"I no longer want to live on this planet."

[Elok]

Hey, I only pressed the post button once, dagnabit!

[DinoDoc]

The lease has a purchase option which Soho has already said it plans to take, and there isn't much anyone can do to stop them from buying it as long as they pay the asked-for price assessed by Con Ed.

Given the level of financing and competence demonstrated by the project backers thus far, I wouldn't bet on them being able to meet that anytime soon.

[Al B. Sure!]

There are some funny bits in there. While I don't think anybody quoted it, and I don't want to bother, BK has said in this thread that the natives of Central America welcomed the Spanish as liberators for getting rid of their nasty religion. I don't see how you can get angry at something that asinine--it's "there are truly no American troops in Baghdad" funny.

Elok, you should have seen the last time we had this discussion and he claimed that the US never conquered anybody. All the Western expansion was just the US liberating the Native Americans from the British, French, and Spanish and that the Native Americans welcomed Custer and the settlers as liberators.

I just can't believe anybody on the planet could possibly believe this stuff.

However, it's not the first time that this crazy sort of stuff has been posted on Apolyton. Dave Floyd has been a long-time believer in the idea that Black Americans owe the US for bringing them to this country and out of Africa.

[Elok]

Actually, I do vaguely remember that, now that you mention it. That's the kind of thing that makes you wonder if BK isn't just an extremely dedicated troll...but I don't think any human being can be that dedicated to trolling.

[Hauldren Collider]

Sometimes I wonder if BK is simply the greatest troll in the history of the internet.

[Hauldren Collider]

I just can't believe anybody on the planet could possibly believe this stuff.

One word: Serb.

[Elok]

By the by, how does one add tags to a thread? The FAQ was distressingly unspecific. If it's something only a mod can do, I suggest removing all of the existing "Ben being X" ones and just replace them with "Ben being Ben."

EDIT after reading MikeH's thread: I think a BbB tag would be an excellent, not-judgmental-sounding general tag to use, very functional. Just scroll over the tag and if it says BbB you can choose to click on a different thread with kittens and/or babes to spare your blood pressure.

[Guynemer]

I'll keep the old ones, but add that. Good idea.

[Boris Godunov]

Munster was condemned by a significant number of reformers because everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. It solidified in the minds of others that the heretics were in fact a threat to the general population, because look what happened when they took authority, death and destruction.

The death and destruction was wrought by the Church! They are the ones who laid siege to the town and induced hunger, and they are the ones who massacred almost the entire male population upon retaking the city! The reasons European protestants sought to distance themselves from the Anabaptists was precisely because of the horrors the Church visited on the rebels in Munster. Catholic leaders used the rebellion to whip up anti-Protestant sentiment and it led to vehement persecutions of Protestants in other places throughout Europe. Others, such as the Calvinists, repudiated the Anabaptists for their beliefs, not because of any supposed objection to the Munster uprising. Why would Calvinists support a group that advocated polygamy? If the Reformationists suddenly became pacifistic after Munster, indicating some sort of "repudiation" of the groups methods, then why did there continue to be uprisings around Europe? Your thesis makes zero sense in the light of historical facts.

non-Catholic sources that were horrified by what happened at Munster, condemned and repudiated everyone who was involved. There's no justification for what they did. None whatsoever. The only savagery was on the part of the supposed 'reformers' where they overthrew legitimate authority.

Then cite your non-Catholic sources and present actual facts about what they supposedly did to the city.

How on earth could you NOT think it savage of the Church to massacre almost every male in the city, even if the Munster rebels had been as bad as you claim? Or to torture people for days and then execute them, displaying their corpses in cages for all to see?

Bruno would have been fine if he had been willing to work with anyone. The Calvinists and Lutherans expelled him pretty much as soon as he came to be there.

Civil unrest isn't justifiable by Christianity. Christ said that his followers were not to attack or oppose the legitimate authority. Ever. There are non-violent means to protest.

Don't know enough about what happened to him in Venice. He was well known by that time, and certainly wasn't welcome there. He had a sublime talent of pissing everyone off, which has nothing to do with his beliefs.

Then why was he expelled by everyone? Presuming that his only difficulties were lack of orthodoxy, he would have been accepted by the Lutherans and Calvinists. However, he was excommunicated from both of them. The Church even tried to reconcile with him, and all he had to do was return to his order.

Why would you assume that the Lutherans and Calvinists would tolerate Bruno's unorthodoxy any more than the Catholic Church would? His teachings would have been considered eccentric by any of their standards. That's not the point, however. In almost all cases, Bruno got along fine with the civil authorities, it was the religious authorities that he pissed off, largely because of his teachings. Why else would the charges levied against him all be based on his beliefs? The attempt of the Church to "reconcile" with him was demanding he do what Galileo would have to do, which was completely recant and renounce his beliefs. That's not reconciliation, that's capitulation, and it proves exactly what I'm saying: the Church was implacably unable to to tolerate differing religious views and coerced people via threat of death into toeing the theological line.

Your statement that "Bruno would have been fine" more than ably proves my point. Yes, he *may* have been fine had he submitted to the violent coercion of the Church to recant his beliefs. While he recanted most of it, on a very few things he refused, and yet he was still condemned to death. That proves the Church used coercion, threat of death and actual execution against people because of their different religious beliefs. Game, set, match.

Why on earth is it morally acceptable to burn someone alive because they don't believe the "right" thing? Given your statement about how civil unrest is "never justified," it's clear that your views are repulsively authoritarian: The Church or a civil government is perfectly allowed to use violent means to keep people in line, even those who haven't actually done anyone any harm, but if the people try to resist such brutal actions via armed rebellion, they're wrong. I suppose you believe the English Crown was on the right side of the American Revolution and should have tortured and executed Washington, Jefferson, Adams, etc.?

There were plenty who believed the same as Bruno who were not punished, arrested or tried. So the question becomes, why him? What explicitly did he do that tripped the wire so to speak?

Ok, cite examples of such heretics that the Church had the full power to arrest and punish but just let them be. But even if there are cases, so what? The examples of people burned at the stake for heresy are numerous enough as to defy any attempt to claim Bruno was some sort of aberration.

The charges are listed right there, Ben. That's prima facie evidence he was tried and convicted for his beliefs, not for any supposed insurrection you fantasize that he caused. Either the Church tried and condemned him to death for his alternative beliefs, or they lied when they wrote up those charges. Which is it--intolerance or lying?

But don't take my word for it. How about the Catholic Encyclopedia?

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03016a.htm

Bruno was not condemned for his defence of the Copernican system of astronomy, nor for his doctrine of the plurality of inhabited worlds, but for his theological errors, among which were the following: that Christ was not God but merely an unusually skilful magician, that the Holy Ghost is the soul of the world, that the Devil will be saved, etc.

There is no mention in that entire article of Bruno fomenting any sort of unrest, nor of him being killed by the Church for anything other than heresy. Given the penchant for the CE to sanitize Church history, their failure to even attempt to assign any other crimes to him is inexplicable, and proves beyond any serious doubt that you're inventing wholesale justification for his murder by the Church.

Actually he did it twice. Once they showed lenience, the second time they did not.

Cite. There is no mention in the CE or any other source I can find that Hus ever incited any rebellion against civil authorities. The history is plain that while he vociferously denounced the Church sale of indulgences, he did not in any way take up arms or incite people to arms against the rulers of Czechoslovakia. On the contrary, he actually enjoyed the protection of the most significant civil authority in the realm, King Wenceslaus. Hus had the support of Bohemian civil leaders because he argued vehemently that Bohemia should have the same freedoms in ecclesiastical affairs as other countries. Again, the CE makes no mention of Hus inciting any sort of civil unrest, so this is just a complete fiction you've concocted.

One, he didn't have a choice in it.

More didn't have a choice in having heretics burned at the stake?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_more#Influence_and_reputation

Ackroyd, however, notes that More "approved of Burning"[40] For example, after the case of John Tewkesbury, a London leather-seller found guilty by More of harboring banned books, and who was sentenced to be burnt to death at the stake for refusing to recant, More declared: he "burned as there was neuer wretche I wene better worthy."[41] In total, there were six heretics burned at the stake during More's Chancellorship: Thomas Hitton, Thomas Bilney, Richard Bayfield, John Tewkesbery, Thomas Dusgate, and James Bainham.[42]

Yes, he sounds like a man very much grieved by having to burn heretics...

Two, the fact that he was executed determined the limits of his authority. He could have resigned, which eventually he tried to do, but was not given leave.

What the hell does this have to do with it? He didn't try to resign because of your imagined opposition to burning heretics, he resigned solely because of the issue of Henry's annulment.

In 1530 More refused to sign a letter by the leading English churchmen and aristocrats asking the Pope to annul Henry's marriage to Catherine; he also quarrelled with Henry VIII over the heresy laws. In 1531 he attempted to resign after being forced to take an oath declaring the king the Supreme Head of the English Church "as far as the law of Christ allows"; he refused to take the oath in the form in which it would renounce all claims of jurisdiction over the church except the sovereign's. In 1532 he asked the king again to relieve him of his office, claiming that he was ill and suffering from sharp chest pains. This time Henry granted his request.

Oh, and you're wrong about his resigning, no surprise there: while his first attempt to resign was not successful, his second was.

I've never heard anyone refer to them here, except myself. Either it's wilfull ignorance or prejudice that stops people from referring to it.

Refer to them here? That wasn't your claim. You claimed the history books ignored it. Can't you keep you ridiculous stories straight for more than a couple posts at a time?

[Boris Godunov]

Torture that won't kill or maim someone? Sure. I don't have a problem with interrogating people who kill other people.

How is burning people at the stake not torture, and not killing people? The notion that the Church only was "interrogating" people is laughably and obscenely untrue. One of the most common torture devices used was the rack, precisely because it didn't draw blood or cause permanent mutilation. Care to guess how pleasant it is to be put on the rack?

[Boris Godunov]

Given the level of financing and competence demonstrated by the project backers thus far, I wouldn't bet on them being able to meet that anytime soon.

Quite possibly, but irrelevant. They still have every right under the lease to purchase the rest of the parcel, should they have the funds. Technically, they wouldn't even have to purchase the parcel to build on it, they'd just need to keep leasing it.

[Boris Godunov]

There are some funny bits in there. While I don't think anybody quoted it, and I don't want to bother, BK has said in this thread that the natives of Central America welcomed the Spanish as liberators for getting rid of their nasty religion. I don't see how you can get angry at something that asinine--it's "there are truly no American troops in Baghdad" funny.

No doubt to him the Pueblo Rebellion was an unjust uprising of social malcontents against their noble, completely fair Franciscan benefactors.

[Dr Strangelove]

One word: Serb.

You don't remember Ned or CivNation do you?

[Hauldren Collider]

No, I joined the forum in February this year.

[Elok]

Ned was sort of like BK in his worldview, only heavier on the "right wing" and lighter on the "Christian." Also, he was familiar with the concept of intellectual honesty and didn't hate any particular group except perhaps liberals, IIRC. He just viewed the world in a completely unhinged manner.

I never met CivNation as CivNation, but he came back as Philosophizer, a poster so utterly, primitively and irrationally theocratic as to make BK appear almost postmodernist. Seriously. He was a diehard Calvinist student of a school of thought called "presuppositionalism," which takes the fundamentalist habit of distrusting any idea not found in the Bible and enshrines it as the ultimate intellectual principle. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presupp...al_apologetics if you want a headache. Anyway, the Philosophizer argument I remember best went as follows: "You know why so many Jewish and Protestant people are so successful? Because God likes them better. What? There are successful Catholics too? That's because their ancestors were Good Christians, and they're sort of skating on God's indulgence."