Please freepmail me if you want on/off this list
Posted on 02/05/2011 10:37:32 PM PST by Rhonda Robinson
Do the research and do not buy into the Black Legend. The Inquisition courts were the fairest and most humane in all of Christendom at that time. The numbers turned over to the secular authorities to be put to death were no where near what the public schools and other commies would have you believe.
“Islam is a political system and Christianity is not.”
The Spanish Inquisition was not quite so bloody as some have made out, and it was also in other parts of Europe and just as nasty. However there was plenty of politics and economics involved with people denouncing others for political and economic gain. However, the previous century or two saw almost a million people killed in the south of France for being Kathars, also known as the Albigensian Heresy. The war against them was promoted by the king of France with the cooperation (political?) of the Pope as a land and wealth grab. Sure sounded political to me. Just read a powerful historal novel about that whole mess, “The Treasure of Montsegur”, where they last of the Kathars held out in a 9 month seige and all the captured Kathars were burned to death.
.
There’s a difference between a religion working hand in glove with secular rulers and a religion that considers itself the secular ruler and, in fact, considers itself the entire political and economic system.
Christianity is not a political system. Have corrupt Christian leaders sometimes worked with secular leaders? Yes. Have Christian sects, such as the Puritans, ever tried to consider themselves the political leaders? Yes, but this never lasts very long, simply because Christianity can never be made to be a political system.
Islam, on the other hand, was designed by its creator, Mohammed, to essentially put into place an authoritiarian system of total control in the countries and cities that he conquered in the ME.
And we’re not talking about temporary aberrations like Calvin’s Geneva or unfortunate events like the cooperation with brutal secular rulers by Luther during the Peasant War or a Pope (or, more often, a bishop) during a secular conflict; we’re talking about something that is part and parcel of Islam.
Why should the Catholic Church care about the opinions of homosexual communists?
A short treatise of political power (John Ponet - 1556) contained “all the essential principles of liberty, which were afterward dilated on by Sidney and Locke“
John AdamsLeopold von Ranke - “John Calvin was the virtual founder of America.”
Cordially,
I think you are forgetting about Henry VIII’s England. Once he decided to ditch the Pope in favor of matrimony, he immediately used the state to confiscate church properties and turn them over to his supporters. This sort of thing seasawed back and forth with Catholic Queen Mary, Protestant Queen Elizabeth, Catholic King James, and Protestant William and Mary. At that point I think the main contenders were various Protestant sects. Lots of killing, confiscating, steeling, banishing, etc. In fact this whole mess is one reason our very wise founding fathers included separation of church and state, and freedom of conscience in our founding documents.
I guess a few more millions of Shia and Sunni will have to kill each other before they “get religion” ;-) and opt for a secular political system.
I think you are forgetting about Henry VIII’s England. Once he decided to ditch the Pope in favor of matrimony, he immediately used the state to confiscate church properties and turn them over to his supporters. This sort of thing seasawed back and forth with Catholic Queen Mary, Protestant Queen Elizabeth, Catholic King James, and Protestant William and Mary. At that point I think the main contenders were various Protestant sects. Lots of killing, confiscating, stealing, banishing, etc. In fact this whole mess is one reason our very wise founding fathers included separation of church and state, and freedom of conscience in our founding documents.
I guess a few more millions of Shia and Sunni will have to kill each other before they “get religion” ;-) and opt for a secular political system.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.