Colonization for resources is Evil

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You’re conflating the actions of states (i.e. Roman Empire, France, German principalities) with the doctrine of the church.

There is a lot of nuance throughout history. You’re trying to lump Church and state, layman and religious, and say that the actions of one are automatically the responsibility of the other. This is not the case.

The church worked, and continues to work, to apply consistent catholic teaching to the actions of governments. That certain kings or presidents act differently is not to be blamed on the church. In fact, without the church, colonization would have been much worse. You can see that in the differences between how Britain treated the natives vs the Spanish or French.
 
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PJH_74 said:
They had, believe it or not, their own culture and in some cases a very sophisticated culture. But taking that culture away and making them subordinate serfs or even slaves while exploiting their land is NOT Christian.
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Some had sophisticated cultures that practiced human sacrifice. We should take that culture away.
 
I’ll post this again. And though the British were not perfect, and also not Catholic, their culture was still superior to the barbarism native to India. Even flawed, diluted, heretical Christianity is better than paganism.

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PJH_74 said:
They had, believe it or not, their own culture and in some cases a very sophisticated culture.
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Yes, the Aztec’s had for example, their own sophisticated culture which involved human sacrifice. The Europeans did not let them keep that culture. Is that a bad thing?

Fortunately, when Our Lady appeared to Juan Diego as Our Lady of Guadalupe, there was mass conversion to Christianity.
 
Christianity has affected pretty much all developed nations.
Connected with this, the West has affected pretty much all developed nations.

Unfortunately a lot of abuses have occurred, much wrong has been done, but also good. It is too easy to critique the actions of those from a different era, for they had different understandings. Our hyper individualism is something that was not known until relatively recently.
 
JimG said:
Yes, the Aztec’s had for example, their own sophisticated culture which involved human sacrifice. The Europeans did not let them keep that culture. Is that a bad thing?
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Of course not, but to what level I don’t know. However if European culture is so much better on that issue, how about the contemporary Spanish Inquisition burning or killing people for religious issues. How about the killing of Jews throughout the centuries, again, simply on religious grounds. I should mention the the Spanish Inquisition had a special disdain even for Jews that converted or those of Jewish decent that grew up Catholic.
 
Kei said:
Unfortunately a lot of abuses have occurred, much wrong has been done, but also good. It is too easy to critique the actions of those from a different era, for they had different understandings.
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Yes that is true to some degree, but there are people on this thread having no issue claiming it was all good and that we gave them culture and it was a fair trade for us taking their resources. It may have been a different era, but that does not mean that the effects of this activity are gone, I can provide many examples.
 
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Ask Syria and Middle East what it is like to be colonized for resources and you’ll get to know all the harm it causes.
 
You are mixing far too many things up. But there is a huge difference in execution for a crime and human sacrifice. The only reason you condemn most of the things you condemn in your list is because you accept Christian morals. Without Christian morals anything goes.
 
The Middle East was never colonized, at least not in the conventional sense of the word. They were colonies of European empires but there was never mass migration of Europeans into those colonies like the americas or South Africa.
 
You’re right. They’re not colonized, the word I was looking for is “occupied” they’re being violently occupied for their resources. And thus, they’ll be colonized in the near future. Sadly.
 
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Lol idk what world you’re living in, but it ain’t reality.
 
The justification for colonialism and imperialism going on in this thread is insane. Imperialism was hardly a force for good - it was an exploitative force that destroyed traditional social relations in Africa and elsewhere, giving rise to new national, ethnic and religious divisions. Honestly the idea that imperialism can be justified as a civilising mission needs to be done away with. Sure, it brought civilization to much of the world - it brought wage labour and capital and nations and urbanisation. However it only did this through destructive social engineering and violent pacification, and it’s hard to see how the end was worth the means. Capitalism really is horror without end for most of the world.

The idea that imperialism is justifiable because resources weren’t used or because nations and governments did not exist is some intense ideology.
 
I don’t see it your way. Then it would be evil for a foreign company to buy US forest land or cattle property on the cheap, and ship the valuable timber and beef to Japan, keeping the bulk of the profits off shore.

Some aspects of colonization were very bad and some things were very good. Given the times and the way technology transferred, it’s just the way the world worked at that time. When colonies were established, democratic government really hadn’t taken hold anywhere. The world was a battle field between Monarchs, and you would be ruled by one of them. So colonization was just as evil in the colony as rule by Monarchy in the home country.
 
I don’t see it your way. Then it would be evil for a foreign company to buy US forest land or cattle property on the cheap, and ship the valuable timber and beef to Japan, keeping the bulk of the profits off shore.
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“Neo-colonialism” is a destructive force throughout the world. Plenty of companies operate in developing countries, extracting resources and investing or contributing little to the national economy of the country they ruin. See Shell operating in Nigeria, for example.
Some aspects of colonization were very bad and some things were very good. Given the times and the way technology transferred, it’s just the way the world worked at that time.
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And yet colonisation continued into the late 20th century. Many parts of the world, such as Africa, were only properly partitioned in the late 19th century, well after the rule by absolute monarchs that you depict Europe as at the time of colonialism and imperialism. Countries such as the United Kingdom would have been very proud of their democratic tradition, and it was often invoked as a justification for imperialism.
 
Yes, we continue to evolve, and local governments are getting better at getting more value from the resources extracted.

This same criticism works within national borders when resources are moved from one region to another. Example, did West Virginia coal mining communities get taken advantage of from the resources they offered?

Are Wyo residents adequately compensated for the coal they supply today?
 
Ask yourself what world you’re living in. If you find an answer, let me praise you for you great efforts
 
Are you considering the Muslims the occupiers? I’m really not sure what argument you’re making
 
America. I’m talking about the United States of America and you know it.
 
Uhhh where exactly is the US occupying unwanted? You do realize in the countries the US is in there are status of forces agreements in place that allow us there? If the local governments didn’t agree to our presence we wouldn’t be there.
 
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