# Examples of Forced Christianity **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 13, 2009, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-forced-christianity/481110 "2009-01-13T17:04:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Nzinga\_Seated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5ac83/32.png) [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2009, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-forced-christianity/481110/41 "2009-01-14T06:31:14Z")
> [@Zoe](#): > > A new use for General Questions I don’t actually come to this forum that often. If I have used the forum improperly, I admit it isn’t the first time. Once, I asked if there is such a thing as a pill that could send someone insane, because I wanted to argue that topic better with a different friend that I enjoy trying to debate with. The answers I got were great, and I used it for terrific ammo with my friend. I appreciate the dopers for that kind of thing, but I’m not trying to use General Questions for ‘evil’ or anything. ETA: Also, I tried to keep it real in the OP about why I’m asking. ---
**Author:** ![Rayne\_Man](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/df705f/32.png) [@Rayne\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rayne_Man)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2009, 8:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-forced-christianity/481110/42 "2009-01-14T08:27:43Z")
This sort of happened at the end of the Spanish Civil War when many children were forcibly removed from their Communist and Republican parents and given to “good Catholic families” to “educate the communism out of them”. As shown in this article :- [http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:loVz8bqOHa0J:frum.nationalreview.com/post/%3Fq%3DNjE2NmE0YWU2MmQwOTg3Y2RkYjhlZDcxNTdmYzY4MTY%3D+communist+children+adoption+spanish+civil+war&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=8&gl=uk](http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:loVz8bqOHa0J:frum.nationalreview.com/post/%3Fq%3DNjE2NmE0YWU2MmQwOTg3Y2RkYjhlZDcxNTdmYzY4MTY%3D+communist+children+adoption+spanish+civil+war&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=8&gl=uk) _The regime removed children from politically suspect parents.] In 1943 there were 12,043 children taken from their mothers and handed over to the Falangist Auxilio Social, to orphanages and to religious organizations. Some of these children were passed on for adoption to selected families …_ ---
**Author:** ![EvilTOJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee59a6/32.png) [@EvilTOJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EvilTOJ)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2009, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-forced-christianity/481110/43 "2009-01-14T09:46:32Z")
31 posts to get to the Spanish Inquisition. I wasn’t expecting that. ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2009, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-forced-christianity/481110/44 "2009-01-14T11:07:12Z")
> [@Bam\_Boo\_Gut](#): > > The Spanish Inquisition was pretty brutal. The Inquisition, Spanish or otherwise, was only concerned with those who were already Christian and did not force conversions to Christianity so it does not at all fit the OP. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2009, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-forced-christianity/481110/45 "2009-01-14T11:28:21Z")
> [@sailor](#): > > The Inquisition, Spanish or otherwise, was only concerned with those who were already Christian and did not force conversions to Christianity so it does not at all fit the OP. However, being baptised was enough to qualify. And non catholic christians weren’t off the hook. ---
**Author:** ![Maastricht](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@Maastricht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maastricht)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2009, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-forced-christianity/481110/46 "2009-01-14T11:38:36Z")
> [@Nzinga\_Seated](#): > > I am loving this thread. Thanks guys. I have already quickly dispensed with my friend. I emailed her links in between my customer calls at work, and she was reduced to getting all personal. (It just feels like you don’t like me when you say these things). Ha. Ha, but prepare to lose your friend over this. I had a similar discussion with a Christian friend in my early twenties. I had started my academic studies, and was in love with critical thinking, facts and cites, everything good I was taught then. I bombarded my friend with cites, the same way you do. Her reaction was similar: “When I hear you, it all seems like it isn’t true”. She then made up her mind that I was attacking her faith. Which was just the thing someone influenced by Evil would do. And she had been taught to turn away from all things evil, and to protect her faith. So, she broke up our friendship. :mad:☹ I’m still sad about that sometimes. Her parents, especially, had been very good to me as a kid. And they, too, severed ties with me after that. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2009, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-forced-christianity/481110/47 "2009-01-14T11:46:10Z")
> [@mbh](#): > > When Ferdinand and Isabella unified Spain, Jews and Muslims had to convert, or emigrate, or else. A lot of the “conversos” were suspected of continuing to practice Judaism behind closed doors. Please leave her outside of this, it was his doing: thank you. He did it in Aragon first and, during his regency for his daughter and later grandson, in Castilla, but not before Isabella was dead. Navarra was the last of the three kingdoms to enter the fold. Ferdinand was king of Aragon and after a civil war/invasion, of Navarra; Isabella was Queen of Castilla. Their grandson, Emperor Charles V, was the first person to hold all three crowns since Sancho III of Navarra. Back to the Christians-on-Christians, the crusade against the cathars is the source of the line “kill them all, let God pick his own.” ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2009, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-forced-christianity/481110/48 "2009-01-14T11:51:36Z")
**Nzinga,** as has been already pointed out Christianity was the excuse, not the real reason. Ferdinand was up to his eyebrows in debt to the Jews and kicking the Muslims from their land, then sending there the Navarrese who still were against him was a way to attack the roots of the Navarrese problem, for example. This second tactic has been used by such luminaries as for example Stalin, which I don’t think will be raised to the altars any time soon. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2009, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-forced-christianity/481110/49 "2009-01-14T11:54:51Z")
> [@Santo\_Rugger](#): > > Native Americans tribes in the Southwest were forced to convert to Christianity when the Spanish Conquistadors came through the area. Some were swayed by the priests and monks who came through first; others were enslaved and forced to convert. I don’t believe there was slaughter, but there were definitely murders. For that matter, Native Americans were in many instances “forced” to convert by American colonists - children snatched from tribes and put in Christian orphanages or boarding houses, punished when they didn’t use English to communicate or mentionned their previous culture, that sort of thing. The Australians did the same with their Aboriginals. One could possibly argue it was a matter of grabbing land by eliminating opposition down the line, and less an issue of religion than general culture, but isn’t it most often the case ? ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2009, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-forced-christianity/481110/50 "2009-01-14T13:47:09Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Please leave her outside of this, it was his doing: thank you. He did it in Aragon first and, during his regency for his daughter and later grandson, in Castilla, but not before Isabella was dead. The edict of expulsion expelled non-converted Jews from both Castille and and Aragon in 1492, when Isabella was very much alive. Portugal expelled its Jews in 1496, and Navarre in 1497, so it can’t all be blamed on Ferdinand. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2009, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-forced-christianity/481110/51 "2009-01-14T20:34:14Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Please leave her outside of this, it was his doing: thank you. He did it in Aragon first and, during his regency for his daughter and later grandson, in Castilla, but not before Isabella was dead. Forced conversion of Muslims preceded first in Castile 1500-1502, Navarre 1515-1516, finally Aragon in 1523-1526. Ferdinand was not necessarily the problem at least as regards to Muslims. To quote: _No doubt it was the attitude of the royal family that was decisive. Here we cannot speak with absolute certainty, and we have to evaluate two contradictory indicators. The Portuguese marriage negotiations in which Cisneros had acted as trusted advisor to the Crown, as we have seen, show him and the monarchs as working in concert towards the elimination of Islam from Christian lands. However, as an indicator that royal commitment to what one might call “religious cleansing” was **not** unconditional, it must not be forgotten, as has been stated above, that all his life Ferdinand never allowed the Muslims of those kingdoms over which he himself reigned ( Aragon, Valencia ) to be harassed in any way. It was not that Ferdinand was pro-Muslim, but he was not prepared to break his coronation oaths._ From Muslims in Spain, 1500-1614 by L. P. Harvey ( 2005, University of Chicago Press ). Isabel was deeply pious and very strong-willed. Ferdinand had ambitions in North Africa that necessitated a more real politik stance. The assumption then is that Isabel must have played a role in royal proscriptions against Muslims. Now in terms of the Jews, Ferdinand ( who was himself part Jewish ) _was_ to blame for aggressively spreading the Castilian inquisition into Aragon ( in the face of considerable local opposition ). How much of that was genuine piety and how much an attempt to exert more centralized control continues to be debateable, but the consequences were certainly real regardless. ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-forced-christianity/481110/52 "2009-01-16T22:45:10Z")
I’ve read of Charlemagne that he once converted 850 people to Christianity in a single day with his sword. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2009, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-forced-christianity/481110/53 "2009-01-17T04:32:03Z")
> [@Nzinga\_Seated](#): > > I am trying to learn some debating skills, and am having an argument with a friend about Christianity. > > I need some examples of slaughter of people by ‘Christians’ because others have not accepted Christianity. Can anyone provide me with examples and cites? Need answer fast! Thanks. The Albigensians. > **[Catharism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathar)** > > Catharism (/ˈkæθərɪzəm/ KATH-ər-iz-əm; from the Ancient Greek: καθαροί, romanized: katharoí, "the pure ones") was a Christian quasi-dualist and pseudo-Gnostic movement which thrived in northern Italy and southern France between the 12th and 14th centuries. > Denounced as a heretical sect by the Catholic Church, its followers were attacked first by the Albigensian Crusade and later by the Medieval Inquisition, which eradicated them by 1350. Thousands were slaughtered, hanged, or burned at t Follo... ---
**Author:** ![katie9264](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/df788c/32.png) [@katie9264](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/katie9264)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2009, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-forced-christianity/481110/54 "2009-01-17T19:36:04Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > The Albigensians. > > [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathar](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathar) Uh, wait, you people do realize that the Cathars were Christians right? They would have been disgusted by the idea of having their deaths exploited for someone to make cheap anti-religious arguments. They saw themselves as holy martyrs for the true Church of Christ. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2009, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-forced-christianity/481110/55 "2009-01-17T19:59:54Z")
> [@katie9264](#): > > Uh, wait, you people do realize that the Cathars were Christians right? They would have been disgusted by the idea of having their deaths exploited for someone to make cheap anti-religious arguments. Strictly speaking, the Cathars weren’t Christians, in the fullest sense of the word; they believed in two gods, at a time when Christian doctrine was fairly well-established. ---
**Author:** ![jakesteele](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ed8c4c/32.png) [@jakesteele](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jakesteele)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2009, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-forced-christianity/481110/56 "2009-01-17T20:15:37Z")
Well, I can think of the Native Americans in our country. Back in the day Pizzarro and other conquistadors from Spain along with, basically, any european explorers and settlers kicked the shit out of the indigenous peoples and forced them to speak english and get Jesus. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2009, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-forced-christianity/481110/57 "2009-01-18T04:10:09Z")
That must have been an interesting period with Pizzarro attempting to compel all those people in the Andean highlands to speak English. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2009, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-forced-christianity/481110/58 "2009-01-18T04:39:34Z")
> [@Anne\_Neville](#): > > One famous example is the slaughter of Jews by [Crusaders](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Jews_in_the_First_Crusade) Actually, in a rare example of Wikipedia being right, that article does note that the entire Catholic Hierarchy stood strongly opposed to violence against the Jews. Some of the Bishops and priests in Germany put themselves at considerable personal risk by offering the local Jewish population chances to shelter in churches, or even in their own homes. There was most certainly not any endorsement of violence against Jews in Germany by the Catholic Church. The violence in Germany was the fault of rogue elements outside of church control. There’s a detailed presentation on the subject in Steven Runciman’s excellent three-volume _History of the Crusades_. > [@](#): > > But Jews couldn’t escape the Nazis by converting. The Nazis also killed Christians of Jewish descent. And they also killed thousands of Christians just for the sake of killing Christians, though it isn’t mentioned often. Most of the Catholic clergy in Poland ended up either shot or sent to concentration camps, as part of the Nazi effort to eliminate Christianity. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2009, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-forced-christianity/481110/59 "2009-01-18T05:12:26Z")
> [@Santo\_Rugger](#): > > Native Americans tribes in the Southwest were forced to convert to Christianity when the Spanish Conquistadors came through the area. Some were swayed by the priests and monks who came through first; others were enslaved and forced to convert. I don’t believe there was slaughter, but there were definitely murders. > [@Nzinga](#): > > Oh, I’m using this! It may not be slaughter, but it makes a good point, don’t it? You might want to think twice about using that, because it’s not quite accurate. Despite being well versed in the history of Christianity and slavery, you seem to have missed the Catholic Church’s opposition to slavery. > [@Pope Paul III](#): > > To all faithful Christians to whom this writing may come, health in Christ our Lord and the apostolic benediction. > > The sublime God so loved the human race that He created man in such wise that he might participate, not only in the good that other creatures enjoy, but endowed him with capacity to attain to the inaccessible and invisible Supreme Good and behold it face to face; and since man, according to the testimony of the sacred scriptures, has been created to enjoy eternal life and happiness, which none may obtain save through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, it is necessary that he should possess the nature and faculties enabling him to receive that faith; and that whoever is thus endowed should be capable of receiving that same faith. Nor is it credible that any one should possess so little understanding as to desire the faith and yet be destitute of the most necessary faculty to enable him to receive it. Hence Christ, who is the Truth itself, that has never failed and can never fail, said to the preachers of the faith whom He chose for that office ‘Go ye and teach all nations.’ He said all, without exception, for all are capable of receiving the doctrines of the faith. > > The enemy of the human race, who opposes all good deeds in order to bring men to destruction, beholding and envying this, invented a means never before heard of, by which he might hinder the preaching of God’s word of Salvation to the people: he inspired his satellites who, to please him, have not hesitated to publish abroad that the Indians of the West and the South, and other people of whom We have recent knowledge should be treated as dumb brutes created for our service, pretending that they are incapable of receiving the Catholic Faith. > > We, who, though unworthy, exercise on earth the power of our Lord and seek with all our might to bring those sheep of His flock who are outside into the fold committed to our charge, consider, however, that the Indians are truly men and that they are not only capable of understanding the Catholic Faith but, according to our information, they desire exceedingly to receive it. Desiring to provide ample remedy for these evils, We define and declare by these Our letters, or by any translation thereof signed by any notary public and sealed with the seal of any ecclesiastical dignitary, to which the same credit shall be given as to the originals, that, notwithstanding whatever may have been or may be said to the contrary, the said Indians and all other people who may later be discovered by Christians, are by no means to be deprived of their liberty or the possession of their property, even though they be outside the faith of Jesus Christ; and that they may and should, freely and legitimately, enjoy their liberty and the possession of their property; nor should they be in any way enslaved; should the contrary happen, it shall be null and have no effect. > > By virtue of Our apostolic authority We define and declare by these present letters, or by any translation thereof signed by any notary public and sealed with the seal of any ecclesiastical dignitary, which shall thus command the same obedience as the originals, that the said Indians and other peoples should be converted to the faith of Jesus Christ by preaching the word of God and by the example of good and holy living. So to summarize, the Pope asserted that (1) all humans are created equal, (2) Catholics should seek to convert by preaching and by example (3) Satan is responsible for all attempts to dehumanize the American Indians. So for a certainty, forced conversion was directly opposite to the policy of the Catholic Church. If the Conquistador’s ever did it, it was not because of Church orders, but rather the opposite. I personally have never seen any evidence that they did so at all. The Conquistadors were very violent, but it was because of greed. They believed various legends about fabulously wealthy civilizations in the Americas, and used violence to force the natives to reveal where their nonexistent wealth was hidden. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2009, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-forced-christianity/481110/60 "2009-01-18T05:24:30Z")
> [@sailor](#): > > The Inquisition, Spanish or otherwise, was only concerned with those who were already Christian and did not force conversions to Christianity so it does not at all fit the OP. It’s also worth noting that the Spanish Inquisition was a step forward towards a humane and lawful system of justice. The methods of the Inquisition were more mild than those used by secular courts at the time. In fact, people who were arrested by the secular justice system were known to commit blasphemy just so that they could be transfered into the care of the Inquisition, where they had better chances. [Here’s a cite.](http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/madden200406181026.asp) Also, since this is supposed to be about forced conversions it’s worth noting who was tried at the Inquisition. Some converts from Judaism were tried, but they were definitely not a majority, as sometimes claimed. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-forced-christianity/481110.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-forced-christianity/481110.md?page=4)