“The Germans aren’t Nazis” - FDR
good answer
and the crusades were not Christian
Da pres lied when he said that. Deliberately and intentionally. He desperately doesn’t want us to know that this bunch is violent and sadistic.
Calling it “ISIS” avoids calling it “IS” which would have people asking what the “I” stands for.
Well, the Crusades certainly weren’t Christian.
Jihad is an essential part of the Koran, and a core feature of all Islamic societies from the beginning.
Formal inquisitorial courts only existed in certain places and at certain times, and are not an essential feature of either the Church's Scriptures or its catechetical teaching.
Spanish
Good one but it won’t work. Catholics have revised the history of the Inquisition. 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! ).
Well, first off, no one was expecting the Spanish Inquisition!
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 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.
Any bets the media will ever stop referring to those psychopaths in Westboro as Baptists? I didn’t think so.
I guess I will just have to see if I can get by with letting people believe what they will or what they won`t.
My faith is in Jesus Christ and what he said, religion may or may not have anything to do with faith so there is no such thing as a true religion unless maybe it is Satanism.
I am not an apologist, I believe what you see is what you get.
hate to burst your bubble pal, but the inquisition was NOT catholic...
is was the spanish government that imposed this one..
as a matter of fact, when the accused were faced with the inquisition, they BEGGED to be tried by the catholic church...
although the catholic church was indeed complicit, they accounted for less than 10% of the sentences...
facts are a funny thing, if you look for them, there they are...
and whoever wrote this thing is complicit with the KKK, Nazis, Communists, and any other organization that has declared war upon christians ( yes catholics are christians)....
Actually, the Spanish inquisition wasn’t catholic but secular. It was even condemned by the pope.
the papal inquisition was catholic and had stricter rules than the secular courts at the time.
"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."
Another 'know-it-all' atheist.
Jerry Coyne would have to be omniscient in order to know and make the universal claim that "no “true” religion can be specified." Maybe he thinks he can see forever.
And since Coyne is a philosophical naturalist he has no metaphysical foundation for his abstract, universal, invariant "principles" in the first place. His assumption that there are no rationally acceptable and testable arguments that are not empirical scientific arguments is not itself an empirically testable scientific argument, which makes his arguments here self-refuting.
That doesn't deter him, though. He proceeds next to display his abysmal ignorance of Scripture and mixes in some moral hectoring, for which he also has no foundation at all, and which is contraindicated by his own philosophical naturalism:
"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."
From a Christian perspective, suffice it to say that Coyne is apparently ignorant of basic hermeneutics, historical context, and has never heard of the New Covenant, though it is right there in the text in multiple instances.
His flailing 'analysis' is worthless.
Cordially,