NOBLE ARMY OF "HERETICS"

After trashing his own RC historian and best selling author - Thomas Bokenkotter, JS acdtually stops to take a look at a key point Bokenkotter and says

But notice that his "first reaction" is to villanize what he does not understand EVEN if it is his own RC historian.

Then - to villanize the unnarmed peasants fighting the kings army - as being "horrible Lutherans".

BE informed my Lutheran bretheren - that is all it takes.

And this is not to say that he is really singling out Lutherans. Surely - other non-RC groups were included in that anathemas hurled against "heretics" and hence the title of this thread.

In Christ,

Bob

 

Actually, I have addressed most of your quotes before and have provided my own counter ones which I haven't seen you say anything about.

First, I addressed the Catholic digest quote but the only thing that could be gathered from it was that Anabaptists were heavily persecuted in the time of the Reformation and Peasants' War. I then demonstrated the well-known fact that the Protestant authorties (similar to some contemporary Catholics) of the time were very persistent in their persecution and suppression of Anabaptism, not hesistating to enforce the death plenty. The problem this brings up is that this religious intolerance of the Reformation comes from the reformers themselves. Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli were all supportive about suppressing hersey and putting heretics to death.

You then talk about unarmed peasants being slaughtered by the nobles. A few things should be brought to light. First, the nobles were both Protestant and Catholic. Second, Luther exhorted the nobility to slaughter the rebels. I will again provide what he told Protestant leaders at the time to do:

Your vision of unarmed peasant armies is actually partially true. This is surely the image that comes up with Thomas Munzer and the battle of Frankenhausen. Truly a tragic event since Munzer's army was quite subdued from its earlier jubliance where it commanded the field in sacking churches and monasteries. Now Munzer was up against a Protestant army and with defeat spelled out for them, he lead them out onto the field anyway trying to keep them in high spirits, promising that their prayers would save them. Not the case though, the Protestant army slaughtered 5,000 of them.

Overall though, this isn't the picture of the Peasant's War. It was a very brutal war where well over 100,000 perished. Will Durant documents the opening of hostilities:

There comes a time when the authorities simply can't sit back and let themselves be killed by the mobs that show no mercy. Since the rebellion was Lutheran in nature, as Bokenkotter has infallibly declared and is surely the case given the collaborating sources, then Lutheranism called for bloody and radical revolt surely much to the credit of Luther's vocal support for uprising. I sure hope Christians are allowed to defend themselves from people trying to kill them.

 

It amounts to you trying to find division within the RCC - since I quote only your OWN RC sources.

You seem to have a hard time with that fact.

Actually - the devastating "point" to be addressed from the Catholic Digest quote was that the RCC was exterminating the Godly saints of the dark ages...

I supposed you could respond by trying villanize non-Catholics - but his board probably isnt the place to do that.

I then show from the Vatican news quotes - that quoted RC SOURCES - that the VAST reign of terror that the RCC conducted in europe spanned century after century in the dark ages and was NOT limited to that small window of the reformation as some revisionist historian-wanna-be posters have spun it.

Notice the "detail" --

Could the brutal but short history of Mormon leaders compare with such monsterous cruelty? Obviously not.

The Catholic historian von Dollinger writes in The Pope and the Council,

The problem is that ALL of these were CATHOLICS!

Get it? They were born, raised and trained as Catholics. And the quotes above SHOW exactly WHAT the RCC was "teaching" - Lateran IV with its commands to "Exterminate" comes to mind.

Sadly - your OWN RC historian points out that the nobles viewed slaughter of the common people AS an attack on LUTHER and LUTHERANS.

You have hardly a leg to stand on. This is a confession from YOUR OWN. They admit that in fact this is NOT a symbol of LUTHER's triumph - it is a symbol of ROME. Catholic Digest Admits it, Bokenkotter admits it. All you have to "obfuscate" and "misdirect" is the rather empty quote below - in "answer" to your OWN RC authorities that contradict you

JS quotes

It is left as an exercise for the reader to see the level of support that the Catholic Digest AND the Vatican sources AND the RC historian Bokenkotter have - vs JS.

This is indeed a case where you must wage war "against your own" to make your revisionism stick.

In Christ,

Bob

 

I applaud your finding one example in all of history. Surely more than one could be had.

In the mean time - your OWN sources admit to 80 Popes doing "the same" over CENTURIES.

Get used to it - some of the truth of history is EVEN available from your "own".

JS said --

As Fr. Ken Ryan of Catholic Digest said ...

As your own RC sources admit --

About 50 scholars from Europe, the United States and Latin America are taking part.

In Christ,

Bob

 

Hey if these two guys say it, then let's not argue the matter.

Anyways, you are absolutely right. This wasn't a triumph for bloody insurrection and civil disobedience, it was a triumph of justice since the radical ideals of the rebels that demanded worldwide holocaust of Catholics were conquered. Luther's vision of a violent end of Catholicism never came true.

As to what my "own sources" admit to: Catholic digest is talking about Anabaptists which the Reformers demanded suppression of, so quickly Bob do you forget what you are quoting and what it means. Also, the hotbed of the rebellion was in a territory with largely Protestant authorties and the most bloody battle of the entire war was a Protestant alliance fighting Protestant rebels, go figure. I for one am proud that the Protestant nobility stopped the rampant terrorizing of Catholics by the peasants.

Mr. Bokenkotter devotes all of 3 sentences to the Peasants' War, so of course let's not contest what he says, everything he says is the infallible truth.

Protestant historian Philip Schaff doesn't need to shy away from the truth.

The only question I have then is, where are the true Christians, the true children of God in all this mess? Does the trail of blood kind of stall here during the Reformation? - since by your own admission you are forced to "abandon" the Reformers themselves once you have found out how evil they really were. Was God's true children the peasants who started their mission to "evangelize" by terrorizing the Catholic clergy and ravaging the countryside?

Your current display of scholarship Bob is set to eclipse your well-known Durant debacle.

 

Hmmm. How much "affirmation" of JP2 do we find on these boards by the RC members - as compared to this non-RC member that "keeps quoting him"?

I must be "his strongest supporter"! (At least at the moment).

In Christ,

Bob

 

The RC "trick" is to "pretend" that these RC members - these RC reformers that were driven out for trying to correct "some" of the errors of Catholicism - were in fact the "kings and emperors" of Europe controlling vast armies on "day one".

But the "truth" is that these reformers were 'barely kept alive'. Many of them tortured and slaughtered by the cruel Catholic overlords.

As the Pope admits

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pope John Paul has said in several documents and speeches that the Church needs to assume responsibility for the Inquisition, which was responsible for the forced conversion of Jews as well as the torture and killing of heretics.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In Christ,

Bob

 

JS said

Hardly!

Rather I applaud these Catholics as they emerged from the fog of the dark ages cast over humanity as a gift from the RCC's centuries of error infused into Christianity.

I am amazed that they were able to shake off as much worthless-tradition as they did - so quickly.

I can hardly blame them for having some bits of Catholic error still clinging to them as they walk out the door toward the light.

For now - I am going with the Pope as he admits to the atrocities of the RCC - as IT controlled ALL OF EUROPE for the "centuries" of its tortures and exterminations of the saints.

In Christ,

Bob

 

Imagine a Mormon leader in the 1800's having a 'warship' and torturing his leutenants when miffed by some wild paranoia.

And yet

What depths of darkness of the human soul exhibited by the very leaders of the Catholicism in the dark ages.

Notice that the RC historian admits that this model of torment and torture began with the conversion of Constantine.

In Christ,

Bob

 

That is great Bob. Anyways, all the major points of contention have been fully addressed and your scholarship has been fully debunked. Now you are just going around in your typical circle of scholarship that you have created and I guess this is the first part of the recycling process. Of course I don't expect to have the last word here but some one has to step up and call it quits and you haven't indicated any desire to do so by recycling your posts. I know a dead horse when I see one.

A pleasure chatting with you sir. Until next time...

 

Wrong.

The only thing that has been done is a constant 'dodge of the point" raised - never an actual "response".

Your vaccuous statement above is a perfect example -.

#1. Bokenkotter is YOUR best selling RC historian - not an SDA Historian - nor even a Baptist historian - he is an RC historian and best-selling well-known author.

Each time you fail to "get" the high level of objectivity that I AM using and that you have utterly failed to use - I simply point it out "again". I have gone so far as to only use YOUR OWN RC authorites - NOT MINE. You can't even begin to respond at that same level of objectivity and you admit it.

Still this point is "lost on you" to this day as your post above shows. You "pretend" not to notice the huge gap in objectivity in our discussion.

#2. You have not provided "Any data at all" that discredits the scholarship or research of YOUR OWN RC historian Bokenkotter. Though your position "needs you to discredit RC authorities as they are quoted". INSTEAD what we have is OTHER RC sources ALSO AGREEING - as in the case of Fr. Ken Ryan.

Failling to provide "substance" in your argument you simply "post the assumption" that you have actually "debunked something". In this case "debunked your OWN RC authorities". You seem to assume that "by pretending" you are free to ignore the devastating revelations of YOUR OWN authorities.

How "unnexpected".

But your last post does bring up a good point. You seem to presume that we should "ignore logical fallacy after logical fallacy in the RC responses so far and just PRETEND that they have ever actually responded to the points raised".

Perhaps the RC tactic is that "repetition" of a failed argument is a RC kind of substitute for "compelling response to a point raised". How sad if that is really what you are doing.

I simply "hold your feet to the fire" on the POINTS where you are weak. You complain that I do it - and so far this is your "only" response to the exposure of your failed argument to the light of day.

That tactic would only work if this were a Catholic-only message board and I were posting as a guest. (obviously)

In Christ,

Bob

[ February 27, 2004, 10:03 PM: Message edited by: BobRyan ]

 

This dead horse just won't give it up!

I hope I made myself clear Bob. This discussion effectively ended about 6 messages back where I exposed entirely your sham agenda and "facts" and replaced it with historical truth, then you just started recycling your posts and avoided the discussion so this admission is basically yours by default. It is interesting how much ranting you can do on the "concepts" and "philosophy" of scholarship, but once we actually get into the facts and discussion your agenda simply collapses under the weight of responsible scholarship.

Your ability to quote from what you falsely identify as "RC" sources does not mean you are exempt from the rules of scholarship (notice that I haven't used any "RC sources"). You seem to think that whatever the above "source" says is automatically correct by default. I haven't had to take this into consideration a whole lot since in most cases you either misquote, take out of context, cite sources completely irrelevant to the discussion, or quote from sources that have an obvious agenda and are fundamentally unscholarly (one will recall well that Mr. Ryan's prime source on the Peasant's War was from a book that devoted all of 3 sentences to the issue).

There is no reason why I should waste anymore of my time entertaing your agenda and correcting your falsehoods (I think most people can simply do that on their own while reading your posts). There comes a time when credibility becomes a factor and when a person suffers continous and devastating (to use your word) blows to their credibility, like you have, then the sane man is completely justified in dismissing anything they say as false.


This should successfully bring fully into light Bob's methods of scholarship since in the past I haven't completely exposed them in their techincal sense since I assumed that everyone was familiar with them and naturally being inclined to actually test Mr. Ryan's scholarship with real historical discussion and not argue on points of rhetoric like Bob is so wont to do.

 

JS - you continue to "claim" you have addressed (or destroyed) the scholarship of your OWN RC authorities and sources - like Bokenkotter, Fr. Ken Ryan, the Vatican News press quotes of RC scholars etc -- but have "Failed to do so".

Notice your wild claims "again".

JS said

So did you destroy your OWN RC historian's "Scholarship" as you claim JS?


No? I thought not.

Did you "destroy" the CAtholic Digest or Fr. Ken Ryan's work as quoted here ?

No? I thought not.

Did you "prove" that these are "not RC sources"?

No? I thought not.

In fact - you were unnable to establish a single point against the RC sources I quoted - other than your "need" to discredit your OWN RC authorities.

Bokenkotter and Catholic Digest both agreed on the subject of the Peasants wars and BOTH are well published well recognized RC sources.

You are simply "stuck" trying to discredit what you seem to barely understand. Luther was NOT in charge of Europe. And Luther WAS Catholic. Yet his enemies thought they were attacking Lutheranism by slaughtering peasants.

Clearly your argument has failed you. No wonder you seek a way out. The News articles show that even the Pope is seeking a way to appologize for the monsterous tortures and crimes of the RCC in the dark ages.

Or do you need "that quote again" as well?

Your "point" seems to be that "Some Catholics will ignore all these Catholic sources to keep their faith". Those Catholics will then "pretend" that I am the SOURCE behind these RC authorities - blaiming ME for what best-selling RC historians say.

That is the one point you have made well.

In Christ,

Bob

 

Bob, you keep arguing with your points of rhetoric and I will keep arguing with the facts. As long as you hold on to your anti-Catholic agenda, there is no chance that we can actually engage in scholarly discussion. It will remain, as it has been, as me educating you on history and you misdirecting the discussion. This gets old after a while though.

 

Actually, this is an improvement for him, so maybe you could offer some encouraging words.

 

That would be an interesting change.

Would you like to start "now"?

I have been trying to get you to respond "to the facts" -- so far you are having a hard time villanizing your own RC authorities so you can "make a point".

(Now don't you think it is a bit ironic that YOU have to villanize Catholics to make your point about Catholic history in general?).

I find it "instructive". No wonder you are simply whining about it now instead of responding to the points I keep raising.

JS said

How sad that you would insist that I need to "be Catholic" in order to see you failed responses as "compelling". Surely you can't be satisfied with such a "weak" response. Come on JS - try.

Your own Historians your own best selling authors - your own Papal authorities, your own Councils -- this is what I am quoting.

Do you not have any objectivity left "at all"?

I appreciate your "take one incident from history" approach to "try to make your case".

But notice that in the RC quotes I give - your OWN authorities define the RC problem as much LARGER than ONE incident in history.

Please try to come up with a compelling response.

Data.

Facts.

Something that addresses the full scope of what your OWN sources define as the problem.

(And I "know" that in your response you must "pretend" that you can't see this obvious gap between what you are actually posting and what you want to "claim" you have done... but try)

In Christ,

Bob

 

Since JS is "pretending" to find it "so hard to respond to the POINTS raised" lets take this "ONE" example and identify the salient points in the article.

As already noted in this post the "one-off" approach of JS has been "noted"

A confession from well published well-known RC sources.

</font>[/QUOTE]#1. The use of the term "exterminated" is very clear. Recall how the RC members here tried to "obfuscate that" in early discussions. The point above however - is "clear". Impossible to miss.

#2. Notice that the widely published RC source above - decides to admit that what everyone is calling persecution and torture of the saints - the RC simply calls "punish" by "extermination"

Again - a point "impossible to miss"

Here again Catholic authorities are admitting to a hint of the problem in a vast sweep of history.

Notice how "top" RC authorities are "again" being quoted?

Just "more Catholics for JS to discredit"? - How ironic?

Notice "who" the article quotes?

Hmmm. "The Pope"?

Now JS has to discredit "his own Pope"??!!

How "ironic" that he must trash so many well recognized Catholic sources to make "his case against them" and "for his view of RC history".

So here is the question for the reader - WHERE does JS "actually respond" to EACH of the points raised in these simple examples?

No where?

I thought not.

And yet he wants to "claim" that he is "dealing with the facts".


In Christ,

Bob

 

Good point Harley. Isn't it sad though how Bob has to keep putting on this "act" to cover up his gross errors even though he is just making the situation worse?

I would recommend that Bob go back and read all my posts to his now recycled messages if he still has objections. I won't re-post it because I am not racing to get to the 5,000 post club like Bob.

 

So many points made, so many ways to dodge the points made -- so little time - eh JS? Yours is a busy life.

And - to the point that Bokenkotter made about the persecution of the Peasants as an attack against Lutherans...?

And to the point that the Catholic digest makes aobut the RCC being to blame for the SAME thing...?

What do "you have to say"?

You say that Luther WROTE something and NOT that he killed a anyone or had an army he could command. The RC sources "remain" correct - it was the RCC that "owned that operation" AND they saw it as "an attack against Lutheranism".

Trying to blame one lone catholic monk for all the monsterous deeds done by the RCC in the dark ages - does not work even when one uses YOUR OWN sources.

In Christ,

Bob

 

All of which I have already addressed before and yet even now you still add more distortions to both your sources and my agrument.

It is not "dodging" Bob, it is me thinking to myself "this person doesn't have a clue what they are talking about".