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To: AnalogReigns
Practically any figure in the strict and brutal 16th Century (when virtually no one recognized religious tolerance or freedom) can be called a “rigid, control freak” today, and Calvin was never accused, even by his worst enemies of the day, of murder—so you are simply lying about him, sorry.

any figure in the strict and brutal 16th Century
You're using situational ethics. Besides, Calvin said of Michael Servetus, years in advance of his capture and execution, that if he made it to Geneva, he wouldn't make it out alive. That's premeditation. He first tried to have him killed by informing the Catholic Church on his whereabouts. That's using a secondary means to try to accomplish his primary objective, but it's still attempted murder.

Calvin was never accused, even by his worst enemies of the day, of murder
I see you're using the Bill Clinton approach, "It depends on what the meaning of "is" is." Calvin, a supremely vain individual who confused his own musings with a revelation from God, was pissed off at Servetus's annotated criticisms of his Institutes and set about to have him put to death. It doesn't make any difference if he used the Catholic Church to do it or a council of his own bailiwick, so to speak--he deliberately set out to put an enemy to death and did so in one of the most brutal ways possible, a slow fire with green wood.

That doesn’t make Calvin any “murderer” any more than your local prosecuter who successfully pursues a death penalty case is a “murderer.”
Again, more specious equivalency and special pleading. It sounds quite a bit like the intellectual gymnastics Muslims go through to excuse Mohammed or Mormons go through to excuse Joseph Smith.
65 posted on 07/06/2010 5:11:27 PM PDT by aruanan
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To: aruanan; AnalogReigns; Dr. Eckleburg; Alex Murphy
You're using situational ethics. Besides, Calvin said of Michael Servetus, years in advance of his capture and execution, that if he made it to Geneva, he wouldn't make it out alive. That's premeditation.

Servetus said that all Trinitarian Christians were "sorcerers" who should be burnt at the stake, every single one of us.

If someone came to my town for the purpose of raising genocidal insurrection against all Trinitarian Christians, I certainly hope that the town sheriff would do something about it.

On to your next slander. OH, WAIT, that's the only argument against Calvin you ever had. (Never mind that cheap, dishonest slanders against the person of John Calvin, do nothing to change the clear Truths of Biblical Predestination which he and Augustine -- another imperfect Christian -- quite rightly preached).

67 posted on 07/08/2010 1:47:58 AM PDT by Christian_Capitalist (Taxation over 10% is Tyranny -- 1 Samuel 8:17)
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To: aruanan
What exactly were these criticisms that Servetus put forth? Calvin didn't like getting criticised I guess?

Belot,an Anabaptist was arrested for passing out tracts in Geneva and also accusing Calvin of excessive use of wine. A man in Geneva who publicly protested against the reformer's doctrine of predestination was flogged at all the crossways of the city and then expelled.

He must have been an egotist, but he was strict -- Calvin's Letter to the Marquis Paet, chamberlain to the King of Navarre, 1561. "Honour, glory, and riches shall be the reward of your pains; but above all, do not fail to rid the country of those scoundrels [Anabaptists and others], who stir up the people to revolt against us. Such monsters should be exterminated, as I have exterminated Michael Servetus the Spaniard."

no wonder Martin Luther said of Calvin's actions in Geneva, "With a death sentence they solve all argumentation" (Juergan L. Neve, A History of Christian Thought, vol. I, p. 285).

89 posted on 07/06/2011 3:14:56 AM PDT by Cronos ( W Szczebrzeszynie chrzaszcz brzmi w trzcinie I Szczebrzeszyn z tego slynie.)
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