Camel's Noses, Trojan Horses, and Cultural Aggression

A bit of both.Part of the cause of the high death rate was the crowding, poor food, overwork, unsanitary living conditions and demoralization the Indian people experienced at the missions.Those factors made the introduced diseases much more devastating than they might have been otherwise. But it is unlikely the missionaries were the source of the diseases. That is more likely to have been the sailors and soldiers. Neither were of the best sort, and a wide variety of diseases probably originated with them.

By "death rate" do you actually mean "population decline?" I hope so, in which case there's no argument. But if you instead meant mortality rate then your figures make no sense. You can't kill off even just 75% of a population every year without wiping them out in just a few years.--Percy

Sorry for the confusion.The figure I was trying to cite was the change in population of the indigenous coastal peoples in the mission zone during the mission era (1769-1834).This is only a small part of California, so the overall California population change is quite different.And the ca. 90% figure in the mission zone is altered by the importation of peoples from the interior.The missions were responsible in part because of the concentration of peoples there. That lead to a higher death rate than perhaps would otherwise have been the case.But the point may be moot, as some epidemics (as detailed by Sherburne Cook) wiped out huge numbers of interior peoples as well. In the early 1800s whole villages were reportedly killed by diseases in the western side of the Central Valley.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

In both Arabic and Indonesian, Allah is simply the word for God-with-a-capital-G, and is not a proper name. It would certainly be impossible for Christians,as you suggest, to substitute Jehovah or Yahweh, since this is the proper name of God the Father.So for example Arabic Christians, ever since Christianity came to Arabia, speak of Jesus as الله الابن --- Allah al-ibn --- God the Son; and there is no other way of saying this in Arabic. It would not be correct, would it, to speak of Jehovah the Son.

Allah was indeed one of the many gods of Mecca and in fact, the primary god of Muhammed's family. It was the only name known to Muhammed and other Arabs at Mecca previous to his contact with Christians. Jehovah of the Bible was not an acceptable or known god of Mecca, according to the books I have on Islam written by objective authors.Btw, Jesus is the son of Jehovah and not Jehovah, the son according to the terminology of the NT.

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BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW.
The immeasurable present eternally extends the infinite past and infinitely consumes the eternal future.

You have not sold me on that one.Regardless, I'll watch coyote back pedal and dance around now that he is caught again and has to act like he really wasn't telling us what he was telling us.

Specifically, the supreme one, which is why he was called Allah, i.e. God.In Arabic, "ilah" means "god with a little g". And "al" means "the". Allah, therefore, just means "the god", i.e. God-with-a-big-G. It's not a personal name, it's a definite article plus a noun, and one which, from a Christian point of view, is the correct description, in Arabic, of the Christian God. That's my point. If you want to say "God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost" in Arabic, you cannot use the word "Jehovah" for "God" because that would make a nonsense of Christian theology. The only way you can say it is "Allāh al-ʼab, Allāh al-ibn, wa Allāh al-rūḥ al-quds". And this is in fact what Arabic-speaking Christians have always said.

And for the record, that is exactly how I interpreted it.

I guess Ichiban and I are odd men out in seeing the "death rate" label at a 90% level applied to population decline as an invalid attempt at further demonizing that which required no further demonization.But then maybe the increase in the Spanish population from 150 in 1769 to 4000 in 1832 represents a birth rate of 2700%. I agree with the population decline figures. I think the mission efforts in California were reprehensible. But using the 90% figure with the term "death rate" is to me a rather obvious attempt at making it seem like the missions had a more direct role in the death of Indians than could ever have been the case.--Percy

Doc:1) Jehovah is the proper name of the Christian god as per the Bible. What is the proper name of the Muslim god as per the Quran?2) Jesus is not god the son, nor is the Holy Spirit god the spirit as is falsely claimed by many. Jesus is the son of Jehovah and the Holy Spirit is both the multipresent spirit of Jesus, son and Jehovah, father/god, god of Jesus and of us. The father, Jehovah and the son, Jesus share the one and same multipresent Holy Spirit, i.e. the same multipresent spirit of Genesis 1, the working agent and the same multipresent spirit which resides in the believer. That's been my position for years here at EvC.

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BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW.
The immeasurable present eternally extends the infinite past and infinitely consumes the eternal future.

There just isn't one. He's God. From a Muslim point of view it would be positively blasphemous to speculate about God as having a proper name such as "James" or "Caroline" or "Edward". There are various things that you can call God, such as "The Merciful One", or "The Compassionate One", or just "God" --- but he doesn't have a personal name as such.Why should he? Can you tell me the middle name of the Holy Ghost? I'll leave you religious folks to fight that one out amongst yourselves. I hope you see the point that I was actually trying to make, theology aside.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

I think its Freakin'

Well Holy F. Ghost, I didn't know that! As we live and learn. I love this place.

Careful there, friend! Jesus warned:Matthew 12:31, Edited by Buzsaw, : update message title

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BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW.
The immeasurable present eternally extends the infinite past and infinitely consumes the eternal future.

Fuck a whole pile of Holy Ghosts, and feed 'em fishheads, I say.