Sojourner553

I w-i-l-l. I assure you it won't be YOUR side!

Sojourner

NOGO

Hi Sojourner,

I believe that we touched on this subject before.
Basically I am against any ideology and certainly communism was an ideology. However, I do not call communism an atheistic ideology. The reason is simple the communist ideology is not based on the fact that there is no God. It can work equally well in a theist community.

True the communists who ruled Russia and are still ruling China were atheists but that does not make communism a branch of atheism as Christianity is a branch of theism.

I do not claim that only Christians or theists have committed atrocities. I do believe that there are elements in the Christian Bible which encourage people to take the view that non-christians are evil and therefore it is the duty of Christians to punish them or at least to control them. Moral inferiors etc.. Was it not exactly for this very discussion that the subject of witchcraft came up?

Christians like other theists will at times justify atrocities using their religious beliefs. The danger in this should be obvious.

If the Bible had said "there is no such thing as a witch" then many people would not have been burnt. So much for the word of God.

Yes, there are good Christians around. My parents and most of the people that I know are Christians.

Sojourner553

Hi NOGO,

Agreed. IF I did not qualify my statement as “atheist communists” to distinguish between the two, then this was an oversight.

Agreed. But isn’t it all just a matter of how one draws the lines to make categories? I would start with ideology as ONE dimension, and atheism vs theism on a SECOND dimension. The result is FOUR quadrants (for two ideologies; and on up)

And as I have said many times, I think it is our “duty” as moral citizens to point out when individuals are whitewashing history.


Where I parted company with you was the implication that the “desire” to see one’s culture/religion through rose-colored glasses, was in itself – “evil” and therefore made the individual (ok Bede, but this would apply to others as well) complicit in the past crimes!!!!!!!!

Of course.

There is a parallel with Nazism. When I was in Germany a number of years ago, I spoke to a young German girl in her twenties at a convention. When she saw I was an American, she immediately became defensive. “You Americans always BLAME us for Hitler,” she cried. When I assured her I found her country and culture very beautiful (today), she immediately loosened up and became friendly.

Now I think it vitally important that there are a number of museums both in Germany and abroad (I just visited the Holocaust Museum in DC about a month ago) that demonstrate the DARK side of Germany under Hitler. I also think it vitally important this period of time is not “whitewashed” in their history books.

But that does not mean we should brand Germans today as evil. Or more specifically: This does not make the young German girl I spoke with evil. She saw her country/culture along a vast spectrum, with Nazi history being just one dark blot in the background. It was important she not forget “past” and to watch for danger signals if there were any signs of revival. But that did not mean that had to drive ALL her impressions of her heritage.

The same is true with Bede. I think that it is our duty to stand up to any errors/misjudgments he makes in portraying “dark” blotches on Christian history—such as the Inquisition/witchcraft. But he also sees, from his perspective, many good features from his religion. For example, religion inspires many to be more hopeful (as opposed to depressed), to feel spiritually uplifted, etc. He sees, no doubt acts of charity and kindness in his daily activities, that he interprets along a spiritual plane.

In short, he is like the German girl I spoke too. He sees his religion along a large spectrum, with heretic/witch trials as just a dark blot in the background. True, unlike the German girl, he is actively trying to minimize or “whitewash” some of these dark periods. I agree with you these should be highlighted, not minimized, just so we can say (as with the Holocaust museums) “NEVER AGAIN!”

But it is on this plane, we should be addressing Bede, not the “you are evil” or “you are really one of them” hogwash.

And hey, he might have some facts why “some” of this was given some bad press. For example, I found it interesting that the new estimates for witch executions was 100,000 instead of six million. But I said in his earliest post, this did not minimize the evil of killing innocent people. I also challenged him to include how many people were “tortured” but not executed to try and extract confessions. And most important: I challenged him stating the hysteria in witchcraft was a natural offshoot from persecuting heretics.

Can’t we stay on this level of discussion: instead of declaring him “part of the evil”? He is not! He has clearly stated a number of times he finds this period of history unjustifiable and something all good people should abhor. {it went something like that; he said it at least a couple of times}

Our role should be to remind Bede not to MINIMIZE these darker periods of Christian history on his website, so that OTHERS could use his information to whitewash the past (and trigger a chain of events to lead history to repeat itself).


Yes. I have used arguments such as these to demonstrate why I doubt the Bible is divinely inspired. I think I have NOT been shy in bashing Bede for holding some “residual” beliefs in demons. But you see: My “intent” is to bash him on SPECIFIC points (like demonstrating he does not always hold a scientific view), not general attacks against his religion.

Most people seem to have a lot of good in them, despite their religion or ideology. I do agree with you that fundamentalist ideology can make good people evil. Today, I think the biggest danger in this comes from the religious side of fundamentalism, not the atheist side. (But only, I think because the latter lacks the power base.)

Sojourner

NOGO

Frankly, if all christians were like Bede I would not give it a second thought. I would probably not be here arguing either.

But the world is not as we wish it. Bede promotes an ideology which has potential for a lot of evil and rather then seeing this Bede tries to whitewash it. The problem with ideology is that ideologist simply don't see and don't want to believe that there is anything wrong with their ideology. What I just wrote is rather silly. The ideal is the ideal and by definition must be spotless.

I don't blame Germans today for the past but one must note that Germany is not longer Nazi while Christians are still Christians.

What do you tell a communist today. Somebody who is a true believer, who will tell you that Russia and China were not true communist states, will attempt to show that things were not as bad as everyone says etc.

I do not regard atheism as an ideology. At least it is not as far I'm am concerned. I do not believe that the world will enter into paradise once everybody will be atheistic in outlook. However, I believe that you can always discuss matters with an atheist in a way that is sometimes impossible with a theist. Theists have shown throughout history that they can hold and maintain positions which allow no compromise. I don't think that you can argue with people like Ben Ladin, Khomeini etc. even if their lives and livelihood depended on it. It is all or nothing. You are either on God's side or you are evil. This kind of extreme position is written all over the bible. Luckily most Christians (except fundamentalists) don't read the Bible. The witch hunts and the rooting out of heretics are but one facet of this problem.

Romans were happy to rule and control the economic lives of people they conquered. This is not enough for the religious minded. Silencing opposition was not enough. They had to eradicate all opposition to God.

There is no zeal as strong as the religious zeal.

Dr Rick

La rente, secretary of the Spanish Inquisition, estimated that from 1481 to 1517 there were 13,000 people burnt alive, with 17,000 condemned to other forms of punishment. Yet even that is just a fraction of the deaths attributable to the Inquisitions.

The vast majority of people killed during the Inquisitions were not formally tried and executed. For instance, the expulsion of about 150,000 Jews from Spain during the Inquisition resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands from exposure, starvation, and attacks.

"The Ku Klux Klan did not have an objection to lynching in principle but rather insisted it was a last resort when there was plenty of evidence already."

The tortures used diuring the Inquisition were not benign and could cause severe, permanent injury; though death was not immediate, the tortures could easily be fatal. How many people died from torture we cannot know, but severely burned flesh (ordeal by fire) and ruptured body cavities (the pear) would likely cause septic death at a time when surgical debridement and antibiotics were not available.

Furthermore, crushed bones and multiple dislocations (from the stravaletto and the rack or strappado, respectively) would have greatly impeded a persons ability to eek out a living, increasing their chances of dying from starvation.


Rick

Shake

Speaking of not reading ... the red above shows that Amos either did not read my post or simply failed to understand it. I understand that Catholics are different from other Christians! That's my point though. Catholics are Christians! I also understand that not every Christian sect recognizes every other one as Christians, but as I pointed out above, Christians are ones who believe in Jesus Christ as the son of God, savior of the world, the Messiah, etc. Beyond that, there are indeed some large differences in beliefs, but would you say that all Americans are the same? Or Europeans, Asians, <insert ethnic or political group here>, etc.? Certainly not!

Then he tries to make a distinction between Jesus and Christ! Um...WHAT? :banghead: :banghead: Whatever! Jesus. Christ. Same thing!

Bede

Sojourner,

Some points that may interest you. I had to do a lot of reading for my essay and have yet to come to decisions about everything.

Firstly, though, I fail to see what I have minimised or whitewashed. It is the duty of a historian to understand and explain the actions of past agents. This is a very different thing from defending them or rationalising in the apologetic sense but might look like it to the anti-Christian apologist who wants to make use of the past for their polemical purposes. Also, there is nothing much about the Inquisition or witchcraft on my website. There is stuff about the Christian destruction of pagan literature (another popular myth) which you have not challenged. Most of what you thought you knew about this (the library of Alex, Ammianus's quotes off the top of my head) turned out to be false. On early science we must agree to disagree and I would like to put on record that I am not very happy with my behaviour on some of that thread. However, I remain convinced that you are wrong about this and much of what you presented was irrelevant.

Onto some points from scholarship:

The heresy/witchcraft link was popularised by Trevor Roper in the 1960s but is challenged by Levack and Briggs in the 1990s. The later points out that two 15th century mass hunts that formed the connection between medieval heresy hunting and renaissance witch hunts are in fact fictional (famously the Toulouse hunt mentioned in most earlier works including Cohn and Trevor Roper). I still think there is something in the link but not the need to persecute 'someone' and that witches took over when heretics or Jews ran out. I am also unclear on the extent that the inquisitio was developed by the church and carried over to secular courts. Inquisitio was certainly an improvement over the previous accusatio (it is, of course, the basis of nearly all modern European justice) but was also more open to abuse in the hands of curropt or over zealous officials. Torture was not part of the accusatio proceedure but neither does it have to be part of inquisitio. The church banned trial by ordeal in 1215 which was the reason that a new system based on inquiry rather than accusation was required.

There is no doubt that the Church's theologians framed the diabolism that made witchcraft a matter of interest to elites (without whom no hunt was possible). Then the matter seemed to be taken out of the church's hands and even later witchcraft manuals come from secular hands like Jean Bodin and James VI.
The hunts appear to have started when witch trials left church courts (with their clear line of appeal, strict procedures and sacredotal function) and were dealt with by local secular courts with the support of local clergy. The localised effect of most witch hunts strongly suggests a lot was down to the particular people involved. I'll be interested to hear what you make of Levack. His is another textbook (like Lindberg). A third that might interest you is Edward Peter's Inquisition which has an excellent summation of the rise, fall and myth.

I asked my supervisor (a published expert on the medieval inquisition) about the use of torture and he said it was almost unheard of before the late 14th century and remained very rare. He has read hundreds of inquisition cases from the archives and hardly ever saw it The tortures you mention on your site are secular although some were used by inquisitors as well. I think you will find the pope's pear is nothing of the sort - where did you find out about it as I have only seen it on the internet (usually a very bad sign)?

Incidently, I thought you might be interested in what the Catechism says about torture at 2298 [with my comments]:

"In times past, cruel practices were commonly used by legitimate governments to maintain law and order, often without protest from the Pastors of the Church, who themselves adopted in their own tribunals the prescriptions of Roman law concerning torture. [so they admit the inquisition used torture and there was little protest from the church on secular courts] Regrettable as these facts are, the Church has always taught the duty of clemency and mercy. [true, but not entirely to the point here] She forbade clerics to shed blood. [true in theory but not an honest statement of the facts on the ground] In recent times it has become clear that these cruel practices were neither necessary for public order nor in conformity with the legitimate rights of the human person. [so no attempt at justification] On the contrary, these practices led to ones even more degrading. It is necessary to work for their abolition. We must pray for the victims and their tormentors."

Yours

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

Sojourner553

Yes, I concur.

But, that is not the impression I got from an earlier post of yours!

I agree too. This was the real reason for my debates with Bede – not to change his religion, but to point out what I consider errors in his theses.


There is a fear that Nazism could return too. That is why the Holocaust museums are very important.

Is not the same claim always made by religious apologists?

Did I not say I saw this as a MULTI-dimensional issue—with ideology (based on humanism or fundamentalism) on one axis and religious outlook (theism vs atheism) an another axis. I liked math a lot in school, so maybe my examples aren’t so crystal clear to others as I think they are.

Let me try to say it better in English:
What I meant is that I saw ideology as one way to group people. I see religion (theism vs atheism) as a separate/ an INDEPENDENT way to group people. Therefore one must pick BOTH ideology (either humanist based or fundamentalist based) AND religion (theism vs atheism) to classify a person.

I would agree, but would characterize this as applying to atheist fundamentalists as well. Go back and read my Bertrand Russell excerpt if you think this did not apply to Stalinists.

Bede and I have had some discussions on this. I have maintained the position that the early Orthodox Church in persecuting first other Christian sects, and then later pagans and Jews actually created the conditions that caused the Dark Ages.


Here we don’t agree. I think fundamentalist ideologies that are not based on religion (ie atheistic) have the potential to be just as fanatical and evil. With one important exception: You won't see atheists often committing suicide for their beliefs, because they do not believe in an afterlife. This has important implications in engaging in nuclear wars.)



Sojourner

Amos

Sure thing Shake, you remind me of a farmer who said fuck is fuck when he was humping his pig.

Dr Rick

I don't think that Russell would agree with you on this point or of you drawing a parallel between his criticism of communism to your views on atheism. I'm pretty certain he never wrote or implied that he disliked Stalin because he was an atheist although he was very critical of communism.

It's a misnomer to label someone that has and acts upon strong non-religious beliefs as an "atheist fundamentalist" because it wrongly implies that he is compelled by a lack of god-belief.

A fundamentalist is driven by whatever it is that he believes (communism in the case of Stalin), not by lack of belief. If a communist is a fundamentalist, then that person is a "communist fundamentalist," not an "atheist fundamentalist."

Atheists can die for their beliefs just like anyone else; they just don't die for god-belief.


Rick