Ask a Traditional Catholic

[Cyberman]

Many of the conquistadors were greedy, but they were accompanied later by priests who brought the true religion to the mesoamerican pagans.

In that light they saved the souls of thousands of people from damnation, they are heroes.

Not surprisingly, reality disagrees:

The Christian missionary mindset is generally depicted as that of simple religious folk with a pure desire to peacefully spread their gospel and message of love. In reality, their methods of propagation are often anything but peaceful and usually leave behind a native population stripped of their culture and often decimated. With Christianity failing in the west, the evangelists seek new and greener fields in the poor and uneducated sections of third world countries, backed by huge coffers from the less zealous, who are nonetheless convinced that to bring civilization and religion to the poor natives is a noble cause, even if they don’t want it. Missionaries often intermix military campaigns with missionary campaigns in their fervor to “civilize the heathens,” who are often simple happy natives, whose only crime is that they are not Christians. This mood of conquering the heathens by any means, at any cost, is supported in the Bible:

“Thou shalt save alive nothing that breathest. But thou shalt utterly destroy them…” (Deut 20)

“But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.” (Luke 19.27)

In the words of one resident of Thailand, “They [Christian missionaries] seemed that they did not show any interest for our culture. Why? They are just eager to build big churches in every village. It seems that they are having two faces; under the title of help they suppress us. To the world, they gained their reputations as benefactors of disappearing tribes. They built their reputations on us for many years. The way they behaved with us seemed as if we did not know about god before they arrived here.”[1]

“Why do missionaries think they are the only ones who can perceive God?”

In fact, most of the civilizations which were overrun by zealous Christians in their conversion fervor, were highly evolved in their moral standards, with complex social structures, high standards of cleanliness and hygiene, decorative art and evolved sciences, and content with their own religion.

The arrival of Christianity actually caused these civilizations to move backwards.

Historian Edmund S. Morgan compiled the following description from Christian accounts of events occurring in one of the earliest settlements of English Christians, in Roanoke, Virginia in 1580:

“Wingina [the local chief] welcomed the visitors, and the Indians gave freely of their supplies to the English, who had lost most of their own when the Tyger [their ship] grounded.” [9]

“Indian openness and generosity were met with European stealth and greed. Ritualized Indian warfare, in which few people died in battle, was met with the European belief in devastating holy war. Vast stores of grain and other food supplies that Indian peoples had lain aside became the fuel that [later] drove the Europeans forward.” [10]

“Indians who came to the English settlements with food for the British (who seemed never able to feed themselves) were captured, accused of being spies, and executed. Peace treaties were signed with every intention to violate them: when the Indians ‘grow secure uppon the treatie,’ advised the Counsel of State in Virginia, ‘we shall have the better advantage both to surprise them & cutt downe theire Corne.’ ” [11]

Arthur Barlowe, one of the first Christians ever to set foot on Virginia soil, described the natives he encountered in 1584 as follows:

“…we were entertained with all love and kindness and with as much bounty, …as they could possibly devise. We found the people most gentle loving, and faithfull, void of all guile and treason … a more kind and loving people there cannot be found in the world, as farre as we have hitherto had triall.” [12]

Their supposedly Christian treatment of these friendly native Americas was that:

“…we burnt, and spoyled their corne, and Towne, all the people beeing fledde.” [13]

Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out, eh?