The Real Inquisition: Investigating the popular myth.

National Review Online ^ | June 18, 2004 | Thomas F. Madden

[Petronski]

You want desperately to debate someone else on the points you've lost to so very many. You've lost all those arguments whether I was involved or not.

You are willfully guilty of bearing false witness against an entire faith. Good luck with that millstone. I shall continue to pray for you, and to flag your lies and hatred for the unaware.

[Havoc]

Right. You do that. Thanks for bumping the thread again. your mindless sniping is useful for something I guess, if for nothing else than getting people to ask me funny questions about ya. lol

[Havoc]

Actually, can you do me a favor? I mean if I have to put up with your baseless and ceaseless charges, can you at least quote us from your greatest hits? Plaese say "They're committing suicide at the city limits, there are no Americans in the city" again.

[Petronski]

Mixing humor into your lies will make them more palatable. You will not thereby find any more suckers for your hate, but at least your steaming heaps will not stink so badly.

You should steal more humor wherever you got that bit.

[GoLightly]

Let's go back to the original article.

Torture was rare and only about 1 percent of those brought before the Spanish Inquisition were actually executed.

1%?!? I don't think any modern madman was "successful" enough to achieve that rate. Never-mind, I have something more important to question.

Here it is. To understand the Inquisition we have to remember that the Middle Ages were, well, medieval. We should not expect people in the past to view the world and their place in it the way we do today. (You try living through the Black Death and see how it changes your attitude.) For people who lived during those times, religion was not something one did just at church.

Gonna pause here, cuz I have to comment on this before going further. Death was more common during medieval times. Is the author trying to say life was more or less precious to those living at that time? Are our beliefs different & less important to us without a healthy fear of an immanent death? Is that the meaning of religion? Religion is something we're just supposed to do at church?

It was science, philosophy, politics, identity, and hope for salvation. It was not a personal preference but an abiding and universal truth.

When did it stop being about the universal truth?

Heresy, then, struck at the heart of that truth. It doomed the heretic, endangered those near him, and tore apart the fabric of community.

IMO, this is just as true now as it was then. Should I try to make the author of this piece part of my mere 1%?

[185JHP]

It may not be a fixable problem - the "top down authoritarianism" I mean. It's not Biblical, it's evil. Powered by the idea that a human being can condemn someone to the fire. Sad. Thanks for your thoughtful reply.

[Havoc]

Right Bob, how bout another one. If you're going to sit and hurl baseless accusations you cannot back up to save your life, you should at least be entertaining. Come on Bob, say it, just once "they are committing suicide at the city limits" I know you can do it, I watched you on tv for a month.

[Petronski]

It sure must suck for you to be refuted and exposed post after post, thread after thread. If only someone would pay you per lie.

Anyway, if you're going to post to XBob, at least spell his name properly.

[Havoc]

Well, you're getting closer to humorous. Come on Bob. You can do it "they're committing suicide at the city limits" let's go. Or maybe you could give us one of those - there are no tanks speaches with a little graphic of a tank running by in the background - right behind you. I'm debunked just because you say so.. lol. Comeon Bob, if you're gonna do it poorly, you might as well do it with humor. Put on the hat for us too.

[Petronski]

Wonder of wonders! You've posted twice without even a drip of anti-Catholic hatred or blaming the President for your outsourcing.

[Havoc]

It would be fixable if there was a hint of the Holy spirit and a care for following scripture amongst them; but, the problem is, that the philosophy has supplanted scripture and truth a long time ago. This is why the inquisitions were even possible to come from something claiming to be Christian and last for what 700+ years. This is why the example of Christ in Telling Peter to put the sword away and the sinners to put down their rocks and leave the adulterous woman alone cannot penetrate them. Their philosophy is their master, not Christ's direction. They turn from his direction scoffing. They know better because they have reasoned it out and are wiser than all. They've been around for some 1500 years so they are right - or so the claim goes...

I too wish the Scriptures would penetrate. They can, but only if God allows it. When people are given over to strong delusion so that they will believe a lie, they will never accept the truth on their own. It's also a big part of why you see them projecting their own actions and their own problems on everyone else. But you can always pray that God will get hold of them.

[Havoc]

Well, Bob, you're repeating your hollow charges and they're beyond stale now. So I'll leave you to wallow in your misery at your continued missing of the target. Maybe you could come up with something original, like maybe accusing me of being a nice, good humored guy for poking fun at you instead of hitting abuse lol. Night. Hope God and the Holy spirit get hold of you and show you what love and loving your neighbor truly is one of these nignts. God loves ya, even if you do dispise his servant.

[185JHP]

Well said. Interesting times coming. I get comfort from Isaiah 66:24. God bless you.

[edsheppa]

Moral relativism asserts that morality is as good as another.

Again you are wrong.

Moral relativism refers to a view that claims moral standards are not absolute or universal, but rather emerge from social customs and other sources.

And that is exactly what the author is doing.

To be clear, I'm not condemning the author for being a moral relativist - I'm one myself but I also think that some moral systems are objectively superior to others. Consequently your observation that the Inquisition was, in certain respects, an improvement on what came before is a good one in my opinion.

Rather I think he's hypocritically making a morally relative argument for the Inquisition when he would take to task anyone doing so on behalf of say Islamic terrorists or the Iranian mullahs.

[Havoc]

Just saw this and was on my way to bed; but, had to stop and comment. Moral relativism is not the Christian standard, it is human reason at work trying to excuse application of human reason over the application of the reason of others in trying to say "our reason was an improvement over their reason."

Christianity isn't about reason or philosophical constructs of men competing to outdo the thinking of other men on what is morally better than something else. Chrisitanity is a covenant laid down By God.. A take it or leave it proposition dropped at mankind's doorstep By God for us to make a decision over. God handed us a completed work. And that completed work stated plainly that what was being done in the inquisitions was dead wrong 1000 years before it started brewing. There is no moral relativism with God. While we can sit back and reason out that a punch in the mouth is better than a broken leg, that's all fine and good but that is simple relativism. When you start talking about morality, God has given us a fixed and defined set of expectations and merely sitting back and saying "oops we made a mistake; but, we were still better than joe" don't quite cut it.

A mistake is "oops" and then we fix it. If I get mad and slap someone because I momentarily lose control, that is a mistake. When I beat them to death slowely for hours, we tend to call that deliberative. What then do you call it when it's ingrained for over 700 years such that it just about had to be the hand of God conquering them to put an end to it. Cause the Lord knows it wouldn't have ended otherwise. The greater point being it didn't stop because they saw the error of their ways and got right with God for fear of his vengeance at the least. No, they still haven't learned. The spirit of Christ in me is all I need in order to understand the abject poverty of this situation. The absence of God's will here makes the moral relativism a badge that should be one of shame. Instead of being able to say they learned and Got right with God, they can only say, well, we weren't as bad as someone else - whether it is true or not. And that grieves me - that people can be so blinded as not to see this.

These same people in their delusion will tell you that islam is evil and islamicists are evil; but, they act identical to one another with exception to what the content of their dogma is. The first world won't allow Rome to do what she once did while she still acts that way in the third world to a great extent - case in point being south america. But both act pretty much identically for their radical nature. Islam is just a tad more radical because they've been largely unrestrained for a long time whilest the world has slowly come to the realization that they could not be befriended or placated any more than "Holy Rome" could be.

If Christ were to stay his return for 500 years, the Islamicists would be acting by then just as Catholicism has to act in first world countries like the US today - restrained by a public that is wise to their ways and has long since determined not to be abused by them. That threat has been subdued to the extent that people have nearly forgotten in some cases what the threat was. Islam has reminded many of them. But those of us with Christ in our hearts have been awake and aware. And this moral relativism is not of Christ. Nor is it gonna pass muster before God.

Whatsoever you have done to the least of these, you have done to me. Moral relativism your way around that.

[RobbyS]

No, he is saying that one need not measure the Middle Ages by OUR standards. It is not OUR standards that tell us where Islamists or Medieval Christians were wrong; rather it is standards that transcend both theirs and our own. In certain ways, we are better men than the medieval Christians, but not in other ways. The progressive view is that we are always getting better,but the Augustan age of Rome was followed by the near collapse of the 3rd century. Augustine thought we were in the old age of mankind, and so did his disciple luther Maybe what we think is growth may be cancer which will drain the body of its vitality and kill it. I doubt our civilization can survive another crisis like the one of 1914-1945.

[RobbyS]

The Inquisitors did improve matters. On the other hand, the tools they devised were often inadequate. It is importsant to remember that our court system is medieval in origin, that the Common Law incorporates much of canon law, that our courts equitable jurisdiction comes directly from the example of the courts presidened over by clerical Lord Chancellors. But having sais that, it still remains that horrible injustices were committed, because even saints are fallible and are often so uncertain what to do in the face of evil that they end up doing evil. Let us learn from their bad example as well as by the good.

[Polybius]

The Spanish defeated Protestant armies on the battlefield? Where?

The Battle of Muhlberg.

The Battle of Gemblours.

The capture of Haarlem.

The capture of Leyden.

The capture of Namur.

The capture of Ghent.

The capture of Antwerp.

The capture of Ostend.

The capture of Brussels.

The capture of Breda.

The defeat of the Huguenot siege of Paris in 1590.

The reason that Belgium and France remained Catholic countries is because Protestant armies in those two countries were defeated by Spain.

The Surrender of Breda

**********************

Historical Bonus Question:

What is the significance of the year 1290 in English history?

Hint: Although the Spanish expulsion of the Jews in 1492 is taught to every school child, what happened in England in 1290 is never mentioned.

[edsheppa]

Maybe what we think is growth may be cancer which will drain the body of its vitality and kill it.

Oh my, a little gloomy aren't we.

The progressive view is that we are always getting better

And it is obviously true - over historical time we have "gotten better." The improvement isn't uniform, certainly, but it is definite and fairly steady. Being a conservative I think that trend will continue.

It is not OUR standards that tell us where Islamists or Medieval Christians were wrong; rather it is standards that transcend both theirs and our own.

I couldn't pass up commenting on this. It is clear to me that you (and I) are judging the actions of these long ago people based on our standards. It's unreasonable to claim that you are judging based on standards which transcend your own because you have no basis for knowledge of such standards. How can you know that, according to these transcendent values, they were not justified in torturing and executing these Jewish "heretics" and taking all their wealth?

[edsheppa]

Moral relativism ... is human reason at work trying to excuse application of human reason over the application of the reason of others in trying to say "our reason was an improvement over their reason."

So much error today. Didn't you read the definition in my post? I think it is very accurate. Pure moral relativists would not claim better or worse in any absolute sense. Their thinking is more or less that the morals suit themselves to the situation. I think the saying is "sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." The moral relativist might substitute good for evil but, being relative, that's more matter of spin.

As for the rest of your post, I think you have no basis for knowing that there is an absolute standard that God has handed down. For my own part, I think that even if there is such a standard it is unknowable by us.

And by the way, a punch in the mouth is virtually always better than a broken leg. If you were to offer the choice to say a hundred people, don't you think virtually all of them would choose the former? Thanks for that example of something that's (virtually always) objectively better than something else.