March 30, 2009  

Natives did not worship! Their relationship with their land and all of its inhabitants was spiritual — not supernatural!  They did not believe in any g0ds.
     Words for native practices would be "kinship", "sharing", "respect" and "honour". Before the religious rush to say that these principles could be found in Christianity, I would point out they certainly were not to be found in the practices of the invading forces.
    The natives, and our world, paid dearly when the native peoples had their spirituality seriously compromised as they were forced to adopt the white man’s belief system. And, that was not by choice. Often guns, threats of starvation, beatings and relocation were used to reinforce this conversion process.
     As it had done since King Constantine, Christian leaders spread their religion by unscrupulously providing new interpretations of what already existed in order to accommodate their story of Jesus.
    Practices that had been in place for thousands of years were given new meanings as Christendom squeezed their Jesus and his message into the native way of life.
    The bottom line is this — aboriginals did not worship or belief in gods or the supernatural. They did not need them. They knew how to accept death. That fact alone disagreed with what Christianity promised to provide — life after death!
    This formulae for conquering had existed for over a thousand years. What happened in the Americas, Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands had already been perfected as Christianity spread throughout Northern Europe, and the British Isles.
    Unfortunately, most historical texts were created by the very religious scholars who presided over these autrocities.
    What chance did the native have to protect and preserve both his customs, and his spirituality?
    We continue to do the natives a disservice by insisting that they can not live . . . without gods!     

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        *Terms and            Definitions
My articles may contain words or phrases that may infer different meanings to different readers, or the reader may be unfamiliar with the term or its definition. I feel it is important to know what the writer meant when he used a word or term.

cognitive dissonance —
Filtering out information that conflicts with what one already believes, in an effort to ignore that information and reinforce one’s beliefs.

Editors note: I will be repeating the “cognitive dissonance” definition for quite a while since it is practiced by so many — known by so few!