Guest Babylonian Dream Posted April 11, 2013 Share Posted April 11, 2013 Stumbled upon this interesting website while surfing the interwebs: http://www.badnewsaboutchristianity.com/index.htm 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seeker001 Posted April 11, 2013 Share Posted April 11, 2013 Holy crap. 0.o You have torpedoed whatever faith I have left in Christianity. I read the family section. Holy crap, that is just inhumane how can people be so...I'm lost for words. I mean I had philosophical concerns but I am now starting to be convinced there is just something wrong with the philosophy itself. I probably shouldn't make any judgments until I finish reading the bible for myself. Long read, not enough time to seriously hammer away at it. On the other hand, looking into the history...well Christianity had its chance. I can never imagine abandoning my family and friends without a really good reason. The people I am close to are precious to me, especially since I have a hard time connecting with others. I value my family and friends much more than I value Jesus and if this means I am going to hell, so be it. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RipVanWinkle Posted April 12, 2013 Share Posted April 12, 2013 Believe me, the more I learn about Christian history, the more absurd the faith appears. bill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Positivist Posted April 12, 2013 Share Posted April 12, 2013 Thanks for posting the link! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Positivist Posted April 12, 2013 Share Posted April 12, 2013 Wow, great site. Love the section on marketing! http://www.badnewsaboutchristianity.com/m01_religion.htm#marketchristianity Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest r3alchild Posted April 12, 2013 Share Posted April 12, 2013 Holy crap. 0.o You have torpedoed whatever faith I have left in Christianity. I read the family section. Holy crap, that is just inhumane how can people be so...I'm lost for words. I mean I had philosophical concerns but I am now starting to be convinced there is just something wrong with the philosophy itself. I probably shouldn't make any judgments until I finish reading the bible for myself. Long read, not enough time to seriously hammer away at it. On the other hand, looking into the history...well Christianity had its chance. I can never imagine abandoning my family and friends without a really good reason. The people I am close to are precious to me, especially since I have a hard time connecting with others. I value my family and friends much more than I value Jesus and if this means I am going to hell, so be it. If there is a hell I would rather be there with all of you than all of them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator Margee Posted April 12, 2013 Moderator Share Posted April 12, 2013 I saved this to my favorites!! Thanks Bab for posting this!! I'll have my afternoon coffee while I look this over...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
miekko Posted April 12, 2013 Share Posted April 12, 2013 There's a fair share of shoddy scholarship in there. See, e.g. http://www.badnewsaboutchristianity.com/gbg_inquisition.htm - there's a bunch of problematic claims here. Especially at this point: "All of the legal apparatus of the Inquisition was developed during this period. Elsewhere, courts followed at least the basic rules of justice: the accused knew their accusers, they were allowed legal representation, in some places judgement was delivered by a jury composed of peers of the accused. The old bishops" inquisitions had been public hearings, but these papal inquisitions were different: now secret hearings took place before clerical judges and prosecutors. Guilt was assumed from the start. There were no juries, and no legal representation for the accused." At the time referred to - the 13th century - most of Europe had rather sucky legal systems - trial by ordeal and trial by combat being rather common ways of deciding who was guilty. (Trial by ordeal is basically torture until someone fesses up, trial by combat is basically 'whoever loses a duel is guilty'.) In fact, a lot of modern European justice systems developed out of the inquisitorial model - the idea is that the court is not supposed to compare the stories of one side and the other and then decide which out of the to he sides with, but rather the court's task is more neutral: it should find out what the truth to the matter is. Most of non-anglophone Europe has such systems, and most of non-anglophone Europe thinks the anglosphere jury system is terrible and too partial. In England, people *preferred* to be judged by the church over being judged by secular authorities, as the likelihood of being sentenced to death by secular authorities was considerably greater. The Spanish inquisition, which has probably the worst reputation of the various inquisitions passed guilty sentences to very few of those investigated. YEs, the inquisition was terrible, but there's been a lot of added exaggerations in the public idea of what it was like. Any book critically analyzing the black legend of Spain will get into details on how these exaggerations entered scholarship and the public perceptions in previous centuries. As far as I can tell, this site accepts the most exaggerated claims uncritically. Certainly Christianity has done many bad things - but this doesn't mean we uncritically should accept every claim about it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Babylonian Dream Posted April 12, 2013 Share Posted April 12, 2013 You're welcome guys! Is our justice system still like that? I haven't really peered too far into it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RipVanWinkle Posted April 12, 2013 Share Posted April 12, 2013 I have read two historical books on the Inquisition and I certainly did not find that the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition was exaggerated, except as to number of people burned at the stake. That, the authors said, has been somewhat exaggerated. But overall, it was horrible beyond words. Victims were tortured in horrible ways, then burned at the stake. If a family was seen following a Jewish custom with respect to eating or otherwise, their neighbors would frequently report them and they were, in effect, convicted before the trial. The thought was: "Why else would they follow a Jewish custom if they weren't still practicing Jews." People were jailed on an unknown charge for many years and not told what the charge was until the trial. They did not know who the witnesses against them were until they testified. They could not cross examine witnesses. Confessions were, of course. tortured out of those charged. The fact that secular trials were also horrible doesn't hardly help the defense of the Church. Those in secular power were also Xtians (Catholic)and they incorporated a lot of religions doctrine and symbols in its legal system. The worst thing about the centuries of the Inquisition is that it terrorized the people, even though the numbers of victims were not as high as people now may suppose. People were not secure in their homes. The result was paranoia. Neighbor, in self defense against a possible charge, charged neighbor of doing things or saying things heretical or blasphemous. It was a horrible time and place to live. If there is any education that the christian churches should be providing their followers it is what happened during the Inquisition and why. The fact that they have not done so speaks volumes as to their lack of sincerity. bill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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