Opposition Review: OH MY! The Religious Right in the US and What They're Doing To the US.

Dear Readers...

OH MY! is right when it comes to the contentiousness of our religious right in the US. Let me first categorize the areas I'm going to discuss.

1) US Religion, why this country ISN'T based on Christianity.
2) Why Christians think it is.
3) Religiously Affirmed Prejudice: Past Present and likely Future
4) Religion and Foreign Affairs; why Right Wing Religious Proponents are Helping Russian Homosexualitymisia (and what exactly Homosexualitymisia is versus Homophobia).

A little background again; as you know if you read my first post I'm gay. This means a few things in the personal experience area of my writing.

I grew up in a uber christian family. My sexuality bloomed quite early and while my family didn't discover I was gay until I was 15, I'd been having gay relationships since the age of eight. To me what was normal was to them abnormal and they tried to fix me. They shamed me in front of people, claiming I was a pedophile or that I was an abomination unto god. They used religious condemnation and pressure to hide my sexuality.

In the same part of my life I was also engrossed in the Christian religion. I had joined an organization called Royal Ranges, a christian church based version of the boy scouts (ha! Bet you didn't think that we could have scout group more right wing than the Boy Scouts..). In less than a year I shot to the top (quite literally the highest rank in the group you could get at my age ~7~ was Top Hand, I digress). I memorized scripture, learned the bible inside and out. By the time I was nine I had read the entire bible beginning to end at least three times. Of course at that age I didn't have the clear logical mind I have now. No I was still praying to god to have Superman powers and then Spiderman powers and then to be a Power Ranger...hero complex much (this probably had to do with my first Step Father trying to kill my mom and I twice and raping both of us)? By the time I was eleven I was an ordained minister and for a very small time I preached to other kids. That is until I met a person who is no longer alive today. He was gay and his parents had done much the same to him as they were doing to me. When I consoled him on the matter he was depressed, anxious. I tried to get him to accept Jesus into his life, make him understand that even if he was gay, Christ loved him and that the people around him were just not being Christian. Two years later he committed suicide due to pressure from his family and bullying at school. I didn't find out this until after we had moved from West Fargo North Dakota to Eau Claire Wisconsin.

From that point on I took an aversion to church. I read the bible trying to find answers to why this would happen, and I couldn't. Hearing the Catholic rhetoric calling suicide a sin, and the homosexualitymisia (that is gay hatred) coming from all different sects of the religion, I realized that most mainstream Christian churches and beliefs are not Christian at all, they've perverted what Christ taught.

So here I was at 14 going on 15, an ordained minister and my faith in the religion I was supposed to be teaching dissolved. By the time I entered High School I had changed. I was depressed, angry, often disgusted with the way my parents treated me. Conflating the exploration of my sexuality with any number of terrible things. I was told I was a sinner, an abomination, that I was a witch and satanist because I had a boyfriend. At one point they took my computer privileges away because I looked at gay porn. All of which are natural aspects that every kid, gay or straight, goes through in exploring their sexuality. Finally, when I graduated, my mother kicked me out after her then boyfriend (as she and my second stepfather had separated) accused me sexually assaulting his kids. This of course wasn't true in the slightest and even after the police were called and an investigation took place, the case was dropped. Even when the kids told him it wasn't true and denounced the claim and it was only him who pushed for me to be arrested, I was still ostracized. I left home in my car, lived in it for a month and started college. In the five years it took me to graduate with a BA in creative writing and several minors, I had spoke to my mother three times.

I learned a great deal about religion and culture and developed mentally and socially. I went from the anxiety ridden depressed rejected teenager to a mature adult capable of thinking through things, and an atheist.

Part 1) Why is this country not Christian in origin?
One of the biggest myths perpetrated by the conservative right and by those wanting to revise history is that our founding fathers were Christian. But more importantly their Brand of Christian. However neither claim is true.

The US was founded on freedom from religion. Many of the people who came to the then New World opposed the ruling classes use of religion to control people and goad them into paying more to the state controlled churches. Religion was used as political weapon. Any person who worked without the church's permission or ordination as rightful, was considered wrong or sinful. Women weren't allowed to preach in most sects of the religion by law, including those sects that accepted women as teachers and priests or ministers. In England it was illegal to be any religion other than the English Church's Christianity, which bothered Lutherans, Protestants, Quakers, and Catholics just to name a few.

When the "discovery" of the "New World"(1) came to light many people fled Europe, especially England, France, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands where religious persecution was all to common. Once they settled on the new continent and established their own towns, far away from European rule, they conducted their lives according to their own communal beliefs. The Europeans of course really didn't care so long as the countries got the promised gold, crops, and trade goods that the new land offered.

About a hundred years later and with the Masons entering the colonies we saw a new movement, that of secularism and of agnosticism. This philosophy is called deism. With several religious scandals coming to bare, a wide spread panic attack over witchcraft that resulted in dozens of hangings of people falsely accused of the practice (the whole burning a witch at a stake is very much a myth), the shift to a secular natural world view was inevitable. Different community leaders started to shift towards Deism while maintaining the illusion of Christianity. By the height of English domination of the Colonies where ever increasing tariffs and taxation were placed on the export goods and import goods to and from the Colonies, mainly due the the French English War, the people were fed up with their overseas governors putting a damper on their newly established freedom. Enter the revolutionary war which was fought to preserve that freedom that was established for the previous seventy odd years, and of course free trade and capitalism.

Later, after the Declaration of Independence was written and delivered, the war won, and the Confederacy established and then dissolved, our founding fathers took to writing our constitution. Many of whom had renounced any christian or church ties and become deists. They wrote our constitution to ensure equal treatment of people (except for slavery, I'll get to that in a bit) and freedom of choice and action therein as granted, in their word, "by their creator". This verbiage is actually very clear (2). "When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

When the founding fathers, especially Jefferson who is the primary author of the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution in the US, he and the others agreed upon the wording above. They assert that it is the Laws of Nature and Nature's God, no the Christian God or any man made Religion's God that endowed them and all people to the rights and freedoms they set down.

Our constitution never uses the word or creator, which is often a contentious point that Christians who argue the US is a Christian nation founded on Christian Values get confused without declaration. In fact the Declaration of Independence highlights the very reason the Founding fathers divorced themselves and the Colonies from their European motherlands. They state "When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the POLITICAL bands which have connected them with another..."
At the time and thus context in which the Declaration was written, politics and religion, that is government or governance and religion were intertwined. There was not a separation of church and state which lead to political strife and government persecution of people who were not of the same religion as the government established religion.

Their use of the word 'creator' is also crucial. The deists didn't believe in a single god, or a god as established by the church. They felt and believed that no body or establishment created by man could serve a god that couldn't possibly be known by man. The crucial philosophy was that through natural affirmation these rights and freedoms couldn't be infringed upon, that of life, liberty, and happiness. This ideology would later be established in the wording of our Constitution.

The first amendment ratified in 1791 only a handful of years after the ratification and signing by the colonies of the Constitution reads "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

The Framers of the US and our Founding Fathers established that our Government would never establish a State Church or Religion. To protect the rights of the people they fought a long hard war for, they made it so that their new government would not follow the same tract as the ones they just divorced themselves from. They insured that everyone would have a choice in what they believed, that no law would be made to enforce religious ideology or power, and that no organization could abridge the voice of the people (vox populi) or their freedom to express ideas and thoughts. It made it so that we would have a free press able to say what they wanted on any subject without religious or governmental rebuke and that the people could protest their government and petition that government to address and fix problems that the people have encountered.

So to conclude my point and this history lesson and part one of this post, our government is not Christian, our Nation isn't Christian, it is an amalgamation of dozens of religions and dozens of cultures. We were not founded on Christian morals but Deist Secularism which ensured the separation of church and state. (3)

Part 2) Why Christians Think the US is a Christian Nation
First and foremost not all Christians think the US is based on their religion. I'd argue that to a great degree most christians are secular christians who accept scientific discovery, and history as it is known to be. It is not these christians I'm referring to and I hope that it is these christians that will ultimately read my blog as one of many targeted audiences. While I doubt that the christians I'm referring to, the extremist right, the political christian, will also read my blog and maybe start to change their perspective.

Christians think that the US is a based on Christianity because that is what they are taught in their churches and by revisionist historical accounts. Further, they believe this fact, because it supports their hierarchical social structure and claim to righteousness. Consider that most patriots see the US as the greatest country of all time. A world view that glosses over the ineptitude and problems that exist in our country. It also gives the extremist christians a basis for obtuse changes that are contrary to the constitution. If you believe that it is God's will that is directing you to do something, even if it goes against the very foundation of the constitution and country's you'll push for that change. This is exemplified in the numerous state bills to limit women's rights and abortion, or to "protect the sanctity of marriage". Every action that they take is founded on a belief that we are a christian nature, that our constitution is founded on a christian moral basis, and that the country should reflect that moral basis and what parts don't should be changed so they do.

This world view is radically different than what the Framers, as I explained in part one, wanted for this country. It is in fact the very thing that they set the constitution up as they did to prevent. The attitude that christians present when it comes to right and wrong is that there can't be any other morality or idealism that can be right other than the one created by and subscribed to by christians.

Historically christianity was a major proponent to some of the greatest atrocities that happened, including the instigation and perpetuation of slavery. According to biblical scripture slavery is condoned and even encouraged. From a christian perspective it is god's will that the righteous christians would hold and own slaves as a roundabout way to saving them. The slave trade that started out with indentured servants from Europe that was brought to the Colonies took the ugly turn towards hijacking of African tribesmen and women as the exploration of the southern parts and greater interior started. The christian missionaries going into these lands found many pagan tribes and when those tribes dejected christianity they became a target for the slave trade industry. Those tribes unwilling to convert were seen as inferior and because they were not Hebrew (Jewish) nor Christian, the capture and trade was sanctioned by the Bible.
" However, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way." (Leviticus 25:44-46 NLT)
What more, those people converted into christianity once enslaved were urged further to obey their slavers or owners. "Slaves, obey your earthly masters with deep respect and fear. Serve them sincerely as you would serve Christ. (Ephesians 6:5 NLT)

Christians who are slaves should give their masters full respect so that the name of God and his teaching will not be shamed. If your master is a Christian, that is no excuse for being disrespectful. You should work all the harder because you are helping another believer by your efforts. Teach these truths, Timothy, and encourage everyone to obey them. (1 Timothy 6:1-2 NLT)"

The consequence of these sections and others of the Bible, used to support the ownership of other human beings, allowed the slave trade of Africans across North America and Europe to persist for several hundred years. Of course most revisionist christians would argue against these facts. Claiming it was christians who worked to free slaves. In reality christians, when the first arguments were made to abolish slavery were made, rallied against it. The biggest reason is that slave labor is expensive. In today's money to purchase a slave would have been in the tens of thousands of dollars a piece. (In 1800 the top price for a slave was $75 to $150 USD. Adjusted for change in value of dollar and inflation in today's money you're looking at around $30,000 dollars a piece.) It was also a biblical right to the christian slave owners. To them, abolishment of slavery would mean not only the loss of large swaths of wealth but also it was an invasion and revocation of their god given rights. To them it was the Federal government encroaching upon their first amendment rights.
Revisionists of course would love to erase this era of christian values run a muck and attribute christian morals as the basis for the abolishment of slavery in the US (4).

Christians today seem to put their blinders on to reality and facts and history, unless of course it is found in the bible. They also, quite often, cherry pick parts of the bible to believe at different times relative to the problems they are facing, but I'll get to this in a later part. For now the point is that christians think the US to be a Christian nation, because they cherry pick history as they do the bible. They see only certain parts of reality as it pertains to their opinion and subjective point of view. This process of disregarding the whole of reality to look at and twist or revise reality to fit it into their perspective, causes many problems for our society and community as a whole.

Part 3) Religiously Affirmed Prejudice: Past Present and likely Future

As I've already described in part 2, it is christianity that played a very large part in the instigation and perpetuation of slavery. But with that also comes a prejudice and avarice for people who are different. Revisionist attempts try to remove the christian prejudice that is historically true, and also attempt to bring a righteous light to historical christian figures, who have committed atrocious crimes against humanity. (I've included below a pretty decent list see index i.)

From slaves to Native Americans, to even other sects, christian morality is thrown out the window in favor of discrimination and prejudice. The past is filled with this extension of the righteousness complex and divine directive they claim.

Our recent past and the present has seen a persistent disregard for Christ's teachings in mainstream and radical christianity which has only carried over into the political sphere of the US. It is hidden under political rhetoric and disinformation. Though, even now, there are extremist christian groups that have very loud voices in our community. Such groups as the Ku Klux Klan, the Westboro Baptist Church, Pat Robertson and his television show 700 Hundred Club, all exemplify the affirmed prejudice of the christian church and christians. Now, obviously not all christians are like this. There are extraordinary churches all over this country who are going against the normalcy of avarice that exists to support various groups, including the LGBTQ community.

This said, there is a very good reason to fear christian extremism. Much like the other two Abrahamic religions (Islam and Judaism~ I prefer Hebrewism) Christianity has a very dark conflicted history and an attitude towards taking action which still exists today. While we see the media inundated with Islamic extremism and fear mongering over their radicalism, they ignore christian actions which are on the same level of radicalism. In the last three decades many militant christian groups have arisen in the US. Many have committed acts of terrorism or planned acts of terrorism. AoG or The Army of God in the US was an anti-abortion christian group that attacked abortion clinics and held Doctors at such clinics hostage. From as early as 1985 to as late as 2001 the group operated to disrupt women's rights, that are guaranteed by the constitution and Roe vs Wade, through violence (5). Christian Identity is a loosely organized group of white supremacists who push a racist interpretation of Christianity. Some of the group actually teach that only Caucasians are saved and that non-whites don't have souls. The Christian Identity became a notorious group as one of the subset groups known as The Order. The Order also known as the Sons of Liberty (not related to the historical group) was part of an anti-communist movement which had a strong hatred for the US government. They believed that the US government was controlled by a Cabal of Jews bent on keeping white Christians down. They gained money through robbery and other crime which include, but aren't limited to; bank robbery and bombings of synagogues and a theater (6). A particularly problematic modern group stems from the Christian Patriot movement. The CP group started in the 1980s as a group of christians who took on the mantel of politicians, law makers, and media sources to shift the US towards a christian point of view and interpretation of law. Their foundation derived from a white supremacist group Posse Comitatus. While the original Christian Patriot movement declined in the late nineties and early 2000s a new group that stemmed from the movement started up again in the early 2000s and became widely known in 2010. The Hutaree kept the same ideology of their originating group and are a neo-militaria group that is exclusively christian. They believe we are in the end times and have acted in accordance to their beliefs. In 2010 the FBI arrested several members for conspired plans to kill police officers and other government officials as well as for the possession of illegal explosives and chemicals weapons. While ultimately the arrested members were acquitted, many were indicted by a Michigan Federal Grand Jury for seditious conspiracy, attempted use of weapons of mass destruction, teaching the usage of explosives, and for possessing a fire arm during a crime of violence. " The indictment said that the Hutaree planned to attack unspecified law enforcement vehicles during the funeral procession for an unspecified officer or officers they planned to kill on an unspecified occasion, using unspecified explosively formed penetrator improvised explosive devices (which under federal law are considered "weapons of mass destruction") (7)." These and other groups are committed to do harm to the US in the name of god and their religion. While news sources like Fox News (should really be Faux News) report the classification of these religious groups as hate groups to be discrimination against their beliefs. An interesting article (found here http://www.infowars.com/all-over-america-evangelical-christians-are-being-labeled-as-extremists-and-hate-groups/) polarizes the naming of Evangelical Christians (a not so minority in the US: statistics show that an eighth of all US christians are Evangelical according to http://religions.pewforum.org/reports~ Christians make up, according to this site at least, 74% of the religiously affiliated populace. Over half of them are protestant at 51% and 25% of those protestants are Evangelical, therefore 1/4th of 1/2 of christians is 1/8th of all christians...which comes to something like 2.4 million people, I digress) as a problem for the military and for the Evangelical christians. The most curious and accurate statement by the author says (paraphrasing here) that the first steps to discriminating against a particular group is through demonizing that group.

The Southern Poverty Law Center labels groups as hate groups when their actions and convictions exhibit hatred and discrimination of any other group of people. Their hate map is a pretty comprehensive tool for seeing just what hate groups exist. http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/hate-map A large portion of the hate groups in the US are derivative of religious orders and churches. Many of the US's hate groups are christian in origin.

The dichotomy of the above article from Infowars and what the Southern Poverty Law Center show us that these groups, like many of the Evangelical christian groups, which the writer from Infowars would have us believe are being discriminated against by being labeled a hate group or extremist, are in fact groups already doing discrimination and demonization of other groups and minorities.

So does our future with christianity look in the US? In my express opinion it's bleak. Not only has mainstream christian groups, especially the most politically involved groups, committed to anti-secularism and historical revisionism, but to the demonization of minority groups. They have utilized their prejudice to turn groups like the LGBTQ community into their scapegoats for social ills. While some christian community leaders are working to change this, including Pope Francis, who has turned the whole Catholic dogma on it's head by ignoring past stigmas and sticking to his christian values. His statement supporting christian gays was a first for any catholic in general and has set a new precedent in the Catholic church for how to treat and approach homosexuality. Not that his statements haven't seen rebukes from clergy around the world.

The future of christianity is unclear, but the long line that divides the radical christians from the normal christians is being filled with anti-christian rhetoric in opposition to hate groups that use christianity as their moral base.

4) Religion and Foreign Affairs; why Right Wing Religious Proponents are Helping Russian Homosexualitymisia (and what exactly Homosexualitymisia is versus Homophobia)?.

This last part won't be too long. As I have already constructed a basis for my argument above it shouldn't be any surprise as to the conclusions I have here answering this question.

First a change in terminology. I have already used in my post here the term homosexualitymisia. This term is more accurate to the connotation intended by homophobia. Homo- meaning the same, and -phobia meaning fear, doesn't accurately represent the attitude of people who don't like homosexuality. It isn't that they fear homosexuality, or for that matter things that are they same. Rather they hate homosexuality and therein homosexuals. Homosexualitymisia is a direct term meaning homosexuality hate.

Okay, so why have our right wing politicians and religious proponents been helping Russian homosexualitymisia? Well it's simple really, they're losing here in the US. So they go to where their ideology and hatred can be used. This is sadly true of the history of homosexualitymisia in the US and how it is connected to the right wing conservatives. The following are a few links to articles that show that our religious right wing has been helping anti-gay movements in foreign countries for years.

http://americasquarterly.org/node/3152, http://www.politicalresearch.org/gospel-of-intolerance-u-s-evangelicals-fund-homophobia-in-uganda/, http://www.newrepublic.com/article/114334/russian-olympics-boycott-wont-help-gays, http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/may/03/mitt-romney-richard-grenell-republican-homophobia, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/04/american-conservative-support-russia-anti-gay_n_3866442.html

Especially important is this video here http://video.msnbc.msn.com/rachel-maddow/53250689 and this one here http://www.towleroad.com/2013/10/maddowbrown.html.

If you actually read these articles and found yourself screaming at the hatred that has been spewed, you might have missed a bit of information. The same anti-gay proponents like American Family Association have a strong influence on our GOP politicians. So much so that they even influenced Mitt Romney's decision for foreign policy staffing during the last Presidential Election.

The conservatives of the US are intrinsically tied to the religious right and support foreign anti-gay laws even at their most extreme because of the religious groups that they are supported by. So while thousands of people are now being hurt in Russia through outright discriminatory laws and actions being taken by the government, actions that the GOP wouldn't support directly if attempted in the US because of what it would mean for our country and our constitution; they will support it because the radical groups that give them money and political support expect them to. The duplicity of their beliefs is a strong indicator of why the GOP is in itself radical. It is also a good reason to treat them as a hate group as well.

Okay, so to conclude, no the US isn't a christian nation, christians believe it to be a christian nation because of a delusional reconstruction of our history, christianity as a religion was and still is used to promote and perpetuate discrimination, and that perpetuation has spilled into our political sphere violating our constitution and ultimately clouding this country's moral standing in regards to foreign countries and their discriminatory acts.

Next time I'll delve into the Anti-Gay associations in the US and why their attitudes are really just an extenuation of early christian groups who have a history of demonizing minorities so they can use them as social scapegoats. I'll also debunk the Creationist myth and discuss at length why evolution is a valid theory.

Again you're welcome to contact me with any questions or comments.
Thanks for reading
Ld. Kristoffer Martin

Index:
(1) I use parenthesis here because it wasn't a new discovery, Vikings and the Russians both "discovered" North America before the Europeans did, and prior to that transAtlantic and transPacific voyages by so called primitive island natives also came across North and South America. Not to mention a very long and murky Native American History and occupation of the two continents, with theories abound as to how and when they first settled here.
(2) The full constitution can be read here: http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/
The Declaration can be read here:http://abcnews.go.com/US/fourth_july/full-text-declaration-independence/story?id=13976396
(3) For more on Deism and it's role in the founding of the US please read http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/eighteen/ekeyinfo/deism.htm and http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2007/02/the-us-founding-fathers-their-religious-beliefs/
(4)http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/28/michele-bachmann-john-quincy-adams_n_885868.html
Michele Bachmann, right wing christian extremist attempting to rewrite history in an interview.
(5)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_of_God_(USA)
(6)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Order_(group)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Identity
(7)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutaree

(i)

Ancient Pagans

As soon as Christianity was legal (315), more and more pagan temples were destroyed by Christian mob. Pagan priests were killed.
Between 315 and 6th century thousands of pagan believers were slain.
Examples of destroyed Temples: the Sanctuary of Aesculap in Aegaea, the Temple of Aphrodite in Golgatha, Aphaka in Lebanon, the Heliopolis.
Christian priests such as Mark of Arethusa or Cyrill of Heliopolis were famous as "temple destroyer." [DA468]
Pagan services became punishable by death in 356. [DA468]
Christian Emperor Theodosius (408-450) even had children executed, because they had been playing with remains of pagan statues. [DA469]
According to Christian chroniclers he "followed meticulously all Christian teachings..."
In 6th century pagans were declared void of all rights.
In the early fourth century the philosopher Sopatros was executed on demand of Christian authorities. [DA466]
The world famous female philosopher Hypatia of Alexandria was torn to pieces with glass fragments by a hysterical Christian mob led by a Christian minister named Peter, in a church, in 415.
[DO19-25]

Mission

Emperor Karl (Charlemagne) in 782 had 4500 Saxons, unwilling to convert to Christianity, beheaded. [DO30]
Peasants of Steding (Germany) unwilling to pay suffocating church taxes: between 5,000 and 11,000 men, women and children slain 5/27/1234 near Altenesch/Germany. [WW223]
Battle of Belgrad 1456: 80,000 Turks slaughtered. [DO235]
15th century Poland: 1019 churches and 17987 villages plundered by Knights of the Order. Victims unknown. [DO30]
16th and 17th century Ireland. English troops "pacified and civilized" Ireland, where only Gaelic "wild Irish", "unreasonable beasts lived without any knowledge of God or good manners, in common of their goods, cattle, women, children and every other thing." One of the more successful soldiers, a certain Humphrey Gilbert, half-brother of Sir Walter Raleigh, ordered that "the heddes of all those (of what sort soever thei were) which were killed in the daie, should be cutte off from their bodies... and should bee laied on the ground by eche side of the waie", which effort to civilize the Irish indeed caused "greate terrour to the people when thei sawe the heddes of their dedde fathers, brothers, children, kinsfolke, and freinds on the grounde".
Tens of thousands of Gaelic Irish fell victim to the carnage. [SH99, 225]

Crusades (1095-1291)

First Crusade: 1095 on command of pope Urban II. [WW11-41]
Semlin/Hungary 6/24/96 thousands slain. Wieselburg/Hungary 6/12/96 thousands. [WW23]
9/9/96-9/26/96 Nikaia, Xerigordon (then turkish), thousands respectively. [WW25-27]
Until Jan 1098 a total of 40 capital cities and 200 castles conquered (number of slain unknown) [WW30]
after 6/3/98 Antiochia (then turkish) conquered, between 10,000 and 60,000 slain. 6/28/98 100,000 Turks (incl. women & children) killed. [WW32-35]
Here the Christians "did no other harm to the women found in [the enemy's] tents—save that they ran their lances through their bellies," according to Christian chronicler Fulcher of Chartres. [EC60]
Marra (Maraat an-numan) 12/11/98 thousands killed. Because of the subsequent famine "the already stinking corpses of the enemies were eaten by the Christians" said chronicler Albert Aquensis. [WW36]
Jerusalem conquered 7/15/1099 more than 60,000 victims (jewish, muslim, men, women, children). [WW37-40]
(In the words of one witness: "there [in front of Solomon's temple] was such a carnage that our people were wading ankle-deep in the blood of our foes", and after that "happily and crying for joy our people marched to our Saviour's tomb, to honour it and to pay off our debt of gratitude")
The Archbishop of Tyre, eye-witness, wrote: "It was impossible to look upon the vast numbers of the slain without horror; everywhere lay fragments of human bodies, and the very ground was covered with the blood of the slain. It was not alone the spectacle of headless bodies and mutilated limbs strewn in all directions that roused the horror of all who looked upon them. Still more dreadful was it to gaze upon the victors themselves, dripping with blood from head to foot, an ominous sight which brought terror to all who met them. It is reported that within the Temple enclosure alone about ten thousand infidels perished." [TG79]
Christian chronicler Eckehard of Aura noted that "even the following summer in all of palestine the air was polluted by the stench of decomposition". One million victims of the first crusade alone. [WW41]
Battle of Askalon, 8/12/1099. 200,000 heathens slaughtered "in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ". [WW45]
Fourth crusade: 4/12/1204 Constantinople sacked, number of victims unknown, numerous thousands, many of them Christian. [WW141-148]
Rest of Crusades in less detail: until the fall of Akkon 1291 probably 20 million victims (in the Holy land and Arab/Turkish areas alone). [WW224]

_{Note: All figures according to contemporary (Christian)
chroniclers.}

Heretics

Already in 385 C.E. the first Christians, the Spanish Priscillianus and six followers, were beheaded for heresy in Trier/Germany [DO26]
Manichaean heresy: a crypto-Christian sect decent enough to practice birth control (and thus not as irresponsible as faithful Catholics) was exterminated in huge campaigns all over the Roman empire between 372 C.E. and 444 C.E. Numerous thousands of victims. [NC]
Albigensians: the first Crusade intended to slay other Christians. [DO29]
The Albigensians...viewed themselves as good Christians, but would not accept roman Catholic rule, and taxes, and prohibition of birth control. [NC]
Begin of violence: on command of pope Innocent III (greatest single pre-nazi mass murderer) in 1209. Bezirs (today France) 7/22/1209 destroyed, all the inhabitants were slaughtered. Victims (including Catholics refusing to turn over their heretic neighbours and friends) 20,000-70,000. [WW179-181]
Carcassonne 8/15/1209, thousands slain. Other cities followed. [WW181]
subsequent 20 years of war until nearly all Cathars (probably half the population of the Languedoc, today southern France) were exterminated. [WW183]
After the war ended (1229) the Inquisition was founded 1232 to search and destroy surviving/hiding heretics. Last Cathars burned at the stake 1324. [WW183]
Estimated one million victims (cathar heresy alone), [WW183]
Other heresies: Waldensians, Paulikians, Runcarians, Josephites, and many others. Most of these sects exterminated, (I believe some Waldensians live today, yet they had to endure 600 years of persecution) I estimate at least hundred thousand victims (including the Spanish inquisition but excluding victims in the New World).
Spanish Inquisitor Torquemada alone allegedly responsible for 10,220 burnings. [DO28]
John Huss, a critic of papal infallibility and indulgences, was burned at the stake in 1415. [LI475-522]
University professor B.Hubmaier burned at the stake 1538 in Vienna. [DO59]
Giordano Bruno, Dominican monk, after having been incarcerated for seven years, was burned at the stake for heresy on the Campo dei Fiori (Rome) on 2/17/1600.

Witches

from the beginning of Christianity to 1484 probably more than several thousand.
in the era of witch hunting (1484-1750) according to modern scholars several hundred thousand (about 80% female) burned at the stake or hanged. [WV]
incomplete list of documented cases:
The Burning of Witches - A Chronicle of the Burning Times

Religious Wars

15th century: Crusades against Hussites, thousands slain. [DO30]
1538 pope Paul III declared Crusade against apostate England and all English as slaves of Church (fortunately had not power to go into action). [DO31]
1568 Spanish Inquisition Tribunal ordered extermination of 3 million rebels in (then Spanish) Netherlands. Thousands were actually slain. [DO31]
1572 In France about 20,000 Huguenots were killed on command of pope Pius V. Until 17th century 200,000 flee. [DO31]
17th century: Catholics slay Gaspard de Coligny, a Protestant leader. After murdering him, the Catholic mob mutilated his body, "cutting off his head, his hands, and his genitals... and then dumped him into the river [...but] then, deciding that it was not worthy of being food for the fish, they hauled it out again [... and] dragged what was left ... to the gallows of Montfaulcon, 'to be meat and carrion for maggots and crows'." [SH191]
17th century: Catholics sack the city of Magdeburg/Germany: roughly 30,000 Protestants were slain. "In a single church fifty women were found beheaded," reported poet Friedrich Schiller, "and infants still sucking the breasts of their lifeless mothers." [SH191]
17th century 30 years' war (Catholic vs. Protestant): at least 40% of population decimated, mostly in Germany. [DO31-32]

Jews

Already in the 4th and 5th centuries synagogues were burned by Christians. Number of Jews slain unknown.
In the middle of the fourth century the first synagogue was destroyed on command of bishop Innocentius of Dertona in Northern Italy. The first synagogue known to have been burned down was near the river Euphrat, on command of the bishop of Kallinikon in the year 388. [DA450]
17. Council of Toledo 694: Jews were enslaved, their property confiscated, and their children forcibly baptized. [DA454]
The Bishop of Limoges (France) in 1010 had the cities' Jews, who would not convert to Christianity, expelled or killed. [DA453]
First Crusade: Thousands of Jews slaughtered 1096, maybe 12.000 total. Places: Worms 5/18/1096, Mainz 5/27/1096 (1100 persons), Cologne, Neuss, Altenahr, Wevelinghoven, Xanten, Moers, Dortmund, Kerpen, Trier, Metz, Regensburg, Prag and others (All locations Germany except Metz/France, Prag/Czech) [EJ]
Second Crusade: 1147. Several hundred Jews were slain in Ham, Sully, Carentan, and Rameru (all locations in France). [WW57]
Third Crusade: English Jewish communities sacked 1189/90. [DO40]
Fulda/Germany 1235: 34 Jewish men and women slain. [DO41]
1257, 1267: Jewish communities of London, Canterbury, Northampton, Lincoln, Cambridge, and others exterminated. [DO41]
1290 in Bohemian (Poland) allegedly 10,000 Jews killed. [DO41]
1337 Starting in Deggendorf/Germany a Jew-killing craze reaches 51 towns in Bavaria, Austria, Poland. [DO41]
1348 All Jews of Basel/Switzerland and Strasbourg/France (two thousand) burned. [DO41]
1349 In more than 350 towns in Germany all Jews murdered, mostly burned alive (in this one year more Jews were killed than Christians in 200 years of ancient Roman persecution of Christians). [DO42]
1389 In Prag 3,000 Jews were slaughtered. [DO42]
1391 Seville's Jews killed (Archbishop Martinez leading). 4,000 were slain, 25,000 sold as slaves. [DA454] Their identification was made easy by the brightly colored "badges of shame" that all jews above the age of ten had been forced to wear.
1492: In the year Columbus set sail to conquer a New World, more than 150,000 Jews were expelled from Spain, many died on their way: 6/30/1492. [MM470-476]
1648 Chmielnitzki massacres: In Poland about 200,000 Jews were slain. [DO43]

(I feel sick ...) this goes on and on, century after century, right into the kilns of Auschwitz.

Native Peoples

Beginning with Columbus (a former slave trader and would-be Holy Crusader) the conquest of the New World began, as usual understood as a means to propagate Christianity.
Within hours of landfall on the first inhabited island he encountered in the Caribbean, Columbus seized and carried off six native people who, he said, "ought to be good servants ... [and] would easily be made Christians, because it seemed to me that they belonged to no religion." [SH200]
While Columbus described the Indians as "idolators" and "slaves, as many as [the Crown] shall order," his pal Michele de Cuneo, Italian nobleman, referred to the natives as "beasts" because "they eat when they are hungry," and made love "openly whenever they feel like it." [SH204-205]
On every island he set foot on, Columbus planted a cross, "making the declarations that are required" - the requerimiento - to claim the ownership for his Catholic patrons in Spain. And "nobody objected." If the Indians refused or delayed their acceptance (or understanding), the requerimiento continued:

I certify to you that, with the help of God, we shall powerfully enter in your country and shall make war against you ... and shall subject you to the yoke and obedience of the Church ... and shall do you all mischief that we can, as to vassals who do not obey and refuse to receive their lord and resist and contradict him." [SH66]

Likewise in the words of John Winthrop, first governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony: "justifieinge the undertakeres of the intended Plantation in New England ... to carry the Gospell into those parts of the world, ... and to raise a Bulworke against the kingdome of the Ante-Christ." [SH235]
In average two thirds of the native population were killed by colonist-imported smallpox before violence began. This was a great sign of "the marvelous goodness and providence of God" to the Christians of course, e.g. the Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony wrote in 1634, as "for the natives, they are near all dead of the smallpox, so as the Lord hath cleared our title to what we possess." [SH109,238]
On Hispaniola alone, on Columbus visits, the native population (Arawak), a rather harmless and happy people living on an island of abundant natural resources, a literal paradise, soon mourned 50,000 dead. [SH204]
The surviving Indians fell victim to rape, murder, enslavement and spanish raids.
As one of the culprits wrote: "So many Indians died that they could not be counted, all through the land the Indians lay dead everywhere. The stench was very great and pestiferous." [SH69]
The indian chief Hatuey fled with his people but was captured and burned alive. As "they were tying him to the stake a Franciscan friar urged him to take Jesus to his heart so that his soul might go to heaven, rather than descend into hell. Hatuey replied that if heaven was where the Christians went, he would rather go to hell." [SH70]
What happened to his people was described by an eyewitness:
"The Spaniards found pleasure in inventing all kinds of odd cruelties ... They built a long gibbet, long enough for the toes to touch the ground to prevent strangling, and hanged thirteen [natives] at a time in honor of Christ Our Saviour and the twelve Apostles... then, straw was wrapped around their torn bodies and they were burned alive." [SH72]
Or, on another occasion:
"The Spaniards cut off the arm of one, the leg or hip of another, and from some their heads at one stroke, like butchers cutting up beef and mutton for market. Six hundred, including the cacique, were thus slain like brute beasts...Vasco [de Balboa] ordered forty of them to be torn to pieces by dogs." [SH83]
The "island's population of about eight million people at the time of Columbus's arrival in 1492 already had declined by a third to a half before the year 1496 was out." Eventually all the island's natives were exterminated, so the Spaniards were "forced" to import slaves from other caribbean islands, who soon suffered the same fate. Thus "the Caribbean's millions of native people [were] thereby effectively liquidated in barely a quarter of a century". [SH72-73] "In less than the normal lifetime of a single human being, an entire culture of millions of people, thousands of years resident in their homeland, had been exterminated." [SH75]
"And then the Spanish turned their attention to the mainland of Mexico and Central America. The slaughter had barely begun. The exquisite city of Tenochtitln [Mexico city] was next." [SH75]
Cortez, Pizarro, De Soto and hundreds of other spanish conquistadors likewise sacked southern and mesoamerican civilizations in the name of Christ (De Soto also sacked Florida).
"When the 16th century ended, some 200,000 Spaniards had moved to the Americas. By that time probably more than 60,000,000 natives were dead." [SH95]

Of course no different were the founders of what today is the US of Amerikkka.

Although none of the settlers would have survived winter without native help, they soon set out to expel and exterminate the Indians. Warfare among (north American) Indians was rather harmless, in comparison to European standards, and was meant to avenge insults rather than conquer land. In the words of some of the pilgrim fathers: "Their Warres are farre less bloudy...", so that there usually was "no great slawter of nether side". Indeed, "they might fight seven yeares and not kill seven men." What is more, the Indians usually spared women and children. [SH111]
In the spring of 1612 some English colonists found life among the (generally friendly and generous) natives attractive enough to leave Jamestown - "being idell ... did runne away unto the Indyans," - to live among them (that probably solved a sex problem).
"Governor Thomas Dale had them hunted down and executed: 'Some he apointed (sic) to be hanged Some burned Some to be broken upon wheles, others to be staked and some shott to deathe'." [SH105] Of course these elegant measures were restricted for fellow englishmen: "This was the treatment for those who wished to act like Indians. For those who had no choice in the matter, because they were the native people of Virginia" methods were different: "when an Indian was accused by an Englishman of stealing a cup and failing to return it, the English response was to attack the natives in force, burning the entire community" down. [SH105]
On the territory that is now Massachusetts the founding fathers of the colonies were committing genocide, in what has become known as the "Peqout War". The killers were New England Puritan Christians, refugees from persecution in their own home country England.
When however, a dead colonist was found, apparently killed by Narragansett Indians, the Puritan colonists wanted revenge. Despite the Indian chief's pledge they attacked.
Somehow they seem to have lost the idea of what they were after, because when they were greeted by Pequot Indians (long-time foes of the Narragansetts) the troops nevertheless made war on the Pequots and burned their villages.
The puritan commander-in-charge John Mason after one massacre wrote: "And indeed such a dreadful Terror did the Almighty let fall upon their Spirits, that they would fly from us and run into the very Flames, where many of them perished ... God was above them, who laughed his Enemies and the Enemies of his People to Scorn, making them as a fiery Oven ... Thus did the Lord judge among the Heathen, filling the Place with dead Bodies": men, women, children. [SH113-114]
So "the Lord was pleased to smite our Enemies in the hinder Parts, and to give us their land for an inheritance". [SH111].
Because of his readers' assumed knowledge of Deuteronomy, there was no need for Mason to quote the words that immediately follow:
"Thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth. But thou shalt utterly destroy them..." (Deut 20)
Mason's comrade Underhill recalled how "great and doleful was the bloody sight to the view of the young soldiers" yet reassured his readers that "sometimes the Scripture declareth women and children must perish with their parents". [SH114]
Other Indians were killed in successful plots of poisoning. The colonists even had dogs especially trained to kill Indians and to devour children from their mothers breasts, in the colonists' own words: "blood Hounds to draw after them, and Mastives to seaze them." (This was inspired by spanish methods of the time)
In this way they continued until the extermination of the Pequots was near. [SH107-119]
The surviving handful of Indians "were parceled out to live in servitude. John Endicott and his pastor wrote to the governor asking for 'a share' of the captives, specifically 'a young woman or girle and a boy if you thinke good'." [SH115]
Other tribes were to follow the same path.
Comment the Christian exterminators: "God's Will, which will at last give us cause to say: How Great is His Goodness! and How Great is his Beauty!"
"Thus doth the Lord Jesus make them to bow before him, and to lick the Dust!" [TA]
Like today, lying was OK to Christians then. "Peace treaties were signed with every intention to violate them: when the Indians 'grow secure uppon (sic) the treatie', advised the Council of State in Virginia, 'we shall have the better Advantage both to surprise them, & cutt downe theire Corne'." [SH106]
In 1624 sixty heavily armed Englishmen cut down 800 defenseless Indian men, women and children. [SH107]
In a single massacre in "King Philip's War" of 1675 and 1676 some "600 Indians were destroyed. A delighted Cotton Mather, revered pastor of the Second Church in Boston, later referred to the slaughter as a 'barbeque'." [SH115]
To summarize: Before the arrival of the English, the western Abenaki people in New Hampshire and Vermont had numbered 12,000. Less than half a century later about 250 remained alive - a destruction rate of 98%. The Pocumtuck people had numbered more than 18,000, fifty years later they were down to 920 - 95% destroyed. The Quiripi-Unquachog people had numbered about 30,000, fifty years later they were down to 1500 - 95% destroyed. The Massachusetts people had numbered at least 44,000, fifty years later barely 6000 were alive - 81% destroyed. [SH118] These are only a few examples of the multitude of tribes living before Christian colonists set their foot on the New World. All this was before the smallpox epidemics of 1677 and 1678 had occurred. And the carnage was not over then.
All the above was only the beginning of the European colonization, it was before the frontier age actually had begun.
A total of maybe more than 150 million Indians (of both Americas) were destroyed in the period of 1500 to 1900, as an average two thirds by smallpox and other epidemics, that leaves some 50 million killed directly by violence, bad treatment and slavery.
In many countries, such as Brazil, and Guatemala, this continues even today.

More Glorious events in US history

Reverend Solomon Stoddard, one of New England's most esteemed religious leaders, in "1703 formally proposed to the Massachusetts Governor that the colonists be given the financial wherewithal to purchase and train large packs of dogs 'to hunt Indians as they do bears'." [SH241]
Massacre of Sand Creek, Colorado 11/29/1864. Colonel John Chivington, a former Methodist minister and still elder in the church ("I long to be wading in gore") had a Cheyenne village of about 600, mostly women and children, gunned down despite the chiefs' waving with a white flag: 400-500 killed.
From an eye-witness account: "There were some thirty or forty squaws collected in a hole for protection; they sent out a little girl about six years old with a white flag on a stick; she had not proceeded but a few steps when she was shot and killed. All the squaws in that hole were afterwards killed ..." [SH131]
More gory details.
By the 1860s, "in Hawai'i the Reverend Rufus Anderson surveyed the carnage that by then had reduced those islands' native population by 90 percent or more, and he declined to see it as tragedy; the expected total die-off of the Hawaiian population was only natural, this missionary said, somewhat equivalent to 'the amputation of diseased members of the body'." [SH244]

20th Century Church Atrocities

Catholic extermination camps
Surpisingly few know that Nazi extermination camps in World War II were by no means the only ones in Europe at the time. In the years 1942-1943 also in Croatia existed numerous extermination camps, run by Catholic Ustasha under their dictator Ante Paveli, a practising Catholic and regular visitor to the then pope. There were even concentration camps exclusively for children!

In these camps - the most notorious was Jasenovac, headed by a Franciscan friar - orthodox-Christian serbians (and a substantial number of Jews) were murdered. Like the Nazis the Catholic Ustasha burned their victims in kilns, alive (the Nazis were decent enough to have their victims gassed first). But most of the victims were simply stabbed, slain or shot to death, the number of them being estimated between 300,000 and 600,000, in a rather tiny country. Many of the killers were Franciscan friars. The atrocities were appalling enough to induce bystanders of the Nazi "Sicherheitsdient der SS", watching, to complain about them to Hitler (who did not listen). The pope knew about these events and did nothing to prevent them. [MV]
Catholic terror in Vietnam
In 1954 Vietnamese freedom fighters - the Viet Minh - had finally defeated the French colonial government in North Vietnam, which by then had been supported by U.S. funds amounting to more than $2 billion. Although the victorious assured religious freedom to all (most non-buddhist Vietnamese were Catholics), due to huge anticommunist propaganda campaigns many Catholics fled to the South. With the help of Catholic lobbies in Washington and Cardinal Spellman, the Vatican's spokesman in U.S. politics, who later on would call the U.S. forces in Vietnam "Soldiers of Christ", a scheme was concocted to prevent democratic elections which could have brought the communist Viet Minh to power in the South as well, and the fanatic Catholic Ngo Dinh Diem was made president of South Vietnam. [MW16ff]

Diem saw to it that U.S. aid, food, technical and general assistance was given to Catholics alone, Buddhist individuals and villages were ignored or had to pay for the food aids which were given to Catholics for free. The only religious denomination to be supported was Roman Catholicism.

The Vietnamese McCarthyism turned even more vicious than its American counterpart. By 1956 Diem promulgated a presidential order which read:
- "Individuals considered dangerous to the national defense and common security may be confined by executive order, to a concentration camp."

Supposedly to fight communism, thousands of buddhist protesters and monks were imprisoned in "detention camps." Out of protest dozens of buddhist teachers - male and female - and monks poured gasoline over themselves and burned themselves. (Note that Buddhists burned themselves: in comparison Christians tend to burn others). Meanwhile some of the prison camps, which in the meantime were filled with Protestant and even Catholic protesters as well, had turned into no-nonsense death camps. It is estimated that during this period of terror (1955-1960) at least 24,000 were wounded - mostly in street riots - 80,000 people were executed, 275,000 had been detained or tortured, and about 500,000 were sent to concentration or detention camps. [MW76-89].

To support this kind of government in the next decade thousands of American GI's lost their life....

Rwanda Massacres
In 1994 in the small african country of Rwanda in just a few months several hundred thousand civilians were butchered, apparently a conflict of the Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups.

For quite some time I heard only rumours about Catholic clergy actively involved in the 1994 Rwanda massacres. Odd denials of involvement were printed in Catholic church journals, before even anybody had openly accused members of the church.

Then, 10/10/96, in the newscast of S2 Aktuell, Germany - a station not at all critical to Christianity - the following was stated:

"Anglican as well as Catholic priests and nuns are suspect of having actively participated in murders. Especially the conduct of a certain Catholic priest has been occupying the public mind in Rwanda's capital Kigali for months. He was minister of the church of the Holy Family and allegedly murdered Tutsis in the most brutal manner. He is reported to have accompanied marauding Hutu militia with a gun in his cowl. In fact there has been a bloody slaughter of Tutsis seeking shelter in his parish. Even two years after the massacres many Catholics refuse to set foot on the threshold of their church, because to them the participation of a certain part of the clergy in the slaughter is well established. There is almost no church in Rwanda that has not seen refugees - women, children, old - being brutally butchered facing the crucifix.

According to eyewitnesses clergymen gave away hiding Tutsis and turned them over to the machetes of the Hutu militia.

In connection with these events again and again two Benedictine nuns are mentioned, both of whom have fled into a Belgian monastery in the meantime to avoid prosecution. According to survivors one of them called the Hutu killers and led them to several thousand people who had sought shelter in her monastery. By force the doomed were driven out of the churchyard and were murdered in the presence of the nun right in front of the gate. The other one is also reported to have directly cooperated with the murderers of the Hutu militia. In her case again witnesses report that she watched the slaughtering of people in cold blood and without showing response. She is even accused of having procured some petrol used by the killers to set on fire and burn their victims alive..." [S2]

As can be seen from these events, to Christianity the Dark Ages never come to an end....

References:

[DA]

K.Deschner, Abermals krhte der Hahn, Stuttgart 1962.

[DO]

K.Deschner, Opus Diaboli, Reinbek 1987.

[EC]

P.W.Edbury, Crusade and Settlement, Cardiff Univ. Press 1985.

[EJ]

S.Eidelberg, The Jews and the Crusaders, Madison 1977.

[LI]

H.C.Lea, The Inquisition of the Middle Ages, New York 1961.

[MM]

M.Margolis, A.Marx, A History of the Jewish People.

[MV]

A.Manhattan, The Vatican’s Holocaust, Springfield 1986.
See also V.Dedijer, The Yugoslav Auschwitz and the Vatican, Buffalo NY, 1992.

[NC]

J.T.Noonan, Contraception: A History of its Treatment by the Catholic Theologians and Canonists, Cambridge/Mass., 1992.

[S2]

Newscast of S2 Aktuell, Germany, 10/10/96, 12:00.

[SH]

D.Stannard, American Holocaust, Oxford University Press 1992.

[SP]

German news magazine Der Spiegel, no.49, 12/2/1996.

[TA] A True Account of the Most Considerable Occurrences that have Hapned in the Warre Between the English and the Indians in New England, London 1676.

[TG]

F.Turner, Beyond Geography, New York 1980.

[WW]

H.Wollschlger: Die bewaffneten Wallfahrten gen Jerusalem, Zrich 1973.
(This is in german and what is worse, it is out of print. But it is the best I ever read about crusades and includes a full list of original medieval Christian chroniclers' writings).

[WV]

Estimates on the number of executed witches:

N.Cohn, Europe's Inner Demons: An Enquiry Inspired by the Great Witch Hunt, Frogmore 1976, 253.

R.H.Robbins, The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology, New York 1959, 180.

J.B.Russell, Witchcraft in the Middle Ages, Ithaca/NY 1972, 39.

H.Zwetsloot, Friedrich Spee und die Hexenprozesse, Trier 1954, 56

More at: http://www.truthbeknown.com/victims.htm

Opposition Review

Pages

Thursday, October 17, 2013

OH MY! The Religious Right in the US and What They're Doing To the US.