My Faith: Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), from Catholic to Muslim

CNN ^ | 9/1/11 | Chris Welch

[marshmallow]

Minneapolis, Minnesota (CNN) –Prior to 2006, few people even knew that then-Minnesota state legislator Keith Ellison was a Muslim. Because of his English name, he said, no one thought to ask.

But five years ago, when he ran for a seat in the United States House of Representatives - a race he would go on to win - word of his religious affiliation began to spread.

“When I started running for Congress it actually took me by surprise that so many people were fascinated with me being the first Muslim in Congress,” said Ellison, a Democrat now serving his third term in the House.

“But someone said to me, ‘Look Keith, think of a person of Japanese origin running for Congress six years after Pearl Harbor–this might be a news story.’”

Though Ellison's status as the first Muslim elected to Congress is widely known, fewer are aware that he was born into a Catholic family in Detroit and was brought up attending Catholic schools.

But he said he was never comfortable with that faith.

“I just felt it was ritual and dogma,” Ellison said. “Of course, that’s not the reality of Catholicism, but it’s the reality I lived. So I just kind of lost interest and stopped going to Mass unless I was required to.”

It wasn’t until he was a student at Wayne State University in Detroit when Ellison began, “looking for other things.”

[vladimir998]

You wrote:

“Though the Catholic Church tries to whitewash or excuse away the inquisitions they do admit that it did happen and the leadership of the Church was responsible.”

False. The Church has no reason to deny the inquisition, but it does not say the “leadership of the Church was responsible”.

“These quotes from the Catholic library itself indicates that the Church was complicit, the inquisition did happen, deaths did happen, and Church leaders were involved.”

Again, your making a false inference. The Church had authority to protect the flock from the dangers of heresy. This meant inquisitions were in order much as we have an FBI or senate investigative panels.

“In fact, no one knows exactly how many people perished through the various Inquisitions.”

Again, you’re making a false inference. We do not know EXACTLY how many were executed. But we do know it was not more than 15,000 over a 500 year history. I realize that you are probably completely dependent upon the internet for your information on the sunject because you most likely have never read even one book or even one scholarly article on the inquisition, but this doesn’t mean you have to distort what you find on the internet or be gullible (as you were with the anti-Catholic site).

“Not denying that people perished but questioning the numbers of how many perished.”

Again, some people were put to death by the state after inquisition trials. I don’t see anyone shying away from that fact here.

” Only that the numbers are too large, not that they didn’t occur.”

And who is saying anything different? You seem to be confusing the fact that the Church never executed anyone with the idea that someone here is claiming no one was ever executed by the state.

“So it would appear that even the official information from the Catholic Encyclopedia would differ with your take.”

No, again it is just your problem in understanding. The old Catholic Encyclopedia, for instance, is not “official”. It never was. It never will be.

“It’s evident from that information that your claims are false.”

Not so far.

“I posted that paragraph for one reason. It was in response to a poster who claimed the RCC never was involved with anyone killed or burned at the stake.”

False. Taht can’t be why you posted it because that is not what was said. This is what you quoted from “>>The Catholic Church never tortured or executed anyone.<<” There’s no denial of torture or execution there. There is a denial that the Church tortured or executed anyone. That denial makes sense since there was no teaching from the Church demanding the torture or execution of any specific person or persons.

“I knew the numbers in that paragraph were way too high.”

You knew you were posting A LIE? Seriously, you knew it was a fraudulent number and you posted what you knew to be fraudulent?

“I also knew it would bring up the subject and prove that indeed the RCC was involved and it worked rather well.”

So “tortured or executed” people has now become a mere “was involved” in sort of dealio? Wow, that’s quite the shifting slide rule of argument you have there.

“Look back at the post. I said “this should get your blood boiling”. It worked and worked well.”

I don’t see anyone’s blood boiling. I do see you admitting you posted something you knew was a fraud. Once again we see what Protestants think about the importance of truth. Lying is okay to them - as long as it accomplishes some sort of goal for them. It makes sense: Protestantism is a lie so why shouldn’t Protestants embrace lying?

[Natural Law]

"For the discussion from the website of a researcher who studies democide (government murder) lines 13-22 are the Spanish Inquisition:"

There are many conflicting statistics ranging from the high number you cited to a recent study that says that less than 1% of the 125,000 tried were executed. My question is why you would present only a single high estimate and not reveal that it is a highly disputed topic even in academia? Do you think that is the Christian thing to do?

[stonehouse01]

And I am the moth/ wish I was the spider

[vladimir998]

You wrote:

“For the discussion from the website of a researcher who studies democide (government murder) lines 13-22 are the Spanish Inquisition:”

Yeah, I’ve seen that sort of thing before. The only problem is that many of the numbers are completely bogus and not substantiated by a single source. Relying on people like Lecky is the mistake a fool would make - not a reputable historian. Modern historians have actually used the primary source documents. Thus, we know the executions were relatively few and far between.

[vladimir998]

The total number is less than 15,000 and that is over what is probably a little less than 500 years (let’s say 470 years). That means an average of 31 a year. Clearly executions were very, very rare.

[CynicalBear]

>>There is a denial that the Church tortured or executed anyone.<<

So it’s the “official” part that has your undies in a wad? A fine line to be sure. Sounds like what the meaning of the is is. I suppose you also disagree with the information on the site that Alamo-Girl posted.

[Iscool]

The source, www.cuttingedge.org, is a lunatic "Harold Camping" like site chock full of all kinds distortions and lies. No one can claim that those acting on behalf of the Church have always been without sin or that many evil persons have used the Church as an instrument for their ends, but to claiming or repeating that the Inquisitions killed nearly as many as the Bubonic plague is idiocy.

yes, yes, yes...any information that is negative about your religion is distortions and lies...Even when the source uses Catholic material in the report, it's distortion and lies...

[Alamo-Girl]

The low estimate for all inquisitions from line 36 is 251,000 - middle estimate is 350,000 and the high is 477,000.

The sources are given on the right hand side.

Rummel is the most exhaustive researcher known to me in all areas of government sanctioned murder.

If you have better sources than the ones he used, I'm certain he would appreciate your contacting him.

[boatbums]

We cannot earn it, merit it etc. - Christ did it for us. Our own free will Must join in though - we are just creatures.

As far as our heavenly Father is concerned, we are "in Christ" right from the moment we accepted him as our savior. We became born into his family. Our standing with God is IN CHRIST, not having our own righteousness, but the righteousness of God in Christ. He looks at us and sees we are covered by the Blood of Christ. Jesus said IT IS FINISHED. If that did not mean the debt of sin was paid in full, then what could he have meant? As far as our free will, we must receive the gift God has offered us.

John 1:11-13

He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but born of God.

[vladimir998]

You wrote:

“So it’s the “official” part that has your undies in a wad?”

Nope. It is that you are either grossly ignorant about the subject or are deliberately distorting things, but you’ll keep posting untruths anyway. This seems to be a constant among Protestant anti-Catholics: They have never read a single reputable history book or article about the inquisition but will act as if they actually know something about it.

“A fine line to be sure. Sounds like what the meaning of the is is.”

A distortion on your part would be like Clinton parsing his use of “is”. A correction on my part of your distortion has nothing to do with anything like what you are stooping to.

“I suppose you also disagree with the information on the site that Alamo-Girl posted.”

Since all reputable historians agree that the information in question posted there is bogus, yes, I disagee with what was posted. We know about how many were executed. We know the numbers that were posted on that website are bogus. Again, who on earth would rely on Lecky for statistical information when we know he never examined the primary sources?

[boatbums]

Oh, I don’t stew about it. I praise the Lord that he led me to go there and he always provided my needs. I learned in those years what some may take a lifetime to or may never learn and grow in their faith. I see many spiritual infants that have never graduated from milk to receive the meat of the knowledge of God. I’m not claiming I know it all nor do I take any credit - all the glory goes to the Lord.

[Alex Murphy]

[IRS Publication 78, Cumulative List of Organizations described in Section 170(c) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, a list of organizations eligible to receive tax-deductible charitable contributions] has grown dramatically since I last viewed it in 1998 and I would venture to say based on internal documents the entities now exceed 100,000. The agency keeps statistics on these Pubs and under FOIA one can see studies have been rendered. You can also obtain the [Form 990, Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax] under FOIA.

I downloaded the current version of Publication 78. Note that it contains a list of charitable organizations, not church denominations per se. If we're going to accept Pub 78 as "prima facie evidence of the disorganized state of confusion in the evangelical landscape", then we also must accept its "prima facie evidence" that there are at least 100 Catholic denominations within the United States. To quote bronx2's post #2565, how can so many divisions reflect the essence of His prayer? But truth be told, where did the number of 33,000 come from? It certainly wasn't from Publication 78.

The Perspicuity of Scripture and Other Creation Myths

Let's grant that Catholic apologist-types beat the 33,000 denominations drum too much and don't really pay attention to the commonalities that exist in much of Protestant theology. Let us also grant that Catholic apologist types often don't pay attention, in such polemics, to the divisions in our own house.

Unsound Sticks, or, Arguments Catholics Shouldn't Use

1. Do not allege that there are 33,000 Protestant denominations. This tally comes from the 2001 World Christian Encyclopedia, and it includes all denominations and paradenominations which self-identify as Christian, including Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants, Old Catholics, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists, Gnostics, Bogomils, etc. And even so, the number is too high. The World Christian Encyclopedia artificially inflates the number of Catholic "denominations" by counting Eastern Churches in communion with Rome as separate denominations. It likewise inflates the number of Eastern Orthodox "denominations" by counting Churches in communion with each other as distinct....

....even if we could arrive at an accurate tally for Protestant denominations (20,000?), we still could not blame the whole of that number on Sola Scriptura. Some of these churches share substantial unity in faith, even if they are juridically independent (perhaps due to geography). And much of the disunity of faith within Protestantism, at least in the developed world, stems from efforts to subordinate the authority of Scripture (e.g., to various sexual perversions). In reality, if every Protestant denomination were serious and consistent in affirming and applying the rule of Sola Scriptura, the spectrum of Protestant belief would be significantly narrower. It bears emphasizing: the only thing for which we can directly blame Sola Scriptura is the extent to which it fails to provide unity in true faith and morals to those who sincerely adhere to it, e.g., "orthodox" Lutherans, Presbyterians, Baptists, Anglicans, Methodists, Pentecostals, Campbellites, etc.

30,000 Protestant Denominations?

When this figure first surfaced among Roman Catholic apologists, it started at 20,000 Protestant denominations, grew to 23,000 Protestant denominations, then to 25,000 Protestant denominations. More recently, that figure has been inflated to 28,000, to over 32,000. These days, many Roman Catholic apologists feel content simply to calculate a daily rate of growth (based on their previous adherence to the original benchmark figure of 20,000) that they can then use as a basis for projecting just how many Protestant denominations there were, or will be, in any given year....

....If the Roman Catholic apologist wants instead to cite 8,196 idiosyncrasies within Protestantism, then he must be willing to compare that figure to at least 2,942 (perhaps upwards of 8,000 these days) idiosyncrasies within Roman Catholicism. In any case, he cannot compare the one ecclesial tradition of Roman Catholicism to 25,000, 8,196, or even twenty-one Protestant denominations; for Barrett places Roman Catholicism (as a single ecclesial tradition) on the same level as Protestantism (as a single ecclesial tradition)....

....In short, Roman Catholic apologists have hurriedly, carelessly—and, as a result, irresponsibly—glanced at Barrett’s work, found a large number (22,189), and arrived at all sorts of absurdities that Barrett never concluded. One can only hope that, upon reading this critique, Roman Catholic apologists will finally put this argument to bed. The more likely scenario, however, is that the death of this argument will come about only when Evangelicals consistently point out this error—and correct it—each time it is raised by a Roman Catholic apologist. Sooner or later they will grow weary of the embarrassment that accompanies citing erroneous figures in a public forum.

See also The Facts and Stats on "33,000 Denominations"

[vladimir998]

You wrote:

“The low estimate for all inquisitions from line 36 is 251,000 - middle estimate is 350,000 and the high is 477,000.”

And yet the correct number is less than 15,000. That is simply a fact according to all reputable historians who actually examined the original sources.

“The sources are given on the right hand side.”

None of them are original sources and many of them have no reputable attribution for where they are getting their numbers. There has been a ton of records on the inquisition published in the last century and he’s relying on works by people like Lecky (died around 1900) and Durant (who was publishing in the 1950s) and other who are also simply not reputable scholars?

“Rummel is the most exhaustive researcher known to me in all areas of government sanctioned murder.”

That probably means you haven’t examined better works or authors. What about Laffont? Have you even heard of him? The simple fact is that Rummel was a political scientist pushing an agenda - one I often agree with by the way - and not a careful historian. He simply looked for numbers, the bigger the better. That’s what worked for his theories.

“If you have better sources than the ones he used, I’m certain he would appreciate your contacting him.”

Peters, Kamen, Rawlings and many others are better historians now than Rummel ever will be. Besides, Rummel is retired, almost 79 years old. Most likely the closest he’ll get to publishing historical works will be a follow up to his “alternative history” novels which he gives away for free on the internet.

[Alamo-Girl]

Rummel includes 114,401 who were starved or tortured to death while waiting in prison. His theory of democide includes all such indirect deaths not just the ones who were directly murdered - or in this case, burned.

The holocaust numbers, for instance, would include people who died in the death camps due to the poor conditions, starvation, etc.

The inquisition was brutal and should not be dismissed with a hand wave.

Send your source information to Rummel.

[Natural Law]

"Rummel is the most exhaustive researcher known to me in all areas of government sanctioned murder."

Democide is a term coined by Professor Rummel and is not widely used so citing him as an expert in the field is understating it, he is the only expert in a field only he occupies. That's the beauty of the internet, isn't it? If you Google long enough you can always find an expert who agrees with you, can't you>

Are you aware that Rummel has published extensively in the Journal of Peace Research that the US, by virtue of its bombing campaigns against Japan and Germany, is among the most egregious practitioners of democide? To quote him; "The United States committed its greatest democide during the Second World War. This was in the indiscriminate area bombing of German and Japanese cities, including Hiroshima and Nagasaki."

He is certainly willing to distort and lie about his research when properly motivated. Is that the kind of expert you want to associate with your name?

[vladimir998]

You wrote:

“Rummel includes 114,401 who were starved or tortured to death while waiting in prison.”

For inquisition trials? That would be another example of Rummel not being a good historian. The rules of the inquisition forbade torture for any reason other than obtaining information and even then it could not result in the breaking of skin, breaking of bones, cause bleeding or permanently harm someone. Thus, no one was tortured to death in an inquisition trial.

“His theory of democide includes all such indirect deaths not just the ones who were directly murdered - or in this case, burned.”

And, as I just pointed out, it still doesn’t work. Clearly he is simply wrong.

“The holocaust numbers, for instance, would include people who died in the death camps due to the poor conditions, starvation, etc.”

Wouldn’t that be obvious? But that doesn’t help you with the central problem: Rummel’s numbers are completely wrong and are not supported by the sources. All reputable historians would agree that Rummel’s numbers regarding the inquisition are wrong. All of them.

“The inquisition was brutal and should not be dismissed with a hand wave.”

Inquisitors were rarely brutal in any way. The rare cases of torture and execution connected to inquisitional trials make that plain. Also, it was an age where what you call brutality was much more accepted than today. Did you know rick burning was a death penalty offense in 17th century France? Did you know that stealing a woman’s hankerchief in 17th century England was a death penalty crime? And if I am not mistaken, trying to kill yourself in early modern England was punished with the death penalty. Talk about the height of ironies.

“Send your source information to Rummel.”

I see no point in doing work for him since he was not able to evaluate good from bad historical works and research before. Since no one takes him seriuously as a historian - except those who are all but illiterate about history - it would do little good in any case.

[Natural Law]

"IRS Publication 78, Cumulative List of Organizations described in Section 170(c) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, a list of organizations eligible to receive tax-deductible charitable contributions]"

Since you are the self appointed Clif Claven of Free Republic why don't you explain the differences between a faction, a sect, an order and a denomination and whether or not this matches the codified definitions used by the IRS?

[Natural Law]

“Send your source information to Rummel.”

At least we are witnessing the piercing of the veil. I don't think anyone will be able to hide behind the facade of kindly old church lady any longer. There are just a few more passive aggressive anti-Catholics lurking.

[vladimir998]

What I would like to see is a piercing of the library doors! How these people can go on and on about something they have never investigated, nor ever read a single book or article about, astounds me. It seems like a form of intellectual dishonesty.

[boatbums]

What difference does it make to the fidelity of YOPIS if it is only 3,000 or even 300? Where you have cause to disagree with other denomination on matters of interpretation, dogma or doctrine at least one of the denominations must be wrong. The only thing you seem to be able to agree on is a universal rejection ("protest") of all things Catholic. I find it profoundly sad that not one of the anti-Catholics who dominate these threads can find it in themselves to even admit one good thing about anything Catholic. Even Mother Teresa is trashed.

What difference does it make that there are dozens of "Catholic" denominations? Does the fact that the Eastern Orthodox - which your magesterium calls brethren - refuse to bow to the authority of the Pope of Rome or accept papal infallibility make any difference? Does the fact that all who name the name of Jesus Christ as Lord, Savior and as God in the flesh and are called the body of Christ regardless of denomination make a difference? When Jesus prayed for unity of the body, are you presuming he meant a human institution or was he speaking of a spiritual body united in the one faith and one Lord and one baptism? Do you think the "one faith" meant the Roman Catholic Church or the faith that actually saves which is Jesus Christ who died for our sins?

What I find profoundly sad is the amnesia that seems to come over some of you guys when you say such things as The only thing you seem to be able to agree on is a universal rejection ("protest") of all things Catholic, when you should know very well that is not a true statement. Do we "all" disagree about the major tenets of the Christian faith? The virgin birth, the incarnation of God the Son, the sacrificial death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ for our salvation, the necessity of saving faith and the work of the Holy Spirit with the life of each believer moving us to show our love and gratitude by being obedient to the commands of God. The inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, the community of the saints, the commission to go into all the world to preach the Gospel.

I do not see how you can make such a statement that not one of us find it in themselves to even admit one good thing about anything Catholic. Even Mother Teresa is trashed. I know that it may be difficult to hear that someone can refuse to accept what you are convinced is the one, true church and that your Magesterium is not held in the same awe by genuine Christians, but I sure try very hard to prove why I cannot accept some of what they have generated over the centuries and it is NOT because I hate anyone. If you could put yourself on the other side for once and read the condescending, insulting and hatefully snide comments that come from some on your side, you may get a glimpse of why these threads take a hostile turn at times. It is hardly all on one side. If you want respect, show respect. This is a forum of ideas and discussion of beliefs, participating on it requires the ability to not get personal nor take things personally. It also helps to rid oneself of feeling persecuted just because some may disagree. That is HARDLY cause for verbal wars. God's desire is for us to live peacefully with each other "as much as lieth in us". When we can't, maybe we need a time-out.