PBS Special on the Inquisition - Wed. May 9th

It was a sad time for NonCatholic Christians. They were killed as well.

 

I watched some of it.....

but from what I gather, the inquisition only punished christian baptized converts who went to judaism......

not the contrary of what alot of people say about the inquisition targetting jews and noncatholics. if they were born a jew and baptised a jew, the church had no jurisdiction over them. just the people who were baptised as christian/catholic

 

well the one I saw on pbs, they stated that it was christian baptised converts to judaism. yeah they killed jews, only because they were baptised christian to begin with. so they converted to judaism. they were considered heretics. the inquisition never messed with baptised jews, because they were what the bible calls infidels, or something to that fact..... so anyone that was a jewish sympathizer, or knew someone that was practicing jewish faith that were baptized catholics, and they didnt even come forth and bring it to the inquisition, they could also be brought to the council... and condemned as heretics. maybe I should have watched the rest of the inquisition, but from that part I saw, thats what happened. but like you said, it was rather boring. lol.

 

Christians have no monopoly on killing Jews - Muslims too, including the prophet have done their share.

 

Ever notice how religious persecution relates to the milgram experiment.
basically people are controlled by a sense of fear and guilt, an authority figure removes those two things, and people become capable of anything. this is the problem with having a religous text being anything authorative in society.

during the meddievel time muslims were the most tolerant of western cultures towards the jews. basically non-muslims had to pay a special tax and couldn't stop someone from converting to islam, but they didn't go around burning people for lack not being baptised. Spain under moor control is a wonderful example of religious tolerance and cultural intergration, but under catholic control is a lesson in the abuses of authority.
of course the whole jewish-muslim dynamic has changed with zionism and jewish control of jerusalem.

the poor buggers have been Diaspora-ed from just about every place they've settled, they're back to square 1...

The inquisition targeted every non-catholic group, jews got slaughtered. they forced the jews to convert to christianity and be baptised. if they didn't, they died. if they continued to practice judaism, they died. there's many examples of jews being killed for refusing pork...

 

Muhamed himself took part in the execution of over 300 Jewish prisoners, the Beni Quaridha, at Medina, april 627.
It was part of his 'holy war' to establish Islam.
The reason for their execution was that they'd previously refused to convert, and held out against the prophet and his army.

So it all got off to a good start.......

 

Although the Cathars suffered terribly under the church (it was actually during the Albigensian crusade in Southern France that the office of the inquisition was created) my studies of their beliefs lead me to think they were just as fanatical as the mainstream church although in a different way.


BTW - the crusade against the Cathars was probably politically motivated by the French monarchy who at that period were increasing their control of the papacy.

 

yeah, but that's not muslim spain, which is what i was talking about...

 

this is from biblia.com

The Spanish Inquisition had no authority over practicing Muslims and Jews, only over professed Christians suspected of being fakes and a threat to the country... it remained operative in Spain into the nineteenth century. Originally called into being against secret Islam and secret Judaism, it served also to repel Protestantism in the sixteenth century, but was unable to expel French Rationalism and immorality of the eighteenth... it also took some action against witchcraft though it was very limited compared with the 30,000 witches burned in England and the 100,000 in Germany.

 

Eh, these modern day Christian "Crusaders". Fired up with Christian values of "hatred and killing". Christian values at it's best... :leaving:

 

Whatever the case in muslim Spain, the thing I'm pointing out is that islam didn't begin in a very tolerant way, and arguably, intolerance is an intrinsic part of it. Look at countries like saudi today - hardly much toleration there. Certainly less than in europe, which is obstensibly 'christian' - although it's only tolerant because of purely secular, non-religious factors. Tolerance increased as the grip of religion was shaken off.
America too is relatively tolerant - or appears so from this side of the atlantic, although there are exceptions and extremes. Religion is much bigger and more influential in the USA than the european union in general, and perhaps that's why europe is on the whole more tolerant and even permissive than america.
(northern/western europe anyway - in places like Poland the church still has a strong grip - but even that's different from the US type of christianity, although no better)

What I'm trying to get at is that christianity is not the only party guilty of abuses - it seems to me to be a part of all the mono-theistic religions, and probably others too.

The klansmen in the pic posted above aren't that different from muslim radicals in some countries.
And today, it doesn't seem likely that the inquisition will start up again - who knows what might happen in the muslim world? The Taliban for instance were similar to the medieval church in some ways - rigid enforcement of religious codes, hatred of women, etc.

BTW - Worth noting that Benedict 16th when still cardinal ratzinger was in effect head of the inqisition - they've changed the name, and I forget what it's called now, but it's the same thing.

 

OK - I studied this in depth some years ago at uni, and this is not correct. The 'Holy Office' was formed under the general direction of St. Dominic during the Albigensian crusade.
Dominic was first sent by the church to try to persuade the Cathars to repent and convert to catholicism, and when he was rejected, they sent in the troops, along with the newly formed inquisition.
Later, it was then active mainly agaisnt so called 'heretics' - it wasn't in fact used much against members of other religions.

However, there were frequent persecutions of Jews in europe from the middle ages up to hitler. The church didn't exactly object to this, but were rarely the offical insigators or enacters of such persecutions.
The Russian monarchy for example, often used Cossacks to carry out their 'pogroms' against Russian Jews.
Very few muslims lived in christian countries until relatively recently, so it's hard to comment on that - generally, I think the medievals saw them as 'beyond the pale' and fit only for slaughter.

 

It targetet mainly christians. Not that that justifies it obviously.

And the thing is that the inquisition was active outside spain.

Also worth noting that in medieval europe, rich Jews were often tolerated, as they were relied on for finance by Kings etc. This was becasue at that time, christians still saw usury as a sin, and were forbidden to lend money and charge interest. That didn't change until the late middle ages/early renaissance.