Would a world with no Protestantism and instead a mass Catholic Reformation be less racist?

Less racism with no Protestantism?

  • Yes

    Votes: 47 34.8%
  • No

    Votes: 88 65.2%

  • Total voters
    135
Post-Reconquista Spanish blood purity laws predate Atlantic Slave Trade by several decades.

Blood purity laws were originally based on religion, not race. It was only in the colonies that the concept was repurposed.

On a related note, did the Spanish ever deny that the Natives were human as did chattel slavers with Africans?
 
Blood purity laws were originally based on religion, not race. It was only in the colonies that the concept was repurposed.

On a related note, did the Spanish ever deny that the Natives were human as did chattel slavers with Africans?
Spain made their caste system, but a better yard stick would be the debate on weither the natives have souls, and if Jesus died for them. When NA was first discovered this was a massive debate in the Catholic church at large. Eventually it was decided that they did have souls and were in fact humans. So the Spanish crown would actually create protections for their native subjects, just the local nobles didn't care, and well the crown did care enough to know if their rules were being enforced or not
 

SRBO

Banned
Racism isn't a real thing.

Do you think, if things were inverse, that they would treat us not like shit? Nice memes. There have been exceptions, but they were short lived because they were naive to think real multiculturalism can work with extremely distant peoples without everyone attempting to murder each other.
 
Spain made their caste system, but a better yard stick would be the debate on weither the natives have souls, and if Jesus died for them. When NA was first discovered this was a massive debate in the Catholic church at large. Eventually it was decided that they did have souls and were in fact humans. So the Spanish crown would actually create protections for their native subjects, just the local nobles didn't care, and well the crown did care enough to know if their rules were being enforced or not

That raises an interesting point. Because the Calvinist Protestants decided that Jesus did not in fact die for everyone. It's not difficult to make the jump from limited atonement to Southern American and Afrikaner attitudes towards Black Africans and their descendants.
 

Chaough

Banned
I guess things would be less "racist" (whatever that means), but they would by no means be better. OP, you seem to forget the history of brutality under Catholic regimes, not to mention that world's most famous fascists (Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco) were all Catholic or at least raised Catholic.

While you could argue that a Catholic world would be better for Mexicans and Native Americans, it would be worse for Jews, scientists, gays, Muslims, Orthodox Christians, industry, peasants, and pagans.

To be honest, I think a world without Protestantism would be far worse. I'd gladly take Anglo racism over anti-enlightenment Catholic despotism and classism.
 

Chaough

Banned
I mean it shows that the Catholics actually cared about the Natives as they actually considered them as people and wanted to save their "souls", while Protestants generally regarded them as inhuman "heathens" like I am pretty sure that if Britain was Catholic, the colonials in North America and Australia would be in better numbers and conditions compared to OTL. What about South Africa, the Afrikaans were very Calvinist, and even after the Natives were converted, they still didn't get along with them at all compared to Mexico. Look at Brazil, they had pretty much the same deal as the South US, actually worse as slavery lasted longer and was much more brutal, but they didn't put a system to separate or completely put down the blacks. There especially wasn't something as prejudice as the one drop rule.

It's not like Brazil is exactly a paradise, however. I'd rather live in the South (with all its problems) than in Brazil.
 
I guess things would be less "racist" (whatever that means), but they would by no means be better. OP, you seem to forget the history of brutality under Catholic regimes, not to mention that world's most famous fascists (Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco) were all Catholic or at least raised Catholic.

While you could argue that a Catholic world would be better for Mexicans and Native Americans, it would be worse for Jews, scientists, gays, Muslims, Orthodox Christians, industry, peasants, and pagans.

To be honest, I think a world without Protestantism would be far worse. I'd gladly take Anglo racism over anti-enlightenment Catholic despotism and classism.
Your arguments are frankly overgeneralising and also brings the Godwin point a bit too fast for my taste.

Only Franco can really be counted as a brutal Catholic dictator among the three you cited and that's because his regime was highly conservative and relied on the Catholic clergy in Spain... The latter of which can also be explained by the attitude of the Spanish Republicans Franco overthrew, since the latter used highly anticlerical methods at one point and even gunned down a few priests. And even then, I'm not sure the excess of Franquism faced no opposition within the Catholic Church: it would be interesting to see if the Liberation theology didn't have an impact on the clergy in Spain. Not saying Franco wasn't supported by the Church, because he clearly relied on it, but I don't think all the clergy was fine with that.

As for Hitler and Mussolini, both of their regimes came into conflict with the Church because of their totalitarian nature. Fascism and Nazism both aim to take control of every aspect of the lives of the people they rule over: this could only lead to conflict with the Church since that basically mean Fascism and Nazism basically worked liked a religion. There are several examples of conflicts between Mussolini and the Papacy throughout the second half of the 1920s and during the 1930s, and that's despite the signature of the Lateran agreements. Pope Pius XI was also vehemently anti-Nazi and his successor Pius XII thought Hitler was possessed by the Devil. There are also an impressive number of jews that were protected by Catholics during the Holocaust, some even by the Pope himself. Now, that doesn't mean you didn't see a few shady and shameful connexion between some Catholic officials and both the Fascist or the Nazi Regime, but it's pretty clear that they're not representative of the Catholic Church's attitude as a whole.

In regards to the people for whom the world would be worst for, I'd like to point out that it seems to imply that a world without Protestantism wouldn't secularize... Which is horseshit to me since the French Revolution happened in a majorly Catholic country and resulted in one of the most secular (and even borderline atheist at times) states in the world. There are also a few things I have to say in regards to each and every of these categories:
  • While you do have anti-judaic extremists elements within the Catholic Church, the Catholic attitude towards Jews wasn't always repressive. The Jews in Rome for example enjoyed more than once Papal protection. And by the late XVIIIth Century, you have plenty of catholic countries who were starting to adopt Tolerance edict towards the Jews: among them, you can count the Austrian Empire, the most Catholic monarchy in history. King Louis XVI of France was also planning a tolerance edict towards the jews before the Revolution happened. And then you have how the modern-day Catholic Church acts with the jewish community where it's basically become "We worship the same god so we're brothers" (I know it's oversimplified but that's more or less how it goes). That doesn't mean anti-judaic Catholics no longer exists as they sadly still do in some circles, but it serves to point that the jewish community might actually not fare worse in a world without Protestantism. Not to mention than Anti-Judaic elements also exists within the Protestant Churches...
  • The Science vs Religion is getting really old really fast... The Catholic Church was never really anti-science and as a matter of fact a good number of high church officials originally funded scientific research in a wide variety of fields. Everyone is going to talk about Gallileo sure, but when you look at it the problem wasn't that he stated the Earth orbited the Sun and not the opposite but the fact that he basically insulted the Pope while publishing his works. I could also mention that it's a belgian Catholic priest that discovered the Big Bang theory, which is currently one of the dominant scientific theories on the origins of the universe. You do have a few Creationnists and dumb anti-science assholes within the Catholic community but they're surely not the majority. More to the point though, the Protestant movement originally started on the Sola Scriptura, Sola Fide ground: that basically means to me that litteral interpretations of the Bible would be more common within Protestant communities... And as a matter of fact, a good deal of creationnists in the world come from Protestant movements. So it would be interesting to consider which is more anti-science between Catholicism and Protestantism...
  • Homosexuality is a sin in Christian theology, no one is going to deny that. It's also true that the Catholic Church isn't going to voice its support for gay marriage anytime soon. The thing is though that attitudes towards homosexuality have shifted as times passed, even within the Church. Homosexuality is nowadays no longer considered to be a crime and while homosexuality is still regarded as a sin, the catholic church is no longer advocating for homosexuality to be punished by law: only a few catholic extremists are. And more importantly, you also have homophobic elements within Protestantism: the best known examples in the modern-day world being the infamous Westboro Baptist Church. So fat chance saying a world without Protestantism would actually be better for homosexuals.
  • Considering that Muslims were seen as unfavorably by everyone in Europe because they weren't Christians, I doubt it would matter much whether or not a world without Protestantism would be better for them. You have to remember that the Ottomans were seen for a long time as one of the biggest threats in Europe. Besides, aside from colonial times (which are a bit special), we barely have any examples of Protestants ruling over Muslims to truly judge them. And if we go by some modern-day standards, there are Islamophobic elements as much in Protestantism as there are in Catholicism. Also, here is a fun fact: in nowadays France, a good deal of Imams currently receive their coranic formation... in Catholic institutions. And the Catholic Church doesn't seem to mind...
  • Considering Orthodox christians would be seen as schismatics by both Protestants and Catholics, I don't see how much of a change a world without Protestantism would do for them... Plus, like with Islam, we have very few examples of a Protestant ruling a major Orthodox population before the XIXth Century. And if you consider the fact that there have been several recounciliations between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches in the East recently...
  • The idea that Industry would suffer in a world without Protestantism is rubbish and relies too much on the idea that science and religion are incompatible to my taste... Now, Protestants generally favored working in fields that helped the industrialization of their country as a good deal were artisans, bourgeois and merchants. But to think that only Protestants worked in those fields is stupid. Besides, artisans, bourgeois and merchants already existed before Protestantism showed up so you would arguably still have these class existing in a world where Protestantism was absent. Would Industrialisation be slowed down? That can be debated and I would personnally answer "no". I could also point out that the Amish are actually a Protestant community and that I don't know if we've seen an equivalent in the Catholic world.
  • Saying that Peasants would fare worse in a world without Protestantism is frankly debatable... Even admitting that Protestantism favors Industrialization, it also tends to screw over Peasants since Industrialization often reduces the number of people living in rural areas because of economic reasons. So arguably Catholicism is better for peasants if you argue it favors people living in rural areas. If that's supposed to imply Catholicism's conservatism and thus that it would still be a feudal society that screws over the peasants... Protestant countries didn't become democracy faster than Catholic countries did and democracy is now universally agreed to be the best political form of government, be it by Protestants or Catholics.
  • Pagans were already screwed over long before Protestantism came into existence. By the time the Reformation happened, all of Europe had been christianized as the last Pagan country in Europe, Lithuania was christianized in the XIII-XIVth Century. Plus, it's not like the Protestants didn't practice forced conversion in our world: if you want to claim so, I think you should look at the attitude of English and American colonists towards native americans among others... Native habitants in protestant colonies were as evangelised as they were in the Catholic world.
And before you accuse me of defending the idea the world would be better off without Protestantism, I said a few pages back that to me the world wouldn't necessarily be better or worse because I don't think religion is the only thing to factor in all of this. It's just that to me saying a world with Protestantism is better is just not true and I could easily point this out thanks to Protestant attitudes during the Wars of Religions and beyond... Catholics aren't white doves, but neither are the Protestants.
 
The Catholic Church's action pre-1800's were directed against other religions, NOT race or ethnicity. According to the Catholic Church back then, it didn't matter what ethnicity or skin color you were, all that was important was that you were a faithful Catholic Christian. This was one reason why France was the friendliest of the colonial powers to Native Americans as they would accept them if they just lived in peace as Catholics. In Europe the Church supported Poland because they were for the most part strong defenders of Catholicism in the religious wars. It didn't matter that they were Slavic but that they kept true to the faith. The only racism you're talking about came from Spain's corrupted, zealous version of Catholicism. Even in Latin America most blacks/natives were accepted, the difference was that they weren't given as many opportunities or positions of power as Creoles and Peninsulares. The best example of this is in Asia were Catholic missionaries tried to adapt to local customs and were even willing to mix beliefs with certain Shinto/Confucian concepts. The main way a mass Catholic reformation would happen would be through the different customs of the non-Latin rite churches, such as the Eastern Catholic churches. If other rites were created in Asia then the church hierarchy in the main Latin rite might be willing to reform if there were liberal minded men in the College of Cardinals.

The reason the French did not persecute the native Americans was because they needed them for fur trading. In places where savage racism benefitted them, like the French Congo, they were as bad as the Congo Free State.
 
Racism isn't a real thing.

Do you think, if things were inverse, that they would treat us not like shit? Nice memes. There have been exceptions, but they were short lived because they were naive to think real multiculturalism can work with extremely distant peoples without everyone attempting to murder each other.

I'm sorry, I must be misunderstanding you. It looks like you're saying that racism doesn't actually exist. Can you explain what you mean here?

EDIT: And who's "they"?
 
He's obviously a troll. Just ignore him.

If he's a troll, then he should be banned not ignored. I was trying to get him to state his belief clearly so that I could be absolutely sure if I reported him, I would be listened to. I feel like there's must be something more going on here because if he states beliefs like this so blatantly, how has he not been banned yet?

EDIT: And I see he's been kicked now.
 
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