What Is The Standing of Economics, Religion, and the Biology of Greed in Western European Christian Conquests, Anyway?

Original Post by JHC: We don't have to go back that far in history. Although it is more painful to look at our recent transgressions than those of centuries ago! Remember when the US used religion as an excuse to take land from Native-Americans and kill thousands through relocation and in Indian Schools. The Doctrine of Discovery! "Dakota filmmaker Sheldon Wolfchild’s compelling documentary is premised on Pagans in the Promised Land: Decoding the Doctrine of Christian Discovery, a book based on two decades of research by Shawnee, Lenape scholar Steven T. Newcomb. The film tells the story of how little known Vatican documents of the fifteenth century resulted in a tragic global momentum of domination and dehumanization. This led to law systems in the United States and Canada and elsewhere in the world, that are still being used against Original Nations and Peoples to this day. The film concludes with traditional teachings developed over thousands of years that provide a much needed alternative for humans and the ecological systems of Mother Earth at this time." Mark Rego Monteiro The framing of this issue is not the most progressive, but a progressive approach captive to scapegoating religion and ignoring the role of economic profiteers. The Vatican? The Reformation was sparked in 1520 as part of how University-based education has created the context not just of "freedom", but one that has itself been abused. "Freedom" needs "responsibility," and the problem of authority has long shifted from religion to profiteering businesspeople. In fact, Columbus wasn´t primarily motivated by Christianity. He was no monk. He was an adventurer representing merchant desires, soldiers, and politicians. The Reformation then served to unleash the merchants et al of Holland and the UK, among others, but with the UK´s interesting pivotal roles in spawning spiritual-religious innovators whose success suggests the role of individuals in community in resurgent integrity. Trying to scapegoat religion could probably misdirect attention away from the need for lifestyle, consumer, and economic activism in food co-op stores, credit unions, and Civil Society like the PIRGs, Sierra Club, and Greenpeace, along with spiritual practice to empower insight and reform in Christianity itself not least of all. Reply 3h John H Clemson I understand your point. Certainly economics was the major factor, but killing proples who were considered inferior made it all easier. Greed is the reason , but its negative connotations could be soothed with religious justification. It is not so much happening that way today, but the patters have been engraved in our western culture. Reply 2h Mark Rego Monteiro John H Clemson I want to acknowledge your ability to at least identify psychosocial factors like economics and weigh that with your concern about religion. I thought through a few things below. I tried to summarize it in the next three paragraphs, but left the rest in case you´re interested. I suppose my point can be more pointedly made by indicating that by "religious justification", you´re actually pointing out how merchants et al operate. Merchants were in charge in charge, not monks, and those merchants established authority in key ways in relation to religious authorities. Monks were not dictating the primary objectives of the expedition leaders. Merchants and soldiers were using the skills being advanced by monastic schools turned into Universities, and increasingly secularized after Descartes´ mind-body split and Grotius´ natural law. And in doing so, merchants et al were Western European humans first, not Christians. That´s where the meaning of my own major as "human behavioral biology" becomes important to emphasize. Actual "western patterns" reflect more general human patterns, except for the difference that European merchants et al took the advantage of post-monastic University-based learning into the larger world where might made right. Islam serves one angle of contrast, no less, since their religion didn´t stand for scholarship and it already mostly disappeared after the Mongol Siege of Baghdad in 1258. However, all cultures can have examples cited for contexts and the role of violence: China´s Hongwu Emperor, India´s King Ashoka´s conversion, Gandhi´s renaming the Untouchable caste, Africa´s Olaudah Equiano´s chief-father´s slaves, Jesuit M Nóbrega´s ordained colleague was cannibalized by South American natives, Sacagawea´s own capture and sale as wife. Trying to blame western European humans using Christianity itself presumes the standard of human rights fairness that has only become possible as a response to the power that was used by merchants et al in the first place. It is that conquest that made a demonstration of what is actually University-based educational power in things like sci-tech and organization. It is the "special sauce" of that educational power that is based on monastic Christian spiritual practice. I think this makes much of my argument, but I tried to give a summary up to here. The rest follows if you´re interested. Calling Europeans by their nominal religion, Christianity, is to confuse the human and social power relations involved. Attempting to condemn "religion", is to mistake human behavior. My own major in college at a University was biological anthropology, aka human behavioral biology. Mark Rego Monteiro The framing of this issue is not the most progressive, but a progressive approach captive to scapegoating religion and ignoring the role of economic profiteers. The Vatican? The Reformation was sparked in 1520 as part of how University-based education has created the context not just of "freedom", but one that has itself been abused. "Freedom" needs "responsibility," and the problem of authority has long shifted from religion to profiteering businesspeople. In fact, Columbus wasn´t primarily motivated by Christianity. He was no monk. He was an adventurer representing merchant desires, soldiers, and politicians. The Reformation then served to unleash the merchants et al of Holland and the UK, among others, but with the UK´s interesting pivotal roles in spawning spiritual-religious innovators whose success suggests the role of individuals in community in resurgent integrity. Trying to scapegoat religion could probably misdirect attention away from the need for lifestyle, consumer, and economic activism in food co-op stores, credit unions, and Civil Society like the PIRGs, Sierra Club, and Greenpeace, along with spiritual practice to empower insight and reform in Christianity itself not least of all. Reply 3h John H Clemson I understand your point. Certainly economics was the major factor, but killing proples who were considered inferior made it all easier. Greed is the reason , but its negative connotations could be soothed with religious justification. It is not so much happening that way today, but the patters have been engraved in our western culture. Reply 2h Mark Rego Monteiro John H Clemson I want to acknowledge your ability to at least identify psychosocial factors like economics and weigh that with your concern about religion. I thought through a few things below. I tried to summarize it in the next three paragraphs, but left the rest in case you´re interested. I suppose my point can be more pointedly made by indicating that by "religious justification", you´re actually pointing out how merchants et al operate. Merchants were in charge in charge, not monks, and those merchants established authority in key ways in relation to religious authorities. Monks were not dictating the primary objectives of the expedition leaders. Merchants and soldiers were using the skills being advanced by monastic schools turned into Universities, and increasingly secularized after Descartes´ mind-body split and Grotius´ natural law. And in doing so, merchants et al were Western European humans first, not Christians. That´s where the meaning of my own major as "human behavioral biology" becomes important to emphasize. Actual "western patterns" reflect more general human patterns, except for the difference that European merchants et al took the advantage of post-monastic University-based learning into the larger world where might made right. Islam serves one angle of contrast, no less, since their religion didn´t stand for scholarship and it already mostly disappeared after the Mongol Siege of Baghdad in 1258. However, all cultures can have examples cited for contexts and the role of violence: China´s Hongwu Emperor, India´s King Ashoka´s conversion, Gandhi´s renaming the Untouchable caste, Africa´s Olaudah Equiano´s chief-father´s slaves, Jesuit M Nóbrega´s ordained colleague was cannibalized by South American natives, Sacagawea´s own capture and sale as wife. Trying to blame western European humans using Christianity itself presumes the standard of human rights fairness that has only become possible as a response to the power that was used by merchants et al in the first place. It is that conquest that made a demonstration of what is actually University-based educational power in things like sci-tech and organization. It is the "special sauce" of that educational power that is based on monastic Christian spiritual practice. I think this makes much of my argument, but I tried to give a summary up to here. The rest follows if you´re interested. Calling Europeans by their nominal religion, Christianity, is to confuse the human and social power relations involved. Attempting to condemn "religion", is to mistake human behavior. My own major in college at a University was biological anthropology, aka human behavioral biology. Biology gets at the issue that terms like "Economics, religion, etc" are themselves abstractions, and really normally used with the fallacy of misplaced concreteness, aka reification. I remember around sophomore year college having thoughts about motivation, and finding one psychologists ideas or the other on the topic that struck me as incredibly important. The very purpose of spiritual-religious practice on my interfaith spiritual path intensified as I took a Kung Fu class and visited my first Buddhist temple. Jesus, it turns out, very much insisted on spiritual practice. No less, Universities emerged from the monastic system, which itself wasn´t originally initiated by "mastermind planning." Anthony of the Desert was a pioneering ascetic at 18 years old in 270 AD whose story is one of proto-psychotherapy in a fully spiritual theist mode. In Jesus´ legacy. Although a thing of its time, of course. Anthony wrestled with the demon of loneliness, not the feeling and emotional awareness, per se. And so, Anthony´s psychosocial practice and account became a pioneering work, even before Augustine of Hippo´s Confessions around the 400s AD. The details of Christian spiritual-religious history are actually key to grasping both the role of spiritual practice, as also in Buddhism, yoga, tai chi, Sufi whirling, shamanism, and so on. And that becomes key when you say, "the patterns ...engraved in western culture", but still mean to scapegoat religion. What I might shift to is to acknowledge the challenge of unraveling the complexity of the psychosocial and cultural components, and identifying the source of evil in human bio-psychosocial tendencies, or what I think is more than animal, but a cognitive social animal, a meta-animal. The US can be singled out for its leading role in the US-led profiteering model that corporate businesspeople use. Another angle involves interpreting any "blame" and reasoning in terms of empirical/objective categories and related cause-effects. Thus, it is also important to grasp the violence and enslavement of the full range of other cultures, from China to India to Islam to African tribes to Native American tribes. Blaming religion, ignoring the primary role of merchants, soldiers, and politicians, and the subordinate role of the Christian church is to confuse the solution. Blaming religion tends to reflect the premise that "secularist scientism" is the solution, because, for one, spirituality itself hasn´t even been adequately recognized for the powerful significance it has. Actual "western patterns" reflect more general human patterns, except for the difference that European merchants et al took the advantage of post-monastic University-based learning into the larger world where might made right. Islam serves one angle of contrast, no less, since their religion didn´t stand for scholarship and it already mostly disappeared after the Mongol Siege of Baghdad in 1258. However, all cultures can have examples cited for contexts and the role of violence: China´s Hongwu Emperor, India´s King Ashoka´s conversion, Gandhi´s renaming the Untouchable caste, Africa´s Olaudah Equiano´s chief-father´s slaves, Jesuit M Nóbrega´s ordained colleague was cannibalized by South American natives, Sacagawea´s own capture and sale as wife. Modern egalitarianism reflects a corresponding corrective "special sauce" in Jesus´ legacy that goes with the immense power unleashed by post-monastic University education. B de las Casas was a monastic trained figure who began to oppose slavery in Latin America. George Fox followed the Puritan movement in Great Britain to found the Quaker Friends who sparked University activity that led to the pioneering abolition social movement campaign.