Free Republic

How Many Protestants Were Killed in the Inquisition? A friend asked me that question earlier this week. And so I thought it might be helpful to share a few thoughts, from a historical perspective. Opinions about how to answer the question vary widely. Some suggest that just a few thousand people were executed during the Inquisition, while others project that there were tens of millions of victims. So how can the estimates be so widely divergent? There seem to be several explanations: 1. First, the imprecise nature of the historical records means that contemporary historians are forced to extrapolate on...

Spanish Inquisition Question: What was the Church’s involvement with the Spanish Inquisition? It seems clothed in shadows. — Dorothy Perez, San Antonio Answer: This brief column cannot cover all the details and provide extensive references. However, the Spanish Inquisition was run by the secular government, not by the Church. The Church did have its own inquisition, distinct from the secular government of Spain. Most people preferred the Church’s inquisition and often appealed cases there since it was more clement and just by their estimation. The term “inquisition” simply refers to an inquiry into charges leveled against a person, usually of...

Researchers hope to use the fernlike Azolla to reverse the global warming effects of burning fossil fuelsJuly 15, 2014 Fifty-five million years ago, when scientists believe the Earth was in a near-runaway state, dangerously overheated by greenhouse gases, the Arctic Ocean was also a very different place. It was a large lake, connected to the greater oceans by one primary opening: the Turgay Sea. When this channel closed or was blocked nearly 50 million years ago, the enclosed body of water became the perfect habitat for a small-leaved fern called Azolla. Imagine the Arctic like the Dead Sea of today:...

‘The Church has got no mandate from the Lord to pronounce on scientific matters.’In that one sentence, Cardinal Pell puts his finger on what is wrong with Laudato Si‘, Pope Francis’s encyclical on the environment. In that document, Francis waded into an argument about climate change and took sides. Moreover, he gave the impression that he was speaking for all Catholics when he did so; and, if by any chance he wasn’t, errant faithful should fall into line.In an interview in Thursday’s Financial Times, the Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy stepped out of line. See above. It was...

An overnight thunderstorm dropped 1½ to 2 inches of snow on the summit of Hawaii's tallest peak in July. Cameras at Mauna Kea’s summit showed some snow still on the ground midday Friday. Mauna Kea Weather Center forecast meteorologist Ryan Lyman says it should be melting quickly. …

Former Vice President Al Gore offered up some rare criticism of President Barack Obama’s environmental policy in a recent interview, calling for a ban on all Arctic drilling and blasting the administration’s decision to allow Royal Dutch Shell to begin sinking exploratory wells in the oil-rich Chukchi Sea in the Arctic as “insane.” “I think that in his second term, he has done really quite a good job,” Gore said in an interview with The Guardian published Thursday. “Of course there are things I would change. I think Arctic drilling is insane. I think that countries around the world would...

While most of Hawaii experiences sweltering conditions this July, part of the Big Island might seem like winter after Mauna Kea got some snow overnight.Officials have closed the road to the summit of Mauna Kea Friday after snow fell and caused icy road conditions. A ranger reported mixed rain and snow, fog and 1.5 inches of frozen snow on the summit.br />Mauna Kea weather varies widely. A calm sunny day may quickly become treacherous with hurricane force winds and blizzard conditions. Summit winds above 120 mph are not uncommon. At 10:15 a.m. Friday the temperature was still a chilly 36...

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s standing is falling among Democrats, and voters view her as less decisive and inspiring than when she launched her presidential campaign just three months ago, according to a new Associated Press-GfK poll. The survey offers a series of warning signs for the leading Democratic candidate. Most troubling, perhaps, for her prospects are questions about her compassion for average Americans, a quality that fueled President Barack Obama’s two White House victories. Just 39 percent of all Americans have a favorable view of Clinton, compared to nearly half who say they have a negative opinion of her. That’s an...

ASUNCIÓN, Paraguay — His speeches can blend biblical fury with apocalyptic doom. Pope Francis does not just criticize the excesses of global capitalism. He compares them to the “dung of the devil.” He does not simply argue that systemic “greed for money” is a bad thing. He calls it a “subtle dictatorship” that “condemns and enslaves men and women.” Having returned to his native Latin America, Francis has renewed his left-leaning critiques on the inequalities of capitalism, describing it as an underlying cause of global injustice, and a prime cause of climate change. Francis escalated that line last week when...

So I've learned Democrats are pretty scared of Walker Scott Walker is a Health Care-Denying, Anti-Worker, Economy-Dragging, Education-Slashing, Marriage Equality-Opposing, Teacher-Disrespecting, Trickle-Down-Believing Anti-Choice Republican, and he's running for President. Finished laughing hysterically yet? No? We’ll give you a moment. OK, so now that you’ve had a chance to catch your breath, can we please talk about the horrific stench of desperation that’s emanating from the Dems? Because seriously. They’re flinging every last bit of poo they can squeeze out at the Walker wall, hoping something will stick. It’s truly a sickening spectacle — and par for the course with these...

Pope Francis has said he did not chew coca during his recent trip to Bolivia. The Bolivian authorities earlier said the pontiff had requested to chew coca to help him cope with the effects of the high altitude in La Paz. The Pope made the remark when questioned by a journalist as to the secret of his energy during his South American tour, which ended yesterday. Pope Francis said that mate, the traditional tea popular in his native Argentina, helped to keep him going. "You wanted to ask me what is my drug of choice? Well, mate helps me. But...

The archbishop of Philadelphia said Monday that Roman Catholic school officials who fired a married gay teacher showed uncommon “character and common sense.” Archbishop Charles J. Chaput said the nuns and board members who run Waldron Mercy Academy are not seeking controversy, but simply following the church’s teaching. Chaput, in a statement, thanked school leaders “for taking the steps to ensure that the Catholic faith is presented … in accord with the teaching of the church. They’ve shown character and common sense at a moment when both seem to be uncommon.” …

It's the little things that matter. What can you do to top a deal in which socialists bail out even worse socialists, which we got this morning from the Greeks and the masters of the Eurozone? How about a deal in which a group of Islamic fanatics get the go-ahead to build a bomb from a guy who is either the most naive fool ever to grace the world stage or a complete Muslim sympathizer? HTML5 video is not supported! Maybe you can be both, come to think of it. But don’t despair! While the Iranians are building their bomb,...

Last week, Pope Francis released his long awaited—and preemptively leaked—encyclical, acknowledging climate change as mostly human-induced and cause for drastic transformation on both individual and nationwide levels. It was an unprecedented move by the leader of the Catholic Church, as religiosity has long been linked to lower levels of climate concern. Fortunately, however, the Pope's message will fall on receptive ears. Researchers at the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication have found that, among religious Republicans—and Republicans are more likely to be religious than Democrats—Catholic Republicans are "more convinced that global warming is happening and human-caused, and are more worried...

Pope Francis acknowledged on Monday he had neglected problems of the middle class and said he was willing to have a dialogue with Americans who disagree with his criticism of capitalism. Francis, speaking to reporters on the papal plane returning from a grueling 8-day trip to Ecuador, Bolivia and Paraguay, also said he hoped the Greek crisis could lead to more oversight so other countries would not experience the same problems. During the hour-long conversation with the Francis, who has made defense of the poor a major plank of his papacy, a reporter asked why he had hardly ever spoken...

The Earth could be headed for a 'mini ice age' researchers have warned. A new study claims to have cracked predicting solar cycles - and says that between 2020 and 2030 solar cycles will cancel each other out. This, they say, will lead to a phenomenon known as the 'Maunder minimum' - which has previously been known as a mini ice age when it hit between 1646 and 1715, even causing London's River Thames to freeze over. The new model of the Sun's solar cycle is producing unprecedentedly accurate predictions of irregularities within the Sun's 11-year heartbeat. It draws on...

The Maunder Minimum (also known as the prolonged sunspot minimum) is the name used for the period roughly spanning 1645 to 1715 when sunspots became exceedingly rare, as noted by solar observers of the time. Like the Dalton Minimum and Spörer Minimum, the Maunder Minimum coincided with a period of lower-than-average global temperatures. During one 30-year period within the Maunder Minimum, astronomers observed only about 50 sunspots, as opposed to a more typical 40,000-50,000 spots. (Source) Climatologist John Casey, a former space shuttle engineer and NASA consultant, thinks that last year’s winter, described by USA Today as “one of...

Maunder Minimum – Petri Dish of Political Change Posted on July 12, 2015 by Martin Armstrong Well the Global Warming pretend scientists are desperately trying to keep their funding. Now these con-artists are trying to claim that that it is just the surface water of the oceans that is cooling and the below the water is warming. When they stop driving cars and walk to work or ride a bicycle, then perhaps they are speaking at least what they believe rather than crying the planet is warming and we need to hand them billions of dollars to figure out some...

ublished on Jul 10, 2015 This Members-Only content from Suspicious0bservers.org has been shared on YouTube because it describes and frames what is probably the single most significant heliophysics discovery of the year. The subject of a coming grand minimum, despite some of the experts' concurrence and the data suggesting only one near-term outcome for the sun, has drawn controversy from many in the heliophysics community; I have fallen on the side of a coming grand minimum and am not shy about my praise for this mathematical model. I don't like most models; they tend not to match observational data -...

WASHINGTON: Extra heat from greenhouse gases has been trapped in the waters of the Pacific and Indian oceans in recent years, which may explain the so-called 'pause' in global warming observed during the past decade, according to a new NASA study. Researchers from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), California, found a specific layer of the Indian and Pacific oceans between 100 and 300 metres below the surface has been accumulating more heat than previously recognised. During the 20th century, as greenhouse gas concentrations increased and trapped more heat energy on Earth, global surface temperatures also increased. However, in the 21st...