West Europeans (including Italy) saw the Ancient Near East (essentially Egypt, Palestine, and Mesopotamia but absent Greece)as their heritage until Italians discovered the Greek language and the libraries next door in Constantinople-hence the "renaissance" of classical learning and a recognition that they were heirs to Greece.
This is so garbled I really have no idea what you are talking about. The only thing that's true in it is that yes the writings of the Greeks were discovered at some point and became the foundation of the Renaissance.
The Catholics (and the Popes) were the source for institutional funding of the rebirth in learning Greek, and they also brought chairs in universities to teach Hebrew, Aramaic, etc. Italy was the "alma mater studiorum" for post-graduate studies in the entire European world. This went on for some 200 years until the "counter-reformation" around c1500 (Im going by memory of what I read)
Yes it was the RCC that supported the ancient pagan writings. The Counter Reformation started in 1545 FYI.'
Your info about the Arabs is also garbled. According to Islam Christians and Jews are subject to taxes and humiliations in Muslim countries, and the Barbary (Muslim) pirates said that according to their religious texts they had a right to kidnap Americans.
Catholics used philosophy to defend the Bible (and their doctrines) against critics.
The Catholics hardly ever bothered about the Bible at all before the Reformation. Priests were the only ones who had access to it and often even they didn't. RCC doctrines were based on sheer superstitions and Roman paganism, and then Aristotle became their hero. It's more like they read the Bible in the light of Aristotle than that they used Aristotle to defend it.
'(and there were a lot of ethnic-semitic critics and they had something of a voice in Venice I think). The popes uses Thomas Aquinas' writings (c1100) to excuse away the prohibition of non-kosher food in Acts 15:20,29;21:25 (or around there). He invented the "cultic/ceremonial law concept" and divided law into national Israelite laws, moral laws, and ceremonial laws. That's why Catholic (and their Protestant followers) Christians commonly beat pigs over the head with a hammer to kill them and eat them. (or shoot them or whatever).
Aquinas was a follower of Aristotle.
I've always understood that animals are to be killed mercifully according to the Bible, but "Kosher" is Jewish, not Christian.
The renaissance saw Catholics dethrone Plato as their favorite philosopher and elevate Aristotle. Aristotle was used to defend Christian views of the resurrection. Philosophers had to be careful to support Christian doctrine though. They used a loophole "the two truths" if their study of philosophy led to promoting a view that was contradictory to doctrine.
Catholic doctrine is not Christian, the Reformation rediscovered the Bible and threw out all the Catholic doctrinal nonsense.
Protestants supported Hitler in higher numbers than Catholics in the 1930s election (and more protestants voted for Hitler than his ally the Christian Democratic party).
The Protestant Church was an apostate mess due to the Liberal Theology that had developed in Germany in the 19th century, so that Hitler was able to manipulate them. However, I've heard the opposite, that it was the Catholic Centre Party that voted in Hitler. Hitler was himself a Catholic and he had the Pope of the time on his side, said he modeled the Holocaust after the Inquisition. That same Pope is known for having organized the "rat lines" that provided escape for thousands of criminal Nazis after the war, mostly to Catholic Countries in South America.
The admiration for Hitler seemed to be because he had views that seemed to come straight from Luther. (Hitler did deem some protestants as anti-nationalist and he rounded them up with Gypsies, Communists, Jews, etc.
Yes, Hitler made use of Luther's diatribe against the Jews, although it had lain dormant since Luther wrote it.
There were some remaining true Christian Protestants who didn't give in to Hitler.
The enemy list included Jehovah's Witnesses, 7th Day Adventists, and even Mormons as people whose loyalty he questioned) Jews supported socialists and communists in the election because they were more into equal rights. Ho Chi Min became a communist because every other party in France was only in favor of French rights. He was heart broken when he found out that the French Socialist party was only in favor of worker rights based on race. The equality for all, regardless of race, that Communists promoted was what he admired.
Which is a huge joke. Communists murdered more people for opposing them than all the religious persecutions combined. Equality, Ha!
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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