Beheading for "witchcraft"

[hilary]

Religion, religion, religion, what shall we do with this evil called religion?

[jesus_wept]

I wish people like this would just let whatever God they have deliver his own punishments, without having to always do it in his behalf.

I'm sure gods aren't nearly so easily upset as people seem to think.

Yes, I've often thought that the biggest argument against an all powerful god is that he needs to use gangs of thugs to do his bidding (and people to spread his word for him), instead if sorting things out himself.

Religious people don't seem to be able to grasp the irony though.

[robvalue]

Apparently he wants it to look like he can't do fuck all on his own.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

People who are charged with witchcraft should go all in and put some really vile curses on the people ganging up on them. Of course the accusers don't really believe their own BS but it might scare the dummies in the mob. And it might help if the victims' relatives took out some of the twits in the mob.

[Cinjin]

I'm SICK of being persecuted!!
If I can't cut off a witch's head, WHAT's left for me to do?!?!

I should have every right to mutilate anyone accused of doing the devil's work.  
The priests have only our best interest at heart ... Plus, god wants us to kill chatty women and beat child slaves into proper submission.  Amen.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

'During many ages there were witches. The Bible said so. the Bible commanded that they should not be allowed to live. Therefore the Church, after eight hundred years, gathered up its halters, thumb-screws, and firebrands, and set about its holy work in earnest. She worked hard at it night and day during nine centuries and imprisoned, tortured, hanged, and burned whole hordes and armies of witches, and washed the Christian world clean with their foul blood.

Then it was discovered that there was no such thing as witches, and never had been. One does not know whether to laugh or to cry.....There are no witches. The witch text remains; only the practice has changed. Hell fire is gone, but the text remains. Infant damnation is gone, but the text remains. More than two hundred death penalties are gone from the law books, but the texts that authorized them remain.' - Mark Twain

*sigh*  The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Boru

[Aoi Magi]

I don't get why there are only female witches? What happened to warlocks, wizards, and other abominations? And with so much supernatural power at their disposal, shouldn't the witches and such be among the socially top-ranking people instead of poor defenceless village folk?

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I don't get why there are only female witches? What happened to warlocks, wizards, and other abominations? And with so much supernatural power at their disposal, shouldn't the witches and such be among the socially top-ranking people instead of poor defenceless village folk?

Actually, quite a few men - both in Europe and the Americas - were 'tried' and executed for witchcraft, including four at Salem.

The twisted logic behind the low social status of witches is that Satan doesn't want his minions to be ostentatious.  The real reason is that it's easier to murder an old peasant woman than it is a duke.

Boru

[Aoi Magi]

I don't get why there are only female witches? What happened to warlocks, wizards, and other abominations? And with so much supernatural power at their disposal, shouldn't the witches and such be among the socially top-ranking people instead of poor defenceless village folk?

Actually, quite a few men - both in Europe and the Americas - were 'tried' and executed for witchcraft, including four at Salem.

The twisted logic behind the low social status of witches is that Satan doesn't want his minions to be ostentatious.  The real reason is that it's easier to murder an old peasant woman than it is a duke.

Boru

In my lifetime I've heard of many witch accusations and executions across several religions, but curiously not a single one of those was against a socially strong person. I know the real logical reason, but I am curious how religious people explain this.

[robvalue]

I've been thinking. (Look out below!)

Humans, on the whole, seem to go with the flow. If you give them a nice peaceful society, they go with that. If you publicly execute people all the time and make good sounding reasons for it, they'll go with that too. My guess is religion, very broadly speaking, probably contains a higher percentage of the kind of people who don't questions things too much. It takes those few to stand up and speak out against harm being done for change to happen. When religion is the thing doing the harm, it seems more likely it will be someone outside of it to speak up. Unless there isn't anyone outside it...

I know that's a huge generalisation. Am I close? Or way off?