The Screwtape Posts

Post 2 — November 26, 2000

This is the second post. The comments to which I'm responding to are inline — see also the link below. Note the stock 'you're probably not a real atheist, but in rebellion from god' feint. You'll note claims like this surfacing in most such confrontations — it seems to be part of the evangelical mythos/explanatory framework about unbelievers — I believe I commented on the utility of such constructions later in the fora. (This annotation added after original posting.)

Original post here.

[WH] "I needed a nickname to enter the discussion group and was about Halloween time."

This doesn't make it any less tasteless. My request stands.

[WH] "I don't think the "witch hunters" from the past are fairly treated today, because the witches were not likely to be an inocent victm ALL the time."

I see. You know, you'd be funny if you weren't so scary.

Might you care to comment on what percentage of these masses were actually under the influence of your devil? Five percent? Ten percent? Twenty? Am I being too conservative for you? Are you catching on yet that even entering into such calculations in earnest is to lose one's very humanity?

Do you honestly believe there were hundreds of thousands¹ of witches in Europe between the 1400s and the 1800s? And even if there were (which is absurd), how does this justify so much as jeering at them, let alone burning them alive so their screams reach the heavens?

It seems almost unkind to you to follow you down this path, but hey, no one forced you here:

...ways with witches included the wooden horse, various kinds of racks, the heated iron chair, leg vises, [Spanish Boots], and large boots of leather or metal into which (with the feet in them, of course) was poured boiling water or molten lead. In the water torture, the question de l'eau, water was poured down the throat of the accused, along with a soft cloth to cause choking. The cloth was pulled out quickly so that the entrails would be torn. The thumb screws [gresillons] were a vise designed to compress the thumbs or the big toes to the root of the nails, so that the crushing of the digit would cause excruciating pain. [Rossell Hope Robbins, the Encylopaedia of Witchcraft and Demonology, as quoted in Sagan, 411]

In addition, and more routinely applied, were the strappado and squassation and still more ghastly tortures that I will avoid describing. After torture, and with the instruments of torture in plain view, the victim was asked to sign a statement. This was then described as a 'free confession', voluntarily admitted to. [Sagan, 412]

WitchHunter, the episode in history which you're attempting to defend is easily among the most sordid, despicable, and miserable examples of what runaway dogma can do given the chance. Your defense is not the position of a sane human being. I suggest you cut your losses and abandon the position right about now. You don't want to follow this path one step further. No one else wants you to either.

[WH] '"Witches" would probably do the same things to "witch hunters" if they had a chance to."

Oh — I see. I sympathize with your concern. So, just so you know who to watch out for:

The steward of the senate, named Gering; old Mrs. Kanzler; the tailor's fat wife; the woman cook of Mr. Mengerdorf; a stranger; a strange woman; Baunach, a senator, the fattest citizen in Wurtzburg; the old smith of the court; an old woman; a little girl, nine of ten years old; a younger girl, her little sister; the mother of the two little aforementioned girls; Liebler's daughter; Goebel's child, the most beautiful child in Wurtzburg; a student who knew many languages; two boys from the Minster, each twelve years old; Stepper's little daughter; the woman who kept the bridge gate; an old woman; the little son of the two council bailiff; the wife of Knertz, the butcher; the infant daughter of Dr. Schultz; a blind girl; Schwartz, cannon at Hach... [Chronicle of those consumed by fire in the German city of Wurtzburg, quoted in Sagan, 121].

[WH] "It is strange to me that an atheist person acuses [sic] witch hunters and defends witches, once [sic] both are religious people."

Apparently a lot of things only sane to me are strange to you.

I suggest you reread the post on above, as it does spell the argument out in detail, though I can hardly imagine anyone with normal frontal lobes needing much more justification for the position I'm taking than the sheer carnage of the historical record.

Or I could put it much more simply for you, since, for whatever reason, you seem to be having trouble with the longer version:

Dogma abstracts brutality, and thus softens human resistance to it. I don't like brutality, regardless of the cause, regardless of the target. So I don't like dogma.

Now, what's strange to me: your apparent assumption that any ideological justification — atheism, Christianity, or otherwise, would prevent me from criticizing witch hunters, or would encourage me to justify their burning even one of the presumed 'witches' they burned. Are you saying by this that anyone who does not believe what witches do should therefore laud the Inquisition for its attempts to rid the earth of them by the most brutal means imaginable? Because it sure seems you are.

This, my friend, is not healthy. This is the sickest face of dogma — the confused assumption that a difference in ideas justifies any kind of violence, let alone brutality — and this concern is the whole underpinning of the essay I just wrote you. You have just verified and justified my concern by your very words. And, might I add, made me that little bit more worried about what your religion can do to a human mind.

Note also, with respect to the considerations you're entering into: the entire papal bull was based on the existence of the devil. If he does not exist, as I very firmly believe, every death by fire was frankly, a capital crime, wasn't it? And in that case, I'm not defending witches — (though, as noted, I freely would²). I'm defending innocent women and children, who had the misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, in a society gone mad.

[WH] "It could be a sign that this person calls him/herself atheist just as form of rebelion [sic] against God and/or the organized christian religion, instead of being a really convicted atheist."

I've heard this one before. It's a common feint. Reread the argument above, and the premises are simply absurd.

It could also be a sign I know tyranny, horror, and hatred when I see it, and despise it as any sane person does.

Get it through your head, friend. You, and people like you, have very successfully convinced me I need your kind of faith about as much as I need a hideous wasting disease.

[WH] "Jesus never told anybody to force people to believe in Him. The organized religions from the past (inquisition time, etc.) Did on their own and/or under satanic influence."

Right. The devil made them do it. Tell it to the judge.

Dogma made them do it. Dump yours before you wind up in my court.

[WH] "I do believe in God and satan but wasn't the first one to mention satan in this "skeptical" board."

Yeah. But I'm not nearly as worried about them as I am you.

I don't need your faith, WitchHunter. But I'm really starting to think you might need my skepticism. Think it over, if you would.

— 26 November, 2000 / AJM