Burned at the stake for the Bible - Page 2

mee · 11-20-2008, 09:08 AM

I like what tyndale said to a high ranking clergy-man, who was saying that the pope was better than Gods laws.

Tyndale’s reply was: ‘I defy the Pope and all his laws. If God spare my life, ere many years I shall cause a boy that driveth the plow shall know more of the Scriptures than thou doest.’

yes tyndale was more interested in getting the bible out to all people .

thats the way to do it

.

Thomas · 11-20-2008, 10:14 AM

Hi Dream —

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dream

If I leave out rumors of burnings, uprisings, and hot-headed politicians -- what, in your opinion, caused so many people want to leave the Roman tradition?

I don't think there were movements or feelings among the people on such a scale. It all started with individuals, remember, not with social movements.

The big error is assuming that these movements were 'grass-root', they were not, and the burnings and uprisings were caused in the majority by hot-headed politicians ... they followed the Reformation, they did not precede it.

In Germany, for example, Luther protested against indulgences/funds being raised on German soil to build the basilica in Rome ... he had no problem with indulgences/funds when the money went to his own bishop.

When the German people took his words to heart, and tried to throw off their leaders as he had thrown off the church, it was he who spoke most vociferously against them, and their slaughter followed.

Be under no illusion — this 'will of the people' thing is a crock — no-one was going to hand over power to the people, mob rule followed and the result would be disaster. The founders of the Reformed religions were no different, they held the power and they made the decisions, and the people did what they were told, as they had always done.

In England we learned of the 'dissolution of the monasteries' — we were taught that the church was corrupt and the monasteries were dens of vice and corruption. What a pile of crap! Pure Protestant propaganda — the result of what today we call a 'black-ops' exercise.

Examinations of parish and county records now show that the Monasteries and Convents were invariably well run, well ordered, and well liked. The emerging aristocracy wanted power and money, and the key to that was land. They convinced Henry VIII that if he seized the church's assets, he'd have money enough to fund his wars in Europe. He believed them, but as a result of the assault on the great religious houses, hardly a penny founds its way into his coffers. Instead the new upstart nobility took possession of the land, and ensured their personal wealth thereby.

And the peasantry? They suffered bad management, greed ... they were worse off now than before, and more than a few suffered for making the point.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dream

What has changed to improve that?

Nothing. The situation after the Reformation was often worse.

The bloodshed that followed was nothing to do with religion, it was all to do with power. Catholic v Protestant was just the excuse — in England political machinations left the heirs of Henry VIII powerless, even Elizabeth I has come down to us as a 'complex' character — strong-willed, but ever at risk because of it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dream

I also was assigned to read a short biography on Tyndale, John Bunyan, and several others Protesters/Reformers and had to write something about them.

I'm not saying there were no good people. There were, on all sides ... but the real 'movers and shakers'? They had their eye on the prize: Power.

In Switzerland, for example, where Calvinism held sway, the reformed image of the 'justified of God' bore a marked resemblance to the emerging Swiss urban elite ... because calvin knew where his power lay, and where the money came from.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dream

I got a grim picture of the Roman Catholic Church from it, too. I think here in the States there's still some anti-Catholic sentiment, and other than doctrinal disagreements it is mostly because of the things we're talking about right now.

Anti-Catholic sentiment goes hand in hand with the English language. In Europe it's not so pronounced because Catholic countries survived in places to counter-balance the Protestant.

One thing: The Reformation only took hold in countries that had weak national leadership — it was this weakness that was exploited and thus the cause of the bloodshed, as the opposite sides fought it out to get to the top of the heap.

Thomas

bananabrain · 11-20-2008, 10:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thomas

Examinations of parish and county records now show that the Monasteries and Convents were invariably well run, well ordered, and well liked.

oh, come *on*, thomas. "invariably"? did you see terry jones' show and book "mediaeval lives" - there was a part on monks. it was extremely well researched and backed by some very eminent historians at least one of whom i know personally. they were extremely even-handed and, like myself, in no way out to bash the catholics - and as far as i can tell, the picture is a little bit more nuanced than you suggest. i'll dig out some references when i can.

b'shalom

bananabrain

wil · 11-20-2008, 11:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mee

so bringing it up to modern day translation, what translation have the religious leaders of christendom had great opposition too .

even telling their flocks to not read it , and even having the people who promote bible truth thrown in prison on false charges.

HERE IT IS
Read the Bible Online

New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures

This is patently silly mee. Are you trying to tell us that your organization doesnt tell your flock not to do this or that or the other thing??

As for the rest, is anyone surprised that Catholic schools paint the Protestants in a bad light and Protestant schools paint the Catholics in a bad light?? Is anyone surprised that their would be biased history told on both sides??

Tao_Equus · 11-20-2008, 12:17 PM

Thomas,

I think you are correct to say that the reformation was a political action, a coup of sorts, replacing one corrupt group with another. It was very much a battle for wealth.

What I take issue with is this idea that people "liked" the taxes and tithes collected by the local branches of Rome incorporated. Or that they were fair or gave anything back to the community. Wealth collection for the Catholic Church, like any church, has always been a one way street. The Catholic Church is the biggest and most unaccountable wealth accumulating body in the world after the US government. It is richer in the US than the top 5 corporations combined. It is a take take take organisation that does almost nothing to help people who really need help. All the funds that are raised to do what little it does do are raised 'in addition' to the banked wealth it possesses by its rank and file.

I have avoided going into the wealth / corporate status of the CC because it is such a huge and complex task to do so. But perhaps it is time. By veiwing the history of the CC as a power/wealth ambitious corporation you get a real picture of what it is. And when you super-impose its 'message' onto that you begin to see what the CC really is, and that is anything but a 'holy institution'. I think such a subject deserves a thread of its own however. But here is a small taste of what is to come.

A clutch of paragraphs from THE VATICAN BILLIONS by Avro Manhattan:
"The Vatican has large investments with the Rothschilds of Britain, France and America, with the Hambros Bank, with the Credit Suisse in London and Zurich. In the United States it has large investments with the Morgan Bank, the Chase-Manhattan Bank, the First National Bank of New York, the Bankers Trust Company, and others. The Vatican has billions of shares in the most powerful international corporations such as Gulf Oil, Shell, General Motors, Bethlehem Steel, General Electric, International Business Machines, T.W.A., etc. At a conservative estimate, these amount to more than 500 million dollars in the U.S.A. alone.
"In a statement published in connection with a bond prospectus, the Boston archdiocese listed its assets at Six Hundred and Thirty-five Million ($635,891,004), which is 9.9 times its liabilities. This leaves a net worth of Five Hundred and Seventy-one million dollars ($571,704,953). It is not difficult to discover the truly astonishing wealth of the church, once we add the riches of the twenty-eight archdioceses and 122 dioceses of the U.S.A., some of which are even wealthier than that of Boston.
"Some idea of the real estate and other forms of wealth controlled by the Catholic church may be gathered by the remark of a member of the New York Catholic Conference, namely 'that his church probably ranks second only to the United States Government in total annual purchase.' Another statement, made by a nationally syndicated Catholic priest, perhaps is even more telling. 'The Catholic Church,' he said, 'must be the biggest corporation in the United States. We have a branch office in every neighborhood. Our assets and real estate holdings must exceed those of Standard Oil, A.T.&T., and U.S. Steel combined. And our roster of dues-paying members must be second only to the tax rolls of the United States Government.'

"The Catholic church, once all her assets have been put together, is the most formidable stockbroker in the world. The Vatican, independently of each successive pope, has been increasingly orientated towards the U.S. The Wall Street Journal said that the Vatican's financial deals in the U.S. alone were so big that very often it sold or bought gold in lots of a million or more dollars at one time.
"The Vatican's treasure of solid gold has been estimated by the United Nations World Magazine to amount to several billion dollars. A large bulk of this is stored in gold ingots with the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank, while banks in England and Switzerland hold the rest. But this is just a small portion of the wealth of the Vatican, which in the U.S. alone, is greater than that of the five wealthiest giant corporations of the country. When to that is added all the real estate, property, stocks and shares abroad, then the staggering accumulation of the wealth of the Catholic church becomes so formidable as to defy any rational assessment.
"The Catholic church is the biggest financial power, wealth accumulator and property owner in existence. She is a greater possessor of material riches than any other single institution, corporation, bank, giant trust, government or state of the whole globe. The pope, as the visible ruler of this immense amassment of wealth, is consequently the richest individual of the twentieth century. No one can realistically assess how much he is worth in terms of billions of dollars."

tao

Penguin · 11-20-2008, 12:28 PM

Well slappa-my-thigh and call me a pheasant. I never knew all that. Seriously!

I need to get out more.
How come when those poor people in Africa ask to build a Catholic church they are refused funding and then told to fund it themselves??

Thomas · 11-20-2008, 12:51 PM

Hi juantoo —

Quote:

Originally Posted by juantoo3

The Battle Royale between Mary Queen of Scots and Bloody Mary cost many lives, some of which are highlighted in that book, and that would have occured in the mid-1500's. During the 1600's the focus of the Anglican church shifted...and it was Puritans who were put to the torch.

There's a very complex set of currents playing into history here ...

Henry VIII was pro-Rome (he was awarded the title 'Defender of the Faith' by the pope for his criticism of the Reform movement), but he wanted a divorce. So a split was inevitable. Rome never understood this distant and minor king. What was all the fuss about? Why didn't he just put her away, and take a mistress, as the European kings did? They'd jumped through hoops for him once, now he wanted them to jump back again ...

So Henry's 'anglicanism' is a variation of Catholicism, but with the head of state as head of the Church.

Henry died, and his son, Edward, was too young to rule, so the Earl of Northumberland took over. He was a hardline reformer, and went for the Catholics with a will ...

Edward died, and Mary assumed the throne. She had been raised in a county house and never trained for the role she was to assume. Her court rang rings round her, Catholic Parliamentarians wanted revenge against the Aristocratic Protestants and she was obliged to respond. Now began a spate of burnings on a grand scale, and hence her reputation, 'Bloody Mary'. She made disasterous decisions both in her private and public life, was easily outmanoeuvred by her enemies, and was executed.

Elizabeth assumes the throne, and now England is caught up in a nationalist, anti-Catholic frenzy (Mary was going to marry into the Catholic Spanish royal family, and the propaganda machine made this out to be the fall of England). But the people were tired of religious bloodshed ... then the Pope made a fatal mistake: He said that Catholics were not obliged to remain loyal to a bad monarch.

The Protestants seized upon this, and treason replaced heresy as a crime: Anyone who was Catholic was a traitor. In a patriotic fervour, Catholics were burnt in great numbers, more than Protestants under Bloody Mary in fact, but this was treason, not heresy...

(Interesting historical aside. The Church has been condemned for not condemning nor calling on Catholics to defy the Nazis — but the Pope was advised that if he did so, then the Nazis could arrest anyone who was Catholic for treason — looked what happened under Elizabeth I. If the Pope condemned them, more innocents would suffer.)

Historians reckon Elizabeth favoured an 'AngloCatholicism' as her father envisaged, but Parliament and her court was having none of that! She had to tread a very careful line ...

Historians also trace strong Catholic sentiments in the works of William Shakespeare ... another interesting and relatively recent line of study.

The 'Puritans' were a broad church, difficult to classify. The definition of a Puritan was one who "strove for a worship purified from all taint of popery".

There were moderates who were willing to retain government by bishops (although they preferred the title "superintendent"), and were much like the Scottish Presbyterians of today; there were the strict Presbyterians who wished for the Calvinistic form of government and order of worship; and there were the Free Churchmen or Independents who repudiated all coercive power in the Church and wished all men to be free in forming congregations. They — being independent-minded — were at first persecuted by Anglicans and Presbyterians alike, and in 1620 sought religious freedom in the New World ... Twenty years later however, under Oliver Cromwell, they became the predominant party, fought a civil war, and executed the king.

Quote:

Originally Posted by juantoo3

Interestingly, it was Puritans who fled those torchings who settled in America (Plymouth Rock and Massachussetts Bay Colony) who later sponsored the witch trials in Salem.

Indeed. It was the same Puritans who carried out the witch-hunts in England. Matthew Hopkin, 'the Witchfinder General' was paid for every witch he disposed of, and became the richest man in England!

The accusation of witchcraft, it seemed, became a near bulletproof method for people to settle scores with their neighbours.

Thomas

Nick the Pilot · 11-20-2008, 01:19 PM

Thomas,

You said,

"...a lively and vibrant faith."

--> I would not describe a church which burns to death ex-members as 'lively and vibrant.'

Thomas · 11-20-2008, 01:24 PM

Hi Tao —

Quote: