Question by Dark Knight Redemption: Is Christianity the reason why Europeans dominated most of the known world throughout history?
Not to long ago, I heard someone ask the question “why did Europeans dominate most of the known world?”
The typical evolutionist/atheistic answer to this would be: “Well, because of natural selection! Whites are superior! That’s why!”. And trust me, I’ve seen many evolutionists use this argument.
However, this is far from the truth.
The reason why Europeans dominated most of the known world was because they had Christianity on their side. Think about it. The American Indians were NOT Christians. They were living it straw huts and practicing witchcraft and other false pagan customs. Light always triumphs over Darkness. Christianity guided the Europeans over the darkness. It had nothing to do with them being white. If it had been vice versa, and the Indians had Christianity on their side, they would’ve triumphed over the Europeans.
The same goes for Africans and Asians, who also practiced false pagan beliefs during this time. This eventually led to slavery.
Now that more Asian, black, Indian, etc. people are Christians in this day and age, we seem them excelling more. You cannot excel while promoting pagan beliefs. History as shown as this. It has nothing to do with one race being better than the other, but Christianity (good) defeating pagan religions/cults (darkness)
Despite this atheist evolutionists continue to promote the overtly racist views of Darwin and natural selection (aka “survival of the fittest”). Do you agree? And why is this?
@Eleutherios: You made a type in your answer. The world “Enslaved” needs to be changed to “saved”.
@joe b: …what’s you’re point? There’s gone! The haven’t withstood the test of time Christianity on the other hand, has.
@At the cat in the tin foil hat: I have not said one thing that would qualify as racism. Evolution on the other hand…
@ManWell: Perhaps I should have put “modern history” instead….?
@Newell: From what I’ve heard, Jared Diamond is an evolutionist. I’m sure the book is filled with all kinds of falsehoods and halftruths. Why waste my time?
Oh boy..looks like I’m going to have a lot to address here…
@Corey: “You know zero evolutionists who use this argument. You only know the strawmen evolutionsists that creationist scaremongers make up.”
There a MANY evolutionists who use this argument. Still think I’m lying? Go lurk around on a white supremacist website for while. Many of them are hardcore advocates of natural selection.
“And I think you’re promoting overtly racist views by saying Africans’ and Asians’ religious beliefs were false and that God was on the side of Christian Europeans.”
How exactly is it racist to say their beliefs are wrong? As I already pointed out, had it been vice versa, and had they had Christianity on their side, they would’ve been triumphant over Europeans.
@So-Crates: what does that have to do with anything? They all still promoted false pagan beliefs.
Best answer:
Answer by ManWell KMA
Five hundred years is far from “throughout history”.
Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!
No. Read Jared Diamond “Guns, Germs, and Steel.” Europeans won the geography lottery.
The reason Europeans dominated was greed.
Don’t blame Jesus.
This question was addressed and answered by Jared Diamond in his book Guns, Germs, and Steel.
Christianity kept the masses totally enslaved to the church for most of recorded history.
The catholic church was the main power and still is a massive power across the world today. It was imperialism supercharged with a self-righteous excuse to do so.
What about the Egyptians and Mayans?
Newell is right, Europeans have the vast bulk of the worlds Beasts of Burden staple food crops and the most even climatic zone to form large societies.
Your reasoning is pure racism.
I have never promoted such a racist idea. On the contrary, I think Europeans used their faith in Christianity as their excuse for decimating other populations. It had nothing to do with race or with God being “on their side”. It was mad lust for land and resources, plain and simple, and was horribly wrong no matter what the reason.
I think it is the opposite… the Europeans dominated, and thus Christianity spread.
Right.
I guess I wont point out how those stupid Islamic Arabs came up with the current numbering system that is still in use today, right?? Nor should I point out how those pesky Hindu Indians pretty much invented farming. Nor shall I point out how gunpowder was invented by the Chinese.
Many wars were fought in the name of religion but were not actually religious wars.
Religion was an easy and acceptable way under which many non-religious people sought world domination and wealth. The spoils went to the more powerful and largest armies. One reason the Reformation came about…the Catholic church was trying to take over and control the world for their own corrupt reasons that had nothing to do with the Bible or the truth.
Known to who?
God helped the Europeans and he will always support those who love him
I like the use of “most of the known world”. What, exactly does that mean?
I’m not lost. I know exactly where I am.
The known world is subjective and the statement that Europeans have dominated “most of the known world” is also very subjective.
As to “most of the world” (excluding the use of the word, “known”) Christians haven’t dominated. They didn’t dominate in Russia or behind the iron and bamboo curtains. They didn’t dominate the Mediterranean during most of the middle ages. They really didn’t dominate in Europe, since they were barely surviving.
But for the sake of your argument, the answer isn’t religion, it is education and literacy. It wasn’t until Gutenberg invented his movable type printing press that religion became something that the common person could access. Prior to that, Christianity was run by and for the church (it still is in many denominations wherein the people are told they don’t have the right to privately interpret the scriptures).
And as far as your statement about evolutionists making statements like, “because of natural selection! Whites are superior!” Well… I’ve never seen in print or heard anyone who is an atheist make such a statement.
I’m not lost. I know exactly where I am and I think I see a straw man…
Wow. What a horrible misrepresentation of atheists. And poor understanding of history.
Europeans did not dominate most of the known world throughout history. And atheists don’t think it has anything to do with europeans being superior. You know zero evolutionists who use this argument. You only know the strawmen evolutionsists that creationist scaremongers make up.
Europe had easy to reach natural resources and has a very high percentage of coastline. During the eras when Europe was dominate, they took advantage of those two facts.
And I think you’re promoting overtly racist views by saying Africans’ and Asians’ religious beliefs were false and that God was on the side of Christian Europeans.
You can’t push a strawman like that seriously, can you? No atheist I know would claim natural selection as a reason for European hegemony. Moreover, it’s a very recent development. For most of the world’s history, Europe was either a backwater, or on par with other great empires. Romans many have dominated Europe, but were kept in check by the equally dominate Parthians covering central Asia, and were, in some ways, behind both the Chinese and Indian civilizations of the times.
There are a whole host of factors as to why Europeans made a technological leap in late middle ages and early Renaissance, and Christendom, and the Universities it founded are part of it, but it was hardly the determinative factor.
India and China are becoming more dominant forces in today’s world, but are not becoming Christians, so that, too, is an unsupported and unsourced fallacy you’re promoting.
Hello,
No; Islam to a big degree. For a while Islamic civilization was far more advanced than European. In the later middle ages when the Muslims cut off the spice trade routes to the Europeans, the Europeans had to quickly come up with new marine technology, better ocean going ships and weapons to venture out into the unknown world to find the far east cut off to them by land. Within a century they forged far ahead and discovered the new lands along with all the goods and treasures.
The European powers also used Julius Caesar’s tactics of divide and conquer when they took over the lands hence taking control with vastly inferior numbers in comparison to the indigenous populations.
Cheers,
Michael Kelly
as far as I can see and understand the main driver behind christianity, has been war and greed, what happen when the three religions split up did they all not come from Abraham, if you do not believe what we believe, we will go to war with you, and conquer you civilization then plunder your resources in the name of god, enslave your women or just complete genocide on your whole race, because you do not believe in our religion, same with Catholics.Muslims, they talk about how you are supposed to love your fellow man but religion is and has been used for many evil atrocities through out history.After a period of exploration by people from various European countries, Spanish, Dutch, English, French, Swedish, and Portuguese settlements were established
Columbus would later describe his initial encounter in his captain’s log,
“They…brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks’ bells. They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features… They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane…. They would make fine servants…. With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.
The underlying reasons why Europe grew faster were in place long before Christianity existed. Every religion influences its culture but the predominant factors that allowed Europeans to better trade, conquer and explore are best explained with more mundane phenomena; see “Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies .”
http://www.pbs.org/gunsgermssteel/variables/index.html
Preview:
http://books.google.com/books?id=kLKTa_OeoNIC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_navlinks_s#v=onepage&q=&f=false
Europe DIDN’T dominate the known world.
The Classical world was dominated by Persians, Greeks, and Romans. Look up Alexander the Great, Philip of Macedonia, Cyrus the great. Europe by Celts, Saxons, Vikings. Asia was never dominated by Europeans, but do check out Genghis Khan for one kick ass empire-builder.
The pagan Romans dominated more of Europe than anyone else. Their empire began to go sour about the time they embraced Christianity, though one thing had nothing to do with the other.
the Dark Ages were the times when the Roman empire fell apart, and it was then that Christianity rose to fill the void. The crusades helped to unify the Christan world and generated a lot of business opportunities which really strengthened and unified Christianity.
During this time, it was the Moslem world that was the high point of human civilization–top of the world in science, philosophy exploration and medicine. Check out Ibn Ben Battutta, the mediaval explorer who covered and wrote about more of the world than any other man of his time.
Christianity had dominated much of the world through a mixture of practicality, military might and technical sophistication. Most Christian Conquerors were motivated as much by profit as religion (Christopher Columbus, the Conquistadors, etc.), and in many cases had superior might and technology. Though Christianity is the religion of love and compassion, it often generated followers by force & bullying. Convert or Die worked in both Europe and the New World. In many part of f the world they actively destroyed the existing culture of the people they invaded, so that only Christianity would be left. This made for some strange versions of Christianity, where the old gods took on the persona of the saints as in a lot of south american beliefs.
Currently, European culture dominates because it’s linked to dominant technology, but with outsourcing, that could change if we’re not careful. Asia may be the next dominating culture. In any case this is economics, if faith helped to achieve it, great, but it’s all business. In any case, right now, Islam outnumbers Christianity as foar as numbers of followers, but remember faith isn’t a popularity game, like Star Search.
There’s nothing “magical” about Christianity, except that it is linked to the most technically sophisticated cultures in the world. And as much of that technical superiority was created by non-Christians as Christians.
In any case, If god created all the world, as the bible tells us, and all the people are in fact god’s children, then all the gods are the same, just different names. It would be nice to see more of that love and compassion that Jesus preached than the kind of competition that he decried in idolaters.
because your religion teaches you to have no conscience. it is evident in the many children who were abused in institutions run by christians churches all over the continent. in canada there are 50,000 children laying in unmarked graves in church and school yards across the country and your churches refuse to let us take them home. why? because those in charge know that what we will find is even worse than what we suspect.
the survivors of your “hell” still suffer from the sexual abuse and physical torture your good holy people dished out on them as children. and apparently many of these “holy” people continue to abuse kids and the worse part is the churches protect them from prosecution.
when victims name names and they are never brought to court at all…that is no conscience. so keep on pretending you are superior while the bloody trail behind you screams for justice. it will come. even your own book says so.