HEY!!!!!
What are you doing on the RF making sense like that?!?!?!?!
Don’t you know that’s not allowed?
It’s in the RF Guidelines somewhere.
I’m sure I read it somewhere there in the past.... at one time.... maybe.....IIRC....
I think it’s this the sort of thing that makes the RF look bad. It’s not discussion about beliefs. or doctrine. It’s the accusations. It’s the “My religion is better than yours” and the “Your ancestors were worst than mine” stuff.
There was evil and inexcusable acts done by both sides and it’s always a power and control thing. And frequently, religion is used for the justification of it.
And it’s WRONG when done by both sides, and both sides need to admit their own culpability in it. Denying that the Catholic church played a role in the Inquisition, doesn’t convince anyone that they were innocent in it. History has that too well established.
It would be refreshing for a Catholic to admit that the church did it and said it was wrong for doing it.
But I thnik the thin that they fear is that by admitting that their church was wrong in one area means that they have to admit that it was wrong in other areas. And some Catholics simply cannot deal with that thought. So they over react and act like the jealous spouse who criticizes their spouse themselves, but heaven help the other person who makes the same criticism. They’ll rip them apart.
But that would be EMBARRASSING!
There was evil and inexcusable acts done by both sides and it’s always a power and control thing. And frequently, religion is used for the justification of it.
Yes, always very human motives, e.g. power, politics, etc, and when something can be used to support the action, especially religion, then it will be used. But, as we can see in the person of Henry VIII himself, when religion gets in the way, it is thrown aside and remade in a way which will no longer be a problem. Religion may matter to this or that person, but politics usually matters more.
And it’s WRONG when done by both sides, and both sides need to admit their own culpability in it.
Well, for me personally, I think everybody who did these things has been dead for ages, and their culpability went to the grave with them. I don't really care about culpability in things like the Inquisition, or Elizabeth I's actions, or whoever. They did nothing to me, and so that is that. I really only care about historical accuracy, and that usually means not looking to blame churches, since they rarely really do these things or drive them directly. Politics is the problem, then and now.
It is like the IRA. A while back, when that was all over the news, reporters and people would go on and on about the Catholics vs the Protestants. Complete crap. That had nothing to do with anything. It was Irish vs the English. The republican movement was, from very early on, multi-faith. Many significant Protestants were involved from the start. They wanted the English rulers out just as the Catholics did. Anyone remember Parnell?
If the tired old Catholic/Protestant hatred trope were really the truth then there would have been no wars between countries before the Reformation. Oops. Not quite. Plenty of Catholic kings have fought other Catholics, and some even fought on the side of Protestants later on. People go to war because they will get something out of it, and people persecute other people for the same reason. Governments, and other similar human organizations, just honestly have never been that pious, ever. Catholic kings and queens have been corrupt and warlike, and so have Protestants. As much as we want to think our churches just turn people around and make them perfect saints, and so any future conflict can only be some other group's fault, it just isn't true.
It is all political. That is what motivates kings and parliaments, not religion. And when it looks like religion that usually means some politician is using faith to justify what he wanted to do politically. So, we should stop blaming each other, and our mutual churches, and start blaming the politicians.