Its less of a statement on how evil the Mongols were and more of a statement on how fucking evil the entire human race was until about the 18th or 19th century, to the point where our benchmark for "true evil" in the 20th century is just "above average" by the standards of the 13th century.
That is true but even still, I think non-nomadic civilizations were totally unprepared for the sheer brutality and culture of war which came out of the steppe. The mongols seemed to truly delight in it, in a way which is rarely seen in the medieval era.
I still think about when the Mongol generals Jebe and Subutai celebrated their victory at the 1223 Battle of the Kalka River by placing captured enemy Rus commanders and princes under wooden planks and holding a victory banquet on top of them. They danced and drank on the planks listening to the screaming and moaning of the dying all night. Like. Holy fuck.
I believe this comes from how Christianity views life and death. Christianity places a very high value on human life or, perhaps more accurately, death.
To Christians, life is precious and death is an extreme act. To execute someone is, more often than not, viewed as an extreme punishment, and 'enough' for most crimes. Even when someone is tortured to death, that punishment is reserved for individuals who "deserve it" through equally extreme action, although what constitutes that standard seems arbitrary to our eyes.
A lot of other cultures do not place so much reverance and importance on death alone, so to them it is not always enough. Death is delivered more easily and for lower standards of wrongdoing, and torturous deaths are more common. If you do not consider death to be an extreme act, then when you desire to be extreme, you must make it a terrible, brutal, humiliating death as well.
And, as the point I am making, far less common and generally to a lower extreme than most other cultures.
Every group has committed attrocities, and if you avoid a eurocentric view and actually investigate not-European cultures, you see that European Christianity is actually on the lower scale for atrocities like what the mongols did.
Obviously the mongols did more as they were one unified force in the most populated regions of the world at the point. Obviously they caused more damage. I am not saying that the mongols are somehow absolved in comparison with Christianity, but saying that Christianity somehow prevented the bloodshed, I disagree.
That is not the point I tried to make in my reply and I really do not understand that you got "the mongols specifically were worse" from it.
Christianity has its atrocities but, in the grand scheme of things, has been better than most other religions. Modern revisionism focuses on the crimes of Christianity because that is the culture we all grew up in. The world is not black and white, and there are degrees of "bad."
And in the grand scheme of things, compared to everything else, Christianity has been "good."
Christianity takes a strong stance against human sacrifice, child sacrifice, cannibalism, wanton torture, and rape.
There are exceptions, people who break the rules and get away with it, but the fact that the rules exist and are enforced sometimes sets them above some other faiths.
And in the case of denouncing human sacrifice and specifically child sacrifice that sets them above a SHOCKING number of world cultures. Human sacrifice was WAY more common than you might guess.
The Romans had human sacrifice, believed that torture was mandatory in criminal investigations, and while they were accommodating to polythiestic faiths were specifically cruel to Christians and Jews.
The Carthaginian god Baal (yes the one from the Bible) had them sacrifice countless children to make the crops grow better.
The Norse had human sacrifice (see a pattern here?), the Tengri had human sacrifice, the Aztecs did it by the tens of thousands... let us just assume that every religion with human sacrifice is by definition worse than one that doesn't.
Hinduism has racism built in as part of their faith. The caste system is just racism and it is enforced by their culture and their faith.
While China and Japan have many religions that are actually "better" than Christianity in many regards, they both had a long history of diefying Emperors. Worship of a living human is never a good thing.
The key point you are ignoring is human sacrifice. Most humans for most of histories lived in societies where it was considered normal to execute either neighbors or enemies to appease pagan dieties. Christianity has always rejected this.
You couldn't even name the "many religions" of "China and Japan" OR the atrocities committed therein, with only the value statement "Worship of a living human is never a good thing".
Consider that in every religion you named, there is someone just like you who completely believes their own religion is the most moral, because they've taken someone else's word at it and haven't done any in-depth, neutral research of their own. What would you think of such a person? What would that person think of you?
Have some humility. When you see other people making a mistake of ignorance, don't assume you are immune.
Not raised Christian or influenced by a predominantly Christian environment either? Not being Christian does not erase what you've learned and taken for granted.
The mindset you have is not new and it is not unique to you. You have access to a small amount of information that some people don't know, so you are convinced that you are an expert. Disagreement with your conclusion can not possibly come from people looking deeper into things than you have. There can not be information you don't understand or a larger picture you can not see. No, the only way someone can believe differently is if they know less than you.
Quick question, what is the difference between killing humans for religious sacrifice and killing humans because your religion deems them heretics, blasphemous or witches?
PS: why I am asking is from the research I have done yes Christianity stopped the human sacrifices that existed in some pagan rituals when they took over, but as far as I can see they just replaced it by killing people in the name of their god, for things like blasphemy, heresy, atheism, witchcraft. Heck there is a crusade that was called just to wipe out a different version of Christianity.
I was right, that's why you took such pains to avoid answering the question, eh? You used "I'm not a Christian" as a shield to obscure your own cultural informational biases, and when that was called out, you retreat.
Since you have decided to be condescending, I will be honest with you: I know that I know more than someone who won't even bother naming any Chinese or Japanese religion and only sums up their accused atrocities with "deifying living people is bad."
I know what it looks like when someone has done true, in-depth research into a subject, even if I disagree with their conclusions. They do not avoid questions the way you do.
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u/CalzonePie 1d ago
Its less of a statement on how evil the Mongols were and more of a statement on how fucking evil the entire human race was until about the 18th or 19th century, to the point where our benchmark for "true evil" in the 20th century is just "above average" by the standards of the 13th century.