This has been mentioned, if using different words, elsewhere in this thread but soccer is much more accessible and casual in Latin America and Western Europe. Children often live in cities/towns where they have high mobility and agency to move around and so can get together without adult management and play and develop more freely. It's not like the U.S. where it's very processed (soccer camp, parents need to drive their kids to a place that's basically professionally organized), et cetera.
The closest thing to that in the U.S. is kids playing basketball in Brooklyn or L.A.
This is one resentful individual. Likes to imply how this or that people is inferior to the other (I thought we were discussing differences in forms of settlement, colonization and maritime expansion) then pivots to modern day economic statistics to again imply that some people are superior to others then finally succumbs to racism but is careful enough to change the language!!
You may want to look into the genetic composition of modern-day Brazilians to consider whether "Amerindians were exterminated" is a coherent way to represent it.
edit: we are just comparing 2 completely different models here. You're not wrong about some things, you are just talking about a different thing than I :)
edit 2: you are lacking information if you think that Brazilian Amerindians did not also partner with European powers (France and the NL itself comes to mind) against the Portuguese and it's somewhat amusing that you think that Portugal was never challenged on that vast territory by other powers.
Since when is taxing all subjects a necessity? Britain didn't tax people in the 13 colonies so could we conclude that before the American Revolution they were not part of the British Empire?
I think the comparison with the Netherlands is generally appropriate, but we must recognize that what they did in Brazil was exceptional (meaning not comparable to their former possessions in Asia and Africa, a difference from the mere trading nodes) and the NL never did achieve anything like it.
The Portuguese managed to maintain territorial integrity and make their religion and language dominate it entirely, in what's today the 5th largest nation state by area. They also had to defend the longest coastline.
The Portuguese Empire did exist but AFAIK never did aspire to world hegemony like the U.K. Their idea of empire was best represented by something they briefly had which was the combined union with Brazil after its promotion from colony in 1815.
So, not an empire like the U.K. and never wanting to be an empire like the U.K. but also not a total failure to achieve some version of it, however short lived that was.
In the country where I grew up, physicians have immense clout and are notorious for writing unintelligibly. I once pointed this out as a kid and was told by the secretary something like: the doctor is too busy to write legible prescriptions.
I don’t know about religions in the general sense, and you’re right to point out that I very much have the “Abrahamic world view”, though my case is much much more specific than that but that’s not relevant here.
What we might more safely assume is that the Creator is revealed through history and a group to whom it he’s not revealed might pursue him more ignorantly (I appreciate the language might sound offensive or condescending but that’s not the intention) but in that pursuit they’re still better off than someone who willfully rejects him.
This I believe is relevant to the post, as these societies have not gone from one god to another, but to none.
If God does exist and is our creator, then we're designed to recognize him (at least to strive to, or have some innate need to); failing to do so or radically abdicating from this need would lead to disaster.
In other words, in the God-exists scenario, we are not merely observers of a phenomenon who can be detached from it.
If such being does exist, then how could it possibly not matter? If there's an architect and we are the architect's creation, then how could our belief alone be the important thing?
But how did the Church's claim that it was a real guy on Earth stop anyone from claiming visions of Christ?
edit: I'm not sure we're talking about the same things here. Your claims are all from a history/historicity point of view, but you ask me about faith, and claim to reject dogma.
edit 2: The OP was criticizing the claim that Jesus loves you (Claim 1) and criticizing Reconciliation. You took a historicity approach that included disputing Jesus's existence, that's one way to address Claim 1, but other than that I'm still not sure we're talking about the same thing.
There's an old heresy, Docetism, that would agree with your take on Jesus not having lived, but even they wouldn't reject the claim that "Jesus loves you".
Many churches were in construction for over a century. Very typical and, although obviously people were elated when one was finished, getting there fast was not a source of anxiety.
The closest thing to that in the U.S. is kids playing basketball in Brooklyn or L.A.