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To: Wallace T.

I pointed out a historical fact: Presbyterians were iconoclasts in the 16th and 17th centuries. That is irrefutable.

You wrote: "Vlad, you were the one who started this Papist-Prod food fight with a pointless, gratuitous insult to Presbyterians, and by extension, all Protestants."

The truth is insulting to Protestants? You might be right about that! LOL!!!

"As far as I am concerned, both sides in that era behaved little better than the Communists and the Nazis in the last century, or the Islamist extremists of our time."

Nonsense. Neither side really deserves such a ridiculous comparison.

"Making excuses for the atrocities on either side is on the level of the Holocaust denial of anti-Semites or ignoring the concentration camps and mass murder committed by the Communists on the part of liberals."

Thank goodness I never made such excuses.

"Calling the Reformation a Revolution is equivalent to the liberals renaming A.D. and B.C. as CE and BCE. In other words, a "rad trad" Catholic version of political correctness."

Again, nonsense. The Protestants overthrew regimes, squelched opposition, seized property, books, imposed new and unheard of laws, slaughtered their enemies in many cases, suppressed languages and cultures while raising up and championing others, etc. All of this is indisputable. That's what many revolutions do. That's what the Protestant Revolution did. Don't like it? Too bad. It's all true.


80 posted on 12/20/2006 12:42:50 PM PST by vladimir998 (Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ. St. Jerome)
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To: vladimir998
The crime in question involved an act of vandalism on a creche at a Presbyterian church by persons of unknown motive. You decided to drag in the red herring of Presbyterian overreaction to Catholic church art that occured 300-450 years ago. At that time, freedom of speech and religion was largely nonexistent anywhere in Europe (with partial exceptions in France and Holland), most nations were mercantilist in economy, suspected witches were often burned at the stake, and monarchs were essentially dictators with little popular input into government decisions. "L'etat, c'est moi" was the motto of the days for monarchs from Portugal to Prussia.

Neither side really deserves such a ridiculous comparison.

As you so well put it, the era of the religious wars was marked by the overthrow of regimes, the squelching of opposition, imposition of new and unheard of laws, etc. The actions you describe were also done by the 20th Century totalitarians. If there was a difference, it was one of degree, not intent.

The Protestants overthrew regimes, squelched opposition, seized property, books, imposed new and unheard of laws, slaughtered their enemies in many cases, suppressed languages and cultures while raising up and championing others, etc. All of this is indisputable.

True, but the Catholics did the same things, sometimes on a grander scale, e.g., Latin America. Does that make the Catholics revolutionaries as well? As far as it goes, the term "Protestant Revolution" is not currently used in mainstream Catholic apologetics, but remains popular among Feeneyites, sedevacantists, and other fringe traditionalist types.

81 posted on 12/20/2006 1:30:18 PM PST by Wallace T.
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