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To: Luircin
Looks like Luther was right and Catholics are wrong.

Rather, looks like Luther was wrong, wrong, wrong, on so many levels.

So it goes on and on; and the more we read Luther, the more we find how justified are those biographers of his who say: “It seems difficult to dismiss here the hypothesis of neuropathic disorder “(Maritain). Others describe his sufferings as “delirious hallucinations” (Funck-Grentano), “religious fanaticism” (Professor B. Schoen), or describe him simply as “mentally deranged” (ibid).

Even his greatest admirers and apologists have to admit that he suffered from “religious melancholia”, “mania for persecution”, or “a mania for greatness”(Professors A. Hausrath, J. Husslein, A. Harnack).

The older he grew, the worse he got. He suffers from “temptations” and especially from “devil-mania”. Everything he disliked, everybody who disagreed with him, was inspired by the Devil. “He was subject to numerous strange hallucinations and vibrations which he attributed invariably to the direct action of Satan. Satan become, in consequence, the dominating conception of his life.” “It is one of the chief characteristics of Luther that in his intellectual life, in his social intercourse, in speech, in writing, and in preaching he always brought in the Devil—attributed far more influence and importance to him that is warranted by Scripture, and by his writings gained for him in Germany a popularity which he had never before enjoyed. . . .All the slumbering germs of superstition both among the rude masses and the higher circles were by this means awakened and set in motion.”

Luther's sayings on the subject are too numerous to be quoted. But it certainly is true that he forced back upon Germany a belief in miracles, superstitions, mysticism, a fanatical belief in evil powers which under the influence of the Renaissance were rapidly losing ground.

Here it must be mentioned that there is something which makes it difficult to quote his sayings, not merely on the Devil, but on many other subjects. This is his language. “Satan sleeps with me much more than my wife does”, is a relatively harmless remark. Other quotations can be given only with dashes indicating unprintable indecencies.

Luther's language was indeed something quite abominable and indescribable. “He is obsessed with filth and obscenity”, writes Maritain. To call it “revolutionary journalism” is an understatement. “He would be furiously angry, and when he was angry he fairly vomited filth. He wrote things one cannot quote in decent English,” is much nearer to the mark. This again, was only the natural outcome of his neurotic character. There was nothing godlike or holy about him, there was little patience or human understanding; he loved to scream, shout and blaspheme in the manner of the most vulgar German politician, such as our generation has seen more than enough. With pride he himself exclaimed; “Rage acts as a stimulant to my whole being. It sharpens my wits, puts a stop to the assaults of the Devil and drives out care. Never do I write or speak better than when I am in a rage. If I wish to compose, write, pray and preach well, I have to be in a rage” (“Table Talk,” 1210).

201 posted on 07/02/2017 4:08:14 PM PDT by af_vet_1981 (The bus came by and I got on, That's when it all began.)
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To: af_vet_1981; MHGinTN; metmom; daniel1212; Mark17

Are... are you serious? Did you...?

You did.

Oh. My. Gawd. YOU DID.

You...

You...

YOU INVOKED GODWIN’S LAW!

SWEET MERCIFUL JEEBUS YOU COMPARED LUTHER TO HITLER!

That. Is. HILARIOUS!

That is an epic loss if I do say so myself. Great job buddy; if you had to lose this argument THAT badly, at least you did it in style!

I’m gonna be smirking about this the rest of the night.


202 posted on 07/02/2017 4:32:49 PM PDT by Luircin
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To: af_vet_1981; Luircin
Some people need to get over their raging hatred of a man dead for 500 hundred years. It's best, if one is seeking to know the truth about a person, look at sources OTHER THAN ones equally hating him.

From Peter F. Wiener's "Martin Luther: Hitler's Spiritual Ancestor," a Literary Feud Revisited:

    In 1945, a literary feud put the theme "Luther and the Jews" into the limelight. One year earlier, a British teacher of German and French, Peter F. Wiener, published a book contending that Luther was Hitler's spiritual ancestor. It is sheer propaganda with the intention to show that Luther's radical anti-Semitism made him "one of the darkest figures history has yet produced." This is "proven" by a chain of historical distortions: Luther tolerated Jews in order to gain their support in his struggle against the papal church, but turned against the Jews when they did not join him; his demonic anti-Semitism was not grounded in theology because his "religion" was a "Teutonic anti-Christian faith." Wiener misquotes, misinterprets, and intentionally misunderstands . His work "is nothing but a historical forgery based on ignorance and malice." [so says Gordon Rupp].

    The British Luther scholar Ernest Gordon Rupp offered a devastating, yet elegantly executed critique. One cannot win the peace, Rupp observed, by reviving the propaganda of Joseph Goebbels, the late but unlamented Minister of Nazi Propaganda. "The Nazi uniforms which Mr. Wiener has put on Luther fit very oddly on the facts: they were not made for him, nor he for them. Whatever be the truth about Luther, it is not Mr. Wiener's caricature." [Eric Gritsch, Martin Luther's Anti-Semitism: Against His Better Judgment (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012), 118-119].


216 posted on 07/02/2017 6:55:06 PM PDT by boatbums (The Law is a storm which wrecks your hopes of self-salvation, but washes you upon the Rock of Ages.)
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