Spanish Inquisition

My own opinion happens to be that religion is maily a wau for humans to cope with the unknowns of death. It is very well known that Christianity was spread by the spanish inquisition, using torture to get their victims to convert or of course die. All that aside here is a simple way of looking at all religious debates wars and such. If you were not born into the belief system you were...would you believe what you believe....in other words.. if you are a christian...imagine you were instead born into a muslim family....you would then thin muslim correct and christianity wrong. perception is reality.

Couple of things.

The "Spanish Inquisition" wasn't technically an organ of the Roman Catholic Church. It was actually run by the Spanish Crown, long after the church had decided that the Inquisition caused more damage than it helped. But of course you've spotted that religion was used for a litmus test of loyalty, since most of the enemies of the crown were muslim insurgents (moors) in recently conquered parts of the Iberian Peninsula, or French and Italian Jews who had just fled from those countries, and were therefore suspect. The main goal of the Spanish Inquisition was to root out Protestants, and give support to the pro-Catholic counter-reformation. It lasted until Napoleon's invasion of Spain.

Most native English-speakers have imbibed the raging anti-catholicism of their protestant ancestors, and confuse the Spanish Inquisition with Catholicism in general. While the Inquisitions were not exactly shining moments in human history, they also were not always the nightmare torture-scenes protrayed in UK and US serials of the 1940's.

In fact, the first Inquisition was administered by local bishops (not the vatican) didn't use torture for its first hundred years, and in later times, confessions obtained by torture were not admissable in court. But if you read "Foxe's Book of Martyrs," or read comic books or watched movies based on other such anti-catholic propaganda, you saw generalizations from the Spanish Inquisitions imposed upon the whole system of local government.

Don't believe me? Read for yourself:
Wikipedia on "Medieval Inquisition"

Secondly, if the only way most people got their religion was by being born into it, then Only Arabs would be muslim, and only a few Jews would follow Jesus. Obvioiusly, some people out there are studying various religions and making up .their own minds.. One of the many reasons that "hardcore" "fundamentalist" arab-muslims hate the west is that some of their members convert to Christianity after comparing it with the way they've been raised. That, plus beer and pork sausage.


No, I'm not a catholic. But I do read old books, which is often nearly as dangerous

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