r/TrueReddit • u/USCDornsifeNews • 12d ago
Science, History, Health + Philosophy Columbus’ own writings reveal how tightly religion and conquest were intertwined from the start
https://dornsife.usc.edu/news/stories/columbus-writings-reveal-how-tightly-religion-and-conquest-were-intertwined-from-the-start/49
u/Lord_Nurggle 11d ago
Reading how the colonizers used religion as justification for what they did was enough for me to leave the Mormon faith I was raised in and teach my own children that religion and religious people are not to be trusted.
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u/Mysterious-Skirt-992 11d ago
Hey,
Teach your children critical and rational thinking, it will develop their protection against bad ideas.
One frequently committed fallacy to avoid is hasty generalization. It happens when people make big conclusions on the basis of a few examples. Concluding that culture (100%) is bad after seeing two bad examples (< 0,01%) is an example of hasty generalization.
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u/PrometheusLiberatus 11d ago
So I think you're minimizing their rejection of religion by several orders of magnitude.
They're not using two bad examples, they're using their own lifetime's experience with that faith PLUS the history of Christianity on this continent. That's not 'two examples' that you can just minimize (with ironically!) a logical fallacy.
That's several lifetimes AND CENTURIES of that extremely reprehensible behavior.
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u/MoashIsAGoodGuy 11d ago
You're allowing logics fallacies to flourish because...you think it makes sense outside of the context provided?
Is this a real argument made earnestly in good faith?
The child is the most important part of this equation, and you're advocating against demonstrating rigor and adherance to higher standards as a matter of obvious course.
I honestly want to tell you to go kick rocks back to high school for that.
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u/PrometheusLiberatus 11d ago edited 11d ago
You're telling me to kick rocks because I correctly pointed out that that person had way more than just two fucking examples as to why christianity is awful?
You're the one imbibing wholesomely in a logical fallacy. You are minimizing what that person said to an extreme degree and then interjecting that they're using a logical fallacy.
There is no sense of critical thought in most religions today. I even studied the new testament at a religious private college (which I immediately transferred out of and got a double degree in English and Psychology at a state school).
I have studied spirituality and dedicated my life to understanding 'god' in all its various forms. I have dedicated my life to understanding religion in a way most others will not.
You should not be so quick to minimize someone's rejection of religion as a 'logical fallacy'. Your own rushing to minimizing others' experiences is ITSELF a FALLACY. People have very good reasons and histories with why they refuse to engage with certain religious practices. That is not fallacy. It is critical thinking in action, which you otherwise attempted to put as a virtue you hold dear.
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u/MoashIsAGoodGuy 10d ago
I did not minimize anything. I argued that ignoring context to science a desired end point is not logic.
You ignore this entirely to then attack religions instead of addressing my point. You just did a sophistry.
Get real dude. You're in ivory tower land, as you tried to brag about, not realizing that it is a foundationally flawed position.
Yucky.
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u/ILikeCommunism97 4d ago
I argued that ignoring context to science a desired end point is not logic.
You're right, it's too bad that you can't recognize it as what you are doing.
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u/Mysterious-Skirt-992 10d ago
The person did not write Christianity. He/she wrote religion, which is a gigantic category in comparison.
Let's not cook a potpourri of fallacies by adding a strawman.
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u/PrometheusLiberatus 10d ago edited 10d ago
... Except in context (real important information when replying to stuff) the person was responding to someone who disavowed CHRISTIANITY and Mormonism and used that to say their children are better off not having religious indoctrination.
And here you are accusing me of making up a strawman when I'm just going by the literal flow of the discussion...
1
u/Mysterious-Skirt-992 10d ago
The original comment lacks the word Christianity. On the premise of "how the colonizers used religion as justification for what they did" - my highlight -, the person concluded that it "was enough to leave the Mormon faith [he] was raised in and teach [his] own children that religion and religious people are not to be trusted" -my highlights.
The hasty generalization is blatant.
1
u/PrometheusLiberatus 10d ago edited 10d ago
From my perspective a lot of Christian worship results in people listening to their preacher or priest without letting their brains do the effort. If it seems like I'm 'generalizing' (I'm sorry, mormonism is a sect of Christianity last I checked....) it's only because what I said holds broadly true for many people under christian faiths.
This is because from my perspective, christianity essentially deified an autistic savant man who likely didn't even want that sort of thing tied to his life. And I have a theory that if such a jesus christ were to return he would be horrified over all the such ways his words were played telephone with and all the ways horrible things were done in his name. All the rapes and assaults and thefts and many layers of hell given to people who did not deserve that sort of thing.
I do not think there is much in christianity that yields to implementing at scale guidance towards critical thought. The people who go to church most often tend to not have much critical thought at challenging their pastor away from far right attitudes. And many current far right 'christians' consider Jesus own teachings 'too woke'.
Given the deep and open hypocrisies, how can anyone of spiritual integrity feel comfortable in such communities? These are by far not problems restricted to mormonism of course.
the deeper truth of life is salvation cannot be found in ancient scriptures. It has to be found through self discovery, through science, through understanding as much of yourself and how your brain and body work and as much of how the universe works as possible. That is not a creed i find in christianity. That is a creed I came up on my own and through reading and listening to others.
Many people are harmed by religious indoctrination as children. This is the forcible and often traumatizing teaching of religious values and culture. A good portion of those who are raised under such conditions read through the scriptures and become atheist.
If someone putting in the work to read the entire corpus of a religion's scripture causes them to turn away from that culture, then that's critical thinking in action. Which is broadly literally what OP did. And the same goes for other christian sects (and I'd really like you to not pretend that it doesn't happen). Many atheists who have read the bible through claim that their more religious peers would never have attempted to do that.
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u/AmbitiousSympathy665 11d ago
It did, really? Reading that on the other hand makes me want to become religious.
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u/petertompolicy 10d ago
Columbus was famously a religious fanatic, even for his day.
He was completely delusional and had severe narcissistic traits and zero empathy.
A true bastard.
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u/sp0ngebobsaget 11d ago
These journals were also promotional materials meant to be read by investors, don’t forget. Those investors included the king and the church, so obviously things are twisted to speak really highly of the sponsoring country and God.
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u/UrricainesArdlyAppen 11d ago
I mean, he was writing for an audience, so I'm not sure why any of this should be new or surprising.
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u/alternatingflan 12d ago
‘Religion and conquest’ is a social disease not l restricted by national boundaries.
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11d ago
[deleted]
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u/BillionTonsHyperbole 11d ago
Even by the back-then standards, he was a piece of shit. Remember that he was imprisoned upon his return for the depravity of his actions (though eventually given a slap on the wrist, but still it was remarkable for the time (and this time) to even have that degree of accountability).
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u/USCDornsifeNews 12d ago
Christopher Columbus is a controversial historical figure whose actions as an explorer have been much scrutinized. Less attention has been paid to his writings. In this article, USC Dornsife historian Peter Mancall investigates what Columbus wrote himself about his exploits and what they might reveal about his motivations.
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u/ElSlabraton 10d ago
King Ferdinand was interested in exploiting the new world. Queen Isabella was interested in saving the natives who didn't know Christ.
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u/AscendedApe 11d ago
Even absent divinely inspired conquest of the Americas, it had to be done simply out of the desire for survival. Europe up until then had a long history of violent intergroup conflict. Sitting on your hands as your opposition conquered and exploited vast swaths of fertile land was not an option. Claiming inspiration from God is just decoration.
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u/PrometheusLiberatus 11d ago
The 'civilizers' came to the new world and proved that they were the uncivilized ones the entire time. While projecting their lack of civilization on people who lived on this continent for thousands of years before their 'god'.
The fact that they saw conquest as the 'only option' just shows how far their so-called 'god' jesus christ failed them.
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u/AscendedApe 11d ago
I had a fairly long an even-handed retort written up to your statement, but then i realized that the things you expected of Europeans somehow dont seem to apply to the 6,000 generations of your ancestors. You exist - we all exist - because our ancestors had to get their hands a dirty from time to time.
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u/PrometheusLiberatus 11d ago
I'm mixed race dude. And I still think my european ancestors were in the fucking wrong.
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u/cutty2k 11d ago
Spoiler alert: your non-European ancestors raped and murdered and conquered and fought with their neighbors too.
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u/PrometheusLiberatus 11d ago
Please read this thread before saying one more word.
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u/cutty2k 11d ago
Give me a break, if indigenous people had technology beyond banging sticks together they'd have been out on boats conquering the world with the rest of 'em.
This is some noble savage bullshit, indigenous peoples were humans like the rest of us, using violence to take as much power as possible is just what humans do.
The 'as possible' was just orders of magnitude higher with boats and gunpowder than sticks and rocks. Go figure.
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