Daggah

"Fourth, I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb."

Hey, he didn't advocate the mass slaughter of the Jews! He only advocated burning their houses, stealing their money, taking their religious freedom from them, enslaving them, and killing their religious teachers. And his writings were STILL an inspiration for the Holocaust and Hitler's final solution.

I must admit, my entire view of Luther has ENTIRELY changed.

So, as usual, Radorth pounces on a minor issue and attempts to inflate it, when it really wasn't central to the main point. Luther was a bigot.

And it sounds as if, to Luther, the heretics he was so concerned with were his fellow protestants - perhaps not Lutherans, but still those who have moved away from the Catholic church. So basically he wanted religious freedom for those who believed as he did. Big surprise there.

Radorth

A minor issue?

Let's see. The punishment for murder, compared to just talking about it is?

I agree though that if it can be provd the Holocaust was incited by Luther's talk, then the above can be removed from the "slander" category. Otherwise it is mainly gossip.

Rad

Daggah

So it's just a coincidence that a German reformer's suggestions for dealing with the Jewish problem are uncannily similiar to many of the things the German Nazis did to the Jews several hundred years later in the holocaust?

(Source)

The issue here isn't murder of the jews. You make it sound like, "Oh, Luther wasn't that bad of a guy. He didn't advocate killing them or anything."

No, he just advocated making their lives a miserable hell on earth and looked forward to their spending eternity suffering in hell.

What a guy.

And how is it slander? I'm quoting the guy out of his own writings. I've linked to those writings to show the quotes aren't out of context. It's not slander if it's true. And it's true. Luther is a bigot.

Daggah

(Source)

Radorth

You guys are usually the legalists here. What crime would Luther be accused and convicted of, even today?

I did find a site however, which says he became more polemic toward Jews with age. Not a good sign for the defense, I must admit. I was expecting to find he mellowed out a little with age, and became less holier-than-thou, as most of us do.

Rad

Radorth

OK, I think we can safely assume Luther would not have been a regular listener to Dr. Laura, whom I know we all greatly admire.

Rad

Daggah

Was there a point to the last two posts? Or are you just trying to avoid admitting you were wrong about Luther?

Why won't you join me in condemning the man for his hateful bigotry?

Radorth

Re Buffman

Agreed

That is not how I see it. To me the issue is simply a matter of what they envisioned for America. Washington's statement in his address above says it all, and you, when confronted with such statements, go through all kinds of intellectual tap-dancing to explain them a way.

"They did not really mean it"

"Their secretary wrote it, and kept them from reading it."

"They were ignorant of scientific discoveries"

"The Library of Congess website is biased"

'What's the difference between the early Congressmen and Osama Bin Laden?"

I'm sorry. They held Christian ideals dear and necessary to political success and even human happiness, nearly to a man, and all the pontificating, theories, goofy analogies and speculations we see here will never change that history.

Rad

Toto

In America, Luther would be protected by the 1st amendment. (Bigotry is not a crime here - we rely on social disapproval to keep people in line.) But in his native Germany and many other countries including Canada, he might be guilty of hate speech, "incitement to racial hatred", or the like.

Daggah

Of course the whole question regarding what crime he would be guilty of is just a red herring on Radorth's part, seeing as how that was never the topic being discussed.