[Cronos]

Ah, yes, the Inquisition. Now did you read this from impartial history books or from what your pastors told you?

If you read impartial history books you see that

1. In practice, the Inquisition would not itself pronounce sentence, but handed over convicted heretics to secular authorities
2. the Inquisition had jurisdiction only over baptised members of the Church
3. Secular courts could still try non-Christians for blasphemy.
4. Most witch trials went through secular courts.
5. the Inquisition in Iberia, in the lands of the Reconquista counties and kingdoms like Portugal, Leon, Castile and Aragon, had a special socio-political basis as well as more conventional religious motives. This was because Portugal and Spain in the late Middle Ages consisted largely of multicultural territories fairly recently re-conquered from the Islamic states of Al-Andalus control, and the new Christian authorities could not assume that all their subjects would suddenly become and remain orthodox Catholics (as Muslims were of course suspect of sympathizing with the Moors and so too the Jews (as at least initially they were treated very well, rising to positions of Viziers and also business under the Moors was far more advanced than under the Christian reconquistadors))
6. Modern historians have begun to study the documentary records of the Inquisition. The archives of the Suprema, today held by the National Historical Archive of Spain (Archivo Histórico Nacional), conserves the annual relations of all processes between 1540 and 1700. This material provides information on about 44,674 judgements, the latter studied by Gustav Henningsen and Jaime Contreras. These 44,674 cases include 826 executions in persona and 778 in effigie. This material, however, is far from being complete - for example, the tribunal of Cuenca is entirely omitted, because no relaciones de causas from this tribunal has been found, and significant gaps concern some other tribunals (e.g. Valladolid). Many more cases not reported to Suprema are known from the other sources (e.g. no relaciones de causas from Cuenca has been found, but its original records has been preserved), but were not included in Contreras-Hennigsen's statistics for the methodological reasons
7. García Cárcel estimates that the total number processed by the Inquisition throughout its history was approximately 150,000. Applying the percentages of executions that appeared in the trials of 1560-1700—about 2%—the approximate total would be about 3,000 put to death. Nevertheless, very probably this total should be raised keeping in mind the data provided by Dedieu and García Cárcel for the tribunals of Toledo and Valencia, respectively. It is likely that the total would be between 3,000 and 5,000 executed.
8. There were so few Protestants in Spain that widespread persecution of Protestantism was not physically possible

So, let's see there were 150,000 trials over 200+ years. That's about 750 trials a year. hmmm...

Conviction rates were 2% -- compare that to the chances of being sentenced to death in the secular courts, which would be at least 20%, and you can see why many preferred to be sentenced in inquisition courts

So, you think it was an atrocity beyond imagination? What about Geneva under Calvin? You will see a higher conviction rate.

[Cronos]

Digressing a bit. While reading up on Geneva for the facts on Calvin's theocratic rule of the place, I found this interesting fact of modern-day Geneva:

While Geneva was historically considered a Protestant city, there are over twice as many Roman Catholics (39.5%) as Protestants (17.4%) living in the Canton. 22% of the inhabitants claim no religion. Some did not respond, and the remaining practice Islam (4.4%), Judaism (1.1%), or other religions

It seems like the ultimate result of protesting is to have 22% of the inhabitant claiming no religion. Protestantism with it's non-God derived legalism has the ultimate end of destroying all faith.

[metmom]

We are not sheeple, we can think for ourselves.

I have NEVER heard of a pastor who has even so much as mentioned the Inquisition.

But considering the level of denial about it by Catholics, I’m nor going to take their word for what it was really all about either.

[caww]

So, you think it was an atrocity beyond imagination?

Yes, and so did a former "Councellor of the Inquisition" Saying the following:

"... had I never belonged to the Inquisition, I should have gone on, as most Roman Catholics do, without ever questioning the truth of the religion I was brought up in, or thinking of any other -- but the unheard of cruelties of that hellish tribunal shocked me beyond all expression, and rendered me ... one of the most unhappy men on earth ... Inquisitors never tell the names of the informers to the Councellors, nor the names of the witnesses ... For in many instances, they keep up to an appearance of justice and equity, at the same time that, in truth, they act in direct opposition to all the known laws of justice and equity ... the whole is mere sham and imposition." ["A MASTER-KEY TO POPERY", by Anthony Gavin, one of the Roman-Catholic Priests of Saragossa.", Cincinnati: Published by B. Crosby, 1832, p. 249-256]

[caww]

This would explain claiming the state was responsible:

It is important here to emphasize Rome’s role in the brutality of the Inquisition. Roman Catholic apologists are quick to point out that it was the state that put heretics to death. This is an alibi meant to excuse the Vatican’s role in the atrocities. However, Dollinger, the leading 19th century CATHOLIC HISTORIAN, stated: “The binding force of the laws against heretics lay not in the authority of secular princes, but in the sovereign dominion of life and death over all Christians claimed by the Popes as God’s representatives on earth, as [Pope] Innocent III expressly states it.”G

In other words, the secular arm of the state acted only as it was pressured to do so by the popes. Even kings who hesitated to commit genocide on their own populaces were spurred into action by their fear of papal excommunication or subversive Catholic activities within their kingdoms.

Dollinger continues: “It was the Popes who compelled bishops and priests to condemn the heterodox to torture, confiscation of their goods, imprisonment, and death, and to enforce the execution of this sentence on the civil authorities, under pain of excommunication,”H

Will Durant informs us that in 1521 Leo X issued the bull Honestis which “ordered the excommunication of any officials, and the suspension of religious services in any community, that refused to execute, without examination or revision, the sentences of the inquisitors.” Consider Clement V’s rebuke of King Edward II: “We hear that you forbid torture as contrary to the laws of your land. But no state law can override canon law, our law. Therefore I command you at once to submit those men to torture.