Posted on 09/15/2014 8:56:46 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
[SNIP]
Well, if ISIS is not Islamic, then the Inquisition was not Catholic. The fact is that there are no defensible criteria for whether a faith is “true,” since all faiths are man-made and accrete doctrine—said to come from God, but itself man-made—that becomes integral to those faiths. Whatever “true faith” means, it doesn’t mean “the right religion: the one whose God exists and whose doctrines are correct.” If that were so, we wouldn’t see Westerners trying to tell us what “true Islam” is.
No, if “true” means anything, it must mean “true to some principles.” As far as I can see, there are only two such principles: true to scripture or true to some code of conduct that the writer approves. But these definitions often contradict each other, so no “true” religion can be specified.
First, the truest religion could be that which sticks the closest to scripture. In that case the “truest” Christianity and Judaism would be literalist and fundamentalist. They would adhere to the creationism set out in Genesis, as well as to the immoral behaviors sanctioned by God in the Old Testament. These include killing those children who curse their parents, as well as adulterers and those who work on the Sabbath. Although these are clear moral dictates of God, no modern Christians or Jews obey them, for the rules are reprehensible. Nevertheless, there is a case to be made that a fundamentalist Southern Baptist is a “truer Christian” than a liberal Unitarian, and a misogynist Orthodox Jew a truer believer than a modern reform Jew.
You can cherry-pick the Qur’an as easily as you can the Bible, for both are filled with calls for violence and genocide that distress us.
(Excerpt) Read more at newrepublic.com ...
“Not all the Germans were Nazis.”
Well, no kidding? Millions were, enough they were a threat to the world.
And now, obama refuses to identify the enemy. Had FDR done that the war might have ended differently.
The Crusades were expeditions undertaken by the Catholic Church, in fulfilment of a solemn vow, to deliver the Holy Lands from Mohammedan tyranny. Oh and by the way Catholics are Christians.
IMO it's worth quoting a little more from the article to get where the writer is going:
No, if “true” means anything, it must mean “true to some principles.” As far as I can see, there are only two such principles: true to scripture or true to some code of conduct that the writer approves. But these definitions often contradict each other, so no “true” religion can be specified....the truest religion could be that which sticks the closest to scripture. In that case the “truest” Christianity and Judaism would be literalist and fundamentalist. They would adhere to the creationism set out in Genesis, as well as to the immoral behaviors sanctioned by God in the Old Testament. These include killing those children who curse their parents, as well as adulterers and those who work on the Sabbath. Although these are clear moral dictates of God, no modern Christians or Jews obey them, for the rules are reprehensible. Nevertheless, there is a case to be made that a fundamentalist Southern Baptist is a “truer Christian” than a liberal Unitarian, and a misogynist Orthodox Jew a truer believer than a modern reform Jew.
The inquisition wasn’t Catholic.
It’s true the purge was largely committed by Catholics but, the inquisition was more about national sovereignty and individual choice.
/s ...a bit
A simple thing to keep in mind is that the inquisition was a perversion of Christianity. Anyone who can envision Christ doing what was done in his name, or condoning it, has missed the entire point of His life, death and resurrection. On the other hand, what ISIS is doing is not a perversion of Islam, and it isn’t difficult to imagine Mohammed doing the same. Christianity and Islam are more than polar opposites, in that true Christianity is the best of what a man might be, and Islam is the worst.
Christendom, or Christianity’s influence on civilization, the liberation of people from oppression, the influences of Christian culture, morals and community are what helped elevate Western civilization to greatness. Islam has done nothing like that to the countries and people it oppresses.
The dead ones...
The analogy perpetuates some key misunderstandings. “The” inquisition was *very* Catholic, and it was very advanced in its provision of justice for its day.
The Catholic Church founded the Papal Inquisition specifically to bring an end to local inquisitions. The local inquisitions are the source of most of the terrors associated with inquisitions: they were attempts by secular authorities to use religion as a weapon to subdue their own dissidents. By establishing the papal inquisition, the Church established a division of Church and State, by claiming to the Church sole authority over religious matters and the State sole authority over secular crimes.
Under the papal inquisition, the accused could not suffer lasting injuries, nor be interrogated more than once or for longer than fifteen minutes. And Muslims, Jews and pagans were exempt. (Initially, Protestants tended to NOT be exempt, because they tended to claim to be reforming, rather than departing the Church.) Physical punishment was rare; Galileo was forced (*gasp!*) to live in a luxurious castle with servants.
The exception to the separation of Church and State arose in Spain, where the Spanish Inquisition, unlike the Papal Inquisition, was granted the authority to kill. (Usually, the worst that would happen to you was the Church would find the accused’s crime was not a matter of the Church’s jurisdiction, and hand them over to the State; some “reformers” were found guilty by the *State* of insurrection.) This was specifically to deal with the problem of taqiyaa among Muslims: No self-proclaimed Muslim was under the jurisdiction of the Inquisition, but many Muslims infiltrated the Church. Even so, most of the death sentences were not for Muslims, but for priests accused of raping boys.
Disclaimer: Nothing I have written is meant to assert that the Papal or Spanish Inquisitions were free from corruption or a lack of Christian charity or mercy, only that nearly all of inquisitions which gave the word, “inquisition” such a fearful tone were illegitimate inquisitions, and not sanctioned by the Church.
Such is the sad lot of modern affairs where one must either concede to all manners of slanderous legends, or be accused of denying any wrongdoing whatsoever.
The Crusades were defensive movements aimed at reclaiming the Christian holy places seized by the Muslims and freeing the hundreds of thousands of Christian captives kidnapped by the Muslims.
One of the big problems was that the European rulers were too busy fighting with each other to really get behind the idea, and when the Pope appealed for forces, after the First Crusade, it then became increasingly the rule to hire mercenaries and also allow them to take booty as compensation. The famous sack of Constantinople was because the Byzantines had actually hired these mercenaries themselves but then did not pay the mercenaries what they thought they were due, so they sacked the city.
Horrible, but it was not because the fundamental reason for the Crusades (to retake Christian lands and free Christians) was wrong. It was mostly because of European politics.
I’m not disagreeing with you.
Kennedy, Kerry, Chavez, Pelosi, Biden, Cuomo,
These guys...... Top 10 Most Wicked Popes
http://listverse.com/2007/08/17/top-10-most-wicked-popes/
1. Liberius, reigned 352-66 [Catholic Encyclopaedia]
2. Honorius I, reigned 625-638 [Catholic Encyclopaedia]
3. Stephen VI, reigned 896-89 [Catholic Encyclopaedia]
4. John XII, reigned 955-964 [Catholic Encyclopaedia]
5. Benedict IX, reigned 1032-1048 [Catholic Encyclopaedia]
6. Boniface VIII, reigned 1294-1303 [Catholic Encyclopaedia]
7. Urban VI, reigned 1378-1389 [Catholic Encyclopaedia]
8. Alexander VI, reigned 1492-1503 [Catholic Encyclopaedia]
9. Leo X, reigned 1513-1521 [Catholic Encyclopaedia]
10. Clement VII, reigned 1523-1524 [Catholic Encyclopaedia]
Top 10 Worst Popes in History
http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-worst-popes-in-history.php
1. Pope Alexander VI (1431 – 1503)
2. Pope John XII (c. 937 – 964)
3. Pope Benedict IX (c. 1012 – 1065/85)
4. Pope Sergius III (? – 911)
5. Pope Stephen VI (? – 897)
6. Pope Julius III (1487 – 1555)
7. Pope Urban II (ca. 1035 – 1099)
8. Pope Clement VI (1291 – 1352)
9. Pope Leo X (1475 – 1521)
10. Pope Boniface VIII (c. 1235 – 1303)
Quite an impressive list of *Christians* there.
I guess you can live any way you want and still get to heaven when you die if you just buy yourself forgiveness from the church.
Any bets the media will ever stop referring to those psychopaths in Westboro as Baptists? I didn’t think so.
oh but not all Christians are Catholic
we do worship the same God
but Christianity is a religion of peace
Catholics do not represent true Christianity
yadaa yada yada
I think you will recognize these phrases with the word Catholic replacing the words Muslim and Islam, which is the point the writer was making
back to your point
the IS caliphate is fulfillment of a muslim obligation to deliver Islamic lands from nonmuslims
but oh- the deliverers fulfilling this caliphate are not muslim.... because Obama and Kerry and Cameron tell us so
got it!
the moderate Germans were the ones who kept house and ran daily life in Germany so the immoderate Germans could pack 6 million Jews Gypsies defectives priests partisans etc off to the camps
In my opinion, the crusades had little military significance in stopping Muslim expansion. The muslims reached their highwater mark in Western Europe (Spain & Southern France) 300 years before the first crusade, finally defeated in France by Charles Martel. And they were at the gates of Vienna (Ottoman Empire 1683) long after the last crusaders had left the Holy Land at the end of the 13th century.
The end of the dark ages, which included more religious, personal, and academic freedom, sparked technological advancements and thriving economies in the West, even more with New World wealth and resources. The muslims suffered from similar issues that plunged Europe into the dark: internal corruption, disunity, and the darkness that comes without freedom. This was more critical in keeping them from advancing further into Europe. Only now with oil wealth have they been able to rise up again and be a threat to the civilized world.
Had Europe (and all Christian states in the 7th century) been more unified at the beginning of islam’s adventures, it could have been easily squashed. Instead they were more concerned with destroying political rivals or competing theology rather than the real threats.
Its good to learn from history and hopefully avoid the mistakes of the past.
“and the crusades were not Christian”
They most certainly were.
“Well, the Crusades certainly weren’t Christian.”
Sure they were.
“Catholics have revised the history of the Inquisition.”
False. The revision that has taken place is on the part of non-Catholic historians. Catholic historians have always said the same thing and now non-Catholic historians are closer to them in opinion than 50 years ago. An example of this would be the shift in opinion of Henry Kamen (Jewish) between the time of his first research on the inquisition in the 1960s and 1998 when he published The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision.
“Either it wasn’t Catholics that did it (rogue Protestants no doubt), or it wasn’t really bad (Jews should thank Catholics, stealing their property, torturing, forcing conversion, and murder aren’t that bad - after all, they were told to leave Spain! ).”
And there you demonstrate the problem - ignorance passed off as if it were the actual history of the inquisition:
“Either it wasn’t Catholics that did it”
I have never heard anyone claim it wasn’t Catholics so where you’re getting this from I have no idea.
“(rogue Protestants no doubt),”
And no one at all claims that either.
“or it wasn’t really bad”
Clearly the inquisition was not as bad as some people would have us believe. Jimmy Swaggart claims more than 60,000,000 people were executed by the inquisition - which is a logical impossibility. That in itself shows some people simply make things up and mouth-breathing idiots believe it.
“(Jews should thank Catholics, stealing their property, torturing, forcing conversion, and murder aren’t that bad - after all, they were told to leave Spain! ).”
What forced conversions of Jews on the part of Spanish Inquisition? Name them.
Alex,
You posted this quote:
“These include killing those children who curse their parents, as well as adulterers and those who work on the Sabbath. Although these are clear moral dictates of God, no modern Christians or Jews obey them, for the rules are reprehensible.”
Do you find God’s Old Testament law reprehensible, Alex?
“The end of the dark ages, which included more religious, personal, and academic freedom, sparked technological advancements and thriving economies in the West, even more with New World wealth and resources.”
Tell me the year - or even the century - in which the “Dark Ages” ended and which saw the dawn of an age of “more religious, personal, and academic freedom, sparked technological advancements and thriving economies in the West, even more with New World wealth and resources.”
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