The Mis-portrayal of Darwin as a Racist.

[Azathoth]

Wasn't everyone racist in 1850?

[klr]

Wasn't everyone racist in 1850?

... including Richard Dawkins' ancestors

[/topical reference]

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Useless waste of time.

Hitler and Stalin will be next.

Oh fear not, Hitler was mentioned pretty early on

http://rationalia.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... er+atheism

[apophenia]

Interesting, if longish article, which I will have to read later.

The truly sad thing is that Christians blame the holocaust on atheists when antisemitism and Jew hating are basically a Christian invention. Prior to Christ, Jews were not a persecuted minority. Under the influence of Christian theology and church fathers, Jew hatred rose to such proportions that the Jews were wholesale evicted from England, Spain and her colonies, and twice from France. If I recall correctly, critical support for one episode of the Crusades was disastrously delayed because the Christian armies from Germany delayed too long raping and pillaging Jewish homes, towns and cities on the way.

America was also stolen from the natives by christians. When Columbus arrived, on every island he went to, he would place a cross in the natives' land and declared ownership of it. In addition, the ritual Requerimiento was declared that told of the Spanishs' "right" to claim the Americas as their own because of the "assertion that God, through Saint Peter and his Papal successors, held authority as ruler over the entire Earth, and that the Inter Caetera, (a Papal Bull of 4 May 1493 by Pope Alexander VI) conferred title over the Americas to the Spanish monarchs."

The Requerimiento also required a statement to be read to every native Columbus and his band of thieves came across "informing them of the truth of Christianity and the necessity to swear immediate allegiance to the pope and to the Spanish crown. After this, if the indians refused or even delayed in their acceptance (or more likely, their misunderstanding) of the Requerimiento, the statement continued:

I certify to you that, with the help of god, we shall powerfully enter into your country and shall make war against you in all ways and manners that we can, and shall subject you to the yoke and obedience of the church and of their highness. We shall take you and your wives and your children, and shall make slaves of them, and as such shall sell and dispose of them as their highness may command. And we shall take your goods, and shall do you all the mischief and damage that we can, as to vassals who do not obey and refuse to receive their lord and resist and contradict him.
.

(Source: American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World, by David E. Stannard, pages 65-66)


(See also: 2,000 Year History of Jewish Persecution, Ontario Consultants On Religious Tolerance.)

[Seth]

Interesting, if longish article, which I will have to read later.

The truly sad thing is that Christians blame the holocaust on atheists when antisemitism and Jew hating are basically a Christian invention.

Perfected by Atheists under Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and other atheists.

Prior to Christ, Jews were not a persecuted minority.

Excuse me? What are you talking about? Jews have been a persecuted minority for about 3000 years before Christ. Have you forgotten that Pharaoh enslaved Moses and the Jews? Go read some actual history why doncha?

Under the influence of Christian theology and church fathers, Jew hatred rose to such proportions that the Jews were wholesale evicted from England, Spain and her colonies, and twice from France. If I recall correctly, critical support for one episode of the Crusades was disastrously delayed because the Christian armies from Germany delayed too long raping and pillaging Jewish homes, towns and cities on the way.

America was also stolen from the natives by christians. When Columbus arrived, on every island he went to, he would place a cross in the natives' land and declared ownership of it. In addition, the ritual Requerimiento was declared that told of the Spanishs' "right" to claim the Americas as their own because of the "assertion that God, through Saint Peter and his Papal successors, held authority as ruler over the entire Earth, and that the Inter Caetera, (a Papal Bull of 4 May 1493 by Pope Alexander VI) conferred title over the Americas to the Spanish monarchs."

The Requerimiento also required a statement to be read to every native Columbus and his band of thieves came across "informing them of the truth of Christianity and the necessity to swear immediate allegiance to the pope and to the Spanish crown. After this, if the indians refused or even delayed in their acceptance (or more likely, their misunderstanding) of the Requerimiento, the statement continued:

I certify to you that, with the help of god, we shall powerfully enter into your country and shall make war against you in all ways and manners that we can, and shall subject you to the yoke and obedience of the church and of their highness. We shall take you and your wives and your children, and shall make slaves of them, and as such shall sell and dispose of them as their highness may command. And we shall take your goods, and shall do you all the mischief and damage that we can, as to vassals who do not obey and refuse to receive their lord and resist and contradict him.
.

(Source: American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World, by David E. Stannard, pages 65-66)


(See also: 2,000 Year History of Jewish Persecution, Ontario Consultants On Religious Tolerance.)[/quote]

Of course this all ignores the fact that "America," as in the United States of America, came along long after Cortez and other Spaniards subjugated the native populations, and when it did, unlike virtually any other nation in history, did not simply wipe out the natives, but instead acknowledged them as "domestic dependent nations" with sovereign status...and still does...when those nations chose to live in peace with the settlers. When they chose to wage war on the settlers, they lost, and in waging war they violated most of the treaties they signed, thus nullifying them, and in losing they became a conquered people who no longer had rights to the lands they claimed.

Land is for those who can take and hold it and use it. If you can't defend your land, you don't deserve to claim it, and it goes to whomever can take it from you. It's called the Right of Conquest which has been acknowledged for thousands of years as a valid way to obtain land and resources. All the laws we have now are just warfare by less violent means, but the result is the same, if you can't defend your title to the land, you lose it.

It also ignores the fact that some of the populations subjugated by Cortez and others were incredibly barbarous and evil cultures in their own right which deserved to be destroyed...like the Incas and Aztecs...and the Lakota Sioux (among other barbarous and cruel American Indian tribes who tortured and killed their enemies as a matter of course).

So, if one is going to get into comparative barbarity, the settlement of the United States in the post-Revolutionary period was one of the most peaceful occupations in world history. Those in Europe can damned well look to their own barbarous past before criticizing the United States any further.

[Gallstones]

These guys clear a few myths up---and (I think) they are.......Jooooos!

[Gallstones]

The only reason Europeans--Brits--had an easy go of settling the New World is because the Spanish had already brought their diseases and those diseases killed off most of the native peoples earlier. AKA, there was no opposition because the opposition was dead.

[apophenia]

Prior to Christ, Jews were not a persecuted minority.

Excuse me? What are you talking about? Jews have been a persecuted minority for about 3000 years before Christ. Have you forgotten that Pharaoh enslaved Moses and the Jews? Go read some actual history why doncha?

In spite of, or perhaps more properly because of, a hundred years of biblical archaeology, the conventional wisdom is that the events in the bible regarding the enslavement of the Jews by the Egyptians, the Exodus and the conquest of Canaan by the Jews never happened. (What kind of moron actually believes that a large mass of people wandered the desert for 40 years without perishing?)

Maybe if you got your history from some other source than a book of religious myths and conservative twaddle you would know this.

(Also, enslavement is not persecution of a minority, even if it had happened; the Egyptians and most ancient states (Sumeria, Akkadia, Babylon, Macedonia, Greece, Rome, etc.) were equal opportunity enslavers.)

[Robert_S]

Interesting, if longish article, which I will have to read later.

The truly sad thing is that Christians blame the holocaust on atheists when antisemitism and Jew hating are basically a Christian invention.

Perfected by Atheists under Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and other atheists.

There were enough Jews in China to bother hating?

Hitler was not an atheist, we've been over that one already. Do try to keep up.

[Atheist-Lite]

Who was the first true intellectual and public anti-racist? You'd think such a figure would be up there in lights given the cultural turn-around in little more than a century?

[JimC]

Who was the first true intellectual and public anti-racist? You'd think such a figure would be up there in lights given the cultural turn-around in little more than a century?

Wilberforce?

[Atheist-Lite]

Who was the first true intellectual and public anti-racist? You'd think such a figure would be up there in lights given the cultural turn-around in little more than a century?

Wilberforce?

William?

[Feck]

Darwin wasn't a Racist He had a black friend in Edinburgh ,He also made several comments wanting slaves to revolt because he thought they were superior to their owners !

[Atheist-Lite]

Darwin wasn't a Racist He had a black friend in Edinburgh ,He also made several comments wanting slaves to revolt because he thought they were superior to their owners !

He was gay?

[Svartalf]

These guys clear a few myths up---and (I think) they are.......Jooooos!

Question, since you have apparently read it, do you rate this as serious stuff or as likely agenda serving twaddle?