[Verv]

Let us start with your evidence for the number of Aztec sacrifices.

LOL, sure.

Some post-conquest sources report that at the re-consecration of Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan in 1487, the Aztecs sacrificed about 80,400 prisoners over the course of four days. This number is considered by Ross Hassig, author of Aztec Warfare, to be an exaggeration. Hassig states "between 10,000 and 80,400 persons" were sacrificed in the ceremony.[11] The higher estimate would average 15 sacrifices per minute during the four-day consecration. Four tables were arranged at the top so that the victims could be jettisoned down the sides of the temple.[18] Nonetheless, according to Codex Telleriano-Remensis, old Aztecs who talked with the missionaries told about a much lower figure for the reconsecration of the temple, approximately 4,000 victims in total.

Michael Harner, in his 1977 article The Enigma of Aztec Sacrifice, cited an estimate by Borah of the number of persons sacrificed in central Mexico in the 15th century as high as 250,000 per year which may have been one percent of the population.[19] Fernando de Alva Cortés Ixtlilxochitl, a Mexica descendant and the author of Codex Ixtlilxochitl, estimated that one in five children of the Mexica subjects was killed annually. Victor Davis Hanson argues that a claim by Don Carlos Zumárraga of 20,000 per annum is "more plausible".[20] Other scholars believe that, since the Aztecs often tried to intimidate their enemies, it is more likely that they could have inflated the number as a propaganda tool.[21] The same can be said for Bernal Díaz's inflated calculations when, in a state of visual shock, he grossly miscalculated the number of skulls at one of the seven Tenochtitlan tzompantlis. The counter argument is that both the Aztecs and Diaz were very precise in the recording of the many other details of Aztec life, and inflation or propaganda would be unlikely. According to the Florentine Codex, fifty years before the conquest the Aztecs burnt the skulls of the former tzompantli. Archeologist Eduardo Matos Moctezuma has unearthed and studied some tzompantlis.[22] In 2003, archaeologist Elizabeth Graham noted that the largest number of skulls yet found at a single tzompantli was only about a dozen.[9]

[1]

Yes, I am saying that SOME people in E gland have never suffered the negative impacts of colonialism. That does not mean that your hypothetical Nigerian immigrant has not.

Sure, sure, so the Nigerian-descent people all suffer colonialism whether they are middle class children who never went to Nigeria in the USA or England, or whether they are the Muslim minority in norhtern Nigeria being repressed actively by the Nigerian government, and that is what is relevant to their lives: the effects of colonialism.

Why?

How?

This is certainly a lazy argument. But I do say: a very hopeful one. You really believe that everything can be so interconnected so brilliantly.

If you think I said that, you have deeply misunderstood.

And there's no need to explain, right?

Why post a statement if you are unwilling to unpack it? You're a very prolific poster who spends probably half a dozen or more hours a week on PoFo. Surely, you have some time to develop an argument without being prodded. Or is that part of the game?


[1] Human sacrifice in Aztec culture (wiki)

[Pants-of-dog]

LOL, sure.

Human sacrifice in Aztec culture (wiki)

So, we have tens of thousands in Aztec culture.

The Catholics at the time killed over a hundred thousand in Europe alone.

How are Europeans any better?

Sure, sure, so the Nigerian-descent people all suffer colonialism whether they are middle class children who never went to Nigeria in the USA or England, or whether they are the Muslim minority in norhtern Nigeria being repressed actively by the Nigerian government, and that is what is relevant to their lives: the effects of colonialism.

Why?

How?

This is certainly a lazy argument. But I do say: a very hopeful one. You really believe that everything can be so interconnected so brilliantly.

This is a strawman.

Do you agree that many English people have experienced the benefits of knowledge from other cultures without having to deal with colonialism? Yes or no?

And there's no need to explain, right?

Why post a statement if you are unwilling to unpack it? You're a very prolific poster who spends probably half a dozen or more hours a week on PoFo. Surely, you have some time to develop an argument without being prodded. Or is that part of the game?

Saying that some people in England did not have to deal with colonialism does not mean that there are not a significant number of people who have to deal with the negative impacts of colonialism to this day.

This should be obvious to anyone who understands that most of the world is not England.

[Tainari88]

Is Mexico today dominated by a death-cult that sacrifices tens of thousands of people a year to Huitzilopochtli?

No, and that is a pretty big plus.

Every argument would basically boil down to some version of you now have modern medicine, literacy, access to univeristies, a concept of human rights, and access to the Holy Communion.

I am sure, though, there is some argument along the lines of [i]we could've gotten that without all of this colonialism, but this involves living & operating in a world where humans aren't humans but are rather pure altruists who are interested in trading Penicillin for beads.

Fun thing: that is eventually what happened.

No, Verv all you demonstrated here is your total lack of knowing and understanding Pre-hispanic societies in Latin America, and demonstrating how incredibly open to gullible and distorted versions of history fed to you by people who never lived with the supposed 'death cult' worshipers. Lol. in stereotypes from a society you know nothing about.

Have you ever heard of Gonzalo Guerrero? No. Look him up. They have a monument to him in Merida, Yucatan Mexico. He arrived before Hernan Cortez. The problem with people like you Verv is you are told things that support your point of view only and you want to think they are true. They are mostly lies Verv.

That argument of yours that all advances are from the Empire and none of the good things come from the colonized is a narrative that is deliberate spread out there to justify colonizing others. It has this type of fallacy and logic....the Africans, Indians and Latinos are primitives. They don't know what to do with their own land, or what to do with the resources in those lands. They are grunting animals basically without our know how and ingenuity. Our civilization and our knowledge. So, it is ok, to steal the land from them, to force them into slavery or debt service, to kill their leaders, burn their temples, or their villages and to overtake their territories. Because after all? They are not our equals.

Everything else comes from the thought process. It is satanic. Talk about 'worshiping' some devil God? What kind of mentality is that? You tell me? Lol.

Don't get into a debate with me of what all those 'primitive' societies didn't contribute to humanity Verv....because you did not even know about the insular cases before? You won't be able to compete with the barrage of information I have disproving all your thoughts about the IMPERIALIST mentality of 'superiority'. Without the colonized? They would have almost nothing in terms of wealth. Latin America, Africa and Asia together have the vast majority of all wealth on the planet. The UK grows peat moss and some two or three things. They are not the center of material wealth in the world. Thus the reason in capitalistic nations taking over the 'colonials' is such a priority.

Believing their lies is a very critical thing to justify all that crap they do all over the world @Verv. I know why they got to believe that shit Verv? Because if they had to be real men and women and face the facts? Who are the inferior humans and the nasty people? Them. Not the colonized.

They would have to do some deep soul searching,

"Well, looks like we killed innocent people, shot, drowned, murdered, bullied and lied our way to power. We had no care for others, treated our brothers and sister in humanity like pieces of meat and beasts of burden, we enslaved, killed and polluted the land, we lied and never told the truth to them or to our own people. We stole, cheated, lied and murdered. All because of greed and we allowed hatred and discord and injustice to reign all because of our love of mundane power and control and our love of feeling 'superior' and the winners...we claim to worship Christ our Lord. But did we honor his spirit and his sacrifice with such acts to those different from us? No....I wonder how superior we are..."

And if they had half a heart they would cry in agony forever and go and repent and never do anything like that again. But if they keep in their dumb denials? No improvement. Stuck with being Satan's minions for all time.

There you go Verv. How I feel about IMPERIALISM in a nutshell.

[Verv]

So, we have tens of thousands in Aztec culture.

The Catholics at the time killed over a hundred thousand in Europe alone.

How are Europeans any better?

Citations, please.

I do not know what you are referring to.

This is a strawman.

Do you agree that many English people have experienced the benefits of knowledge from other cultures without having to deal with colonialism? Yes or no?

No?

What benefits are you talking about?

Yoga?

Saying that some people in England did not have to deal with colonialism does not mean that there are not a significant number of people who have to deal with the negative impacts of colonialism to this day.

This should be obvious to anyone who understands that most of the world is not England.

Alright, so how are, say, Haitians, Nigerians, Gabonese, and Hong Kongers dealing with the painful fallout of colonialism today?

Or would you prefer to hone in some specific examples of your own?

[Verv]

No, Verv all you demonstrated here is your total lack of knowing and understanding Pre-hispanic societies in Latin America, and demonstrating how incredibly open to gullible and distorted versions of history fed to you by people who never lived with the supposed 'death cult' worshipers. Lol. in stereotypes from a society you know nothing about.

Have you ever heard of Gonzalo Guerrero? No. Look him up. They have a monument to him in Merida, Yucatan Mexico. He arrived before Hernan Cortez. The problem with people like you Verv is you are told things that support your point of view only and you want to think they are true. They are mostly lies Verv.

That argument of yours that all advances are from the Empire and none of the good things come from the colonized is a narrative that is deliberate spread out there to justify colonizing others. It has this type of fallacy and logic....the Africans, Indians and Latinos are primitives. They don't know what to do with their own land, or what to do with the resources in those lands. They are grunting animals basically without our know how and ingenuity. Our civilization and our knowledge. So, it is ok, to steal the land from them, to force them into slavery or debt service, to kill their leaders, burn their temples, or their villages and to overtake their territories. Because after all? They are not our equals.

Everything else comes from the thought process. It is satanic. Talk about 'worshiping' some devil God? What kind of mentality is that? You tell me? Lol.

Don't get into a debate with me of what all those 'primitive' societies didn't contribute to humanity Verv....because you did not even know about the insular cases before? You won't be able to compete with the barrage of information I have disproving all your thoughts about the IMPERIALIST mentality of 'superiority'. Without the colonized? They would have almost nothing in terms of wealth. Latin America, Africa and Asia together have the vast majority of all wealth on the planet. The UK grows peat moss and some two or three things. They are not the center of material wealth in the world. Thus the reason in capitalistic nations taking over the 'colonials' is such a priority.

Believing their lies is a very critical thing to justify all that crap they do all over the world @Verv. I know why they got to believe that shit Verv? Because if they had to be real men and women and face the facts? Who are the inferior humans and the nasty people? Them. Not the colonized.

They would have to do some deep soul searching,

"Well, looks like we killed innocent people, shot, drowned, murdered, bullied and lied our way to power. We had no care for others, treated our brothers and sister in humanity like pieces of meat and beasts of burden, we enslaved, killed and polluted the land, we lied and never told the truth to them or to our own people. We stole, cheated, lied and murdered. All because of greed and we allowed hatred and discord and injustice to reign all because of our love of mundane power and control and our love of feeling 'superior' and the winners...we claim to worship Christ our Lord. But did we honor his spirit and his sacrifice with such acts to those different from us? No....I wonder how superior we are..."

And if they had half a heart they would cry in agony forever and go and repent and never do anything like that again. But if they keep in their dumb denials? No improvement. Stuck with being Satan's minions for all time.

There you go Verv. How I feel about IMPERIALISM in a nutshell.

OK, I think you have some misconceptions about what I actually believe.

I have looked a bti at some of these groups -- not just the Aztecs and Inca or some such. Of course, I am no expert. But I am aware that there was a great diversity among the tribes, and there were even tribes that do come close to our own concept of the noble savage. Of course, not a lot remains of some of these tribes, so understanding their true legacy is difficult.

We should be objective, though: they were primitive compared to Europeans. But primitivity does not mean lack of dignity. That is something that you have read into it yourself.

I am sure that the natives of Puerto Rico and all these other places were very diverse in character and were knowledgeable of the things they needed to know to survive. However, they simply did not have repositories of knowledge in the same way as us -- of course, stuff liek the Popol Vuh exist, but not in Puerto Rico, and this is not comparable to the full body of knowledge that Europeans & Near Easterners had assembled by that point.

Don't get into a debate with me of what all those 'primitive' societies didn't contribute to humanity Verv....because you did not even know about the insular cases before? You won't be able to compete with the barrage of information I have disproving all your thoughts about the IMPERIALIST mentality of 'superiority'. Without the colonized? They would have almost nothing in terms of wealth. Latin America, Africa and Asia together have the vast majority of all wealth on the planet. The UK grows peat moss and some two or three things. They are not the center of material wealth in the world. Thus the reason in capitalistic nations taking over the 'colonials' is such a priority.

I do not think this is exactly true re: natural resources.

But let us say that it largely is true... It is also true of Korea & Japan. These are resource poor nations that have become economically dominant.

The people are industrious. And that was perhaps a very necessary characteristic for them to develop in order to feed their own people and to bring in resources.

I do not see it as a negative.

And I think you write these places off too much -- what if someone referred to Cuba as some humid collection of rocks that can also grow sugar & tobacco and nothing else?

I think that is enough for now.

[Pants-of-dog]

Citations, please.

I do not know what you are referring to.

I am referring to the number of people who were burned at the stake or otherwise killed by Christians in the name of Christianity.

I guess you did not expect the Spanish Inquisition.

No?

What benefits are you talking about?

Yoga?

I am referring to the “benefits of colonialism” that you listed earlier.

Alright, so how are, say, Haitians, Nigerians, Gabonese, and Hong Kongers dealing with the painful fallout of colonialism today?

Or would you prefer to hone in some specific examples of your own?

If you are arguing that colonialism benefited Puerto Rico, you should start there.

[SSDR]

I am referring to the “benefits of colonialism” that you listed earlier.

You want to react to colonialism. Socialists want to progress from colonialism.

You are a reactionary!

[QatzelOk]

Verv is suggesting that, because Aztecs, Mayans etc. practiced human sacrifice rituals, it was totally okay for Spaniards to enslave and human-sacrifice all of them (ongoing).

If I were reading this in China, I might conclude that Verv would approve of China Manifest Destinying the current USA (and maybe some of Europe) to make wsy for their vastly superior culture.

It's not like there'd be much of a loss. There are Burger Kings and Disney movies all over the world that would continue the"culture.'