By Sathyanarayanan D
The orgy of Human destructiveness which the Pious Christians from Europe committed in America would dwarf the Jewish genocide by Hitler and Hindu genocide by the proponents of Islam. In the popular consciousness, the understanding is that Columbus was an inventor of America and Vasco de Gama was an inventor of the sea route to India. It is probably because that is how history is taught to us in schools.
How do we test a religion within the framework of modern standards of public morality and decency? The word modern is indeed used hereafter serious thought. The word modern can only be tested relatively, as there are no objective standards to test it rationally. People as members of an organized religion called Christianity have committed genocides of unthinkable proportions. But such a fact is not often discussed. When a missionary talks about the virtues of Christianity to convert a non-believer, he should present that truth.
Otherwise, he will be selling a sub-standard product by suppressing the whole truth. The missionary is a seller of a product called – Christianity and the Non-believer into whose head it is being pushed is a consumer. I think this is a fair expectation. Let’s go back to our original question then, how do we test a religion? The answer is to test a religion by the actions of its believers or followers.
The other question that may be posed as a counter is whether it is appropriate to tar a religion based on actions of a minority or a handful of a people, as the majority does not engage in them directly? It is a tricky question to answer. Then I read David E Stannard’s American Holocaust to find an answer to that question. And I think I have an answer. If a majority of the followers approve the actions of the minority by their silence and enjoy results of the actions of a minority then everybody is at fault if not the religion itself.
The orgy of Human destructiveness which the Pious Christians from Europe committed in America would dwarf the Jewish genocide by Hitler and Hindu genocide by the proponents of Islam. In the popular consciousness the understanding is that Columbus was an inventor of America and VascodeGama was an inventor of the sea route to India. It is probably because that is how history is taught to us in schools. No wonder, America commemorates the arrival of Columbus to America. For what is this commemoration? To celebrate the butchery of 100 million innocent natives? This is the hypocrisy of Christians or simply Europeans. That they are bigots we know for sure, but how the missionaries are converting populations elsewhere in modern days by suppressing their past is a manifestation of their hypocrisy.
Twenty-one years after Columbus’s first landing in the Caribbean, the vastly populous island that the explorer had re-named Hispaniola was effectively desolate; nearly 8,000,000 people-those Columbus chose to call Indians-had been killed by violence, disease, and despair. Hispaniola was only the beginning. In a couple of centuries, all the native population of North America and the Caribbean was physically eliminated.
Before the murderous Christians from Europe arrived in the Americas, the North American continent was bustling with civilization with centuries of civilizational memory. A proper government set up and polity, abundance in food, wealth in gold and other precious metals was a common thing in territorial units. It is entirely appropriate to use the words Europeans and Christians interchangeably in attributing a bunch of people who armed with weapons, dogs and a religious ideology of death cult that would put current day ISIS – an Islamic Terrorist Organization to shame.
David in this book clearly documents as to how Europeans have emptied city after city by literally murdering every inhabitant – Children, women and men. What the Europeans would normally do before engaging in genocide is they will first denounce all natives as beasts and demons and will build an argument that justifies their elimination. One should only read what the padres have said and done with natives who would always travel with the conquistadors to perform their divine duty.
I would ask the readers not to miss the chapters – Pestilence & Genocide and Sex, Race and Holy war of the book American Holocaust, else there is no you can find the real character of Europeans.
The basic premise of Christians is that whoever is within the fold of Christianity is a rational man and everyone else is not. The author quotes St. Augustine from The city of God” –
whoever is born anywhere as a human being, that is, as a rational mortal creature, however strange he may appear to our senses in bodily form or colour or motion or utterance, or in any faculty, part or quality of his nature whatsoever, let no true believer have any doubt that such an individual is descended from the one man who was first created.
Even though if someone is a human and superior to Christians in rationality he deserves to be looted and butchered if a padre could not convert him or her.
Modern-day pundits would argue that Christianity has reformed itself from bigotry and hypocrisy after the renaissance. It may be partially true because one should only see what Missionaries are doing in the third world countries in the name of Christianity. We may safely say that one renaissance is not enough for Christianity.
The last thing the current generation could do is not to eulogize the genocide carried out by Christians in the Americas but feel ashamed.
