good vs. evil or god vs. satan?

[Leo Volont]

I am asking WHY the Catholics don't apologize for all their persecutions against people who they classed as heretical or 'mad'?.....really they need to do that and also be sued for every penny they willingly accrued from their victims......would LOVE to see hypocrites you seem to spend so much time and effort defending and aplogizing for on the bones of their arses!

It is not so much as 'persecution' as 'prosecution'. You need to remember that Catholicism is not to be compared to the little church on the Corner. Catholicism was designed to be a Social Monolith, to be Totalitarian, as they would term it today. Catholicism had concerns for not only the spiritual wellbeing of those in its jurisdiction, but also concerns for their Security. Those who did not subscribe to Catholicism could easily become threats. For instance, there was a Heretical Movement in Southern France. The Catholics at first dealt with it using Missionaries such as Dominic and Anthony. But then the Albigensians -- the Heretics -- made a military alliance with the Muslim Powers in Spain... the Albigensians were going to open the Roads for the invasion of Christendom (just as the U.S. had convinced the Dissident Iraqi Kurds and Shia to open the roads in Iraq to American Invasion, thus vindicating Sadam Hussein for having considered these dissidents to his regime as dangerous, which they in fact proved to be).

Catholicism has always taken a gentle hand with its heretics, when it could afford to. But in a World in which Catholicism was confronted on each side by some external threat -- Barbarians to the North and West, and Islam to the South and West -- large heretical movements were always likely to become a military threat.

Besides, does not the United States demand loyalty oaths. You complain about Catholicism demanding that Catholics be loyal to Catholicism, but you don't complain that Secular Regimes demand Loyalty Oaths to whatever Constitutions they have set up to bolster up their Regimes. Why is it a Crime for Catholicism to have done what everyone else still does? And don't mistake Catholicism, as you always do, with being a church on the Street Corner. Catholicism is as much a Political Entity as a Religious one -- Remember, it was to have been "The Kingdom of God on Earth". Also, regarding that point, in Prophecy there was to have been a "Thousand Year Reign of Christ on Earth". In fact, there was. If you measure from the Papacy of Gregory the Great, who established the Authority of the Pope as being the Supreme Secular Monarch of Christendom, to the Council of Trent which effectively surrendered Papal Claims to Secular Authority, you will find that it is exactly a Thousand Years. We had the Reign of Christ on Earth, and since then we have fallen into a decline of Wars, Revolutions and more wars. But apparently all the atheists are quite pleased with the chaos, as they can only blame Catholicism for having maintained Order as long as they did.

 

[duendy]

Leo......dont know what to say. dont know what universe you are living in...errrm

 

[okinrus]

No. you have got lost, and think you arfe me asking that.
I am asking WHY the Catholics don't apologize for all their persecutions against people who they classed as heretical or 'mad'?.....really they need to do that and also be sued for every penny they willingly accrued from their victims......would LOVE to see hypocrites you seem to spend so much time and effort defending and aplogizing for on the bones of their arses!

Pope John did apologize for Christians in the past who did live up to the Christian ideal. But the propaganda that Leo's talking about is the some 50,000 to a million figures often quoted, but almost never is there verifiable proof that the Church was responsible. Further, for the Spanish Iquisition, the bloodiest inquistion, only some 2,000 to 5,000 were killed, a far cry from the 50,000 to a million often quoted.

 

[duendy]

Pope John did apologize for Christians in the past who did live up to the Christian ideal. But the propaganda that Leo's talking about is the some 50,000 to a million figures often quoted, but almost never is there verifiable proof that the Church was responsible. Further, for the Spanish Iquisition, the bloodiest inquistion, only some 2,000 to 5,000 were killed, a far cry from the 50,000 to a million often quoted.

actually some quote MILLIONS

but you know what? i find it offensive this numbers game as a means of defense against guilt, as as a justification

you hear it with nazi revisioners who will calmly say with out any shame that is wasn't six million human beings murdered by the Nazis, but 'only' a feww hunder thousands....like THAt makes it alright then

i keep trying to say, that it is what the CHURCH is i am questioning, not the different bracnhes of it. but is overall INDOCTRINATION which sought out what it called 'witches', and 'heretics' so as to ...quiten them. i dont agree with fasicts doing this, and i dont agree with a church
proclaiming love for one's neighbours doing it also. in fact the HYPOCRISY of the latter makes it stink more. at least the Mafiosa are straight out murdering gangesters

 

[Brutus1964]

Quotes from http://ldsfaq.byu.edu/view.asp?q=162

Why is there suffering in the world?

Suffering is inherent in mortality. Physical bodies are subject to pain and discomfort. As a social being, man is vulnerable to emotional suffering. Among the sensitive, there are also other levels of profound suffering. Mankind's attempt to explain the necessity of suffering are varied. LDS doctrine provides two explanations that are uncommon in the Judeo-Christian tradition. First, all mankind chose to enter mortality with full knowledge of the great price that would be required of Christ and of discipleship in his name. Second, one's suffering is to be in the image of that of the Lord, who suffered so "that he [might] know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities" (Alma 7:12). For Latter-day Saints, Christ's mission and his gospel were intended to relieve needless pain and suffering. The gospel provides hope that through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, one may return to God. It also provides access to the Holy Ghost and establishes a community built on the kinship of supportive believers. Latter-day Saints do not believe that pain is intrinsically good. But when suffering is unavoidable in the fulfillment of life's missions, one's challenge is to draw upon all the resources of one's soul and endure faithfully and well. The effects of suffering depend on how one responds.
abstracted from Carlfred Broderick, "Suffering in the World," in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, ed. Daniel H. Ludlow, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1992), 3:1421-22.

The abstracts on this site have been prepared by BYU Studies staff and interns.



How do Latter-day Saints reconcile God's goodness and power with the evil and suffering evident in the world?
Traditional Christian theology asserts that all that exists was created ex nihilo (out of nothing) by God. The paradox follows that all forms of evil must be directly or indirectly God-made. In Latter-day Saint sources, however, God is not the only self-existent reality. There are principles of eternal law and elements that are coexistent with him. "Omnipotence," then, means God has all the power it is possible to have in the universe. He did not create evil. Another traditional view holds that there is no evil, simply misperceptions on the part of limited mortals. But Latter-day Saint scripture teaches unmistakably that such things as sin, deformity, disease, and death are real. Experiences of contrast, such as good and evil, are indispensable to knowledge and growth (2 Nephi 2; Doctrine and Covenants 122). Good can come out of the experience of evil to the degree that God's creatures harmonize their will with his. God's power is never "controlling" or "manipulating"; it is liberating, empowering, and persuading. LDS thought returns to the scriptural thesis that all mankind participated in the original plan of life. Rather than being "thrown" into the world, the entire human family elected to enter mortality in an act of faith and foresight.
abstracted from Truman G. Madsen, John Cobb Jr., "Theodicy," in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, ed. Daniel H. Ludlow, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1992), 4:1473–74.

The abstracts on this site have been prepared by BYU Studies staff and interns.

 

[okinrus]

actually some quote MILLIONS

but you know what? i find it offensive this numbers game as a means of defense against guilt, as as a justification

I'm not defending anyone; some Christians may not have made mistakes in the past. But the million or so figure, while often quoted, has little historical veracity. The Pope also cannot appologize for crimes he's not responsible for, nor, for that matter, can he say the Church was responsible for some crime, the perpetrators were acting outside of the Church.

i keep trying to say, that it is what the CHURCH is i am questioning, not the different bracnhes of it. but is overall INDOCTRINATION which sought out what it called 'witches', and 'heretics' so as to ...quiten them.

Indoctrination, here, is a bit overstated. The medieval societies had laws where if you broke a solemn oath, then the punishment was death. Baptism was such a solemn oath.

http://www.catholic.net/RCC/Periodicals/Dossier/1112-96/article4.html