Al you nailed it right on the head "Pascal's Wager"
 

You have done it again Al. Your words are where the rubber meets the road. I agree that if some people ever had any question if they ended up in a fox hole with bullets inches over their head they might want to rethink in a very short time what they have faith in. There are some of satans minions that will never come to the light and who they are only God knows. They would be called Tares in the Bible. Good post Al many thanks. :clap: :clap:
Isaac

So your God is a terrorists, right?

You believe because of the FEAR of not believing?

You know, there are MANY who would label you as a non-Christain because of what you have stated above.....in fact, I'm truely surprised that Isaac agrees with this type of justification.

FAITH is not verifiable evidence.....but I'll concede that's all you have.

I'll also agree that defending one's beliefs doesn't necessarily make one a zealot. Now refusing to believe there are any alternatives when your opinions are base solely on faith "because that's all you have"......well that's a different story, isn't it?

The word "Bible" refers to the canonical collections of sacred writings of Judaism and Christianity.

Are you trying to imply that this body of written works you refer to as The Bible isn't just another piece of literature?

If I look up the word Manger, is it going to reference your God?
How about the North Star?

You've done nothing more here than show that you can't help but to let emotion override your intellect.

No, I used wikipedia to show that you haven't even attempted research on your side of "the story".

It would the the equalivent of me arguing Religion without having first read the Bible.


Very good, now how many of them gave first-hand accounts? And while you're at it, explain why the Catholic Church decides which writing to include instead of including all of the "divinely inspired" works? Surely they have noting to hide?


Numbers are important in quantifiable measurements, Like a pay-check. They do not prove right or wrong. One upon a time every black man in the United States was a slave.....did the number make it right? Did the number of people who believed in a flat-Earth make it right?

As I stated, you are clearly and intentionally overlooking the obvious in jealously over your God. That's zealotry.
I see, so your contention, is that because of a single belief about the pyramid and in spite of the numerous works for art, literature, sculpture, etc. that the Egyptians were monotheistic?

As I stated, you are clearly and intentionally overlooking the obvious in jealously over your God. That's zealotry.

I will not be controlled by fear out of ignorance.


You're "banking" one it? I asked if YOU SPECIFICALLY have ever witnessed a miracle that could not be explained with a scientifically based cause and affect......now you're simply "banking" on one?

As I stated, you are clearly and intentionally overlooking the obvious in jealously over your God. That's zealotry.

Is an artificially inseminated woman "untouched"?

As I stated, you are clearly and intentionally overlooking the obvious in jealously over your God. That's zealotry.
So then you're saying that approximately 2/3rd's of the Earth is wrong because they are not Christians, yet you have trouble swallowing the concept of 2+ billion Christians being wrong?

As I stated, you are clearly and intentionally overlooking the obvious in jealously over your God. That's zealotry.
No one said it should, however it should have enlightened you to the point that you can't tell truth from fiction.



HELLO....they may interpret the evidence differently.

When are you going to produce something that would constitute Evidence? So far you have Faith, and book chock full of heresay.

I see, and what author witnessed the creation of the Earth and all of it's inhabitants again?


I believe my intentions were quite clear. Where is your verifiable and undeniable evidence? Where are Jesus's bones? You're god saves souls, not bodies.....there should be remains.

[/quote]

The difference between Religion and Myth is the number of current believers. In a couple of thousand years, your decendents will laugh at your beliefs just as you laugh at the beliefs of your ancestors.

"Very good, now how many of them gave first-hand accounts? And while you're at it, explain why the Catholic Church decides which writing to include instead of including all of the "divinely inspired" works? Surely they have noting to hide?"

Sounds Like to me If it was up to Brainsmash, Christianity would be ended.


the explaination of the catholic church comment, they are humans interpreting the bible in their religion, right or wrong. this means their is human influence at play, including politics and infiltrators.

Their is a fine line between secularism and religion these days.... you make that abudantly clear, why don't you use dante's poem about hell next time or the kitchen sink......:eek: :eek: :eek:

I have no desire to see the end of Christianity....in due time it will fall by the wayside like the hundreds of beliefs that came before, and it's certainly better than faiths which condone jihad or virginal sacrifices. Never the less, it's still not any different than any other method of controlling the population through fear of consequences...basically terrorism.

I'd simply settle for an admission that your religion is based on faith alone. You believe because you want to believe, not because there are indisputable facts supporting your opinion.

As far as your "explanation" it's always been human interpretation. Even "divinely inspired" authors are still mere human beings interpreting a message they believe came from a higher power.

You're very close to what I'm leading you too, but some of you just refuse to see it.

I agree, must beliefs are based on faith. this is due to the timeline based on the things of past, present, and the coming.

you must also concede that your basis of facts and the proofs and equations that back up the facts are all based on faith. You have faith the ones before that wrote facts and based their findings on other authors self proclaimed facts. You have faith that red is actually red, and the theory of light associations acting on the rods and cones of the eyes that you actually see red. All of this is based on secular mentality that if something is tested using science and equation can prove it, it is therefore fact. This is faith also, don't you agree.

Divine inspiration is based on my god directing a human being to display a work of greatness for those who choose to see it can be inspired as well.... it is not the other way around.

Yes that is exactly what I am saying. Dr Seuss is literature. The Bible is The Word of God spoken through his devoted servants here on earth. I hope I am being clear enough in stating my belief.


Wikipedia is riddled with errors and is hardly a definitive resource. Just last week, Wikipedia had Cedric Glovers birthday listed as 1985 until someone fixed it to 1965 the other day. Who is to say this new date is right or wrong? Maybe it is 1955, who knows? The Bible doesn’t change like the wind.


Many gave first-hand accounts. Works are only included after they are canonized, that is, deemed to be the true word of God after much scrutiny (in 180 degree contrast to wikipedia which accepts everything regardless of its nature)


Numbers are a true indicator of right and wrong. Eventually numbers freed the slaves. It was numbers that proved the flat-earth theory wrong. Nobody ever said numbers are static. They change. If you are very sick and ask 10 doctors what is wrong, and 9 say you have disease “A” while 1 says you have disease “B”, chances are the truth lies with the opinion of the majority for that point in time. If numbers prove nothing, then what does point at the truth? Rhetoric? Whining? Posting it on the Internet?


I do not know how much knowledge the Egyptian workers had regarding the coming of Christ, but clearly the Pyramid’s designers had considerable knowledge of the coming of Christ. Also if you know anything about the Giza pyramid, clearly it was not designed by the same peoples who designed the other more primitive works (built both before and after the Giza pyramid)


No, you asked:
Are you implying that any "miracle" you have witnessed doesn't have a scientifically related cause and affect?

I replied:
Yes, I am not only implying that, but banking on it as part of my faith.

I have witnessed many things that cannot be explained by current science based cause and effect. Doctors have documented sudden cures with no scientific explanation whatsoever. Some individuals have been documented with forms of ESP that cannot be explained by science. Yet Police sometimes use these individuals to located criminals or clues to solving a case. Such as finding a suspected murderer. Some of these things can be explained as “miracles” until such time (if ever) that science can model and explain it. Keep in mind that science and religion aren’t mutually exclusive by any stretch of the imagination. Science is a moving target and updated frequently just like a Wiki.



The majority believe in the one God of Abraham. This includes Christians, Jews, and Muslims. Contrast that to the tiny fraction who believe in worshiping multiple gods or none at all. I have no problem swallowing the numbers.


I am only enlightened by science when it can tell me something. Can science tell if the Bible is the true Word of God or fiction? At this time, perhaps not, but the chances are looking better all the time.


There is a good amount of scientific documentation supporting the Bible and its status for those who wish to seek it out:

http://www.google.com/search?q=Bible+Evidence

If you truly want evidence, Archaeological finds have confirmed what the Bible teaches. As archaeologists progress, they discover more and more evidence to support the Bible, and very little to debunk it. There are thousands of partial and complete copies of the Bible texts. These manuscripts are very ancient and they are available for inspection right now. Contrast that to literary works like the Iliad and Odyssey.


Well funny you should mention that. The Bible is the World of God spoken through his faithful servants over many years. The author of the Bible most assuredly witnessed the creation.


The Bible clearly states that Jesus arose from the dead on the third day. (bones included) But even if that were not the case, and I had his bones in my possession, then I suspect you would want even more evidence such as genetic testing to prove the bones are whose I say they are.

If God or I or anyone had the obligation to prove his existence to you, then by what yardstick would you measure your own faith in God? Faith means belief in something, not proof of something. One only has to believe to have faith. Faith is not “in the pudding” so to speak.


Uh Huh and the difference between a genius and a moron is the number of current IQ points….


No doubt that is what some believed a couple of thousand years ago. Wrong so far. Check back in another couple of thousand, will ya? :)

No, my beliefs are not faith based. My beliefs are based on Science, and the fact that every "belief" can be replicated with like results on any corner of the globe. I don't have faith that red is read, I have the light spectrum and the testimony of numerous human beings and even some animals, and the ability to replicate those results anywhere on this planet at any time. It doesn't matter what faith you are or what term you use.....red is red just like a rose by any other name would still smell as sweet.

Now I admit that I DO think I understand where you are going with this, and I have pondered the concept somewhat myself....how do you know I'm not seeing green and I've just been taught to call it red. Except that's called color blindness....it's already been defined by science.

Who on this thread has read the entire Bible ?
 

Even if it was in sections or all at once. Cover to cover ? That would give our atheist counter parts a platform to argue from. To attack something you have not read start to finish is like me not reading Homer and saying the book sucks. The ancient Hebrew locked in the meaning on three levels. Acrostics where one and there is another one in the Assyrian Tablets that agree with the ancient Hebrew text not the new English translations which have disclaimers with them (King James) which state there are flaws in the translation. (1611 Version has disclaimer) I KNOW things that I have learned from reading the Bible twice and much more in study. This does not make me a expert but it does give me a base from to discuss with other adult Christians. I do not expect the Kenite (sons of Kain) to ever agree with the truth of the Bible for they are of their father and they do his (Satan) works and their agenda is to destroy Christianity any way they can. It will never happen and when we all do face our mortality I will turn to my God and Christ and the atheist can look to their mirror for that is all they have to find rest in a time of major trouble. I do pity those people but they will not be helped because they have had to drink from the cup of dregs which their leader gives them their leader being Beelzebub:nono: Yes Kain had children and he lived for over 700 years moving thru Babylon and into Russia and ended up in Mongolia and China and sired many children along the way and we still have that evil seed with us today and the harvest is near and the wheat and the tares (Kain seed) will be separated at that time by God. FYI my opinion !! Good book "Sargon the Magnificent" traces the seed line of Kain. So atheist you find your proof in a test tube I find my in my Bible and my heart as God will touch those that love Him. You may not have ever felt that touch and you will not with out reading and studying. It is kind of like having a child you just can not tell someone what it is like and how much love you feel for that child and God is the same way. ;) We are all Gods children good and bad it is up to the individual to pick the road to life or the road to hell it is choice after all that is what everybody wants is freedom of choice.
Isaac the Saxxon
Post #700

:clap:

Good post, straight to the point, not painful to read.

You are being quite clear. Your implication is that one body of writing throughout all of history is NOT considered a work of literature.

Overlooking the obvious due to jealousy on behalf of your savior. The Bible is no different than any other book, it just means something different to Christians.


You have failed to make the connection.

I'm not using wikipedia to prove my opinion, I'm using it to prove you haven't researched you side of the story because even wikipedia suggests that Homer was divinely inspired while your contention is he was not.

If I listed 10 other sources, you still wouldn't have debunked the concept that many believe Homer was divinely inspired, which IS the point, not whether or not Wikipedia is a creditable source. BTW, had you bothered to DO the research, you'd have noticed I copied the paragraph from Wikipedia however they are NOT the source of the information that I posted.

Morgan, Llewelyn, 1999. Patterns of Redemption in Virgil's Georgics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 30.

Simply put, you're arguing a moot point that was never even intended to BE a point. You just saw an argument you thought you could win because of the source, damn the information provided, right?

Agreed, who gave the first-hand account of the creation of Earth and all of it's inhabitants?

Once again, you're arguing about wikipedia instead of keeping your eye on the ball. I could list 10 alternate sources and you still wouldn't have proved that some thought Homer was divinely inspired OR which author who witnessed the creation of the Universe, or the Earth, or even one single creature.


There were always more who opposed slavery than those who supported it. Thus, slavery wasn't ended by overwhelming numbers, but rather by intolerance and aggression by our northern brothers. As far as your doctor theory, again, you are dealing with a tangible object UNLIKE your religion, savor, etc.

Now, if the overwhelming number of Christians (2 billion) is one of the reasons your use to prove the existence of your savor and justify your beliefs. What's that say about the other 4 billion Earthlings who do not believe in Christianity, who say YOU are wrong while your measely 1/3 of the population says the entire rest of the plant is wrong....based on the numbers?:)

Sounds to me that you are practicing a double standard. Jealousy on behalf of your savior....again, that's zealotry.



The pyramids took hundreds of years to build. Common sense should tell you they weren't designed by the same individuals. Furthermore, they were tombs for the pharaohs, and that's not a "belief" but rather a fact based on written history as well as recovered bodies.

The more likely story is that some Christian, relying on faith rather than fact, incorporated the concept you are talking about into his system of beliefs. Of course, at least the Catholic Church had enough sense to see the guy was full of crap. That's why you don't read about pyramids in the Bible even though they existed long before Jesus roamed the middle east.


Right I asked "Are you implying that any "miracle" you have witnessed doesn't have a scientifically related cause and affect?

Medicine is not an exact science. In laymens terms, something man doesn't currently have the knowledge to explain does NOT suggest divine intervention, but rather a lack of understanding on our part. Now what about the miracles you have witnessed?

The majority of current believers. Why must I continue to repeat the same things to you over and over again? Monotheism has only existed for about 3500 years, that leaves about 6500 years of written history and untold eons before then of people that laughed at the concept of one god just like you laugh at the concept of polytheism.

Simply put, once again, the numbers do NOT support your theory just like I showed you above.

Science can disprove EVERY miracle of the Bible......EVERY SINGLE ONE.
No one said the Bible isn't a fairly accurate reference to history. I said the miracles were lies.


Even though the Bible clearly states the Earth was created before man and the beasts.

So who's lying, you, or the author?


O, so the procedures we use to put criminals, in jail isn't good enough for your savior?

Well, that's neither here nor there anyway.....but certainly convenient that that not one physical trace of your alleged savior exists that would prove beyond the shadow of doubt that he was a mere mortal like you and I.

According to you Bible, you DO have an obligation to "spread the word". However, if you concede that faith is all you have (My ENTIRE argument), then you'll have proven my point and we can move on to more interesting topics.


I see, so your implication here is that 2/3rd's of the Earth are morons while the minority that follow your beliefs are the geniuses? Sorta blows a hole in that "numbers make right" garbage you've been preaching for the last two days, huh?:clap:


Your opinion is that they were wrong, you have yet to provide one shred of evidence to prove they were wrong OR that you are right for that matter.

typical.....

BrainSmashR
Advanced Member
Join Date: Feb 2007
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People really like your posts. :rotflol:

The Troll is under the bridge
 

Not to stay but even a day is good maybe two or three. I have not heard a word out of Joepole on this thread what say you Joepole ? It is good to see that the point system has worked to some degree even if for a day it sends the message that if you are only here to start touble we do not need you :clap: :clap:
Isaac

Isabella, he doesn't care because after all, numbers are irrelavent. :D

It's common knowledge that Christians don't like hearing the truth....it's why, as a whole, Christians are responsible for more murders throughout history than any other single group or organization.

Status Quo...

I thought Brainsmash replied just to start controversy... But it seems he really believes what he is typing.


There is something christians do..... they will pray for soul eventhough you are against it and think they are terrorist and killers.

I really believe most humans don't like hearing the truth but sometimes you need to. As for Christians being responsible for more murders I can see where you would think that but I don't see christians walking around killing like atheist would or someone that is just messed up and has issues. Atheist I believe sacrifice and that's murder and i'm not talking about sacrificing by giving up something like sex but killing for sacrifice. Why do you think halloween is the one day in the year more christians every year won't participate. The reason behind halloween has to do with satan. Satan is evil and evil kills.

How many angels and biblical characters do you see walking around for halloween? It's witches, devils and goblins.......

I think there are 100’s, perhaps 1000’s of individual writings that could be divinely inspired by God, many are included in the collective text we call the Bible. Not all works are divinely inspired, some are just literature. Even if I write a factual bibliography, although ever word maybe be true, this does not necessarily make the work divinely inspired by God. Most writings are works by man, and there is nothing wrong with that.


Do you believe Homer was divinely inspired by God or gods? Do you believe the Iliad and Odyssey are the preeminent authoritative books of your religion?



The Book of Genesis, like all Holy Scripture, was written under the divine inspiration of the one true God of Abraham. Your question is, however, exactly who were the “holy men” who were moved by the Holy Spirit to write the Book of Genesis? I believe it was Moses but not all Christians are in full agreement.



I’m not 100% sure of your definition of “divinely inspired” compared to the majority of mankind, however I will clarify that I do not believe Homer was divinely inspired by the one true God of Abraham. Sorry if I was not clear on that. Perhaps it is possible to be divinely inspired by the devil, or the sun. I do not really know. So clearly I do not equate all “divine inspiration” as coming from the Holy Spirit(tm)



Yes, numbers of northern brothers. Numbers mean something. Do you rely on Powerball or Social Security as your sole retirement plan? No, because of numbers, odds of numbers, trends in numbers, statistics, algebra, calculus, all that jazz.



Currently I am among the majority on the planet who believes in the one Living God, the God of Abraham. Currently I am among the majority who believes that Jesus existed. The only thing that I am not among the majority is whether Jesus is the Christ ordained by the God that the majority already believe in. Not a slight subject, but the numbers look good to me. Actually they look great compared to those who worship Zeus or nothing. Yes this overwhelming consensus ranks high as evidence in my mind. Although it may have happened before, it isn’t easy to fool 2 billion people these days.



LOL, according to Wikipedia the Giza Pyramid is believed to have been constructed over a 20 year period concluding around 2560 BC However it is well known that it took less than one hundred years to build the oldest and only remaining member of the Seven Wonders of the World.


The subject that I raised is the Giza pyramid. I never said that all Pyramids in Egypt are possible testaments to the coming of Christ. Just one. The Giza pyramid is the biggest, oldest, and most challenging pyramid to analyze scientifically and religously. It is very special by all accounts.


What about them? Science and Religion are not mutually exclusive. Religion is mutually inclusive with faith. Now what does that say about Science? Could science also be faith based? Some may see a miracle as being an unusual event. Others may see a miracle as a divine event. Others maybe require a miracle to be both unusual and divine intervention. I think we know where each other stands on this.

As hard as you try, you cannot separate religion from faith. They are bound together just as you are bound to society. The Holy Bible was written by humans who were divinely inspired by God. Likewise I am a Christian because I am divinely inspired by God to be a Christian. Why do you think that the majority of leading scientists around the world believe in God? There is plenty of room for both science and religion in one head. How else can you explain the popularity of religion in a very growing scientific world? The answer is found in divine inspiration. When the scientific astronauts went to the moon, what did they do? They quoted divine scripture! Smart highly educated and trained astronauts and rocket scientists can be divinely inspired. What does that say to you? In fact, advancement in science lead to this inspiration and vice versa. God inspires scientists and he could inspire you if you listened. Like a radio station, you must tune in to hear anything.

Even divinely inspired works of writing still fall under the realm of "just literature", as the term literature encompasses all works of writing.

In short, you are using an irrelevant characteristic as your means of discrimination. It's not different than you saying "this isn't a book because it's red, or because it has over 100 pages".

Literature is literature regardless of the source, author or context under which the work is created.


Certainly not...I don't believe in imaginary beings be it Zeus, Jehovah, Santa Clause, or Bigfoot.



No, you said many of the works of the bible are first-hand accounts, including Genesis....and I quote:

"The author of the Bible most assuredly witnessed the creation."

AND from the post before that.

"Many gave first-hand accounts."

Obviously the emphasis is my own....it's purpose is to show you clearly intended to state that one of the authors of the Bible was present during the creation of the Earth.

Are you now stating that was NOT your intention and that no author of the Bible was present at the creation and therefore at least one of the Books in the Bible is not a first-hand account?




"Divine" means of, relating to, or proceeding directly from God or a god.

So yes, if one believes Zeus, the devil or the Sun to be their "god" then they can be divinely inspired by them.

Excuse me for the confusion, it's totally my fault....

I forgot that Christians are narrow minded and highly intolerant of other beliefs. It never occurred to me that you neither understood the concept of divinity nor understood that your savior isn't the only possible source.

As I stated before, numbers matter only in quantifiable measurements (number of soldiers, dollars in hnad), they do not determine right and wrong nor do the prove fact or fiction.

If everybody you know thinks the world is flat, does that make the world flat?


I hate to keep using the same example for you over and over again, but it is the clearest and most easily recognizable example of what I am trying to teach you.....and I REALLY don't think you are so stupid that you can't grasp the concept either. This is just another example of your willingness to play dumb when it comes to your beliefs.

There are twice as many people on Earth who say Christianity is wrong than there are who say it's right.....Are you wrong based on the numbers since you like to use the numbers as one of your justifications?


...and yet, you seem to think the 4 billion who do not view Jesus as the son of god to be easily fooled.

Simply put, you are not a majority, you are in the largest minority. The majority of the population, approximatly 2/3rd's or 4 billion, do not believe Jesus was the son of God


And the average lifespan of the ancient Egyptians was about 40 years, so unless the Architect started at the age of 10, then the same person isn't going to have designed 2 pyramids.

So my estimate was off by a few decades, my point still holds true.
Hate to burst your bubble again, but it is not the oldest pyramid.

The oldest pyramid known, the Step Pyramid of King Zoser at Saqqara (c.2650 BC), has a large mastaba (tomb) as its nucleus and consists of six terraces of diminishing sizes, one built upon the other. It was surrounded by an elaborate complex of buildings, now partially restored, whose function related to the cult of the dead.

Nor was it any harder to analyze than any of the other pyramids....unless you are trying to incorporate totally unrelated events into it's creation, like the birth of Jesus for instance.

What about them is I want to discuss miracles you have witnessed or read that you have not witnessed a miracle. That would further proved my point that you believe because you have faith rather than undeniable evidence.

I've already concluded that you have not witnessed a miracle which cannot be explained by Science, but I'd prefer to read that in your own words.....confessions are a little more concrete than circumstantial evidence.....know what I mean, Vern?

I am not trying to separate religion from faith, I'm trying to make you understand that ALL you have is faith. You believe because you WANT to believe, not because you have undeniable proof of the existence of any omnipotent being.

Ancient Pagans




* As soon as Christianity became legal in the Roman Empire by imperial edict (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]
* 15th century Poland: 1019 churches and 17987 villages plundered by Knights of the Order. Number of 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 January 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 and 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". [WW41]
* Battle of Askalon, 8/12/1099. Thousands of 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]
* Crusades (1095-1291)

o Estimated totals:

+ Wertham: 1,000,000

+ Charles Mackay, Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the
Madness of Crowds (1841): 2,000,000 Europeans killed. [http://www.bootlegbooks.com/NonFicti...s/chap09.html]

+ Aletheia, The Rationalist's Manual: 5,000,000

o Individual Events:

+ Davies: Crusaders killed up to 8,000 Jews in Rhineland

+ Paul Johnson A History of the Jews (1987): 1,000 Jewish women in
Rhineland comm. suicide to avoid the mob, 1096.

+ Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, v.5, 6

# 1st Crusade: 300,000 Eur. k at Battle of Nice [Nicea].

# Crusaders vs. Solimon of Roum: 4,000 Christians, 3,000 Moslems

# 1098, Fall of Antioch: 100,000 Moslems massacred.

# 50,000 Pilgrims died of disease.

# 1099, Fall of Jerusalem: 70,000 Moslems massacred.

# Siege of Tiberias: 30,000 Christians k.

# Siege of Tyre: 1,000 Turks

# Richard the Lionhearted executes 3,000 Moslem POWs.

# 1291: 100,000 Christians k after fall of Acre.

# Fall of Christian Antioch: 17,000 massacred.

# [TOTAL: 677,000 listed in these episodes here.]

+ Catholic Encyclopedia (1910) [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/]

# Jaffa: 20,000 Christians massacred, 1197

+ Sorokin estimates that French, English & Imperial German Crusaders lost
a total of 3,600 in battle.

# 1st C (1096-99): 400

# 2nd C (1147-49): 750

# 3rd C (1189-91): 930

# 4th C (1202-04): 120

# 5th C (1228-29): 600

# 7th C (1248-54): 700

+ James Trager, The People's Chronology (1992)

# 1099: Crusaders slaughter 40,000 inhabs of Jerusalem. Dis/starv reduced
Crusaders from 300,000 to 60,000.

# 1147: 2nd Crusades begins with 500,000. "Most" lost to
starv./disease/battle.

# 1190: 500 Jews massacred in York.

# 1192: 3rd Crusade reduced from 100,000 to 5,000 through famine, plagues and
desertions in campaign vs Antioch.

# 1212: Children's Crusade loses some 50,000.

# [TOTAL: Just in these incidents, it appears the Europeans lost around
650,000.]


o TOTAL: When I take all the individual death tolls listed here, weed out
the duplicates, fill in the blanks, apply Occam ("Pluralitas non est
ponenda sine necessitate"), etc. I get a very rough total of 1½ M
deaths in the Crusades.

Heretics and Atheists




* 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 (Cathars) 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 (the greatest single mass murderer prior to the Nazi era) in 1209. Beziérs (today France) 7/22/1209 destroyed, all the inhabitants were slaughtered. Number of victims (including Catholics refusing to turn over their heretic
neighbors and friends) estimated between 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, a former Dominican friar, allegedly was responsible for 10,220 burnings. [DO28]
* John Huss, a critic of papal infallibility and indulgences, was burned at the stake in 1415. [LI475-522]
* Michael Sattler, leader of a baptist community, was burned at the stake in Rottenburg, Germany, May 20, 1527. Several days later his wife and other follwers were also executed. [KM]
* 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.
* Thomas Aikenhead, a twenty-year-old scottish student of Edinburgh University, was hanged for atheism and blasphemy.


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. [DO31]
Between 5000 and 6000 Protestants were drowned by Spanish Catholic Troops, "a disaster the burghers of Emden first realized when several thousand broad-brimmed Dutch hats floated by." [SH216]
* 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]
* 694 17. Council of Toledo: Jews were enslaved, their property confiscated, and their children forcibly baptized. [DA454]
* 1010 The Bishop of Limoges (France) had the cities' Jews, who would not convert to Christianity, expelled or killed. [DA453]
* 1096 First Crusade: Thousands of Jews slaughtered, 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]
* 1147 Second Crusade: Several hundred Jews were slain in Ham, Sully, Carentan, and Rameru (all locations in France). [WW57]
* 1189/90 Third Crusade: English Jewish communities sacked. [DO40]
* 1235, Fulda/Germany: 34 Jewish men and women slain. [DO41]
* 1257, 1267: Jewish communities of London, Canterbury, Northampton, Lincoln, Cambridge, and others exterminated. [DO41]
* 1290 Bohemia (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 Tenochtitlán [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 America.

* 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 morally acceptable 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 U.S. 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]



* 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
Surprisingly 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 Paveliç, a practicing 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 "Sicherheitsdienst 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.


* Christianity kills the cat
On July 1, 1976, Anneliese Michel, a 23-year-old student of a teachers college in Germany, died: she starved herself to death. For months she had been haunted by demonic visions and apparitions, and for months two Catholic priests - with explicit approval of the Catholic bishop of Würzburg - additionally pestered and tormented the wretched girl with their exorcist rituals. After her death in Klingenberg hospital - her body was littered with wounds - her parents, both of them
fanatical Catholics, were sentenced to six months for not having called for medical help. None of the priests was punished: on the contrary, Miss Michel's grave today is a place of pilgrimage and worship for a number of similarly faithful Catholics (in the seventeenth century Würzburg was notorious for it's extensive witch burnings).
This case is only the tip of an iceberg of such evil superstition and has become known only because of its lethal outcome. [SP80]


* 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 rumors 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]

More recently the BBC aired:

Priests get death sentence for Rwandan genocide
BBC NEWS April 19, 1998

A court in Rwanda has sentenced two Roman Catholic priests to death for their role in the genocide of 1994, in which up to a million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed. Pope John Paul said the priests must be made to account for their actions. Different sections of the Rwandan church have been widely accused of playing an active role in the genocide of 1994...


* As can be seen from these events, to Christianity the Dark Ages never come to an end.

References:

[DA]
K.Deschner, Abermals krähte 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.
[HA]
Hunter, M., Wootton, D., Atheism from the Reformation to the
Enlightenment, Oxford 1992.
[KM]
Schröder-Kappus, E., Wagner, W., Michael Sattler. Ein Märtyrer in
Rottenburg, Tübingen, TVT Media 1992.
[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.Wollschläger: Die bewaffneten Wallfahrten gen Jerusalem, Zürich
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.

I think someone has found the end of the internet
 

Yep I think google and yahoo are mapped now and we have it ALL right here on SBL. I love it when some one calls me a zealot when they might just be the most insane ones posting on this site :eek: I think Homer has hit the wall and thinks that someone of the opposite opinion will listen to him pissing in our ear and expect us to think it is raining :laugh: :laugh: Sad lot the atheist have in life. There is a millennium of teaching for the willingly blind in this life so there is still hope for anybody only God knows ones fate but kicking against the pricks will never help the foot or should I say fool. Sad life the heathen atheist have and lonely too. :( :(
Isaac

Well BrainSmashr, you certainly loaded up the board there with all the cut&paste info. You beat me. I don’t have time to respond to all that. Oh what to do? I know….

I consulted with the Pug, a wise and ancient creature dating back thousands of years in China. I figured she might know something about divine devotion. She told me that the Pug’s god is called Foo who is both feared and revered in the Pug world. Foo is honored by a pair of Foo dogs at the entrance to thousands of Chinese restaurants which is like a mosque or church to a Pug. Then the Pug blew snot on me and sh!t on the floor. Pugs are also one of the most disgusting creatures on earth. That’s why I love her so much and feed her well and pet here when I get home. If I can love a Pug, then I can love you too!

:clapbig: :hifive: :clapbig:

We are drowning in Babel (confusion)
 

It looks like someone found the info on google to describe their self and that would be "Heretics and Atheists" :rolleyes: Sad that some people can not even try to get along and have adult discussion about things with out throwing the entire library on this site. This country was founded on Christian beliefs and will remain that way even with the heathen trying to bring it down and they have done some damage in the end they too will reap what they sow and so will all the people some will get rewards and others well :nono:
it does not look so good but never ever give up hope for Judgment belongs to the LORD and all children belong to Him good and bad and like our poet Sir Al says "PW" could still come into play. Let us hope so it sure sounds like this young man could use the prayers.
Isaac

You may as well be praying to your dog, at least he/she is a sentient being.....although it's no shock that a Christian would place more faith in a dog than in themselves or their fellow man.

BTW, there's nothing for you to respond to in the above posts......it's merely a list of people murdered by Christians....but let me guess, you're a BETTER Christan right? Better than the Snake Handlers, Jehovah's Witness, and the child molesting priest's too I reckon......so much for that 2 billion strong number you were so proud of this week, eh?

Perhaps evil people pose as Christians. When they commit crimes as you stated they are not really Christians.

I think BrainSmashr is subconsciously fascinated by our faith in Christ. Why else would he like to talk about it so much?? Why else would he try to pick at Christians who he doesn't even know? Even those who are patient and do not attack him with names in return? Why else would he spend so much time trying to talk Christians out of their faith, unless of course he is trying to talk himself into faith?

Perhaps growing up, he did not have the exposure to good Christians or the chance to get to know that there is so much more beyond the physical world we currently live in. My wife didn’t get that exposure when she was young and feels that she really missed out. As an adult, she studied hard, and now teaches bible study to children and she doesn’t seem to take Christianity for granted like I sometimes do, having no experience without it.

I’m not for wasting my time, however I chose what I do with my time and I don’t mind spending a little time trying to shed some light for BrainSmashr. Just because he may attack, I chose to turn the other cheek, and not attack him with name calling and such. Christians should always take time to patiently answer questions of those without faith in God. Someone took the time to teach me, and I should in turn pass on my testimonial. If I didn’t believe in God or an afterlife, then I might be grumpy and not know how to act towards others in society.

Brainsmashr,

Re: All the cut and paste info

I do not have the time to wade through all this by hand, but the following thought does come to mind.

Have you ever heard the expression, “you are what you eat”? There is a similar expression in the computer programming world, “Garbage in, Garbage out” (GIGO for short) LOL, computer lingo has an acronym for everything.

Well this works not only for your body, and for your computer, but also for your mind as well. If you “feed” on anti-religious propaganda then the result is very predictable. If you really wish to see proof of Christianity, or if you really want to know why Christians believe, then you will definitely need to change your diet. Just a suggestion is all. Otherwise if you do not care to change your diet, then why spend so much time posting on the subject trying to get others to change theirs?

I am a confirmed Catholic.....you know, there's nothing wrong with asking questions instead of making assumptions. In fact, some might consider that a sign of a willingness to learn instead of "faith" that you already have all of the answers.

As far as "name calling", there is nothing wrong with labels. You should take no more offense at being called a zealot when you consider yourself to be a mere Christian than I do at being called anti-Christian when I consider myself to be a mere Scientist. It's not like I am calling you stupid or evil, I'm calling you jealous on behalf of your God just like you would pick your children over someone else children.....except your God's son, of course, right? :laugh:

Now I agree with the concept of garbage in-garbage out....the problem is you label your garbage as "not Christian" instead of simply accepting the fact that more atrocities have been committed in the name of your god than for any other god in the history of man......all the while "bragging" about your 2 billion strong population. It's A or B, not somewhere in between. You either have 2 billion including the child molesting priest, the snake handling Pentecostals, and the polygamist Mormons, or you exclude them and your 2 billion strong gets considerable smaller, one step at a time.

Maybe it IS in your best bet to quit while you still have some faith:peace:

There is nothing wrong with labels, I agree. However, you must take great care in choosing the labels you place on other people. And I say this to everyone! You can't choose a label to place on another person and tell them whether or not it should offend them. This is especially so if their views are different than your own. A person of matured empathy will recognize this and use their labels sparingly. I, for one, stick to proper names and pronouns only. Who am I to tell other people what they are?

sci·en·tist

sci·en·tist [s əntist]
(plural sci·en·tists)
n
expert in science: somebody who has had a scientific training or who works in one of the sciences
a social scientist

Encarta ® World English Dictionary © & (P) 1998-2004 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

"Your God is a terrorist, right?" Thats just too damn funny, Brain. Cause and effect, Brain, cause and effect. Who would've guessed that there could be consequences to atheism? Tell ya what, I want ya to get ****faced drunk and go sleep on the railroad tracks tonight, ok? Or how about this, I want ya to get your buddies to take ya out to the middle of the ocean and drop ya off...without a floatation device. Or how about this one, I want ya to build a huge wooden pyrimid, climb up on top with a couple of gallons of gas and spark it up! But I get the feeling you're not gonna do any of those things, because ya know what the consequences could be, right? It'll be FEAR that stops ya from doing those things, but so what? Does the fact that FEAR is involved in the equation invalidate anything? Change anything? Make your decision not to do those things any less heartfelt or sincere? Ofcourse not! Now, I dont REALLY want ya to come to any harm or put yourself in a dangerous situation, I'm simply using those examples to make the point that everything we do or not do has consequences, and that just because the powerful motivation of fear naturally plays a healthy role in our decision making, that fact changes absolutely nothing. Ever hear the phrase "he's a God-fearin man", Brain? Ever wonder what it meant?

Assuming ya dont meet your end in a sudden, completely unexpected way, Brain, you're gonna have some time to think about the consequences of your choices, particularly your choice NOT to believe in God. But if you're a true atheist, as ya profess to be, you're not gonna give a damn about something as trivial as the disposition of your soul...that shouldnt bother ya one bit, right? See, I dont believe you're really that stupid. And if you're really not that stupid, then you're just making a specious argument here for the sake of controversy, which is fine. Very, very few people are stupid enough to be true atheists, and I dont for a second believe you're one of them. But ya DO have a choice, Brain. Ya have free will to do as ya please. And if ya really ARE a true atheist, then ya wont recant when you're on your deathbed...neither aloud where others can hear you NOR silently, ya wont recant! But I'm bettin ya will. I'd bet any amount of money ya will.

Al, I would trust you to guard the gates of heaven much like Peter. You would take care of business, no doubt.. It ain't always a pretty job, but somebodies got to do it! Without flinching or waiting on a vote from a committee.