Is The World Getting Better Or Worse?

This won't go over as popular, but I firmly believe that one won't become a better Christian through evidence, scholarly approaches to the Bible, or comparative religions classes. I agree that we are responsible for what we do rather than what we claim to believe. And whether or not the Christians were naive, willfully ignorant, or in any way justifying what was done in the name of Christianity, they (we) are still responsible, though I do disagree with you when you claim we should give the Indians back their lands---at whatever the cost. Two wrongs dont make a right, and such an action would impoverish many current dwellers, none of whom were directly responsible for the theft.I may get judged for that attitude someday, so I will leave it up to God as a perfect judge.

Once again, where did I ever say we should return all lands?Phat, look up the histories of the Treaties we made with the Indians.Find one where we actually fulfilled our obligations under the Treaty.Edited by jar, : fix quote box

You're honing your definition of persecution to a pretty fine edge. If you put enough qualifiers on it, it will disappear completely.

In England, Protestant and Catholics have been officially murdering each other for centuries. Ordained by the heads of both religions. This is not disputed Faith, it's history 101 here. English ReformationSt Thomas More, the Catholic government official executed in 1535 by King Henry VIIIThe Act of Supremacy issued by King Henry VIII in 1534 declared the king to be "the only supreme head on earth of the Church in England" in place of the pope. Any act of allegiance to the latter was considered treasonous because the papacy claimed both spiritual and political power over its followers. It was under this act that Thomas More and John Fisher were executed and became martyrs to the Catholic faith.The Act of Supremacy (which asserted England's independence from papal authority) was repealed in 1554 by Henry's devoutly Catholic daughter Queen Mary I when she reinstituted Catholicism as England's state religion. She executed many Protestants by burning. Her actions were reversed by a new Act of Supremacy passed in 1559 under her successor, Elizabeth I, along with an Act of Uniformity which made worship in Church of England compulsory. Anyone who took office in the English church or government was required to take the Oath of Supremacy; penalties for violating it included hanging and quartering. Attendance at Anglican services became obligatorythose who refused to attend Anglican services, whether Roman Catholics or Protestants (Puritans), were fined and physically punished as recusants. Elizabethan regimeFoxe's Book of Martyrs helped shape lasting popular notions of Catholicism in Britain.
In the time of Elizabeth I, the persecution of the adherents of the Reformed religion, both Anglicans and Protestants alike, which had occurred during the reign of her elder half-sister Queen Mary I was used to fuel strong anti-Catholic propaganda in the hugely influential Foxe's Book of Martyrs. Those who had died in Mary's reign, under the Marian Persecutions, were effectively canonised by this work of hagiography. In 1571, the Convocation of the Church of England ordered that copies of the Book of Martyrs should be kept for public inspection in all cathedrals and in the houses of church dignitaries. The book was also displayed in many Anglican parish churches alongside the Holy Bible. The passionate intensity of its style and its vivid and picturesque dialogues made the book very popular among Puritan and Low Church families, Anglican and Protestant nonconformist, down to the nineteenth century. In a period of extreme partisanship on all sides of the religious debate, the exaggeratedly partisan church history of the earlier portion of the book, with its grotesque stories of popes and monks, contributed to fuel anti-Catholic prejudices in England, as did the story of the sufferings of several hundred Reformers (both Anglican and Protestant) who had been burnt at the stake under Mary and Bishop Bonner.Anti-Catholicism in the United Kingdom - Wikipedia

Yeah they were.

Ahh and now we get the strawman.

Is all you and Faith have are strawman arguments? How about you argue against what people are actually saying not try to divert it into some other argument.
Misrepresentation of your opponents arguments shows you have nothing to contribute.

Give me a specific example and we can go from there. Faith and I are not Siamese twins, though we do share belief in God through Jesus Christ. I'm not into the young earth thing as he is, and I read both sides of the issue, as I recently finished Godless by Dan Barker. I also acknowledge that Christianity is simply unprovable.I do listen to some apologists, and I am aware of the honesty and track record of some vs others. I don't lump *all apologists* or *all believers* or even *all atheists* into one basket. We are each individual with differing thinking and reasoning styles. Some of us need to believe, while others are content to challenge all believers and stick to their guns of secular logic, reason, and perceived reality. I would only add that its not all a giant con game in my belief.I particularly feel a need to challenge jar specifically because he claims to "belong to the club" yet never lets his belief interfere with his critical thinking evidence-based mind. Which you no doubt applaud. I have different beliefs largely based on the experiences which I have had.Now what were we about to discuss again?

Do you lump all bank robbers into one basket? Because bank robbery is pretty much what defines a bank robber and apologetics is pretty much what defines an apologist.

Faith's source is committing one of the most basic forms of quote-mining: quoting out of context. Whether that was done on purpose or out of simple ignrance is not clear.The context here is historical context, more specifically the question of what "bigot" meant at the time. The meanings of words as well as all the ways in which they are used change over time through usage. Because of that, reading past writings without bearing in mind how those words were used can lead to misinterpretation."Bigot" is a French word meaning "religionist", which is a fervent adherent to a particular religion, a religious zealot. The French word "fanatique" has similar meaning. It's only been in more recent times (over several decades) that both words have been expanded in their usage.Therefore with the original French meaning in mind, I see Washington as saying that he is not a religious zealot and, having no fervent adherence on one particular form of religion (very much unlike our Faith), has no objection to the various forms of Christianity. If anything, he was expressing his neutrality regarding Christianity, which could not be misinterpreted as opposition to Christianity. Except by a fanatique religionist like Faith who apparently applies the Gospel teaching, "If you are not for me, then you are against me", and who is adamant in redefining Christianity so as to exclude the majority of Christians as being either non-Christians or anti-Christian (and there are plenty more like her, which makes that situation even sadder).

Who made such an argument?

Faith, in message 597:

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The pogroms against the Jews were the work of the RCC, not Protestants.

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Faith, you have this idea that Luther was tolerant.He was tolerant while he was promoting an upstart offshoot, and was indeed, at an early date, attacking Catholics for intolerance.The Protestant supporters of his were unleashing holy hell upon Jews and others ONCE IN POWER ONLY A SHORT TIME AFTER HIS PROTESTS.See what John the Elector did. (Luther supported, via communication, his persecution and expulsion of Jews. Jews asked Luther for help in changing his friend, Elector John's mind)SAXONY - JewishEncyclopedia.comSebastian Franck (20 January 1499 — c. 1543) was a 16th-century German freethinker, humanist, and radical reformer. He said the Protestant lands has less freedom of thought than the Turkish controlled lands. This was when the Sunni Caliphate STILL EXISTED!Sebastian Franck - WikipediaI will cover these issues later.Faith, you said this in post 603:

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Why do they have to have any religion at all? The government was responsible for the attacks on the Indians.

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Most of what was done could not have been done in the true Spirit of Christianity even if they call themselves Christians which most Americans have over the years. Those truly inspired by Christ don't do such things.

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The rulers of Germany saw Protestantism as enshrining religion into government in a way that went WELL beyond the Roman Catholic church theology mandated.I will cover that later.Faith, in post 599, you said:

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The RCC puts the Pope in the place of God

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Luther out-poped the Popes.He was seen as doing just that, in his day.His Protestantism did become more Popish than Roman Catholicism.Here is the great historical work, The Renaissance, by Will Durantp.453

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VIII. LUTHER'S THEOLOGY
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Though his theology was founded with trusting literalness on the
Scriptures, his interpretation unconsciously retained late medieval
traditions. His nationalism made him a modern, his theology belonged
to the Age of Faith. His rebellion was far more against Catholic
organization and ritual than against Catholic doctrine; most of this
remained with him to the end. Even in his rebellion he followed Wyclif
and Huss rather than any new scheme: like theirs his revolt lay in
rejecting the papacy, the councils, the hierarchy, and any other guide
to faith than the Bible; like them he called the pope Antichrist;
and like them he found protection in the state. The line from Wyclif
to Huss to Luther is the main thread of religious development from the
fourteenth to the sixteenth century.

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....

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He spoke as confidently as
Aquinas about angels as bodiless and beneficent spirits. Sometimes

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he represented man as an endless bone of contention between good and
bad angels, to whose differing dispositions and efforts were to be
ascribed all the circumstances of man's fate- a Zoroastrian
intrusion into his theology. He accepted fully the medieval conception
of devils wandering about the earth, bringing temptation, sin, and
misfortune to men, and easing man's way into hell. "Many devils are in
woods, in waters, in wilderness, and in dark, pooly places, ready to
hurt... people; some are also in the thick black clouds." `0616117
Some of this may have been conscious pedagogical invention of
helpful supernatural terrors; but Luther spoke so familiarly of devils
that he seems to have believed all he said of them. "I know Satan very
well," he said, and detailed their conversations with each
other. `0616118 Sometimes he charmed the Devil by playing the
flute; `0616119 sometimes he frightened the poor Devil away by calling
him filthy names. `0616120 He became so accustomed to ascribing to the
Devil the eerie sounds of walls contracting in the cold of the night
that when he was awakened by such noises, and could confidently
conclude that they were made by Satan rambling about, he could
resume his sleep in peace. `0616121 He attributed to diabolical agency
various unpleasant phenomena- hail, thunder, war, plague- and to
divine action all beneficent events; `0616122 he could hardly conceive
of what we call natural law. All the Teutonic folklore about the
poltergeist, or noise-making spirit, was apparently credited by Luther
at its face value. Snakes and monkeys were favorite incarnations of
the Devil. `0616123

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p.454

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The old notion that devils could lie with women
and beget children seemed plausible to him; in one such case he
recommended that the resultant child should be drowned. `0616124 He
accepted magic and witchcraft as realities, and thought it a simple
Christian duty to burn witches at the stake. `0616125 Most of these
ideas were shared by his contemporaries, Catholic or Protestant. The
belief in the power and ubiquity of devils attained in the sixteenth
century an intensity not recorded in any other age; and this
preoccupation with Satan bedeviled much of Protestant theology.

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pp.511-516:First see this linkhttps://www.patheos.com/...hes-frigid-wives-prostitutes.html

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II. THE INTOLERANT HERETICS
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It is instructive to observe how Luther moved from tolerance to
dogma as his power and certainty grew. Among the "errors" that Leo
X, in the bull Exsurge Domine, denounced in Luther was that "to burn
heretics is against the will of the Holy Spirit." In the Open
Letter to the Christian Nobility (1520) Luther ordained "every man
a priest," with the right to interpret the Bible according to his
private judgment and individual light; `061946 and added, "We should
vanquish heretics with books, not with burning." `061947 In the
essay On Secular Authority (1522) he wrote:
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Over the soul God can and will let no one rule but Himself.... We
desire to make this so clear that everyone shall grasp it, and that
our Junkers, the princes and bishops, may see what fools they are
when they seek to coerce the people... into believing one thing or
another.... Since belief or unbelief is a matter of everyone's
conscience... the secular power should be content to attend to its own
affairs, and permit men to believe one thing or another as they are
able and willing, and constrain no one by force. For faith is a free
work, to which no one can be compelled.... Faith and heresy are
never so strong as when men oppose them by sheer force, without
God's word. `061948

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In a letter to Elector Frederick (April 21, 1524) Luther asked
toleration for Munzer and other of his own enemies. "You should not
prevent them from speaking. There must be sects, and the Word of God
must face battle.... Let us leave in His hands the combat and free

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encounter of minds." In 1528, when others were advocating the death
penalty for Anabaptists, he advised that unless they were guilty of
sedition they should be merely banished. `061949 Likewise, in 1530, he
recommended that the death penalty for blasphemy should be softened to
exile. It is true that even in these liberal years he talked as if
he wished his followers or God to drown or otherwise eliminate all
"papists"; but this was "campaign oratory," not seriously meant. In
January 1521, he wrote: "I would not have the Gospel defended by
violence or murder"; and in June of that year he reproved the Erfurt
students for attacking priests; however, he did not object to
"frightening them" a bit to improve their theology. `061950 In May
1529, he condemned plans for the forcible conversion of Catholic
parishes to Protestantism. As late as 1531 he taught that "we
neither can nor should force anyone into the faith." `061951

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But it was difficult for a man of Luther's forceful and positive
character to advocate tolerance after his position had been made
relatively secure. A man who was sure that he had God's Word could not
tolerate its contradiction. The transition to intolerance was
easiest concerning the Jews. Till 1537 Luther argued that they were to
be forgiven for keeping their own creed, "since our fools, the
popes, bishops, sophists, and monks, those coarse assheads, dealt with
the Jews in such a manner that any Christian would have preferred to
be a Jew. Indeed, had I been a Jew, and had seen such idiots and
dunderheads expound Christianity, I should rather have become a hog
than a Christian.... I would advise and beg everybody to deal kindly
with the Jews, and to instruct them in the Scripture; in such case
we could expect them to come over to us." `061952 Luther may have
realized that Protestantism was in some aspects a return to Judaism,
in its rejection of monasticism and clerical celibacy, its emphasis on
the Old Testament, the Prophets, and the Psalms, and its adoption
(Luther himself excepted) of a sterner sexual ethic than that of
Catholicism. He was disappointed when the Jews made no corresponding
move toward Protestantism; and his hostility to the charging of
interest helped to turn him against Jewish moneylenders, then
against Jews in general. When Elector John expelled the Jews from
Saxony (1537) Luther rejected a Jewish appeal for his intercession. In
his Table Talk he united "Jews and papists" as "ungodly wretches...

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two stockings made of one piece of cloth." `061953 In his declining
years he fell into a fury of anti-Semitism, denounced the Jews as "a
stiff-necked, unbelieving, proud, wicked, abominable nation," and
demanded that their schools and synagogues should be razed with fire.
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And let whosoever can, throw brimstone and pitch upon them; if one
could hurl hell-fire at them, so much the better.... And this must
be done for the honor of Our Lord and of Christianity, so that God may
see that we are indeed Christians. Let their houses also be
shattered and destroyed.... Let their prayer books and Talmuds be
taken from them, and their whole Bible too; let their rabbis be
forbidden, on pain of death, to teach henceforth any more. Let the
streets and highways be closed against them. Let them be forbidden
to practice usury, and let all their money, and all their treasures of
silver and gold be taken from them and put away in safety. And if
all this be not enough, let them be driven like mad dogs out of the
land. `061954
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Luther should never have grown old. Already in 1522 he was
outpapaling the popes. "I do not admit," he wrote, "that my doctrine
can be judged by anyone, even by the angels. He who does not receive
my doctrine cannot be saved." `061955 By 1529 he was drawing some
delicate distinctions:
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No one is to be compelled to profess the faith, but no one must be
allowed to injure it. Let our opponents give their objections and hear
our answers. If they are thus converted, well and good; if not, let
them hold their tongues and believe what they please.... In order to
avoid trouble we should not, if possible, suffer contrary teachings in
the same state. Even unbelievers should be forced to obey the Ten
Commandments, attend church, and outwardly conform. `061956
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Luther now agreed with the Catholic Church that "Christians
require certainty, definite dogmas, and sure Word of God which they
can trust to live and die by." `061957 As the Church in the early
centuries of Christianity, divided and weakened by a growing
multiplicity of ferocious sects, had felt compelled to define her

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creed and expel all dissidents, so now Luther, dismayed by the variety
of quarrelsome sects that had sprouted from the seed of private
judgment, passed step by step from toleration to dogmatism. "All men
now presume to criticize the Gospel," he complained; "almost every old
doting fool or prating sophist must, forsooth, be a doctor of
divinity." `061958 Stung by Catholic taunts that he had let loose a
dissolvent anarchy of creeds and morals, he concluded, with the
Church, that social order required some cloture to debate, some
recognized authority to serve as "an anchor of faith." What should
that authority be? The Church answered, the Church, for only a
living organism could adjust itself and its Scriptures to
inescapable change. No, said Luther; the sole and final authority
should be the Bible itself, since all acknowledge it to be the Word of
God.

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In the thirteenth chapter of Deuteronomy, in this infallible book,
he found an explicit command, allegedly from the mouth of God, to
put heretics to death: "Neither shalt thine eye pity him, neither
shalt thou conceal him," even though it be "thy brother, or thy son,
or the wife of thy bosom... but thou shalt surely kill him, thy hand
shall be the first upon him to put him to death." On that awful
warrant the Church had acted in annihilating the Albigensians in the
thirteenth century; that divine imprecation had been made a
certificate of authority for the burnings of the Inquisition.
Despite the violence of Luther's speech he never rivaled the
severity of the Church in dealing with dissent; but he proceeded,
within the area and limits of his power, to silence it as peaceably as
he could. In 1525 he invoked the aid of existing censorship
regulations in Saxony and Brandenburg to stamp out the "pernicious
doctrines" of the Anabaptists and the Zwinglians. `061959 In 1530,
in his commentary on the Eighty-second Psalm, he advised governments
to put to death all heretics who preached sedition or against
private property, and "those who teach against a manifest article of
the faith... like the articles children learn in the creed, as, for
example, if anyone should teach that Christ was not God but a mere
man." `061960 Sebastian Franck thought there was more freedom of
speech and belief among the Turks than in the Lutheran states, and Leo
Jud, the Zwinglian, joined Carlstadt in calling Luther another pope.

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We should note, however, that toward the end of his life Luther
returned to his early feeling for toleration. In his last sermon he
advised abandonment of all attempts to destroy heresy by force;
Catholics and Anabaptists must be borne with patiently till the Last
Judgment, when Christ will take care of them. `061961

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Other reformers rivaled or surpassed Luther in hounding heresy.
Bucer of Strasbourg urged the civil authorities in Protestant states
to extirpate all who professed a "false" religion; such men, he
said, are worse than murderers; even their wives and children and
cattle should be destroyed. `061962 The comparatively gentle
Melanchthon accepted the chairmanship of the secular inquisition
that suppressed the Anabaptists of Germany with imprisonment or death.
"Why should we pity such men more than God does?" he asked, for he was
convinced that God had destined all Anabaptists to hell. `061963 He
recommended that the rejection of infant baptism, or of original
sin, or of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, should be
punished as capital crimes. `061964 He insisted on the death penalty
for a sectarian who thought that heathens might be saved, or for
another who doubted that belief in Christ as the Redeemer could change
a naturally sinful into a righteous man. `061965 He applauded, as we
shall see, the execution of Servetus. He asked the state to compel all
the people to attend Protestant religious services
regularly. `061966 He demanded the suppression of all books that
opposed or hindered Lutheran teaching; so the writings of Zwingli
and his followers were formally placed on the index of prohibited
books in Wittenberg. `061967 Whereas Luther was content with the
expulsion of Catholics from regions governed by Lutheran princes,
Melanchthon favored corporal penalties. Both agreed that the civil
power was in duty bound to promulgate and uphold "the law of God"-
i.e., Lutheranism. `061968 Luther, however, counseled that where two
sects existed in a state the minority should yield to the majority: in
a predominantly Catholic principality the Protestants should yield and
emigrate; in a prevailingly Protestant province the Catholics should
give way and depart; if they resisted, they should be effectively
chastised. `061969

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The Protestant authorities, following Catholic precedents,
accepted the obligation of maintaining religious conformity. At

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Augsburg (January 18, 1537) the town council issued a decree
forbidding the Catholic worship, and banishing, after eight days,
all who would not accept the new faith. At the expiration of the
period of grace the council sent soldiers to take possession of all
churches and monasteries; altars and statues were removed, and
priests, monks, and nuns were banished. `061970 Frankfurt-am-Main
promulgated a similar ordinance; and the seizure of Catholic church
properties, and the suppression of Catholic services, spread through
the states controlled by Protestants. `061971 Censorship of the press,
already established in Catholic areas, was adopted by the Protestants;
so Elector John of Saxony, at the request of Luther and Melanchthon,
promulgated (1528) an edict that prohibited the publication, sale,
or reading of Zwinglian or Anabaptist literature, or the preaching
or teaching of their doctrines; "and anyone who is aware of such being
done by anybody, whether a stranger or an acquaintance, must give
information to the... magistrates of the place, in order that the
offender may be taken up in due time and punished.... Those who are
aware of such breeches of the orders... and do not give information,
shall be punished by loss of life or property." `061972
Excommunication, like censorship, was adopted by the Protestants
from the Catholics. The Augsburg Confession of 1530 proclaimed the
right of the Lutheran Church to excommunicate any member who should
reject a fundamental Lutheran doctrine. `061973 Luther explained
that "although excommunication in popedom has been and is shamefully
abused, and made a mere torment, yet we must not suffer it to fall,
but make right use of it, as Christ commanded." `061974

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p.534

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By
1530 the new faith had won Hamburg, Bremen, Rostock, Lubeck,
Stralsund, Danzig, Dorpat, Riga, Reval, and almost all the Imperial
cities of Swabia. Iconoclastic riots broke out in Augsburg, Hamburg,
Brunswick, Stralsund. Probably some of this violence was a reaction
against the ecclesiastical use of statues and paintings to inculcate
ridiculous and lucrative legends.

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The princes, gladly adopting Roman law- which made the secular ruler
omnipotent as delegate of the "sovereign people"- saw in Protestantism
a religion that not only exalted the state but obeyed it; now they
could be spiritual as well as temporal lords, and all the wealth of
the Church could be theirs to administer or enjoy. John the Steadfast,
who succeeded Frederick the Wise as Elector of Saxony (1525),
definitely accepted the Lutheran faith, which Frederick had never
done; and when John died (1532) his son John Frederick kept
Electoral Saxony firmly Protestant. Philip the Magnanimous,
Landgrave of Hesse, formed with John the League of Gotha and Torgau
(1526) to protect and extend Lutheranism. Other princes fell in
line: Ernest of Luneburg, Otto and Francis of Brunswick-Luneburg,
Henry of Mecklenburg, Ulrich of Wurttemberg. Albert of Prussia,
Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, following Luther's advice,
abandoned his monastic vows, married, secularized the lands of his
order, and made himself Duke of Prussia (1525). Luther saw himself,
apparently by the mere force of his personality and eloquence, winning
half of Germany.

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Edited by LamarkNewAge, : No reason given.

The only persecution committed by Protestants was against the Anabaptists as I've alreaday said. If your long piece says anything different, forget it.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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Why Europe was overrun by witch hunts in early modern history Quartz

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In 1572, the killings began. That year, authorities in the tiny settlement of St Maximin, in present-day Germany, charged a woman named Eva with using witchcraft to murder a child. Eva confessed under torture; she, along with two women she implicated, were burned at the stake.

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The pace of prosecution picked up from there. By the mid-1590s, the territory had burned 500 people as witchesan astonishing feat, for a place that only had 2,200 residents to begin with.

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Why is it that early modern Europe had such a fervor for witch hunting? Between 1400 to 1782, when Switzerland tried and executed Europe’s last supposed witch, between 40,000 and 60,000 people were put to death for witchcraft, according to historical consensus. The epicenter of the witch hunts was Europe’s German-speaking heartland, an area that makes up Germany, Switzerland, and northeastern France.

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see:https://www.patheos.com/...hes-frigid-wives-prostitutes.htmlAnd What about Servetus in Calvin's Geneva?And so many more...

This is supposed to be a fun place to argue but that length of tome is beyond reasonable. I doubt most folk here are going to read it.You might as well not have posted anything for all the value anyone is going to get from it.Can you summarize or break it up into easily digested chunks? Remember, most of us here are of the modern western culture and need things in 30 second sound bites.