Christians came, they saw, they conquered. Similar to most of the other continents.
Well, given the fact that your assertions are ~~95% wrong on the other continents, forgive me for not taking you at your word here.
Are you seriously pretending that Christian empires did not conquer and colonize those lands and subjugate the native inhabitants?
Some of them did identify as Christian, that is very true, but that is different from Christianity doing the conquering. They conquered in the name of their nation, and then spread the gospel. ISIS conquers in the name of Islam. I’m sorry if you cannot understand the difference, but it is an important one.
New rule: Christian violence doesn’t count as long as it’s the Roman Empire doing it.
They weren’t Christian when they conquered those lands. To attribute the Roman conquest to Christianity is… well to put it bluntly it’s retarded. That’d be like attributing the conquest of the USSR to the Romanovs.
Seriously though, what about the parts of Africa that were subjugated by Christians many centuries after the Roman Empire fell? E.g. the Belgians, French, Germans, English, Dutch, Spanish, etc.
Um, I think you mean the parts of
Europe that were subjugated, but no matter. They were converted peacefully, like the rest of the world. There were a handful of incidents, but they were not endorsed by the Church, and most of the perpetrators were condemned.
“Most”? So not all? But the rest don’t count, right?
Which non-Christian groups?
The rest were converted peacefully. Several of the groups wiped themselves out or others (the vikings), and the Nords and Francs were at war for centuries both before and after their conversion. The Irish were converted peacefully by missionaries like St. Patrick. The Dutch and Switch were offshoots of the Germanic tribes, and come to conversion much later than most of the rest of Europe. Again, they were converted peacefully.
There were instances of violence and forced conversion all over the planet, you’re just closing your eyes to it.
I am not closing my eyes to it, I have readily admitted that it happened occasionally, and I make no excuses for it. What I am refuting is your blanket statement that violence is the primary method through which Christianity spread. History does not back up your claims, and again, I welcome you to present evidence for them, rather than blind assertions.
Sure, let’s blame the victims. Christians move in to pagan lands, just minding their own business when the pagans start attacking them. So Christians just destroy all of them, burn their temples to the ground and convert those that are left.
“Just minding their own business” my ***. They were killing women and children for sacrifice to Pagan Gods. We stopped them the same way we called for Hitler to be stopped, or for Marx to be stopped, or Mussolini. We denounced them just as we have denounced every government throughout history that has willfully harmed its own citizens. We did destroy pagan temples, that is true, but generally not until after the majority of the population had converted. We even allowed them to retain a great deal of their cultures, and only asked that they renounce that which stood in opposition to Christ. Again, I’d like to point out, this was a peaceful process.
Funny how it’s the same story all over the world. Africans attack innocent Christians, Africans are killed and converted. Asians attack innocent Christians, then are killed and converted. Aborigines attack innocent Christians, then are killed by those Christians. Native Americans attack innocent Christians, then are killed and converted by those Christians.
I’m just going to assume you didn’t read what I wrote, because I honestly have -no- idea where you got this from in my writings.
Oh, so we’re just ignoring non-Catholic Christianity now? Does that mean that when you talk about the violence inherent in Islam, the Shia can do the same to the Sunni and vice versa? They’re not Muslim, they’re Sunni, they’re not Muslim, they’re Shia and so on?
You -really- don’t pay attention, do you? Australia was conquered by Britain in teh name of Emperialism.
Allow me to put it as plainly as I am capable, pay attention, I’ll put it in all caps just to make sure you see it:
THE FACT THAT A NATION CLAIMS AFFILIATION WITH A SPECIFIC RELIGION DOES NOT MEAN THAT ANY ACTION IT DOES IS DONE IN THE NAME OF THAT RELIGION.
If you need it dumbed down any more than that, I’m afraid I can’t help you.
As for your assertion that it’s history 101, I have no idea what history books you’ve been reading, but this is the picture they’re painting, then I can assure you that they are factually inaccurate. Either that, or your conflating a handful of incidents with the entirety of Christian expansion.
