No, but they did take it farther than any known culture in human history.
Fuck you, dipshit! Benedict XVI is a slimy, sewer-crawling RAT! Just like each and every one of his predecessors in office! And just like Jesus, Moses and Abraham, and just like their false God!
Yeah, I figured as much. But it’s not exactly an immediate issue, is it?
Somebody better notify BrainGlutton that Der Trihs found his password…
ETA: …or maybe it was prr. I can never remember those guys.
Moreover, I don’t see exactly how it differs that much from some other historical cultures’ customs of executing prisoners of war and recalcitrant slaves.
Numerically, did the Aztecs really end up killing many more people, either among their own or neighboring societies, than some other ancient/medieval cultures did?
And in terms of cruelty too, I’m unconvinced that the Aztecs qualify as uniquely loathsome. I know that if I had the choice, I’d rather die via a fast cardiectomy in a human-sacrifice ritual than via slow execution by crucifixion or anal impalement. Icko.
Actually, I think the nicknames he got from his co-religionists have more pizzazz than the somewhat unimaginative “Joey the Rat”:
Wow! The Chili Peppers verse I posted in the MPSIMS Falwell thread is WAY more appropriate here.
*To anyone who’s listenin’
You’re not born into sin
The guilt they try and give you
Puke it in the nearest bin
Missionary maddness
Sweep up culture with a broom
Trashing ancient ways
Is par for the course
It’s fucking rude!*
Gecchhhh. Hey, I’m not too proud of what the Aztecs did - they subjugated their fare share of indigenous Mexicans for centuries - but let’s not lump ALL of Latin America into that cadre. Almost all of the 20 MILLION inhabitants of Hispaniola were estimated to have died of disease, starvation, or slaughter within only a few decades (if that) of Columbus’ arrival, and they weren’t really known for their iron-fist subjugation as the Aztecs were.
What I have a problem with is that the Pope’s speech does, as some have mentioned, not only whitewash history, but create this air of benevolence and warm fuzzy understanding that just wasn’t there in the colonial era. Here are some of the choice passages from the cite:
“Yet what did the acceptance of the Christian faith mean for the nations of Latin America and the Caribbean? For them, it meant knowing and welcoming Christ, the unknown God whom their ancestors were seeking, without realizing it, in their rich religious traditions.”
Yeah, the Aztecs and Incas and Mixtecs and Tainos and Caribes and Tlaxcallans and Mayans - they were all miraculously searching for the very god that their conquerors were forcing on them! What a remarkable coincidence!
“…the proclamation of Jesus and of his Gospel did not at any point involve an alienation of the pre-Columbian cultures, nor was it the imposition of a foreign culture.”
Ummm, WHAT. I’d say a bunch of foreigners pointing guns at you and forcing you to mine gold while at the same time tearing down your temples to build their own (as in Peru, where churches were built on the foundations of Inca structures) is a pretty darn big imposition of foreign culture. Just because Latin American culture became a mix of different ancestries doesn’t mean everyone was real happy with it. It’s not exactly like An American Tail.
“…uniting humanity and at the same time respecting the wealth of diversity, opening people everywhere to growth in genuine humanity…”
Oh, yes, diversity was respected all right. Humanity was unified, for sure. That’s why slavery persisted in many of the colonies until well into the 19th century, and why people of various mixed backgrounds (mulattoes, creoles, etc.) were treated pretty much as lower-class citizens when compared with those of purely European origin.
"The wisdom of the indigenous peoples fortunately led them to form a synthesis between their cultures and the Christian faith which the missionaries were offering them. "
Fortunately, because things were looking pretty bleak for the home team if they didn’t. But gosh darn it, they were just so SMART to welcome Christ into their hearts! Good for them!
Jesus might want to talk to His HR head, because He has some real dopes working for Him.
And mass slavery too. And OK, let us condemn the rest of the other Meso-American cultures with mass human sacrifice and an economy based upon slavery.
And, note this dudes- he edited to get this. :rolleyes: Off your meds dude?
Hey now, let’s not be hating on the rats.
Oh, and dude? I ain’t much religious and not Catholic at all, but “Pope Joey the Rat (i.e. Benedict XVI, formerly Joseph Ratzinger)” is just sooooo 3rd grade. You *are *older than 8, aren’t you? :dubious: I mean, even 10yos have stopped thinking little playground name games like that are funny. :rolleyes:
Pointing out the bad stuff about the society the Conquistadores and their religious camp followers invaded is not going to make the pope’s speech factual.
No, I’m an atheist. I miss out on a lot of prophecies. Enlighten me please.
Well, that’s a very bizarre way to object to it. If human sacrifice is bad, then what the hell is genocide?
Accept, or Die!
Some advertising campaign.
Cleaning your neighbors house?
I was thinking more ‘minor gangster in a Damon Runyon story.’ 
Actually, I think that if JPII or Paul VI (who was actually a very good pope, aside from Humanae Vitae) had given a speech on the subject, it would have been quite different. Neither of them bought into the notion that the RCC is and always has been a perfect institution. Ratzinger seems to believe exactly that, AFAICT: that if the Catholic Church did it, it’s good, and you folks in the pews, shut up and give your tithes, or the door’s thataway.
Neither am I, unfortunately.
(And on a lighter note, I first read that as “Oscar Meyer”.)
Sadly, Frank, you are correct. Let’s hope that they continue to fight against the status quo.