If Jesus had not come until 1975, in Canada.

[Ghoti]

A problem with your premise is that had Jesus not come until 1975, world history would be vastly different. Constantine would not have Christianized the Empire. Islam may not have arisen, definitely not in the form it took. No Papacy. No Crusades. No Reformation. No monasteries. Would the Arabs have been able to start an empire without Islam? Would there have been an Ottoman Empire to oppose Constantinople? Would Europe have remained fractured and tribal, or would some new religion – Mithraists, Solists, Aten Revivalists, etc – unite disparate groups under one banner the way Christianity and Islam did? Who would be the new Empires? And should these Empires cross the sea to Canada: would they bring Utopia, or bread and circuses?

When you pull such a being as Jesus out of history, it unravels everything that came after that was dependent on Him – and everything dependent on those things, and so on, and so on. So now that we require a total suspension of disbelief, we are free to make up any story about what kind of a socio-political system He would be born into almost 2 millennia after the fact and a quarter of the planet away, with absolutely nothing of His historical influence – no matter how remote or infinitesimal – to show up to that point.

Put it to you this way. I doubt He would show up at Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. Because I’d bet there wouldn’t be a Saskatchewan – or even a Canada – let alone a Moose Jaw.

 

[Ghoti]

You sure that would have happened in 1975?

Yes, first nations people had a restorative model of justice and not the Judeo Christian historical, eye for an eye model.

The ultimate punishment in a first nations community, would be to banish an offender permanently from the community.

They did not kill or torture them.

First Nations people in what is now Canada and their belief in naturalistic Gods, were an incredibly civilized people. First Nations society and community existed peacefully and happily, until a certain group of people came upon this continent that is…but that’s another thread.

That’s right. The Aboriginal Peoples never fought each other, or had tribal warfare, or anything of the sort. Everyone knows that was invented by the white man.

The Aboriginal peoples of Canada are not all the same culture, same history, same outlook. They did indeed have religion – they had their myths, their rituals, their holy men, their beliefs in higher powers and the afterlife. And you can’t just point at something and say “That’s Indian culture”. The Haida are not like the Cree. The Iroquois are not like the Tlingit. The Nootka are not like the Inuit. And apparently none were like the Beothuk.

What we call “tribes” were as different from each other in culture, language, belief, and warfare as were the “ethnic groups” of Europe. One tribe defeated enemies in battle by “counting coup”: bopping you three times with a stick meant “you lose; go away”. Another tribe tortured prisoners as a way of testing their mettle. Two extremes; most everyone fell somewhere in between.

What Rousseau talked about sounds like the “noble savage” claptrap. It’s racist, really, what a lot of postcolonial thinkers say: in essence, the world was a wonderful place till Whitey showed up. Obviously, evil and melanin come in inverse proportion.

What the Inuit and First Nations have in common with their colonial invaders is this: they are human. Their cultures are human cultures, their religions are human religions, and their warfare is human warfare. The main difference is technological advancement. Had the Chinese, say, been able to sail to the Americas and trade gunpowder, horses and metal to the Amerindians, the European “colonization” of America might have turned out far differently. As it was, the Norse who came over c. 1000 and tried to settle in what’s now Nunavut were driven off by the locals. Imagine: a people who scared the Vikings. Imagine also if the tribes in America had been able to mount an analogous kind of defence against the European settlers/conquerors of the 16th century. History would have turned out quite differently.

Things may have turned out quite differently among the American tribes had they produced their own Muhammad or Shaka Zulu.

 

[Iamnotafraid]

P.S. I remember the story of several Jesuit priests up in the adirondacks who were martyred for the faith in a horrific manner, even though the priests had done them no harm.
Would you say that was living in peace and harmony?

I never said that Aboriginal peoples lived in Utopian societies, without disputes, infighting and immoral acts.

I simply said that First Nations people were highly civilized, cultured, possessed a system of justice that was well advanced beyond that, what the Europeans knew from their judeo Christian eye for an eye standard and that they were a very peaceful people.

This conversation is on pause, until you provide the links to your source, about your story.