Amos

Whow Starboy, the bible says, "I am the God of the living and not of the dead." It seems like you are completely backwards on this and I have told you many times already that true religion ends while we are alive on this earth.

sullster

You got me on that one. I stand corrected. It was absurd of me to claim as a "fact" that no protestant feels remorse about the nasty things Marty Luther wrote.

Hopefully this did not overlly harm my point, that most protestant sects could give a damn what that constipated German monk wrote 500 years ago.

sullster

AMOS,
I always enjoy your views. "Catholicism was very delicate at that time",(the time referred to is Luther's Reformation).

Oh dear, what a delicate institution it was. It ran a vast system of monasteries and convents requiring huge sums of money from the wealthy and the poor. It's Popes led armies across Italy and built vast churches to immortalize themselves. It was two centuries into running a terror system called the "Inquisition", which was not strong enough in Germany or it would have beheaded that monk named Luther. It promoted the most extreme superstitions in order to bilk the gullible peasants into giving money to fund the vast wealth of the popes.

Delicate you say? Vain, worldly, utterly corrupt and led by what were essentially organized crime families in Rome.

Ends justifying means? Yes, indeed. The other-worldly ends are only your view. The end they desired was power, worldy power. Nothing more and certainly nothing less.

Luther ended up creating another religious system to trap the mind, but he had your church pegged.

sighhswolf

This is true sullster, they do not care what was written by Luther because for the most part (I would go way out on a limb here in an opinionated
generalization based on personal experience, nothing more) they know very little about the man in question except for the protestant sanitized version available from the church book store and/or the pulpit.

Just as in the case of most all of the organized
religions (as Amos pointed out) the end justifies the means in their twisted guilt ridden doctrines.

In the christian scheme of things none of the atrocities perpetrated in the name of religion or the institution of the church carries any stigma.
In the end it's gods will.........Yea.



Besides those who lived with hate and ethnic bigotry did so because it was the prevailing way of life in that time period, and we must not judge them by our standards of acceptable social conduct today.......Yea.

Ok so we should not assail Luther for being a raging bigot, because he at least questioned the validity of catholic doctrine, and was instrumental in the reformation.

If all of the above items are in fact valid points
then why may I ask is there a major movement afoot
in the US, calling for reparations for slavery?

Of course that is another issue.

Excuse me.

What other institution/or person can claim such a high degree of immunity against the value judgements of history?
His views almost matched those of a later historic Jew hater, yet he is not held in disdain.
Why?
The argument of the greater good just doesnt quite do it for me.

Yes I agree that it really doesnt mean much, that I find the views of this "reformer" to be distasteful and as Fox M. says, "The truth is nobody really cares".
It is important to me though that the reality of another one of these revered religious figures is and has been "looked over" and not presented as part of the birth of protestantism.

A question: Are the views of the founders reflected in the doctrines of the institutions they have founded?
And in many ways has the pronounced anti-Semetism of the reformer/designer of a religious sect been manifest historically in the views and actions of protestants?
And has the historically demonized view of Catholics and Jews by the protestants in the United States been a natural consequence of the built-in bigotry of one of it's founders and proponants?
Wolf

Amos

It was very delicate sullster and you can only get power when you are right.

We're done with this because it is not really my thing to redicule Luther and if the Reformation concerned me at all I would know more about it.

Luther was probably a nice guy but just a little bit stupid, that's all. He sure did not have the Catholic Church pegged and was not even close.

sullster

Sighhswolf,

You make some interesting points.
Does a group always reflect the views of the group's founder? There would be a lot to study there and I bet it would make a good doctoral dissertation. I am serious.

The issue of anti-semitism and Luther brings me to this idea. Was not christianity at its founding by Paul, essentially anti-Jewish? Did it not desire to separate itself from the local religion and run with its messiah cult? This meant trashing the Jews and thus even a rabble rouser like Marty Luther is essentially an inheretor of the built in anti-Jewish ideology inherent in christianity? Luther should not be singled out as the great anti-semite of christianity, he was a very articulate fellow traveller on the train of christian anti-Jewishness. The whole religion is stinking guilty of this.

On the protestants. In my view, the essential foundation of all protestant sects is that they are NOT catholic. Virtually all that protestants say or do not say, and do or do not do, is based on a reaction to catholicism.

I am giving aid and comfort to Amos, here, but sometimes we have strange bedfellows. Present day Protestant sects claim a line to the start of christianity. This is absurd.

Ever since Luther, the protestant sects have mutated into ever more variations of reactions to catholicism's practise and doctrine.

Yet, protestant sects did not differ with catholicism's and christianity's verdict on the Jews.

[ October 10, 2002: Message edited by: sullster ]</p>

sullster

"You can only get power when you are right". Did Nietzsche write that? No, it was Amos! The Superman walks with you, dear Amos. Yes, indeed the powerful, deserve to have that power, because they define what is right and thus deserve to enforce it. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pope Leo xxwhatever...... Nihilism, par excellance!

How right you are here about your church before the Reformation. Indeed, Nietzsche, grudingly admired the pre-Reformation catholic church, which was ruled by Borgia and Medici Popes. He saw them as powerful nihilists who probably would have had Jesus killed if it suited them.

If only that constipated, thick skulled German peasant monk hadn't shown up! The catholic church could have gone on to the heights of power and nihilism. Sad about that, right Amos, just when the power was really moving.

You say Luther was stupid. Your opinion Amos, but stupid men do not spark revolutions which change societies forever. Nice and stupid men do not change the course of an institution which had been all-powerful for centuries.

He had your church pegged. What he wrote and did, almost toppled it. The Catholic Church lost control of over half of Europe for a century and then gained some percentage back. Luther was not stupid and his pegs tripped your guys on their asses.

[ October 10, 2002: Message edited by: sullster ]</p>

Amos

Thanks sullster but you give me aid because you know darn well that I am right about this.

Protestants today claim apostolic tradition on the excommunicated (anthema) side of the church right back to Jesus and his last supper. This is not absurd but true because spiritual fornication that lands us in hell has always been a temptation.

They do everything just oposite to Catholics from driving on the other side of the road to calling sunday the first day of the week instead of the seventh day of the week (in Europe Sunday is the seventh day on calenders).

I find it most interesting when protestants adopt and change the Catholic customs they pervert the message and make it look like witchcraft. Its hillarious to see especially in combination with the earnesty of their manners.

Amos

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Slow down sullster because I have already singled out Luther and Hitler as two of a kind that had "seen the light" and were distracted by it never to have "eternal live" and unknowingly this is what was the cause of their animosity. I can't say for the others but more than likely they were the same because the condition I describe is not restricted to Christianity only. Yes he was, kind of anyway. The momentun it gained was not his cause but it was the result of the prevailing mood that zapped him to start with. They later leaned on him to speak with authority but if I remember correctly there was a whole school of thought behind it and was not Desiderius Erasmus their leader? Sorry it never interested me that much but I went through it once.

[ October 10, 2002: Message edited by: Amos ]</p>

sullster

Amos, Go to the library and read about the Reformation. I know you have your fixed theological thoughts, but you just need to learn some more hard history. Sometimes we have to make the effort to learn about things which do not interest us. Would you not agree?

Erasmus was not a leader of the Protestant Reformation. He was and remained catholic to his death. He was a critic of the excesses of the popes, was a humanist thinker and when Luther emerged he agreed with many of Luther's criticisms of the catholic church. But, he did not join the protestants. He was suspected of heresy and if not for his reputation, may have been killed by your catholic forefathers.

Yes, Amos, there was a "school of thought" behind the Reformation. Much of it was a reaction to the utter corruption and vileness of the Renaissance catholic church. The other main concept was the rise of the vision of the individual dealing directly with god without the intercession of a priest.
We know this led to the solitary confinement cell of protestantism, but the idea that an individual person could control his relationship with a diety was very revolutionary. THis was a reaction, of course to the opposite view of catholicism, but a big thing nevertheless.

Luther and the Reformation are very interesting and if you could just put a bit of your passion on hold, you too would find it so.