LEGO,

Firstly my congratulations on finally giving some references.

Of course the Church banned the reading of the Bible because the poorly educated tended to see what they wanted to see in it, hence the thousands of sects that are now part of Christianity.

Just one small question, if no one could read, apart from the clergy (as you claimed) what was the point in forbidding people to read the Bible?

You have not offered one shred of evidence that the teachings of Christ were not passed on by the Church to the people.

Serve, sil vous plait.

But Mise, you said quite plainly said on page 7 of this article, that there was "no restriction on reading the bible." But now you are saying that "Of course the Church banned the reading of the bible...."

That is a clear contradiction. Either the church allowed the laity to read the bible, or it did not. Could you please explain this cognitive dissonance? I get the feeling you have been backed into a corner and you may have to admit that you were w-w-w-wrong. Food for thought. Bon apetite'.

I did not provide any references previously, because I was under the mistaken impression that anybody who had even high school level passes in History could appreciate the validity of what I had written. Most people who's reasoning powers have not been debilitated by the onerous task of studying for an Artz degree, can understand that most people during the Dark and Middle ages could not even read in their own language, much less Latin.

To answer some of your questions, the Vulgate Bible was written in Latin so it was not on any best seller list among the hoi polloi.

The point I made about the church banning the reading or keeping of the Bible, was because by around 1200 -1400 AD people began translating the Bible into the common languages of national states, and educated people from the merchant class could access the scriptures themselves and make up their own minds about what the Christian message was. And some of these people, who were educated only in their own language (called "Lollards" in England) took it upon themselves to bypass the clergy and preach the literal words of the scriptures directly to the common people.

This was because there was a clear contradiction between what the church said the scriptures were, and what was really in the scriptures. This coincided with the advent of printing, so the church had its hands full trying to prevent bibles from being printed and disseminated. Printers were considered by the State and clergy to be subversives, and were universally licensed throughout Europe.

LEGO,

There is no contradiction at all, we are talking about a thousand year period of history over all of which you claim that the Church suppressed the gentle teachings of Christ for their own violent ends.
Where is your evidence for suppression when the Vulgate was written?
You sidestep the notion that it was in vulgar Latin so that those not educated in the higher Latin could read it.

Your whole point that the suppression of Christ's teachings led to war and wholesale slaughter falls down when one considers that such slaughter continued when the Bible became available to the common man under Protestantism, in fact Protestants began persecuting Protestants. Warfare among Christians continued for the same reasons that it continued down the centuries since the ready availability of the Bible, power and politics.

The USA still celebrates the results of some of this persecution; the "Mayflower" sailed with the blessing of the Established Church and the King because it was taking religiously troublesome people well away from England.

As for giving references, this is not a private conversation, someone else may be reading it, even if it is only ASIO, and they are due a little help.

Is Mise,
The bloodiest period of internecine Christian warfare was in the 17th and 18th centuries, the wars of religion wiped out about half the male population in some parts of Europe.
As I pointed out before, Christians are pretty good at killing each other in the name of religion but they don't go about exterminating whole cities or whole nations because they're worshipping the wrong god the way Muslims do.

Mise, on page 9, I wrote that that the church concealed the essential pacifist message of the man Jesus Christ because the church would not allow it's laity to read the bible. And this was because the it suited the churches interests and the church's ambitions. You claimed that this was "entirely wrong" and that the only reason that people did not read the bible was because bibles were in very short supply.

Catholic Christians mass murdered, tortured and burned at the stake, Protestants who wanted to accept the direct and pacific teachings of the man Jesus Christ. But the Protestants did not become instant Ghandi like pacifists, because they were smart enough to know that in the very violent age they lived in, such tactics would see them quickly wiped out. It may seem odd to use violence to fight against a very violent regime who refuses to allow people to worship a God who's essential message is pacifism, but when a regime is seen as totally corrupt, intrinsically violent, and only concerned with it's own interests, even people who respect pacifism will fight for their own survival.

Only fundamentalist Christians like Mennonites, Amish and Quakers totally accept pacifism. Most Christians do not accept pacifism on practical grounds, but the idea that violence should be a last resort, and that tolerance is a virtue, underlies the thinking of most Christians. People born Christians who are completely intolerant and extremely violent can be called "unchristian."

My premise stands, that the Church concealed the essential pacifism in the teachings of their prophet by forbidding the laity to read the bible. Your premise is a contradiction, because you claimed that the only reason the laity did not read the bible because it was in short supply, then you contradicted yourself when you wrote "of course the catholic church prevented people from reading the bible."

LEGO,

You completely ignore the fact that Protestants persecuted Protestants after the Bible was available to all.
Here's a couple of instances,

"“At the council of Geneva, 1632, Nicholas Anthoine was condemned to be first hanged and then burned for opposing the doctrine of the Trinity; and at Basil and Zurich, since the Reformation, heresy was a crime punishable with death, as the fate of David George and Felix abundantly prove” (J.J. Stockdale, The History of the Inquisitions, 1810, p. xxviii)."

"As late as 1671, seven hundred persons, homeless and destitute, were driven out of Berne. Great was the suffering of old and young (Richard Cook, The Story of the Baptists, 1888, p. 65)".

Can you give one reference that shews that the Christian Church, before (or after) the Reformation suppressed Christ's teachings in any form?