[Sabertooth]

For just as the worship of Huitzilopotchtli was an invention to provide a religious justification for Aztec imperialism, so Islam was an invention for the purpose of providing a religious justification for Arab imperialism.

It is commonly taught that the purpose of the Arab Conquest -- Arab hordes exploding out of Arabia in the middle of the 7th century to conquer all of the Christian Middle East, Zoroastrian Persia and Central Asia, Hindu Northern India, and Christian North Africa and Spain in 100 years -- was to spread Islam. It turns out this is the opposite of what actually happened.

That is, just like other nomad hordes that swarmed out of a desert and infested civilizations through history -- like Attila Huns or Genghiz Khan Mongols -- so did the Arabs. Finding themselves in sudden possession of a vast empire of vastly different peoples and all of them non-Arab, the Arabs invented a religion to justify their ruling it, and aptly named it Islam, which in Arabic means Submission. They claimed it meant submission to the Will of God, but what it really meant was submission to them

The multiculralistas already offer watered down apologetics for the New World's version of a Moloch cult in our public schools and arts. Old World Mohammedanism is following in that same path.

If "Aztec radicals" were to perpetrate a massive attack on US soil that killed thousands, would our President call Montezumanism a peaceful religion? Would he say that Christians, Jews, and Aztecs worship the same God? Would he host Huitzilopotchtli dinners?

Yet President Bush has done the moral equivalent of all of these things with Mohammedanism.

[Little Ray]

I'd like to add a few items:

The Aztecs were the only cannibal empire in history.
Many victims were eaten after sacrifice; IIRC, the captor got at least one limb, the torso went to feed the emperor's menagerie, the priests got the head (brains...) and the remaining limbs either went to the captor or to the knightly orders. One description of meal had the limb stewed with tomatoes and chilies: sort of a precursor to modern-day chili!

Social advancement was achieved by capturing prisoners for sacrifice. A commoner could achieve noble status by capturing enough prisoners (though the status of the prisoners started mattering after a certain point).

Since the locals had wiped out most of the big game animals, non-warriors and slaves had mostly vegetable diets; they depended on beans, maize and squash to get the amino acids they needed, but sometimes one or more of the "three sisters" was not available. Eating human flesh was a big advantage that just happened to be reserved for nobles, warriors, and priests. Coincidence, right?

BTW: I don't think they took the hearts of children sacrificed to Tlaloc. They beat them to make them cry (symbolizing rain) then drowned them.

And the name of the flayed god was Xipe Totec. The priests wore the flayed skin until it fell apart, so they wanted to do a good job skinning the sacrifice.

Too much information, eh? I have always thought that the Spanish did a good thing by destroying the Aztecs and Incas. I hope we are able to do a good thing by destroying what passes for culture among Islamic nations.