Thought for Christianity/Islam/any religion that believes that only its members will be saved:
Would it be a good Idea to torture unbelievers until they recanted? When you think about it, it’s like vaccination: a little pain now will save you much later.
If you believe that we Them (those of us who aren’t you) are damned, isn’t it in our best interest to be saved by any means necessary?
[Nitpick]Only some Christians, and as far as I know no Muslims, believe that only followers of their religions will be saved.[/Nitpick]
Even if they did beleive that, neither Christians nor Muslims consider that a declaration of belief extracted by force amounts to conversion. Hence this would not be an effective way of saving people.
[Another Nitpick]As I understand it, the Inquisition did not involve torturing non-Christians to persuade them to accept the Christian faith. Rather it involved torturing those who professed to be Christians but who were suspected of heresy to obtain a confession from them.[/Another nitpick]
I believe you’ll only get a “yes” from somebody who also thought the Salem witch trials were a good idea, or subscribes to the modern day version of the inquisition/crusades- i.e., “shoot’em all and let God sort’em out”.
At least I hope so.
Furthermore, are the torturers now in Hell? Are the people who ordered the torture now in Hell?
But would a tortured confession be sincere? YOu may just lie to get out of being tortured.
Whenever I bring up the Inquisition, my roommate always says that they only “had dealings with”* other Catholics.
Dunno if it’s true…
*Her euphemism
That’s basically true, although their definition of Catholic was rather broad. If you were, for example, a Jew who was forcibly converted to Catholicism, but practiced your faith in secret, you fell under the reach of the Inquisition. If you were a Protestant, you fell under the reach of the Inquisition, because the Catholic Church at the time considered Protestants to be heretical Catholics, etc.
There is a lot of ignorance and a lot of made up stuff regarding the Inquisition. The Inquisition did not torture Jews or Muslims or people from other religions to make them convert as that was totally outside of their jurisdiction which was solely over Catholics accused of heresy.
The Inquisition was not solely a Spanish phenomenom, it was a religious organization subject to the Pope in Rome and it was present in all Catholic countries.
While its methods seem barbaric by today’s standards they were pretty normal at the time in every European country. Wars of religion swept Europe for a couple of centuries and people died in great numbers everywhere. Probably Spain was the European country which suffered the least because protestantism never took hold. Other European countries were more divided and suffered more.
At any rate, since the OP just poses the question of whether it was a good idea, which I cannot quite take seriously, I’ll post some quotes gathered from the Net:
The Inquisition according to Mel Brooks
they throw me in a dungeon and they shove a red hot poker up my ass.
Is that considerate? Is that polite?
And not a tube of Preparation H in sight!"
NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition! Amongst our weaponry are such diverse elements as: fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope, and nice red uniforms (Monty Python)
the Spanish Inquisition was sort of the first game show. Contestants had access to the answers in advance, and were given a choice between giving the correct answer or taking the physical challenge
Oddly enough, that’s the thesis of the most recent Jack Chick tract, which I’m not sure I’ve seen pitted or not. (I’m not going to waste electrons here on a critique of that trash, I’m just bringing it up as a coincidence, and also if Chick says it it’s almost certainly wrong.)
Anyone who’d think of converting someone to Christianity at gunpoint, be it Torquemada or Ann Coulter, knows very little about what Christianity teaches or what it means to be a Christian.
Well, actually, the story of Hawkes he relates, he got from Fox’s book of Martyrs, and is probably basically true. Fox says that Hawkes refused to have his baby baptized Catholic, was sentenced to death by the stake by the bishop, told friends he’d signal to show he didn’t renounce Protestantism, was burned, and while being burned, clapped his hands three times, then died. At that point, though, England was a mess for all concerned.
Well, what do you know, you’re right. In any event, I do not think it means what Chick thinks it means. I do think I will resign from this thread in embarassment.
Well, technically, their jurisdiction was over Catholics accused of any violation of canon law…the heresy trials just got more press than, say, ordering somebody to fast for a week because he missed mass. And, like I said, their definition of “Catholic” was pretty broad, partly because they didn’t recognize Protestantism to be legitimate, and also because they recognized conversions made under duress as valid, so while they wouldn’t say “convert or die”, if the secular authorities said “convert or die”, and people pretended to convert, the Inquisition had jurisdiction
Isn’t there STILL an office of Inquisition today-but it’s used mainly for mundane stupid stuff?
Or for excommunications, or what have you?
Jack Chick is a raving, rabid, anti-Catholic bigot. I wouldn’t take anything he even hinted at remotely seriously when it pertains to an issue usually connected with Catholicism. An afternoon spent perusing his “tracts” online is truly mind-boggling.
To throw in the opposing view, I’ve read some essays on catholic.com and in the online version of the Catholic Encyclopedia that suggested ecclesiastical courts were actually far more lenient than the king’s courts…so much so that supposedly some people would blaspheme in the courtroom to get their case moved into ecclesiastical court. The punishments for crimes set forth by the king’s courts were supposedly quite severe, particularly nasty death penalties for many offenses. It was also hinted at, and I can’t speak for the specifics of this, that a defendant had more rights in ecclesiastical court. This doesn’t excuse the methods of the religious courts of inquiry, but it puts it into perspective a little.
As to the OP, I don’t think the Inquisition in question (the Inquisition is a 1000 year long period occuring throughout southern Europe, but I presume he refers only to the Spanish Inquisition) would have thought the people compelled into confessing heresy were going to heaven. If the heresy once confessed led to excommunication as punishment, they weren’t getting into Heaven.
Anyway, if the OP actually baited anybody into saying that torture was justified he’d probably be tempted to use it as a straw man in every religious debate from here on, so fortunately nobody has done so.
Guin -
we covered his before. it changed its name to (congregation? - too lazy to look it up). Its current boss is our friend, Ratzinger.
and, yes, for the Spanish Inquisition:
- Everyone who wasn’t “Christian” (read: Catholic) was expelled.
ergo,
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Everyone still in Spain must be Christian (Catholic)
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If you are Catholc, the Pope gets to decide if you are Catholic enough
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Torquemada was appointed by the Pope to “cleanse” Spain of “heresy”.
Notes:
Torquemada was Grand Inquisitor #2 for Spain. The first was murdered shortly after his arrival. (Torky brought LOTS of soldiers with him).
Until Vat II (1963-1965), the RCC did not recognize Protestants as “Christian” - they were called “heretics” by the Church.
(ed. - Muslim women attempting to pray to Allah in a Spanish church (used to be a Mosque) were harrassed by civil police, who said that only Christian prayers could be said in that building. “Spanish freedom of religion” still an oxymoron?)
**Rex - **
right. its all a matter of prespective. it wasn’t really that bad.
:rolleyes:
Whoa, you gave me the rolleyes, what a fantastic debating technique! Let me jog that one down in my notebook real quick…
Alright, I understand what you’re getting at. My point grows out of exposure to people who attempt to make the Inquisition seem particularly horrific and deplorable. I merely suggested that to single out the Inquisition amongst the countless injustices committed during that era, injustices within other court systems, is to put far too much an emphasis on the ecclesiastical courts operations.
It’s all well and good to say something like, “Well I deplore the injustices throughout the criminal justice system of that age, ecclesiastical or secular.” I imagine most people would agree with that sentiment. The problem is that people give special mention of the Inquisition as if it were somehow more menacing than all the other things going on in those days. That’s the issue I contend.
Anyways, that part of my post wasn’t to the OP, it was a response to the mention of Jack Chick and his horrid anti-Catholic rhetoric. I’m sure very few of us on this board would agree with his more inflammatory materials, so perhaps a response wasn’t really necessary, but there it is anyways.
Nitpick of the nitpick: There are Muslims who believe only Muslims will be saved; see for example Who are the Jews and Christians who will enter Paradise?* from the Islam Questions & Answers website. Note that Islam Q&A is a pretty hardcore Wahhabite organization, and its views aren’t necessarily held by all Muslims any more than those of hellfire and brimstone fundamentalists are held by all Christians.
*Their answer to the question being basically that Jews who were followers of the Torah before Jesus can enter Paradise, but after that they were supposed to become followers of Jesus; and followers of Jesus before Muhammad are OK, but after the coming of Muhammad, everyone is supposed to convert to Islam.
Not true, really. The Catholic Church recognized Protestants as Christians, just as heretic Christians. What Vatican II did was change the idea to “You’re only a heretic if you reject doctrine after having been educated about it.” In other words, ignorance was a defense against heresy. Therefore, under the new formulation, the original Protestant Reformers were heretics, but their children, who weren’t exposed to Catholic doctrine, couldn’t be considered so.
As for Torquemada, as far as I can tell, he was the first Grand Inquisitor of all of Spain, and not the second. Does your source that claims he was the second give the name of the first man, who was murdered? I know that there had been an Inquisition in Spain before he was appointed, but it had been decentralized. Interestingly, Torquemada was himself descended from Jewish converts, which might explain some of his zeal. I wouldn’t say that it was the Pope who decided who was “Catholic enough” in the Spanish Inquisition. That was more the job of the Inquisition itself, and it was largely autonomous and outside Papal control. Neither Sixtus IV, Innocent VIII, or Alexander VI seemed to care too much about what was going on. Most of the support came from the King and Queen of Spain themselves.
From doing a little research, it looks like the first two Spanish inquisitors (who were appointed by the King, and not the Pope) were two Dominicans named Miguel de Morillo and Juan de San Martin. However, they proved themselves really unpopular, and complaints got sent to Rome, accusing them of being cruel, arresting innocents, torturing them, illegally siezing property, and a list of other complaints, so Sixtus censured them, and, looking at the timeline, it looks like he may have named Torquemada Grand Inquisitor in an attempt to professionalize and stop the abuses of the current inquisition there.