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Originally Posted by jtur88
Theological/moral religion is pretty much a western concept. They consist mainly of the three Arbahamic ones, Christianity, Judaism and Islam. All three arose in the Middle East, and spread as far as the zeal of their adherents could take them at the point of a sword.
Generally, non-Abrahamic religions do not follow the same pattern as those that Westerners are familiar with. Africans, in Africa, had their own systems of dealing with natural phenomena that they could not scientifically or logically explain, quite similar to those of the pre-Columbian Americas. The fact that they did not associate human behavior with the threats of a fearsome punishing god does not mean that they "had no religion".
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This is all pretty inaccurate to the point I don't know where to begin.
Theology and morality were present on the Torah and Hebrew Judaism before the birth of Christianity. Often prescribing death--death by burning at the stake--before Europe ever converted to Christianity.
Furthermore, aside from the fact Jesus was tried under Jewish Inquisition and turned over to the state for sentencing--a sentence of death--there is no other prophet in the bible that preaches as much damnation in hell for immorality as the Hebrew Jesus.
Early Christianity did not "spread by the sword." It was spread by missionary work and by martyrdom (i.e., the saying, "The ground of the faith is watered by the blood of the martyrs). Rome (the first Western Church) was not even the first kingdom to make Christianity the official state religion. And Constantine the Great (who I may well be related to) never made Christianity the official state religion, as so many half-a__ historian get wrong. He's responsible for the Edit of Milan. Which essentially was "freedom of religion." It granted Christianity the freedom to worship legally. It was his son--also named Constantine--that would later make Christianity the official state religion.
At least 3 kingdoms--one of which was in Ethiopia--made Christianity the state religion before Rome ever did.
The Crusades (a term the Crusaders never used themselves, but there was a crusade tax imposed by the church, but the term "Crusades" originated not through objective sociological and historical inquiry but by Protestant criticism of Catholicism) was not about converting people to Christianity. Its original goal was to return the Holy Land to the Christians. But it evolved into returning Spanish kingdoms back to Christian Spain and fight long centuries of battles with the Turks that expanded into Europe.
The naval Battle of Lepanto and the great land Battle of Vienna secured the future of Western Europe not being Islamic or under Islamic religious law today. In other words... Catholics--as well as the Popes--saved Western Europe to the same degree the secular jihadist of today fighting Muslim extremists in Afghanistan and Iraq claim to have saved Western world secularism.
The big difference is Catholic Europe was under faaaaaaaaar greater threat than the secular super-powers are today. The Turks were as good or better than their Western Catholic enemies. Especially during the very early start of the Crusades. The Crusaders were not even a disciplined, well, trained military force like the Turkish forces were or like our militaries are today. But what they lacked in discipline, training, and cohesiveness they made up for in Vietcong-like zeal.
Getting to the Americas and the Amerindians. We are talking about some nations or tribes that were hyper-violent. The civilized ones like the Aztecs indeed did have gods they feared. Some how whom reading about struck me as Satanic. This is why they sacrificed so many people to the gods. The fear that not doing so would result in punishments like failed crops. And one of their gods they annually sacrificed the screams and blood of scores of
children as they ripped their fingernails out of their fingers.
Some of the non-civilized tribal Amerindians of the North American plains and Northwest were violent to the degree of shocking. Just among themselves they fought near genocidal. And they frequently raped the women, tortured their men and small children in front of them, and danced around the the tortured screaming men in revelry.
The so-called "noble-savage" as a portrayal of mot Amerindians is largely a myth.
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Even Asia east of Persia was not really touched by religion in the Abrahamic sense. Hindus, Buddhists, Confucianists and others had systems of moral values in which Theology was pretty much either irrelevant or peripheral. The origin of the universe and the ethics of human behavior are essentially treated as two separate issues, and morality is not contingent on a divine revelation..
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The Buddhist have a metaphysical philosophy that highly advanced and on par with Catholic theology. Catholic theology is born from a merger of Hebrew religious thought and pagan Greek logic/philosophy. The New Testament itself was written in Greek originally and refers to Jesus in the book of John as
Logos, a Greek philosophical term originating among Greek pagans.
Western Christian theology drawing heavily upon the field of logic (and its Greek origins) is closely related to mathematics in its approach as mathematics is closely related to mathematics. Christian theology is less poetic than it is logical. Whereas a lot of "Eastern" religions tend to promote a lot of esoteric musings that are more poetic than logical. They appear to say more than what they do.
For example, in the Western theological approach a person has to be very clear as to what the purpose and function of the anus of a human being is for. As such, a Western theologian might refer to medical texts. The "Eastern" esoteric musings might not require much use of clarity, precision, or medical text when musing about a males anus, but uses flowery poetic words.
And most of us hate mathematics (and by extension we are not fond of logic) which in my view is a big reason most of us dislike Western theology.
Also, the Mongolians originally despised the Muslims. Neither the Muslims nor the Christian West could really defeat the Mongolian horseman (through some bloodline roots of mine into Hungary, and from a few slanted eyes in old photographs of white ancestors, its possible I may have minute bloodlines to the Mongolians). And the Mongolians originally were made up of pagans, Buddhists, and Nesotorian Christians. Just about all the scholars and learned Mongolian men were Nesotorian Christians originally. Many of the wives to the Khans were Nesotorian Christians too. The Mongols referred to the men as "Trembling Nesotorains" implying they viewed them as scholars but fearful cowards. The European Catholic missionary priests dispatched to the Khans from the Popes they did not view as scholars but held in high respect as courageous men that did not lose their bearing when the Mongolian warriors would encircle them and try to cause them to be terrorized.
One of the Khans eventually sent a Chinese Christian to Europe and to the Pope (where he impressed kings and queens) as an ambassador seeking a military alliance with the Christian West against the Muslims of the East. The Khan offered to retake Egypt for the Pope and return it to the Christians.
The Pope declined the alliance. The Pope and others in the Church feared that if Egypt fell to the Mongols that the Coptic Church would retake its power in Egypt. Essentially, the Pope preferred Egypt remain in the hands of the Muslims than the Coptics. The failure to make military alliance with the Mongols was one of the great historical blunders. The Mongols would have driven Islam from the face of the planet.
Eventually, with less Christin influence in the East and the failure of Crusader Kingdoms to hold ground in the Middle East, the Mongolians began converting to Islam.
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