Julian Cope presents Head Heritage

"The thought of daubing with paint or peeing up against these sites would be alien, if not abhorrent to Americans."

I am suprised at that!
Bit of a sweeping statement?
peeing on? I thought that was a seperate thread and issue?

Well in all fairness it would be abhorrent to most Brits and everyone else too. The problem is that all cultures (yes, even the yankees) have a few people who couldn't give a toss about whats special or sacred to someone else. If its not important to them then its simply not important. The thing with TOURISTS is if you have travelled thousands of miles to see a specific thing then you probably wont piss on it when you get there. You dont get British tourists pissing on the Pyramids of Giza because they went there to see them so they appreciate their importance. But some Brits who dont realise the significance of the things in this country have less respect for them, they didn't travel to see that specific thing, its just there. I would say the reason you have seen respectful Americans if because they travelled HERE to see THOSE THINGS.

See? :)

I think you are a little confused, Australians and Africans Pagan?
burning of witches exclusively Christian, no way the indigenous people of Australia dealt very harshly with witches (or those they believed to have used witch craft as do many Africans still to this day.
your analysis seems very naive. the destruction of native idols and temples goes on to this day all over the world by most religions if not all!
As for saying that Muslims and Christians are the same this is downright silly! Muslims , Christians and Jews are people of the book meaning they are Abrahamic religions and sorry their idea of prophetic lineage is very different as is their writings.

freedom of choice I applaud but lets also choose reality not some faery tale regarding pre-christian noble savages.

Ah yes, my lack of bullet points confused you. Glad you think the Christianisation of the globe is a faery tale

From the Belize website ;
"1724 The Spanish Crown abolishes the system of encomienda , which had given Spanish land barons the right to forced Maya labour, as long as they agreed to convert the Maya to Christianity."

From BBC news showing Native Americans forced into Christian schools;
" For more than 40 years, in what is widely agreed to be one of the most shameful chapters of Canada's history, indigenous children were forcibly placed in the schools jointly run by the Canadian government and the Roman Catholic, Anglican and United Churches. They tried to indoctrinate the children in Christianity and erase their native culture. "

From Wiki regarding Christians in India
"The natives of Goa, most of them Hindus were subjected to severe torture and oppression by the zealous Portuguese rulers and missionaries during the conversion to Christianity"

"Charlemagne committed the Massacre of Verden because he forced the Saxons to convert to Christianity, but the Saxons returned to Paganism. He killed 3500 Saxons."

A lovely quote from Wiki
"Pope Innocent III, who denounced forced conversions, pronounced in 1201 that even if torture and intimidation had been employed in receiving the sacrament, one nevertheless:

...does receive the impress of Christianity and may be forced to observe the Christian Faith as one who expressed a conditional willingness though, absolutely speaking, he was unwilling. ... [For] the grace of Baptism had been received, and they had been anointed with the sacred oil, and had participated in the body of the Lord, they might properly be forced to hold to the faith which they had accepted perforce, lest the name of the Lord be blasphemed, and lest they hold in contempt and consider vile the faith they had joined"

In reference to NAtive Americans from "The History of Christianity"
"In the first few decades since 1492, it was thought that Indians did not have souls because they were "animals" in human form. Therefore, it was believed they could be hunted down like animals, which they were. It was only in 1530 CE that the Pope declared that the Indians were human. Having established their humanity, it was decided that they must be inducted into Christianity. As the Indians were unwilling, this was accomplished by force"

From The Dark Side of Christian History, by Helen Ellerbe
"When Columbus landed in America in 1492, he mistook it for India and called the native inhabitants "Indians." It was his avowed aim to
"convert the heathen Indians to our Holy Faith" that warranted the enslaving and exporting of thousands of Native Americans. That such treatment resulted in complete genocide did not matter as much as that these natives had been given the opportunity of everlasting life through their exposure to Christianity. The same sort of thinking also gave Westerners license to rape women."

From Relación de las cosas de Yucatán "The Relating of Yucatan Things" by Fray Diego de Landa
"Zumarraga, the first bishop of Mexico, is known for sending the contents of the Mayans' Texcoco Library up in flames - because they were "the Devil's work". In 1531, this Christian bishop wrote how he had personally destroyed 500 temples and 20,000 Mayan idols.
In 1562, bishop Diego de Landa, burnt down Yucatan's grand library."

Enough "Faery Tales" or shall I go on???

oh and

http://muslim-canada.org/islam_christianity.html

http://www.religioustolerance.org/comp_isl_chr.htm

http://www.lookisrael.com/files/muslimsqa.php

I appreciate you have gone to a lot of trouble for these....but sorry you are still on the wrong track.
You are addressing issues never raised by me, I have not questioned the Christians imposition, murder etc etc on other faiths and cultures.
I merely raised the point that all major religions are culpable and have skeletons in and out of the vestry!
I can see you want to make a point and feel aggrieved however you are addressing the wrong person and the wrong posts.

You may find that the comment by Nigel was looking at the effects of Christianity on some stone monuments, to which I observed the building of churches on many stone circles and forced Christianity on pagan religions.

I pointed out (pretty well I think) that most of the conversion to Christianity had nothing to do with "Freedom of Choice" as you suggested. Now, in my original statement I did also mention that the Muslims have done similar things (in the Maldives, accross Egypt etc), but other religions have less of a "convert or die" regime.

I have no idea what youre talking about when you mention "addressing a point that was not made" as the point that was made was regarding forcing a religion onto pagan sites and my above comment does ONLY THAT. The above long reply to your message was to highlight how redundant your "freedom of choice" comment was when discussing the way Christianity was (is still) forced upon others.

THIS ENTIRE THREAD is discussing how people put their own beliefs onto others and often use existing sites to practice a new belief. That is how I introduced the building of Christian sites onto existing pagan structures. This is also seen in the Mosques built on Hindu temples in the Maldives.

I would say that the comments were relevent and that your "axe to grind" comments and others (not only aimed at me but also at other members) are an odd attempt at making others appear more stupid than yourself.

OOps sorry should have read them first!
Yes they have similarities, yes they are Abrahamic, yes they share some prophets and myths.
Yet they are not the same religion as you stated in "Christianity and Islam are the same religion for most of their writings and prophets"
I will not bore you with the whole expose of why prophetic lineage and theology is different however please consider that Jews did not and do not accept Jesus as the 'messiah' or even a prophet in terms of prophetic lineage (they are still waiting) those that did became christians. muslims accept Jesus as a prophet (not the messiah) but the prophet Mohammed PBUH as the last prophet and revealer of final revelation.

if we follow your logic we can claim that Sikhism is the same as Hinduism or Islam because both traditions where used in the Guru Granth Sahib.
We can claim Buddhism is the Same as Vedanta.
Sorry this is very very naive.
One of the Mughals Dara Shikoh wrote 'the confluence of two oceans' comparing and contrasting Hinduism and Islam but sorry they are not the same thing.