Inquisition

[Winchester]

Little Les:

How many deaths were attributable to all the various Church run Inquisitional courts up until our modern day?

You may include the Spanish Inquisition, in spite of its loyalty more to the Spanish crown than the Vatican.

[Quietfire]

From a non-Catholic website.
(He is Southern Baptist)

"Heretics destroyed the bonds of society by weakening the basic authority on which all institutions rested; their mere existence brought down the vengeance of heaven on the regions in which they lived. Heresy was a disease which had to be wiped out; the heretic must either be cured or destroyed."


Now one could think that this very description could have described the Roman attitude towards Christianity as a superstition which broke down loyalty to the Roman gods who kept the world in order. This is not a Christian issue, but a social survival issue and a pattern followed by societies to preserve themselves -- until they reach our stage, where a fall is much harder to envision.. or is it...
An incident helped turn popular sentiment towards(pro) the Spanish Inquisition when Christianized Jews assassinated one of the Inquisitors in a cathedral, engendering a reaction one might compare to sentiment against Arabic peoples after the 9/11 bombing. (Hence my earlier statement on how people will view the events of 9/11 a century from now)

The Catholic Church (CC) in the Dark Ages "was the one stable institution that provided leadership and order" and quotes historian Bernard Hamilton as saying that "as the sole vehicle of a more civilized tradition in a barbarous world" the CC "became involved in social and political activities which formed no part of its essential mission, but which it alone was qualified to discharge." With the exception of a few Jews and Muslims, [i]all people[/i] in Western Europe depended on the CC for meaning and survival. Any undermining of this social construct was a threat to the physical, mental, and spiritual well-being of the whole. (Kamen likewise says of the Spanish variation, "It fulfilled a role...that no other institution fulfilled."

Reports that the threat of the Spanish Inquisition has been particularly overblown. Without minimizing the atrocities that were committed, it is nevertheless a fact that many Skeptical sites (relying at times on Helen Ellerbee, a notoriously unreliable source) frame the Spanish Inquisition particularly as one might elsewhere frame Mao's Great Leap Forward. Kamen [K60, 203] notes that, "Taking into account all the tribunals of Spain up to about 1530, it is unlikely that more than two thousand people were executed for heresy by the Inquisition....for most of its existence that Inquisition was far from being a juggernaut of death either in intention or in capability." By Kamen's estimate, for example, "it would seem that during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries fewer than three people a year were executed in the whole of the Spanish monarchy from Sicily to Peru, certainly a lower rate than in any provincial court of justice in Spain or anywhere else in Europe." [K203] This was weighted against people of Jewish and Muslim origin, but let it never be said that the numbers themselves are anything to be flabbergasted about. It is also notable that the impetus for the Inquisition in Spain came first not from the church, but from the king and queen of Spain who asked for an Inquisition to be conducted.

[url="http://www.tektonics.org/qt/spaninq.html"]This is the link.[/url]

Pax.

[LittleLes]

[quote name='avemaria40' date='Aug 28 2005, 12:13 PM']As for the Holocaust, Hitler was an apostate Catholic and he's the one who started it.  He hated all religion, calling it flabby, controlled Protestant churches, closed Catholic schools, and killed many priests, nuns, and ministers, as well as rabbis.  Also, the Holocaust was not aimed only at Jews (although most of the ppl executed for being Jewish), but also at dissabled ppl (mentally and physically), homosexuals, communists,  socialists, etc.  In fact, many ppl who died in the Holocaust became saints.  And i hate it when ppl say that Catholics were responsible, b/c Hitler was a bad example of a Catholic, giving up his faith as a young adult, and the Pope at the time was in a very difficult position and he did help Jews escape but he couldn't publicly admit it, or Hitler could attack the Vatican, which is the smallest country in the world.
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RESPONSE

On the contrary, Hitler was viewed as a Christian leader leading the fight against "atheistic communism." For this reason the rich and influential German business supported him.

As has been noted, "However, from the earliest formation of the Nazi party and throughout the period of conquest and growth, Hitler expressed his Christian support to the German citizenry and soldiers. Those who would make Hitler an atheist should turn their eyes to history books ."

And there is this: " Our worship is exclusively the cultivation of the natural, and for that reason, because natural, therefore God-willed. Our humility is the unconditional submission before the divine laws of existence so far as they are known to us men.” -Adolf Hitler, in Nuremberg on 6 Sept.1938.

[LittleLes]

[quote name='Winchester' date='Aug 28 2005, 12:30 PM']Little Les:

How many deaths were attributable to all the various Church run Inquisitional courts up until our modern day?

You may include the Spanish Inquisition, in spite of its loyalty more to the Spanish crown than the Vatican.
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RESPONSE:

I'll exclude the Spanish Inquisition.

But it is very difficult to get exact numbers of the German women slaughtered. The following is from a publication of The Road to Peace, and anti-terrorism website.

"Estimates of the number of people executed for witchcraft range from 100,000 to nine million. While researchers do not agree on the number of people tortured and murdered for witchcraft, there seems to be general agreement that 85% of those executed were women and that the accused were predominately very poor rural women, over fifty years of age, who were unprotected by a man (either spinsters or widows). Confessions of witchcraft were tortured out of the accused using a gruesome array of physically and sexually violent methods. Those accused of witchcraft were often tortured and burned alive in a public forum, thereby sending a powerful message to other members of the community, most particularly girls and women. "

And if anyone claims that the Catholic Church wasn't directly responsible, remember, by their own writings, the leaders of this Inquisition were Dominican priests, and the Inquisition was authorized by the Pope, again from his own writings.

So, any apologists denying this have to overcome the written admissions of those responsible, and have to resort purely to "let's pretend."

[Quietfire]

She never said he wasnt christian.
She said he was an apostate Catholic.

He was non-Catholic. Like you.

Or did you miss that.
Also, you are supplying quotes but not stating who they are from. Are they from you and you just like to quote yourself?

[Quietfire]

The leaders of the Inquisition were the Dominican priests. yes. agreed. They were asked there by the King and Queen and the Pope approved.

It was though mostly the secular government who decided the sentencing and thus carried it out.

Edited August 28, 2005 by Quietfire

[LittleLes]

"Belief system?
The Holocaust was the direct result of one man's delusional desire to eliminate an entire people, for no other motive than hatred, and made no bones that He wasnt going to stop there. That is why he moved on to the Poles."

RESPONSE:

The Inquistions were the direct result of the Church's delusional desire to eliminate every threat, real or imagined, to the Catholic party line.

[LittleLes]

[quote name='Quietfire' date='Aug 28 2005, 12:06 PM']Your ignorance is astounding.
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RESPONSE:

But my facts are impeccable! :

[Paladin D]

[quote name='LittleLes' date='Aug 28 2005, 02:48 PM']RESPONSE:

But my facts are impeccable! :
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[i][b]"Only in your mind, my very young apprentice."[/b] - Obi-Wan Kenobi[/i]

[LittleLes]

[quote name='Quietfire' date='Aug 28 2005, 01:40 PM']She never said he wasnt christian.
She said he was an apostate Catholic.

He was non-Catholic.  Like you.

Or did you miss that.
Also, you are supplying quotes but not stating who they are from.  Are they from you and you just like to quote yourself?
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RESPONSE:

If they are significan quotes, I am quoting whom they are from. I'm sorry if the facts of history clash with your belief system, but lets not engage in apologetic's "lets pretend."

And Hitler was, and remained Catholic.

"He too would remain a member of the Catholic Church, he said, although he had no real attachment to it. And in fact he remained in the church until his suicide." (Inside the Third Reich by Albert Speer page 95-96)


Please note the reference.

LittleLes

[Paladin D]

[quote name='LittleLes' date='Aug 28 2005, 02:55 PM']RESPONSE:

If they are significan quotes, I am quoting whom they are from. I'm sorry if the facts of history clash with your belief system, but lets not engage in apologetic's "lets pretend."

And Hitler was, and remained Catholic.

"He too would remain a member of the Catholic Church, he said, although he had no real attachment to it. And in fact he remained in the church until his suicide."  (Inside the Third Reich by Albert Speer page 95-96)
Please note the reference.

LittleLes
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I suppose someone would remain an employee at a local gas station, even though they were fired. Hitler could "claim" to be a member, but it doesn't mean he was. Pretty much what you have tried doing.

[LittleLes]

[quote name='Quietfire' date='Aug 28 2005, 01:43 PM']The leaders of the Inquisition were the Dominican priests. yes. agreed.  They were asked there by the King and Queen and the Pope approved.

It was though mostly the secular government who decided the sentencing and thus carried it out.
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RESPONSE:

(1) And Hitler, the Chancellor, approved of the gassing of the Jews. Does that make it acceptable?

(2) Ah yes. The old " it was the secular government and not the Church" ploy. I was sure that someone would attempt it. And who directed the ssecular government?????

If you hire a hitman, are you innocent of murder?

[LittleLes]

[quote name='Paladin D' date='Aug 28 2005, 01:54 PM'][i][b]"Only in your mind, my very young apprentice."[/b] - Obi-Wan Kenobi[/i]
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RESPONSE:

No. In the history books and Church writings, actually. You might want to visit you local library. :

[Quietfire]

My belief system, as you call it, have nothing to do with this.

Hitler may have "remained with the church although he had no 'real attachment' "means that he is not a Catholic.

Sorry, you just dont understand.
Hes apostate.

[Paladin D]

[quote name='LittleLes' date='Aug 28 2005, 02:59 PM']RESPONSE:

No. In the history books and Church writings, actually. You might want to visit you local library. :
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It's usually not the fault of the text, it's the interpretation. You and I could read something, and it's possible that we could come to different conclusions.