First off let me say that I am not against religion, of any form. I think religion is a beautiful thing, and it can do wonders for people. However, I do not believe that there is one right religion, or one that is the closest to God, or any sort of superiority as far as that goes. I do understand being biased towards your own religion, believing it to be the best, but there needs to be a certain level of respect towards other people's beliefs and feelings, especially when it comes to a subject as loaded as religion (another obvious example of a loaded subject would be politics, but that is fodder for another discussion). The people in the above quote were natives of the lands that the Spaniards were "settling." These natives did just fine without Christianity, and they would have been the same good, kind, honest people even if they had never heard of Christianity. They were blessed in that they were good people, friendly and trusting, giving people. Yet the Spaniards, who would call themselves Christians, were slaughtering these people, enslaving them, torturing them, stealing from them. Christianity isn't a label that you can choose to tout when you please, and "the so-called Christians set about stealing from the people and murdering them on the pretense of settling the area." (page 13 of the packet). I guess my point is that you don't have to be a Christian to be blessed, and just because you are a Christian doesn't make you a good person, doesn't mean you are blessed.
I do agree with you Gloria. The Spaindards just came out to these lands and began to slaughter people. They claim themsleves as good people, yet the actions that they commit are unhumane. The actions of one, does not relate to their religon. Very nice job, in showing the correlation between both actions and religon.
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