RE: Even if theism is a failure, it's still superior to atheism
September 19, 2022 at 1:13 pm
(This post was last modified: September 19, 2022 at 1:27 pm by Anomalocaris.)
Actually they did.
Not at the beginning, only because they were unaware they were the carriers of the plagues decimating the natives, and they had hoped proselytizing would quickly convert live natives into useful subservient slave labors. But by the time colonization or central and south america began in earnest and serious and irksome resistance were met, sending diseased natives back to infect more natives, trying to bring uninflected populations into contact with infected populations , were certainly a widespread and systematic policy. Indeed spanish missionaries praised plagues as a god’s means to make natives available for deathbed conversion by making them too sick to run away.
The reason why the europeans did not intentionally infect much of the pre-contact population was not for the want of desire or willingness to try, but because it took over half a century for the european to actually come into direct contact with most of major popoulation centers in central and south america, and by the time the contacts happened, plagues radiating out from initial point of contact have already severely depopulated the regions in advance of Spaniard’s physical arrival.
European scale of mass murder was limited not by humanity, but by the number of potential victims left alive after their initial manslaughter, and those that were left alive tended to be selected to be alive by their stronger than average resistance.
Not at the beginning, only because they were unaware they were the carriers of the plagues decimating the natives, and they had hoped proselytizing would quickly convert live natives into useful subservient slave labors. But by the time colonization or central and south america began in earnest and serious and irksome resistance were met, sending diseased natives back to infect more natives, trying to bring uninflected populations into contact with infected populations , were certainly a widespread and systematic policy. Indeed spanish missionaries praised plagues as a god’s means to make natives available for deathbed conversion by making them too sick to run away.
The reason why the europeans did not intentionally infect much of the pre-contact population was not for the want of desire or willingness to try, but because it took over half a century for the european to actually come into direct contact with most of major popoulation centers in central and south america, and by the time the contacts happened, plagues radiating out from initial point of contact have already severely depopulated the regions in advance of Spaniard’s physical arrival.
European scale of mass murder was limited not by humanity, but by the number of potential victims left alive after their initial manslaughter, and those that were left alive tended to be selected to be alive by their stronger than average resistance.
