Maybe this would change things?

[packsaddle]

Dudley Demetrius...has been taken by the inquisition and is awaiting his turn. Screams of pain and torment are all around him. Body parts. Blood. Bits of skin. The smell of charred mammal flesh (kind of like hamburgers and steaks on the barbie).

And then Black Bart arrives with his torture team. The questioning is rough but then Demetrius has an epiphany: "Wait, Wait!" he exclaims as the hot iron approaches his torn and broken body. "Convert? Did you just mention I could 'convert'?" he asks while spitting out bits of broken teeth. "Why didn't you say so first thing?" sputtering little droplets of blood. "Sure, of course I'll convert!"

Demetrius is beginning to think clearly now about all those false ideas that were the foundation of his former deeply-held faith. They were all just sooooo wrong!

Black Bart reluctantly begins to release Demetrius from the rack and pick up some of his body parts so they can be buried properly. Demetrius asks, "So....Bart, old buddy, remind me again of what it is I believe now?"(This message has been edited by packsaddle)

[Beavah]

Wasn't Black Bart a stagecoach robber of the Wild West? Seems like a strange fellow to possess a rack or be worried about conversion.

 

Besides, even under da Spanish monarchy it was convert or be expelled from da country, not convert or be tortured. The torture thing came about only because da natural consequence of "convert or be expelled" was a lot of false conversions. So then it became necessary to try to ferret out who was really loyal, and who might be part of a secret sleeper cell.

 

Not a particularly distinguished time, eh? But then again, not much different from those in the U.S. who distrust and stigmatize Arab-Americans who are naturalized citizens, and how our government infiltrates and spies on those communities because of our fear of such "cells". Yah, yah, we're nowhere near as bad, eh? But unlike da U.S., Spain was conquered and occupied by those Arabs, so yeh can understand the feelings being more strongly felt.

 

Beavah

 

[moosetracker]

As I stated there are hostilities for several reasons in all conflict. Does not mean that the Catholic and the Protestants did not divide themselves along religious lines..

 

That is like saying Politics join people together in love and harmony.. Why Republicans don't dislike Democrats because they are Democrats.. There is just the pesky irritating things they keep doing.. Like trying to insist on equality for all, and then there is that matter of ObamaCare.. Blah.. Blah.. Blah.. But really politics is just a way that we can all come together peacefully..

 

Religion is used to make you feel you have something in common with the group you tie to.. It is a way to look at all others that are not within your group as different then you. You might call truces with some religions that are similar to yours, or in fighting something larger.. Like America fought along with England and France against Germany.. You may fight together against someone taking pray out of public meetings.. You may argue about petty things, like who gets to put up their holiday decorations in the town park.. Or you may have huge whooping fights (like in Ireland.).. Or someone who is not a religion may just see your religious group as a problem needing eradication, like with Hitler..

 

So you didn't discuss why if religion brings everyone together, there was as much taboo about interfaith marriage as there was about interracial marriage.. Both of those seem to be about the same with the walls crumbling on those beliefs..

 

Religion (or lack of Religion), is something that defines you to a group. We can choose to get along with other groups or we can choose not to. And who our friends are today, could become our enemies tomorrow. (Which is a reason we should not inter-marry.. You may wake up tomorrow next to your enemy!)

[Beavah]

Yep, moosetracker, we humans (or monkeys, in packsaddle's case ) form competing groups. We do it naturally with high school cliques, and tribes, and nations, and religions. That sort of tribalism is deeply seated in humanity, eh?

 

What is unjust is treatin' it as though it is a product of religion. It isn't. It's a product of sinful, selfish humanity.

 

So da question is not whether religion can be corrupted by man's natural tendency to form competing groups. Like any idea, it can be.

 

The question is whether there's enough of God in religion so that it sometimes is able to overcome or restrain man's natural tendency toward such sinfulness. Whether it inspires some men to take to heart Jesus' admonitions to the Hebrew tribes that tribal identity is not enough for salvation, that God can make sons of Abraham from the stones.

 

I think the historical evidence is clear that monotheistic religion and some other non-ethnically confined religion (like Buddhism) does act to overcome or restrain mankind's natural tribalism. It's an uphill fight, eh? Religion is definitely the underdog in this struggle. All of da evolutionary background, family ties and upbringing, and economic resources favor tribalism, and that's enough to corrupt many a religious fellow, eh? And yet, over da centuries, yeh have to admit that the lands covered by Christendom have become in so many ways better than those where natural tribal savagery still prevails.

 

Beavah

 

[AZMike]

I too am trying to figure out what Black Bart the stagecoach robber (and PO8) was doing in a medieval torture chamber. Is this like one of those "What would happen if Wyatt Earp fought Charlemagne?" type of things?

 

Statistically, religion is among the LEAST common causes of war throughout the centuries, by the way. And in the 20th century, intolerance of religion created a much higher body count rather than religious intolerance. We can statistically predict that a sovereign's willingness to commit genocide in that century against his own countrymen is directly proportional to his own stated atheism. So, should we ban atheism or expressions of atheism as a preventative measure?

 

Honduras and El Salvador went to war over, allegedly over a football game in 1969 ("La guerra del ftbol"). Should we keep our kids from playing soccer on Saturday morning?

 

Obviously not. People will fight for any number of reasons (primarily over territory, resources, and population pressure), religion is just a pretext.

 

 

[moosetracker]

Never said Religion was the source of all our troubles, just no better then any other grouping of humanity..

 

The belief of many religions that their faith is the only people who will go to heaven, while all others will parish in either pergatory or hell, is no better then, "My country's better then your country".

[packsaddle]

Hey, what's in a name? OK, ok, 'Black Bartholomew'. Is that better now?

[AZMike]

Black Bartholomew the Pirate? What was he doing in the Inquisition?

 

Actually, those who were investigated by the Inquisitions had a lot of legal protections that we lack today. Upon arrest, you were allowed to make a list of anyone you considered an enemy, or would be likely to provide false testimony against you, You could make the list as long as you liked. By the rules of the Inquisition, none of those people could provide witness against you.

 

Forced conversion, also, has always been outlawed by the Catholic Church, so I suspect the gladiator Demetrius is probably safe from the Grand Inquisitor, the Dread Pirate Black Bartholomew.

 

What the inquisitions (there were more than one) prosecuted was not simply unorthodox belief or heresy, it was the willful teaching of heresy, which was seen as fatal to the soul. As some of the inquisitions were run by kings (who also had an interest in supporting orthodoxy), the inquisitions were used to root out not simply religious heresy, but political subversion, particularly in cases such as the Cathars, who were a pretty scurvy lot (as Black Bartholomew would say). If anything, the Church had a strong moderating influence on the civil Inquisitions by introducing educated prosecutors and establishing judicial procedures (some still in place today in courtroom, BTW). By the 13th century, the Dominican and Franciscan orders refocused the inquisitions on the conversion of heretics, rather than the extermination which the secular leaders sought, and would use extended periods of discussion to try to explain to the (often uneducated) prisoner why what he held was heresy. Torture was rare. Punishments during this period were generally pretty mild, ranging from prayers of penance to taking a pilgrimage to a period of imprisonment. As Professor Dianne Moczar has remarked, the system of punishment at that time was almost lackadaisical - prisoners were allowed leave to go home and help with the crops, or to attend a funeral, or to go home and recover from an illness, and then return when possible.

 

Torture was used in later centuries due to the rise of the Albigensianism, (the Cathars)s, who were (probably correctly) seen as representing the sort of threat to society that terrorists did in America post 9-11. (And when we also adopted torture, BTW). In Catholic countries, torture could be used in interrogation (although it was frowned upon), but never as punishment. Torture was used as punishment, as well as for interrogation, for heresy in the later centuries in Protestant countries, although in the Inquisition it was allowed only one time for a prisoner and for a short duration (no more than 15 minutes). This really doesn't sound too different from the U.S. military's restrictions in Kandahar. Regrettable, but also common practice in all societies at that time.

 

The Spanish Inquisition, which gave rise to most of the myths (known colloquially as "The Black Legend") about the Inquisition as a whole, has been substantially reappraised by historians who have examined the original source material and documents. They found torture was rare and strictly limited in duration. Of the 7,000 people who were brought before the Inquisition in Valencia, only 2% were tortured, and for no more than the allowed 15 minutes. The horrible dungeons of the Inquisition that we see in Edgar Allen Poe were apparently fairly humane for the time, as prisoners would attempt to have their case in a secular court transferred to the Inquisition so they would receive better treatment and conditions (rather like state prisoners today who often prefer federal trial and imprisonment).

 

The Inquisition also introduced the novel legal theories of appeal and acquittal. It had no jurisdiction over non-Christians, although those who were converts who were believed to have falsely converted to spread sedition or act as spies could be tried. When you read of some of the genocidal atrocities that were committed by the Moors in their conquest of Spain, and as the Spanish were in the middle of a very real and vicious battle for their existence, and as they had to deal with the legitimate threat of third columnists, it is understandable why Ferdinand and Isabella were a little touchy on the subject.

 

Torture and excruciating punishment in non-Catholic Europe outside the Inquisition was also pretty violent during this period by comparison, and trial by ordeal, disemboweling, castration, gouging out the eyes, the rack, repeated hanging, drawing and quartering etc. were common to countries outside this realm, such as England after King Henry VIII. (Read what they did to St, Edmund Campion in England for the crime of celebrating the Mass, but don't read it on a full stomach).

 

Most of the punishments of the Inquisition celebrated in the penny dreadfuls were never used (such as the Iron Maiden, which was a German creation that the Spanish never had). The Inquisitions had little involvement with witchcraft, which was considered outside the scope of their authority and about which most priests were skeptical. Galileo was condemned by the Inquisition (for matters that were more personal than scientific, as many in the Church supported his heliocentric theory), but was treated more like a celebrity rock star at his trial than a heretic, he was never tortured, and his sentence was house arrest first in the Florentine Embassy and then in the papal estate, where he was provided with a servant, fine food, and the wine from the Pope's cellars. He was ordered to rest and rebuild his strength after the trial at his own home in Tuscany, where he spent the last 10 years of his life continuing his research, and where he did his best work.

 

Bottom Line, the Inquisition was probably not as bad as it has been portrayed, did serve some useful purposes (such as suppression of the Cathars and helping prevent the expansion of the Moors into Europe), did not convert people to another faith by force, and was no worse and arguably better in the way it was handled than in the secular courts of the time. Not religion's best hour, but few of us were at our best back then.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[packsaddle]

You know, that's the fourth time I've been reminded of Campion in less than a week. Is there some kind of religious inquisition celebration going on that I don't know about?

All of a sudden people seem fascinated with the depraved things we do to each other because of what we think. But...I'll keep him in mind for the purpose of perspective in case I ever get my wish and am strip searched because I can't prove I'm not a space alien when they pull me over for running a stop sign. Sigh,...the stuff that dreams are made of....

[AZMike]

Yes, it's Martyrs Week here on Scouter Forum.

 

Remember also that tomorrow is not only Independence Day, but the Feast Day of the Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassatti, who not only was a world-class outdoor athlete (mountain climber, alpine skier) and celebrated good company, good wine, and good cigars, but also a child of wealth and privilege who gave much of his wealth to the poor of Italy and resisted Mussolini's fascists before dying young. Good guy to emulate even if you're not religious.

[Scoutfish]

Wait...wasn't Black Bart and his gang the villians who was defeated by Ralphie and his trusty Red Ryder bb gun?

[SSScout]

 

We

need

a

Faith

&

Chaplaincy

Forum.

 

It doesn't change things, it just defines it from another perspective. Which is a good thing.

 

I like the sentiment.

 

What's really hard (unfortunate?) is when one party finds agreement in different language (saying the same thing in different ways) and another says "no way does THIS mean the same thing as THAT".