The cold hard truth is that the world was a VERY DIFFERENT place several hundred years ago. Laws that we would consider barbaric today were the norm then. Stealing was a capital offense regardless of the amount, torture of prisoners was routine and Christians believed that heretics should die.
The Inquisition in Spain grew out of the Reconquista when the Iberian Peninsula was recaptured from the Muslims after nearly eight centuries. Yes, it got out of hand, but the death toll varies considerably depending on who wrote the history. Was it a tragedy? Certainly, but so were the Peasant Wars in Germany, the trials and executions in Geneva and later in England, Scotland and the American colonies (keep in mind that it was the secularists in post-Revolutionary America that first made an issue about the Salem Witch Trials).
The bottom line is that all of Christianity handled religious disputes horribly for over a thousand years and the biggest victims were the Jews. Catholics and Protestants may pretend that they were doing God’s Will during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, but the truth is that their actions were hardly more civilized than the modern Taliban.
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Agreed.
Best response I’ve ever seen dealing with the topic.
Well, Ok, on with our regularly scheduled programming then....