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Frank: ...but when you try to remove religion as a motive from the goals of religious people I think you have missed an important point.

Again, I'm not trying to remove religion as a motive. But I don't think you can always take people's word for what motivated a particular action, and it doesn't make sense to me that some of these supposedly pious actions were really motivated by religion. Not because I have some facile association between religion and moral action, but because I don't see any clear religious benefit.

...but you have failed to realize the possibility that it could be both, it is entirely possible that there were "secular" reasons for starting witch hunts but at the same time justified by the very real belief that it was ok because they were also ridding the countryside of a actual (in their minds) problem.

But I have admitted as much. They certainly did seek out justification in Biblical precedent, but only after adjusting tradition and providing an interpretation that conflated Biblical precedent with contemporary figures. That finding Biblical precedent required so much gerrymandering is part of the reason I suspect that, had they been denied the authority of the Church, they would have found some other (probably judicial, since there was no lack of anti-witch laws in the pagan judicial authorities that served as the basis for most medieval law) means of justifying witch persecution.

me: How many criticisms do I have to make before that charge gets lifted?
Frank: None just stop defending religious virtue at every opportunity that would be a nice start.

If what you want is a forum in which every criticism of religion is given a pass from scrutiny, count me out.

Furthermore I cannot recall you ever criticizing the theists so harshly, even when they make blatantly false claims or ignore common facts about their religion and reality.

I've never felt the need to in this forum. Any theist foolhardy enough to post in favor of religion gets an instantaneous response from every die-hard atheist on the site. If you feel like cruising through the religion forum archives, you'll see that I've definitely differed with other theists on issues of fact. But on the whole, they get hit with the anvil of approbriam the moment they put their foot in the door, so my criticism is hardly necessary.

...but from what I have seen from your writings over the last couple of years you do tend to sympathize with religion more than the secular voices here at book talk.

I don't think there are a lot of what I would consider "secular" voices on BookTalk. There are a number of proselytizing atheists, but that's a different stance than simple secularity. I don't see any particular reason why a secular voice would feel the need to constantly raise the topic of religion just to smother it in obloquy.

There are a few genuinely secular voices in the mix, and they tend to be far more level, and to give me far less reason to object.

Isn't it possible that greed combined with true religious conviction could have caused what you call "secular" actions?

You elaborate on the scenario -- show how those two motives worked in unison, and connect it to the factual information we've already discussed -- and I'll be glad to give it some thought.

I think Mad might have resorted to gorilla tactics; he seems to be posting in a hit and run style lately.

That's because I've had the time to log onto the internet about once a week at the most.

Frank: And I should not have to remind you that religious thought rarely has any logic driving it.

That's a bias you've brought to the discussion, and I think that's probably the crux of our entire argument. For my part, I don't agree with that premise, and the more I read into the history of religion, the more I see the logic determining a great many of the decisions that go towards defining a tradition. If you don't see that same logic, it may be because you've already decided that it isn't there.

Mad what I am suggesting here is that these are the types of things that you should have considered in the first place. And from what you wrote above it seems as though you haven't.

So you're going to elaborate, or you're not?

me: I don't think there are a lot of what I would consider "secular" voices on BookTalk. There are a number of proselytizing atheists, but that's a different stance than simple secularity.
Rose: Gee, Mad, I don't think this is really fair. Sure there are a number of passionate atheists on this site, and sometimes the arguments on both sides don't tend to follow the structure of logical reasoning for which we all should strive. But I think that error in sound logic is a far cry from proselytizing.

Well, you have to bear in mind that I've been with BookTalk for the better part of three years (probably more). So I'm probably taking in a much longer view of things than you're privy to. And over that span of time, the most enduring and most active members (myself and DH excluded) have tended to be the pro-atheist contingent. There was even a month or so there where it looked as though BookTalk was going to become an atheism advocacy site.

But you may be right to the extent that I've put a positive spin on the atheism advocacy that takes place on this site. It isn't really that anyone is attempting to spread atheism; rather, there's a concerted effort on the part of a number of people here to malign religion at every turn. There are plenty of exceptions, of course, but all you really need to do in order to demonstrate the presence of that impulse is to scan the back log of threads. We've devoted no less than four quarters in the last two years to distinctly anti-religious books (the closest we've come to balance on that issue is the current Freethinkers suggestion, which was championed by someone I consider, by comparison, very moderate on the issue), and there are any number of threads that link to articles that aren't about the encroachment of religion on secular life so much as they are about the evils of religion in itself.

It's a pretty fine line between saying that one isn't interested in converting someone to atheism, and consistently and vehemently arguing that all religion is false (if not pernicuous) and should be abandoned. So fine a line that I think it's practically splitting hairs.

Frank's attitude may not reflect the attitudes or opinions of the majority of BookTalk regulars, but it's stated so strongly and so frequently (and by enough members) that it probably is the most visible point of view on the site. I think that there are a lot of very reasonable people on this site, but unless you're looking specifically for those voices, I think they tend to get drowned out by all the shouting.

misterpessimistic: This is not directed at Mad, just his comment. I know he will never be converted, but he is good to have around!

It's good to know that you think so. It isn't always clear.

Getting back to the topic of this thread...

I may delve into Russell's 4 volumes on evil from antiquity to the modern age, I picked up the "Lucifer: The Devil in the Middle Ages " book, even though it is not the first in chronological order. It looked the most interesting.

As a prequel to that, you might want to check out Elaine Pagels' "The Origin of Satan", which chronicles the development of the New Testament use of Satan as a rhetorical figure for demonizing certain groups. It's extremely well researched and argued, and contains a great deal of information about the development of Christianity itself.

I was just wondering if the pairing of a male dominated devil persona may have made the persecution of women more prevalent at this juncture.

I'd chalk that up as an influence that was probably operative in some situations, and probably not operative in others. On the whole, I'm thinking along the lines that Rose's suggested, to the effect that women were more often the accusers as well probably has something to do with the extent to which women were also the accused.

Religion may not have been the SOLE motivator and enabler, but I think it exacerbated the problem.

I'd agree on that point generally, although, I'd have to see some of the details to decide whether or not I agree on specific points.

You keep mentioning the "Cui Bono?" and so does T-Roper...but I have not seen a clear offering of just why persecuting and burning so many benefitted anyone or any country. Who came out on top here because of this?

I doubt that there is a uniform reason from region to region, but most of the reasons can probably be subsumed under the category of social uniformity. Just as a for instance, Trevor-Roper and others have pointed out that the groups persecuted in the earliest stages tended to be mountain rustics with social modes that diverged from the feudalism of the urban and plains mainstream. Persecuting them allowed for a greater conformity to the dominant social mode of the time. The same general comment probably applies in the case of the Basque witches in Spain.

I doubt that the same motive was operative in later phases of the witch-crazes, and on the whole it's probably dangerous to treat the entire phenomenon as a homogenous, uniform episode.

Those the were persecuting these people could be said to have beneftied, religiously, by crusading for their god...wiping out eveil and heresy and all that and thus cleansing their soul.

I suppose, but that doesn't really fit in with the Christian doctrine of the period. Christian conversion was not a "do or die" scenario. The Bible is quite explicit, in fact, that intransigent resisters are to be left alone. The Crusades were justified not because the Muslims refused to convert, but because they held land that was considered important to Christendom. That same could hardly be said for a native population already imbedded within Christian lands.

In fact, the preachers of the witch-crazes seem to have spread their message in part by presenting witch-craft as a kind of social and political revolution. Witches prior to the "Malleus" and related documents were considered as single, independent threats or small groups; after the "Malleus" there was wide-spread talk of an organized "army" of witches. Part of the process of mobilizing fear of the witches as a group involved turning them into a quasi-political body.

IMO, this may have simply been a way to ignore the older traditions and hope they went away.

I'm fine with considering that a possibility, but that still leaves a very important question: Why did they want to dispense with the older, more tolerant, tradition?

Yes, the church had an issue of loss of power, but it leaned on the doctrines that were already in the canon to prosecute thier campaign to regain some of that power.

I don't think the Church was as active as all that -- it may have let the crazes take their course in hopes that it would turn out in the Church's best interests -- but even so, if we admit that the Church facilitated, or at least tolerated, the crazes in hopes of consolidating it's power, we have to ask what kind of power we're talking about. And the answer that seems most obvious to me is, political power.