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[Tvoivozhd <tvoivozd AT infionline.net>]

RayZentz AT aol.com wrote:

>  
> Ray 
> Well, it’s here – the 2004 Election – the election that  historians will 
> look back on and say was the turning point in the first war of  the 21st century. 
> They may even call what we’re living in the Third  World War. 
> Either way, whether we realize it or not, we are living in  the midst of a 
> global war – a war not just against terrorism but against a  religious ideology 
> that views America and the Judeo-Christian worldview as the  “great Satan.” 
> This war began in earnest on September 11, 2001. Rightfully,  America took 
> the lead in this war and just a few years after 9/11, Americans  have the 
> opportunity to go to the polls and either affirm the aggressive war  against terror 
> or choose another undetermined path. 
>  

tvoivozhd---we don't have an aggressive war against terror, because we 
have the most incompetent military leader I have ever seen since Neville 
Chamberlain---one who violates every military precept known---the 
preponderance of force foremost among them, and absolute zero regard for 
the most elemental things such as protecting unarmed truck convoys---(we 
won't have all the Humbee's armored until the middle of 2005.  As I  
have also said before, I have court-martialed men a lot less criminally 
negligent than Bush---I would have him serving twenty years ar hard 
labor for dereliction of duty in Iraq.   He is so bad that you could 
take a wino off the street and expect him to do no worse, and probably a 
lot better.

> Let’s make no mistake about what is at the heart of this  election. The 
> historians will not mistake its meaning.  
> Historians will also likely note the great cultural divide in  America right 
> now – so many 
> hinge issues reflected in the red and blue  states and the county map from 
> 2000 that revealed two Americas – the liberal  urban centers and the vast 
> grassroots heartland. As in the war against terror,  the cultural divide is really a 
> philosophical struggle between conflicting  ideologies: secular liberalism 
> against faith-based conservatism. 
> I believe that’s what historians will write about. Two  struggles; one the 
> early stages of a global war and the other the turning point  in a cultural 
> transformation. And Americans today will make the  call.
>
>  
tvoivozhd---there is no aggressive war against terror, because as I have 
stated often before, we have "allies" whose interests diverge from our 
own.  They will cooperate only on the rare occasions  when  terrorists 
threaten their government---they couldn't care less about ours..  That 
is not often enough or serious enough to realistically justify calling 
them allies.  Ideological wars take a long time to burn out---it isn't 
that long ago that Christians were burning and drowning "witches", and 
the text they hugged to their chests was Malleus Malificarum.

"Secular liberalism" against faith-based conservatism is a buzzword 
phrase that implies only a hot-eyed Christian Fanatic will resist 
terrorism by whatever means is available to us---and people who see 
through the weak-minded religious mindset won't fight at all----that is 
a bunch of ideological swill too---we did quite well in WWII without 
having preachers and priests at our side giving us Christian pep talks 
in a firefight.


 THE
 MALLEUS MALEFICARUM


     of Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger

------------------------------------------------------------------------
/ Unabridged online republication of the 1928 edition. Introduction to 
the 1948 edition is also included.
Translation, notes, and two introductions by Montague Summers. A Bull of 
Innocent VIII. /

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   Saint Magdalen by Peter Paul Rubens

           /The Malleus Maleficarum/ (/The Witch Hammer/), first
   published in 1486, is arguably one of the most infamous books ever
   written, due primarily to its position and regard during the Middle
   Ages. It served as a guidebook for Inquisitors during the
   Inquisition, and was designed to aid them in the identification,
   prosecution, and dispatching of Witches. It set forth, as well, many
   of the modern misconceptions and fears concerning witches and the
   influence of witchcraft. The questions, definitions, and accusations
   it set forth in regard to witches, which were reinforced by its use
   during the Inquisition, came to be widely regarded as irrefutable
   truth. Those beliefs are held even today by a majority of Christians
   in regard to practitioners of the modern “revived” religion of
   Witchcraft, or Wicca. And while the /Malleus/ itself is largely
   unknown in modern times, its effects have proved long lasting.

           At the time of the writing of /The Malleus Maleficarum/,
   there were many voices within the Christian community (scholars and
   theologians) who doubted the existence of witches and largely
   regarded such belief as mere superstition. The authors of the
   /Malleus/ addressed those voices in no uncertain terms, stating:
   /“Whether the Belief that there are such Beings as Witches is so
   Essential a Part of the Catholic Faith that Obstinacy to maintain
   the Opposite Opinion manifestly savours of Heresy.”/ The immediate,
   and lasting, popularity of the /Malleus/ essentially silenced those
   voices. It made very real the threat of one being branded a heretic,
   simply by virtue of one's questioning of the existence of witches
   and, thus, the validity of the Inquisition. It set into the general
   Christian consciousness, for all time, a belief in the existence of
   witches as a real and valid threat to the Christian world. It is a
   belief which is held to this day.

           It must be noted that during the Inquisition, few, if any,
   real, verifiable, witches were ever discovered or tried. Often the
   very accusation was enough to see one branded a witch, tried by the
   Inquisitors' Court, and burned alive at the stake. Estimates of the
   death toll during the Inquisition worldwide range from 600,000 to as
   high as 9,000,000 (over its 250 year long course); either is a
   chilling number when one realizes that nearly all of the accused
   were women, and consisted primarily of outcasts and other suspicious
   persons. Old women. Midwives. Jews. Poets. Gypsies. Anyone who did
   not fit within the contemporary view of pieous Christians were
   suspect, and easily branded "Witch". Usually to devastating effect.

           It must also be noted that the crime of Witchcraft was not
   the only crime of which one could be accused during the Inquisition.
   By questioning any part of Catholic belief, one could be branded a
   heretic. Scientists were branded heretics by virtue of repudiating
   certain tenets of Christian belief (most notably Galileo, whose
   theories on the nature of planets and gravitational fields was
   initially branded heretical). Writers who challenged the Church were
   arrested for heresy (sometimes formerly accepted writers whose works
   had become unpopular). Anyone who questioned the validity of any
   part of Catholic belief did so at their own risk. /The Malleus
   Maleficarum/ played an important role in bringing such Canonical law
   into being, as often the charge of heresy carried along with it
   suspicions of witchcraft.

           It must be remembered that the /Malleus/ is a work of its
   time. Science had only just begun to make any real advances. At that
   time nearly any unexplainable illness or malady would often be
   attributed to magic, and thus the activity of witches. It was a way
   for ordinary people to make sense of the world around them. The
   /Malleus/ drew upon those beliefs, and, by its very existence,
   reinforced them and brought them into the codified belief system of
   the Catholic Church. In many ways, it could be said that it helped
   to validate the Inquisition itself.

           While the /Malleus/ itself cannot be blamed for the
   Inquisition or the horrors inflicted upon mankind by the
   Inquisitors, it certainly played an important role. Thus has it been
   said that /The Malleus Maleficarum/ is one of the most blood-soaked
   works in human history, in that its very existence reinforced and
   validated Catholic beliefs which led to the prosecution, torture,
   and murder, of tens of thousands of innocent people.

           The lasting effect of the /Malleus/ upon the world can only
   be measured in the lives of the hundreds of thousands of men, women,
   and even children, who suffered, and died, at the hands of the
   Inquisitors during the Inquisition. At the height of its popularity,
   /The Malleus Maleficarum/ was surpassed in public notoriety only by
   /The Bible/. Its effects were even felt in the New World, where the
   last gasp of the Inquisition was felt in the English settlements in
   America (most notably in Salem, Massachusetts during the Salem Witch
   Trials).

           It is beyond the scope of this article to adequately examine
   the role of the /Malleus/ in world history, or its lasting effects.
   At the very least, /The Malleus Maleficarum/ (/The Witch Hammer/)
   offers to us an intriguing glimpse into the Medieval mind, and
   perhaps gives us a taste of what it might have been like to have
   lived in those times.

           /- Wicasta Lovelace/




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