Criticism of the Church/State of Rome

[Lord Thesaurian]

So I watched this video for about the tenth time recently and it made me laugh and become angry all at once. I laughed at the Orwellian propaganda so blantantly spewed forth as though no one has ever cracked a history book or read official Vatican statements, but was also angered by the fact that the Church has clearly never apologized for her history of slaughter and tyranny even as she petitions for fresh recruits to the Outer Party. Come all ye atheists, proud Protestants, Muslims, Jews, trolls....really anybody who has the slightest dislike of the Roman Church. Post your gory details of the sack of Constantinople in 1204, suppression of Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, science and reality in general; the massacre of the Hugenots, Waldenses, Crusades, etc etc. I doubt this thread will last long, but I intend to have my fun anyway. I guess I'll start off.

Most blatant lie from the ad: "We invented the Scientific Method." Reality: No one knows who exactly developed the Scientific Method. Certainly, the Greeks laid the foundation, and it was probably scientists of the Islamic world who made most of the pre-Enlightenment contributions to the concept. Of course, the influence of Newton is very evident. Anyway, the Church, if she had anything to do with rational science, was busy suppressing it, as the historical record plainly shows.

I have uploaded an article discussing possible figures for the death and destruction caused by the Roman Church, though the slaughter is so herculean, it's ultimately incalculable; millions and millions and millions.

Excerpt from alleged Oath of the Jesuit Order:

I furthermore promise and declare that I will, when opportunity present, make and
wage relentless war, secretly or openly, against all heretics, Protestants and Liberals, as
I am directed to do, to extirpate and exterminate them from the face of the whole
earth; and that I will spare neither age, sex or condition; and that I will hang, waste,
boil, flay, strangle and bury alive these infamous heretics, rip up the stomachs and
wombs of their women and crush their infants' heads against the walls, in order to
annihilate forever their execrable race. That when the same cannot be done openly, I
will secretly use the poisoned cup, the strangulating cord, the steel of the poniard or the
leaden bullet, regardless of the honor, rank, dignity, or authority of the person or
persons, whatever may be their condition in life, either public or private, as I at any
time may be directed so to do by any agent of the Pope or Superior of the Brotherhood
of the Holy Faith, of the Society of Jesus.

Full. Taken from "Congressional Record of the U.S.A. (House Bill 1523, Contested election case of Eugene C. Bonniwell, against Thos. S. Butler, Feb. 15, 1913, pp. 3215-3216)", though I was unable to locate it in the National Archives online search.

Edit:I guess I'm going to have to salvage something academic from this since it got moved.....

[Vissewalde rex de Gerzika]

This almost feels nessecarry here.

[Slaytaninc]

I think this thread isn't a good idea, but if we're going down that road, might as well make it a "I Hate Christianity" Thread.

[Soothsayer]

There is a force behind your anger, did something happen when you were a child?

[Lord Thesaurian]

There is a force behind your anger, did something happen when you were a child?

No. I was lucky. My parents are Protestant. I'm tired of religion.

I think this thread isn't a good idea, but if we're going down that road, might as well make it a "I Hate Christianity" Thread.

Perhaps, but that would be a misnomer. If one reads the actual words and teachings of Jesus, they are pretty philanthropic. Contrast that to the Church of Rome, and one sees just how perverted Rome really is (no pun intended). Anyway, I wouldn't consider Rome's past all that relevant if not for the fact that she still has never apologized for any of it. In fact, as you see in the ad, she behaves as though it never happened. The Pope still likes to come out of his hole-in-the-wall every now and again to announce to the world, "There is still only one true religion, Rome, and I'm still infallible. F--- you all." In addition, the Jesuits, the very openly fanatic order of Catholic priests charged with offensive war against heresy and specifically Protestantism, still exists and is still active. So I think the thread is adequately titled. At a time when alot of hatred and anti-religious criticism is directed toward Islam, I thought it might be well to remind the West that we have our very own older, bigger, badder, and bloodier version of Islam headquartered in the heart of the Western world.

It's ironic, when speaking of Jesus, they use a painting from an Orthodox church.

Yeah, the one whose capital Rome "accidentally" burned down so as to secure undisputed rule over all Christendom. That is ironic.

[Påsan]

Yeah, the one whose capital Rome "accidentally" burned down so as to secure undisputed rule over all Christendom. That is ironic.

Constantinople was burned to pay the crusaders debt to the Venetians, not some evil overlord catholic gambit to secure all of Christendom. (A ridiculously flawed concept considering you had Ottomans at Vienna less than a century later)


The catholic church it seems gets remembered for all the bad stuff, while the good is long forgotten.

[Slaytaninc]

The actual wealth controlled by the Vatican is pittance.

In 2008, their revenues were 355.5 million, while their expenditures were 356.8 million. They have ran deficits several times. I've heard that the Vatican is worth only few billion dollars.

[Lord Thesaurian]

The actual wealth controlled by the Vatican is pittance.

In 2008, their revenues were 355.5 million, while their expenditures were 356.8 million. They have ran deficits several times. I've heard that the Vatican is worth only few billion dollars.

I'm not saying Rome is the center of some conspiracy. I'm saying she's a b---, which is why I posted this in the TD and not the Mudpit, for example

[Stavroforos]

Too many Neuros will gather in this thread and have their usual intolerant circle-jerk towards Catholicism.

[HunterKYA]

It's ironic, when speaking of Jesus, they use a painting from an Orthodox church.

[Darth Ravenous]

Tell me your sins my son, and know that the force is the one true religion!

[Vítor Gaspar]

Ultimately, everyone's a dick. Me, you, the Catholics, the Jews, the Buddhists. Men are Men.

There are some good Catholics (regardless if their Church is based on lies or not - but the same can be said about any religion, organised or not), there are some bad Catholics. We can't judge them all the same because of past events. For example, I have a really, really strong respect for the local Catholic organisations in my country and elsewhere - as long as they don't go preaching their beliefs something that, oddly, they never do, compared to the Evangelists, the Jews or the Jehovah Witnesses. And sometimes they can be the strongest defendants of Democracy and equality in times when it is at risk or simply doesn't exist, or nobody has the courage to face "the Man" because you'll just get slaughtered by the Political Police or whatnot.

I am thinking of the Bishop of Porto, back in pre-1974 Portugal in here, a man who stud up and went against everyone, doing what many Socialists didn't even have the guts to do, and who eventually had to run away from his own country. But I could be talking about the Brazilian Catholics who have tried to protect the Indians since colonial times, sometimes in vain and with the loss of their own lives, or all the Catholic organisations that feed the poor when the very own State no longer provides to them.

I am an Agnostic. But if I may hate the upper-echelon of the Catholic Church for some reason, I'm not hating the local priests, bishops, etc. They may be mere pawns to the "powers that be" inside the Church, but accusing them of some things is an utter injustice. In historically Catholic countries, when there was no Social Security whatsoever, and these days when the Social Security starts to crumble, you'll notice that the local members of the Church played the role the State should play.

If you're heavy on debts, in Portugal, Spain or Italy, and you spend your meagre government subsidies (400€, if you're unemployed) paying them, or you're simply a former middle-class family which has sold everything to pay what you owe and you have 80% of your salaries confiscated to pay those debts, you don't go to the Government asking for food: you go to organisations which don't even hold the Church's name but which are, ultimately, part of the Church and use resources fro the Church.

P.S - Catholic Church Inc.? That isn't even a video from the Catholics, just some guys trying to buck in...

[Vítor Gaspar]

Because Protestants were never radicals, right? And because all Catholics are, necessarily, a bunch of blood-lust child-molesters.

I can't even believe I'm defending the guys who I often blame for so many things, but really, you're just asking for it. There's so much hate over there that, unless you played hide and seek with a priest when you were younger, as Soothsayer pointed out, you're the sort of radical, fanatical people we should really care about.

It's funny how you point towards Islam and Catholicism and don't realise you're aboard the same boat.

[Lord Thesaurian]

Because Protestants were never radicals, right? And because all Catholics are, necessarily, a bunch of blood-lust child-molesters.

I can't even believe I'm defending the guys who I often blame for so many things, but really, you're just asking for it. There's so much hate over there that, unless you played hide and seek with a priest when you were younger, as Soothsayer pointed out, you're the sort of radical, fanatical people we should really care about.

It's funny, because I haven't even begun to troll yet (which is what I expected this thread to become; the TD needed some spice. I was tired of seeing suicide troll threads and facebook-style personal inquiry threads) and you're already throwing up strawmen - in a non-academic thread, no less.

1. Are there many "radical" or otherwise fanatic kinds of Protestantism? Sure. Do they have their own state (US....hardy hardy har) and church conglomerate HQ? No. UN representation? No. Millennium history as the effective federated government of the western world? No. Millennium of institutional tyranny and slaughter which perpetuated the Dark Ages, repressed the sciences and caused inestimable damage to the progress of western civilization? No. So you really can't equate "Protestant radicals" with the Roman Church. That gives Protestant radicals far, far too much credit.

2. When did I call "all Catholics.....a bunch of blood-lust child-molesters?" I have many family and friends who are Catholic, and good people. Does that even begin to excuse the history of abomination which current Church leadership refuses to address or acknowledge as even something so benign as "a mistake?" You tell me.

3. As I said, I don't hate Catholics. That would mean I hate a billion people I don't even know. I hate any institution which perpetuates one of the darkest periods in recorded history, burns down the last fortress of Classical knowledge in a world of darkness, burns, maims, and tortures millions in the name of religion, suppresses the progress of human civilization for the sake of power, and then calls itself "the oldest charitable organization on earth." The Roman Church happens to fit that bill. If that makes me a "radical fanatic we should all be worried about," then I guess I have severe misunderstandings about the definition of evil and fanaticism.

It's funny how you point towards Islam and Catholicism and don't realise you're aboard the same boat.

Oh, do explain. This oughtta be good. Have I called for the bombing of Catholic churches or something? I must have missed it. This thread can handle trolls, but strawmen are a little too annoying.

There are forms of Christianity worse than Catholicism. I find to be more moderate than many other groups. They have approved evolution, while many Protestant groups in America havn't. Yes, that doesn't make up for the Inquisition and 30 Years' War, Crusades, child molestations and other transgressions, but it's a start. It's not the church itself that is bad, just the people running it.

Of course she is more "moderate." After running western civilization for a millennium and then being sabotaged by (initially) a single monk, she was quite literally forced to become more "moderate." As for approving evolution, that just sheds more light on how the Church has always run. It's an absolute hierarchy. That's what Luther originally criticized. Nothing is sacred; no doctrine, no book, no creed - only the word of the Pope. It's about obedience. Who cares if god created everything or if everything evolved. At the end of the day, the Pope is the "Vicar of Christ on Earth," aka "the Boss." That's all that matters.

The "people running it" are the Church. Why do you think the Church is also a state (a backward and tyrannical quality in and of itself)? It's about politics, hierarchy and power, just as it's always been. Everything the Church stands for is driven to this end. Comparing Rome to Antioch will shed some light on this.

Constantinople was burned to pay the crusaders debt to the Venetians, not some evil overlord catholic gambit to secure all of Christendom. (A ridiculously flawed concept considering you had Ottomans at Vienna less than a century later)

Of course. I never said otherwise. I was merely referencing the fact that the Eastern Church blamed Rome for the incident and this added tremendous strain to relations for centuries. Hell, the Crusaders went on to capture Krete and, if I remember correctly, Athens and the Peloponnesus. As late as the 1940s, there were "forced conversions" of Orthodox congregations to Roman Catholicism in the Balkans.

[EmperorBatman999]

There are forms of Christianity worse than Catholicism. I find to be more moderate than many other groups. They have approved evolution, while many Protestant groups in America havn't. Yes, that doesn't make up for the Inquisition and 30 Years' War, Crusades, child molestations and other transgressions, but it's a start. It's not the church itself that is bad, just the people running it.

[EmperorBatman999]

Yet your town's clergy aren't neccesarily bad people.

Also not to mention that the title is a bit misleading, at first I thought it was a criticism of Rome: Total War or Rome 2.

[Lord Thesaurian]

^Rome got nothing to do with this... Please educate yourself on the subject before you continue.

The Pope bears the title of Caesar and Pontifex Maximus; of emperor. The Church of Rome is Rome. That is why it is both a church and a state. One even has to go through "border security" and show a passport to get into the Vatican. Anyway, thread title clarified. People are too uptight these days.

Yet your town's clergy aren't neccesarily bad people.

The Outer Party are never "bad people," just useful idiots. I suspect one would have to get to the bishop level and into the different orders of priests to find "bad people," but what's the point of speculating? One doesn't have to speculate to say that the Church of Rome is a pretentious and misanthropic old woman who has had a hugely net negative effect on the world and the course of human civilization.

If one wants to speculate, just think of the most generalistic of ways modern society would be different. Unless the Muslims marched across Europe and made us all Muslims, history without a Catholic church is very interesting. No Christianity means Europe keeps praying to trees and Greco-Roman gods. Who knows, maybe by now we would all have realized how ridiculous and practically useless religion is and moved on to more rational means of social fabric. Anyway, this thread was a bad idea. What was meant to be a jolly little troll thread has become a semi-serious discussion of (of all things) the merit of the Catholic Church. Perhaps I'll take a break from these headaches and write an AAR......

[Dan the Man]

Random rants against entire religious groups? Oh yeah, we have a place for you:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=53

[Lord Thesaurian]

Random rants against entire religious groups? Oh yeah, we have a place for you:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=53

I really didn't think this subject was quite so intellectual; unless EMM has deteriorated that much; and for the umpteenth time, Rome is an ancient state/church. It's not a bl---y social club. People seem to have forgotten all too easily that the same Rome that slaughtered and tortured people for daring to think is the same Rome that publishes idiotic commercials about charity and has a billion "followers" today. It's not as though this subject is entirely irrelevant, and it's not as though these actions were isolated. They were institutional mandates. Why is that so easy for everyone to dismiss? The Pope himself came out just recently and affirmed the status of the Church, the "One true and holy Apostolic Church..." the same yesterday and today.

[Dan the Man]

I really didn't think this subject was quite so intellectual; unless EMM has deteriorated that much; and for the umpteenth time, Rome is an ancient state/church. It's not a bl---y social club. People seem to have forgotten all too easily that the same Rome that slaughtered and tortured people for daring to think is the same Rome that publishes idiotic commercials about charity and has a billion "followers" today. It's not as though this subject is entirely irrelevant, and it's not as though these actions were isolated. They were institutional mandates. Why is that so easy for everyone to dismiss? The Pope himself came out just recently and affirmed the status of the Church, the "One true and holy Apostolic Church..." the same yesterday and today.

Ooookay...I didn't really come here to listen to your sermon on why "Catholicism is the worst," just thought you might want some fair beyond the usual TD trolls, or at the very least somebody to offer a serious counter-opinion. Apparently I misjudged your intentions. Good luck preaching to your choir though!