The first splits from Catholicism were Martin Luther and Henry VIII founding the Church of England so that he could get the divorce from Catherine of Aragon to marry Anne Boleyn that the Pope refused to grant. He married Anne Boleyn in the 1530's. Martin Luther wrote the 95 Theses in 1517 and was excommunicated by The Church in 1521. Ferdinand and Isabella financed Columbus in the 1490s and it was 1492, during the reign of the virulently anti-Semitic Isabella the massive numbers of Jews fell to the Inquisition. Isabella expelled Jews on pain of death.
So, given the historic events, The Church, the Catholic Church, was all Christianity had to offer until the Reformation was in full swing in the 1600s
The Pilgrims came to this country for religious freedom as Protestants wanting to get away from Catholic Europe and the Anglican Church of England. In point of fact, it was all but a few heretics, all of the organized Christians of the world at that time who ran the Inquisition. As for Galileo, it was the Jesuits who brought him before the Inquisition (is this starting to have a repetitive theme?) who were still in charge of most of Christendom in the 1630's when he was persecuted and put under house arrest for the rest of his life, another ~10 years.
I don't limit it to Catholics because I've been in the Creationism furor since I was a child and that is the product of Evangelical Protestants. Christians who are in enough power (in whatever group they are in) to control things like forcing Creationism to be taught as an alternative to evolution, which they say is invalid because it is "only a theory" are a sample of the ones I mean when I say logic never got in their way. They refuse to understand the scientific meaning of the word theory in the same vein that they push abstinence-only education in the face of rising teen pregnancy and STDs; they way they talk about AIDS being a conspiracy and about how condoms are an attempt at genocide. And about a thousand other examples but I'm stopping while I have an iota of my sanity left for tonight.
The Christian Right, as a political movement, is ruining it for you and for reasonable Christians everywhere. If reasonable Christians want to 'take back the night' they are going to have to become a lot more forceful and outspoken....before their extremist brethren target them, the way many of them would target you. Something to think about.....
Re: Part 2 of 2
Martin Luther wrote the 95 Theses in 1517 and was excommunicated by The Church in 1521.
Ferdinand and Isabella financed Columbus in the 1490s and it was 1492, during the reign of the virulently anti-Semitic Isabella the massive numbers of Jews fell to the Inquisition. Isabella expelled Jews on pain of death.
So, given the historic events, The Church, the Catholic Church, was all Christianity had to offer until the Reformation was in full swing in the 1600s
The Pilgrims came to this country for religious freedom as Protestants wanting to get away from Catholic Europe and the Anglican Church of England. In point of fact, it was all but a few heretics, all of the organized Christians of the world at that time who ran the Inquisition.
As for Galileo, it was the Jesuits who brought him before the Inquisition (is this starting to have a repetitive theme?) who were still in charge of most of Christendom in the 1630's when he was persecuted and put under house arrest for the rest of his life, another ~10 years.
I don't limit it to Catholics because I've been in the Creationism furor since I was a child and that is the product of Evangelical Protestants. Christians who are in enough power (in whatever group they are in) to control things like forcing Creationism to be taught as an alternative to evolution, which they say is invalid because it is "only a theory" are a sample of the ones I mean when I say logic never got in their way. They refuse to understand the scientific meaning of the word theory in the same vein that they push abstinence-only education in the face of rising teen pregnancy and STDs; they way they talk about AIDS being a conspiracy and about how condoms are an attempt at genocide.
And about a thousand other examples but I'm stopping while I have an iota of my sanity left for tonight.
The Christian Right, as a political movement, is ruining it for you and for reasonable Christians everywhere. If reasonable Christians want to 'take back the night' they are going to have to become a lot more forceful and outspoken....before their extremist brethren target them, the way many of them would target you.
Something to think about.....