Why did the Christians once burn "witches" alive? and use other methods of torture?

Answer 1

1. There was no such thing as witches.

2. It was fanatical religious people who burned "Christians" alive
accusing them of being witches. There were no witches, it
was innocent people--Christians being falsely and unjustly
accused of such atrocities.

Answer 2

Francis Bacon illustrates a connection between the old and new world order, with a mechanical view based on domination and control. He declared nature should be ‘hounded in her wanderings… bound into service and made a slave... put into constraint... secrets tortured from her.’

The meanings of the powerful and the powerless met in a feminine image of nature, yielding secrets through the application of mechanical devices. It corresponds with Francis Bacon’s duties as the Attorney General of King James I of England: familiar with the witch trials throughout Western Europe.

Between 1587 and 1593, twenty two villages in Trier, Central Germany, burnt 368 ‘witches’. Persecutions reduced as financial rewards were withdrawn: lower bounty payments meant fewer witches.

Roman law made the matrilinear heritage of Celtic tribes invalid. The extortion of payments was legitimised within a legal system that meant a woman could not voluntarily attend court without her nearest male relative.

The ‘accusatory procedure’ made a farce of the witch trials, which might cost the life of anyone who defended them: joining them in the flames.

‘Freely confessing the crimes suggested to them, rather than run the risk of being led back to those evil smelling caverns and perpetual torture. By such means a poor old woman, already set for burning, was brought to confess that she had caused the long winter and extreme cold and persistent ice of 1575’. (Wier: ‘Di Praestigiis Daemonum’)

The Toradjas tribe of Central Celebes used to live in very great fear of shape-shifters. The accused would have a hand put into boiling oil. If the hand was burnt, so proving their guilt, they would be taken into the forest and hacked to bits.

Answer 3

Because they had fallen away from the Scriptures and gotten caught up in fear and superstitions. Although they claimed to be Christians they were like sheep without a shepherd and they needed true teachers of the Word instead of home spun philosophy and back woods preachers who in reality were no better than the so called "witches" that they persecuted. By falling under the sway of superstitious beliefs they had become like the people that they feared.

Answer 4

Christians? People in authority burned witches alive out of pure ignorance, fear and superstition. Some of them weren't even witches. The common Christian has never had the authority on planet earth to make any of these decisions. Because people call themselves Christian doesn't make them one and do you actually know who the individual persons were who made these decisions. If a minister commits adultery with one of his flock - are you going to go around asking why do Christians commit adultery? If I know of a non-believer who blows up a building (and there have been some) am I going to go around saying why do non-believers believe in blowing up buildings?

Answer 5

The Jews were commanded by God in the Old Testament, "you shall not allow a witch to live." This has been done away with in Jesus Christ. The plan these days is, be merciful and lead the sinner to Jesus. The "Christians" of yesteryear were happy to burn just about anyone at the stake with little excuse. This was not the will of God, however. It was the work of demonized religious people doing ungodly things in the name of God, to create fear and confusion, and to discredit the Lord and His true church.

Answer 6

It's called THE PROTESTANT INQUISITION .

Unfortunately, the religious "scandal score" needs to be evened up now and then, and the lesser-known "skeletons in the closet" need to be rescued from obscurity, surveyed, and exposed.

I take no pleasure in "dredging up" these unsavory occurrences, but it is necessary for honest, fair historical appraisal. This does not mean that I have forsaken ecumenism, or that I wish to bash Protestants, or that I deny corresponding Catholic shortcomings. Historical facts are what they are, and most Protestants (and Catholics) are unaware of the following historical events and beliefs (while, on the other hand, one always hears about the embarrassing and scandalous Catholic stuff -- and not often very accurately or fairly at that).

If (as I suspect might often be the case) readers are shocked or surprised by the very title of this paper, this would be a case in point, and justification enough for my purposes of education. With that end and stated outlook in mind, I offer this copiously-researched treatise, with all due respect to my Protestant brethren, yet not without some remaining trepidation.

http://ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ247.HTM
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All the sources on this web site come from Protestant historians:

Answer 7

Christians have done a lot of things that are not particularly Christian. Christians are killing Christians in Northern Ireland (or they were recently), just as Muslims are killing Muslims in Iraq.

Some people say that religions is responsible of all the evil in the world. That's not true. It is the actions of men (and women) that is the cause. Many times, religion is used as the excuse to gain power over another faction, but it is greed and lust for power manifested in human beings that causes the violence.

Answer 8

Every religion has burnt , tortured and imprisoned people who did not fit into their norm for religious culture, sorry to say it is still practised in some form or other to this day. Burning witches alive,??? not much point if they are dead allready is it. And on that happy note, "MERRY CHRISTMAS " to you.

Answer 9

I don't know. Why do some people practice human sacrifice? That is torture, why don't you mention them? Seems like Christians keep coming up in your posts. There was a guy who recently killed Kurds with poison gas...he wasn't a Christian. Oh, and then there was this guy who attempted to exterminate Jews...he wasn't a Christian.

Answer 10

because one or 2 guys had a problem with them. so they used the obscure refrences in the bible and some form of religious status to convince people that they were doing the work of god.

after the idea caught on, it had an almost limitless base for people to preform these horrible acts.

no man is more dangerous than the man that believes that all of his acts will be forgiven in the afterlife.

remove eternal consequences from the mind of a human and they become capable of truly horrible things.

Answer 11

there was no such thing as withch. on that period of history christians and the church did that to dominate people. and on that time they made most of the changes in the Bible. the torture and the witch was a way to divert people's attention and to shut people up who wanted to protest against the changes. all this were done by prists and by church and in the name of Bible. thats why the Bible that we read today is revised edition (many times). during my research i found more information on - http://www.irf.net/irf/main.htm
http://www.pleaseunderstand.com/index.html


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