Steve, if you want to enumerate all the atrocities carried out by the Catholic Church ot in name of it there is not room in an encyclopaedia.
Fra Dolcino, a medieval, heretic, was repeatedly tortured in public on an ox-driven carriage. After these tortures, which entailed castration and cutting off his nose, with heated pincers to avoid excessive blood loss, he was executed.
One of the worse massacres carried out in the name of the Church happened in Southern Italy. A Group of about 200 heretics, men, women and children, was killed one after the other by a knife in the jugular, using the same bloodied rag put on their eyes. The description of the historician goes like that "...they were killed like cattle in a slaughtehouse..."
My only question is: why those people didn't pretend conversion? In those times there was no escape from the Church's cruelty if you were considered an heretic.
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=christian+torture+devices&FORM=VIRE1#view=detail&mid=7387552D30160380D2557387552D30160380D255If we are able to do something about it..... I do not believe we can allow this type of torture to go on any where and some of it is still happening today. The Christian Church has a long history of torture and intolerance to other people views.
That is why we have sites like spiritual portal. Why can't we allow other people to have their views without torturing them and trying to make them into our image? This is what we are seeing happening in the Mideast today. Assad is connected with the torture (gouging out eyes, starving and using chemical weapons.) of his citizens and ISSIS have crucified people and beheaded them among other things. We must stop this kind of barbaric behavior if we have the power to. I cannot help but pray for these people because I am sure there are many kind people there as well.
