Thanks for posting that. Id never knew it existed. Such a horrible period in our history.. Americans torturing and murdering Americans in the name of religion.

I guess after seeing the stats for innocent people on death row..its safe to say
not much has changed

I've just finished reading the full letter, & have tears streaming down my face.
To try and imagine the horrors & sense of hopelessness these poor people endured is beyond me.
Such is the power of fear if we let it take hold.....

S&F
Thanks for sharing

I think that the part that saddens me the most is that those that knew him also testified against him. I could not imagine the heartache that people felt having to do such a thing, especially knowing that he was innocent.

Many, even those that knew their fates still testified against one another, knowing that they themselves would suffer the same fate. Reading this is hard as many of us think we know what we would do in this situation, but in reality we dont have a clue.

Peace, NRE.

These are the kind of stories I love. They give a glimpse into the truth of history, not the edited / biased version that they teach our children. The truth of our past is hidden in little pieces like this.

Thank you for this story. So sad for this gentleman but at least he was able to write the letter to his child and say his goodbyes and clear his name to her.

It amazes me how people allowed this type of superstition to exist in the past and how it is still allowed to flourish even today. All of this done in the name of God because he commanded that "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live".

Even the torturer seemed to have more compassion than the clergy who were looking for a reason to get their jollies off and increasing their coffers by causing someone embarassmemt. torture and death.

S&F for a good read.

Originally posted by Advantage
Thanks for posting that. Id never knew it existed. Such a horrible period in our history.. Americans torturing and murdering Americans in the name of religion.

This is one reason that I do not have any use for any religion. More people have been killed in the name of one religion or another than all the natural distastes and disease and accidents put together. In fact religion could be our unding.

Wow, we're really made no progress in all this time. Only instead of witches we have terrorists. That letter could have come from anyone at Guantanamo bay.

Originally posted by Advantage
Thanks for posting that. Id never knew it existed. Such a horrible period in our history.. Americans torturing and murdering Americans in the name of religion.

Your sheer level of hatred has clouded your already ill equiped mind. If you took the time to read the article, it would become self evident* that the witch-hunt took place in Germany.

And to the Christian haters I say this: Witch Hunting has it's origins in Pagan Rome(where witches where burned at the stake). The type of witchcraft talked about in the Bible would be Canaanite Religion. To those ignorant of History, the Canaanites believed in human sacrafice(hence why God told the Israelite's to slaughter them all, but the Israelite's did spare the Canaanites; within 20 years the Canaanites began human sacrificing again.+ The Death Penalty was public stoning and it required witnesses, not a confession like the RomanPagan method of witch-hunting).

Also, Witch-Hunting has more in common with Domestic Violence in America then it does with religious intolerance. As most of the people who accused others of witch-craft(women), did so for revenge(similar to the cases of women in Nazi occupied Europe using the SS to get rid of people they didn't like via false testimony).

As such a majority of the victims where other women, but a quarter or so of the victims were men.

This is why I associate more with right wingers, because you lefties are intellectual light weights who just preform constant circle jerks, instead of actually READING BOOKS! You know they have in libraries, heck even some malls sell them, and you can even download them onto computers and these fancy new devices called Tablet computers.

*It may not be self evident to lesser minds