I am happy to fault Catholic shortcomings as fast as anyone. But if your argument is that Calvin and Europeans learned from the Catholics to make it a punishable crime to be a heretic,,, then it really makes them rather poor “protestants”.
It really is obvious in even the most cursory reading of the Bible that torture and burning opponents alive in the name of God, is not the way of Christ. It would seem a reformer might notice this.
Blame the Catholics for what they did. But a protestant movement REALLY cant get away with saying “the catholics did it that way, so that’s why we did it”.
Alex explained it all very well In an above post. I agree with that analysis.
But once again, you asked a question and I answered it.
Maybe you should let the man present his own argument first, before you step up on your soapbox.