FROM THOSE WONDERFUL FOLKS WHO BROUGHT YOU THE INQUISITION!

"You believe that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a woman made from a rib was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree. And you don't understand why I have doubts?" "What profit has not that fable of Christ brought us!" Pope Leo X (As attributed by John Bale, Bishop of Ossory, in The Pageant of Popes, p. 179, 1574) "I am surrounded by priests who repeat incessantly that their kingdom is not of this world, and yet they lay their hands on everything they can get." -- Napoleon Bonaparte Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest. ~ Denis Diderot All great truths begin as blasphemies. ~ George Bernard Shaw You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do. ~ [Usenet] "The most preposterous notion that H. sapiens has ever dreamed up is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not receive this flattery. Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive industry in all history." -Lazarus Long, Time Enough for Love, Rohert A. Heinlein "The same people that wrote the bible thought the world was flat. " ~ Unknown

"Any god that requires small minded bigots to speak for it, is not worth the breath it takes to pray." -- Jesper Myrfors *Child Molestation scandals located HERE

INTRODUCTION Religion, comprises a system of wishful illusions together with a disavowal of reality, such as we find in an isolated form nowhere else but in amentia, in a state of blissful hallucinatory confusion. ~ Sigmund Freud "I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church. All national institutions of churches appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit." -- Thomas Pain Quite a few people have asked why I put this page together. They argue that even if I am correct, and that there are no gods, what can the harm be in letting others believe in gods and goddesses. My answer is that I have no problem with people believing what they want, so long as their beliefs are NOT used as an excuse to inflict harm upon others, extract wealth from them, enslave them, or to justify wars. My problem is with organizations created solely to exploit myths and beliefs for wealth and commercial power. History proves that religion is a tool of human enslavement. Even the Bible approves of slavery. LEVITICUS 25:44-46 As for your male and female slaves whom you may have; you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are round you. You may also buy from among the strangers who sojourn with you and their families that are with you, who have been born in your land; and they may be your property. You may bequeath them to your sons and after you, to inherit as a possession forever; you may make slaves of them, but over your brethren the people of Israel you shall not rule, one over the other, with harshness.

No religion has ever set its followers free from the oppressions of the organized hierarchy of that religion (with the possible exception of the historical Jesus himself). Religion teaches unquestioning obedience. Religion is slavery. I oppose such slavery as earnestly and staunchly as my ancestors opposed the slave ships and the slave policies of the Confederacy. I am not anti god (for one can hardly oppose something which does not exist). I simply wish to set people free from all forms of oppression and exploitation. The ruling elite loves a population trained from birth to confuse beliefs with the real world. It is much easier to rule a population, pillage them with taxes, or send them off to fight a war, if the ruler is not required to prove the reality of his or her propositions and statements. This is why, since the dawn of civilizations, governments encourage their people to be ruled by beliefs and not by reason.

As children, we are bribed to allow beliefs to rule our thinking. Believe in the fat man from the north Pole, get a bicycle. Believe in the rabbit, get candy. Believe in the tooth fairy, get a quarter. Never question, never think, never analyze; just take your goodies and go on believing. It takes chains of steel to enslave a rational human, but all the rest may be enslaved by a belief. We, on our side, are praying to Him to give us victory, because we believe we are right; but those on the other side pray to Him, too, for victory, believing they are right. What must He think of us? ~ Abraham Lincoln 1. DOES BELIEF ALONE PROVE THE EXISTENCE OF THE GODS? I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours. ~ Stephen Roberts Throughout history, a wide variety of religions worshiping Molech, Baal, Odin, Jupiter, Zeus, Ahura Mazda, Jehovah, Allah, Quetzalcoatl, Coatlicue, Vishna, and others far too numerous to elucidate here have come and gone. The followers of each of these religions believed that theirs was the true faith and contained within it the correct answers to life's great questions. All too often, as will be seen below, followers of a faith were ever eager to cut the throats of those who disagreed with them. But on many of the most basic aspects, mankind's multitude of religious thoughts contradict each other. On what would seem to be the most basic truth of all, just how many gods there are, the various religions throughout the world are in complete disagreement. It therefore follows that most of the world's religions, if indeed not all of them, do not have the correct answer to the basic question of how many gods there are. They cannot. For one to be correct means the others are incorrect. Yet the followers of each religion believe they are correct, even though this is impossible. Ergo, belief that one is correct is not in and of itself proof that one is correct. Man is certainly stark mad: he cannot make a worm, yet he will make gods by the dozen. ~ Michel de Montaigne 2. PROOF THAT THERE ARE NO GODS. If one posits the existence of a god or gods able to communicate their presence to human minds, then as an inevitable result of the existence of that god or gods, it would be expected that all humans, or at least the priests who claim communications with the god(s), would have a unanimity of opinion as to how many gods there are. Likewise, if one posits the existence of a god or gods able to communicate their existence to human minds, then as an inevitable result of the existence of that god or gods, able to communicate to human minds, all theologies would be in accord, and there would be no need for missionaries, let alone inquisitions and holy crusades. The religion of Abraham would have stayed unified, rather than split up into Christianity, Judaism, Sunni, and Shi'ite over what amounts to a bunch of soap opera arguments.

But there is a diversity of opinions as to how many gods there are. And there are missionaries, crusades, the inquisition, and the burning of a million heretics. The world is not as it would be if there was a god or gods which could communicate their existence to the minds of humankind. None of the conditions which must inevitably follow the existence of a god or gods able to communicate their existence to the minds of humankind can be found anywhere on Earth. Quod Erat Demonstrandum, no such gods exist. "The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not." - Eric Hoffer 3. WHAT IS THE TRUE NATURE OF RELIGION? "Reality exists independent of humans to perceive it, whereas gods must vanish when there are no worshippers left to imagine them. " -- Michael Rivero Our knowledge of what we think the world to be is largely determined by what we are taught in our youth, usually at an age before we understand that there is such a thing as deception. Lessons learned at an early age become the core of emerging personality, and even when recognized as being in error, can be unlearned only through an intense effort of will. One of the most common devices used to teach falsehoods is the "everybody knows" method. Such lessons are above the need for proof and are never questioned because, after all, "everybody knows"... For example, "Everybody knows" that religion is generally a source of good. But those who hold such an opinion are woefully ignorant of the actual facts, which show that religion, throughout its long and bloodstained history, has been a tool of enslavement. The Egyptians built the pyramids by promising the workers a life after death. The Vikings made the price of the afterlife to die with a sword in ones hand. The families of the Crusaders gained heaven only through the bloody deeds of the Crusader himself. "Heresy" is a bad word to Christians. But to know why, you need to understand what the word actually means. "Heresy" comes from the Greek "hairesis", meaning "free choice". That's what religion opposes when it opposes heresy; free choice. Heretics are people who decide for themselves what to think and when to think it. Religions do not like that sort of behavior. They burn heretics. It is not possible to understand Christianity by reading only the Bible, no more than it is possible to understand the Nazis by reading only the propaganda written by Joseph Goebels. Just as Goebels' propaganda was prone to show the Nazis in the best possible light, so too is the Bible a work designed to convince the unwary that Christians are peaceful harmless individuals concerned only with the spiritual well being of all they encounter. The Bible is biased. The Bible is spin. The Bible presents less than the complete truth. To learn the reality behind Christianity, like the reality behind the Nazis, it is necessary to eschew what is said in favor of what is actually done.

The Bible devotes some 500 verses on prayer, less than 500 verses on faith, but over 2000 verses on money and possessions. Which is it, is man one of God's blunders or is God one of man's? ~ Nietzsche 4. JESUS, THE HERETIC Up to the time of the historical Jesus, communication with the gods was exclusively the province of the priests. The common folk were not allowed to look on the gods, or even to speak their names. Only the priests were empowered to intercede with the gods, for which service they extorted (as they do to this very day) a heavy toll. The historical Jesus introduced a daring new idea; that everyone could talk to their god directly, without a priest. Even in the canonical Bible, in Luke, the Lord's Prayer is introduced when one of Jesus' followers asks him how to pray. This is an important clue, since it reveals that the people of the historical Jesus' time did not know how to pray. It was a skill they had been told was forbidden to them. Likewise, in the Gospel of Saint Thomas (admitted even by the church to be the only surviving contemporaneous record of the words of the historical Jesus but still declared a heresy) the historical Jesus speaks of God as being not in the sky, not hidden in mansions of wood or stone, but being everywhere, available to all people at all times. This one idea, that ordinary people could communicate to their gods directly without priests or temples, although quite acceptable today, was radical in the extreme in Jesus' time! The idea that common people could pray directly to the gods was a heresy and a dangerous threat to the power and wealth not only of the Jewish Sanhedron, but to the Roman temples as well. The historical Jesus broke the toll gate to heaven; giving to the people for free what the priests of the temples had always charged for, access to the gods! The historical Jesus himself lived in relative poverty. There is no indication that he ever passed a collection plate, or solicited money for his teachings. The incident with the money changers at the temple showed the disdain that the historical Jesus had for churches as financial operations. Jesus himself came from a moneyed family. While the church portrays Jesus and his father as poor carpenters as part of the program to persuade church followers to live poor lives (thereby donating the excess to the church), there is nothing in the original Biblical texts that refers to Joseph's actual occupation. He is described merely as a "Master of the craft" (meaning simply, "A scholarly person"), which early translators mistranslated into "Craftsman", then in English to "Carpenter". Following the departure of the historical Jesus, virtually everyone in the religion "business" would have immediately set about moving the gods back into a remote heaven, behind locked doors to which the priests alone held the keys. A vital clue to this agenda lies in the Lord's Prayer itself. The commonly accepted English translation of the first line goes, "Our Father, who art in Heaven...", yet an examination of the original Aramaic reveals that this is a deliberate mistranslation of, "Our Father, which art everywhere..."

5. THE "OTHER" CHURCH OF JESUS. There are numerous indications that, contrary to Catholic dogma, there was a Christian church that existed separate from the early Catholics, a church that was a major threat to the early Catholics

because it laid a claim to the historical Jesus the Catholics could not compete with, one of blood lineage! This is a much stronger claim to the church of Christ than the Catholics could produce, since their claim to rulership is based on "Apostolic descent" in a supposed unbroken line from Saint Peter, who is popularly portrayed as the first Bishop of Rome. Yet an examination of the Vatican's own records shows that Peter was never a Bishop, of Rome or anywhere else for that matter. The real first Bishop of Rome, according to Vatican records, was Prince Linus of Britain, the son of Caractacus the Pendragon. He was installed by St. Paul in AD 58, during Peter's own lifetime. Peter never got a shot at that center seat. One clue lies in the story of the quest for the Holy Grail. Christians are taught that the Grail is the cup used for Passover by Jesus, which was then "the vessel that caught the blood" of the crucified Jesus. Throughout the years, the Catholic church has taught that "Grail" means "cup". But the word "Grail" does not appear in the Bible, nor even the story of the Passover cup being used to catch the blood of Jesus. It is not until the year 1207 that any literary works can be found that describe the Grail as a cup. Prior to that, the "the vessel that caught the blood of Jesus" is always written as "Sangrael", which translates literally as "Blood royal", as in "bloodline", or lineage. Thus, the "the vessel that caught the blood" of the historical Jesus was not a drinking cup that grabbed a horrid souvenir of his crucifixion, but the woman who carried his heredity, Mary Magdalene! Clearly, a group of Christians led by the actual descendants of the historical Jesus was something the early Catholics would not have been able to compete with. So, the existence of such a lineage had to be hidden from the followers of the early Catholic church. The metaphor of the "the vessel that caught the blood royal" was popularly portrayed as a cup, something that wasn't a threat to the Catholics because no amount of searching would ever find it. If fools thought they were looking for a cup, then they were NOT looking for the historical Jesus' descendants. Meanwhile, to further discourage the idea of a dynastic lineage from Jesus, women were quickly excluded from any positions within the early orthodox Christian church, and the women in Jesus' life were made to seem as abnormal as possible, with Mary Magdalene portrayed as a whore, and Jesus' mother portrayed as bearing a child without sex. On examination of the claim of a virgin birth, we find yet another of the modern day Bible's egregious mistranslations. The original Latin word describing Mary was, "Virgo", which means only that she was a young woman. The Latin words for a young women without sexual experience, "Virgo intacta" do not appear in the Latin biblical texts which predate the modern Bible. That the claim of a virgin birth was not in the original Bible is further revealed by the fact that Jesus' patriarchal lineage back to King David, which would be irrelevant in the context of a virgin birth without an earthly father, is listed in the Bible (That Jesus family were descendants of King David is another clue that their livelihood did not depend on carpentry). The early Catholic church was a huge profit machine. The historical Jesus had taught that Christianity did not require an expensive priesthood or "mansions of wood and stone", and over time, the Catholic papacy attained an advantage in wealth and political power over the growing church of the descendants of the historical Jesus, then centered in Southern France, and set out to exterminate them. This is the story of the Cathars and the Merovingian Kings, declared en masse to be heretics by the Catholics and exterminated. The official pretext given was the failure by the Cathars to pay a tax to

the Catholics. But in an age when the Catholics were regularly setting out to exterminate the Jews, one more group of non Catholics on the hate list did not seem strange. What was strange was the treatment of devout Catholics living in the Cathar lands. When Domingo De Guzman, commander of the Pope's forces, prepared to storm the city of Carcasonne, last stronghold of the Albigensians, a subordinate asked what was to be done to preserve the lives of the devout Catholics known to live within the city walls. Domingo De Guzman replied, "Kill them all, let God sort them out", which is exactly what the Pope's forces did. Most people would regard the killing of loyal followers of the invading church as a particularly psychotic act, but the Catholic church applauded this act of butchery and eventually made Domingo De Guzman into Saint Dominic. This massacre of devout Catholics within the city and the rewarding of their killer with a sainthood makes sense only if the Catholic church thought that the Catholics living with the Cathars had learned something from the Cathars that they were never supposed to know; such as the possibility that Jesus had left living descendants. This was a knowledge so threatening to the Catholic church that even those who merely knew of it had to be exterminated! Eventually, the extermination of the Cathars resulted in the murder of half the population of Southern France. Following the war, the Catholics established the Office of the Holy Inquisition, and while its reign of terror touched many groups (including the Rivero family in Spain), and murdered many millions of people, its primary focus remained hunting down and killing every single Cathar, with the last known one being burned at the stake in 1324, taking with him (it was assumed) the terrible secret that the Catholic church, even as it exploited the image of the historical Jesus to enrich and empower itself, had hunted down and killed that same Jesus' descendants! 6. THE ORTHODOX NEW TESTAMENT WAS NOT WRITTEN BY ANYONE WHO KNEW THE HISTORICAL JESUS. The earliest known fragment of the Gospel of John dates from 130 C.E. The first collection of texts now called the Bible appears to have been assembled around 250 C.E. from texts written long after the historical Jesus died. None of the books of the new testament were written by the original apostles for whom they are named. Out of some 30 known gospels at the time, the early Christians chose only 4 to go in the Bible, not because of their literary merit, but because the Earth had four compass points, and (it was believed) four corners, and four winds. Strangely, there are texts which were written while the historical Jesus was still alive, but these were not only ignored but destroyed by early Christians during the struggle to define the orthodoxy. Fortunately, copies of these gospels which were hidden to protect them were discovered at Nag Hammadi. Still other texts, such as Moses' book on magic spells, were arbitrarily consigned to the "Apocrypha". All texts, the bible included, were withheld from the congregations. Only the priests could read them. The congregations were kept ignorant of the gospels and were fed stories of witches, demons, satyrs, incubi, sirens, cyclops, tritons, etc., to keep them in a permanent state of fear. The early church ruled the people by terror. Much of the history of the dark side of the church (to follow) was recorded by the clergy themselves, writing their journals in an age when the congregations were discouraged from learning to read. The hideous crimes and atrocities were set down by men confident that the common people would never be able to read their written words.

The oldest texts in the accepted canonical Bible are those of Saul of Tarsus (Saint Paul), but he never met the historical Jesus (although Paul was convinced that Jesus would return to Earth in his lifetime), nor do his writings indicate the existence of the modern gospels as they are known today in his time. Saint Paul did not become Christian until he was 30, but had been raised as a Mithraist, which is why so much Mithraic influence is seen in his writings. Early Christians desired to separate theologically from the Jews as quickly as possible, so the "Paulist Doctrines" became the accepted heart of modern Christianity, Mithraic influence and all. It was at this time that the Essene word meaning "revive" was mistranslated to read "resurrect" and the myth of Jesus' coming back from the dead (an idea copied from the Mithraists, as well as Ishtar, Osiris, and other myths) was created. To the historical telling of the crucifixion was added the story of a Roman soldier stabbing Jesus in the side with a spear to make certain he was dead, but it's equally clear that this was written by someone with no knowledge of anatomy, Roman metallurgy, or how to handle a spear. Trying to stab through to the heart of someone on a cross from the side would be impossible because of the ribs. Someone who knew how to use a spear would stab through from the front, into the abdomen below the sternum and then thrust up. The tale of the spear through the side is a fiction invented years after the fact to counter questions raised by other aspects of the account of the "crucifixion" which suggested that the historical Jesus actually survived his ordeal and escaped to India. Much of the early Christian symbolism was copied from other then popular religions, apparently to make the new religion more acceptable. The ritual of the making of the sign of the cross predates the time of Jesus and is a symbol for the Mithraic god of good, represented by the sun. Early Christians, despite the old testament reference to the Sabbath being the 7th day of the week, placed their day of worship right on top of that of the Mithraists, the FIRST day of the week, The "Sun day." Likewise, ignoring the biblical reference that the historical Jesus was born in "lambing time", the early Christians placed their celebration for the birth of Jesus at the Winter Solstice, over the Roman feast of the Saturnalia and the major creation festival of Mithra. The "loaves and fishes" as a ritual meal was also Mithraic in origin, as was the story of a final day of judgment when the dead are all raised from the grave and the wicked sent to eternal fire. The "flesh and blood" ritual sacrifice at the heart of communion also has roots in Mithraic ritual, and evidence of the transition appears in the Epistle to the Hebrews. The spring festival of Ishtar became "Easter", and so on, the early Christians building their new religion by copying what worked in other, older religions. Whereas the old testament makes little mention of a separate afterlife for the wicked, or of an evil god, both concepts were copied from Zoroastrianism/Mithraism and into the New Testament. 7. THE BIBLE IS NOT SCIENCE If you talk to God, you are praying. If God talks to you, you have schizophrenia. ~ Thomas Szasz There is in this nation, as there was in pre-Nazi Germany, pre-Mussolini Italy, and pre-Franco Spain, a battle being waged over whether the public tax funded schools should teach science in the classrooms, or religious indoctrination in the form of creationism. Let us be clear; the Bible is NOT in any way, shape, or form, a book of scientific truths. Among the numerous absurdities contained in the Bible is the claim that the Earth is flat, rests on gigantic pillars and does not move at all. Despite numerous space flights, and a simple experiment with a pendulum any high school student can perform, the Christians still insist that the Earth is flat, rests on gigantic pillars and does not move at all, because the Bible is the perfect word of their god, and

cannot be in error. It is from among people of this mind set that we see hear claims that the entire space program is a fake, that the Apollo moon landings never really happened, and that NASA is concealing photos which would show the giant pillars supporting the Earth. The reason Christians are willing to cling to such outrageous nonsense is that were they to admit that the Earth DOES move, then the claims of the Bible being a perfect source of knowledge must evaporate, taking with it the story of human creation by their god. This strange intractability in the face of overwhelming evidence contradicting the biblical mythology becomes understandable when one realizes that the issue under debate is not truth or reality, but ownership of the human race. All religions teach that their gods created humans, with the implication that humans are therefore under an obligation to those gods which the priests are empowered to collect on their behalf. People who do not believe religious myths can no longer be exploited by the priests of that religion. Hence, priests will continue to teach that the Earth is flat, rests on gigantic pillars and does not move at all, because that is how they transform rational human beings into belief-slaves from which they can extract money. Sidebar: The "Big Bang" is Just Religion Disguised as Science 8. A QUICK NOTE ON THE WITCHCRAFT HYSTERIA With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg The word "witch" comes from the same root word as "wit", meaning wisdom. The class of people targeted as witches by the Christian church were herbalists and folk healers. Able to effect cures among the sick, they were a direct threat to the church, which held that all illnesses were God's will and that cures were available only to those who prayed in their churches and tossed a few coins into the collection plates. The witch hysteria was the product of several overlapping phenomenon. First were the witches themselves, who along with their herbal cures, indulged in the recreational pharmaceuticals of their day. Chief among these was Ergot, a mold which grew on rye bread, then the most common bread to be found in Europe. In high doses it was highly toxic, often used as a murder weapon. In lower doses, it was a powerful hallucinogenic, and formed the core ingredient of all the various potions and mixes designed to induce visions and hallucinations. So prevalent was Ergot that it is even mentioned in Shakespeare's plays. The most common use of Ergot was in "flying ointment". This potion did not enable anyone to fly, it merely caused dreams of flying off to strange and magical places. To avoid the toxic side effects of the Ergot, the ointment was applied to the skin. Female witches would run the ointment on a smooth wooden pole, usually a broom handle, and rub themselves on it, adding powerful sexual gratifications to the drug induced hallucinations.

From Bayonne, an 17th century illustration of a witch applying "flying ointment".

To the uneducated common folk of the time, the sight of a young nude women writhing in ecstasy on her broom handle would have seemed strange and frightening, and is (with the addition of clothing and the pointed cap of the heretic) the origin of the traditional image of a witch riding her broomstick.

Hans Grun, exact date unknown. An old witch, using a pitchfork instead of a broom (any old pole in a storm) summons a young witch.

The Ergot itself became a major health problem. Being so much in use by the herbalists, it began to infect all rye bread. Fresh baked rye bread was not a problem, but as European civilization moved from smaller villages to larger cities, the rye bread could sit for a day or more on the market shelf or in a wagon before being purchased and consumed, long enough for Ergot to grow. People began to suffer unplanned drug trips and did not understand what was happening to them. The final component for the witch hysteria was the church itself, which had been losing its iron grip on the populations of Europe. Villages which had been built around the churches and cathedrals in the 13th and 14th centuries were now being centered on the market places. In order to reassert its dominion over the people. the church promoted the view that the unplanned drug trips from rye bread carrying the Ergot mold were actually demonic possessions, brought on by the witches, and curable only by total and complete submission to the church. To justify the persecutions of the witches, the church relied upon the Biblical quote, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." But this is yet another of the Bible's infamous mistranslations, for in the original Aramaic, the text reads, "Thou shalt not suffer a poisoner to live." There followed centuries of the most hideous bloodshed and atrocities imaginable as the church terrorized all of Europe with the witch trials and grew fabulously wealthy in the process from the confiscated lands. In the 16th Century, Europe was hit with the "Little Ice Age", which ended the Medieval Warm Period (a time of ample food and great prosperity) and plunged Europe into famine and starvation. The priests were quick to blame the change of climate on witches and fanned the terror to new heights. When the potato, able to grow in the cold of the "Little Ice Age" was introduced from South America, the priests declared it Satan's food since it grew inside the Earth rather than above it, and warned that merely to eat a potato was to condemn your soul to everlasting damnation. So great was the brainwashing of the people by the church that millions starved to death standing on an adundent food supply.

The vast majority of the condemned witches died without their names being recorded. In many areas of Europe the records of the witch trials have been destroyed as an embarrassment to the church. The few surviving names I have collected here are shown in a smaller typeface not because their deaths are unimportant, but simply because there are so many of them. The names cited in this list as having been tried and executed for heresy and witchcraft are representative only. Of the estimated half million victims of the witchcraft trials, only a few names and dates have survived. Most victims remain anonymous. Very few records remain naming those who were tortured and then released. I like your Christ; I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ. ~ Mohandas Gandhi 9. COLOR CODES Every once in a while, some Christian or other charlatan will announce that the world is soon to end, then ask for an "extra special effort" to help the ministry, with "extra special effort" meaning to send in money. There is nothing new to this practice; Christians have been predicting the end of the world and asking for donations based on those predictions since they opened for business. Some of the more notorious flops in the "End Of The World" prophecy biz are noted in red. Facts relating to the life of the historical Jesus (as opposed to the myth created by the Christian church) are noted in blue. Mistranslations of the original Greek, Essene, and Aramaic texts by the English version of the Bible are noted in orange. "If God is omniscient, why do I have to pray to him? Doesn't he already know what I need?" - Claire K. Rivero

THE HISTORY ( You may click on some images to see larger versions) Gilgamesh Gilgamesh was a ruler of Mesopotamia about 2700 BCE. A story,"He Who Saw The Deep" was written about him somewhere between 2100 and 2000 BCE, known today as the Epic of Gilgamesh. Among the stories found in the Epic of Gilgamesh are the story of the great flood and the building of the Ark by Utnapishtim (complete with the releasing of the dove), along with the forerunners of Samson and Delilah in the persons of Enkidu and the temple harlot, as well as the tale of Lot. The Epic of Gilgamesh predates the time of Moses and Akhenaton by approximately 700 years. Moses/Akhenaton/Amenhotep IV Moses, as a child in the home of Pharaoh, read the contents of the Pharaoh's library. Stories such as the Epic of Gilgamesh formed the basis for Moses' own writings which became the core of the Hebrew faith and the Christian Old Testament. Among the stories copied from the Epic of

Gilgamesh was the story of the great flood and the building of the Ark. The Epic of Gilgamesh predates the writing of the earliest boooks of the old testament by at least 700 years. There is compelling evidence that the man known today as Moses was actually a Prince of Egypt himself, Amenhotep IV, who was overthrown and deposed for attempting to start a monotheistic religion. Setting aside the silly suggestion that a princess of Egypt would give a Hebrew name to a child hidden in Pharaoh's household (as pointed out by Sigmund Freud), the name "Moses" is not a Hebrew word for "drawing out of", but is a common Egyptian appellation meaning "Prince", and appears in the names of many Pharaohs such as Tutmoses, Ahmoses and Ramoses (Ramses). Moses/Akhenaton was banished from Egypt, but following the death of Ramses, and being a legitimate heir to the throne, Moses/Akhenaton returned in a bid to retake the throne, but failed and had to flee Egypt a second time with his supporters, who were the Hyksos, not the Herbrews. Political spin being the same thing back then as today, this defeat was re-written into a victory in what is now the Old Testament story of the Exodus of the Hebrews. Jesus Yeshua was born in the year 1 during the early spring (lambing time) and visited by three priests of the Mithraic or Zoroastrian religion, the Magi. They announced his birth as the fulfillment of prophecy, not of the Judeans, but of their own prophet Zarathustra. Judas Escariot, in an attempt to force the Rabbi Yeshua (Jesus) to use his alleged divine powers to drive the Romans from Judea, informed on Jesus to the Romans in the year 33. The Jewish Court, the Sanhedron, long infuriated by Jesus' effect on their profits, did not intervene. Crucifixion normally took 3-4 days to kill someone. But Jesus was on the cross only a few hours when it was reported to Pontius Pilate that Jesus had died. According to the Bible, Pilate (who knows better than most how long crucifixion usually lasts) expressed some suspicion in the matter, but at the urging of his wife decided not to press the issue. Two aspects of crucifixion forgotten in the present day is that it was not always a fatal punishment. Romans would crucify criminals as a warning and take them down after they had lost consciousness. And, the laws of Judea did not allow the crucified to remain on their cross during the Sabbath, which began at sun down Friday night. Hence, when Jesus was put up on the cross Friday mid-day, it was the law that he had to be taken down by sunset, whether alive or dead. The Bible describes the post-crucifixion Jesus not as an immortal spirit, but as a normal human requiring food, sleep, and the tending of his wounds. Texts in the apocrypha give the formula for the "Wounds Of Christ" ointment as chiefly Aloe and Myrh. Islamic and Buddhist texts tell the story of how the historical Jesus, having barely escaped a sentence of death, then migrated east into India, searching for the lost tribes and teaching as he went. His tomb can still be seen in Srinagar. While Jesus lived on in India, Jesus wife, Mary (a Benjamite) escaped to the South of France to an existing Benjamite colony. There she raised her children, who eventually intermarried with the Sicambrian Franks, engendering the Merovingian line of Sorcerer Kings.

Botched doomsday prophecies! According to Matthew 16:28, Jesus himself predicted his second coming and the end of the world within the lifetime of his contemporaries.

Botched doomsday prophecies! In the year 156, the prophet Montanus and two followers, Priscilla and Maximilla, founded a cult that predicted the end of the world would occur in their lifetime. Despite the failure of that prediction, the cult survived several centuries until it was ordered exterminated by Pope Leo I. Botched doomsday prophecies! In 247, Christian prophets declare that the persecutions by the Romans are a sign of the impending return of Jesus.

Constantine the Great Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor of Rome, came to power in the year 306. According to Church Father Lactantius, Constantine was "a model of Christian virtue and holiness." Among Constantine's achievements; the murders of two brothers-in-law, his son, and his wife. Christianity became the official religion of Rome in 315. Christians started burning pagan temples and killing the pagan priests. The carnage continued non-stop into the 6th century. Temples destroyed by Christian mobs included the Sanctuary of Aesculap in Aegaea, the Temple of Aphrodite in Golgatha, Aphaka in Lebanon, and the Heliopolis. Christian priests such as Mark of Arethusa or Cyrill of Heliopolis were famous as "temple destroyers." Much of the story of Constantine's devotion to the church is manufactured. The Donation of Constantine Prior to the time of Constantine, Kingship was either won in battle or inherited from father to son. There was no specific ceremony upon taking the throne (although one finds records of some very wild parties held in celebration). But in the time of Constantine, the church invented for itself the ritual of coronation, in which the Bishop of Rome prayed over Constantine and then slapped a crown on his head, thereby sending out a clear message that the church claimed responsibility for Constantine 's earthly power and authority. Following Constantine 's death, a document appeared in which Constantine purportedly donated the imperial regalia of Rome to the church, with the request that it be loaned to all future rulers of the Roman Empire . From that day on, the loan took the form of the ritual of coronation, in which the holy oil of anointment created the king, rather than conquest or the bloodline. Coronation added the imprimatur of God's will to the legitimacy of the monarch, and as an inevitable corollary, nobody could ascend to the throne without the permission and blessing of the church. Except Constantine had not been informed ahead of time of his own coronation and by all accounts was rather shocked and angered by the church's brazen attempt to portray his civil authority as a gift of

their religion. As for the donation of Constantine, which literally reshaped the political history of Europe for half a millennium, it was a forgery, most likely written within the Papal offices, to steal for the church the right to declare who would or would not be kings of Europe.
Constantius II, the second Christian Emperor of Rome, succeeded Constantine in 337, murdering both uncles and 7 cousins in the process. Bishop Innocentius of Dertona in Northern Italy ordered the destruction of a synagogue about 350. Saint Augustine of Hippo was born in 354. He called for use of force to convert people to Christianity and urged severe punishment for heresy. Saint Augustine declared that since men die anyway, they should die in wars fought for the benefit of the church. Augustine wrote, "Any violation of God's laws, and by easy extension, any violation of Christian doctrine, could be seen as an injustice warranting unlimited punishment ... of the enemy population without regard to the distinction between soldiers and civilians. Motivated by righteous wrath, the just warriors could kill with impunity even those who were morally innocent." And "I fail to see what use woman can be to man, if one excludes the function of bearing children." Christian Rome made any non-Christian worship a crime punishable by death in 356. Christian Emperor Theodosius (408-450) had children executed because they had been playing with remains of pagan statues.

Botched doomsday prophecies! Hilary of Poitiers predicted the world would end in 365.
The philosopher Sopatros was executed by Christians in the fourth century.

Botched doomsday prophecies! The Donatists, a North African Christian sect, predicted the world would end in 380.
Priscillian and six followers were beheaded by Christians for magic and Manachean heresy in Trier, Germany in 385. The Bishop of Kallinikon ordered a synagogue burned in 388.

Pope Leo I Leo 1 became Pope in 440, and persuaded the civil government to order persecutions against the Pelagianists, the surviving Priscillianists in Spain, and the Manichaeans. Although supposedly a civil law, the text of the law was written in the papal offices. Following his death, Leo I is made a saint. Hypatia of Alexandria Hypatia of Alexandria was torn to shreds with broken glass and sea shells by a Christian mob in 415, led by a Christian minister named "Peter". Hypatia was dragged from her abode at the Great Library, and was murdered in a church as the highlight of a worship service. The same mob of Christians then destroyed the great Library at Alexandria. The Christian civil authorities used what remained of the library's books and scrolls to heat the public baths, erasing from the face of the Earth much of the classical heritage of the ancient world. The Christians destroyed the remaining Egyptian temples. With the murder of the Egyptian priests, all knowledge of the ancient written Egyptian language was lost, not to be re-discovered until Champolion decoded it with the help of the Rosetta stone discovered by Napoleon's invading troops. Only then is it discovered that locked away in Imhotep's surviving writings awere the cures to diseases that had devastated medieval Europe.
The Manichaeans are completely exterminated by 444.

Visigoths revolted and sacked Rome in 476. 150 years later, the Roman roads had fallen into ruin. The Christians, suppressing all knowledge not found in the bible, abandoned Roman mines and smelters. For the next 1000 years, possession of iron objects was the sign of wealth even more than possession of gold.

Botched doomsday prophecies! Roman theologian Sextus Julius Africanus (ca. 160-240) predicted the second coming of Jesus in the year 500. Botched doomsday prophecies! Hippolytus (died ca. 236) predicted the second coming of Jesus in the year 500. Botched doomsday prophecies! The theologian Irenaeus predicted the second coming of Jesus in the year 500.
Non-Christians were stripped of all legal rights under the law in the 6th century. 754(?) The "Donation of Constantine" appears. This document purported to prove that the Emperor Constantine the regalia of the rule of Rome to the church. This allowed the church to claim the right to choose and create Kings from that time forward. The Donation also claimed to officially appoint the Bishop of Rome as the Vicar of Christ on Earth, creating the imperial papacy. The Donation was revealed as a forgery by the Papacy during the Renaissance. The Council of Toledo enslaved all Jews, confiscated their property and ordered their children forcibly baptized in the 6th Century. Emperor Charlemagne condemned 4500 Saxons, unwilling to convert to Christianity, to be beheaded in 782.

Botched doomsday prophecies! A Spanish monk, Beatus of Libana, sparked a riot when he predicted on Easter Eve 793 the world would end that very night. Botched doomsday prophecies! Sextus Julius Africanus predicted the second coming of Jesus in the year 800. Botched doomsday prophecies! Beatus of Libana, not having learned anything from the riot he started in 793, wrote in his Commentary on the Apocalypse, which he finished in 786, that the world would end in the year 800 at the latest. Botched doomsday prophecies! Bishop Gregory of Tours predicted the world would end between 799 and 806. Botched doomsday prophecies! The Christian prophetess Thiota predicted the world would end in 848. Pope Joan I Pope Leo IV died in 855. Pope Benedict III succeeded him in 858. The three years between saw one of the most controversial characters ever to appear in the Vatican, Pope John VIII, who was secretly a woman, often referred to as Pope Joan I. Born in the darkest of the dark ages, when women were declared to be the property of men by the church, Pope Joan (her real name remains unknown) impersonated a man in order to gain access to education, became a monk, and by virtue of a superior command of religious knowledge and political skill was eventually elected Pope.

Pope Joan's masquerade was undone by her own sexual appetites, which matched those of the other Popes (See Pope Alexander VI). She became pregnant and had the misfortune to go into labor during a Papal procession from the Patriarchum, the official Pope's Residence (now St. Lateran's) along the "Via Sacra" (The Sacred Road, now Via S. Giovanni) to St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, suffering a miscarriage in full public view. The crowd, not quite willing to accept this particular "miracle", promptly stoned Pope Joan to death and she was buried in an unmarked grave with her baby. Up until the 16th century, the Catholic church acknowledged Pope John VIII's (Pope Joan's) existence. In 1276, Pope John XX changed his name to Pope John XXI after discovering the existence of John VIII (Pope Joan) in the Vatican archives. Even though the Via Sacra was the shortest and most direct route between the Patriarchum and the Vatican, all later Papal Processions went by another path. Following the stoning of Pope Joan and up until the 16th century, the Papal Consecration ceremony included a process politely called the "chair exam". Papal candidates were required to sit in the "Sella Stercoraria", an ornate version of an outhouse seat with a hole in the bottom through which their male genitals could be observed by an official examiner who would then proclaim, "Mas nobis nominus est" -- "Our nominee is a man." Only then was the newly crowned Pope handed the keys to St. Peter's. The official position of the Catholic Church today is that Pope John VIII (Pope Joan) was an invention of Protestants intent on embarrassing the Catholics. However, despite efforts by the holy inquisition to erase any and all records of Pope John VIII (Pope Joan), more than 500 ancient manuscripts by acknowledged period authors (Petrarch and Boccaccio) and high ranking clergy have been uncovered describing the reign of Pope John VIII (Pope Joan). Pope Joan's statue can be seen at the Cathedral of Sienna, labeled as being Pope Zacharias by order of Pope Clement VIII in 1601. Pope John XII is killed by an enraged husband after being caught with the man's wife.. Botched doomsday prophecies! Lotharingian computists foresaw the End on Friday, March 25, 970, when the Annunciation and Good Friday fell on the same day. They believed that it was on this day that Adam was created, Isaac was sacrificed, the Red Sea was parted, Jesus was conceived, and Jesus was crucified. Botched doomsday prophecies! Christian prophets predicted that the end would come in 992, when the Annunciation and Good Friday again fell on the same day. Botched doomsday prophecies! When it didn't happen in 992, Christians revised the prediction to 995. Botched doomsday prophecies! EVERY Christian predicted the end of the world in the year 1000.
The Bishop of Limoges, France had all Jews who would not convert to Christianity killed or banished in 1010.

Botched doomsday prophecies! When the world did not end in the year 1000, Christian prophets explained that they had forgotten to add in the length of Jesus' life and predicted the end of the

world in 1033. The writings of the Burgundian monk Radulfus Glaber described a rash of mass hysterias during the period from 1000-1033.
Gregory I became Pope in 1073. He declared the catholic church as ruler of the world, that no king could be crowned other than by the Popes, and no property titles were valid unless blessed by the church. Gregory I Incited the Normans to wage war against Henry IV. Gregory I was made a saint after his death. Urban II became Pope in 1088 and convened the council at Clermont in Auvergne/France regarding the "imprisonment" of Jerusalem. To start building his army, Urban II recruited Christian robbers to join in the rescue of Jerusalem by promising they could keep any wealth they stole from the Saracens. "Let those who have hitherto been robbers now become soldiers." - Urban II addresses his gangsters.

The First Crusade to "rescue" the holy lands began on command of Pope Urban II in 1095. Crusaders slew thousands of non-Christians at Wieselburg, 6/12/1096. Crusaders slew thousands of non-Christians at Semlin, 6/24/1096. Crusaders slew thousands of non-Christians at Nikaia, Xerigordon, from 9/9/1096 to 9/26/1096.

40 cities and over 200 castles were sacked by the crusaders between 1095 and 1098. Jews living in Worms were killed in 5/18/1096, 1100 Jews were killed in Mainz 5/27/1096, Cologne, Neuss, Altenahr, Wevelinghoven, Xanten, Moers, Dortmund, Kerpen, Trier, Metz, Regensburg, & Prag. Antiochia was conquered, and 50,000 killed, 6/3/1098. According to Christian chronicler Fulcher of Chartres, the crusaders ran their lances through the bellies of all the women they found. Maraat An-Numan was captured and thousands killed on 12/11/1098. According to Chronicler Albert Aquensis, the Christian conquerors engaged in acts of cannibalism.

"A curse on him who is lax in doing the LORD's work! A curse on him who keeps his sword from bloodshed!" -- Jeremiah 48:10, Motto of Pope Gregory VII.

Jerusalem was conquered on 7/15/1099 and 60,000 non-Christians were killed. Bodies were slit open to search for gold coins they might have swallowed. Jews who had taken refuge in the city's synagogue were burned alive, thousands of muslims were chopped to death in Al-Aqsa mosque. According to the Archbishop of Tyre, who was an eye-witness, "It was impossible to look upon the vast numbers of the slain without horror; everywhere lay fragments of human bodies, and the very ground was covered with the blood of the slain. It was not alone the spectacle of headless bodies and mutilated limbs strewn in all directions that roused the horror of all who looked upon them. Still more dreadful was it to gaze upon the victors themselves, dripping with blood from head to foot, an ominous sight which brought terror to all who met them. It is reported that within the Temple enclosure alone about ten thousand infidels perished." Christian chronicler Eckehard of Aura noted that "even the following summer in all of Palestine the air was polluted by the stench of decomposition". "Entering the city [Jerusalem, July 15, 1099], our pilgrims pursued and killed Saracens up to the Temple of Solomon, in which they had assembled and where they gave battle to us furiously for the whole day so that their blood flowed throughout the whole temple. Finally, having overcome the pagans, our knights seized a great number of men and women, and the killed whom they wished and whom they wished they let live.... Then, rejoicing and weeping from extreme joy, our men went to worship at the sepulchre of jour Saviour Jesus and thus fulfilled their pledge to Him.... They also ordered that all the Saracen dead should be thrown out of the city because of the extreme stench, for the city was almost full of their cadavers. The live Saracens dragged the dead out before the gates and made piles of them, like houses. No one has ever heard of or seen such a slaughter of pagan peoples since pyres were made of them like boundary marks, and no one except God knows their number." [Histoire anonyme de la premiere croisade, L. Brehier, ed. Paris: Champion, 1924 (From The Portable Medieval Reader, Ed. James Bruce Ross and Mary Martin McLaughlin)]

The Battle of Askalon results in 200,000 non-Christians killed "in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ", 8/12/1099. Bernard of Clairvaux, at the request of Pope Eugenius III, preached a new crusade of, "Total extermination of the Heathen - or definitive conversion!" in 1115. Bernard is also famous for the Christian doctrine that all pursuit of knowledge was a sin unless directed by the church. The church, based on Ecclesiastes, declared that all that man needed to know was already known, and considered any new search for knowledge heresy. Prester John In the 1130s, the Turkish Empire under the leadership of Imad ad-din Zengi began to encroach on the Crusader Kingdoms of the Holy Land . Most Crusaders considered their vows to the first Holy Crusade fulfilled and had already returned to Europe, leaving the Pilgrim road from Jaffa to Jerusalem under the guard of the newly emergent Knights Templar (who seemed to spend all their time digging under the Temple Mount). The Knights Templar, although able to guard a road when not shoveling dirt, were insufficient a force to hold off an entire invasion, and in 1145, Hugh, Bishop of Jabala, was sent to meet the newly enthroned Pope Blessed Eugene III to ask for help. Pope Eugene, far less bloodthirsty than his predecessors, balked at a new and costly crusade so soon after the last one. Hugh told the Pope that a new crusade to preserve Christian dominion over the Holy Lands would be easy and cheap, because somewhere far to the east of the Holy Lands was the Kingdom of Prester John .

Prester (or Presbyter) John was a Christian King; a direct descendant of one of the Magi who had visited the infant Jesus, and reportedly whose kingdom was powerful, wealthy, and peaceful. According to Hugh, Prester John was committed to preserving Christian rule over the Holy Lands, and awaited only a sign of equal commitment from the armies of Europe .

Rumors of the impending intervention of Prester John bolstered the courage of the Christians of the Crusader Kingdoms and of Europe, and based in part on the promise of Prester John as an ally, Pope Eugene launched the Second Holy Crusade, led by Louis VII of France and Conrad III of Germany . But Prester John did not show up as promised. The Second Crusade ended in the rout of the Crusader armies at Damascus, and the Christians found themselves holding less of the Holy Lands. In 1165, just as the situation in the Holy Lands began to deteriorate further, a letter began to circulate around Europe purportedly from Prester John. The letter again promised support for the Christian armies of Europe . The letter included descriptions of the wonders of Prester John's kingdom. The letter was so popular it was copied far and wide, and portions of it set to music! But again, Prester John did not show up when promised, and in 1187 Jerusalem fell to Saladin. This prompted the start of the Third Crusade. Once again, rumors of Prester John's armies attacking the Muslims from the East bolstered the invading forces. Except Prester John was the invention of the church; a propaganda device to trick Europeans to join a war in which they were clearly outnumbered by the opposing force. As Marco Polo and other travelers brought tales of the Orient back to Europe in the 13th century, church leaders grew alarmed as Christians learned of powerful and advanced civilizations to the east that existed without any awareness of Christianity. Following a brief period when the Dominicans unsuccessfully denounced Marco Polos writings as heresy and fraud, the church again revived the legends of Prester John to prove that Christianity did rule in the far east. Highly fanciful maps were produced of just where Prester John's kingdom would be found. The legends of Prester John persisted from the 12th to the 17th centuries even though John himself could not have lived that long. Numerous expeditions to find the Kingdom of Prester John were mounted, all without success. As the map of Asia became filled in accurately with no sign of the fabled Christian Kingdom, the legend was altered to claim that Prester John's Kingdom was actually in Ethiopia, then as the African map started to fill in, further south in Darkest Africa. The realm of Prester John eventually became one of the fabled Lost Kingdoms of Africa that lured explorers into the Congo, often to their deaths.

As for the letter purportedly from Prester John; like the Donation of Constantine it was a clever forgery. In its original version it was apparently derived mostly from Otto von Freisingen's historical account of the story told by Hugh, Bishop of Jabala to Pope Eugene. The story of Prester John's palace was actually a description of the palace of St. Thomas the Apostle. As the letter was recopied through the centuries, the stories it contained grew ever more fanciful, filled with strange and wonderful creatures and amazing feats of magic and science. In the 18th century these stories of the land of Prester John were revived as part of the tales of Baron Munchausen. In 1988, the stories of the land of Prester John again surfaced in Terry Gilliam's film, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen .

Botched doomsday prophecies! Various Christian prophets predicted the end of the world in the year 1184. Nobody seems to remember why. Botched doomsday prophecies! John of Toledo, after calculating that a planetary alignment would occur in Libra on September 23, 1186 (Julian calendar), circulated a letter (known as the "Letter of Toledo") warning that the world was to going to be destroyed on this date, and that only a few people would survive. The Third Crusade sacked Jewish settlements in England from 1189 to 1190. Jewish communities in London, Canterbury, Northampton, Lincoln, Cambridge, and others were exterminated. Innocent III became Pope in 1198. During his coronation, Innocent described himself as the new Christ, then ordered a fourth crusade even as the third collapsed. Innocent III ordered Jews to live in ghettos, wear a yellow sign in public, forbade Jews to intermarry with other races, and banned Jews from certain occupations. The Nazis later cited Innocent III in their defense at Neuremburg. Constantinople was sacked by crusaders during the Fourth Crusade on 4/12/1204. From 1095 until the fall of Akkon in 1291 probably 20 million victims in the Holy land and Arab/Turkish areas were killed by the Crusaders according to contemporary Christian chroniclers.

"Kill them all. Let God sort them out!" -- Attributed to various sources, including Pope Innocent III, Abbot Arnold Amaury, and Saint Dominic, at the genocide of the Albigensians.

Albigensians, even though Christian (Cathars/Mithraists) refused to submit to the rule of Rome or to pay taxes levied by the Catholic church to pay for the disastrous Crusades. In retaliation, Pope Innocent III declared them to be heretics. 70,000 were killed in France on 7/22/1209, and thousands more were slain at Carcassonne on 8/15/1209. The genocide continued for 20 years, eventually killing over a million people, roughly 1/2 the population of Southern France. At the end of the war, the Holy Inquisition was founded to hunt down the last survivors of the heretics and erase them from the Earth. The last Cathar was burned at the stake in 1324. The Inquisition then went after other sects, including Waldensians, Paulikians, Runcarians, and Josephites. Brother Torquemada, a former Dominican friar, allegedly was personally responsible for 10,220 burnings. The Office Of The Holy Inquisition continued in power until 1832.

The Children's Crusade At a time when popular support for the crusades was on the wane, a 12 year old boy, Stephen of Cloyes, approached the King of France bearing what he claimed is a letter written by Jesus Christ himself calling for yet another crusade to "rescue" the holy lands. King Philip Augustus, as tired of the crusades as was everyone else refused his blessing and permission and told the young boy to go home. Despite the lack of royal support, Christian priests encouraged the young boy, shamed the parents into supporting their quest, and soon 20000 children, some as young as 6 years old, marched for the holy land. However, the Children's Crusade never reached the Holy Lands. The priests returned, but the children were gone, sold to the Arabs as slaves. After 30 years, only a handful managed to return to their homes. Saint Thomas Aquinas was born in 1225, and spent his career approving of slavery and death penalty for heretics. Aquinas also preached that women were "defective", and that one of the benefits of going to heaven was viewing those who suffered in hell. At least 8000, and by one account 11,000 men, women, and children of Steding, Germany, who were unwilling to pay taxes imposed by the Christian church, were executed on 5/27/1234. 34 Jewish men and women were killed by Christians at Fulda, Germany in 1235. 180 people, their names unrecorded, were burned for the crime of witchcraft at Montwimer, France, on 29 May, 1239. Saint Angela of Foligno, born in 1248, became famous for eating pieces that fell off of lepers to prove Jesus protected her. He didn't, but she was made a saint anyway. Botched doomsday prophecies! Joachim of Fiore predicted the end of the world somewhere between 1200 and 1260. It did for him personally; he died in 1202. Pope John XX found proof of the existence of Pope John VIII (Pope Joan) in the Vatican archives and changed his own name to Pope John XXI in 1276. Barthe, Angela de la: was burned for heresy at Toulouse, France, in 1275. A Christian priest persuaded several children to accompany him away from their village on 6/26/1284. The children were never seen again, but terrified parents found bloody body parts hanging in trees in the forest. The local church re-wrote the story to blame the vanished children on the sins of the villagers themselves and thus was born the story of the Pied Piper of Hamlin town. (See Nathanial Bar-Jonah) Botched doomsday prophecies! Pope Innocent III predicted the end of the world in the year 1284, 666 years after the founding of Islam. 10,000 Jews were killed by Christians at Bohemia in 1290. Botched doomsday prophecies! When Joachim of Fiore's predicted end of the world had not happened by 1260, members of his order (the Joachites) simply re-scheduled the end another 30 years later to 1290.

Botched doomsday prophecies! Gerard of Poehlde, believing that Christ's Millennium actually began when the emperor Constantine came to power, predicts the end of the world 1000 years after the start of Constantine's reign, in 1306. The Knights Templar 1307 was the start of the extermination of the Knights Templar by the King of France (who owed the Knights Templar a great deal of money and wished to evade the debt) and the church, which was jealous of the Templar's power. Both King and cleric coveted the Templars' vast wealth. 36 Knights Templar were tortured to death in France, following their arrest on Friday, the 13th of October, 1307. This is the origin of the belief that Friday the 13th is unlucky. The Templars were formally disbanded by the church in 1312. Following the arrest, the soldiers of the king broke into the Knights' treasury only to find it empty. The Templars' rumored treasure of gold has never been found. But just as the Holy Grail may not have been the drinking cup the church portrayed it as, the Treasure of the Templars may not have been mere gold, but a secret that even the Christian church feared to make public, the location of the blood descendants of the historical Jesus. Templars in Scotland and Portugal escaped the pogrom. Descendants of the Templars fought with Robert Bruce at the battle of Bannockburn while their Portuguese brethren focused on maritime activities and renamed themselves the Knights of Christ.. Christopher Columbus' wife was a daughter of a Knight of Christ and the sails of Columbus' ships bore the Templar cross on the voyage to the New World, suggesting that Queen Isabella was not his sole investor. The Knights of Christ also supplied the "technology" behind Prince Henry the Navigator.

54 Knights Templar burned in France, on 12 May, 1310.

Pope Clement V secretly absolves the Templars of heresy in the Chinon Parchment, August 17, 1308. The Parchment is "Miscatalogued" in the Vatican Library and will not surface until 2002. Albano, Peter of: died in prison serving a sentence for heresy circa 1310 39 Knights Templar burned in France, on 18 March 1314. Jacques De Molay

After surviving several years of torture, Jacques De Molay, Grand Master of the Templars, was roasted alive by Christians in France on 14 March 1314. The deliberate slow manner of death was intended to force him to reveal where the treasure of the Templars was hidden. While it was popularly thought that the Treasure of the Templars was a vast wealth of gold, Jacques De Molay's willingness to endure his torments without surrender supports the theory that he was protecting a much more precious secret than mere gold; the location and identity of the descendants of the historical Jesus. Shortly after Jacques De Molay's death, the Shroud of Turin first appeared being used to swindle money from believers as a means to cure disease. Dismissed by the Pope as an obvious fraud, one theory is that the cloth is actually DeMolay's own burial cloth, planted on the church as the Templer's plan to discredit the church which was hunting the descendants of the historical Jesus in order to exterminate them.

Marigny, Enguerrand de: was hanged for heresy in France in 1315

Geraud, Hughes: burned for witchcraft in France in 1317 200 + burned at Carcassonne, France, between 1320-1350. Individual examples follow. "Some" burned for witchcraft at Kilkenny, Ireland, 1323. Nottingham, John of: died in custody, Coventry, England, 1324 Meath, Petronilla de: burned as a witch, the first such burning in Ireland, on 3 November, 1324 Andrius, Barthelemy: burned for heresy at Carcassonne, France in 1330 Andrius, Jean: burned at Carcassonne, France in 1330 Andrius, Phillippe: burned at Carcassonne, France in 1330 Ciceron, Andre: burned alive at Carcassone, France, in 1335 Rodier, Catala: burned alive at Carcassone, France, in 1335 Rodier, Paul: burned alive at Carcassone, France, in 1335 Georgel, Anna Marie de: burned at Toulouse, France, in 1335 Delort, Catherine: burned at Toulouse, France, in 1335 61 others, names not recorded, burned at Toulouse, France, in 1335

Botched doomsday prophecies! The Joachites again re-scheduled the end of the world, this time to the year 1335.
Christians in Deggendorf, Germany launched a "Jew killing craze" that spread to 51 towns in Bavaria, Austria, and Poland in 1337. All Jews in Basel, Switzerland and Strasbourg, France were burned at the stake during 1348. 340,000 people died of plague in England, roughly 30% of the population in the winter of 1349. Christians had banned not only the study of medicine, but declared hygiene to be "sensuous" and therefore a sin. Average life expectancy, which had been 45-50 during Roman Pagan times, fell to 25-30 under Christian rule. The "Jew killing craze" spread to 350 towns throughout Germany in 1349. All Jews were murdered, most by fire. More Jews died at the hands of Christians in this one year than Christians died during 200 years of Roman persecution.

Botched doomsday prophecies! Czech archdeacon Militz of Kromeriz claimed the Antichrist was alive and well and would show up no later than 1367, bringing the end of the world with him. Botched doomsday prophecies! Jean de Roquetaillade, a French ascetic, predicted the Antichrist was to come in 1366, with the end of the world a few years after that.

Botched doomsday prophecies! The Joachites again re-scheduled the end of the world, this time to the year 1378.
3000 Jews were slaughtered in Prague in 1389.

Archbishop Martinez ordered the execution of 4000 Jews in Seville in 1391. Another 25000 were sold into slavery and the the church kept the money. Prior to the attack, all Jews over the age of 10 were required to wear identifying badges.
8 witches, names not recorded, burned at Carcassonne, France, in 1352. 31 witches, names not recorded, burned at Carcassonne, France, in 1357. 67 more witches, names not recorded, burned at Carcassonne, France, between 1387-1400 Brigue, Jehane de: burned alive at the Pig Market in Paris on 19 August, 1391 de Ruilly, Macette: burned alive at the Pig Market in Paris on 19 August, 1391 Witch burned in Berlin, 1399. Name not recorded. Crusades against the Hussites, considered sorcerers by the church. Thousands were slaim during the 1400s. "Several" witches, names not recorded, burned alive at Simmenthal, Switzerland, circa 1400.

Three Popes! The year 1410 was a unique point in Catholic history as no less then three senior church leaders had been crowned Pope at the same time! Gregory XII, John XXIII, and Alexander V.
John Huss: Burned in 1415 as a heretic for questioning the selling of indulgences by the Pope, and suggesting that Popes were capable of error. Of all the examples of Papal fallibility Huss presented at his trial, the only one not denounced as false by the presiding clergy was the existence of Pope Joan.

Botched doomsday prophecies! Czech Doomsday prophet Martinek Hausha of the radical Taborite movement warned that the world would end in February 1420, February 14 at the latest.
"Several" witches, names not recorded, burned at Carcassonne, France, in 1423. 200 + witches, names not recorded, executed in the Valais, France between 1428-1434. 167 witches, names not recorded, executed in l'Isere, France, between 1428-1447.

Joan Of Arc

Joan of Arc: accused of witchcraft and burned at Rouen, France, on 30 May, 1431 16 witches, names not recorded, executed in Toulouse, France, in 1432. 8 witches, names not recorded, executed in Toulouse, France, in 1433. Johannes Nider writes "Formicarius" in 1435. It portrays witches as acting alone. There are no mentions of covens or sabbats. 150 witches, names not recorded, executed in Briancon, France, in 1437.

A witch, tied and suspended above a fire. Greland, Jean: burned at Chamonix, France, in 1438, with 10 others Vallin, Pierre: executed in France, in 1438 Mazelier, Hanchemand de: arrested at Neuchatel, Germany 1439 Corrillaut, Etienne: executed at Machecoul, France in 1440 Griart, Henri: executed at Machecoul, France in 1440 Rais, Gilles de: on charges of witchcraft, executed 26 October, 1440 Jordemaine, Margery: burned at Smithfield, England, on 27 October, 1441 Bolingbroke, Roger: hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn, England, on 18 November, 1441 3 witches, names not recorded, burned in Savoy between 1446 and 1447.

Illustration of various forms of hanging used on heretics and witches. Like crucifixion, the goal was to prolong the suffering for as long as possible. Inquisitor Jean Vineti writes "Tractatus contra Demonum Invocatores" in 1450, declaring for the first time that the practice of witchcraft is heresy against the Christian faith. 7 witches, names not recorded, killed at Marmande, France, in 1453. 1 witch, name not recorded, burned at Locarno, Italy, in 1455.

Illustration of a torture room of the Holy Inquisition.

Gutenburg Gutenburg published his Bible in 1455. The church paniced. Up until that time, Christians were not encouraged to read the Bible (or to read at all), only to accept the authoritative word of the priests as to what it said.
Battle of Belgrade: 80,000 Turks who refused to convert to Christianity were slaughtered in 1456. "Many" witches, names not recorded, burned in Arras, France in 1459 - 1460. Jennin, (first name unknown): burned at Cambrai, France, in 1460.

Inquisitor Girolamo Visconti wrote "Lamiarum sive Striarum Opuscalum" in 1460, declaring that defending a witch is itself an act of heresy punishable by the church. 2 witches, names not recorded, burned in Burgundy, France, in 1470. 3 witches, names not recorded, burned at Forno-Rivara, Italy, in 1472. 2 witches, names not recorded, burned at Levone, in Italy, in 1474. 5 witches, names not recorded, burned at Forno, Italy, in 1475. 12 women and "several" men , names not recorded, burned at Edinburgh, in 1479. 4 witches, names not recorded, burned at Metz, Germany, in 1482. 48 witches, names not recorded, burned at Constance, between 1482-1486. 4 witches, names not recorded, burned at Metz, Germany, in 1482. 48 witches, names not recorded, burned at Constance, between 1482-1486.

Illustration of witch tortures, burning, tearing of the flesh by dogs, and breaking with the wheel. 2 witches, names not recorded, burned at Toulouse, France, in 1484. 2 witches, names not recorded, burned in Chaucy, France in 1485. 1 witch, name not recorded, died in prison, at Metz, Germany 1488. 3 witches, names not recorded, executed at Mairange, Germany, on 17 June, 1488. 2 witches, names not recorded, executed at Mairange, Germany, on 25 June, 1488. 3 witches, names not recorded, executed at Chastel, Germany, on 26 June, 1488. 3 witches, names not recorded, executed at Metz, Germany, on 1 July, 1488. 1 witch, name not recorded, executed at Salney, Germany, on 3 July, 1488. 2 witches, names not recorded, executed at Salney, Germany, on 12 July, 1488. 3 witches, names not recorded, executed at Salney, Germany, on 19 July, 1488. 1 witch, name not recorded, executed at Brieg, Germany, on 19 July, 1488. 2 witches, names not recorded, executed at Juxney, Germany, on 19 August, 1488. 5 witches, names not recorded, executed at Thionville, Germany, on 23 August, 1488. 1 witch, name not recorded, executed at Metz, Germany, on 2 September, 1488. 1 witch, name not recorded, executed at Vigey, Germany, on 15 September, 1488. 1 witch, name not recorded, executed at Juxney, Germany, on 22 September, 1488.

Inquisitor Toms de Torquemada staged the first "Auto-da-fe" ("Act of faith") in Seville in 1491. By the time the last Auto-da-fe was held in Spain in 1802, 340,000 people fell victim to the spectacle. 24,000 were burned. Others were required to flog and scourge themselves before the audience. Ostensibly a religious service held on All Saint's Day, the Auto-da-fe was a revival of Roman blood sports, complete with church concessionaires selling food, beverages, and souvenirs to the audiences. The best seats had the highest ticket prices. Auto-da-fes were held in the new world as well, with the last recorded one taking place in Mexico in 1815. "Malleus Malificarum" was first published in 1486. Authored by two Dominicans, the Christians' authoritative book on witches eventually reached 28 editions in 5 languages over the next 200 years, all of which were cited as authority for the torture and execution of witches.

Alphonsus de Spina's "Fortalicium Fidei" was published in 1467. Citing it as authority, the monks of the Benedictine Monastery at St. Maximin at Treves executed over 300 people for the crime of withchraft, growing wealthy on the confiscated property of the condemned.

Innocent VIII became Pope in 1484. Immediately he launched the anti witch campaigns. Allowed church officials involved in the witch hunts to keep the wealth of the condemned. Greed fueled the holocaust to come. Innocent VIII held a wedding for his illegitimate son in the Vatican itself. The bride's mother was Innocent VIII's illegitimate daughter!

Christopher Columbus Columbus, having quit the profession of slave trading to become an explorer, sailed for the new world in 1492. Within hours of landing, Columbus had kidnapped 6 natives in order to "christianize" them and make them his servants. Columbus incorrectly reported that the inhabitants of the New World had no religion. After planting a cross, Columbus would say the "Requerimiento", a prayer that officially made the newly found lands Catholic. Since nobody present objected (the natives did not speak latin), the new world became officially the domain of the Catholic church. Over the next hundred years, thousands of indians were burned to death for offending Christians.

A hundred Indians bundled together and set on fire by the Christian Conquestadores.

On Hispaniola alone, 50,000 Arawaks were killed, the rest were sent into slavery. Chief Hatuey declared that if heaven is where Christians go, that he would prefer to live in hell. He was burned alive for heresy. What happened to his people was described by an eyewitness: "The Spaniards found pleasure in inventing all kinds of odd cruelties ... They built a long gibbet, long enough for the toes to touch the ground to prevent strangling, and hanged thirteen [natives] at a time in honor of Christ Our Saviour and the twelve Apostles... then, straw was wrapped around their torn bodies and they were burned alive."

150,000 Jews were expelled from Spain on 6/30/1492. Most died before finding a new home.

Pope Alexander VI brokered the Treaty of Tordesillas between Spain and Portugal in 1494. This treaty "authorized" both nations to claim any non-Catholic lands as their own and to stamp out the existing government in order to replace it with Catholic rule.

Botched doomsday prophecies! Several 15th Century prophets predict the end of the world for the year 1496.
Gracia la Valle, burned in Saragossa. First execution of a witch in Spain, in 1498.

Girolamo Savonarola was declared a heretic, arrested, tortured, hanged and then burned in the Plaza della Signoria in 1498 for publicly criticizing the wild orgies thrown inside the Vatican by Pope Alexander VI. According to Savonerola, "The Papal Palace had literally become a house of prostitution where harlots sit upon the throne of Solomon and signal to the passersby. Whoever can pay enters and does what he wishes."
Bragadini, Mark Antony: beheaded in Italy in the 1500's 1 witch, name not recorded, executed in France in 1500. 3 women, names not recorded, executed as witches in Spain in 1500. Angelo of Verona was appointed Inquisitor over all of Lombardy in 1501 by Pope Alexander IV, who ordered him to seek out and punish heretics. The Pope gave Angelo authority to over-ride all other religious authority to do so.

The infamous "Ballet of the Chestnuts" was held in the Vatican on 10/30/1501. One of the wildest parties thrown in the Papal Palace by Pope Alexander VI, the Ballet of the Chestnuts was an old fashioned orgy featured 50 of Rome's most beautiful harlots, with the Pope handing out prizes to those men who displayed the most virility. Seated by the Pope's side for this revel was his own illegitimate daughter and occasional lover, Lucrezia Borgia. The following are quoted from William Manchester's "A World Lit Only by Fire- The Medieval Mind and The Renaissance" .Little, Brown & Company, 1992

"Once he became Pope Alexander VI, Vatican parties, already wild, grew wilder. They were costly, but he could afford the lifestyle of a Renaissance prince; as vice chancellor of the Roman Church, he had amassed enormous wealth. As guests approached the papal palace, they were excited by the spectacle of living statues: naked, gilded young men and women in erotic poses. Flags bore the Borgia arms, which, appropriately, portrayed a red bull rampant on a field of gold. Every fete had a theme. One, known to Romans as the Ballet of the Chestnuts, was held on October 30, 1501. The indefatigable Burchard describes it in his Diarium. After the banquet dishes had been cleared away, the city's fifty most beautiful whores danced with the guests, "first clothed, then naked." The dancing over, the "ballet" began, with the Pope and two of his children in the best seats. Candelabra were set up on the floor, scattered among them were chestnuts, "which", Burchard writes, "the courtesans had to pick up, crawling between the candles." Then the serious sex started. Guests stripped and ran out onto the floor, where they mounted, or were mounted by, the prostitutes. "The coupling took place," according to Burchard, "in front of everyone present." Servants kept score of each man's orgasms, for the Pope greatly admired virility, and measured a man's machismo by his ejaculative capacity. After eveyone was exhausted, His Holiness distributed prizes- cloaks, boots, caps, and fine silken tunics. "The winners", the diarist wrote, "were those who made love with the courtesans the greatest number of times."

About the Pope and his daughter, Lucrezia: "His daughter had just turned seventeen and was at the height of her beauty. We now know that he

was, in fact, her lover. ..Here, however, the tale darkens. Romans had scarcely absorbed the news that the father lusted for his daughter when they learned even more. Lucrezia was said to be unavailable to her father because she was already deeply involved in another incestuous relationship, or relationships- a triangular entanglement with both her handsome brothers. The difficulty, it was whispered, was that although she enjoyed coupling with both of them, each, jealous of the other, wanted his sister for himself. On the morning of June 15, 1497, Juan Borgia's corpse was found floating in the Tiber mutilated by nine savage dagger wounds. "Borgia's enjoyment of the flesh was enhanced when the woman beneath him was married, particularly if he had presided at her wedding. Breaking any commandment excited him, but he was partial to the seventh. As priest he married Rosa to two men. She may have actually slept with her husbands from time to time- since Borgia always kept a stable of women, she was allowed an occasional night off to indulge her own sexual preferences- but her duties lay in his eminence's bed. Then, at the age of fifty nine, he yearned for a more nubile partner. His parting with Rosa was affectionate. Later he gave her a little gift- he made her brother a cardinal."

Botched doomsday prophecies! The Italian artist Botticelli captioned his painting, "The Mystical Nativity" with a message warning that the end of the world would occur within three years, based on the predictions of Girolamo Savonarola.

"Confessing under Torture", from "Bamberische Halsgerichtsordnung", published in 1508.

Pope Julias II amended the Treaty of Tordesillas between Spain and Portugal in 1506. This treaty "authorized" both nations to claim any non-Catholic lands as their own and to stamp out the existing government in order to replace it with Catholic rule.
Saint Teresa was born in 1515. Seduced by her father confessor (who died soon after from 'surfeit de femme') Teresa was drawn into the church. On entering the nunnary, she was given a whip and told to use it on herself twice a day. She did so. She gains fame as a poet, although much of her poetry, which described Jesus in lurid sexual mages, was kept hidden.

Martin Luther posted his "95 Theses" on the door to Wittenburg Castle Church on October 31, 1517, triggering the Protestant movement.

The following are quoted from William Manchester's "A World Lit Only by Fire- The Medieval Mind and The Renaissance" .Little, Brown & Company, 1992

The "Age of Faith", the 1000 years of the Dark Ages, was marked by a very low standard of living for most people. They lived in filth, sanitation being considered too sensual to be pious. The average life expectancy was only 25 or 30*, and Bubonic Plague, Typhus and a host of other diseases regularly decimated hundreds of thousands of people. In the winter of 1349, 120,000 people died in England, one out of every three. Continental Europe had similar death counts during the 1300's, recurring waves of plague sweeping the countrysides, whole towns dying in days. The church encouraged ignorance: "Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153), the most influential Christian of his time, bore a deep distrust of the intellect and declared that the pursuit of knowledge, unless sanctified by a holy mission, was a pagan act and therefore vile." "The distinction between devotion and superstition has always been unclear, but there was little blurring here. Although they called themselves Christians, medieval Europeans were ignorant of the gospels. The Bible only existed in a language they could not read. The mumbled incantations at Mass were meaningless to them. They believed in sorcery, witchcraft, hobgoblins, werewolves, amulets, and black magic, and were thus indistinguishable from pagans. Scholars as eminent as Erasmus and Sir Thomas More accepted the existence of witchcraft. The church encouraged superstitions, recommended trust in faith healers, and spread tales of satyrs, incubi, sirens, cyclops, tritons, and giants, explaining they were all manifestations of Satan." *Compared wioth 50-60 at the height of the Roman Empire

START OF THE "LITTLE ICE AGE" Starting in the mid 16th Century, Europe's climate starts a cooling spell which will last 300 years. Unaware that the sun's energy output has slightly decreased (The Maunder Minimum) Religious leaders of Europe blame human actions for climate change (not unlike the current tendancy to blame a warming planet solely on human activity), and add the deteriorating weather to the list of "crimes" of witches. As the cereals on which civilization depends succumb to the cold weather, the church declares the still-thriving potato the "food of the devil" because it grows in the ground. As a result, millions starve to death while standing on an ample food supply. If there really was a God, don't you think he would have tapped the priests on the shoulders and said, "Look, it's really okay for the people to eat the spuds. Try i hem with butter and chives!"

30 witches, names not recorded, burned in Calahorra, Spain, in 1507. 1 witch, name not recorded, burned in Saxony, Germany, in 1510. 60 witches, names not recorded, burned in Lombardia, Northern Italy, in 1510. 2 women, names not recorded, executed for witchcraft in Spain 1512. 500 + witches, names not recorded, burned in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1515.

Illustration of tortures of heretics and witches.

Kuhnlin, Elsa: burned at Waldsee, Germany, in 1518 Paeffin, Elsa: burned at Waldsee, Germany, in 1518 Thausser, Simon: burned at Waldsee, Germany, in 1518 Thausser (wife of Simon, no name given): burned at Waldsee, Germany, in 1518

Hanging of a condemned witch, name not recorded, in 1520.

64 witches, names not recorded, burned in Val Camonica, Italy between 1518-1521. 2 witches, names not recorded, burned in Besancon, France, in 1521. 100 witches, names not recorded, burned in Como, Italy, in 1523. 1000 + witches, names not recorded, in Como, Italy, in 1524.

Botched doomsday prophecies! Prophets in England predicted a flood on February 1, 1524 (Julian) to strike at London. 20,000 people abandoned their homes in fear. Yet another prophet, citing an alignment of planets in the constellation Pisces, set the date for the flood for February 20th. Both days turned out to be sunny with not even a drop of rain.

900 witches, names and dates not recorded, executed by Nicholas Remy during this time period.

Botched doomsday prophecies! Anabaptist Thomas Mntzer, thinking that he was living at the "end of all ages," in 1525, incited a spectacularly unsuccessful revolt of the peasantry.

"Methods of German Torture", published in 1527.

Sattler, Michael: leader of a baptist community, burned at the stake in Rottenburg, Germany, 5/20/1527. His wife was burned at the stake a few days later. Wachin, Ursula: burned at Waldsee, Germany, in 1528

Botched doomsday prophecies! Prophets in England, having failed in their February 20th, 1524 prediction for a massive flood, reschedule the prediction to 1528. Botched doomsday prophecies! Reformer Hans Hut predicted the end would occur on Pentecost (May 27, Julian calendar) 1528.
Pope Clement VII rewrote the Treaty of Tordesillas between Spain and Portugal into the Treaty of Saragossa in 1529. This treaty "authorized" both nations to claim any non-Catholic lands as their own and to stamp out the existing government in order to replace it with Catholic rule.

Illustration of "Breaking with the wheel".

Mansene, Desle la: executed at Anjux, France on 18 Dec. 1529 Mullerin, Elsbet: burned at Waldsee, Germany, in 1531

Botched doomsday prophecies! Bishop Frederick Nausea (yes, that is his name), predicted that the world would end in 1532 after hearing a single report of bloody crosses appearing in the sky alongside a comet. Botched doomsday prophecies! Anabaptist prophet Melchior Hoffman predicted the end of the world in 1533. he also predicted that Jesus would reappear in Strasbourg, to save 144,000 people from the world's end.

Botched doomsday prophecies! Mathematician Michael Stifel, a devout Christian, calculated that the Day of Judgement would begin at exactly 8:00am on October 19, 1533.
The priest of the chapel at Aldington, Kent, encouraged Elizabeth Barton to fake a demonic possession in 1533 in order to create a shrine to attract pilgrimages and the financial benefits therefrom. Encouraged by the clergy to greater and greater displays, Elizabeth claimed visions opposing the remarriage of Henry VIII, helping to fan the religious wars that almost tore England apart.

Botched doomsday prophecies! Jan Matthys predicted that the Apocalypse would take place on Easter Day (April 5, Julian calendar) 1534 and only the city of Mnster would be spared.
"A large number" of witches, names not recorded, executed at Saragossa, Spain, in 1536.

Botched doomsday prophecies! French astrologer Pierre Turrel, a devout Christian, hedges his bets and predicts the end of the world in 1537, 1544, 1801 or 1814.
Brigge, Mabel: executed in York, England,1538 Hubmaier, B.: University professor burned at the stake for heresy in Vienna, 1538.

Pope Paul III declared all of England to be "Apostate", all Englishmen to be slaves of the church, and launched a crusade, but died before he could invade.
deLarue, (first name unknown): burned at Rouen, in 1540 Morin (first name unknown): burned at Rouen, in 1540

Martin Luther published, "On the Jews and their lies", accusing the Jews of avarice and citing the Talmud (correctly) as claiming that Jews do not consider theft a sin when committed against non Jews. Some excerpts:

"Their breath stinks for the gold and silver of the heathen; since no people under the sun always have been, still are, and always will remain more avaricious than they, as can be noticed in their cursed usury. Therefore know, my dear Christians, that next to the Devil, you have no more bitter, more poisonous, more vehement and enemy than a real Jew who earnestly desires to be a Jew...Do not their Talmud and rabbis write that it is no sin to kill if a Jew kills a heathen, but it is a sin if he kills a brother in Israel? It is no sin if he does not keep his oath to a heathen. Therefore, to steal and rob - as they do with their moneylending - from a heathen, is a divine service...Now what are we going to do with these rejected, condemned Jewish people?" Luther answers his own question: "...to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn... I advise that their houses be razed and destroyed... I advise that all their prayer books... in which such idolatry, lies, cursing, and blasphemy are taught, be taken from them... that their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb... that safe-conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews... that all their treasure of silver and gold be taken

from them... But if the authorities are reluctant to use force and restrain the Jews' devilish wantonness, the latter should, as we said, be expelled from their country and be told to return to ... Jerusalem where they may lie, curse, blaspheme, defame, murder, steal, rob, practice usury, mock, and indulge in all those infamous abominations which they practice among us, and leave ... our Lord the Messiah, our faith, and our church undefiled and uncontaminated with their devilish tyranny and malice." 400 years later, the Nazis used Luther's writing in their defense at the Nuremberg trials. In the era of the peasant wars, Luther supported the feudal authorities' indiscriminate killing of inobedient, starving subjects in his infamous and incendiary writing "Against the murderous and robbing rabble of Peasants". In this he... "calls upon the princes to slaughter the offending peasants like mad dogs, to stab, strangle and slay as best one can, and holds out as a reward the promise of heaven." Luther's advice was literally followed by thefeudal authorities. Hundreds of villages were laid in ashes, the harvests of the nation were destroyed, and roughly 100,000 killed.

Echtinger, Barbara: imprisoned for life at Waldsee, Germany, on 24 August, 1545 Askew, Anne: burned for witchcraft 1546

Flogging a heretic.

7 witches, names not recorded, burned at Nantes, France, in 1549. 1 witch, name not recorded, burned at Lyons, France, in 1549. Amalaric, Madeline: burned in France in mid-1500's.

POTATOS! Following the conquest of Peru by Pizarro, the potato is introduced to Europe. Far less vulnerable to the cooling of the "Little Ice Age" than the cerial crops being farmed at the time, the potato offers salvation from the famine sweeping over the lands. But church leaders declare the potato the food of the Devil due to its being grown underground, and millions starve to death as a result.

Various methods of execution, 1554.

Illustration of a witch being burned, dated 1555.

3 witches, names not recorded, burned alive at Derneburg, Germany, on 4 October, 1555.

Botched doomsday prophecies! French theologian Pierre d'Ailly predicted the end of the world in 1555. Christopher Columbus' own apocolyptic views were based on this prediction. Botched doomsday prophecies! Rumors of the end of the world swept through the churches of Switzerland on Magdalene's Day in 1556, source unknown.
1 witch, name not recorded, burned alive at Bievires, France, in 1556. Douglas, Janet: burned at Castle, Hill, Scotland, on 17 July, 1557. Hezensohn, Joachim: beheaded at Waldsee, Germany, in 1557. 5 witches, names not recorded, burned at Verneuil, France, in 1561.

Dr. Johan Weyer, personal physician to Duke William and therefore safe from accusations of being in league with witches, published "De Praestigiis" in 1563 and "De Lamiis" in 1577, arguing that confessions obtained by torture were legally worthless. 17,000 + witches, names not recorded, in Scotland from 1563 to 1603. 4 witches, names not recorded, burned at Potiers, France, in 1564.

Illustration of the treatment of witches and heretics, floggings and disembowelment. Waterhouse, (first name unknown): hanged as a witch in Dorset, England in 1565. An unknown number of witches, names not recorded, burned at Vernon, Normandy, France, in 1566.

Matthew Hopkins, Witch Finder General in charge of executing witches in England, oversaw the prosecution of the "Chelmsford Witches". Waterhouse, Agnes: executed in Chelmsford, England, 29 July, 1566 as the first "Chelmsford Witch". Saint Magdalena dei Pazzi was born in Florence in 1566. While a Carmalite nun, she would lie on thorns and have hot wax poured over her body, then be whipped. Alternated between standing motionless for hours and running uncontrollably through the nunnary. Mary Stuart (Mary Queen Of Scotts), although a Catholic, allowed Scottish people to freely choose how they would worship. Angered Protestant clergy forced Mary Stuart to abdicate in 1567.

Humphrey Gilbert, half-brother of Sir Walter Raleigh, in order to convince the Gaelic Irish to convert to Chritianity, ordered that "the heddes of all those (of what sort soever thei were) which were killed in the daie, should be cutte off from their bodies... and should bee laied on the ground by eche side of the waie", which effort to civilize the Irish indeed caused "greate terrour to the people when thei sawe the heddes of their dedde fathers, brothers, children, kinsfolke, and freinds on the grounde" in 1567. Knighted for his victory in 1570.
The Spanish Inquisition ordered extermination of 3 million religeous rebels in the Netherlands. 5000 Protestants were drowned by Catholic troops, their hats washing ashore at Emden in 1568. Paris, (first name unknown): hanged at St. Andrews, Scotland, in 1569 Steward, William: hanged at St. Andrews, Scotland, in 1569 "Many" witches, names not recorded, burned in France in 1571. Trois-Echelles (pseud.): executed at Paris, France, in 1571 (or 1574) Bowman, Janet: burned as a witch in Scotland in 1572 Pope Pius V orders the execution of 20,000 Huguenots in France in 1572.

St. Bartholemew Day Massacre, starting on 23 August 1572 (the eve of the feast of Bartholomew the Apostle ) and lasting several weeks, Catholics murder Huguenots in Paris and the surrounding countryside. Instigated by Catherine de' Medici, the mother of King Charles IX.

Fief, Mary le: of Samur, France, accused of witchcraft, on 13 October 1573. Following 1573 and lasting until the witch hunts ended, an estimated 70,000 people in England were executed for the crime of witchcraft. 80 witches, names not recorded, executed in one fire at Valery-en-Savoie, France, in 1574. Arnold, (first name unknown): hanged at Barking, England, in 1574. 8 Garnier, Gilles: burned as a werewolf in Dole, France 1574. Dunlop, Bessie: burned at Castle Hill, Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1576. Pajot, Marguerite: executed at Tonnerre, France, in 1576. Doree, Catherine: executed at Courveres, France, in 1577. 3 witches, names not recorded, executed in Dorset, England, in 1578. 36 persons, names not recorded, executed for witchcraft at Kilkenny, Ireland, in 1578. Harvilliers, Jeanne: executed in France, in 1578. Frances, Elizabeth: executed in Chelmsford, England, 1579.

Jean Bodin, witch hunt fanatic, published "De la Demonomanie des Sorciers" in 1580, in which he argued that a person merely accused of witchcraft could never be found innocent.

Beuchel, Anna: burned at Waldsee, Germany, in 1581. Buckh, Appollonia: burned at Waldsee, Germany, in 1581. Schwarz, Eva: burned at Waldsee, Germany, in 1581. Wuncil, Brigida: burned at Waldsee, Germany, on 6 July, 1581. Einseler, Catharina: burned at Waldsee, Germany, on 6 July, 1581 Isolin, Madlen: burned at Waldsee, Germany, on 6 July, 1581 Rosch, Maria: burned at Waldsee, Germany, on 6 July, 1581 Flieger, Catharina: burned at Waldsee, Germany, on 6 July, 1581 Scharber, Elsbeth: burned at Waldsee, Germany, in 1581 Kemp, Ursula: executed at St. Oyth, England in 1582 18 witches, names not recorded, killed at St. Oses, England, in 1582. Bennet, Elizabeth: executed in St. Osyth, England in 1582 Gabley, (first name unknown): executed at King's Lynn, England, in 1582 Bonnet, Jean: burned alive at Boissy-en-Ferez, France, in 1583 Quattrino, Dominic: burned at Mesolcina, Italy, in 1583

Botched doomsday prophecies! Several astrologers and clergy cite a conjunction of Jupiter with Saturn as a sign that the second coming of Jesus will occur in London at noon on Apr 28, 1583. Botched doomsday prophecies! Another astrologer revises the above prediction to 1584. One of the first Christians to enter the Virginia territory, Arthur Barlowe, arrived in 1584. He described the Native Americans as, "...we were entertained with all love and kindness and with as much bounty, ...as they could possibly devise. We found the people most gentle loving, and faithfull, void of all guile and treason ... a more kind and loving people there cannot be found in the world, as farre as we have hitherto had triall."
Reginald Scott publishes "The Discovery of Witchcraft" in 1584, a major work that debunked Christian claims of witches and demons. Bowing to church pressure, King James I orders all copies destroyed. The book will not reappear until 1651. Wirth, Trauben: burned at Waldsee, Germany, on 5 July, 1585. Hacket, Margaret: executed at Tyburn, England, on 19 February, 1585 Reich, Maria: burned at Waldsee, Germany, on 5 July, 1585 Treher, Anna: burned at Waldsee, Germany, on 5 July, 1585 Lachenmeyer, Waldburg: burned at Waldsee, Germany, on 5 July, 1585 Uhlmer, Barbara: burned at Waldsee, Germany, on 24 August, 1585 Sailler, Ursula: burned at Waldsee, Germany, on 24 August, 1585 Rohrfelder, Margaret: burned at Waldsee, Germany, on 24 August, 1585 Marguerite, (last name unknown): burned at Paris, France, in 1586 Martin, Marie: executed in France, in 1586 Mirot, Dominic: burned at Paris, France, in 1586 Erb, Anna: burned at Waldsee, Germany, on 9 March, 1586 Schultheiss, Ursula: burned at Waldsee, Germany, on 9 March, 1586 Schneider, Felicitas: burned at Waldsee, Germany, on 9 March, 1586 Weiss, Agatha: burned at Waldsee, Germany, on 9 October, 1586

Mayer, Christina: burned at Waldsee, Germany, on 9 October, 1586 Isel, Ursula: burned at Waldsee, Germany, on 7 November, 1586 Rauffains, Catharina: burned at Waldsee, Germany, on 7 November, 1586 Stadelmann, Ursula: burned at Waldsee, Germany, on 7 November, 1586 Hoyd, Anna: burned at Waldsee, Germany, on 24 November, 1586 Sechelle, (first name unknown): burned at Paris, France, in 1586 Dormar, Anna: burned at Waldsee, Germany, on 9 October, 1586 Kleiss, Anna: burned at Waldsee, Germany, on 30 October, 1586

Mary Stuart (Mary, Queen Of Scotts), was beheaded on 2/8/1587. On Elizabeth's death, Mary Stuart's son became King James I of England. Scotland lost the freedom won by William Wallace and Robert Bruce; apparently a small price to pay in the Protestant war against Catholicism. Botched doomsday prophecies! The sage Johann Mller (aka Regiomontanus) predicts the second comiong of Christ in 1588.

Execution of a witch by "pressing", the slow piling on of heavy rocks, 1587.

Waterboarding, 1587.

368 persons killed for witchcraft between 18 January, 1587, and 18 November, 1593, in the diocese of Treves. Fray, Ursula: burned at Waldsee, Germany, on 12 June, 1587. Kless, Catharina: burned at Waldsee, Germany, on 12 June, 1587. Pearson, Alison: burned in Scotland on 28 May, 1588. 133 persons burned in one day at Quedlinburg, in Germany, in 1589.

Joan Prentice, Joan Cony, and Joan Upney, three of the "Chelmsford Witches", hanged in Chelmsford, England, in 1589.

Flade, Dietrich: executed at Treves, 1589. Huebmeyer, Barbara: burned at Waldsee, Germany, on 11 September, 1589. Huebmeyer, Appela: burned at Waldsee, Germany, on 11 September, 1589. Schnelling, Anna: burned at Waldsee, Germany, on 11 September, 1589.

Cunny (Coney), Joan: hanged in Chelmsford, England, in 1589. Upney, Joan: hanged in Chelsford, England, in 1589. Stubb, Peter: executed as a werewolf near Cologne, Germany, in 1589. 48 witches, their names unrecorded, burned in Wurttemberg, Germany, in 1589. 54 witches, their names unrecorded, burned in Franconia in 1590. 32 witches, their names unrecorded, executed in Nordlingen, Germany in 1590. From 1590 to 1600, an average of 10 witches per day were burned in the Duchy of Brunswick. Robson, Donald: executed at North Berwick, England in 1590 Tod, Christian: executed at North Berwick, England in 1590 Lemp, Rebecca: executed in Nordlingen, Germany, on 9 Sept. 1590 Stuell(?), Gertrud (of Klaferd in the Oberholzklau Parish): burned at the stake in Alchen, Gemany, 1590 Cunningham, John: burned at Edinburgh, in January, 1591 Napier, Barbara: hanged in Scotland in 1591 Macalzean, Euphemia: burned alive in Scotland for witchcraft, on 25 June, 1591

Sampsoune, Agnes: tried, strangled, and burnt for a witch in Scotland 1591 Fian, John: hanged at Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1591 "Tractatus de Confessionibus Maleficorum et Sagarum" was published in 1591 by Peer Binsfeld. Mostly the product of the author's imagination, the book purported to be a scholarly study of witches and how to prosecute them. Catholics and Protestants alike relied on the book as the authoritative source on witches for the next 100 years.

Duncan, Gellie: hanged in Scotland in 1591 Rue, Abel de la: of Coulommiers, France, accused of witchcraft on 20 July, 1592 Samuels, (family of 3): condemned to death for witchcraft in Warboys, England, on 4 April, 1593 Rosseau, (father,and daughter): of France, accused of witchcraft on 2 October 1593 Birenseng, Agata: burned at Waldsee, Germany, on 25 June, 1594 Fray, Margaret: burned at Waldsee, Germany, on 25 June, 1594 Balfour, Alison: burned at Edinburgh, Scotland, on 16 December, 1594 Crierson, Robert: executed at North Berwick, England in 1594 Calles, Helen: executed at Braynford, England, on 1 December, 1595 Newell, John: executed at Barnett, England, on 1 December, 1595 Newell, Joane: executed at Barnett, England, on 1 December, 1595 Cockie, Isabel: burnt as a witch, at a cost of 105 s. 4 p., in England 1596 Jollie, Alison: executed in Scotland, in October, 1596 Beaumont, Sieur de: accused of witchcraft on 21 October, 1596 Stewart, Christian: strangled and burned in Scotland, in November, 1596 Belon, Jean: executed in France, in 1597 Porte, Vidal de la: condemned at Riom, France, in 1597 Bean, Margrat: executed at Aberdeen, Scotland in 1597

Leyis, Thomas: executed at Aberdeen, Scotland in 1597 Gerard, Katherine: executed at Aberdeen, Scotland in 1597 Grant, Jonet: executed at Aberdeen, Scotland in 1597 Gwinner, Else: executed in Germany, 21 Dec, 1597 Spaldarg, Jonet: executed at Aberdeen, Scotland in 1597 Grant, Marion: executed at Aberdeen, Scotland in 1597 Man, Andro: executed at Aberdeen, Scotland in 1597 Wisherr, Jonet: executed at Aberdeen, Scotland in 1597 Og, Margrat: executed at Aberdeen, Scotland in 1597 Oige, Issobell: executed at Aberdeen, Scotland in 1597 Richie, Issobell: executed at Aberdeen, Scotland in 1597 Reid, Christen: executed at Aberdeen, Scotland in 1597 Rogie, Helen: executed at Aberdeen, Scotland in 1597 Goodridge, Alse: executed at Darbie, England, in 1597 Laubbach (wife): executed at Eichstatt, Germany, in 1597 Roulet, Jacques: burned alive for being a were-wolf, at Angiers, France, in 1597 Chamoulliard, (first name unknown): burned in France, in 1597 Aupetit, Pierre: burned at Bordeaux, France, in 1598 Hoppo, (first name unknown): executed in Germany in 1599 Kerke, Anne: executed at Tyburn, England, in 1599 Stadlin, (first name unknown): executed in Germany in 1599 77 witches, their names unrecorded, burned in Vaud, Switzerland, in 1599.

Botched doomsday prophecies! Martin Luther predicted that the world would end no later than the year 1600.

The "Water Ordeal" shown in a 17th century engraving. In this form of torture, the condemned was forced to drink large amounts of water until their bowels ruptured, resulting in a slow and painful death.

Conquest of the Americas By the year 1600, Spanish Christians had looted and plundered across the new world bringing the benefits of Christianity to the indigenous people, 60,000,000 of whom were killed in the process.
Pappenheimer, Anna: executed in Bavaria, 1600 Bruno, Giordano: Following 7 years in prison for heresy, burned at the stake in Rome on 2/17/1600. Pope Clement VIII ordered the statue of Pope John VIII (Pope Joan) at the Cathedral of Siena to be altered into a statue of Pope Zacharias in 1601. Gwinner, Else: executed in Germany on 21 Dec. 1601 Pannel, Mary: executed in Yorkshire, England, in 1603

Botched doomsday prophecies! Dominican monk Tomasso Campanella wrote that the sun would collide with the Earth in 1603.
April 10, 1606, the Charter for the Virginia Colony was signed. It reads in part, "To the glory of His divine Majesty, in propagating of the Christian religion to such people as yet live in ignorance of the true knowledge and worship of God."

Less than 20 years before, Arthur Barlowe had described the Native Amercans with greatest praise for their kindness and charity. In the campaign to force Christianity on the Native Americans, the Virginia Christians reported, "...we burnt, and spoyled their corne, and Towne, all the people beeing fledde." Harrisson, Joanna: executed in Hertford, England, in 1606 Harrisson, (daughter of Joanna): executed in Hertford, England, in 1606 Francoise (last name unknown): burned in France on 30 July, 1606 Grierson, Isobel: burned in Scotland in March, 1607 Tod, Beigis: burned at Lang Nydrie, Scotland, on 27 May, 1608 Dorlady, Mansfredo: burned at Vesoul, France as being the Devil's banker, on 18 January, 1610 Dorlady, Fernando: burned at Vesoul, France as being the Devil's banker, on 18 January, 1610

The invention of cheap printing created a crises in religion in that each region had its own version of the Bible biased to serve its own perceived interests. Worse, many versions were in direct conflict with each other. King James solved the crises by issuing a "standard" King James Bible, translated into English, in 1611.
Gaufridi, Louis: burned at Marseilles, France, at 5:00 pm on 30 April, 1611

Colonists tired of religious persecutions left Jamestown to go live among the indians. Governor Thomas Dale hunted them down and executed them for daring to leave the church.

The Pequod wars. A member of the Massachussetts Bay Colony was found dead, apparently at the hands of the Narragansett indians. Puritan leader John Mason told the puritans that God had ordered war on the indians, but picks the wrong tribe. The Pequod, friendly to the puritans and enemies of the Narragansett were attacked. Citing Deuteronomy 20, the women and children were killed as well. The few survivors were taken as slaves. Preston, Jennet: executed in York, England for witchcraft, in 1612 Redfearne, Anne: executed in Lancaster, England for witchcraft, in 1612 Robey, Isobel: executed in Lancaster, England for witchcraft, in 1612 Nutter, Alice: executed in Lancaster, England for witchcraft, in 1612 Device, Elizabeth: executed in Lancaster, England for witchcraft, in 1612 Device, James: executed in Lancaster, England for witchcraft, in 1612 Bulcock, John: executed in Lancaster, England for witchcraft, in 1612 Bulcock, Jane: executed in Lancaster, England for witchcraft, in 1612 Demdike, Elizabeth: convicted of witchcraft, but died in prison, in Lancaster, England, in 1612 Device, Alizon: (age 11 years) executed in Lancaster, England for witchcraft, in 1612 Hewitt, Katherine: executed in Lancaster, England for witchcraft, in 1612 Whittle, Anne: executed in Lancaster, England for witchcraft, in 1612

Sutton, Mary: executed in Bedford, England for witchcraft in 1613. The above illustration shows the "swimming" of Mary, a torture method involving partial drowning to extract a confession.

Barber, Mary: executed in Northhampton, England for witchcraft, on 22 July, 1612 Bill, Arthur: executed in Northhampton, England for witchcraft, on 22 July, 1612 Browne, Agnes: executed in Northhampton, England for witchcraft, on 22 July, 1612 Browne, Joan: executed in Northhampton, England for witchcraft, on 22 July, 1612 Jenkenson, Helen: executed in Northhampton, England for witchcraft, on 22 July, 1612 Sutton (mother) (first name unknown): executed in Bedford, England for witchcraft in 1613 Hunt, Joan: hanged in Middlesex, England for witchcraft in 1615 Coligny, Gaspard de: Protestant leader executed by the Catholics, his mutilated body left to rot on a gallows.

Catholics sack the city of Magdeburg, Germany, killing 30,000 Protestants. According to a witness, poet Friedrich Schiller, 50 women were beheaded inside a church. The 30 years' war. 40% of the population of Germany is killed.

Leclerc, (no first name given): condemned for witchcraft, in France 1615 de la Plaine, Sylvanie: burned at Pays de Labourde, France, 1616 Leger, (no first name given): condemmned for witchcraft in France, on 6 May, 1616 Berrye, Agnes: hanged at Enfield, England, in 1616 Smith, Mary: hanged at King's Lynn, England, in 1616 Rutter, Elizabeth: hanged in Middlesex, England in 1616 Galigai, Leonora: beheaded at the Place de Grieve, France, on 8 July, 1617 Audibert, Etienne: condemned for witchcraft in France, on 20 March 1619 Baker, Anne: executed in Leicester, England, in 1619 Green, Ellen: executed in Leicester, England, in 1619 Willimot, Joan: executed in Leicester, England, in 1619 Flower, Joan: died before trial, at Lincoln, England, 1619 Flower, Margaret: executed at Lincoln, England, in March, 1619 Flower, Phillippa: executed at Lincoln, England, in March, 1619 Boulay, Anne: burned at Nancy, France, in 1620 Poiret, (first name unknown): burned at Nancy, France, in 1620

November 3, 1620 - King James I granted the Charter of the Plymouth council. "In the hope thereby to advance the enlargement of the Christian religion, to the glory of God Almighty."

November 11, 1620 - The Pilgrims signed the Mayflower Compact aboard the Mayflower, in Plymouth harbor. "In the name of God, Amen. We, whose names are underwritten, the Loyal Subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord, King James, by the Grace of God, of England, France and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, e&. Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith, and the Honour of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia; do by these presents, solemnly and mutually in the Presence of God and one of another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick, for our better Ordering and Preservation, and Furtherance of the Ends aforesaid; And by Virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions and Offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the General good of the Colony; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In Witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names at Cape Cod the eleventh of November, in the Reign of our Sovereign Lord, King James of England, France and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth. Anno Domini, 1620." A Puritan Minister will soon complain to leader William Bradford that while indians deserve to be killed, some effort should be made to force conversion upon them first so that they may go to heaven.
Mundie, Beatrice: tried for witchcraft in Inverkiething, Scotland 1621 Harlow, Bessie: tried for witchcraft in Inverkiething, Scotland 1621 Hamyltoun, Christiane: tried for witchcraft in Inverkiething, Scotland 1621 Kent, Margaret: tried for witchcraft in Inverkiething, Scotland 1621 Chalmers, Bessie: tried for witchcraft in Inverkiething, Scotland 1621 Chatto, Marioun: tried for witchcraft in Inverkiething, Scotland 1621 Sawyer, Elizabeth: hanged at Tyburn, England, on 19 April, 1621 Couper, Marable: burned in the north of Scotland in 1622 Dyneis, Jonka: burned in the north of Scotland in 1622 Jones, Katherine: burned in the north of Scotland in 1622 Reoch, Elspeth: burned in the north of Scotland in 1622 Scottie, Agnes: burned in the north of Scotland in 1622 Yullock, Agnes: burned in the north of Scotland in 1622 Wallace, Margaret: executed in Glascow, Scotland, in 1622 de Chantraine, Anne: burned as a witch in Waret-la-Chaussee, France, on 17 October, 1622

In 1622, Bishop Johann Gottfried von Aschhausen commenced one of the most infamous witch hunts in history, the Bamburg Witch Trials, which lasted just 8 years, condemned over 100,000 people to horrific death by fire. Aschhausen, later succeeded by Witch Bishop Johann Georg II, assembled a special team of lawyers and informants, all of whom were paid handsomely from the confiscated wealth of the condemned. Botched doomsday prophecies! Eustachius Poyssel used numerology to pinpoint 1623 as the year of the end of the world. Botched doomsday prophecies! The same astrologers who failed in predicting a great flood in 1524, finally moved their predictions safely beyond their own deaths, to 1624.
Haan, George: burned at Bamberg, Germany, circa 1626 Haan, (wife of George): burned at Bamberg, Germany, circa 1626 Haan, (daughter of George): burned at Bamberg, Germany, circa 1626 Haan, (son of George): burned at Bamberg, Germany, circa 1626 Hennot, Catherine: burned alive in Germany in 1627

13 year old Peter Roller was named as an accompliss by one of four condemned witches on 7/16/1627. Encouraged by priests, Roller claimed he was possessed and named others he claimed

were in league with the devil. 24 were condemned and executed on his testimony alone. Three more commited suicide while in prison. Three more were permanently crippled by torture. The priests claimed Peter was "cured" and he was released 3/23/1628.
Junius, Johannes: of Bamberg, executed as a witch, on 6 August, 1628 Desbordes, (first name unknown): burned in France, in 1628 Harfner, (first name unknown): hanged herself in the prison of Bamberg, 1628-1629 Ancker, (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Babel, Zuickel: beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Babel, (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Bannach, (husband) (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Bannach, (wife) (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Basser, Fredrick: beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Batsch, (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Baunach, (first name unknown): executed at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Bebelin, Gabriel: beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Beck, Viertel: beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Beck, (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Berger, Christopher: beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Bentz, (mother) (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Bentz, (daughter) (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Beutler, (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Brickmann, (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Bugler, (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Bursten-Binderin, (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628 - 1629 Canzler, (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Crots, (son) (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Edelfrau, (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Eyering, (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Fleischbaum, (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Gering, (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Glaser, (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Gobel, Barbara: burned at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Gobel's child, (first name unknown): executed at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Goldschmidt, (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Gutbrod, (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Hafner, (son) (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Hammellmann, Melchoir: beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Hans, David: beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Hans, Kilian: beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Hirsch, Nicodemus: beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Hoecker, (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Hofschmidt, (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Holtzmann, Stoffel: beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Hofseiler, (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Jung, (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Kanzler (first name unknown): executed at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Knertz, (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Knor, (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Kramerin, Schelmerey: beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Kuler, (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Lambrecht, (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Liebler, (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Lutz, (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Mark, Bernhard: burned alive at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Meyer, (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Rutchser, (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Schutz, Babel: beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Schwartz, (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Schenck, (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629

Schellhar, (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Schickelte, (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Schneider, (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Schleipner, (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Schwarz, (first name unknown): executed at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Schwerdt, (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Shultz (infant), (first name unknown): executed at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Steicher, (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Steinacher, (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Stepper, (first name unknown): executed at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Stolzberger, (son) (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Stolzberger, (wife) (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Stolzberger, (granddaughter) (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Stuber, Laurence: beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Sturmer, (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Seiler, (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Silberhans, (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Steinbach, (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Stier, (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Tungerslieber, (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Wagner, Michael: beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Vaecker, Paul: beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Wagner, (first name unknown): burnt alive at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Wirth, Klingen: beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Wunth, (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Haus, (wife) (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Rum, (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Valkenburger, (daughter) (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629 Weydenbusch, (first name unknown): beheaded at Wrzburg, Germany, 1628-1629

March 4, 1629 - The first Charter of Massachusetts read in part: "For the directing, ruling, and disposeing of all other Matters and Thinges, whereby our said People may be soe religiously, peaceablie, and civilly governed, as their good life and orderlie Conversacon, maie wynn and incite the Natives of the Country to the Knowledg and Obedience of the onlie true God and Savior of Mankinde, and the Christian Fayth, which in our Royall Intencon, and The Adventurers free profession, is the principall Ende of the Plantacion.."
Hunter, Alexander: burned at Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1629 Geissler, Clara: strangled at Gelnhausen, Germany circa 1630 Utley, (first name unknown): hanged at Lancaster, England, in 1630 Valee, Melchoir de la: burned at Nancy, France, in 1631 Bull, Edmund: hanged at Taunton, England, in 1631

Illustration of the torture of Christine Boffgen by Witch-Judge Franz Buirmann, Rheinbach, 1631.

Galileo The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has killed a great many philosophers. ~ Denis Diderot Galileo was condemned and tortured in 1632 for his books supporting the theory that the Earth orbited around the sun, in violation of biblical declarations that the Earth rests on gigantic pillars and does not move at all. More than 300 years later, the church finally admitted it was wrong to mistreat Galileo, but still teaches that the Earth rests on gigantic pillars and does not move at all. Quotes from the trial

"To affirm that the Sun ... is at the centre of the universe and only rotates on its axis without going from east to west, is a very dangerous attitude and one calculated not only to arouse all Scholastic philosophers and theologians but also to injure our holy faith by contradicting the Scriptures"--; Cardinal Bellarmino, 17th Century Church Master Collegio Romano,who imprisoned and tortured Galileo for his astronomical works. "To assert that the earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous as to claim that Jesus was not born of a virgin." -- Cardinal Bellarmino 1615, during the trial of Galileo. "The doctrine that the earth is neither the center of the universe nor immovable, but moves even with a daily rotation, is absurd, and both philosophically and theologically false, and at the least an error of faith." -- Catholic Church's decision against Galileo Galilei

The sentence of the church.

Sentence of the Tribunal of the Supreme Inquisition against Galileo Galilei, given the 22nd day of June of the year 1633 "It being the case that thou, Galileo, son of the late Vincenzio Galilei, a Florentine, now aged 70, wast denounced in this Holy Office in 1615: "That thou heldest as true the false doctrine taught by many, that the Sun was the centre of the universe and immoveable, and that the Earth moved, and had also a diurnal motion: That on this same matter thou didst hold a correspondence with certain German mathematicians....

"That the Sun is the centre of the universe and doth not move from his place is a proposition absurd and false in philosophy, and formerly heretical; being expressly contrary to Holy Writ: That the Earth is not the centre of the universe nor immoveable, but that it moves, even with a diurnal motion, is likewise a proposition absurd and false in philosophy, and considered in theology ad minus erroneous in faith..... "Invoking then the Most Holy Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and of His most glorious Mother Mary, ever Virgin, for this Our definite sentence, the which sitting pro tribunali, by the counsel and opinion of the Reverent Masters of theology and doctors of both laws, Our Counsellors, we present in these writings, in the cause and causes currently before Us, between the magnificent Carlo Sinceri, doctor of both laws, procurator fiscal of this Holy Office on the one part, and thou Galileo Galilei, guilty, here present, confessed and judged, on the other part: "We say, pronounce, sentence, and declare, that thou, the said Galileo, by the things deduced during this trial, and by thee confessed as above, hast rendered thyself vehemently suspected of heresy by this Holy Office, that is, of having believed and held a doctrine which is false, and contrary to the Holy Scriptures, to wit: that the Sun is the centre of the universe, and that it does not move from east to west, and that the Earth moves and is not the centre of the universe: and that an opinion may be held and defended as probable after having been declared and defined as contrary to Holy Scripture; and in consequence thou hast incurred all the censures and penalties of the Sacred Canons, and other Decrees both general and particular, against such offenders imposed and promulgated. From the which We are content that thou shouldst be absolved, if, first of all, with a sincere heart and unfeigned faith, thou dost before Us abjure, curse, and detest the above-mentioned errors and heresies and any other error and heresy contrary to the Catholic and Apostolic Roman Church, after the manner that We shall require of thee. "And to the end that this thy grave error and transgression remain not entirely unpunished, and that thou mayst be more cautious in the future, and an example to others to abstain from and avoid similar offences, "We order that by a public edict the book of DIALOGUES OF GALILEO GALILEI be prohibited, and We condemn thee to the prison of this Holy Office during Our will and pleasure; and as a salutary penance We enjoin on thee that for the space of three years thou shalt recite once a week the Seven Penitential Psalms, reserving to Ourselves the faculty of moderating, changing, or taking from, all other or part of the above-mentioned pains and penalties. "And thus We say, pronounce, declare, order, condemn, and reserve in this and in any other better way and form which by right We can and ought. Ita pronunciamus nos Cardinalis infrascripti. F. Cardinalis de Asculo. G. Cardinalis Bentivolius D. Cardinalis de Cremona. A. Cardinalis S. Honuphri. B. Cardinalis Gypsius. F. Cardinalis Verospius. M. Cardinalis Ginettus. -- Catholic Church's decision against Galileo Galilei

Galileo pre-torture (from "The Authority of Scripture in Philosophical Controversies")

"I do not feel obliged to believe that same God who endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect had intended for us to forgo their use." "In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual." "They know that it is human nature to take up causes whereby a man may oppress his neighbor, no matter how unjustly. ... Hence they have had no trouble in finding men who would preach the damnability and heresy of the new doctrine from the very pulpit..." "I think that in the discussion of natural problems we ought to begin not with the Scriptures, but with experiments, and demonstrations." "To command the professors of astronomy to confute their own observations is to enjoin an impossibility, for it is to command them not to see what they do see, and not to understand what they do understand, and to find what they do not discover." "It vexes me when they would constrain science by the authority of the Scriptures, and yet do not consider themselves bound to answer reason and experiment." "It is surely harmful to souls to make it a heresy to believe what is proved."

Galileo post-torture

"Having been admonished by this Holy Office [the Inquisition] entirely to abandon the false opinion that the Sun was the center of the universe and immovable, and that the Earth was not the center of the same and that it moved... I abjure with a sincere heart and unfeigned faith, I curse and detest the said errors and heresies, and generally all and every error and sect contrary to the Holy Catholic Church." -- Galileo Galilei, Recantation, 22 June 1633

"One Galileo in two thousand years is enough." -- Pope Pius XII

Pomp, Anna: executed at Lindheim, Germany, in 1633

Heinrich von Schulthies, witch hunter, published, "Detailed Instrictions how to proceed in the Inquisition against the horrible vice of witchcraft" in 1634, essentially a manual on torture.

Grandier, Urbain: burned alive for witchcraft at Loudon, France, on 18 August, 1634. To convict him, church authorities forged a contract with the devil, complete with the signatures of Satan, Lucifer, Beelzebub, Astori, Elimi, and Laviathan. As a side note, the names Astori, Elimi, and Laviathan do not appear anywhere in the Bible. Smallpox brought with the pilgrims wiped out the natives living near the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1635. Governor John Winthrop thanks god for removing the indians from lands the pilgrims wanted. Hermann Loher, a judge in Germany, begins to question the validity and worth of the witch trials. He is chased out of town by Christians, barely escaping with his family to Holland in 1636. The Vatican, needing high voices for the choir but opposed to having women in the church (still pissed off about Pope Joan, no doubt), introduces the "Castrati", a castrated male singer in 1637. So prevelent was this Christian pactice that major composers including Mozart, Gluck, and Monteverdi write vocal parts specifically for Castrati. Castrati continued to be a part of Cathedral choirs until the early 20th century. January 14, 1638 - The towns of Hartford, Weathersfield and Windsor adopted the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut."To mayntayne and presearve the liberty and purity of the Gospell of our Lord Jesus, which we now professe..." 25 years later, the town Hartford goes on a witch hunt.
Lamb, Dr.: stoned to death by a mob at St. Paul's Cross, London, England, in 1640

William Shakespeare Fanatical puritans in control of the London government, and angered that the people prefered plays to prayers, ordered the closing of all theaters. First to go was William Shakespeare's Globe Theater.

Sir Matthew Hale, Lord Chief Justice of England, allows the use of false testimony to convict witches.

Barker, Janet: burned in Scotland in 1643 Brown, Janet: burned in Scotland in 1643 Brugh, John: burned in Scotland in 1643 Fynnie, Agnes: burned in Scotland in 1643 Cumlaquoy, Marian: burned at Orkney, Scotland in 1643 Lauder, Margaret: burned in Scotland in 1643 Peebles, Marion: burned in Scotland in 1643 Wanderson, (first name unknown): executed in England, in January, 1644.

April 3, 1644 - The New Haven Colony adopted their charter. "That the judicial laws of God, as they were delivered by Moses ... be a rule to all the courts in this jurisdiction ..." Four years later, this document will be adapted for the Masschussets Bay Colony Law of 1648, which includes the death penalty for witches (Exodus 22:18) and disobedient sons (Deuteronomy 21:18).

Cover of a pamphlet describing the mass trial of witches in England in 1645. The original is in the British Museum. Williford, Joan: executed at Faversham, Kent, England, on 29 Sept. 1645 Lowes, John: hanged at Bury, England, about 1645 Cardien, Joan: executed at Faversham, Kent, England, on 29 Sept. 1645 Holt, Jane: executed at Faversham, Kent, England, on 29 Sept. 1645 Lakeland, (first name unknown): burned at Ipswich, England, in 1645 Louis, (first name unknown): executed at Suffolk, England, in 1646 Baroni, Catterina: beheaded and burned at Castelnovo, Italy, on 14 April, 1647 Camelli, Domenica: beheaded and burned at Castelnovo, Italy, on 14 April, 1647 Caveden, Lucia: beheaded and burned at Castelnovo, Italy, on 14 April, 1647 Cemola, Zinevra: beheaded and burned at Castelnovo, Italy, on 14 April, 1647 Gratiadei, Domenica: beheaded and burned at Castelnovo, Italy, on 14 April, 1647 Younge, Alse: hanged in Connecticut, North America, on 26 May, 1647 Boulle, Thomas: burned alive at Rouen, France, on 21 August, 1647 Jones, Margaret: executed in Charlestown, North America, on 15 June, 1648 Chmielnitzki massacres: In Poland about 200,000 Jews were slain in 1648.

Botched doomsday prophecies! Sabbatai Zevi, a rabbi from Smyrna, Turkey, predicted that the Messiah would come in 1648. When 1648 arrived, Zevi announced thet he was the Messiah! April 21, 1649 - The Maryland Toleration Act was passed. "Be it therefor ... enacted ... that no person or persons whatsoever within this province ... professing to believe in Jesus Christ shall ... henceforth be any ways troubled, molested (or disapproved of) ... in respect of his or her religion nor in the free exercise thereof ..." It was, needless to say, open season on everyone else.

Four witches, names not recorded, being hung.

Waterboarding, 1651.

Bulmer, Matthew: hanged at Newcastle, England, in 1649 Knott, Elizabeth: hanged at St. Albans, England, in 1649 Palmer, John: hanged at St. Albans, England, in 1649 Allen, Joan: hanged at the Old Bailey, London, England, in 1650 Lake, Alice: executed at Boston, MA (?) ca. 1651 Adamson, Francis: executed at Durham, England, in 1652 Peterson, Joan: hanged at Tyburn, England, on 12 April, 1652 Huxley, Catherine: hanged at Worcester, England in the summer of 1652 Ashby, Anne: hanged at Maidstone, England, in July, 1652 Browne, Mary: hanged at Maidstone, England, in July, 1652 Martyn, Anne: hanged at Maidstone, England, in July, 1652 Reade, Mary: hanged at Maidstone, England, in July, 1652 Wilson, Anne: hanged at Maidstone, England, in July, 1652 Wright, Mildred: hanged at Maidstone, England, in July, 1652 Powle, (first name unknown): executed at Durham, England, in 1652 Newman, Elizabeth: executed at Whitechapel, England in 1653 Bodenham, Anne: hanged at Salisbury, England, in 1653

Botched doomsday prophecies! In 1578, physician Helisaeus Roeslin of Alsace, basing his prediction on a nova that occurred in 1572, predicted the world ending in 1654 in a blaze of fire.
Boram, (mother) (first name unknown): hung at Bury St Edmunds, England, in 1655 Boram, (daughter) (first name unknown): hung at Bury St Edmunds, England, in 1655

Botched doomsday prophecies! Christian prophets predict the end of the world in 1656, based on the theory that 1656 years passed between the creation and Noah's flood.
Hibbins, Anne: hanged in Boston, Massachusetts on 19 June, 1656

Botched doomsday prophecies! The Fifth Monarchy Men, a group of radical Christians intending to force the British Parliament to base all laws on the Bible (much like the Christian Coalition does in the United States) predicted the world would end in 1657.
Brooks, Jane: hanged in England on 26 March, 1658 Oliver, Mary: burned at Norwich, England, in 1658 Orchard, (first name unknown): executed at Salisbury, England, in 1658

Botched doomsday prophecies! Devout Christian Christopher Columbus (yes, THAT Christopher Columbus) in his book "The Book Of Prophecies", predicted the world would end in 1658.
Dyer, Mary: hung in Massachucetts, N. America, 1 June, 1660 Brose, Elizabeth: tortured to death in the castle of Gommern, Germany, on 4 November, 1660

Botched doomsday prophecies! Joseph Mede, whose writings influenced James Ussher and Isaac Newton, claimed that the Antichrist appeared way back in 456, and the end of the world would come in 1660.
Allen, Jonet: burned in Scotland in 1661 Greensmith, (first name unknown): hanged in Hartford, New England, on 20 January, 1662 Vuil, Daniel: executed in Beaufort, Canada, in 1662 Schuler, (first name not known): burned at Lindheim, Germany on 23 February, 1663 Rullmann, ( first name unknown, the wife of Friedrich): executed on March 1, l664, Lindheim, Germany Reuneg, Anna : executed on June 12, l663, Lindheim, Germany Reuneg, Else : executed in the summer of l663, Lindheim, Germany Reuneg, Katharina : executed on June 12, l663, Lindheim, Germany Euler, Anna : executed on June 12, l663, Lindheim, Germany Metzler, Elisabeth : executed on June 12, l663, Lindheim, Germany Meurer, Katharina : executed on June 12, l663, Lindheim, Germany Schneider, Margarethe (wife of Andreas): executed on June 12, l663, Lindheim, Germany Ellroth, ( first name unknown, The wife of Balthasar Ellroth): executed on June 17, l663, Lindheim, Germany Schneider, Margarethe (wife of Hans): executed on August 25, l663, Lindheim, Germany Reuneg, Johann: executed on August 25, l663, Lindheim, Germany Esch, Klaus : executed on August 25, l663, Lindheim, Germany Kuhn (Bcker-Margreth), Margarethe : executed on August 25, l663, Lindheim, Germany Leschier, Heinrich and Maria: executed on August 25, l663, Lindheim, Germany Brack, (first name unknown, the wife of Heinrich): executed on 25 August, l663, Lindheim, Germany Pppel, Hans : executed on 25 August, l663, Lindheim, Germany Weber, Katharina: executed on August 25, l663, Lindheim, Germany Cox, Julian: executed at Taunton, England, in 1663 Schler, Martha: burned at Lindheim, Germany, 23 February, 1664 Cullender, Rose: executed at Bury St Edmunds, England, on 17 March 1664 Duny, Amy: executed at Bury St Edmunds, England, on 17 March, 1664 Reuneg, Philipp: executed on March 1, l664, Lindheim, Germany Style, Elizabeth: died in prison, at Taunton, England, in 1664

Botched doomsday prophecies! During a period of strife, Ebnglish clergy announce that the year 1666 will bring the end of the world, a prediction thought to be coming true when a great fire strikes London. Botched doomsday prophecies! Few believe Rabi Sabbatai Zevi is the Messiah, so he changes his prediction for the appearence of the Messiah to 1666. He is arrested for disturbing the peace with his prophecies, and when given the choice between execution and conversion to Islam, eagerly converts.

Newspaper story of the conviction and execution of witch Anna Eberlehrin, 1669.

Oswald, Catherine: burned in Scotland in 1670 Weir, Thomas: burned between Edinburgh and Leith, Scotland, on 11 April, 1670 Drummond, Alexander: executed in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1670

Botched doomsday prophecies! Deacon William Aspinwall, a leader of the Fifth Monarchy movement, predicts the end of the world for 1673.
Foster, Anne: hanged at Northhampton, England, in 1674 Baguely, Mary: hung at Chester, England, 1675

Preists blessing the instruments of torture in Germany, 1676.

Cotton Mather, pastor of the Second Church of Boston, called King Philip's War a BBQ. Mather, who later gained fame during the Salem Witch trials, thanked god for the smallpox which kill off the indians, then ordered his followers to kill the surviving men. The women and children were sold into slavery.

Craw, William: burned in Scotland in 1680 Hamilton, Margaret: burned in Scotland in 1680 Deshayes, Catherine: burned on 22 February, 1680 Thompson, Annaple: burned in Scotland in 1680 Vickar, Bessie: burned in Scotland in 1680 Pringle, Margaret: burned in Scotland in 1680 Pichler, (name unknown, son of Emerenziana, aged 12): burned at Defereggen, Germany, on 27 September, 1680 Pichler, (name unknown, son of Emerenziana, aged 14): burned at Defereggen, Germany, on 27 September, 1680 Pichler, Emerenziana: burned at Defereggen, Germany, on 25 September, 1680

King Louise XIV of France, the "Sun King", issues an edict in July 1682 bringing to an end the horrors of the witch hunts in France. French clergy threatened to excommunicate him.
Trembles, Mary: hanged at Bideford (Heavitree), England, 25 August, 1682 Edwards, Susanna: hanged at Bideford (Heavitree), England, 25 August, 1682 Lloyd, Temperance: hanged at Bideford (Heavitree), England, 25 August, 1682

Pastor Cotton Mather, alarmed at the impending arrival of William Penn and the Quakers (perhaps the only Christian group willing to allow the indians to live in peace) secretly plotted to have Penn and the Quakers captured and sold into slavery in Barbados in 1682.
"September ye 15, 1682, To ye Aged and Beloved Mr. JOHN HIGGINSON, There is now at sea a ship called the Welcome, which has on board an hundred or more of the heretics and malignants called "Quakers," with W.Penn, who is the chief scamp, at the head of them.

The general court has accordingly given secret orders to Master Malachi Huscott, of the brig Porpoise, to waylay the said Penn and his ungodly crew, so that the Lord may be glorified, and not mocked on the soil of this new country with the heathen worship [sic] of these people. Much spoil can be made by selling the whole lot to Barbados, where slaves fetch good prices in rum and sugar. COTTON MATHER, American Clergyman." Molland, Alice: executed at Exeter, England, 1684 Glover, Goody: hanged at Salem, New England, in 1688

Botched doomsday prophecies! John Napier, the mathematician who discovered logarithms, applies his new mathematics to the Book of Revelations and predicts the end of the world for 1688. Botched doomsday prophecies! Pierre Jurieu, a Camisard prophet, predicted that Judgement Day would occur in 1689. The Camisards were Huguenots of the Languedoc region of southern France. April 25, 1689 - The Great Law of Pennsylvania was passed. "Whereas the glory of Almighty God and the good of mankind is the reason and the end of government ... therefore government itself is a venerable ordinance of God ..." The Salem Witch Trials Cotton Mather published "Memorable Providences", describing the alledged witchcraft of an Irish women in Boston in 1691. The book was very popular and widely read in nearby Salem. Among its readers is Dr. William Griggs, who was treating young Betty Parris for some strange behaviors in 1692. Unable to find a cure and unwilling to admit ignorance, Grigs cited Mather's book to support a claim of bewitchment, sparking the Salem witch hysteria. The Executed Salem Witches
Osburne, Sarah: died in prison at Boston, Massachusetts, 10 May, 1692 Bishop, Briget: hanged at Salem, New England on 10 June, 1692 Good, Sarah: executed at Salem, New England, on 19 July, 1692 How, Elizabeth: executed at Salem, New England, on 19 July, 1692 Martin, Susannah: executed at Salem, New England, on 19 July, 1692 Nurse, Rebecca: executed at Salem, New England, on 19 July, 1692 Wildes, Sarah: executed at Salem, New England, on 19 July, 1692 Jacobs, George: executed at Salem, New England, on 19 August, 1692 Burroughs, George: executed at Salem, New England, on 19 August, 1692 Carrier, Martha: executed at Salem, New England, on 19 August, 1692 Corey, Giles: pressed to death at Salem, New England, on 19 September, 1692 Willard, John: executed at Salem, New England, on 19 August, 1692 Procter, John: executed at Salem, New England, on 19 August, 1692 Wardwell, Samuel: executed at Salem, New England, on 22 September, 1692 Corey, Martha: executed at Salem, New England, on 22 September, 1692 Scott, Margaret: executed at Salem, New England, on 22 September, 1692 Parker, Alice: executed at Salem, New England, on 22 September, 1692 Parker, Mary: executed at Salem, New England, on 22 September, 1692 Pudeator, Anne: executed at Salem, New England, on 22 September, 1692 Reed, Wilmot: executed at Salem, New england, on 22 September, 1692 Easty, Mary: executed at Salem, New England, on 22 September, 1692

Increase Mather, brother to Cotten Mather and also a preacher, wrote that it was better to allow ten suspected witches escape than to kill one innocent person.

Philip von Limborch's "Historia Inquisitionis" was published in 1692. Blatently pro-church, it attempted to counter the growing criticism of the witch persecutions with stories of heroic inquisitors fighting powerful demonic forces.
Hansen, Anna: Arrested on suspicion of witchcraft 6/17/1692. Tortured into confession, she was beheaded just three weeks later. Chambers, (first name unknown): died in prison, in England, in 1693

Botched doomsday prophecies! Anglican rector John Mason and German theologian Johann Alsted both predicted the end of the world for 1694. Another German prophet Johann Jacob Zimmerman, predicted that Jesus would reappear in America and organized an expedition of Christians to sail across the Atlantic and welcome their savior when he reappeared. Although Zimmerman himself died on the day of departure, his followers completed the journey and remained encamped in the wilderness of North America until it became obvious that Jesus had stood them up.
Reid, John: hanged himself in prison, in Scotland, in 1697

Botched doomsday prophecies! Anglican rector Thomas Beverly predicts the end of the world for 1697. Botched doomsday prophecies! Notorious witch chaser Cotton Mather predicts the end of the world for 1697.
MacEwen, Elspeth: Kirkcudbright Prison in Scotland, 1698 Coneman, (widow): executed in Coggeshall, England in 1699 Laing, Beatrix: executed in Scotland, 1704 Townsend, Amey: mob violence, St. Albans, England, 08 January, 1700

Botched doomsday prophecies! Puritans predicts the end of the world for 1697. Botched doomsday prophecies! John Napiers' second try predicts the end of the world for 1697. Botched doomsday prophecies! Henry Archer, a Fifth Monarchy Manpredicts the end of the world for 1697.

Reverend Solomon Stoddard, one of New England's most esteemed religious leaders, formally proposed in 1703 to the Massachusetts Governor that the colonists be given the financial wherewithal to purchase and train large packs of dogs 'to hunt Indians as they do bears'.
Adams, Thomas: executed in Pittenweem, Scotland in 1704 Lang, Beatrix: died in Pittenweem, Scotland in 1704

Cornfoot (Corset), Janet: killed by a mob at Pittenweem, Scotland in 1704 Rattray, George: executed in Spott, Scotland, in 1705 Rattray, Lachlan: executed in Spott, Scotland, in 1705 Philipps, Mary: Northamtonshire, England, executed on 17 March 1705 Shaw, Elinor: Northamtonshire, England, executed on 17 March 1705 Horne, Janet of Dornoch: burned as a witch in Ross-shire (Scotland), June 1707 Massachussetts formally pardons most of the witchs hung at Salem. The rest will be pardoned in 1957. Mossau, Renata von: beheaded and burned in Bavaria, Germany, on 21 June, 1749 Osborne, (husband) (first name unknown): killed by a mob of Christians at Tring, Herefordshire, England, on 22 April, 1750 Osborne, (wife) Ruth: killed by a mob at Tring, Herefordshire, England, on 22 April, 1750

Dennis Diderot commenced work on the first modern multi-volume encyclopedia in 1751. It did not conform itself to religious dogma of the day and before all 28 volumes were complete, the Jesuits had Diderot thrown in jail and his presses destroyed. The remaining volumes were published by underground printers.
Bayerin, Anna: executed at Salzburg, Austria, in 1751 Veronica Zerritsch: age 13, executed in Bavaria, Germany in 1754

The Archbishop of Cologne decreed that the costs of torturing a person suspected of witchcraft must be paid by the suspect or their family. He printed up a "price list" in 1757. The English navigator Wallis discovered Tahiti in 1767, to be followed by the French explorer de Bougainville, and Captain James Cook. All three captains were overwhelmed by their reception at the hands of the people of Tahiti, and by the gifts showered upon them... When Cook left Tahiti... he wrote in his journal: "I directed my course to the West and we took our final leave of these happy islands and the good people on them." Captain Bligh of the Bounty, writing just prior to the mutiny, was if possible more impressed...: "I left these happy islanders with much distress, for the utmost affection, regard and good fellowship was among us during our stay..."

Father Juniperro Serra and the California Missions In 1767, Father Juniperro Serra arrived in Baja, California as the President of the Baja California Missions. His task was to extend the chain of Missions up along the California coast. While overtly religious, the missions were actually stockades built to withstand popular uprisings against the Missionaries (of which there are many) and spaced less than a day's ride apart to provide protection to traveling clergy. Following in the tradition of Columbus, the Spanish Conquestadores assigned to the missions rounded up Native Americans from the surrounding countryside and corraled them into the missions to work. As they died, the Padres attempted to convert them. At the mission of Nuestra Seora de Loreto, reported the Franciscan chronicler Father Francisco Palo, during the first three years of Franciscan rule 76 children and adults were baptized, while 131 were buried... The same held true at others, from the mission of Santa Rosali de Muleg, with 48 baptisms and 113 deaths, to the mission of San Ignacio, with 115 baptisms and 293 deaths - all within the same initial three year period. For some missions, such as those of San Jos del Cabo and Santiago de las Coras, no baptism or death statistics were reported, because there were so few survivors [...] that there was no reason for

counting [...] And what was done was simply that they brought more natives in, under military force of arms. In short, the missions were furnaces of death that sustained their Indian population levels for as long as they did only by driving more and more natives into their confines to compensate for the huge numbers who were being killed once they got there. [...] Thus for example, one survey of life and death in an early Arizona mission has turned up statistics showing that at one time an astonishing 93 percent of the children born within its walls died before the age of ten - and yet the mission's total population did not drastically decline. [SH136f] There were various ways in which the mission Indians died. [...] The personal living space for Indians in the missions averaged about seven feet by two feet per person for unmarried captives, who were locked at night into sex-segregated common rooms that contained a single open pit for a toilet. It was perhaps a bit more space than was allotted a captive African in the hold of a slave ship sailing the Middle Passage. [...] Of course, the mission Indians also worked like slaves in the padres' agricultural fields, but they did so with far less than half the caloric intake, on average, commonly provided a black slave in Mississippi, Alabama, or Georgia. [SH138] As one French visitor commented in the early nineteenth century, after inspecting life in the missions, the relationship between the priest and his flock "would ... be different only in name if a slaveholder kept them for labor and rented them out at will ..." But, we know now, he would have fed them better. [SH139] The padres were also concerned about the continuing catastrophic decline in the number of babies born to their neophyte charges... here is a first-hand account of what happened at mission Santa Cruz when a holy and ascetic padre named Ramon Olbs came to the conclusion that one particular married couple was behaving with excessive sexual inhibition, thereby depriving him of another child to enslave and another soul to offer up to Christ: He [Father Olbs] sent for the husband and he asked him why his wife hadn't borne children... they brought an interpreter. This [one] repeated the question of the father to the Indian, who answered that he should ask God. The father asked through the interpreter if he slept with his wife, to which the Indian said yes. Then the father had them placed in a room together so that they would perform coitus in his presence. The Indian refused, but they forced him to show them his penis in order to affirm that he had it in good order... Fr. Olbs asked her if her husband slept with her, and she answered that, yes... He had her enter another room in order to examine her reproductive parts. At this point the woman resisted the padre's attempted forced inspection; for that impertinence she received fifty lashes, was "shackled, and locked in the nunnery." He then gave her a wooden doll and ordered her to carry it with her, "like a recently born child," wherever she went. [SH141] There was, of course, good reason for the Indians to fear the consequences of running away and being caught: Some of the run-away men were tied on sticks and beaten with straps. One chief was taken out to the open field and a young calf which had just died was skinned and the chief was sewed into the skin while it was yet warm. He was kept tied to a stake all day, but he died soon and they kept his corpse tied up.

Nathan, Abraham: executed at Haeck, Germany, on 24 September, 1772 Schwaegel, Anna Maria: beheaded at Kempten, Germany, on 11 April, 1775

Ethan Allen Ethan Allen captured Fort Ticonderoga, 5/10/1775. Contrary to Christians who are trying to rewrite the early history of the United States, Ethen Allen was NOT a Christian and halted his own marriage ceremony until the judge changed "Laws of god" to "laws of nature".
Goeldi, Anna: hanged at Glaris, Switzerland, on 17 June, 1782

Ben Franklin Ben Franklin died, 4/17/1790. Contrary to Christians who are trying to re-write the history of the United States by claiming the Founding Fathers were all Christians, Franklin's own words prior to his death tell another story. "As to Jesus of Nazareth, my Opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the System of Morals and his Religion...has received various corrupting Changes, and I have, with most of the present dissenters in England, some doubts as to his Divinity; tho' it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the Truth with less trouble." James Hutton published, "Theory Of The Earth" in 1795, in which he argued that geological process moved so slowly that the Earth had to have been around much longer than 4004 BC (the date of the Biblical Creation) in order to explain the surface as it appears today. Darwin was inspired by Hutton's work.

The Christianizing of Tahiti Reacting to the stories of Tahiti, and troubled that the crew of HMS Bounty could have found life among the Tahitians preferable to life among Christians, the religious orthodoxy of England founded the London Missionary Society in 1795 (which included their own armed police force). The sole purpose of the society was to bring Tahiti under Christian rule, in effect to remove a more pleasant alternative lifestyle that threatened Christian power. Two years later the first missionaries arrived in Tahiti and were as warmly treated by the Tahitians as had been earlier visitors. But after 7 years of missionary work (children were required to recite, "For what is Jehova angry with thee? Because I am evil and do evil." in Tahitian) there were few willing converts to Christianity. What happened next is documented in a letter to home by one of the brethren, J.M.Orsmond. All the missionaries were at that time salting pork and distilling spirits. Pomare (the local chief) was introduced to the bottle by the missionaries. Orsmond describes the compact by which Pomare, reduced to an alcoholic, would be backed in a war against the other island chiefs on the understanding that his victory would be followed by enforced conversion (This is the same deal that Papal Nuncio Eugenio Pacelli made with Hitler, trading the Vatican's support for Hitler's promise to declare Catholocism Nazi Germany's state religion). Since Pomare was supplied with firearms to be used against his opponents' clubs, victory was certain. "The whole nation", Orsmond wrote, "was converted in a day."

There followed a reign of terror. Persistent unbelievers were put to death and a penal code was drawn up by the missionaries and enforced by the mission police. it was declared illegal to adorn oneself with flowers, to sing (other than hymns), to surf or to dance. A moral code of such strictness was then enforced that a man walking with his arm round a woman at night was compelled to carry a lantern in his free hand. On the island of Raiatea a man who forecast the weather was treated as a witchdoctor and put to death. Within a quarter of a century the process by which the native culture of Tahiti had been extinguished was exported to every corner of the Pacific, reducing the islanders to the level of the working class of Victorian England. After their mass conversion it was hoped that the Tahitians might be induced to accept the benefits of civilization by putting them to [servile] work growing sugar cane... The enterprise failed, and Mr. Orsmond, believing that "a too bountiful nature diminishes men's natural desire to work", ordered all the breadfruit trees to be cut down so that the lack of a natural food supply would force the Tahitians to seek employment in the mission plantations. Captain James Cook estimated that 200,000 people were living on Tahiti. After thirty years of missionary rule, only 6,000 remained. Their power base firmly established in Tahiti, the missionaries moved swiftly to other islands. The methods employed were the same as before. A local chieftain would be baptized, crowned king, presented with a portrait of Queen Victoria, introduced to the bottle, and left to the work of conversion. By 1850 the Christian conquest of the Pacific was complete.

Treaty of Tripoli passed in 1797, stating in part, "The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion."

Thomas Jefferson and the Seperation of Church and State On January 1, 1802, Thomas Jefferson wrote the following letter to the Danbury Baptist Association, in the State of Connecticut.
To Messrs. Nehemiah Dodge and Others, a Committee of the Danbury Baptist Association, in the State of Connecticut January 1, 1802 Gentlemen, The affectionate sentiments of esteem and approbation which you are so good as to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist Association, give me the highest satisfaction. My duties dictate a faithful and zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, and in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of

them becomes more and more pleasing. Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between church and State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties. I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection and blessing of the common Father and Creator of man, and tender you for yourselves and your religious association, assurances of my high respect and esteem.

Bateman, Mary: Yorkshire, England, 1808 Russel, Alice: killed by a mob at Great Paxton, England, 20 May, 1808

Andrew Jackson Andrew Jackson became President in 1828 after campaignng on the slogan that "The Bible is the Rock on which this Republic rests". Kept a collection of indian scalps he himself took, and in 1830 signed the Indian Removal Act which ordered the forced removal of the Cherokee from their lands. 4000 Cherokee died on the Trail of Tears. Collin de Plancy published "Dictionaire Infernal", a catalog of demons. According to this book, the learning of foreign languages is the tool of the demon Ronwe. The name "Ronwe" does not appear in the Bible. The Sand Creek Massacre Methodist minister and church elder Colonel John Chivington ignored a white flag to lead the massacre at Sand Creek, killing 400-500 indians, mostly women and children 11/29/1864. Afterwards, his men decorated themselves with indian body parts. "In God We Trust" Added to US coinage in 1864. The Hawaiian Plague Reverend Rufus Anderson viewed the die-off of 90% of the native Hawaiians in 1866 as God's "amputation" of a diseased segment of the population. Rapa Nui (Easter Island)

Missionaries arrived at Rapa Nui (Easter Island) some time in the early 1870s. Their first step in "Christianizing" the Rapanuians was to burn the wooden tablets covered with "Rongorongo", the only known written language of the Polynesians, erasing the written history of Rapa Nui. The missionaries so abused the Easter Islanders that Captain Jean Baptiste Onexime Doutrou-Bournier expelled the Christians from the island by force. The Bill Of Rights Leo XIII became Pope in 1878, and wrote that the Bill of Rights should never have been written because god did NOT give to man freedom of thought, action, and speech. George Washington George Washington died of a throat infection 12/14/1799. Despite attempts by Christians to re-write the history of the United States there are no records that George Washington was a religious man, let alone what particular faith he followed. At his deathbed, he made no religious comments and did not ask for clergy to be in attendance. Thomas Paine Thomas Paine, author of "Common Sense" died 6/8/1809. Contrary to Christians trying to re-write the history of the United States, Paine was not a Christian. Some writings:

"Among the most detestable villains in history, you could not find one worse than Moses. Here is an order, attributed to 'God' to butcher the boys, to massacre the mothers and to debauch and rape the daughters. I would not dare so dishonor my Creator's name by (attaching) it to this filthy book (the Bible)." "It is the duty of every true Deist to vindicate the moral justice of God against the evils of the Bible." "Accustom a people to believe that priests and clergy can forgive sins...and you will have sins in abundance."

And;

"The Christian church has set up a religion of pomp and revenue in pretended imitation of a person (Jesus) who lived a life of poverty." Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States and author of the Declaration of Independence died just hours before John Adams on 7/4/1826. Despite attempts by Christians to rewrite the history of the United States the facts are that Thomas Jefferson, while willing to placate Christians to win their political support, privately called the Revelation of St. John "the ravings of a maniac", the bible a "dunghill" and wrote:

"The Christian priesthood, finding the doctrines of Christ levelled to every understanding and too plain to need explanation, saw, in the mysticisms of Plato, materials with which they might build up an artificial system which might, from its indistinctness, admit everlasting controversy, give employment for their order, and introduce it to profit, power, and pre-eminence. The doctrines

which flowed from the lips of Jesus himself are within the comprehension of a child; but thousands of volumes have not yet explained the Platonisms engrafted on them: and for this obvious reason that nonsense can never be explained."

Yet more by Jefferson in a letter to William Short,

"I have examined all the known superstitions of the word, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology. Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the earth."

In another letter Jefferson wrote,

"Christianity...(has become) the most perverted system that ever shone on man. ...Rogueries, absurdities and untruths were perpetrated upon the teachings of Jesus by a large band of dupes and importers led by Paul, the first great corrupter of the teaching of Jesus."

and,

"The clergy converted the simple teachings of Jesus into an engine for enslaving mankind and adulterated by artificial constructions into a contrivance to filch wealth and power to themselves...these clergy, in fact, constitute the real Anti-Christ."

John Adams John Adams, second President of the United States, died on 7/4/1826. Despite attempts by Christians to re-write the history of the United States Adams was not a religious man, indeed had defied his father to go into law instead of the clergy, calling the church

"pretended sanctity of some absolute dunces"

and stating

"This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!"

It is during Adam's administration that the Senate ratified the Treaty of Peace and Friendship, which

states in Article XI that

"the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion."

Adams also wondered,

"Where do we find a precept in the Bible for Creeds, Confessions, Doctrines and Oaths, and whole carloads of other trumpery that we find religion encumbered with in these days?"

James Madison James Madison, fourth President of the United States, died in 1836. Despite attempts by Christians to re-write the history of the United States Madison was, by his own words, not religious.

"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise." "During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution." "What influence in fact have Christian ecclesiastical establishments had on civil society? In many instances they have been upholding the thrones of political tyranny. In no instance have they been seen as the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wished to subvert the public liberty have found in the clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate liberty, does not need the clergy."

Madison objected to state-supported chaplains in Congress and to the exemption of churches from taxation. He wrote:

"Religion and government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together."

James Young Simpson (1811-1870), a Professor of Midwifery at Edinburgh, used chloroform to relieve the pains of childbirth. He was promptly condemned by the church for violating the Biblical curse on women that "In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children." After Queen Victoria chose to be

anesthetized in 1853 for the birth of Prince Leopold and again in 1857 for the birth of Princess Beatrice, however, the practice became common among the upper and middle classes.

"Dummy" (name unknown; he was deaf-and-dumb): killed by a mob of Christians at Sible Hedingham, England, on 3 August, 1865 One witch, name not recorded, executed in Kaskaskia, Illinois, 1870. Turner, Ann: murdered in England, in 1875. 5 witches, names not recorded, burned in Mexico, 1877.

Theodore Roosevelt Theodore Roosevelt became President in 1901, and declared the Sand Creek Massacre, "As righteous and beneficial a deed as ever took place on the frontier." Tampering with the US Mail At the annual convention of the American Federation of Catholic Societies, held at New Orleans, November 13-16, 1910, Archbishop Falconio, Papal Delegate to the Roman Catholic Church in America commanded post office employees who were Catholic to destroy any mail in transit to or from non Catholic churches. For more than a year, mail to and from non Catholic churches and organizations was destroyed by Catholic post office workers until the scandal became public, and laws were passed making tampering with the US mail a felony. Boycotting the Encyclopedia Brittanica At the annual convention of the American Federation of Catholic Societies, held at Columbua, Ohio, August 20-24, 1911, the Catholic Church commanded their followers to boycott the Encyclopedia Britannica, because articles contained in it did not support Catholic doctrine. Pius XI became Pope in 1911. By his own words, he was "a man with no love for Democracy".
A man was shot on suspicion of being a werewolf in Uttenheim, Germany, November 1925.

Mussolini Pius XI helped to bring Mussolini's Fascist Party to power in Italy and in 1926 solemnly declared: "Mussolini is a man sent by Divine Providence." [MC247] In 1935 Fascist Italy attacked and invaded Abyssinia. Since the population of Italy lacked enthusiasm for this agression, the pope hastened to declare a new crusade. For example the Archbishop of Tarent, holding a Holy Mass on a submarine, declared: "The war against Abyssinia should be viewed as a Holy War, as a crusade," which also opened "Ethiopia, the land of infidels and schismatics, to the Catholic Faith."
An old woman, accused of being a witch, was beaten to death in Hungary in 1928. A suspected witch was murdered in Pennsylvania in 1929.

Adolph Hitler
Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith ... we need believing people. ~ Adolf Hitler Papal Nuncio Eugenio Pacelli, having helped bring about the fall of the Weimar Republic, formed the Catholic German Party. On March 23, 1933, the German Reichstag met, and the Catholic Party, led by its Catholic leaders, former chancellor Brning and prelate Mgr. Kaas, personal friend of Pacelli, voted for Catholic Hitler. In his acceptance speech, Hitler described Christianity as, "essential elements for safeguarding the soul of the German people." Hitler, knowing who helped him to power, then stated, "We hope to improve our friendly relations with the Holy See." Just four months later, Hitler's government signed a concordat with the Vatican, a treaty that gave preferential legal status to the Catholic church above other churches. Adolph Hitler was also supported by the Protestant "German Christians Party", who despised the Weimar Republic for its refusal to teach the Christian religion in the public schools, and the Lutherans, who hated the Jews. Pacelli to the German Catholics: "...it is all the more necessary that the Catholics, deprived of diplomatic representation, should find in the diplomatic pacts between the Holy See and the National Socialist Government guarantees which can assure them ... the maintenance of their position in the life of the nation."
Photo of Hitler on the cover of a German Christian magazine. Note that the date follows the "Krystalnacht", the shameful anti Jewish race laws of Nuremberg of 1935, open harassment of the Jews, the sending of Communists, democrats, homosexuals, and others to concentration camps the annexation of Austria in early 1938, and the invasion of Czechoslovakia in March 1939.

A very interesting letter dated December 2, 1933: (translation) "The District President of Segeberg County Bad Segeberg, City Hall, Hamburger Strae 30 Date of Receipt To the National Association for Inward Mission (=Deaconry) Department concentration camp Kuhlen in K u h l e n Neumnster District. (reference nr.) (file number) Ref. 7,2 12/2/1933 - Re:, Your Translation: German letter of 28. last month to Deacon Press the mayor as head of the MAGAZINE FOR MALE local police department DEACONRY Official of Bad Segeberg, Organ of the German referring to the payment

September 1933: German Protestant deacons met in Hamburg to celebrate the centennial of their association. A Protestant pastor addressed his comrades in a speech entitled Deaconry as attack: "All this is Protestant deaconry: Service and fight. We greet you all as the SA of Jesus Christ and the SS of the Church, you brave ... [fighters] of need, misery, despair and dereliction." After the war the church removed the swastika from as many of the photos as they could locate. Only a few survived unaltered, such as this one.

November 15, 1933: More than a thousand deaconesses, and Lutheran nuns, met under the swastika. The Bishop of Berlin in his speech: "Permit me to compare our sisters with the SA!" (a paramilitary Nazi troop similar to the SS). Note that even the arrangement of the chairs forms a swastika.

Deacons One is your of the amount invoiced Master, Christ, but ye are for prisoners in all brethren 25th Year - protective custody (the April 1939 - - Nr 4 term was generally used (Picture) Heil to the Fhrer for concentration camp of all Germans inmates) for the months September and October totaling 145.80 RM, has been forwarded to me. Hereupon I inform you that the invoice of 71.55 RM for September has not been ordered to be paid. This referred to the prisoners (blackened) and (blackened) from Bad Segeberg. The amount has already been invoiced with the letter to the District President. In this case the amount thus has been invoiced twice. From here I cannot ascertain if the amount of 74.25 RM for October has been paid, because all the records are in Schleswig. To investigate in this case the name of the prisoners in question will be required, as well as the total amount of the invoice for the month October. by proxy signed Jensen". This letter refers to a concentration camp which at the time was run by Lutheran deacons in Bad Segeberg, near Hamburg. The deacons charged the district president for their expenses.

"The Party stands for positive Christianity." -- Article

24 of the Nazi Party Platform Francisco Franco The Spanish people, stricken with poverty and kept illiterate by the ruling class, had swept away the monarchy, proclaimed a republic and elected a left-wing government in 1931. Separation of State and Church was made a reality, religious freedom was granted and civil marriage adopted. Some of the Church property, roughly one third of the nation's wealth, was nationalized. To fight the

"Antichrists," a violent, relentless Catholic opposition was promptly started on a large scale throughout Spain. By 1934 Catholic organizations already planned a coup d'tat, having been in touch with the Fascist Government of Italy. On July 17, 1934 the Spanish Army rose in many Spanish towns. The Spanish Civil War had begun. As soon as the revolt broke out, General Franco made haste to let the pope know that his coup had succeeded. Franco flew the flag of Pope Pius XI over his headquarters. Pope Pius XI hoisted Franco's flag over the Vatican. This was the beginning of a world-wide Catholic offensive against Republican Spain. Bishops in Mussolini's Italy, Hitler's Germany and other countries published pastoral letters urging Catholics to help. The pope issued a warning that the Spanish Civil War was a foretaste of what "is being prepared for Europe and the World unless the nations take appropriate measures against it." Before the war ended, Pius XI died. Pius XII became Pope in 1939. Pius XII's real name was Pacelli. He was the Papal Nuncio who had helped bring Hitler to power. A staunch anti Democrat, Pius XII continued the policies of his predecessor. When Franco finally established his dictatorship in Spain, Church property and all medieval privileges of the Church were restored. No other religion was allowed. Protestants and non-Catholics were sent to concentration camps for refusing to attend Catholic services. Freethinkers, democrats, Socialists and Communists were deprived of civil rights, imprisoned, or shot. When the Spanish republic was finally defeated by Catholic troops under Franco, would-be dictator of Spain, the pope sent a special message to the victors:

"With great joy we address you, dearest sons of Catholic Spain, to express our paternal congratulations for the gift of peace and victory with which God has chosen to crown the Christian heroism of your faith ... We give you, our dear sons of Catholic Spain, our apostolic benediction."

Spain supported both Hitler and Mussolini during the World War 2. Under Pius XII, the bishops of Germany stayed loyal to the Nazis until the very end of the war. Nag Hammadi The Nag Hammadi scrolls were discovered in Egypt in 1945, including texts long thought destroyed during the early Christian fight over "orthodoxy". Unlike the canonical Bible which was written long after the historical Jesus had died, the texts found at Nag Hammadi include the Gospel of Thomas, written while the historical Jesus was still alive, in which Jesus states that no formal church is needed to be a Christian. Virtually every Christian church has declared the Gospel of Thomas to be heresy.

The Ustashi

While Italy and Germany were cranking up World War 2, the Vatican came to the fore with a Catholic fifth column by supporting a Croat underground separatist movement in Yugoslavia, an illegal Nationalist Army composed of bands of Catholic terrorists, called the Ustashi. These groups were led by the former lawyer Ante Paveli, a fanatic Catholic, and by Archbishop A.Stepinac, leader of the Catholic hierarchy in Croatia. When Yugoslavia was invaded by the German Army in 1941, Paveli proclaimed the independent state of Croatia, receiving congratulations from Archbishop Stepinac. From then on the new State set out to transform itself into an ideal Catholic State, as advocated by the Church, by means of mass removal, forced conversion, or simply extermination of non-Catholic Serbians, roughly onethird of the population. In a matter af weeks atrocities exceeding those in Nazi concentration camps took place. Tens of thousands of Serbians were transported in trucks out of their villages, to be shot or worked to death in Ustashi concentration camps, which had quickly been erected in places such as Jasenovac, Stara Gradiska, and Gospic. Many of the killers were Franciscan friars, one, a certain Fr. Miroslav Filipovi, even was commandant of the concentration camp at Jasenovac and became responsible for the death of about 40,000 men, women and children. All over the country forced mass conversions took place, sometimes the "rechristenings," as they were called, were celebrated not only with water but with blood. Priest Ivan Raguz for example publicly urged the killing of all Serbs, including children, "so that even the seed of these beasts is not left." Pius XII of course knew what was happening in Croatia, not only thanks to the hierarchical administration of the Catholic Church, which kept him extremely well informed, but also because of additional sources. Devout Ante Paveli sent him regular reports about the Catholization of the New Croatia, while Archbishop Stepinac provided the latest figures of the forcible conversions.

The Ustashi death camps were set up When it became obvious that One of the Ustashi in Croatia 1946-1947. Run by machine Germany would lose the war, the camp gates. gun toting Franciscans, and under the So horrific were the tortures devised by Ustashi dug up the bones of their leadership of Ante Stepanic Pavelic the Franciscans that victims and ground them up so that (called "Brother Death") , they exceed they would not be recognizable as even Aushwitz in the horrors inflicted the SS complained to Hitler about them! human. on non-Catholics. Challiot, (first name unknown): murdered at St. Georges, France, in February, 1947 Bunot, Leon: murdered in France by Victor Delorme on 26 Nov., 1948 "Under God" added to Pledge of Allegience, 1948 Staunch Catholic Ngo Dinh Diem, President of South Vietnam, ordered all foreign aid to his nation to be given to Catholics only in 1954. Arista, Josephine: burned at the stake in Ojinaga, Mexico, July 3, 1955

Photo of "Brother Death".

"In God We Trust" was made a permanent part of US money during the McArthy hysteria in 1956.

Staunch Catholic Ngo Dinh Diem, President of South Vietnam, orders all Buddhists arrested and put in concentration camps in 1956. Between 1956 and 1960, 80,000 Buddhists (and Protestants) were killed in those concentration camps.
Sabina, Benita: killed as a witch in Alfajayucan, Mexico, September 8, 1956. Trajo, Christina: killed as a witch in Alfajayucan, Mexico, September 8, 1956. 23 year old Anneliese Michel died of starvation and multiple wounds following prolonged exorcisms by two priests on 7/1/1976. The girl's parents were sent to jail for failure to call medical help. Neither the priests nor the bishop who recommended exorcism were ever charged with a crime. The girl's grave is now considered a holy shrine by the church.

"Everything is falling into place. It can't be long now. Ezekiel says that fire and brimstone will be rained upon the enemies of God's people. That must mean they'll be destroyed by nuclear weapons... Gog the nation that will lead all of the other powers of darkness against Israel, will come out of the north... Gog must be Russia... now that Russia has set itself against God... it fits the description of Gog perfectly." -- Future President Ronald Reagan, in a speech delivered during a political function in 1971.

Suspected sorcerer was murdered in France in 1977. Accused witch is stoned to death in Mexico in 1981. 60+ accused witches are murdered in the Congo between 1990-1996. An outbreak of witch hysteria occurs in Kenya in 1992, with 300 accused witches being killed. The African witch hysteria, fanned by clergy terrorizing the Africans into conversion, spreads to the North of Africa and 250 more accused witches are killed in 1994. 70 accused witches are killed in Northern Transvaal in 1994.

Satanic Ritual Sacrifice The specter of the witch hunts of the middle ages surfaced in the United States in the form of a hysteria about Satanic Ritual Sacrifice of children. Despite much exposure in the media, fanned by religious zealots (and the ruination of lives of many innocent people) not actual cases of ritual sacrifice were ever found by the FBI.

Anglican and Catholic clergy were accused of aiding in the killing of Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994. Although the church tried to hush up the scandal, the minister of the church of the Holy Family was exposed in the media in 1996 for having killed Tutsis seeking sanctuary. Two Benedictine nuns fled to a nunnary in Belgium to avoid prosecution.
Maquixtle, Eduardo Quiahua: accused of witchcraft and murdered at Vicente Guererro, Mexico, 1996 Maquixtle, Andrea, (wife) : accused of witchcraft and murdered at Vicente Guererro, Mexico, 1996 Maquixtle, (child 1): accused of witchcraft and murdered at Vicente Guererro, Mexico, 1996 Maquixtle, (child 2): accused of witchcraft and murdered at Vicente Guererro, Mexico, 1996 Maquixtle, (child 3): accused of witchcraft and murdered at Vicente Guererro, Mexico, 1996 Maquixtle, (child 4): accused of witchcraft and murdered at Vicente Guererro, Mexico, 1996

Neepudi and her three daughters Agaramanao Devi (10), Malati (8) and Lalita (6) and two sons Kuldip (4) and Dilip (2) accused of witchcraft, were axed to death in Mandwa village of Palamau district, in eastern India's Bihar state in September 1997. 2 accused witches, names not recorded, burned at Gannore, India on 9 Feb. 1997. 1 accused witches, names not recorded, burned alive at Verkhnesadovye, Ukraine, January 1997. 3 accused witches, names not recorded, murdered by a mob in Yoggu, Ghana, 1997. 1 accused witches, names not recorded, beheaded in Saudi Arabia in 1997. 2 accused witches, names not recorded, killed by a mob in Tamale, Ghana, January, 1998. 100+ accused witches, names not recorded, killed in Indonesia, 1998.

BBC reported that two priests who were convicted of murdering Tutsis were sentanced to death by the Rwandan courts in 1998.
Manzayiwa, Tomi: accused of witchcraft and murdered in Umtata, South Africa, 19 December, 1998 Ntele, Anna: accused of witchcraft and beaten to death, South Africa, February 1998 Ntleki, Aphiwe (child): accused of witchcraft and burned to death at Balasi, Eastern Pondoland, S.A. in January 1999 Ntleki, Lihle (child): accused of witchcraft and burned to death at Balasi, Eastern Pondoland, S.A. in January 1999 Ntleki, Madinda: accused of witchcraft and burned to death at Balasi, Eastern Pondoland, S.A. in January 1999 Ntleki, Zamabhala (child): accused(of`witchcraft and burned to death at Balasi, Eastern Pondoland, S.A. in January 1999 Ntleki, Zisanda (child): accused of witchcraft and burned to death at Balasi, Eastern Pondoland, S.A. in January 1999 Khawuta, Zamabhengu: accused of witchcraft and burned to death at Balasi, Eastern Pondoland, S.A. in January 1999. Qamza, Hlanjiwe: accused of witchcraft and burned to death at Ludeke near Bizana, S.A. in January 1999. 1 woman, name not recorded, accused as a witch and shot in Siqhungwini, SA, January, 1999.

In October 1999, Hindus in India demand a full and public apology from Pope John Paul II for the forced conversions of Hindus by the Catholic church and for the massacre of 75,000 Hindus at Goa in the 17th century. In September, 2000, the Vatican declared all non-Catholic churches "defective" and warned that followers of non catholic religions could not get into heaven, no matter how virtuous they lived their lives. In the spring of 2001, Nathanial Bar-Jonah, a volunteer with the "Royal Rangers", a Christian equivilent of the Boy Scouts connected to the Assemblies of God Church, was arrested for killing, eating, and serving to his friends, one of the young boys he had been entrusted with. May, 2005. Bobby Henderson reveals the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Widely considered to be just a joke, the initial story of the FSM was in fact a letter to a school board protesting creationism being taught in science classes. The FSM became an instant hit on the World Wide Web, and the "Pastafarians" continue to grow in numbers. I'll bet the church misses the days when they could just burn guys like Girolamo Savonarola for reporting on the wild orgies Pope Alexander VI threw in the Vatican, with his daughter and lover Lucrezia Borgia by his side!

The following are quoted from William Manchester's "A World Lit Only by Fire- The Medieval Mind and The Renaissance" .Little, Brown & Company, 1992
"Once he became Pope Alexander VI, Vatican parties, already wild, grew wilder. They were costly, but he could afford the lifestyle of a Renaissance prince; as vice chancellor of the Roman Church, he had amassed enormous wealth. As guests approached the papal palace, they were excited by the spectacle of living

statues: naked, gilded young men and women in erotic poses. Flags bore the Borgia arms, which, appropriately, portrayed a red bull rampant on a field of gold. Every fete had a theme. One, known to Romans as the Ballet of the Chestnuts, was held on October 30, 1501. The indefatigable Burchard describes it in his Diarium. After the banquet dishes had been cleared away, the city's fifty most beautiful whores danced with the guests, "first clothed, then naked." The dancing over, the "ballet" began, with the Pope and two of his children in the best seats. Candelabra were set up on the floor, scattered among them were chestnuts, "which", Burchard writes, "the courtesans had to pick up, crawling between the candles." Then the serious sex started. Guests stripped and ran out onto the floor, where they mounted, or were mounted by, the prostitutes. "The coupling took place," according to Burchard, "in front of everyone present." Servants kept score of each man's orgasms, for the Pope greatly admired virility, and measured a man's machismo by his ejaculative capacity. After eveyone was exhausted, His Holiness distributed prizes- cloaks, boots, caps, and fine silken tunics. "The winners", the diarist wrote, "were those who made love with the courtesans the greatest number of times." And you thought all this sexual scandal was just a recent thing!