This is a message to everyone, not only the atheists.
Look what religion does for the world. Most of it makes the world a better place. I'll use my own religion as an example, LDS. Look what it does for the world. It tells
Also, Europeon missionaries spread disease amoung the native Americans. This is the greatest genocide in the history of mankind.
You've got to be kidding me. Greatest genocide of all-time? Find me concrete evidence that European missionaries caused genocide through biological warfare on the Native Americans. Not that it was used but that it killed the hundreds of thousands of people that constitutes a genocide.
Saying stuff like that is borderline disrespectful. Ever heard of Stalin? Mao? Hitler, for God's sakes? Pol Pot? We KNOW these people killed millions, and we only THINK the European missionaries killed maybe 10,000 or more.
Find me concrete evidence that European missionaries caused genocide through biological warfare on the Native Americans. Not that it was used but that it killed the hundreds of thousands of people that constitutes a genocide.
Your kidding me? Columbus and later missionaries that sought gold in North America? They slaughtered the "Indians" and left many of their populations nonexistent. The figure of deaths I believe is over 11 million.
The Native American massacres were the true meaning of genocide. Unlike Stalin, Mao, and Hitler, the Native Americans were killed to the last mean and races were eliminated. Some of the Native American tribes which had hundred of thousands of people now have around 20.
Their land, their culture, their language, and they, themselves were eliminated by the Europeans, something no other genocide has accomplished fully.
Europeans came to a land with over 75 million Native Americans and raped it.
20th century scholarly estimates ranged from a low of 8.4 million to a high of 112.5 million persons.
After first contacts with Europeans and Africans, some believe that the death of 90 to 95% of the native population of the New World was caused by Old World diseases such as smallpox and measles
Even worse were the diseases, such as smallpox and influenza, that swept through the local population. Since the Western Hemisphere was isolated from Europe, local peoples had no immunity from the diseases that Spainiards brought, and millions died as epidemics swept through Central and South America, often in advance of any European's arrival. The Taino, who may have numbered 300,000 in 1492, were virtually extinct by 1550, and, overall, the native population of the Americas fell by 90 percent in the century after Columbus's voyages - the greatest demographic catastrophe in recorded history.
Columbus' voyage was also blessed by the pope, as was Cortez. Additionally, Charles V's chaplain, Sepulveda, said that slavery was okay because some people are naturally inferior. Therefore, the ten percent of Native Americans who weren't killed were enslaved. All of this is from Making Europe, a text book written by five college professors. AP Euro FTW.
Apart from the hidious things and slavery that europians did, I think the disease was enevitable. Even if contact had been made on the most friendly of terms (god help us if aliens ever land) there would have been widespread disease that noone was capable of controlling. Not trying to justify anything here btw.
Maybe. But but you have to consider that the missionaries were intent on converting people as fast as possible, whereas strict merchants would have remained near the coast. The disease would have spread much more slowly, giving the natives time to realize what was going on, and avoid further contact. Additionally, the Europeans took advantage of the fact that they happened to resemble the natives' god. They used this to quickly swindle their way into the heart of Aztec civilization. And what was the first thing that Cortez did after reaching Tenochtitlan? He demolished their sacred pyramid and built a cathedral. Surely, this spread disease much faster than if they had been forced to remain at the coast.
