Amos

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He was like a razing bull in a china shop and a fucking idiot who did not know what was good for himself. Well yes, the game is played for keeps and we must be both, sly as a fox and clever as a serpent. I think that's biblical and if not it should be.

sullster

You do not lie when you say that the religious game is played for keeps. The earth is littered with the bones of those killed fighting for or against some religion.

After all this, do not tell me that religion represents any morality other than the desire to brutally establish itself.

Back to Marty Luther.
Your description of the catholicism of the sixteenth as a "china shop" is absurd. It was more like a forbidding castle with a moat around it.
Luther was not a "bull". He was more of what you call a "fox". He turned the deluded peasants away from giving money and allegiance to the forbidding castle, yet admittedly led them to another enslaving form of religious delusion- biblical obsolutism.

Amos, my buddy, you seethe with hatred of Luther yet you just don't see that Luther was a product of your religion's corruption. The criminals who were popes back then, made a vast error by not just killing him and other protestant leaders, along with a termination of the bleeding of Germany with the sale of indulgences. Turn your anger to where it should go. Towards the utterly corrupt leaders of your cult at that time.

Amos

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But sullster I never lie and I never did defend morality in religion except as a way to estabilish the stream of consciousness against which sin is made known. To this I would add that sin is good if salvation is desired and we have the confessinals to prove this. Salvation is for sinners and the Church knows this to be true.

You fail to realize (or forgot) that all is fair in love and war and here not life but eternal life what the Reformation was all about. From here we can say that only eternal life is worth our living and the rest is doomed to die already since the day they were born and that message still holds true today. Catholicism was very delicate at that time and we have never reached such highs again and we never will. It was not corruption because indulgences are a good thing and mandatory only if absolution was sought.

Of course I am looking at the arts and our social well being as a whole, and I admid that this is just my opinion since I was not there at the time but take that position from the literature I have read.

It is true that Luther was a product of Catholicism and he was not the first one to rebel against the rituals out of which he emerged with a certain amount of victory. Too bad for him that he fell out of favor with God.

Bible Humper

Hello Amos,

Whoa there friend! The church used to sell rape indulgances before the act for those who were worried that they might die before they could get one if they committed the rape first.

I guess you can forgive them for absolving sin for minor villainy, but Yahweh's forgiveness of any heinous deed was for sale if you could afford it.

sighhswolf

You guys have made excellent points and I agree
to a certain point that Luther was to a degree a product of the times.
And he certainly was not speaking the words that were not being echoed throughout Europe at the time.
The Jews made many enemies within the general population simply because they refused to bow to
Jesus and recognize him as the divine savior.
I understand how this could be a very sore point
for christians especially Luther.
There was another factor within the general population having to do with the perception of Jews being affluent, in a rather poor society.
I think above all the man was doing what he perceived as being right and godly.
And I can also understand Luther's feelings toward what he considered to be the "whore".
But the historic background still does not excuse the man for his hatred.

But all that aside, it still is bothersome to me
that as with many other areas, the clergy while not exactly obstructing the flow of information,
certainly did not take steps to present to it's followers an accurate picture of this man and his convictions.
I am not sitting in Judgement of the man (I or anyone else for that matter cant make value judgements about human beings based on the limited amount of information I had been exposed to) , but I am making an accusation that the institutions have not been candid nor forthcoming with ALL the information needed to examine the perceived character of this person and his convictions and methods.

Wolf

Jayhawker Soule

This is not a fact and, in my opinion, history is not well served by such generalizations.

Amos

Your particular suggestion might just an excerpt from protestant theology but even if the odd priests was pimping, who really cares? I am sure that the price was always in line with their ability to pay because the end must justify the means which for the Church was not righteousness but the exhaustion of self righteousness.

Only if they held public auctions of indulgences to the highest bidder I would object.

Starboy

WOW! So the ends justify the means?

Starboy

Amos

Whoops, sorry but I didn't think I could shock an atheist.

The end always justifies the means but the end may not be justified by the means. In this case the aim of the Church was not the same as the aim of the indulgence seeker so we have a double hook working for the Church. First, the indulgence remitted and second the conviction of sin affirmed by the need for an indulgence.

It may be wise to remind you at this point that the laws were given to Moses for the conviction of sin and thus not to stop the actions that must lead to the conviction of sin. What the Church is really doing here is to add weight to the concept sin for an accellerated conviction of sin which nicely ties in with Gal.3:17 were in seeking to be justified we must stand convicted as sinner.

Starboy

Amos, can there be any better argument for the case that religion just doesn't work. What good can religion be to mankind if it's only justification is what will happen when we are all dead? It is not for the living. Religion is not the cure but the disease and completely responsible for the disaffection of our times.

Starboy

[ October 07, 2002: Message edited by: Starboy ]</p>