Judaism does, Christianity isn't supposed to.

(November 18, 2013 at 4:27 pm)freedomfromfallacy Wrote: The majority of the indigenous population of North America was entirely peaceful and pagan in their religious practices when Christianity made its way there.

We can discuss this in a separate thread, but I think you are totally mistaken about the peacefulness of North American indian populations.

You might be shocked by anthropological evidence of just how violent, in quantifiable terms, "peaceful" pre-agricultural or early agricultural societies really are compared to supposedly more violent modern world. Suffices it to say a typical person born in the 20th century had a far less chance of dying in violence, despite two world wars, many violent purges, many other civil wars, alledgedly dangerouse levels of violent crimes, than almost any pre-bronze age society for which anthropologists can apply any sort of reliable measurement.

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(November 18, 2013 at 4:47 pm)freedomfromfallacy Wrote:

(November 18, 2013 at 4:37 pm)thesummerqueen Wrote: Religiously, maybe, but they were sure warlike enough culturally, no matter what lipservice they paid to the Great Spirit.

Agreed, though their religion gave little support to their war-like nature, whereas the Christian and Islam religions lend much support to killing for a god.

Yes, but that doesn't mean overall, beyond instance of sharp encounters, people of different religions who actually encounter christians and Muslims proslytizers really had a higher chance of dying violent deaths at the hands of these christains and muslims than people of primitive societies had of dying violent deaths as part of accepted normal social interactions in those societies.

Keep in mind the vast majority of the death toll inflicted by Europeans upon Indians (up to 95%) were through the unintended agent of diseases.

Richard Dawkins doesn't seem to be doing much to help preserve indigenous religious culture.
What help does atheism give to aboriginal concepts of Dreamtime cosmology, sacred sites, ancestor worship....

Please! Spare me your crocodile tears and concern trolling about the loss of "culture".

I wasn't aware that it was the prerogative of atheism to protect another person's culture?

(November 18, 2013 at 5:33 pm)Lion IRC Wrote: Richard Dawkins doesn't seem to be doing much to help preserve indigenous religious culture.
What help does atheism give to aboriginal concepts of Dreamtime cosmology, sacred sites, ancestor worship....

Please! Spare me your crocodile tears and concern trolling about the loss of "culture".

So you're just as bad as we are is the point you're trying to make? Interesting, so christians are looking to atheists to set standards for them now?

(November 18, 2013 at 5:33 pm)Lion IRC Wrote: Richard Dawkins doesn't seem to be doing much to help preserve indigenous religious culture.
What help does atheism give to aboriginal concepts of Dreamtime cosmology, sacred sites, ancestor worship....

Please! Spare me your crocodile tears and concern trolling about the loss of "culture".

We study them, preserved memory of them, learned things we hitherto didn’t know from them, developed more objective understanding of the cultures and histories that spawned them, understood better the more subtle nuances of human psychology and sociology because of them.

You Christians like idiotic bullies would simply try to smoother them lest their existence shed light on a reality of human psychology and physical reality that would cast doubt on your sickening Jesus fantasy.

(November 18, 2013 at 12:24 pm)Kitanetos Wrote: http://www.thestate.com/2013/11/18/30968...ality.html

Quote:Some people assume Jason Thunderbird prays to eagles. Others are convinced he worships rocks. They seem disappointed, he said, when they learn he spends Sunday mornings reciting liturgical texts from a church pew.

Native American spiritual practices are the source of countless misconceptions, he said. Mainstream society has long viewed American Indians as disciples of Mother Earth, but "all the stereotypical stuff you saw on John Wayne is not real."

"I'm a follower of Jesus Christ," he told Minnesota Public Radio (http://bit.ly/1j5TVIY). "That's kinda what it boils down to, you know."

For America's indigenous people, late 19th century Christianity meant forced assimilation and cultural domination.

I despise Christianity for its insistent determination to destroy other cultures.

You do know that everyone in modern western soceity totally benfits from the destruction of all of the cultures that came before them right? If you didn't know that, now you do. It's not like there was a priviso in all of the preceeding cultures to perserve our culture. That being the case you do understand that the perservation of other people's culture is almost uniquely a western concept? All other cultures look to assimilate. With that in mind doesn't it make you look alittle more douchey for condemning the soceity (and how it got here) that allows (provides you the freedom) you to condemn it?

(November 19, 2013 at 10:41 am)Drich Wrote: You do know that everyone in modern western soceity totally benfits from the destruction of all of the cultures that came before them right?

Just because it has been done since the dawn of time, does not mean that it is right.

I fail to see how trading one set of beliefs for another is in any way better, either. Both sets of beliefs are mere fairy tales.

However, the sad thing is that culture is lost, all because ignorant Christians think the best thing for the entire world is for everyone to be mindless sheep like them.