savagery in christianity

singsongboi

been reading some of john boswell's - "The Kindness Of Strangers" , in which he re-constructs the laws and social attitudes, to "getting rid" of unwanted (live) children from roman times to medieval times..

just wanted to share this story... "the story of the Nun of Watton". maybe some of us will relate to the girl in the story....

a 4 y.o. girl was "donated" to a convent, but as she grew older found no desire to be a nun. but legally, she was "owned" by the convent,( as her parents had "donated" her to the convent, probably because they could not afford to keep her**) so she could not leave.

she fell in love with a young man who worked for the convent, and had an affair...

when the romance was discovered, the young woman was punished harshly. Flogged, chained in a cell, starved. Kept alive only because of pregnancy.

Possibly, in hopes of being allowed to leave the convent and marry, the girl disclosed the whereabouts of the young man.

He was captured by the brothers (monks) from the adjacent monastary, and given into the custody of the nuns.

They forced his pregnant lover to take a knife and castrate him, and she was then forced to erat his tesicles ..........

our christian heritage is such a blessing isn't it!!!!!!

** this is the subject of the book - what happened to children that were abandoned, left somewhere to die, or given away - the book looks at the laws and rules made by roman catholic societies in particular. It is NOT anti-religious.. just presents it's information in a factual way.

mindfield

God, that's disgusting. Even worse than a Stephen King book i read, "The Dark Half". Jeez.

Zealous faith knows no end to the possibilities of torture.

crawdad2

just my opinion, ...... but those same type of men are in charge of various religions today, including kingdom halls.... the only difference is..... they are forced to go by secular laws now......... what do you think the gov body and their elders would be like, if they didn't have to obey any governmental laws?........ my guess is that they would be torturing members, and stoning them to death......

zenpunk

There are countless stories like the one above. In Chester England, between a monastery and a convent there was discovered a tunnel littered with dead infants skeletal remains...the results of church forbidden activity.

FriendlyFellaAL

mindfield - For some reason this reminds me of Cry To Heaven by Anne Rice.

singsongboi - Truly, truly horrible tale. One question, though...Are these stories documented cases or are they apocryphal? It's not really important, I guess. Who knows how many countless individuals have suffered fates like this in the name of god?

Brian

cornish

crawdad2

I strongly agree,the WTBTS cannot legaly do these things today ,they use the maximum punishment on dissent that they can get away with by law,as it happens its shunning etc,or as Ray Franz put it ,they carry out a figurative stonning to death,if they had the power they would probrably do it literaly.

singsongboi

Brian---

the story is attributed to Aelred, abbot of the Cistercian monastary at Rievaulx.. The appendix gives a full translation of the story as written by Aelred in the mid-twelfth century...

i gotta admit that i chose the "horror" section for maximum impact, but just like the 20th century experiences that most of us have been exposed to in dub city, there is a "spiritual" ending...

the girl repents of her sins, her spiritual mentors appear from heaven with angels, the baby is taken away by angels (i did not read on to see its fate), the sinning girl acquires a virginal look.... and the point becomes clear....

the tender mercies of jesus rain down on all: "where sin abounded, grace did much more abound."...Romans 5:20.

so maybe it happened , maybe it did not. maybe it's the medieaval equivalent of those jw urban myths with which we all became acquainted when we lived in dub city.

I find it interesting that in christianity, there is this tendency to compare the terrible consequences of sin (with stories like this) with the beatific blessings of repentence....

as many here have said -- the WT pics of armageddon scared them xxxxless.!!!!

not much difference between Rome city and dub city in the end is there???

terafera

I bet that guy regretted messing with her...

FriendlyFellaAL

singsongboi - Thanks for the response. I find this sort of thing absolutely fascinating. Shows the full impact of man's inhumanity to man, only done in the name of God. I think I'm going to have to order a copy of this book for myself.

Brian

singsongboi

hmmm! was going to say that you will "enjoy" the book --- but that is hardly the word.

so let's just say that you will find it informative...

it gives an insight into a world that we who live in the western world, can now, hardly imagine.

I have had 3 kids, i loved them dearly...... i cannot imagine "abandoning" them. yet, this book calmly discusses how people did that (but NOT overlooking the pain that they may have felt). The fact that many abandonned children did survive, is a testament to the title of the book - The Kindness of Strangers..

It is a world not that distant from us ( in geographical terms, such conditions are only a few hours flight) in time terms, it's only a generation or so..

about 25 years ago i became good friends with an older sister who came to aust. from england. she told me of being young and a younger brother in the family dying as a 4 yo. He was laid out in the laundry, while they waited for an undertaker to come and measure for a coffin.

when the undertaker arrived, he commented to the mother -- "he was a fine looking young boi", (can you say that anymore without being suspected of paedophilia??).

It was the mothers reply that shocked me... "ah! yes!", she replied, in a resigned tone, "but, we couldn't afford to keep him".

this time of large families (because there were no ways to control fertility) was my parents generation - 14 kids in my fathers family -- my uncle had 16 kids. most of those survived - better medical help (and better plumbing (sanitation)), but a generation b4 that, many more from each family died.

and yet, the WT insists that the world is getting worse....!!

savagery in christianity

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