- - - - - - - - -The Aztecs believed that without human sacrifices to their gods, the world might come to an end or that their crops will fail. This belief created a big demand in human sacrifices and kept the Aztec state perpetually at war with its neighbors. Prisoners of war and criminals were constantly needed for sacrifices. Thus their religion is a religion of war because their religious beliefs compel them to wage war.
It is fortunate for the world that Cortez and his Spaniards were not tolerant, multiculturalists and moral relativists. Otherwise, in the name of religious tolerance, the Aztec gods would still be worshiped today. Instead, Cortez ordered their temples to be converted into churches. Those who resisted were dealt with in the familiar 16th century way — they were killed.
If Aztec gods had survived to this day, what would the multiculturalists say?
I think they might say something like this:
“You may not agree with the quaint Aztec custom of human sacrifice and the wearing of human skins. But we must not judge them. Remember, what seems bad to you is good to others. Instead, let us enjoy mankind’s rich tapestry of different cultures and religions. Oh by the way, if you happen to visit Tenochtitlan (Mexico City) on their festival days, be sure to wear a suit of armor. You don’t want to lose your skin, er, I mean wallet.”
I think that modern Americans should be grateful that the 16th century Spaniards were intolerant people. They were intolerant because they were confident that their culture and religion were superior to that of the Aztecs. Otherwise, modern Americans would be having far more trouble with their illegal Mexican immigrants.
But what of the Europeans whose immigrants come from Muslim lands? I fear that they are out of luck because Allah, like Huitzilopochtli, Thor and Mars, is a god of war — the only god of war still worshiped in the 21st century.
It’s important to remember how we arrived here in this lotus-strewn idyll we call Western civilization.
We were preceded by innumerable ruthless and bloodthirsty men who cleared the ground and tilled the soil so that soft and law-abiding people like ourselves could enjoy the fruits of peace.
It’s not a given that the world will remain this way.
One day, without realizing how we got there, we could find ourselves on the altar atop the pyramid, with the priest of the sun in full feathered regalia bending over us, stone knife in hand…
Hat tip: Fjordman.
13 comments:
Interesting one should mention the old gods and the mexicans. Before becoming too comfortable with the Aztec's demise and pacification of the Mexicans, look at this article about the rather sinister Sante Muerte ("Saint Death") cult, its relation to the Mexican criminal world and possible lines of descent.
"The Death Cult of the Drug Lords Mexico’s Patron Saint of Crime, Criminals, and the Dispossessed." Which is US army publication from the Foreign Military Studies Office. Real scary.
Maybe think of it this way : The old gods never really leave. As the anthromorphized personification of natural phenomenon instead of the layers of theological construction made by churches, they are bound to reappear spontaneously wherever civilization fails. Old gods, new clothes.
Thor (Donner), god of Thunder, is not I think a war god any more than any of the Norse gods, all of whom are warriors. Tyr (Tiw) is god of war and law, but Odin (Wotan), god of the sky and king of the gods, I think exemplifies the bloody spirit of the battlefield. In his charisma and his thirst for slaughter and sacrifice he's the closest analogy to Allah and Huitz.
René Girard's approach to cultural anthropology, mimetic theory, teaches the observer not to get caught in the themes put forth by proponents of causes, religions, etc., but to examine the structures of their behavior, esp. violent behavior.
The comparison between Islamist violence and the "old gods of the blood" is apt. As I wrote here, the structure of "progressive" agendas resembles nothing so much as pagan practices that an Old Testament prophet would spot dead on.
When a prophetic movement appears with Islam, we'll know a corner has been turned. Or, as Girard says, "We didn't stop burning witches because we invented science. We invented science because we stopped burning witches."
While it is worthwhile to remember the ruthlessness of our forebears, their excesses ought not to be glorified. The conquistadors may have resolutely opposed a savage and cruel religion, but after the discovery of vast silver deposits in Mexico in 1546, their sons enslaved most of the indios who were being converted to a Christian people and put them to work in the mines, to the extreme detriment of the agriculture that had theretofore fed the country. The process is described in Chapter 16 of “Fire & Blood: A History of Mexico,” by T.R. Fehrenbach (Da Capo Press, 1995), which concludes that
“The once colorful and busy human beehive of Amerindian Mexico was becoming a great, grim, barren silver mountain, surrounded by stunted, almost empty fields; two different kinds of men, Spaniards and Amerindians, conquerors and conquered, were sinking into permanent patterns of tyranny.”
“Fire & Blood” is an excellent and very un-PC work. In it, Fehrenbach notes that the American Southwest that America acquired from Mexico had never really been an integral part of the Spanish Empire because of the fierceness of the horse Indians (Apaches and Comanches) and the dearth of pioneering people among the Spanish – and hence, of any real population pressure on the horse tribes:
“... the Spanish Empire could not advance against these few, scattered, but highly warlike Amerindians, a fact that severely bounded its territory and history. In the arid regions and vast distances involved, Spanish-Mexican soldiery simply could not mount successful campaigns against mobile enemies who were expert at guerrilla warfare. ... They defeated Spanish arms severely in Texas in the 1750s; they destroyed Spanish settlements everywhere on the frontier. ... The terror continued until the second half of the nineteenth century ...”
By which time, of course, the Southwest was American rather than Mexican. So much for the notion that illegal aliens from Mexico are engaging in a “reconquista” of “stolen land.”
Allah and Chthulu are kissing cousins.
But, for regional accuracy:
Moloch + Baal - Comb = Allah.
I'm reminded of the 1989 murder of University of Texas student Mark Kilroy in Matamoros. With people such as those who murdered Kilroy allowed to cross our border as they please, they day when we see "the priest of the sun in full feathered regalia bending over us, stone knife in hand" is probably closer than you think.
Did you know that Europeans committed the most sacrifices in the history of the world. They are still sacrifices or for them the world will end. Monsters who support Cortez and his demons that wiped out nearly a whole continent. The U.S is a warring state that is still warring in Iraq and Afghanistan. It has invaded Mexico twice in the 19century, toppled central America and South America. Invaded Vietnam, Cambodia. who am i missing???
YJCMTSU!
Mexican "Central American" News Service: … who am i missing???
Not "who" but "what". As in historical accuracy, realistic perspective or, perhaps, an inability to avoid a typical, shopworn obsession over blaming the Pale Male™ for every last shortcoming that Third World barbarians have inflicted upon themselves countless time and again as they continue to bewail their eternal victimhood.
MCANS:
The crimes of Western Europeans do not excuse the crimes is Muslims in the here and now.
You cannot use one evil to expiate or explain another.
Excuse me, the crimes of Western Europeans do not excuse the crimes of Muslims.
Period.
It's amazing how evil is called upon to explain evil.
Has the world become so reprobate and devoid of worship?
goethechosemercy: It's amazing how evil is called upon to explain evil.
Let us never forget those immortal words:
Two wrongs don't make a right ...
THREE DO!
Since this article has just been translated to German for the ADS blog, I feel obliged to respond.
“Monsters who support Cortez [sic] his demons that wiped out nearly a whole continent…”
That you know nothing of Mexican history is patent with your misspelling the very word, “Cortés”. See the series of articles (that GOV started to publish), demonstrating that the real monsters were the Aztecs, who sacrificed lots of little kids every single year according to their calendar.
Since this article has just been translated to German for the ADS blog, I feel obliged to respond.
“Monsters who support Cortez [sic] his demons that wiped out nearly a whole continent…”
That you know nothing of Mexican history is patent with your misspelling the very word, “Cortés”. See the series of articles (that GOV started to publish), demonstrating that the real monsters were the Aztecs, who sacrificed lots of little kids every single year according to their calendar.
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