I have been watching Star Trek since I was a kid. I have always admired the Prime Directive that the characters of the show strictly follow under the belief that it is a noble rule. The Primary Directive is a rule that prohibits Starfleet personnel and spacecraft from interfering in the normal development of any society, and mandates that any Starfleet vessel or crew member is expendable to prevent violation of this rule.
I always thought the Prime Directive was such a good and moral rule. However, I have read about some events in history, where one could rightfully say that Christians had been guilty of violating the Prime Directive. The thing is, I believe those Christians were heroes for choosing to interfere with the normal development of the societies they had colonized.
I would like to get other Christians' opinions about the Prime Directive. Additionally, below you can read about two historical examples of Christians violating the Prime Directive below. I would also like to get your opinions as to whether you think it was good that Christian morality was imposed on the cultures mentioned in the examples below. This should be interesting considering the fact that lately, it seems we are constantly be told the European colonizers were evil.
The first example involves Anglicans, and the second involves Catholics.
Let’s start with the Anglican example. Shortly after arriving in India the British encountered the ancient Hindu custom called Sati. This is an obsolete Hindu practice where widows burn themselves alive, willing or unwilling, on the funeral pyres of their husbands.
Of course, there was moral outrage on the part of the British, they were Christians after all. In fact, the then Commander-in-Chief of British forces in India, Sir Charles James Napier placed a prohibition on the practice of the horrifying Hindu custom. As a result, a Hindu priest expressed his objection to the prohibition because it violated the Hindu right to practice their custom.
The very wise General Napier decided that he agreed with the Hindu priest and said, “Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive, we hang them and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs.”
Now for the Catholic example. When people in the United States learn about the Spanish Conquistadors conquering the Aztecs, they are always told that the Spanish were evil. Americans are never told the truth about the Aztecs, and they are never told how such a small number of men were able to conquer the Aztecs.
So what’s the truth about the Aztecs? Well, they were very cruel to the smaller weaker surrounding indigenous tribes. For starters, the Aztecs enslaved many members of those smaller indigenous tribes. While in my opinion, that is bad enough to justify conquering the Aztecs, their other activities were far more horrifying. You see, these Aztecs practiced a kind of Paganism, that was far worse than any Paganism that existed in the Roman Empire.
The Aztecs liked to sacrifice human beings to their pagan gods. Of course, they didn’t sacrifice their fellow Aztecs. They would kidnap members of the smaller indigenous tribes and sacrifice them. The victims varied in age, and they included babies. Sometimes, prior to being thrown into the sacrificial pit, the Aztecs would remove the victim’s heart while he or she was still alive. And what did they do with the bodies of their dead victims? Why they would use them as decorations.
Being Christians, the Spanish Conquistadors were absolutely horrified. They made the moral decision that the Aztecs must be stopped, but there were so few Conquistadors compared to the number of Aztecs. What could they do? They did the only thing they could They suggested to the other Indian tribes that were being victimized by the Aztecs, that there could be victory against the Aztecs if all the smaller tribes joined forces with the Spanish Conquistadors. All the tribes, except for one, immediately agreed to join forces with the Spanish to fight the Aztecs. The problem with the one remaining tribe was that they didn’t like the Spanish either. However, it didn’t take long for that tribe to admit to themselves that the Aztec were truly evil, and their dislike of the Spanish didn’t come close to how they felt about the Aztecs. Well, as I am sure you, those unified forces successfully destroyed the Aztecs, and the abuses came to an end forever.
