Follow up on SS

[marywarfield]

Nonsense. I am not saying he wasn’t depressed at times. He obviously was.

I am asking how you know he had BPD I or II and how you know these symptoms weren’t causes by something else. Seems like you are quick to diagnose a mental disorder. I am thinking you have little or nor experience in the field of psychological diagnosis, do you? Perhaps you just don’t like the guy. Either way it’s not a exercise in loving ones neighbor to speculate about their mental disorders if they have one at all. Wouldn’t you agree?

No I don’t like the guy any more than I cared for Hitler to
be honest.
It is impossible for one to even distinguish between the
two men and their writings when it comes to the Jews
and the Catholics. If anything Hitlers writings were
more conservative than Luther’s when it came to
the Jews. There is a REASON why ALL of the man’s
books are not listed on Lutheran and other religious
sites- some of his stuff was just plain paranoid
and psychotic.
But for some reason people want to give Luther a pass
but never argue that Hitler was a maniac.

Sorry this is just not the kind is stuff that screams hero to me.
jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/Luther_on_Jews.html
fordham.edu/Halsall/mod/1535luther.asp

 

[marywarfield]

I will say that it is of real credit to modern day Lutherans
that they reject so much of Luther’s materials.
But at the same time I myself would be somewhat
suspicious of anything written or propounded by such a
personality. It’s kind of like on one hand here is this
great Christian homily and the next statement
is like something out of Playboy lol!
That would just make me suspicious of his tenets
immediately.
Like one of our abusive priests. Gives a great homily
then abuses a kid. If he wrote a book on theology I would
probably toss it and not read it cause how can such
a person be trusted?
I’m not saying men can’t be trusted who sin but then
there is just plain nuts.

 

[House_Harkonnen]

No I don’t like the guy any more than I cared for Hitler to
be honest.
It is impossible for one to even distinguish between the
two men and their writings when it comes to the Jews
and the Catholics. If anything Hitlers writings were
more conservative than Luther’s when it came to
the Jews. There is a REASON why ALL of the man’s
books are not listed on Lutheran and other religious
sites- some of his stuff was just plain paranoid
and psychotic.
But for some reason people want to give Luther a pass
but never argue that Hitler was a maniac.

Sorry this is just not the kind is stuff that screams hero to me.
jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/Luther_on_Jews.html
fordham.edu/Halsall/mod/1535luther.asp

How do you feel about Catholic writing against Jews from the same time period?

 

[marywarfield]

How do you feel about Catholic writing against Jews from the same time period?

Give me some -let’s compare. You will have to
concede though you are at a disadvantage off the
bat as none of them were grandiose enough to
start their own religion or change the Bible.
But I’ll play along. Sure.

 

[House_Harkonnen]

Give me some -let’s compare. You will have to
concede though you are at a disadvantage off the
bat as none of them were grandiose enough to
start their own religion or change the Bible.
But I’ll play along. Sure.

No. But Eck, Luther’s principle catholic opponent criticized Luther for being TOO friendly to Jews.

Honestly the Catholic apologist “Luther was mean to Jews” argument is one of the weakest in light of actual Catholic history.

Read Eck’s Against the Defense of the Jews.

 

[marywarfield]

No. But Eck, Luther’s principle catholic opponent criticized Luther for being TOO friendly to Jews.

Honestly the Catholic apologist “Luther was mean to Jews” argument is one of the weakest in light of actual Catholic history.

Read Eck’s Against the Defense of the Jews.

I’ll do it for you then if you havent the stomach as
I am not interested in Inquisition rehashes and politics
but in the discussion of the man’s personality.

The Catholic theologian that is most famous for
anti semitism is St.John Chrystostom in his
eight Homilies found here at Fordham. fordham.edu/halsall/source/chrysostom-jews6.asp

If you compare the two the ideas are somewhat the
same but Luther is off the charts (or his rocker)
in violence and vitriole and just plain obscenity.
Which is probably why the anti Semite listing sites off
of the Jewish Anti Defamation League consider Luther
to be the anti semitism winner.

Like I said earlier- if a nut job Catholic priest dismissed
for molesting children wrote a book on theology
while serving time in the can I would toss
the book without reading it. Sometimes a mental
illness is so obscuring of the Holy Spirit you can be
sure the precepts in such a thing cannot be relied upon.

 

[House_Harkonnen]

I’ll do it for you then if you havent the stomach as
I am not interested in Inquisition rehashes and politics
but in the discussion of the man’s personality.

The Catholic theologian that is most famous for
anti semitism is St.John Chrystostom in his
eight Homilies found here at Fordham. fordham.edu/halsall/source/chrysostom-jews6.asp

If you compare the two the ideas are somewhat the
same but Luther is off the charts (or his rocker)
in violence and vitriole.
Which is probably white the anti Semite sites off
of the Jewish Anti Defamation League consider Luther
to be the anti semitism winner.

Like I said earlier- of a nut job Catholic priest dismissed
for molesting children wrote a book on theology
while serving time in the can I would toss
the book without reading it. Sometimes a mental
illness is so obscuring of the Holy Spirit you can be
sure the precepts in such a thing cannot be relied upon.

Do you toss out the writings of Eck and Chrysostom because of their hatred of the Jews?

 

[marywarfield]

Do you toss out the writings of Eck and Chrysostom because of their hatred of the Jews?

No, not anymore than I tossed out Luther’s writings because
he hated Jews. My problem with Luther is not that
he hated Jews. My problem is in how he hated them in his violence, vitriole and
obscenities and his raging paranoia coupled with enormous
mood swings and severely grandiose thinking.

Eck and Chrystostom did not suffer from those
personality traits and more nearly simply echoed
an extreme cultural bias rather than a fruitcake of a
emotional state.

 

[House_Harkonnen]

No, not anymore than I tossed out Luther’s writings because
he hated Jews. My problem with Luther is not that
he hated Jews. My problem is in how he hated them in his violence, vitriole and
obscenities and his raging paranoia coupled with enormous
mood swings and severely grandiose thinking.

Eck a nd Chrystostom did not suffer from those
personality traits.

LOL.

Luther was severely mentally sick AND he hated Jews.

Eck and Chrysostom were sane AND they hated Jews.

That’s much worse.

 

[joe371]

I do agree he was way ahead of his time. And a genius. Dude wrote more theology than I could read in years and years. I really respect him and he is my hero.

That’s cool. :thumbsup:And he had a great devotion to our blessed mother Mary. He believed what the CC believes about her, even her the bodily, assumption, but goes on to say that scripture is silent on the matter. I was surprised to descover that ML referred to Mary as the Queen of Heaven. He also stated that one should pray to Mary, so God would give and do, through her will, what we ask. But, he adds, it is God’s work alone, and he is of course right. He also believed in the IC and in the perpetual virginity of Mary as well as the notion that Mary had only one child - Jesus.

 

[marywarfield]

LOL.

Luther was severely mentally sick AND he hated Jews.

Eck and Chrysostom were sane AND they hated Jews.

That’s much worse.

Luther was severely mentally ill, hated Jews, rearranged
Holy Scripture to suit his illness, got himself ex-communicated
and misled who knows how many people away from
Christ’s Body.

Eck and Chrystostom hated Jews, were relatively sane
and left the Holy Scripture and Christ’s Body intact.

 

[House_Harkonnen]

That’s cool. :thumbsup:And he had a great devotion to our blessed mother Mary. He believed what the CC believes about her, even her the bodily, assumption, but goes on to say that scripture is silent on the matter. I was surprised to descover that ML referred to Mary as the Queen of Heaven. He also stated that one should pray to Mary, so God would give and do, through her will, what we ask. But, he adds, it is God’s work alone, and he is of course right. He also believed in the IC and in the perpetual virginity of Mary as well as the notion that Mary had only one child - Jesus.

That’s cool. I have no problem with any of those beliefs except for praying to Mary which Luther abandoned later on.

 

[joe371]

That’s cool. I have no problem with any of those beliefs except for praying to Mary which Luther abandoned later on.

Mary’s soul magnifies the Lord, so I do not mind asking her to pray for me; different strokes for different folks.

 

[joe371]

Luther was severely mentally ill, hated Jews, rearranged
Holy Scripture to suit his illness, got himself ex-communicated
and misled who knows how many people away from
Christ’s Body.

Eck and Chrystostom hated Jews, were relatively sane
and left the Holy Scripture and Christ’s Body intact.

Sure wish he had followed in the footsteps of Francis of Assisi, who also saw bad things happening, but knew better than to leave the church founded by God. Leaving the church founded by God to join a church founded by a mere man, makes no sense to me. Tim Staples is right: “We don’t leave Peter because of Judas (behavior).”

 

[JonNC]

Sure wish he had followed in the footsteps of Francis of Assisi, who also saw bad things happening, but knew better than to leave the church founded by God. Leaving the church founded by God to join a church founded by a mere man, makes no sense to me. Tim Staples is right: “We don’t leave Peter because of Judas (behavior).”

And yet you know, Joe, that no Lutheran worth his salt believes we have left the Church founded by Christ, or that we have “left Peter”. That is a Catholic paradigm that we don’t subscribe to.

But I wanted to ask you, Joe, as the OP, two things to see if we agree:

1. Do you think either of our communions benefits by attacking the other communion because of the other’s medieval theologians or members being anti-judaism (anti-semitic doesn’t fit any other that I can think of), since both communions reject that bigotry today?
2. If, in fact, Martin Luther was mentally ill, as has been alleged, is it appropriate or charitable to level the kinds of attacks against him we sometimes see? Would we tolerate verbal attacks against someone living today, regardless of what they said or did, if they were diagnosed as mentally ill?

Jon

 

[marywarfield]

And yet you know, Joe, that no Lutheran worth his salt believes we have left the Church founded by Christ, or that we have “left Peter”. That is a Catholic paradigm that we don’t subscribe to.

But I wanted to ask you, Joe, as the OP, two things to see if we agree:

1. Do you think either of our communions benefits by attacking the other communion because of the other’s medieval theologians or members being anti-judaism (anti-semitic doesn’t fit any other that I can think of), since both communions reject that bigotry today?
2. If, in fact, Martin Luther was mentally ill, as has been alleged, is it appropriate or charitable to level the kinds of attacks against him we sometimes see? Would we tolerate verbal attacks against someone living today, regardless of what they said or did, if they were diagnosed as mentally ill?

Jon

It’s not an “attack” to state clearly ones opinion of
someone five hundred years dead. For instance it
is not an uncharitable attack to state Attila the Hun
raped, plundered and murdered.

It seems to me that Lutherans in general want to
protect Luther because bottom line- if he truly was
mentally ill it calls into question his changing theology
1500 years old and the theology might be wrong I.e.
purgatory, covering of baptism, etc.

As far as the new or modern tendency of Lutheranism
purporting to be the REAL Catholic Church it seems to
me about as valid as the U.S. stating suddenly that
it is the REAL England and its the old England that went
wrong lol.

 

[Topper17]

Hi HH,

LOL, Erik Erikson, the atheist Freudian psychoanalyst?

The guy who said Luther “dethroned Mary because he hated his own mother”?

Can you tell us what diagnostic criteria Luther met to merit an OCD or bipolar diagnosis?

Do you think its ethical to diagnose person who is not sitting across the table from you? Much less a different country and five hundred years removed?

This is not an exercise in loving ones neighbor, it’s an exercise in psychohistory.

Please help me to understand this. Luther was the most hateful Theologian in Christian history. As we have discussed, he recommended that the Anabaptists be executed for the crime of disagreeing with his ‘theology’. Even before he was involved in any of the real disputes with Catholics, he wanted to destroy the Church (May 1518). What has not been covered - yet - is that he wanted several other ‘groups’ executed - and MANY people were. His rhetoric against his opponents was vicious and his language filthy. Plus as we have read (and will read more), he had significant mental health issues.

As a former Catholic and now Lutheran Therapist who holds Luther to be your hero, how in the world do you chide US for ‘not loving one’s neighbor’? Why the ASTONISHING double standard?

The fact is that Luther was almost compelled to write down his every thought, often dashing off his polemical writings to the printer before they had been edited and before he had even finished the work. Many of them have a certain ‘manic’ quality to them. This is not to mention the actual text of what he wrote.

Have you not read any of his ‘Classics’ like his works against the Jews or the Peasants?

If anybody provided evidence from which to ‘analyze’ him 400+ years later, it’s Luther. Lutherans of course object, but when Luther’s actual words are revealed, you don’t have to be a Therapist to recognize that he suffered from significant mental health issues.

God Bless You HH, Topper

 

[House_Harkonnen]

Hi HH,

Please help me to understand this. Luther was the most hateful Theologian in Christian history. As we have discussed, he recommended that the Anabaptists be executed for the crime of disagreeing with his ‘theology’. Even before he was involved in any of the real disputes with Catholics, he wanted to destroy the Church (May 1518). What has not been covered - yet - is that he wanted several other ‘groups’ executed - and MANY people were. His rhetoric against his opponents was vicious and his language filthy. Plus as we have read (and will read more), he had significant mental health issues.

As a former Catholic and now Lutheran Therapist who holds Luther to be your hero, how in the world do you chide US for ‘not loving one’s neighbor’? Why the ASTONISHING double standard?

The fact is that Luther was almost compelled to write down his every thought, often dashing off his polemical writings to the printer before they had been edited and before he had even finished the work. Many of them have a certain ‘manic’ quality to them. This is not to mention the actual text of what he wrote.

Have you not read any of his ‘Classics’ like his works against the Jews or the Peasants?

God Bless You HH, Topper

I think the only double standard here is from certain Catholic Apologists.

Especially since that if someone were mentally Ill today, they would receive our love and compassion, and rightly so. If in fact Luther was mentally ill does he not deserve the same?

I don’t see much love and compassion doled out to my hero Luther by Catholic apologist, I see the opposite.

Makes me think that some Catholic apologists actually don’t care whether or not Luther was mentally Ill at all. There is some other motivation going on here.

Even so, another double standard was put forth nicely by another on this thread.

Chrysostom and Ecks sane hatred for the Jews was okay, Luther’s insane hatred for Jews was beyond the pale.

Sane hatred is much worse than insane hatred. But we give Chrysostom and Eck a pass for some reason. The reason is that they’re on our team so they get a pass. Luther was not on our team so he doesn’t get a pass.

 

[marywarfield]

I think the only double standard here is from certain Catholic Apologists.

Especially since that if someone were mentally Ill today, they would receive our love and compassion, and rightly so. If in fact Luther was mentally ill does he not deserve the same?

I don’t see much love and compassion doled out to my hero Luther by Catholic apologist, I see the opposite.

Makes me think that some Catholic apologists actually don’t care whether or not Luther was mentally Ill at all. There is some other motivation going on here.

Even so, another double standard was put forth nicely by another on this thread.

Chrysostom and Ecks sane hatred for the Jews was okay, Luther’s insane hatred for Jews was beyond the pale.

Sane hatred is much worse than insane hatred. But we give Chrysostom and Eck a pass for some reason. The reason is that they’re on our team so they get a pass. Luther was not on our team so he doesn’t get a pass.

I’m sorry but that’s a distortion. We give Chrystostom and
Ecks a pass because they did not attempt to destroy
the unity of the Holy Body of Christ.

It is Christ that should be your hero HH.
It is Christ that Luther uncharitably attacked.

 

[benhur]

It seems to me that Lutherans in general want to
protect Luther because bottom line- if he truly was
mentally ill it calls into question his changing theology
1500 years old and the theology might be wrong I.e.
purgatory, covering of baptism, etc.

Perhaps, but Luther may have been the crest of a wave a long time building. Eventually wisdom does cry out from the rooftops. You have the Cathari, the Waldenses, Wycliff, Huss, anabaptists, Savonarola, Erasmus, the rennaisance , the printing press and scripture. Not to mention other waves cresting with Calvin and Zwingli and a King Henry and the spread to the Netherlands, Scandinavia, France, and Scotland. Kind of minimizes the need to exact from Luther sole justification.