Why are people cool with Aztec human sacrifice and not Spanish colonialism?

[onodera]

modern ideas such as (...) Christianity

[Zevico]

modern ideas such as (...) Christianity

In a sense you are right. It is not such a modern idea, is it?

But then again, are --"science, reason, individual achievement"? Some are not so modern at all, though in fact science and the scientific method did not exist at all in Columbus' times. But the Christianity of today is different from the Christianity of Columbus' day and the Inquisition. So too, the ideas of 'science, reason and individual achievement' are today a point of emphasis among many Christians and, most importantly, American Christians.

Take for example this passage from a not-so-old text, Tocqueville's Democracy in America. This passage, I think, still reflects the basic and predominant ideas of American religious life today.

But it is by the mandates relating to public education that the original character of American civilization is at once placed in the clearest light.39 "Whereas," says the law, "Satan, the enemy of mankind, finds his strongest weapons in the ignorance of men, and whereas it is important that the wisdom of our fathers shall not remain buried in their tombs, and whereas the education of children is one of the prime concerns of the state, with the aid of the Lord...." Here follow clauses establishing schools in every township and obliging the inhabitants, under pain of heavy fines, to support them. Schools of a superior kind were founded in the same manner in the more populous districts. The municipal authorities were bound to enforce the sending of children to school by their parents; they were empowered to inflict fines upon all who refused compliance; and in cases of continued resistance, society assumed the place of the parent, took possession of the child, and deprived the father of those natural rights which he used to so bad a purpose.40 The reader will undoubtedly have remarked the preamble of these enactments: in America religion is the road to knowledge, and the observance of the divine laws leads man to civil freedom.

[kentonio]

though in fact science and the scientific method did not exist at all in Columbus' times.

Are you on drugs?

[Zevico]

Pe Wiki-

The modern scientific method crystallized no later than in the 17th and 18th centuries. In his work Novum Organum (1620) — a reference to Aristotle's Organon — Francis Bacon outlined a new system of logic to improve upon the old philosophical process of syllogism.[104] Then, in 1637, René Descartes established the framework for a scientific method's guiding principles in his treatise, Discourse on Method. The writings of Alhazen, Bacon and Descartes are considered critical in the historical development of the modern scientific method, as are those of John Stuart Mill.[105]

Do you disagree?

[kentonio]

I think any argument that science didn't exist pre-Columbus is going to pay a rather sweeping disrepect to not only the ancients but to the rather vast body of Chinese and Islamic sciences that revolutionized the world.

[Zevico]

I think any argument that science didn't exist pre-Columbus is going to pay a rather sweeping disrepect to not only the ancients but to the rather vast body of Chinese and Islamic sciences that revolutionized the world.

Only if you imagine that any such disrespect was intended, which it was not.

[kentonio]

I find it more confusing than anything else to be honest. I can see a perfectly reasonable point about formalized scientific method being a later creation, but certainly not just science.

[Zevico]

I find it more confusing than anything else to be honest.

Fair enough.

[Ben Kenobi]

Are you on drugs?

Are you? De Revolutionibus only dates to 1543 - some 50 years after Columbus. Bacon himself - wasn't around until the Stuarts, over 100 years after Columbus.

[Ben Kenobi]

I can see a perfectly reasonable point about formalized scientific method being a later creation, but certainly not just science.

Do you consider Aristotelianism science? Scholasticism? Ptolemy's "the Algamest"?

What do you think of people like Albert Magnus? Duns Scotus? Roger Bacon? Thomas Aquinas? Those were the dominant philosophers of the times.

[dannubis]

Are you? De Revolutionibus only dates to 1543 - some 50 years after Columbus. Bacon himself - wasn't around until the Stuarts, over 100 years after Columbus.

Are you ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_scientific_method

[Ben Kenobi]

How cute. Dannubis is using Wikipedia to make his arguments.

[Kidlicious]

Last year, someone had a lengthy post railing against the white man. I pointed out that oppressors come in all colors and that the Aztec were brutal, even moreso than the Inquisition and conquering Spaniards. The response to me was as if I praised Hitler.

This time, I just said "To be fair, I'm just glad the Aztec aren't doing that whole human sacrifice thing anymore" and it's like I said 'Hitler had some good ideas on race'.

Maybe you shouldn't praise the destruction of people's culture and society, not to mention genocide.

[Dr Strangelove]

I've seen some recent articles tracing the origin of the scientific method to the Arab scholar Ibn al-Haytham ( 925 - 1040 AD ), who used mathematics to predict the results of experiments in Optics.

[Jon Miller]

The person who is recognized is often important, not just the person to first think of a thing. This is because thinking of a thing yet not communicating it effectively to those who use it/advance it is not so meaningful.

JM