proud Ergi
Premium Member
Okay... so now we're making Christianity look like the only organization in the world to have imperialistic tendencies and motives?

What about Alexander?

What about Genghis Khan?

The evil of an organization or country shouldn't be judged by the body count. Others would likely have been far worse had they been more successful. Can you imagine what would have happened if Vlad the Impaler went global? *shudder*

Besides, I actually have a theory that post-Rome Europe actually inherited the imperialistic tendencies of Rome itself, which was imperialistic even before Christianity.

Not to mention, it's a poor use of the play on emotions fallacy, as well as the "correlation does not equal causation" fallacy.
 

Riverwolf

Amateur Rambler / Proud Ergi
Premium Member
Besides, outhouse, your own source seems to indicate that Bruno wasn't, in fact, burned for his views of the universe:

Recent assessments suggest that Bruno's ideas about the universe played a smaller role in his trial than his pantheist beliefs, which differed from the interpretations and scope of God held by the Catholic Church.[1][2]

Now, that would certainly cause anyone to be burned at the stake at those times.

Not to mention, that's still 1600, way after your cutoff date of 1500.

And I will expect some further, more credible examples of people who were executed primarily for scientific discoveries that differed from the established doctrine, and do try to keep it within the confines of the Dark Ages, which actually ended way before Bruno was born.
 

outhouse

Atheistically
Besides, outhouse, your own source seems to indicate that Bruno wasn't, in fact, burned for his views of the universe:

Recent assessments suggest that Bruno's ideas about the universe played a smaller role in his trial than his pantheist beliefs, which differed from the interpretations and scope of God held by the Catholic Church.[1][2]

Now, that would certainly cause anyone to be burned at the stake at those times.

Not to mention, that's still 1600, way after your cutoff date of 1500.

And I will expect some further, more credible examples of people who were executed primarily for scientific discoveries that differed from the established doctrine, and do try to keep it within the confines of the Dark Ages, which actually ended way before Bruno was born.

christians burned a brilliant man alive. you want to argue over why? I knew that when I posted. It doesnt change the facts he was tortured for his brilliant belief's
 

outhouse

Atheistically
Okay... so now we're making Christianity look like the only organization in the world to have imperialistic tendencies and motives?

What about Alexander?

What about Genghis Khan?

The evil of an organization or country shouldn't be judged by the body count. Others would likely have been far worse had they been more successful. Can you imagine what would have happened if Vlad the Impaler went global? *shudder*

Besides, I actually have a theory that post-Rome Europe actually inherited the imperialistic tendencies of Rome itself, which was imperialistic even before Christianity.

Not to mention, it's a poor use of the play on emotions fallacy, as well as the "correlation does not equal causation" fallacy.

I know where your coming from but christians still oprress progress

look how long it took to get creation out of schools and heck the bible belt teachers are not even trying to teach evolution in man schools despite the law. they mock the law.

look at the ignorance and lack of education in this forum, it should make you sick what religion is guilty of.
 

ellenjanuary

Well-Known Member
Its funny, you see, some one once asked me if I could give an example in history of something good that has happoned, that could not have happoned without religion. and that person claimed to have asked that question to many people for many years without once getting a descent answer.

and I gave that question serious thought. and over time, i came up with just one ( but atleast one) case whare this is true.

the funny thing is that if im not mistaken, you are giving that one example where religion actually did something good right here.

and I am verry interested, can you give another example, of a positive event in history that absolutly could not have happoned without religion. and I ask this question simply out of interest with no strings atatched.

and still, In the long term, i think that the price we payed was to much.
Printing press comes to mind. Speaking of colossal miscalculations, it is as if Christianity came with built-in obsolescence. In the western world, we tend to take literacy for granted; but having knowledge codified as written word was to have the power of kings. The desire to spread the word of god led first, it is true, to spread of god. But when word began to spread, we became far more godlike.

Bread and circuses was the Imperial Roman decree for all the need of the common man. Would a Roman emperor give a commoner the fasces? Would a duke give a commoner his signet ring? Would the president give me the arming codes? No. The printed word is too much like giving away the keys of the kingdom. It doesn't happen in science (where there's collaboration to be sure, but there is also plenty of elitism), it doesn't happen in commerce (which holds to the axiom of the trade secret), it doesn't happen in law (where we the people still need a lawyer); it is quite possible - in an if/then sort of way - that without religion, there would never have been the communality of consensus that gives rise to such concepts as freedom and secular humanism.

Almost seems... godlike, don't it? ;)
 
Not quite what I'm getting at.

What I'm trying to say is that just because one part of the world is scientifically and technologically behind, that doesn't automatically mean it's a scientifically and technologically bankrupt time for all of humanity; that would only be the case if it were world wide. During the European Dark Ages, this was not the case.

if the most advanced civilisation fails, than that is in the long run a loss for all humanity. and western europe should have been able to recover relativly quickly from that but instead they went into a 1000 year period of ignorance because of christianity.

Sorry. The second.

ok, but what would you except as a good example?
trade and transportation network?
architecture?
urbanisation (more urbanisation is the result of more efficiant agriculture)?
life expectancy?
tools (like the scutum,a the basic shape still used for the shields of modern police squads)?
living standerds?

Excuse me?

lets just say that I dont want to compare technology with economy in this way.



can you specify that question?



you know, I actually dont care this much about that graph to discuss it into sutch debts. and I really have no interest in discussing the similarity with current economy because I think that that would turn into an entire new discussion. the onley reason that Im still engaging in this conversation is because (i still don't agree with you) and I think that this is one of the more intelectually honest discussions that ive had on this forum and I apreceate that. (I hope that "intelectually honest" is not a bad choice of words :pirate:).
 

Riverwolf

Amateur Rambler / Proud Ergi
Premium Member
christians burned a brilliant man alive. you want to argue over why?

Your argument that they burned scientific intellectuals alive would be moot if you used an example of a witch burning. So, yeah, in this case, why is important.

I knew that when I posted. It doesnt change the facts he was tortured for his brilliant belief's
No, but for pantheism. According to that article, his beliefs about the universe itself were mostly inconsequential.

After all, they didn't burn Galileo, and he lived not too long after.
 
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Riverwolf

Amateur Rambler / Proud Ergi
Premium Member
I know where your coming from but christians still oprress progress

Okay, now the sweeping generalization logical fallacy...

look how long it took to get creation out of schools and heck the bible belt teachers are not even trying to teach evolution in man schools despite the law. they mock the law.

look at the ignorance and lack of education in this forum, it should make you sick what religion is guilty of.

Nope, because I do not blame religion. Saying religion is the inherent cause of it is like saying violent video games cause people to kill other people, or that D&D leads people to perform human sacrifice.

After all, if what you say were true, then we'd still be living in villages because it would be impossible to have a religion and a good education at the same time. It isn't. Our education system sucks, yes, but not because of religion. It's because of the fact that child psychology isn't really known about in America, and therefore teachers are not properly equipped to deal with children and adolescents.
 

Riverwolf

Amateur Rambler / Proud Ergi
Premium Member
if the most advanced civilisation fails, than that is in the long run a loss for all humanity. and western europe should have been able to recover relativly quickly from that but instead they went into a 1000 year period of ignorance because of christianity.

And there's no possibility that Christianity simply was at the wrong place at the wrong time?

Correlation does not equal causation.

ok, but what would you except as a good example?
trade and transportation network?
architecture?
urbanisation (more urbanisation is the result of more efficiant agriculture)?
life expectancy?
tools (like the scutum,a the basic shape still used for the shields of modern police squads)?
living standerds?

I asked for examples of loss of knowledge.

lets just say that I dont want to compare technology with economy in this way.

Why not?

can you specify that question?

...you know what? I forget. lol

you know, I actually dont care this much about that graph to discuss it into sutch debts. and I really have no interest in discussing the similarity with current economy because I think that that would turn into an entire new discussion. the onley reason that Im still engaging in this conversation is because (i still don't agree with you) and I think that this is one of the more intelectually honest discussions that ive had on this forum and I apreceate that. (I hope that "intelectually honest" is not a bad choice of words :pirate:).

It's fine. ^_^ I'm just glad you're not getting extremely emotional about the subject.
 

outhouse

Atheistically
because I do not blame religion.

well creation belief is religion

No, but for pantheism.

that is a thought and not solid also it is partial blame i believe. Imagine that that a brilliant educated man didnt believe in the bibles fiction or the man made jewish god ,,,in my opinion

it would be impossible to have a religion and a good education at the same time.

it used to be that way, and thankfully we got away from it. In the past the clergy were the literate ones.
 
And there's no possibility that Christianity simply was at the wrong place at the wrong time?

Correlation does not equal causation.

theres always that possibility, but then It would be an extreme coincidence that the advancement of technology is inversely proportional with the importance and power of chritianity.


I asked for examples of loss of knowledge.

ok,
concrete; after the colapse of the roman empire it took 1200 years before a recepy for concrete was invented that had the same quality.

Highways; again, the engeniering skills for making roads had to be practicly reinvented.

medicine; again, had to be practicly reinvented.
Ancient Roman Medicine
A link on roman medicine.


your not gonna let it go are you?
ok, il bite. the global economy is dynamicly balanced. meaning that it is selfcorrecting. if a whole country would just dissapear, you would have a period that the economy would suffer, but it would quickly recover because other countrys would fill in the gap that is left. its simply supply and demand.

in history, the economy was not that flexible, if 2 nations decided to stop trade, it would severely impact almost every aspect of both cultures for a long time. this is in part because they ware not able to spread knowledge like we do (internet).

an example? europe had trade with the islamic world, until there was a pope who decided that he didn't like Islam, and he encouraged Spain to drive islam out of (erm, the part of spain that wasn't spain yet). followed by incouraging the crusades (but i don't know if thats the same pope or not).this had negative concequences for both parties.:yes:

you can do the same with knowledge. if today a country would simply dissapear the impact on the rest of the world is not that great compared to a nation dissapearing 2000 years ago. this is because we have internet. the worst thing that could really happon is that we would not be able to use GPS if the US dissapeared. but than again, we would be able to solve that in a mere decade.

in history, knowledge was not distributed that easily, so the loss of a nation would have a more signifigant impact.

and that why i dont want to compare modern economy with old technology
for the same reason i would not like to compare old economies with modern technology.

did I explain anything? because when i was done writing this, I forgot what I wrote in the beginning.:run:

...you know what? I forget. lol

lol, well, if you forgot, it can't be important.
 
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outhouse

Atheistically
excellent post micrurus

as an example, blasphemy used to be punishable by death. Anyone smart enough to see past the myth's and lies in the bible or transalte it differently from the chirch was killed.

but somehow this didnt stop progress, i dont buy it. Oh and that is when they were not killing other people in the name of conquest
 

Riverwolf

Amateur Rambler / Proud Ergi
Premium Member
well creation belief is religion

That's mythology, an aspect of religion. But it's not a requirement. Many religions don't have creation stories, and many that do don't believe them literally.

It is not required to believe a creation story literally in order to be considered Christian.

that is a thought and not solid also it is partial blame i believe. Imagine that that a brilliant educated man didnt believe in the bibles fiction or the man made jewish god ,,,in my opinion
...could you rephrase that, please? I don't understand it.

it used to be that way, and thankfully we got away from it. In the past the clergy were the literate ones.
They weren't the only literate ones, though. There were plenty of books written by people who weren't clergy. The Divine Comedy comes to mind.

But, yes, back then, there were FAR, FAR, FAR more illiterate people than literate.
 

Riverwolf

Amateur Rambler / Proud Ergi
Premium Member
theres always that possibility, but then It would be an extreme coincidence that the advancement of technology is inversely proportional with the importance and power of chritianity.

But what about Christianity makes it inherently the cause?

ok,
concrete; after the colapse of the roman empire it took 1200 years before a recepy for concrete was invented that had the same quality.

Highways; again, the engeniering skills for making roads had to be practicly reinvented.

medicine; again, had to be practicly reinvented.
Ancient Roman Medicine
A link on roman medicine.

Okay, gotcha.

Thanks.

your not gonna let it go are you?

I don't fully understand why you brought up economics in the first place. Therefore, it's natural that I'd ask for a further clarification.

Besides, I fully admit that I have only a rudimentary knowledge of history, because I don't trust for a moment that "history" that was taught to me in high school.

ok, il bite. the global economy is dynamicly balanced. meaning that it is selfcorrecting. if a whole country would just dissapear, you would have a period that the economy would suffer, but it would quickly recover because other countrys would fill in the gap that is left. its simply supply and demand.

in history, the economy was not that flexible, if 2 nations decided to stop trade, it would severely impact almost every aspect of both cultures for a long time. this is in part because they ware not able to spread knowledge like we do (internet).

an example? europe had trade with the islamic world, until there was a pope who decided that he didn't like Islam, and he encouraged Spain to drive islam out of (erm, the part of spain that wasn't spain yet). followed by incouraging the crusades (but i don't know if thats the same pope or not).this had negative concequences for both parties.:yes:

Okay...

you can do the same with knowledge. if today a country would simply dissapear the impact on the rest of the world is not that great compared to a nation dissapearing 2000 years ago. this is because we have internet. the worst thing that could really happon is that we would not be able to use GPS if the US dissapeared. but than again, we would be able to solve that in a mere decade.

in history, knowledge was not distributed that easily, so the loss of a nation would have a more signifigant impact.

and that why i dont want to compare modern economy with old technology
for the same reason i would not like to compare old economies with modern technology.

did I explain anything? because when i was done writing this, I forgot what I wrote in the beginning.:run:

You explained it very well. Thanks.

Since your argument is sound, that makes my comparison of the old with the new invalid.

But I don't think it invalidates my entire argument, because tons of empires fell back in the day.

lol, well, if you forgot, it can't be important.

Guess not. lol
 
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