NOGO

Nonsense!
If Europeans had moral superiority they would not have done what they did, including enslaving people. What you call "a sense of their moral superiority" I call a fanatical zeal for a belief system that does not tolerate other beliefs.

"lack of respect for other belief systems"
Right! Except that you do not see that this lack of respect for other beliefs is part and parcel of the preaching found in the Bible.

For example the Bible states that other people worshipped statues, which were obviously false Gods. We know of course that this is not true. Other people worshipped personal Gods. Chrisitans went out into the world with the intent on destroying all other faiths because they were convinced that these people worshipped idols just as the Bible says. This is the kind of ignorant prejudice which conquered Europe.
There are many many other items that can be added here.

Even as we speak the Christian world consumes far more than its share of world resources. The gap is such that it should put all of us to shame. To me this is where morality starts or rather does not start. Your sense of moral superiority is just biased self-aggradizing and self-delusion. Of course Christianity is not to blame, Right! But Christianity is totally powerless in fixing this problem which like slavery should be right up there in its priorities.
But no Christianity's priority is which God you worship.

Christianity was imposed on many if not most unwilling Europeans.

joedad

Victims? Some of those "victims" have been quite successful. I think calling men products of their environment is more accurate, at least in the sense that Diamond argues, and that history demonstrates.

I'm not sure what you mean when you state that certain individuals nevertheless "meet the moment." Are you stating that human history is primarily a history of people who "meet the moment?"

If you are stating that environment is not the major and compelling influence, you must explain how civilization and christian beliefs did not originate in places like Tasmania, Patagonia or the Aleutian Islands. Indeed, Diamond's assertion and explanation of how and why the clash between Atahuallpa and Pizarro, a meeting that perhaps epitomizes the conflict between "Europeanism" and "Native Americanism" would need to be explained away. Why did this dubious meeting not occur in Madrid or Lisbon or London or Paris? Pizarro's ability to "meet the moment" was a matter of environmental advantage alone, and Diamond makes a most convincing argument.

Further, Diamond has a chapter titled "Necessity's Mother," in which he argues that great invention and discovery is not a matter of individual greatness or genius or racial superiority. The Phaistos Disk, a 1700 BCE artifact discovered in 1908, "anticipates humanity's next efforts at printing," he argues. It is an invention that did not reappear until 2500 years later in China and 3100 years later in Europe. If greatness begets great invention or some other manner of greatness, why did such an important human advancement lie dormant for three millenia?

It would seem that inventions without a societal application, even if that application has nothing to do with the originator's intended purpose, disappear. Gutenberg's invention was accepted. The maker of the Phaistos Disk is unknown, his invention not applied. In one sense Diamond is arguing that these two inventors are one in the same person, and it was environmental differences which ultimately made the decision, as to which would survive and which would be forgotten.