"Constructing religious buildings on top of pre-existing ones, or repurposing them, is about signalling evolution and domination"
It also may be cheaper to build on top of an existing foundation, or the location an existing church stands on simply may be one of the few locations one can build a heavy building on. In some regions (e.g. peat areas) solid ground or even ground that is solid less than ten meters below ground level can be hard to come by.
I would agree with the comments that the locality was chosen for political, not so much pragmatic reasons regarding construction. It would have been important for them to send a signal that the 'old gods' were not important, and there was 'a new order'.
But again context: from antiquity to the modern era, when civilizations clash, one dominates the other and you don't get just 'parts' of the new administration. You get agriculture, domestication of animals, the new science, literacy, 'medicine', ideas, civil administration and religion. Not just one thing. And by this time Christianity and Buddhism also represented a huge step forward in metaphysical though vis-a-vis polytheistic and animist religions previous to them. People forget that religions are not 'arbitrary' - they represent the metaphysical thinking of the era. Religions in the Common Era were often founded with moral principles regarding good behaviour, charity, selflessness etc., as opposed to thinking of 'those above' as merely a soap-opera of superhuman like people, with human like characteristics, as in many of the pre-Common Area faiths. I'm not advocating it, I'm describing the context.
My family members go down to Central America every year to help build homes. I'll bet in 200 years, academics of the era will look upon that as some kind of 'cultural destruction' as well (i.e. putting people into brick homes instead of 'native huts') - but again I think that description would lack context. We look at history through our own cultural order, which is I think a problem sometimes.
The context is ap3's comment: "the spanish continuously built church temples on top of the natives' pyramids. Like a cruel switch of religions. The Mexico City Basilica sits on top of aztec ruins."
snovv_crash believed it was similar to reusing marble from the Coliseum to build St. Peter's.
toyg pointed out that why it isn't similar.
User 'Someone' thought reuse was more to do with pragmatism.
I fail to see the need for a larger context, at least not when it contains so many topics which have nothing to do with the given thread, and with flamebait topics like the proposition that Jesus was not a "superhuman like" person who could perform miracles and walk on water, or that Muhammad did not split the moon.
+ We're talking about where and why the new temples were built. 'Why' there were built there is a pretty important part of the overall question.
+ My proposition was to support the theory that they were built there for geopolitical reasons, not architectural reasons, and I gave some reasoning behind why this was - and to contextualize the misplaced statement regarding a 'cruel switch of religions'
+ You're not reading my comments regarding religion correctly - they are an historical articulation of the social development of religion based on evolving metaphysical premises, specifically from pre-Common Era polytheistic faiths to Common Era faiths, and it has nothing to do with what 'magical' those people happen to believe.
It also may be cheaper to build on top of an existing foundation, or the location an existing church stands on simply may be one of the few locations one can build a heavy building on. In some regions (e.g. peat areas) solid ground or even ground that is solid less than ten meters below ground level can be hard to come by.