[Cronos]

is a fairy tale.

Fairly common occurence in BD's posts. I put it down to lack of reading of history and in other cases, lack of reading of the Bible.

[BlueDragon]

Fairy tales, Cronos? And then you, (as has Titanites all along during this exchange) add additional insult? Where do you two get off?

Perhaps your beef is with historians, among them U.S. Park Service historians whom publish information as;

"...Having lost most of their food and weapons in the shipwreck, they did surrender. However, when Menéndez then demanded that they give up their Protestant faith and accept Catholicism, they refused. 111 Frenchmen were killed. Only sixteen were spared - a few who professed being Catholic, some impressed Breton sailors, and four artisans needed at St. Augustine.

Two weeks later the sequence of events was repeated. More French survivors appeared at the inlet, including Jean Ribault. On October 12 Ribault and his men surrendered and met their fate, again refusing to give up their faith. This time 134 were killed. From that time, the inlet was called Matanzas -- meaning "slaughters" in Spanish."

Here's a portion of memoir of the events, written by a Catholic priest present at the slaughter of Ribault and his men at Matanzas, which counting the attack on Ft. Caroline, was the third and final repetition of the same barbarity, the fulfillment of the orders given by Philip II as the expressly stated reason for the voyage of Menendez, which was to kill all Lutherans found in Florida.

...Immediately the general sent him back to his countrymen, to say they must surrender, and give up their arms, or he would put them all to death. A French gentleman, who was a sergeant, brought back the reply that they would surrender, on condition their lives should be spared. After having parleyed a long time, our brave captain-general answered, "that he would make no promises; that they must surrender unconditionally, and lay down their arms; because if he spared their lives, he wanted them to be grateful for it; and if they were put to death, that there should be no cause for complaint." Seeing that there was nothing else left for them to do, the sergeant returned to the camp; and soon after he brought all their arms and flags, and gave them up to the general, and surrendered unconditionally. Finding they were all Lutherans, the captain-general ordered them all to be put to death; but as I was a priest, and had bowels of mercy, I begged him to grant me the favor of sparing those whom we might find to be Christians. He granted it; and I made investigations, and found ten or twelve of the men Roman Catholics, whom we brought back. All the others were executed, because they were Lutherans and enemies of our Holy Catholic faith. All this took place on Saturday (St. Michael's Day), September 29, 1565.

I, FRANCISCO LOPEZ DE MENDOZA GRAJALES, Chaplain of His Lordship, certify that the foregoing is a statement of what actually happened.

FRANCISCO LOPEZ DE MENDOZA GRAJALES.

And here's a small excerpt from; NARRATIVE OF Don SOLIS DE LAS MERAS, brother-in-law of Don PEDRO MENENDEZ DE AVILES, Adelantado of Florida, translated from BARCIA, "Ensayo chronologico para la Historia General de la Florida," Madrid, 1723.

"...They replied, We are satisfied with your statement, and begged as a favor that he would give them some ships to take them back to France. The Adelantado said that he had no ships to spare but he would do so willingly, and if he had some to spare, if they were Catholics; that he had recently sent one to Fort San Matteo (Fort Carolin), to bring the artillery; one to St. Domingo, with the women and children he had captured; and one with dispatches to Spain. The Frenchmen then begged the Adelantado to let his people remain with him until he could furnish them with ships and provisions to take them back to France, as there was then no war between the two nations, and the Kings of France and Spain were friends and brothers.The Adelantado replied that this was true, but that, as they were Lutherans, he looked upon them as enemies, and would wage war against them with fire and sword, whether on sea or land, for the King; "as I have come here to establish the Holy Roman Catholic faith in Florida..."

source; Extraits de l'histoire coloniale de la Floride et de la Louisiane

additional source;Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Gourgues, Dominique Chevalier de

[PieterCasparzen]

I put it down to lack of reading of history and in other cases, lack of reading of the Bible.

Cronos, please permit me to offer some constructive criticism. You actually made a post that equated Calvinists with jihadis. You've made all sorts of accusations on this thread which, to me, distort the history of my own ancestry as well as America's history. I can only surmise that you're trying to defend Roman Catholicism but have gone a bit overboard. I restrain myself from answering on this thread as I'm sure many others do, since the time required to successfully refute posts is simply more than the typical person has available. But of course on the other hand one feels compelled to respond to outlandish remarks so readers can see valid refutations.

On this thread it appears that you desire to live in a country that is totally Roman Catholic, that all non-Roman Catholic Christians represent an evil scourge to be eliminated from America. If this is the case, you should move to the Vatican, a nation that is both Church and State, and entirely Roman Catholic. As you know, here in America, we do not have a single, official state Church, a national American Church that is synonymous with the American civil government. Here in America, the civil government and the Church are two different entities. As far as a Church having dissenters who break away and form their own Church, resulting in a multiplicity of Christian denominations, well, the U.S. Constitution does not grant the U.S. civil government any right to force people to belong to any specific denomination. In America, people are free to form their own Churches and congregations according to their conscience. Clearly the framers sought to avoid the upheaval that happened in Europe when government and Church were one and the same, so the Constitution was written such that the Church can not usurp the government's role in society and the government can not usurp that of the Church.

I don't have time for reading this let alone responding to every post, I don't think many others do and, IMHO, it clogs FR and the internet with confusion and misrepresentations as opposed to filling it with engaging and edifying content.

While theological debate is wonderful, and debates about history are wonderful - and even debates about the history of theology are wonderful - you'll notice that I refrain from berating Roman Catholics for massacres of my ancestors. I refrain from calling them heretics. I refrain from calling evangelicals heretics. I refrain from a lot of things. And this is not to my credit; it is nothing to boast of, of course, it's simply the bare minimum of public discourse. These days it seems impossible to have a discussion on the internet about religious matters without people resorting to impoliteness and vile accusations. IMHO, posters of accusations should look inside themselves and consider where the accusations are coming from. If a poster is defending the truth of their doctrine, the truth of their doctrine should not need to be defended in such a manner.

Grace and Peace, may the Lord guide us in our thoughts, words and actions.