Do Christains regret things like the witch burnings?

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Your words there are certainly appreciated, and from 91 as well ... and please allow me to say: That "ability" or whatever it is did not come easily or naturally even though being an Aspie has played a large part in making it possible. Bottom line? Look past all opinion and remove all emotional filters and just look at actual facts, sans spin.

You should not bear any guilt for what happened prior to your birth. To impute guilt by ancestory is as crazy as the notion of Original Sin.

ruveyn

Original sin?

Edit: DAMMIT RUVEYN, QUIT STEALING MY RESPONSES BEFORE I RESPOND WITH THEM!

even if they had nothing to do with them?

What sort of ridiculous statement is that? What the heck do you think the Puritans were reading? Jane's Fighting Ships?

Read the Bible in context. Tell me how it would defend burning suspected witches at the stake. It doesn't. Tell me how it would defend the Crusades? It doesn't.

Ignorance is to blame, not the book.

Undoubtably. But your statement was nonsensical in that they were well preached church goers who read the bible regularly, yet still condoned and even acted out these murders. Your claim looks foolish against your quote.

Translation might be more at fault than ignorance. Maleficos non patieris vivere is similar but different to M'khashephah lo tichayyah. is a way of saying Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.

All three say broadly similar things, but at the same time describe a different practitioner of magic, or even what manner of magic is being proscribed.

BUT however you read it, SOMEBODY should not be suffered to live, and that someone is practising some form of magic. Hence the burning, and the confusion.

The same seems to be applicable to almost every passage of the bible one way or another, and biblical scholars have spent a long time trying to discern meaning. Hardly surprising that sometimes that meaning is aggressive, and counsels the destruction of heathens or witches, or gays, or whoever.

It's like a huge game of semantics.

Whose context?

I know some of them do.

I was in Lincoln recently. In the cathedral there are the remains of a shrine to one 'Little Saint Hugh'. Apparently at some time in the 13th century, a child went missing, and rumors grew up that the local Jews had crucified him, leading to widespread persecution and the veneration of the child as a martyr. The shrine was partly destroyed in the Reformation, but there's now a plaque on the site, detailing the legend and asking God's forgiveness on Christendom for such persecutions. More of this kind of historical awareness, let's call it, wouldn't go amiss in some quarters.

As for generally not being guilty for the crimes of one's spiritual ancestors, it might be worthwhile to remember that whoever was burned (or more likely, hanged), and whatever alleged crime it was for, during the 'witch' trials, many Christians continue to unapologetically persecute those who identify as Wiccans today. Back in the 80s in the UK, many evangelical Christians, including some in Parliament, were actively campaigning to have the Pagan religions banned by law - it was during the whole 'Satanic ritual abuse' affair, and many people were only too keen to point the finger at a convenient group of 'weirdos'. There were some Christians who from their words and actions,, I had no doubt, would happily have torched us if the law of the land had permitted it (a few occult stores did actually get torched around that time, but nobody was about to take the blame for it). They scared the willies out of me. Who needs Satan when there are people like that around?

Kudos to mgran, BTW, for mentioning Ron Hutton's book - he's probably the most informed person writing on the subject today. (He also caused a fair amount of flak within the Pagan community for debunking some of the beloved old 'burning times' mythology. I say, if you want myths, fine, but getting them mixed up with your history is probably not good practice, and that goes for any religious path...)

That would be interpretation, not context. In its context, Scripture is primarily about right relationships within right worship and was never intended for men to use as they simply wish for rationalizing and/or presuming to justify their own doings ... and neither does it anywhere suggest mankind should try to fix the world.

I think maybe I should have posted this topic when i was thinking more clear-headed. In my defence I was feeling kind of depressed and it was one of those days where everything upsets me. I swear if I were born a woman I'd call it PMS.

Anyways I'm sure not all Christains are as bad as the ones who persecuted the so-called witches. I have met some Christains who are really loving people like my Nana. I guess it's just the whole history that upsets me. I know the Christains today aren't directly responsible, but somewhere in the back of my mind I get the feeling that if the wheels of justice ever got turned again they'd go around killing and hurting people again all in the name of God. But I guess that's maybe prejudice on my part as I'm stereotyping everyone in that religion for something that happened years ago.

But I think we should do everything in our power to prevent something like that from ever happening again. That's what I truely believe.

The mind bug that caused christians to do witch hunts is all well and living in all of us, no matter the religion. Just a couple of fear and faux-morality and you will be able to do all sorts of evil things in the name of your security.

As an example. Should contemporary Germans regret the holocaust? Should Americans regret the genocide of the native-Americans? Should ...

Mainline Christianity has been pretty well detoxified during the last 300 years, particularly the last 100 years. There are some batsh*t crazy evangelicals out there, but they are in the minority. Christianity has not exhibited the kind of homicidal extremities that Islam has in the last 100 years. It is clear that mainline Christianity is congruent with the secular order of society.

ruveyn

Last edited by ruveyn on 09 Nov 2010, 10:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.

That's the thing most people in that time period including many priests couldn't even read the bible...

I find this deep-down hilarious, as my criticism towards you on a number of occasions in political theology is that "I frankly don't see how any Christian whose read the Bible could believe what you believe" and "Read the Bible in context".

As such, I really don't think that these people were worse exegetes than you probably are now. They're just pig-headed people who hold to an interpretation because it fits their basic politics, and then go forward along with it.