How would history be different if Catholics had made Martin Luther the Pope instead of excommunicating him ?
150423
Well...there wouldn't be any lutheran church...I'm not sure that's such a loss, no offense intended, as there are plenty of churches out there...and the catholic church would be a little bigger...which might not be a good thing, either, no offense intended...maybe priests could marry and there wouldn't have been so many pedophiles abusing kids...so it could have worked out better...but then we can't change history so I wouldn't have even given it a thought if you hadn't brought it up.
463213
there were popes who cheated on their wives and one pope picked up a boy off the streets for sex and made him a cardinal,\n\nso around this time the church said no make these priests all celebiate no wifes no mistresses no boyfriends \n\none guy died on top of his mistress\n\nso thats why thats the history none of that crap about the bible or egypt
803915
The pope was right, only he forgot that the Catholic church has not been too different...
602308
There was a time in European history where the Church held absolute sway in the appointment and endorsement of political rulers, as well as their own "police force" of inquisitors where free-thinkers and political opponents were burned, tortured, and murdered.  Wars were repeatedely fought against the Muslim in Muslim lands to distract and divide the folks at home and to keep the people militarized and the money flowing into the coffers of the tyrannical kings.  This period was affectionately known as "The Dark Ages" and "Medievel Age" appropriately.  Woe betide the man who willfully repeats disastrous history.
752221
The fact that religion, throughout our history, has mainly been used an excuse harm and abuse others. Be it Nazi's against Jews, or Islam against the western world (and vise versa) Catholics/Protestants we could go on forever. The killing, in the name of "God" (whichever your faith) never ends.
874227
If you include Christianity in that then no one knows the answer.  Mostly it is because the more faithful - read fanatic - think that anyone not believing what they believe in should be killed.  More people throughout history were killed because they did not say their prayers in Latin.
135552
Pope Leo X excommunicated Martin Luther.\n\nMagellan was killed in the Phillipines.\n\nRead more about this year on WikiPedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1521
519728
Just a note, both Protestants and Catholics actively persecuted one another.  It was not instigated by Catholicism, rather the process was a civil war and the Protestant Princes set the events in motion for both sets of persecutions.  Luther committed what amounted to genocide on the baptists, the baptists would kill entire towns if they didn't become baptists, Catholics would level whole cities that they considered in religious revolt.  Luther burned around 20,000 baptists at the stake.  Protestants persecuted each other and Catholics.  It unleashed existing hatreds in monstrous proportions.  One leading Protestant reformer, who was previously a member of the Inquisition wrote of his horror at the methods of the reformation.  Believe it or not, the Inquisition had rules of restraint on torture, which was culturally accepted as a positive thing at the time by everyone.  The Reformation, in rejecting canon law was free from the restraints.  Both sides acted hideously, as did Americans during our own Revolution, though we were not quite as bad because the populations here were not so dense and the war was between us and them, whereas the Reformation would be though of as closer to the Afgani Civil War.\n\nAs to the consequences, I think there were several both positive and negative.\n\nFirst, the saddest and the most obvious even on these boards is that when you start killing people it is very hard to get people to go back and forgive or say "sorry."  The anger from 500 years ago spills onto these boards, and the angriest rarely understand the real issues or have a real grasp on what is actually being fought over.  We have deep splits on what are really non-Christian issues, but we have Christianized the issues.\n\nMost Americans have not spent any real time in Europe.  That is a shame.  If you went to Germany and followed the geography of the split between the Reformation and Catholicism, you would notice something interesting.  It follows the old Roman line of advance.  Protestant areas are those areas that retained Northern European pagan theologies as Christianized theologies.  Catholic areas are those areas that retained Roman pagan theologies as Christianized theologies.  You even see it in the physical housing today of people.  For example, if you are in Northern German, it is visually very spartan, but has great oral and musical components.  If you are in Bayern (Bavaria), the houses and structures are visually very appealing, but there is less in the music and less emphasis on the spoken.\n\nIn Protestantism, you have an anti-visual symbolism emphasis.  It emphasizes the "word," and the bardic traditions of singing, witnessing and storytelling.  The visual is distrusted.  A good early Calvinist church wouldn't have even had cushions and nothing to see.\n\nIn the Catholic areas you have a distrust of individual witness, a distrust on non-scriptural hymns, and a distrust of using stories in teaching.  Instead you have a rich painted or statuary tradition.  It was believed that since Jesus was both God and Man, he had to be picturable.  As such, while it is wrong to paint a picture of God the Father, it is essential to paint images of God the son with halos to affirm his simultaneous divinity and humanity.\n\nThis division ultimately lead to a number of positive cultural components.  Art and literature improved dramatically as they were now in greater competition.  Religious toleration gradually became a new cultural concept.  It did not previously exist almost anywhere at any time.  There are what have been considered unusual examples in history but they were not the norm.\n\nAn anti-religioussness sprang forth and became the Enlightenment.  Without it, we would not have the United States.  As John Adams said, "in the best of all possible worlds, there would be no religion."  It permitted a growth in science independent and indeed completely separate from religion.  Science now exists
1140326
When looking at the work of theologians it is always important to understand the social context that their work occurs in (after all if theology is the understanding of our world and our relation to God in it, this is a necesity). Luther lived in a social climate that he felt was rampant with corruption in the church. The fact that the church went further as to claim that portions of their dogma were related to salvation disturbed Luther greatly. Luther assumes authority perhaps for two reasons. One might be that he like the rest of us is human and suffered from a bit of an ego problem and truly believed he had more of this God stuff figured out than everyone else. He also may have realized as the seperating from issues of doctrine within the church was occuring, many people would feel a void of authority if they could no longer trust the pope (granted this may be justifying on my part). \n\nIf you ever do any studying into the early origins of the church you will find Luther was perhaps not the first person to cast aside books from the bible on a personal level of authority. Granted these people were living in a time period before the set biblical canon, but the eventual canon does also change depending on when you look at it as well. If you took someone like Marcion for example, he advocated strictly Paul's letters (and the letters attributed to him). \n\nThe biggest lesson from all of this is probably that each of us will find things that we do not like throughout our spirtual journey. From time to time we will believe there may be an insight that we can provide to the traditions of those before us. This is not a bad thing, standing on the shoulders of your ancestors and then moving forward is all apart of the reformed tradition (reformed outside of merely the denomonational sense here). Your level and nature of the interpretation of scripture (from inerrancy to allegorical) will depend on your place in your walk of faith. \n\nTry not to condemn others who are either with you or have gone before you. We all make mistakes and on occasion these mistakes are made with fairly noble intentions. I dont believe Luther was trying to keep others from finding out about God and understanding the nature of his Son - in fact id say it was the opposite. We are always in need of correction from time to time, but be careful to not let a detail get in the way of the entire message.
1179855
A bit of both. At the time of the gunpowder plot English Catholics were banned from observing their faith to an extent that would now seem barbaric to all but the most extreme Orange type. While I can understand the frustration Caitsby's group felt we should also take into account the backlash that resulted from this and the way their cause was set back for possibly hundreds of years as a result.
175199
:}\nWe would probably do no better than they did\nwe would probably even crucify Jesus all over again.
84392
No of course not. What kind of a question is that? It's 100% false and Jesus was perfect and did not sin at all. Martin Luther started the Protestant Reformation and wanted to put into practice what the Bible(God's Word) says. If Martin Luther were alive today, he would be apalled by what you said.
593818
Other than Jesus of course, I would say the very opposite type of person.  Adolph Hitler did lots of damage.
193523
A prophet is a important person, no one should disrespect Mohammad, Jesus or Moses. But an event in history is different. A historian says that according to the research that I have done, Hitler couldn't have killed 6 million jews in gas chambers (and he never says Hitler was a good guy or that he didn't kill anyone!) And then he has to go to jail because of his research. Doesn't that remind you of Galileo's story....?!
459661
sneak in and change the pope's bible... then go back in time and change what Mohammed wrote (maybe sneak in after he went to sleep and change it)... there you go... problem solved
44816
I don't have a set religion, but I would have to say Jesus. Hitler had mental issues, and he had his own Secret Soldiers kill a group of Nazis called Stormtroopers killed in an inn because they were deemed ineffective. Jesus has the help of God, who could just smote Hitler down with a terrible bowel movement, and Jesus could die but he would just be ressurected again.
279535
If he had converted to any other religion, then most likely he would still be sitting in prison.  The fact that he converted to Christianity and Christians protested, is what got him freed from a lifetime of imprisonment and abuse.