The inquisition is alive and well, and living in New York.

[Hermit]

"With regard to heretics two points must be observed: one, on their own side; the other, on the side of the Church. On their own side there is the sin, whereby they deserve not only to be separated from the Church by excommunication, but also to be severed from the world by death. For it is a much graver matter to corrupt the faith which quickens the soul, than to forge money, which supports temporal life. Wherefore if forgers of money and other evil-doers are forthwith condemned to death by the secular authority, much more reason is there for heretics, as soon as they are convicted of heresy, to be not only excommunicated but even put to death."

Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, 1274

Aquinas: not, nor never was, a Christian, apparently.

Yabut he was a Catholic saint, therefore not A True Scotsman Christian.

The funny thing is that if every one of the competing Christian sects, big or small, were correct about who is a Christian and who is not, there'd be no Christians at all.

[Seth]

Some tedious, pompous shit

Tl;dr. I stand by my last post. Consider it my only response to anything you post in future.

Fine by me. You'll get my respect when you show me that you are doing your job in an ethical and even-handed manner, not before.

You'll never get mine.

I guess that makes me the bigger person.

[Seth]

Seth wrote:

No Christian faith has ever advocated or participated in the torture or murder of anyone. Any religious group that advocates or participates in such acts cannot, by definition, be "Christian" because Christ expressly forbids his followers from torturing or killing anyone, ever. Therefore the Catholic church, during the time of the Spanish Inquisition (which was in Spain by the way), was not a Christian organization.

This takes the absolute fucking cake, in terms of retroactively excusing anything done by avowed christians in the name of their religion.

Well, that's just the way it works in Christianity. If you don't act like a Christian, then you're not a Christian, no matter how much you might claim to be one. The same thing is true of football teams, armies, and every other club. You can call yourself an Oakland Raider, but if you're not in the club and you don't play ball, you're not one.

One can point out that many actions committed by christians in the past can now, in hindsight, be seen as antithetical to some major tenets of their own religion without saying that this means they were actually not christians, implying that christians have never, ever done anything wrong...

Well, Christians are who Jesus says are Christians, and Jesus is reputed to have said that if you don't act like a Christian, you aren't one. And he's the club President, so his word is, well, law.

You can call yourself an atheist, but if you worship some god anyway, you're not an atheist.

Also, I'd like to point out that your entire argument depends on the fallacy of guilt by association, which is why it's such a stupid argument. "Christians did this" and "Christians did that" is merely smearing people you don't know, never knew, never will know and don't even understand with the accusations of wrongdoing by individuals who might, or might not claim to be Christians, but who clearly aren't Christians because they torture and murder people, simply because you want to smear the reputations and characters of billions of people, not because they are actually guilty of doing anything wrong but because you are just filled with hatred of that which you do not understand.

Such bald-faced bigotry deserves to be called out and ridiculed because it's nothing more than mindless hatred of things and people you cannot possibly begin to understand because your entire psyche is corrupted by an irrational and psychopathic hatred of "religion," even though religion has been, since the beginning of time, more helpful to civilization than harmful.

So yes, it's pretty simple, Christians don't torture and kill other people because the leader of Christianity said not to and said that those who don't live like Christians can't be members of the club. You can torture and kill people and say that it's in the name of Christ, but you're simply lying, or you're delusional, and in neither case are Christians responsible for your insanity or wrongdoing.

Now Muslims, on the other hand, are expressly commanded by their prophet to kill and enslave people who aren't Muslims, so you can call them murderers all you like because to be a Muslim is to subscribe to the rules of the club, which expressly include killing other people based on their religious beliefs. Those who do not subscribe to the commandments of the Koran to kill and enslave infidels however, are not Muslims. They are something else. Just like Catholics in Spain during the Inquisition who tortured and killed people were not Christians, or for that matter Catholics, they were something else entirely because Catholicism is just a sect of Christianity, and Christians don't torture and kill people, no matter what any temporal authority, including the Pope, says about it.

Christians, whether they call themselves Catholics or Protestants or Baptists or Lutherans are all only Christians if they live according to Christ's commands. If they don't it doesn't matter what they call themselves, they aren't Christians.

And that's just how it is.

[Seth]

No Christian faith has ever advocated or participated in the torture or murder of anyone. Any religious group that advocates or participates in such acts cannot, by definition, be "Christian" because Christ expressly forbids his followers from torturing or killing anyone, ever. Therefore the Catholic church, during the time of the Spanish Inquisition (which was in Spain by the way), was not a Christian organization.

The No true Scotsman fallacy at its most pronounced.

Hardly. From your source:

Imagine Hamish McDonald, a Scotsman, sitting down with his Glasgow Morning Herald and seeing an article about how the "Brighton (England) Sex Maniac Strikes Again". Hamish is shocked and declares that "No Scotsman would do such a thing". The next day he sits down to read his Glasgow Morning Herald again; and, this time, finds an article about an Aberdeen (Scotland) man whose brutal actions make the Brighton sex maniac seem almost gentlemanly. This fact shows that Hamish was wrong in his opinion, but is he going to admit this? Not likely. This time he says: "No true Scotsman would do such a thing".

This example depends for it's strength as a "No True Scotsman" fallacy for the premised condition that the 2nd "brutal man" is in fact from Aberdeen. But it's not a fallacy if the individual mentioned is NOT from Scotland, does it? The "Brighton sex maniac" is not a Scotsman, he's an English sex maniac. The fallacy relies on an attempt to deny a known fact, ie: the status of the 2nd sex maniac as a Scotsman.

But that's not what my claim is about at all. You see, being a Christian is not like being a Scotsman or an Englishman, which is a condition of either birth or location, not belief and practice, which is the case with Christians.

It is not a fallacy to say that a person who commits rape is a "rapist" and not a "law abiding citizen." Nor is it a fallacy to say that a person who exclusively practices Buddhism is not a Christian. You see, being a Christian is all about what you do in life and what you believe and practice, not where you live, where you were born, or the color of your skin.
Again, from your source:

No true Scotsman is an informal fallacy, an ad hoc attempt to retain an unreasoned assertion.[1] When faced with a counterexample to a universal claim ("no Scotsman would do such a thing"), rather than denying the counterexample or rejecting the original claim, this fallacy modifies the subject of the assertion to exclude the specific case or others like it by rhetoric, without reference to any specific objective rule ("no true Scotsman would do such a thing").[2]

The problem with this statement as applied to Christianity is, of course, that there is a specific objective rule, which is that to be a Christian one has to follow Christ and do as he commands, else you aren't a Christian... because Christian behavior is an essential component of being Christian. This is not the case with sex maniacs and Scotsmen. Scotsmen can be sex maniacs and still be Scotsmen because the fact that one is a sex maniac has nothing whatever to do with one's status as a Scot.

But that's not the case with Christianity, so the "No True Scotsman" fallacy simply does not apply.

The Spanish Inquisition did indeed occure in Spain. Hence the name "Spanish Inquisition". Who would have thunk it, huh? It was, however, by no means the first official inquisition, nor were they confined to Spain. The first inquisitions took place in France, then Italy, towards the end of the twelfth century, and later on expanded across all of Europe. Bruno, Kepler, Copernicus and Galileo were among notable targets for formal inquisitions too, and none of them lived in Spain. Eventually witchcraft became a fashionable target too, whereupon inquisitions crossed continents and were instigated by Christian denominations besides the Roman Catholic Church.

And in no case were the persons involved in perpetrating such inquisitions and wrongs Christians, because one cannot be a Christian if one does such things. That they might claim to be, or think they are is utterly irrelevant.

Christianity is as Christians do, in obedience to the commandments of Jesus Christ...and torture and murder do not happen to be in those commandments.

Although I'm sure you would like them to be just so you can denigrate, revile and insult people you don't know as a manifestation of your own bigotry and hatred.

[Seth]

Seth wrote:

No Christian faith has ever advocated or participated in the torture or murder of anyone. Any religious group that advocates or participates in such acts cannot, by definition, be "Christian" because Christ expressly forbids his followers from torturing or killing anyone, ever. Therefore the Catholic church, during the time of the Spanish Inquisition (which was in Spain by the way), was not a Christian organization.

This takes the absolute fucking cake, in terms of retroactively excusing anything done by avowed christians in the name of their religion.

One can point out that many actions committed by christians in the past can now, in hindsight, be seen as antithetical to some major tenets of their own religion without saying that this means they were actually not christians, implying that christians have never, ever done anything wrong...

"With regard to heretics two points must be observed: one, on their own side; the other, on the side of the Church. On their own side there is the sin, whereby they deserve not only to be separated from the Church by excommunication, but also to be severed from the world by death. For it is a much graver matter to corrupt the faith which quickens the soul, than to forge money, which supports temporal life. Wherefore if forgers of money and other evil-doers are forthwith condemned to death by the secular authority, much more reason is there for heretics, as soon as they are convicted of heresy, to be not only excommunicated but even put to death."

Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, 1274

Aquinas: not, nor never was, a Christian, apparently.

Nope.

[Seth]

"With regard to heretics two points must be observed: one, on their own side; the other, on the side of the Church. On their own side there is the sin, whereby they deserve not only to be separated from the Church by excommunication, but also to be severed from the world by death. For it is a much graver matter to corrupt the faith which quickens the soul, than to forge money, which supports temporal life. Wherefore if forgers of money and other evil-doers are forthwith condemned to death by the secular authority, much more reason is there for heretics, as soon as they are convicted of heresy, to be not only excommunicated but even put to death."

Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, 1274

Aquinas: not, nor never was, a Christian, apparently.

Yabut he was a Catholic saint, therefore not A True Scotsman Christian.

The funny thing is that if every one of the competing Christian sects, big or small, were correct about who is a Christian and who is not, there'd be no Christians at all.

Indeed, and therein lies the point. What some temporal authority says about who is or is not a Christian is beyond irrelevant because only Christ knows who is and who is not a Christian. Thus the sorting of the sheep from the goats at the 2nd Coming.

[mistermack]

And in no case were the persons involved in perpetrating such inquisitions and wrongs Christians, because one cannot be a Christian if one does such things. That they might claim to be, or think they are is utterly irrelevant.

There are very few Christians about then.
So I expect Thomas Aquinas was an atheist. Like Hitler, apparently. And Mother Theresa. And all the popes.

So we need a new division of atheists. Christian atheists, and Atheist atheists. Just to clarify the position.

Christian atheists are any Christian who is less than perfect.

[Seth]

And in no case were the persons involved in perpetrating such inquisitions and wrongs Christians, because one cannot be a Christian if one does such things. That they might claim to be, or think they are is utterly irrelevant.

There are very few Christians about then.

I'd say that's likely, but we won't know until the Rapture I'm afraid.

So I expect Thomas Aquinas was an atheist. Like Hitler, apparently. And Mother Theresa. And all the popes.

So we need a new division of atheists. Christian atheists, and Atheist atheists. Just to clarify the position.

Christian atheists are any Christian who is less than perfect.

Well, Christ did talk about forgiveness and absolution from sin, but we're talking about torture and murder here, not masturbation and beer-drinking.

[mistermack]

And in no case were the persons involved in perpetrating such inquisitions and wrongs Christians, because one cannot be a Christian if one does such things. That they might claim to be, or think they are is utterly irrelevant.

There are very few Christians about then.

I'd say that's likely, but we won't know until the Rapture I'm afraid.

So I expect Thomas Aquinas was an atheist. Like Hitler, apparently. And Mother Theresa. And all the popes.

So we need a new division of atheists. Christian atheists, and Atheist atheists. Just to clarify the position.

Christian atheists are any Christian who is less than perfect.

Well, Christ did talk about forgiveness and absolution from sin, but we're talking about torture and murder here, not masturbation and beer-drinking.

They're all the same to a pope. They have had many people killed down the years.

Of course, no true atheist would murder innocent people. That's just their Christian tendencies coming to the fore. And George Bush is obviously an atheist. He made torture legal.

So America HAS had an atheist president !!!

Hallaluja ! Praise God !!

[Seth]

They're all the same to a pope. They have had many people killed down the years.

And you think a pope is Jesus Christ why, exactly?

Of course, no true atheist would murder innocent people. That's just their Christian tendencies coming to the fore. And George Bush is obviously an atheist. He made torture legal.

So America HAS had an atheist president !!!

Well, we didn't have a Christian president anyway. We did have, in George Bush the Younger, a dedicated Progressive and Marxist useful idiot however. Woodrow Wilson was Bush Jr.'s hero and idol, which explains why he presided over the largest expansion in the federal government in the history of the world...until Obama came along and beat his record twice over.

Progressives are cocksuckers of the worst sort...almost as bad as Marxists...except they are idiots and Marxists aren't...at least the Marxists in charge aren't.

[mistermack]

So George Bush was neither a Christian, nor a Republican.

True that. If you live in a fantasy world.

Why not? If the real world doesn't suit you, imagine one that does, and live in it.

That explains a lot.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Some tedious, pompous shit

Tl;dr. I stand by my last post. Consider it my only response to anything you post in future.

Fine by me. You'll get my respect when you show me that you are doing your job in an ethical and even-handed manner, not before.

You'll never get mine.

I guess that makes me the bigger person.

No. That's just unhealthy eating.

[Seth]

So George Bush was neither a Christian, nor a Republican.

That's what the evidence indicates. Of late however I've been working on a definition of "Conservative Progressive" and "Liberal Progressive." The common thread for each is the fundamental belief that the People are simply too stupid to govern themselves and that a huge central government filled with legions of un-elected bureaucrats who run things "scientifically" is the best form of government. The policy positions differ between left and right, but the fundamental Wilsonian premise of Progressivism is the same for George Bush the Younger (and John Boehner, among others) and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama: bigger and bigger central government that intrudes upon and controls literally every aspect of the individual citizen's life...all for his or her own good of course.

As to his being a Christian, that's doubtful as well, although as a Tolerist™ it's really none of my concern what happens to his putative immortal soul when Jesus gets done reviewing his personnel file.

[NineBerry]

I am a Christian. It says so right on my birth certificate. And I have killed thousands of people (in video games). So there.

[NineBerry]

No personnel files to inspect. They will all be burnt when Satan and his armies raid and burn God Headquarters in Paradise City.