Originally posted by karoly aczel
The Crusades: Going forth into foreign lands and converting by force. "Bow down to Jesus' church or die" . Or was all the Earth holy land that had to be purged of all 'pagans'?.
Do christians believe in an eye for an eye? You seem to.
The issue of numbers, (Christian Encyclopedia) basically counts everyone who could be called a Christian (no matter how nominal) and every death as a "Christian" is counted as a martyr (even if they are killed for purely ethnic or land issues) - that is how he gets such HUGE numbers that can't be verified and cause dismay and ridicule in the world of high level diplomacy.
about 200 million living with persecution (threat of imprisonment, violence etc), and a further 400 million living with non-trivial deprivations of liberty (discrimination, restrictions etc)
In one of his late letters he referrs to the death of 4000 Catholics in the small port town of Chelsea, but we are having a hard time coming up with a total number of Catholics killed as a result of Henry VIII's and Cromwells reformation.
Better question would be how many were killed by the Islamic fanatics. That is what brought on the Christian Crusades. The christians were, in the begining, just trying to protect themselves
Remember that heresy was a state crime and became ever more a burden on the common people in both Catholic and non-Catholic states as government assumed and exercised more and more authority in the area of religion.. A good description of how the Tudor government oppressed the people cna be found in Eamon Duffy's "The Stripping of the Altars, Traditional Religion in England 1400-1580" tells how the Tudor governments, except for the Marian interlude, suppressed popular Catholicism in the kingdom. I have read elsewhere that Elizabeth executed as many Catholics as "Bloody" Mary did, and that her secret service was very effective in suppressing both Catholic and Puritan dissent.
The great majority of Catholices executed by Elizabath were for "treason," even though most, like the Jesuit Edmund Campion, were really killed for their faith. The situation of Roman Catholics and separatists was pretty much the same as that of Christians in China today.
Protestants abandoned several centuries of developed church tradition, Protestant theology focused instead upon stricter adherence to scriptures. As an example, the harsher laws of the Old Testament developed greater prominence in Protestant lands than they did in Catholic lands.
In Switzerland, John Calvin created a vicious theocracy in which morality police were employed to control people's behavior. Citizens were harshly punished for a wide variety of moral infractions, including dancing, drinking, and generally being entertained. Theological dissidents were summarily executed, like Michael Servetus who was burned for doubting the Trinity. It isn't surprising that some of the nastiest Christians in America today, like Christian Reconstructionists, are unabashed Calvinists
During the many Huguenot wars ravaging France, Huguenot soldiers hunted priests like animals and one captain is reported to have worn a necklace of priests' ears. In England, after King Henry VIII created the Anglican Church, he went after both Catholics and Protestants. Catholic loyalists like Sir Thomas More were quickly executed, but Lutherans who doubted retained doctrines like transubstantiation were also not spared.
Ramadan
07 Sep '09 13:031 edit
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