Lula, you know I have revisited this as an adult, we discussed it and we both know what my conclusions were. The first question was more rhetorical, but I appreciate the time you took to respond nonetheless. 9 out of 10 times, isn’t that a bit of a stretch…? My eternal destiny is not at stake here, only yours is. I am not an expert in anything that I know of, but I am a ‘Jack of all Trades’. If it turns out that there is a soul involved somehow … I will deal with it then. You overestimate my prowess I think because you always misrepresent my views. You look at everything as a personal (cult) attack, but that is just another gross simplification. If you weren’t so busy taking things personally, you could have applied some rational thinking instead of biblical twaddle.
 
Independent religious thinking (IMO) means that none of them are valid and it has nothing specific to do with Catholics. I just read an article where some idiot is trying to use the Koran to explain the universe … same theological nonsense. As far as competency is concerned, I study and I expand my knowledge and I make my decisions after much thought, unlike you who has some book to make the decisions for you. I do not need to seek advice from some person in a dress who babbles about perfection (like you) and is likely to be porking the altar boy on the side. Nope, if humans are involved … then it has nothing to do with God.

I knew you would not be honest on question 2 … I know, you couldn’t help it, go figure.

Does that mean you were baptized?

Lula, you just do not get it. You exist in some mystical place where you are completely insulated with your circular logic. You make these silly arguments and then try and bend the 'science' to fit a 2000 year old philosophy ... impossible. It is never going to happen because it is just … impossible. We have spent a lot of time going in circles which of course is all you can do … but not me. But your misquotes and strange interpretations are just further proof of the inadequacy in your theology. If you still feel that after a couple thousand years, the Bible still needs to be ‘interoperated’ differently to suit your arguments, then we are not discussing the truth. If this were not true TTBOMN, then I would not be on the outside of your circle where the real knowledge is maintained … which you are a fool to ignore or to try and bend (science) like you bend your biblical beliefs it fit the subject at hand … any subject mind you.
 
I have tried to talk of the contamination that is inherent whenever dealing with people, but you claim that God was protective of those passing His word so there could be no inadequacies. And now that you forced me to study this nonsense more, I am just further convinced of the inadequacies. It seems that it was a bad idea to quote an author because it allowed you the opportunity to attach all his beliefs (whatever they are) to myself, shame on you. One of my favorite thinkers is Noam Chomsky but I do not take everything he says as gospel as I no longer take anything as gospel. If the world were considered round and one would have to presume your one God would know regardless of what people thought, then there should be no references to a flat earth … and there are many.

“Conclusion - From their geographical and historical context, one would expect the ancient Hebrews to have a flat-earth cosmology. Indeed, from the very beginning, ultra-orthodox Christians have been flat-earthers, arguing that to believe otherwise is to deny the literal truth of the Bible. The flat-earth implications of the Bible were rediscovered and popularized by English-speaking Christians in the mid-19th century. Liberal scriptural scholars later derived the same view. Thus, students with remarkably disparate points of view independently concluded that the ancient Hebrews had a flat-earth cosmology, often deriving this view from scripture alone. Their conclusions were dramatically confirmed by the rediscovery of 1 Enoch.”

http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/febible.htm

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=microbiology+and+evolution&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart

Lula, faith (belief in, devotion to, or trust in somebody or something, especially without logical proof) is no proof of anything except for your complete lack of faith in yourself to even tell the difference between right and wrong. Science on the other hand (the study of the physical and natural world and phenomena, especially by using systematic observation and experiment) is limited only by time as most things will become more apparent eventually. You want the answers NOW but you are looking in the wrong places.

I am not going to play any more unless you can climb down off your perfect cloud and speak for yourself instead of for your church. You know what I think about churches and faith and your Bible and your theology and yet this nonsense is consistent in all your replies and statements. Makes no sense to me, sorry.

BT #138

As far as religion, I suppose there would be no one right way for everyone had God not ever given a revelation about religion. But He did. He first revealed Hebraic Judaism, (the acorn) which fulfilled in, through and by Christ,,,, full blossomed into Christianity (the oak tree).

So, it's not possible to believe that there is no one right way for everyone.

Gobbledygook as usual, go figure. I believe life and death were well established before Christianity was pronounceable let alone conceivable ... well before the world existed for sure. Blessing and cursing … have a good day or have a bad day, geeze. I just watched a good movie although it was almost all in a Spanish dialect with subs. It’s called “Even the Rain. It takes place in Bolivia, making a film about the European landing over 500 years ago. This took place during the water dynasty the US corporations. There was a scene where the natives (actors) were being burned at the stake (you never talk the good old days of Christianity, why). They were approached by a pious bishop who told them the only way to escape hell was to declare their faith on the one God; then he would baptize them so they would go to heaven after they were killed. The only difference between now and then is that most of your swords of justice have been taken away, that’s all. No thanks Lula, you keep your righteous CC and religion and do with them as you please. But do not foist your irrational behavior on me.

Silly girl, if your ‘one God’ was to be believed by all, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the need to tell a few more people about the secret. Especially the part about claiming dominion over everything and everyone, you think. And even the universe now that you know there is one…

BT, you aren't the first and won't be the last one to deny the sublime truth of Almighty God, His Church, holy religion and the reality of the four last things....death, judgment, Hell or Heaven. 

Your charge of "irrational behavior" gives me a good opportunity to put natural reason and the virtue of Faith together.

On these pages, I have demonstrated by reason alone that the one Almighty God in whom I believe exists. In the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas, the demonstration starts with sensible things existent in the real natural world and finds that these things are caused by Some Being that is existence itself.  

This demonstration reaches subsistent existence first, and then finds this existence identified with the One, Holy God of Christian belief. The procedure takes for granted that the world in front of people is evident and admitted.

And one doesn't have to be a theologian to understand this even if he never read the opening words of Sacred Scripture. "In the beginning God created" .....the universe and all that's in it including life, plant, animal and human life.

This answers the questions who made the world..who made us...with the answer God made the world and God made us. God is presented as the Supreme Being infinitely perfect Who made all things and keeps them in existence.

The world and the people had to be made the reasoning follows and its Maker is God. This process is easy enough to understand even for a child. A child knows that his building block castles have himself as their builder. He sees his meals made, houses being built, of things being assembled. Without his own activity his castle would not have come about, without the activity of others, the things would not have been made.

The notion that everything requires a maker makes a Maker who can do everything or is Almighty is not difficult for him to grasp. The whole visible world and all its wonders, the universe, and life itself accordingly does not appear as an exception to his notion that visible things require a maker. ON the authority of his parents and instructors, he has no hesitation in accepting the identity of its maker under the name of God.

Nothing more is required for awakening the supernatural virtue of Faith which is a gift from God.  Reasonably, the child  believes those who teach him. A sufficient and satisfactory condition is present for allowing the grace of Faith to become operative and to give its firm certitude to the child's belief.

Earlier you said faith comes first. Yet, a person's understanding of God's existence comes immediately and directly by use of human reasoning.

BT,

I opened this blog in response to a question you had asked me:

I answered that in my first response and I have built on that response throughout this discussion.

I started by defining what I mean by religion: Theologically, philosophically, or metaphysically speaking, religion is an act of homage by which we render to God both privately as individuals and publicly as social beings, the honor, gratitude, worship and obedience due Him and in the way prescribed by Him.

Religion, in the way prescribed by Him, indicates revealed religion by God Himself. Based on that, I would say that there are so many different paths and religions due either to the ignorance or perversity of people.

People are by nature religiously inclined and ....invented religions for themselves— religions which differed even as the outlook differed of those who originated them.

Catholic Christianity came into existence in 33AD when Christ founded a Church upon Simon renamed Peter, her first Pope and promised to be with her until the end of the world. Modern Judaism was developed by various Rabbis after 70AD. Islam was developed by Mohammed in 650.  The thousands of various sects that developed within Protestantism began with Martin Luther in 1517.

They all believe in God yet they are four distinct religions with different doctrines and different belief systems. Reason tells us that since there is but One God, it is impossible to believe that God, Supreme Truth Himself, revealed such contrary doctrines, teachings and worship. So long as man arranges for himself what he will believe making a great act of faith in his own powers of discernment,  there will inevitably be different churches, different paths, and thus different religions.

Lula post # 157

Lula posts:

But evidently none of this sunk in for now you post:

Bundling Islam in the same pod as Catholicism is a mistake. Catholicism is as far away from Islam as the East is from the West.

Throughout this discussion, I've offered an explanation of the difference between truth and deception. Truth being God revealed religion, Christianity--conversion by hearing the Church, the pillar and ground of truth.  Deception being man-made religion, Islam--conversion by the sword.

..........................

The Catholic Church is the Mystical Body of Christ, the Kingdom of God, present in the midst of men, available, open, the Ark of salvation for all should they choose. The Catholic Chruch knows she carries Christ's heritage of rejection and is not accepted by the world. Christ said, "If the world hates you, know that it hated me before it hated you." 

Even so, the Church, ever ancient, yet new presses forward announcing the Cross and Death of our Lord and  preaching repentance and Baptism until He comes again.

As for the only one true God revealed religion, don't take my word for the truth of the Catholic Church. It can be proved historically that Christ lived, that He was God, and that He founded an imperishable Church which was to be one, holy catholic and apostolic. Find that Church and you will have the true religion of God.

Yes indeed!  I'm all smiles!  There is a lot of territory covered on this one and I didn't want to lose it.    

Lula, you need to get a different dictionary and look up ‘propaganda’. This clip is a perfect example of attempts to bastardize science to try and justify the supernatural … it isn’t going to happen, sorry. But, this clip does explain why you believe much of the nonsense that you do.  myfist0 shammed me into watching the rest of the clip and I agree … ROFLMAO is about as apt as anything else, hahaha. As far as the books in the bible, I am much more interested in some of the books ‘not’ included … and the reasons why.

As far as showing you one thing, there are plenty of "things" to warrant belief in the existence of the One True God.

Earlier you wrote that if proof is necessary, it falls on the shoulders of the believers. 

And I took you up on that twice...in #19 and #44. I listed some proofs for the existence of God which aren't theological per se but rather, our certainity of God's existence is acquired and sustained by reason.

Right reasoning asserts every effect has a cause.

All one has to do is look inward. We naturally long for complete happiness. Our very nature evidences existence of a Law Maker. The moral or Natural law written on our heart is a constant reminder enjoining us to do or not to do certain things. The purer the heart of man the clearer is his mental vision of God.

By logically going from effect to cause, the human mind finally comes to the First Great Cause.

Look around and pay attention to the natural world. The mind of man naturally rises from nature to nature's Origin and Source, from things caused and contingent on a necessary First Cause on which all things depend.The obvious intelligent design in nature forces us to acknowledge the existence of an intelligent designer, namely God.

When we look at the Universe, we come to the question of its original cause. Nothing in the world came into existence of itself. Motion came from a Mover, design from a Designer, and life from Life. 

The Universe, stars, planets, fire, mist, time, force, matter or a tree and life itself all are effects of one First Cause, a being necessarily outside the thing produced.

All creation stands in ultimate contrast to the cause of its production; one produced the other unproduced. The uncreated Cause--- this Being having no cause, no beginning---- Christians name God.

We can easily understand proof from design. It's simple and irrefutable, whether dealing with a watch or the universe. A watch is an arrangement, a form of order and action. In a word, a design that presupposes a designer is called a watch-maker. Same with the Universe or even a human DNA cell. It manifests design that presupposes a designer of Infinite INtelligence and power, whom we Christians call God. 

Now it's well known that you and many other atheists and materialists deny the ultimate cause of things saying the existence of God is poppycock. 

For whatever reason(s), too restrictive, don't want absolutes or authority, and on and on--you want God out. 

You prefer the sophistries of over 150 years of Evolutionism, the engine of atheism. The Universe and all that's in it, including plant, animal and human life came into existence by chance over billions of years of time.   I will tell you the claim of chance origin may be dismissed as absurd.

 Either the Universe and all that's in it, including life is the work of a Creator or it came into existence by chance. But the claim of chance may be dismissed as absurd. You may throw a pack of shuffled cards into the air a billion times and it will never come down in numerical order.

If you were to listen to the "Why" of a child questioning his father, the absurdity might become apparent. The mind of a child it's thought are prompted by a pure heart. 

"Why is it dark, Papa?"

"Because the sun sets."

"Why does the sun set?"

"Because the earth moves around it."

"Why does the earth move around it?"

"Because of gravity."

"What's gravity, Papa?"

"It's a law of nature."

"Where does the law come from Papa?"

 "Don't ask so many questions would be the final response of the Atheist father, for he is "stuck".

Are you serious? You know the bible but you do not know the history of your church? You just lost what little respect I had for your opinions.

The Papal Bulls

Many processes concurrent with colonization can be attributed to the Church and traced to a series of edicts issued by the Pope. These edicts, referred to as "bulls," were commands or grants the Church gave to its followers. One of the more well-known bulls was delivered by Pope Alexander III to the King of Portugal on May 21, 1179. In this edict the Pope declared:

All the regions which you will have rescued from the hands of the Saracens, and where other neighboring Christian princes could not acquire any legal rights, are conceded by us to your Excellency (Consilia, 1547, p. 137).

As Bartolus points out in his treatise, although the papal bulls did not directly bestow territories on princes, they "legalized, recognized [and] sanctioned ex post facto territorial integrity which already existed in fact, or they gave assent, and thereby legal sanction ex ante to an intended occupancy, to a condition anticipated in the future" (p. 137).

Thus, it might be argued with some force of authority that an examination of the role of the Catholic Church within the context of genocide and crimes against humanity ought to take into account the Church's impact during the period of colonization, when European powers competed against each other for the pursuit of Christianity, civilization, and commerce. Again, the responsibility attributed to the Church may be characterized as direct and indirect: direct responsibility for the actions of people it directly commanded to pursue such ends, as in the case of the papal bulls, and indirect responsibility for its failure to condemn the immoral actions of others, including Church members, and its attempts to justify its own doctrine. Within this rubric the missionary work legitimized by the Catholic Church also needs to be assessed.

Oh you want more do you? 

As soon as Christianity was legal (315), more and more pagan temples were destroyed by Christian mob. Pagan priests were killed. Between 315 and 6th century thousands of pagan believers were slain. Examples of destroyed Temples: the Sanctuary of Aesculap in Aegaea, the Temple of Aphrodite in Golgatha, Aphaka in Lebanon, the Heliopolis. Christian priests such as Mark of Arethusa or Cyrill of Heliopolis were famous as "temple destroyer." [DA468] Pagan services became punishable by death in 356. [DA468] Christian Emperor Theodosius (408-450) even had children executed, because they had been playing with remains of pagan statues. [DA469] According to Christian chroniclers he "followed meticulously all Christian teachings..." In 6th century pagans were declared void of all rights. In the early fourth century the philosopher Sopatros was executed on demand of Christian authorities. [DA466] The world famous female philosopher Hypatia of Alexandria was torn to pieces with glass fragments by a hysterical Christian mob led by a Christian minister named Peter, in a church, in 415. [DO19-25]  Mission Emperor Karl (Charlemagne) in 782 had 4500 Saxons, unwilling to convert to Christianity, beheaded. [DO30] Peasants of Steding (Germany) unwilling to pay suffocating church taxes: between 5,000 and 11,000 men, women and children slain 5/27/1234 near Altenesch/Germany. [WW223] Battle of Belgrad 1456: 80,000 Turks slaughtered. [DO235] 15th century Poland: 1019 churches and 17987 villages plundered by Knights of the Order. Victims unknown. [DO30] 16th and 17th century Ireland. English troops "pacified and civilized" Ireland, where only Gaelic "wild Irish", "unreasonable beasts lived without any knowledge of God or good manners, in common of their goods, cattle, women, children and every other thing." One of the more successful soldiers, a certain Humphrey Gilbert, half-brother of Sir Walter Raleigh, ordered that "the heddes of all those (of what sort soever thei were) which were killed in the daie, should be cutte off from their bodies... and should bee laied on the ground by eche side of the waie", which effort to civilize the Irish indeed caused "greate terrour to the people when thei sawe the heddes of their dedde fathers, brothers, children, kinsfolke, and freinds on the grounde". Tens of thousands of Gaelic Irish fell victim to the carnage. [SH99, 225]  Crusades (1095-1291) First Crusade: 1095 on command of pope Urban II. [WW11-41] Semlin/Hungary 6/24/96 thousands slain. Wieselburg/Hungary 6/12/96 thousands. [WW23] 9/9/96-9/26/96 Nikaia, Xerigordon (then turkish), thousands respectively. [WW25-27] Until Jan 1098 a total of 40 capital cities and 200 castles conquered (number of slain unknown) [WW30] after 6/3/98 Antiochia (then turkish) conquered, between 10,000 and 60,000 slain. 6/28/98 100,000 Turks (incl. women & children) killed. [WW32-35] Here the Christians "did no other harm to the women found in [the enemy's] tents—save that they ran their lances through their bellies," according to Christian chronicler Fulcher of Chartres. [EC60] Marra (Maraat an-numan) 12/11/98 thousands killed. Because of the subsequent famine "the already stinking corpses of the enemies were eaten by the Christians" said chronicler Albert Aquensis. [WW36] Jerusalem conquered 7/15/1099 more than 60,000 victims (jewish, muslim, men, women, children). [WW37-40] (In the words of one witness: "there [in front of Solomon's temple] was such a carnage that our people were wading ankle-deep in the blood of our foes", and after that "happily and crying for joy our people marched to our Saviour's tomb, to honour it and to pay off our debt of gratitude") The Archbishop of Tyre, eye-witness, wrote: "It was impossible to look upon the vast numbers of the slain without horror; everywhere lay fragments of human bodies, and the very ground was covered with the blood of the slain. It was not alone the spectacle of headless bodies and mutilated limbs strewn in all directions that roused the horror of all who looked upon them. Still more dreadful was it to gaze upon the victors themselves, dripping with blood from head to foot, an ominous sight which brought terror to all who met them. It is reported that within the Temple enclosure alone about ten thousand infidels perished." [TG79] Christian chronicler Eckehard of Aura noted that "even the following summer in all of palestine the air was polluted by the stench of decomposition". One million victims of the first crusade alone. [WW41] Battle of Askalon, 8/12/1099. 200,000 heathens slaughtered "in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ". [WW45] Fourth crusade: 4/12/1204 Constantinople sacked, number of victims unknown, numerous thousands, many of them Christian. [WW141-148] Rest of Crusades in less detail: until the fall of Akkon 1291 probably 20 million victims (in the Holy land and Arab/Turkish areas alone). [WW224] Note: All figures according to contemporary (Christian) chroniclers.  Heretics Already in 385 C.E. the first Christians, the Spanish Priscillianus and six followers, were beheaded for heresy in Trier/Germany [DO26] Manichaean heresy: a crypto-Christian sect decent enough to practice birth control (and thus not as irresponsible as faithful Catholics) was exterminated in huge campaigns all over the Roman empire between 372 C.E. and 444 C.E. Numerous thousands of victims. [NC] Albigensians: the first Crusade intended to slay other Christians. [DO29] The Albigensians...viewed themselves as good Christians, but would not accept roman Catholic rule, and taxes, and prohibition of birth control. [NC] Begin of violence: on command of pope Innocent III (greatest single pre-nazi mass murderer) in 1209. Bezirs (today France) 7/22/1209 destroyed, all the inhabitants were slaughtered. Victims (including Catholics refusing to turn over their heretic neighbours and friends) 20,000-70,000. [WW179-181] Carcassonne 8/15/1209, thousands slain. Other cities followed. [WW181] subsequent 20 years of war until nearly all Cathars (probably half the population of the Languedoc, today southern France) were exterminated. [WW183] After the war ended (1229) the Inquisition was founded 1232 to search and destroy surviving/hiding heretics. Last Cathars burned at the stake 1324. [WW183] Estimated one million victims (cathar heresy alone), [WW183] Other heresies: Waldensians, Paulikians, Runcarians, Josephites, and many others. Most of these sects exterminated, (I believe some Waldensians live today, yet they had to endure 600 years of persecution) I estimate at least hundred thousand victims (including the Spanish inquisition but excluding victims in the New World). Spanish Inquisitor Torquemada alone allegedly responsible for 10,220 burnings. [DO28] John Huss, a critic of papal infallibility and indulgences, was burned at the stake in 1415. [LI475-522] University professor B.Hubmaier burned at the stake 1538 in Vienna. [DO59] Giordano Bruno, Dominican monk, after having been incarcerated for seven years, was burned at the stake for heresy on the Campo dei Fiori (Rome) on 2/17/1600.  Witches from the beginning of Christianity to 1484 probably more than several thousand. in the era of witch hunting (1484-1750) according to modern scholars several hundred thousand (about 80% female) burned at the stake or hanged. [WV] incomplete list of documented cases: The Burning of Witches - A Chronicle of the Burning Times  Religious Wars 15th century: Crusades against Hussites, thousands slain. [DO30] 1538 pope Paul III declared Crusade against apostate England and all English as slaves of Church (fortunately had not power to go into action). [DO31] 1568 Spanish Inquisition Tribunal ordered extermination of 3 million rebels in (then Spanish) Netherlands. Thousands were actually slain. [DO31] 1572 In France about 20,000 Huguenots were killed on command of pope Pius V. Until 17th century 200,000 flee. [DO31] 17th century: Catholics slay Gaspard de Coligny, a Protestant leader. After murdering him, the Catholic mob mutilated his body, "cutting off his head, his hands, and his genitals... and then dumped him into the river [...but] then, deciding that it was not worthy of being food for the fish, they hauled it out again [... and] dragged what was left ... to the gallows of Montfaulcon, 'to be meat and carrion for maggots and crows'." [SH191] 17th century: Catholics sack the city of Magdeburg/Germany: roughly 30,000 Protestants were slain. "In a single church fifty women were found beheaded," reported poet Friedrich Schiller, "and infants still sucking the breasts of their lifeless mothers." [SH191] 17th century 30 years' war (Catholic vs. Protestant): at least 40% of population decimated, mostly in Germany. [DO31-32]  Jews Already in the 4th and 5th centuries synagogues were burned by Christians. Number of Jews slain unknown. In the middle of the fourth century the first synagogue was destroyed on command of bishop Innocentius of Dertona in Northern Italy. The first synagogue known to have been burned down was near the river Euphrat, on command of the bishop of Kallinikon in the year 388. [DA450] 17. Council of Toledo 694: Jews were enslaved, their property confiscated, and their children forcibly baptized. [DA454] The Bishop of Limoges (France) in 1010 had the cities' Jews, who would not convert to Christianity, expelled or killed. [DA453] First Crusade: Thousands of Jews slaughtered 1096, maybe 12.000 total. Places: Worms 5/18/1096, Mainz 5/27/1096 (1100 persons), Cologne, Neuss, Altenahr, Wevelinghoven, Xanten, Moers, Dortmund, Kerpen, Trier, Metz, Regensburg, Prag and others (All locations Germany except Metz/France, Prag/Czech) [EJ] Second Crusade: 1147. Several hundred Jews were slain in Ham, Sully, Carentan, and Rameru (all locations in France). [WW57] Third Crusade: English Jewish communities sacked 1189/90. [DO40] Fulda/Germany 1235: 34 Jewish men and women slain. [DO41] 1257, 1267: Jewish communities of London, Canterbury, Northampton, Lincoln, Cambridge, and others exterminated. [DO41] 1290 in Bohemian (Poland) allegedly 10,000 Jews killed. [DO41] 1337 Starting in Deggendorf/Germany a Jew-killing craze reaches 51 towns in Bavaria, Austria, Poland. [DO41] 1348 All Jews of Basel/Switzerland and Strasbourg/France (two thousand) burned. [DO41] 1349 In more than 350 towns in Germany all Jews murdered, mostly burned alive (in this one year more Jews were killed than Christians in 200 years of ancient Roman persecution of Christians). [DO42] 1389 In Prag 3,000 Jews were slaughtered. [DO42] 1391 Seville's Jews killed (Archbishop Martinez leading). 4,000 were slain, 25,000 sold as slaves. [DA454] Their identification was made easy by the brightly colored "badges of shame" that all jews above the age of ten had been forced to wear. 1492: In the year Columbus set sail to conquer a New World, more than 150,000 Jews were expelled from Spain, many died on their way: 6/30/1492. [MM470-476] 1648 Chmielnitzki massacres: In Poland about 200,000 Jews were slain. [DO43] (I feel sick ...) this goes on and on, century after century, right into the kilns of Auschwitz.  Native Peoples Beginning with Columbus (a former slave trader and would-be Holy Crusader) the conquest of the New World began, as usual understood as a means to propagate Christianity. Within hours of landfall on the first inhabited island he encountered in the Caribbean, Columbus seized and carried off six native people who, he said, "ought to be good servants ... [and] would easily be made Christians, because it seemed to me that they belonged to no religion." [SH200] While Columbus described the Indians as "idolators" and "slaves, as many as [the Crown] shall order," his pal Michele de Cuneo, Italian nobleman, referred to the natives as "beasts" because "they eat when they are hungry," and made love "openly whenever they feel like it." [SH204-205] On every island he set foot on, Columbus planted a cross, "making the declarations that are required" - the requerimiento - to claim the ownership for his Catholic patrons in Spain. And "nobody objected." If the Indians refused or delayed their acceptance (or understanding), the requerimiento continued: I certify to you that, with the help of God, we shall powerfully enter in your country and shall make war against you ... and shall subject you to the yoke and obedience of the Church ... and shall do you all mischief that we can, as to vassals who do not obey and refuse to receive their lord and resist and contradict him." [SH66] Likewise in the words of John Winthrop, first governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony: "justifieinge the undertakeres of the intended Plantation in New England ... to carry the Gospell into those parts of the world, ... and to raise a Bulworke against the kingdome of the Ante-Christ." [SH235] In average two thirds of the native population were killed by colonist-imported smallpox before violence began. This was a great sign of "the marvelous goodness and providence of God" to the Christians of course, e.g. the Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony wrote in 1634, as "for the natives, they are near all dead of the smallpox, so as the Lord hath cleared our title to what we possess." [SH109,238] On Hispaniola alone, on Columbus visits, the native population (Arawak), a rather harmless and happy people living on an island of abundant natural resources, a literal paradise, soon mourned 50,000 dead. [SH204] The surviving Indians fell victim to rape, murder, enslavement and spanish raids. As one of the culprits wrote: "So many Indians died that they could not be counted, all through the land the Indians lay dead everywhere. The stench was very great and pestiferous." [SH69] The indian chief Hatuey fled with his people but was captured and burned alive. As "they were tying him to the stake a Franciscan friar urged him to take Jesus to his heart so that his soul might go to heaven, rather than descend into hell. Hatuey replied that if heaven was where the Christians went, he would rather go to hell." [SH70] What happened to his people was described by an eyewitness: "The Spaniards found pleasure in inventing all kinds of odd cruelties ... They built a long gibbet, long enough for the toes to touch the ground to prevent strangling, and hanged thirteen [natives] at a time in honor of Christ Our Saviour and the twelve Apostles... then, straw was wrapped around their torn bodies and they were burned alive." [SH72] Or, on another occasion: "The Spaniards cut off the arm of one, the leg or hip of another, and from some their heads at one stroke, like butchers cutting up beef and mutton for market. Six hundred, including the cacique, were thus slain like brute beasts...Vasco [de Balboa] ordered forty of them to be torn to pieces by dogs." [SH83] The "island's population of about eight million people at the time of Columbus's arrival in 1492 already had declined by a third to a half before the year 1496 was out." Eventually all the island's natives were exterminated, so the Spaniards were "forced" to import slaves from other caribbean islands, who soon suffered the same fate. Thus "the Caribbean's millions of native people [were] thereby effectively liquidated in barely a quarter of a century". [SH72-73] "In less than the normal lifetime of a single human being, an entire culture of millions of people, thousands of years resident in their homeland, had been exterminated." [SH75] "And then the Spanish turned their attention to the mainland of Mexico and Central America. The slaughter had barely begun. The exquisite city of Tenochtitln [Mexico city] was next." [SH75] Cortez, Pizarro, De Soto and hundreds of other spanish conquistadors likewise sacked southern and mesoamerican civilizations in the name of Christ (De Soto also sacked Florida). "When the 16th century ended, some 200,000 Spaniards had moved to the Americas. By that time probably more than 60,000,000 natives were dead." [SH95] Of course no different were the founders of what today is the US of Amerikkka. Although none of the settlers would have survived winter without native help, they soon set out to expel and exterminate the Indians. Warfare among (north American) Indians was rather harmless, in comparison to European standards, and was meant to avenge insults rather than conquer land. In the words of some of the pilgrim fathers: "Their Warres are farre less bloudy...", so that there usually was "no great slawter of nether side". Indeed, "they might fight seven yeares and not kill seven men." What is more, the Indians usually spared women and children. [SH111] In the spring of 1612 some English colonists found life among the (generally friendly and generous) natives attractive enough to leave Jamestown - "being idell ... did runne away unto the Indyans," - to live among them (that probably solved a sex problem). "Governor Thomas Dale had them hunted down and executed: 'Some he apointed (sic) to be hanged Some burned Some to be broken upon wheles, others to be staked and some shott to deathe'." [SH105] Of course these elegant measures were restricted for fellow englishmen: "This was the treatment for those who wished to act like Indians. For those who had no choice in the matter, because they were the native people of Virginia" methods were different: "when an Indian was accused by an Englishman of stealing a cup and failing to return it, the English response was to attack the natives in force, burning the entire community" down. [SH105] On the territory that is now Massachusetts the founding fathers of the colonies were committing genocide, in what has become known as the "Peqout War". The killers were New England Puritan Christians, refugees from persecution in their own home country England. When however, a dead colonist was found, apparently killed by Narragansett Indians, the Puritan colonists wanted revenge. Despite the Indian chief's pledge they attacked. Somehow they seem to have lost the idea of what they were after, because when they were greeted by Pequot Indians (long-time foes of the Narragansetts) the troops nevertheless made war on the Pequots and burned their villages. The puritan commander-in-charge John Mason after one massacre wrote: "And indeed such a dreadful Terror did the Almighty let fall upon their Spirits, that they would fly from us and run into the very Flames, where many of them perished ... God was above them, who laughed his Enemies and the Enemies of his People to Scorn, making them as a fiery Oven ... Thus did the Lord judge among the Heathen, filling the Place with dead Bodies": men, women, children. [SH113-114] So "the Lord was pleased to smite our Enemies in the hinder Parts, and to give us their land for an inheritance". [SH111]. Because of his readers' assumed knowledge of Deuteronomy, there was no need for Mason to quote the words that immediately follow: "Thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth. But thou shalt utterly destroy them..." (Deut 20) Mason's comrade Underhill recalled how "great and doleful was the bloody sight to the view of the young soldiers" yet reassured his readers that "sometimes the Scripture declareth women and children must perish with their parents". [SH114] Other Indians were killed in successful plots of poisoning. The colonists even had dogs especially trained to kill Indians and to devour children from their mothers breasts, in the colonists' own words: "blood Hounds to draw after them, and Mastives to seaze them." (This was inspired by spanish methods of the time) In this way they continued until the extermination of the Pequots was near. [SH107-119] The surviving handful of Indians "were parceled out to live in servitude. John Endicott and his pastor wrote to the governor asking for 'a share' of the captives, specifically 'a young woman or girle and a boy if you thinke good'." [SH115] Other tribes were to follow the same path. Comment the Christian exterminators: "God's Will, which will at last give us cause to say: How Great is His Goodness! and How Great is his Beauty!" "Thus doth the Lord Jesus make them to bow before him, and to lick the Dust!" [TA] Like today, lying was OK to Christians then. "Peace treaties were signed with every intention to violate them: when the Indians 'grow secure uppon (sic) the treatie', advised the Council of State in Virginia, 'we shall have the better Advantage both to surprise them, & cutt downe theire Corne'." [SH106] In 1624 sixty heavily armed Englishmen cut down 800 defenseless Indian men, women and children. [SH107] In a single massacre in "King Philip's War" of 1675 and 1676 some "600 Indians were destroyed. A delighted Cotton Mather, revered pastor of the Second Church in Boston, later referred to the slaughter as a 'barbeque'." [SH115] To summarize: Before the arrival of the English, the western Abenaki people in New Hampshire and Vermont had numbered 12,000. Less than half a century later about 250 remained alive - a destruction rate of 98%. The Pocumtuck people had numbered more than 18,000, fifty years later they were down to 920 - 95% destroyed. The Quiripi-Unquachog people had numbered about 30,000, fifty years later they were down to 1500 - 95% destroyed. The Massachusetts people had numbered at least 44,000, fifty years later barely 6000 were alive - 81% destroyed. [SH118] These are only a few examples of the multitude of tribes living before Christian colonists set their foot on the New World. All this was before the smallpox epidemics of 1677 and 1678 had occurred. And the carnage was not over then. All the above was only the beginning of the European colonization, it was before the frontier age actually had begun. A total of maybe more than 150 million Indians (of both Americas) were destroyed in the period of 1500 to 1900, as an average two thirds by smallpox and other epidemics, that leaves some 50 million killed directly by violence, bad treatment and slavery. In many countries, such as Brazil, and Guatemala, this continues even today. More Glorious events in US history Reverend Solomon Stoddard, one of New England's most esteemed religious leaders, in "1703 formally proposed to the Massachusetts Governor that the colonists be given the financial wherewithal to purchase and train large packs of dogs 'to hunt Indians as they do bears'." [SH241] Massacre of Sand Creek, Colorado 11/29/1864. Colonel John Chivington, a former Methodist minister and still elder in the church ("I long to be wading in gore") had a Cheyenne village of about 600, mostly women and children, gunned down despite the chiefs' waving with a white flag: 400-500 killed. From an eye-witness account: "There were some thirty or forty squaws collected in a hole for protection; they sent out a little girl about six years old with a white flag on a stick; she had not proceeded but a few steps when she was shot and killed. All the squaws in that hole were afterwards killed ..." [SH131] More gory details. By the 1860s, "in Hawai'i the Reverend Rufus Anderson surveyed the carnage that by then had reduced those islands' native population by 90 percent or more, and he declined to see it as tragedy; the expected total die-off of the Hawaiian population was only natural, this missionary said, somewhat equivalent to 'the amputation of diseased members of the body'." [SH244]  20th Century Church Atrocities Catholic extermination camps Surpisingly few know that Nazi extermination camps in World War II were by no means the only ones in Europe at the time. In the years 1942-1943 also in Croatia existed numerous extermination camps, run by Catholic Ustasha under their dictator Ante Paveli, a practising Catholic and regular visitor to the then pope. There were even concentration camps exclusively for children! In these camps - the most notorious was Jasenovac, headed by a Franciscan friar - orthodox-Christian serbians (and a substantial number of Jews) were murdered. Like the Nazis the Catholic Ustasha burned their victims in kilns, alive (the Nazis were decent enough to have their victims gassed first). But most of the victims were simply stabbed, slain or shot to death, the number of them being estimated between 300,000 and 600,000, in a rather tiny country. Many of the killers were Franciscan friars. The atrocities were appalling enough to induce bystanders of the Nazi "Sicherheitsdient der SS", watching, to complain about them to Hitler (who did not listen). The pope knew about these events and did nothing to prevent them. [MV] Catholic terror in Vietnam In 1954 Vietnamese freedom fighters - the Viet Minh - had finally defeated the French colonial government in North Vietnam, which by then had been supported by U.S. funds amounting to more than $2 billion. Although the victorious assured religious freedom to all (most non-buddhist Vietnamese were Catholics), due to huge anticommunist propaganda campaigns many Catholics fled to the South. With the help of Catholic lobbies in Washington and Cardinal Spellman, the Vatican's spokesman in U.S. politics, who later on would call the U.S. forces in Vietnam "Soldiers of Christ", a scheme was concocted to prevent democratic elections which could have brought the communist Viet Minh to power in the South as well, and the fanatic Catholic Ngo Dinh Diem was made president of South Vietnam. [MW16ff] Diem saw to it that U.S. aid, food, technical and general assistance was given to Catholics alone, Buddhist individuals and villages were ignored or had to pay for the food aids which were given to Catholics for free. The only religious denomination to be supported was Roman Catholicism. The Vietnamese McCarthyism turned even more vicious than its American counterpart. By 1956 Diem promulgated a presidential order which read: "Individuals considered dangerous to the national defense and common security may be confined by executive order, to a concentration camp." Supposedly to fight communism, thousands of buddhist protesters and monks were imprisoned in "detention camps." Out of protest dozens of buddhist teachers - male and female - and monks poured gasoline over themselves and burned themselves. (Note that Buddhists burned themselves: in comparison Christians tend to burn others). Meanwhile some of the prison camps, which in the meantime were filled with Protestant and even Catholic protesters as well, had turned into no-nonsense death camps. It is estimated that during this period of terror (1955-1960) at least 24,000 were wounded - mostly in street riots - 80,000 people were executed, 275,000 had been detained or tortured, and about 500,000 were sent to concentration or detention camps. [MW76-89]. To support this kind of government in the next decade thousands of American GI's lost their life.... Rwanda Massacres In 1994 in the small african country of Rwanda in just a few months several hundred thousand civilians were butchered, apparently a conflict of the Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups. For quite some time I heard only rumours about Catholic clergy actively involved in the 1994 Rwanda massacres. Odd denials of involvement were printed in Catholic church journals, before even anybody had openly accused members of the church. Then, 10/10/96, in the newscast of S2 Aktuell, Germany - a station not at all critical to Christianity - the following was stated: "Anglican as well as Catholic priests and nuns are suspect of having actively participated in murders. Especially the conduct of a certain Catholic priest has been occupying the public mind in Rwanda's capital Kigali for months. He was minister of the church of the Holy Family and allegedly murdered Tutsis in the most brutal manner. He is reported to have accompanied marauding Hutu militia with a gun in his cowl. In fact there has been a bloody slaughter of Tutsis seeking shelter in his parish. Even two years after the massacres many Catholics refuse to set foot on the threshold of their church, because to them the participation of a certain part of the clergy in the slaughter is well established. There is almost no church in Rwanda that has not seen refugees - women, children, old - being brutally butchered facing the crucifix. According to eyewitnesses clergymen gave away hiding Tutsis and turned them over to the machetes of the Hutu militia. In connection with these events again and again two Benedictine nuns are mentioned, both of whom have fled into a Belgian monastery in the meantime to avoid prosecution. According to survivors one of them called the Hutu killers and led them to several thousand people who had sought shelter in her monastery. By force the doomed were driven out of the churchyard and were murdered in the presence of the nun right in front of the gate. The other one is also reported to have directly cooperated with the murderers of the Hutu militia. In her case again witnesses report that she watched the slaughtering of people in cold blood and without showing response. She is even accused of having procured some petrol used by the killers to set on fire and burn their victims alive..." [S2] As can be seen from these events, to Christianity the Dark Ages never come to an end.... References: [DA] K.Deschner, Abermals krhte der Hahn, Stuttgart 1962. [DO] K.Deschner, Opus Diaboli, Reinbek 1987. [EC] P.W.Edbury, Crusade and Settlement, Cardiff Univ. Press 1985. [EJ] S.Eidelberg, The Jews and the Crusaders, Madison 1977. [LI] H.C.Lea, The Inquisition of the Middle Ages, New York 1961. [MM] M.Margolis, A.Marx, A History of the Jewish People. [MV] A.Manhattan, The Vatican’s Holocaust, Springfield 1986. See also V.Dedijer, The Yugoslav Auschwitz and the Vatican, Buffalo NY, 1992. [NC] J.T.Noonan, Contraception: A History of its Treatment by the Catholic Theologians and Canonists, Cambridge/Mass., 1992. [S2] Newscast of S2 Aktuell, Germany, 10/10/96, 12:00. [SH] D.Stannard, American Holocaust, Oxford University Press 1992. [SP] German news magazine Der Spiegel, no.49, 12/2/1996. [TA]  A True Account of the Most Considerable Occurrences that have Hapned in the Warre Between the English and the Indians in New England, London 1676. [TG] F.Turner, Beyond Geography, New York 1980. [WW] H.Wollschlger: Die bewaffneten Wallfahrten gen Jerusalem, Zrich 1973. (This is in german and what is worse, it is out of print. But it is the best I ever read about crusades and includes a full list of original medieval Christian chroniclers' writings). [WV] Estimates on the number of executed witches: N.Cohn, Europe's Inner Demons: An Enquiry Inspired by the Great Witch Hunt, Frogmore 1976, 253. R.H.Robbins, The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology, New York 1959, 180. J.B.Russell, Witchcraft in the Middle Ages, Ithaca/NY 1972, 39. H.Zwetsloot, Friedrich Spee und die Hexenprozesse, Trier 1954, 56.

  You asked for it.  

Oh my.  Is it ignorance, forgetfulness or have you just lost your perspective of Christianity’s contributions and benefits to the world, especially Western civilization?  Christianity did have a central role in the development in the West you know!

It was the Church that gave birth to the idea of international law as well as the idea of natural rights. According to historian Lewis Hanke, this came in the 16^th century when reports of Spanish mistreatment to the New World natives were brought to the attention of some friars who went to Spain and presented the situation to King Ferdinand. King Ferdinand called together a group of theologians and Spanish scholars and they developed laws (Laws of Burgos 1512, Valladolid 1513, and New Laws of 1542) that would govern Spanish officials in their interaction with the native Indians.  These would set the stage for Fr. Francisco de Vitoria, “the father of international law”, who in 1532 laid the groundwork for modern international law theory in the context of a defense of the Indian’s rights.  Now get this. Fr. Vitoria “defended the doctrine that all men are equally free; on the basis of natural liberty, they proclaimed their right to life, to culture and to property.”

Following Fr. Vitoria, was a priest and bishop, Bartolome de Las Casas, who was probably the best known critic of Spanish policy and worked tirelessly to put a stop to the injustices that he considered a grave evil.  So it was Catholic priests that gave Western civilization the philosophical tools to look objectively at foreign peoples and recognize their humanity.

How about charity, acts of generosity, bringing food and help, without discrimination, to those in need? Catholic charity began with the early Church and Catholic charitable work has been carried on by individuals, parishes, dioceses, monasteries, missionaries, friars, nuns, and by lay organizations through the ages. Even Voltaire was awed by it.

And in the fourth century, hospitals and infirmaries were established where they not only cared for the sick and dying, they also cared for strangers and the poor.  The pagan writer, Lucian (130-200) observed how the Christians help one another in their needs. Julian the Apostate, the Roman Emperor in the 360’s conceded how the Christians outshone the pagans in their devotion to charitable work. He said the pagan priests neglected the poor.

Before Christianity, the poor, the weak, the sick, women and children were treated with contempt and abandoned. 

Do you know that it’s Christianity that ended slavery?

Do you know that it’s Christianity that built the first universities?

It was Christianity that elevated the importance of woman as man’s equal and emphasized the importance of marriage, the family and children.