Tim writes:

> Quite a few folks were burned at the stake 400 years ago for defending the
> truth.
>
>  See http://www.ccel.org/f/foxe_j/martyrs/index.html

Yes, that's true. But you may have missed the point. It was the Christians
who were lighting the fires.

All kidding aside, the Inquisition didn't really have all that much to do
with scientific inquiry or free thought. The Church was not only surprisingly
tolerant of that thought, it actually encouraged it. Every large cathedral in
central Europe, but especially in Italy, was an astronomical observatory, a
library, and a place of scientific discourse as well as a church. Rather, the
inquisition was a form of "ethnic cleansing". Spain especially had large
communities of Jews and Arabs. Under the rule of the Church, if you were not
a Christian, you were unwelcome and were driven out of Europe, having all of
your property appropriated.

As a result, Jews and Muslims, among the most well educated and wealthiest of
Spain's citizens, went into hiding and became faux Christians, putting on all
of the airs of Christianity, but all the while maintaining secret rooms in
their homes to practice their separate religions covertly. The Inquisition
was meant to ferret these people out and properly punish them.

Like almost all great historical events, the Inquisition wasn't really
centered around a clash of ideas. Rather, it merely served as a cover for
greed, bigotry, and the acquisition of wealth, and religion has proven itself
to work better for that purpose than virtually any other attribute of human
life than perhaps nationalism.

Wirt Atmar

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